peelable nails!!!

the weather is getting so nice in here, and I looked at my flip flops and thought: I WANT YOU!!!

but I've been a good wife and mom-to-be, I had no second attempt to paint my nails again with conventional or normal nail polish; so, I started to discover something that is safe and usable without anyone getting fussy about it!

last time I visited Whole Foods, one of my fav place to hang out here, although it's a bit far but they do offer some great products and great food, especially their freshly made pizza.

and non toxic, organic beauty products!!!

although I was told that premium nail colours like OPI or SPArituals are safe for pregnant women to use, the products still contain artificial chemicals and toxic smells, which is something that my man was iffy about me using it; so here I found natural cosmetics nail polish (not so sure if it's organic coz it does not come with any certified stickers or labels) and recommend all moms-to-be or children to try.

the brand is called SUNCOATgirl, specially made for children age 3+, quoting from its own website:

Suncoat Girl water-based nail polishes are uniquely formulated by our chemists without using any of the following chemicals: Phthalate plasticizers, Toluene, Formaldehyde, Acetates, Alcohol, Glycol ethers, FD&C dyes.

Only water, acrylic copolymers and polyurethane (plastic), mineral-based pigments, plastic glitter and carmine are in these nail polishes. Virtually odor-free. Releases water vapor when applied, not toxic chemical fumes. These water-based children's nail polishes are truly the most natural nail polishes in the market place.

as I was reading through the info on the website: 

In Suncoat water-based nail polish, all the chemical solvents are replaced by water. The major ingredient is water, not chemical solvents! So when Suncoat water-based nail polish is being applied, it is only water that evaporates to the air, not toxic chemical fumes.

 

The chemical solvents in conventional nail polish, after repeated use, can discolor nails and make them brittle and weak. This is not an issue with water-based nail polish.

Many conventional nail polishes contain a deadly chemical, namely, phthalate. Phthalate, such as dibutyl phthalate (DBP), has been proven by research studies to interfere with normal hormone balance, can cause severe birth defects and other health problems. Phthalate is a very effective and popular plasticizer（so is that also a kind of PEHD that was found in the Taiwanese products???)  that gives nail polish flexibility, and helps prevent polish from cracking. Phthalate is also a very low volatile chemical (meaning will not evaporate quickly). So after the polish is applied to nails, phthalate will stay on the nails with the polish, and can penetrate into our system, causing health problems. 

ok so I guess my man was right about insisting removing the toxic chemicals off my nails... and I do hope this piece of info is useful for all moms-to-be, that nail polish is indeed a concern!!!

I bought one colour, strawberry delight, and yes, it has no smell at all!  and another great thing about it is, you do not need to purchase another so called "organic nail polish remover" to take it off, because you will only need to soak your fingers or toes into a bath of warm water for about 3 to 5 minutes, and just peel it off!

the only thing is, it has 8 colours only... and since it's a non toxic product, so it probably doesn't contain any sort of chemicals that offer you the shiny, bright, glossy kind of effect on your nails.  I tried the strawberry delight, it comes with a great bright red as it claims but not as smooth and glossy compare to the conventional nail colour, so there are certainly things that you need to compromise, but I mean if safety comes before everything, this is one product that you can consider.

what's most important is the price is definitely a great deal!  Only $7.99CAD, which is even cheaper than to get an OPI!

here's the site to check it out:  http://www.suncoatgirl.com/

the brand suncoat (I guess that's the mother brand of suncoatgirl), also offers other cosmetic products like lip, face and eye colour, all naturally made, and I think it has a wider varieties of nail colours too!  

This was painted 2 days ago, and after 2 showers, the colour still stayed pretty well, so rest assure that it can be as durable as conventional nail colours; but keep in mind that it is recommended to keep your nail colour on for no more than a week, otherwise as described on the site, water-based nail colour can be difficult to remove if left on nails for extended time... (I know I need a major pedicure... and yes I'm not a good painter... but please bear with me as I cannot bend all the way down to do the job)

taiwanese delight for the night

Despite the DEHP issue thing that has been going on around the world, me, bubble tea lover, has already given up my favourite drink, let's keep our fingers crossed that the ingredients I have used for tonight's delight would be safe~

I and my man are in love with Taiwanese food, especially the spicy beef noodle, and it's been a pain to find one that's actually taste decent in Hong Kong.  We actually found one place here in Toronto that's ooooookay........ not exactly great but at least it's good to have it here!

So instead of dreaming about the spicy beef noodle that we had in Taipei at Yong Kang Street day and night, and drool all over my keyboard, I decided to give it a shot and try to make my own!

I browsed through a few recipes online, mostly similar, I then decided to combine all of them into one and see what I have.

I chose beef shank, or beef brisket will do too, and you need tomatoes, carrots, onions, green onions (yes... green onions again....... -_-!), garlic, ginger, chili.........

You do need a lot of veggies, but you can totally adjust it on your own.  I mean if you like to have the carrot kind of sweet in the soup, add more carrots; and if you like the garlic spice, then add more garlic, and if you like the soup to have a stronger tasty colour, add more tomatoes... it's all up to you!  Just boil it up and stew for at least a few hours, best if you have a pressure cooker or thermal magic cooker.

Some other important things you need for your soup is the chili bean sauce and satay sauce, and Taiwanese marinated pack, also you need beef broth instead of water!

Lastly,  you need a pack of shanghainese noodles or udon.  My advise is to pick some thick noodles, to get the soup soak into it!

Since this is a spicy delight, I also marinated a chilled dish to cool it down.  All you need is salt, white vinegar, sugar, sesame oil, soy sauce and chili.

extra fresh cut green onions for my man!

preserving it for my man

Other than preserving my love, my youthfulness, my hotness... I also preserved black pepper & sea salt chicken for my man today!

My man passed me this recipe that he found on a magazine by Jacky Yu and asked if I can make that for him.  The ingredients and steps are simple, you only need black pepper, sea salt and chicken!  That's it!

The key is to "preserve" it in the fridge after marinating it for 2 weeks... yes it's 2 weeks...

So will let everyone know how it taste after 2 weeks time... stay tune!

pan fry freshly ground black pepper and sea salt before marinating the chicken

my man prefers dark meat!

make sure you "massage" the ingredients into the chicken!!!

tie it tight!

As we are stepping into the golden years, more and more of our friends are typing the knots, moving forward to the next stage in life.

Congratulations to Sharon and Andy who just got married and will be starting a new chapter in life!

I and my man were helping them out on their big day and reminded us of our own just not long ago.  Wedding is certainly tiring, exhausting, stressing, frustrating, and it can be painful (esp to the bride's feet!!!);  But it is also cheerful, exciting, blessing, joyful and for sure, memorable.

Sharon and Andy's wedding was very different from our own; the couple had a small banquet in town and will be flying to the tropical for a destination wedding.

The day started out as a big cloudy, occasional sunshine and it was quite chilly, but at least it wasn't a rainy day!  Our major task that day was to be their amateur photographer!

It was enjoyable yet challenging, because our gears were not as professional as the professional ones!  Although we both had quite good cameras to begin with, we still needed to polish up our skills, for sure.  We tried our best to take the best photos and capture all the great moments.

After Sharon and Andy, there are more and more weddings to come and we're so excited to snap snap snap!!!  kekekekeke~~~

Here are some pics to share and as for the ones with the bride and groom, will have to wait for their consent to share~~~

me!

 

 

boundaryless and crumple up

My fingers have always brought something new to my apple keyboard.  After some nasty stinky green onions smell, here comes toxic ugly nails.

First, congrats to Andy and Sharon who will be tying the knot over this weekend and to make myself a pretty guest, I decided to paint my nails.

I chose the Lychee something colour from a Dior shade and used RMK base and top coat, and of course, it is not always the best idea for your baby to paint your nails with toxic chemicals, but I can just never get over with the idea of wearing dress sandals or peep toes without having your nails painted!  It feels like you're displaying your beige colour granny bra straps while wearing a sexy tube dress.

Of course the most ultimate, easy way to have your nails look sexy is to get a gel nail done, but that's even worse than keeping removable nail polish on for 2 days.  Well I do miss gel nail but again, it is not such a good idea to suffocate your nails with those glue looking chemicals on for more than a month!

So here I tried my very best to bend down and paint my toes; in fact, it looks acceptable -- because you are seriously looking it from afar and of course, you would not see the colour have actually went "out of bound".......... what's bad is the finger nails.

I think it should happen to most people, that you can actually paint your toe nails with your right hand (talking about if you're right handed); but when you try to paint your right hand, you need to use your left hand... now here comes the problem.

Nail colour on the right hand -- boundaryless

And when you are confident that your left hand should look perfectly fine, and tried to take a nice picture with your GF2, you messed it up when you try to switch to a zoom lens for better result...

Nails colour the left hand -- crumple up


The lucky part is, and I was smart enough, that I chose a sparkly shade (which is perfect nail colours for people who have poor painting skills AND with no patience like me)!

And I'm sure all these was for a good cause -- to force myself to clean off these ugly nail colours asap after the wedding!

click on the image to get a larger size so that everyone can see how "out of bound" and "crumple up" it is... >.<

cooking something you hate for the man you love

After cooking some junk for myself, I made something I hate for the man I love to start his day fresh!

But don't get me wrong, in fact, what I hate is what he loves -- green onions!

Green onions are actually evil, nasty and disgusting... it smells bad, taste bad and just makes you non stop shivering after having just one single small bite; but my man loves it.

So here comes my stinky fingers typing up writing this blog after chopping nasty green onions, I'm sharing my very secret "love recipe" that I hate.

~~~fried udon with nasty green onions~~~

Ingredients:
1 pack of frozen Japanese made or Korean made udon (do not use cheap udon as it taste bad and doesn't give you the chewy texture)
3 or more stems of nasty green onions (preferably using the stem part, because that's the most fresh and smelly nasty part that green onions lovers like)
some sliced onions
1 king oyster mushroom, sliced
100g or more (if you're a meat lover) sliced pork, marinated with soy sauce, sugar, salt, sesame oil...

Steps:
- dump the pack of frozen udon into a pot of boiling hot water to loosen it out and drain the water immediately, because you do not want to soak the udon for too long to make soggy
- heat up a frying pan at the same time when you're handling the udon
- as soon as you drain out the water from the udon, leave the udon in the pot
- begin to fry your veggies first, just remember to pour enough oil into the pan for better "lubrication"! (remember to lower the power in your stove, so that you don't burn yourself with the heated oil)
- then dump your sliced pork into the pan and mix it with the veggies; do not add any seasoning or sauce into it yet, since your pork have already been marinated!
- as soon as you see your pork start turning beige or whatever colour that indicates that it's almost cooked, add the udon in and make sure to turn up the power in your stove!
- now quickly mix and fry everything together and in the end, add your favourite soy sauce into it and mix it quickly.  (if you fancy the dark colour, add some dark soy sauce into it!)

Tips:
- chop and slice the meat and veggies into smaller pieces so that you can mix with your noodles easier
- turning up the power in the end allows you to "dry up" the water content so that you will have nice and dry fried noodles but not mushy nasty porridge looking flour
- if you are a fan of chili, add some chili too and there gives you a colourful dish!

Happieee cooking and yes, it does take a lot of effort to cook something you hate for the one you love!

And I added a glass of freshly squeezed honey lime juice too!

junk breakfast

Instant noodles + luncheon meat = not exactly the ideal breakfast for a mom-to-be...

But sometimes you do get strange cravings, well more precisely, unhealthy cravings.  In the past few months, I have a very strong cravings for spring rolls and pizza, and I'm suspecting that my little one is so much in love with deep fried junk food.  And here we have, instant noodles and luncheon meat to begin with on a cloudy Thursday.

First thing as soon as I was going through the fridge, I saw the remaining two pieces of luncheon meat and eggs... well eggs are good but with just eggs and luncheon meat is a bit too dry... so I then explored the kitchen cabinet on the left hand side and found, Japanese made Nissin instant noodles!!!

And of course, I did step back and thought, well egg is good but maybe the excessive sodium intake from luncheon meat and instant noodle isn't such a great idea when I'm trying to control swelling and leg cramps and unhealthy weight gain.... etc........... but well, I mean, once in a while is not so bad, I guess.

Wait a minute... when I took another look at my ingredients... and please do check out what's printed on the package!

Eggs are Omega-3 Canadian eggs, luncheon meat are high quality Canadian made can food and instant noodles are Japanese made (and expiry date is 2011 August, so I do assume that it was definitely made prior the quake!)

Ok, so we have nothing Mainland and Taiwanese made, I suppose that should make this a better junk breakfast.

the extra 2 hours to enjoy dessert making

It's been almost 2 months after moving back to the t dot, and life here is so much different than in Hong Kong.

Fresh air, blue sky and robins visiting your backyard and skunk sneaking in sometimes... perhaps it is something that's so usual to most Canadians, well and to me too maybe, but definitely it becomes so refreshing to someone who's been stuck in the polluted Hong Kong for a few years.

And what's more is, there seems to have 26 hours running in a day here in Canada.  Well yes, to some extent, life here can be boring so makes you feel like time's running a bit slower; but on the other hand, you do have more time to enjoy your everyday life here, like dessert making at night.

We bought a super duper powerful blender over the weekend named Ladyship, it is also sold in Hong Kong, too.  Found in Sogo that cost about HK$3000 or more, with this cheaper model that we got here, it costs a bit less, but still, not cheap. 

But you do get what you paid for;  It's like taking the greyhound and spend 10 hours on the a bus ride to NYC and flying on a plane that takes you to the Big Apple in an hour.

So, of course, we are maximizing the use of this blender EVERYDAY!

Yes I mean everyday, both day and night and night and day!!!  In the past few days, I made freshly squeezed grape juice, honey lime juice, papaya milkshake and strawberry milkshake for breakfast and snack.

At night, it's the mother and daughter dessert making time.

Taking this powerful blender to make traditional delicious Chinese dessert - black sesame porridge, cashew nut porridge and almond tea.

Tonight, we made cashew nut porridge and almond tea, it takes only about 3 minutes we get homemade original healthy Chinese dessert!!! 

Well back to what I've mentioned earlier, you do feel like you get the extra two hours to spend in Canada, but again, when you get that extra time, you want to use it up and not have it wasted!  And thus, we spent 10 minutes to make 2 desserts and enjoyed the yummy delight tonight!