My share of sustainable living

I am not much of a health freak, but I do believe in sustainable living. What is sustainable living? It is a lifestyle that attempts to reduce an individual's carbon footprint on the earth. Carbon footprint?? That means limiting use of resources and thus reducing waste.
Commercial farming leave behind much chemical substances that not only destroy the environment, but our own health. I think the best prevention of illness is maintenance of good health.
Therefore, I believe that such efforts like organic farming should be supported in order to support the idea of sustainable living. That brings us to Terra Farm vegetables.

I came across this delivery system through this blog =>> Terra Farm

I ordered mine through one of the drop-off point representative. Being my first time, the rep was kind enough to teach me how to keep the vegetables fresh in the fridge.

Do you know:

1. The vegetables should be kept separated in sealed bag or wrapped in newspapers

2. As these are organic vegetables, you will find ample of snails and caterpillars. Remove them before storing them in the fridge as the snails will remain active, even in the fridge (amazing)

My box came with 5 snails like the one above.

I bought the smallest box of 2 kg weigh of vegetables.

The first layer on top looks like this

The 2nd layer at the bottom looks like this

These vegetables are ready for storage after I have repackaged them

FRIED BOK CHOY WITH SEAFOOD

Ingredients:

4 heads of bok choy / siew pak choy

200gm / 1 packet of mixed seafood (sold in frozen food section)

1 thumb of ginger (shredded)

1 tsp of japanese soy sauce (why because it has mirin in it - good to counter the fishy smell)

Steps:

1. Heat oil and fry ginger till fragrant

2. Throw in the seafood, followed by bok choy

3. Stir till the vege soften 

4. Add in the japanese soy sauce at the side of wok so the fragrance is evaporated into the mixture.

DONE!

STIR FRIED TLS (TUBERS, LEAF & SQUASH)

Ingredients:

A thumb of ginger or 3 cloves of garlic (minced)

Either oyster sauce or fish sauce

Vegetables as you see below

Steps:

1. Heat oil and fry ginger/garlic till fragrant

2. Dump in carrots, aubergine and bok choy stem. Fry for 30 sec

3. Throw in the rest. stir stir stir...

4. Circle the sauce around the wok and stir some more.

DONE!

btw: If you like your aubergine soft instead of juicy-chewy, boil before you fry.

Intelligence or Decadence, Decency vs Luxury

Chicken a la Carte is a short film awarded "The Most Popular" in 56th Berlin International Film Festival. I thank the creator - Ferdinand Dimadura, for reminding me life beyond our material existence. Sounds religious? Sorry, all I wanted to convey was that there should be higher value to our life than just the clothes we carry, the food we eat, the car we drive, the mobile we use, the house we live and so on. Does any of these add values to our living? Does having a teaspoon of caviar gives me energy to lend a hand to help an old lady carry her bags? Does wearing a haute couture watch gives you more time to offer the last place in the lift so that the pregnant lady can take the ride?

A friend sent me another blog over a young professional's life in a cosmopolitan city. It is of course her right to live the life she wants. And that is $1,000 a coat and $20 a piece of sushi. As much as I respect a person's choices in life, I can't help feeling sorry that a person has to find comfort in things that is beyond her. Sometimes people seemed trying very much to live up to a certain status that doesn't seemed to lead anywhere. If she can only find value in the things that she wear, drives or eat, wonder what life means to her. If education only manage to give her those exterior comfort, wonder what is the meaning of intelligence.

But then again, who am I to question what is and isn't meaningful. I am afterall but a grain of sand in the world of sun, wind and sea. How would I know what balance others are bringing.

New addition to my family - Guppies

I love water plants, but with our tropical weather, it is prone to aedes mosquitos breeding. So I have been trying very hard not to have any water plants. But I have recently obtained some from my company's gardener (with his permission, of course). This is a version of the money plant. Easy to maintain type of plant, where you can either plant in in soil or water. Moreover, I have picked up rocks and corals from the Port Dickson beach. How can I resist from such perfect combination?
I gave in to my desire and got myself a beautiful bowl. But after I had the plant for a month, I found mosquitoes kept laying their offsprings in my bowl. I do not want to use chemicals to spoil my plant or the earth, just to kill the larvae. So I have this - tada.... My 5 brave little guppies.
3 males and 2 females.
These are clear water fish. Beautiful and easy to rear. Now that I have combination of sexes, they can actually breed to produce more little beautiful guppies :)
But what I didn't expect was how intelligent these little cuties are. When I came back home and started calling guppy, they will swim towards me. No, I wasn't feeding them or knocking on the glass. They can really hear and know that I am calling. Hope I am not hallucinating :P

This is the best photo I could manage, as I could not use flash or the glass will reflect when I capture, but if I don't use flash, the fishes are too fast before my camera can capture them. Sigh... naughty little things!

p/s: Will update you when there are baby guppies. hehe..