The Budding Planet » Cooking

Pearl Corn

jasmin — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 14:00:24 +0000

This is called pearl corn because of the white kernels..

Pearl Corn is different from the normal corn because it is so sweet, have bigger kernels and can be eaten fresh. It is more expensive than regular corn but it is worth the money.

Corn can be eaten raw, and it tastes best when it’s just ripen and freshly picked. The husks by the way makes excellent organic plate scrubber at the sink. My mother-in-law gathers the husks, fold it and ties it together with a thin rubber band (there’s thin and there’s the thick rubber bands). She then scrubs the plates with a bit of water and dishwashing liquid. Such an environmentally friendly tool.

Peanuts and liver cancer

jasmin — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 09:16:23 +0000

I just read this amazingly eye-opening book called The China Study.

It talks about why there were so many Filipino kids were having liver cancers. Apparently, Filipinos from poor families and their kids were encouraged to eat peanuts and peanut butter (PB) because it was a cheap protein. The problem was that peanuts often were contaminated with a fungus-produced toxin called aflatoxin. In a factory, they found that the workers will scoop up the whole nuts that were good and use to sell as premium nuts. The bad nuts that had aflatoxin were put aside to make PB. So when small children lots of PB, many of them contracted cancer.

That’s not all.

Apparently, kids that ate more meat AND aflatoxin had a higher chance of getting liver cancer than those who ate less meat. So what happened then was that the rich kids had a higher chance of getting cancer than the poor ones.

Scary stats huh?

Moral of the story? I don’t know, make your own peanut butter?

It’s actually very simple to make and here’s the recipe for it.

Homemade Peanut Butter

Ingredients:

2 cups shelled peanuts
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil that has no heavy scent
1 Tbsp. honey or sugar to taste

Method:

Roast the peanuts in a frying pan with low heat until it smells fragrant. Cool it.

Place the peanuts and honey in a food processor, and process for 1 minute. Use a spatula to loosen mixture from the sides of the bowl if it’s sticking. Then continue to process while slowly drizzling oil into the mixture for another 2-3 minutes, or until the mixture is smooth, thick and shiny. (Nuts will go from a rough chop, to finely ground, to a thick paste, and then finally a shiny, smooth peanut butter.) Remove and store in an airtight container, and refrigerate. If mixture is too thick and cool when you’re ready to use it, simply place the container in a warm water bath, or pop your needed amount in the microwave microwave to warm and soften it up.

For those who are looking for a healthier alternative or is allergic to peanuts like my son, try making homemade raw almond butter. The recipe’s below.
Homemade raw almond butter

Ingredients:

2 cups of raw almonds soaked in water overnight
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 tbsp honey

Method:

Strain the water from the almonds and place into the food processor. Blend on high until it reaches the consistency that you lie. From time to time, stop the food processor and push the almonds down from the sides of the bowl to make sure all of it gets ground up.

Add the cinnamon, vanilla and honey at any time. Remove and store in an airtight container, and refrigerate. It won’t last as long as the roasted PB. Some say it can keep for 4 months, but why keep food for that long? I’d rather consume everything up within 4 weeks or less. Otherwise, you can just freeze up extra almond butter if you can’t finish it within a certain period.

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Getting kids to appreciate more complex flavors

jasmin — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 01:31:16 +0000

I added just a bit of dehydrated raw wheat grass powder in my plain water today. My almost 5 (so he says) year old rugrat took a sip and said, “Hmmm, this is good tea Mummy”. This is excellent because it means his taste buds are starting to appreciate more complex flavors.

ften times, we don’t know what they like. So it’s always good to keep introducing new food to them every once in a while.

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Korean Kimchi Ramen

jasmin — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 10:52:13 +0000

I think the Korean Kimchi Ramen is Korea’s biggest, most popular food export. It’s not the healthiest thing around, but it’s darn tasty. Add a half boiled egg topped with a handful of raw enoki mushrooms and 2 large spoonful of raw kimchi, and you’ll have a pretty nutritious dish full of protein (egg), enzymes and vitamins from the veges.There’s really good probiotics from the kimchi as well that’s as good as what you’ll get from a small pot of yogurt and probably even better than the probiotics pill you’ll find at the pharmacy.

Now, there are lots of other things you can add to make this dish healthier. Maybe some raw green onions, raw seaweed strips, shredded carrots and cucumber. You can be creative.

By the way, most mushrooms sold at the store can be eaten raw. enoki, button, brown mushrooms, Chinese (Shiitake) mushrooms, straw, portobello, bunashimeiji and oyster mushrooms. There’s probably lots other mushrooms not listed. You can check them out online.

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Miang Kam – An Almost Raw Appetizer

jasmin — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 16:53:35 +0000

Miang Kam

I love Miang Kam, which is a Thai partly raw snack slash appetizer. The picture here shows the appetizer without the sticky dark syrup.

Miang kam consists of fresh cha plu (ช้าพลู) leaves that are filled with some roasted coconut shavings and few small pieces of the following ingredients:

onion
Fresh small Thai red chilli
Ginger
Garlic
Unpeeled lime
roasted peanuts
Dry small shrimp

After filling the leaf, a little coconut palm syrup containing Thai fish sauce (nam pla) is poured on top. Then the leaf is folded and eaten whole. The origin of the name is in “eating many things in one bite”; from “miang” (เมี่ยง), meaning “food wrapped in leaves”, and “kham” (คำ), “a bite”.

The cha plu leaves or the Daun Kadok leaves (as we call it in Malaysia)

Apparently, this leaf is good for relieving toothaches, heal malaria fever, getting rid of worm infection, strengthen weak bodies and eliminating coughs.

If this single leaf can do so much, imagine what the Miang Kam can do. It’s power packed with nuts (protein), ginger (good for getting rid of mucus and it’s a cancer fighting leaf) chili (to warm the body up and get rid of intestinal parasites), coconut (good oil and roughage), onion (treatment of poor appetite, strengthen bones and to prevent atherosclerosis), lime (weight loss, skin care, good digestion, relief from constipation, eye care, and treatment of scurvy, piles, peptic ulcer) and dried shrimp (protein, excellent source of selenium, a very good source of vitamin D and vitamin B12.)

Here’s the recipe but it’s really time consuming to make these lil things cause you can only eat a few at a time so it’s best to buy it from a Thai restaurant or a Thai stall.

Directions

Dry roast the coconut in a wok on medium high, stirring constantly to avoid burning. Cook until the coconut is medium brown, about 5 minutes. Set aside the amount used for the sauce, and put the rest into a serving bowl.
Cut up all the ingredients which are not to be put into the sauce into small 1/4″ pieces. Arrange in small bowls, or in piles on a plate.
Now, for the sauce… In a stone mortar & pestle, pound together the shallots and galangal until fine. Set aside.
In a small sauce pan, add the water, fish sauce, palm sugar & shallot/galangal mixture.
Boil over medium heat to reduce the sauce to the thickness shown in the picture below. You’re going to boil off about 1/2 the liquid. Make sure to keep stirring every now and then.
Add the roasted coconut, remove from heat, and put into a small bowl.
To eat… Take a leaf and fold the bottom to make a pouch (see large pic above). Put a large pinch of roasted coconut in first, then follow with a piece or two of everything else from the serving bowls: shallots, lime, ginger, peanuts, shrimp and a chili if desired. There is no ‘proper’ order to put them in. Then, add a bit of sauce on top, roll the leaf to make a packet, and eat in one bite. Eating Mieng Kam is like a taste explosion.

Honestly, it’s a lot of work right? Anyways, there’s a lady who sells it really cheap the the SS2 night market every Monday if you are interested in trying it. Her stall is right across the Salvation bookstore, near McDonalds. They sell other types of Thai snacks too like the mango salad, sticky rice with mango and the fruit salad (rojak).

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Guava As Medicine

jasmin — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 06:59:52 +0000

An Indian study published in the Journal of Human Hypertension confirmed that the guava fruit help reduce high blood pressure and high blood fat reading.

Half the participants (73 people) ate 1 pound – 2 pounds of guava daily for 4 weeks. The other group had a different diet. Blood pressure decreased an average of 5%. Fat reading decreased an average of 5-8%.

~ Guava As Medicine by Ingfried Hobert MD & Harald W. Tietze ~

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