All about Mint

Order  "Mint Original Watercolor Painting"

Plants are so magical, especially the herbal plants. I am amazed by the various kinds of fragrant they carry.

In searching of  some healthy snack for my 4 year old, I come across the mint plant and some healthy snacks and drinks it can make. I planted some in my garden from cut out that I bought from supermarket that are meat for cooking. I just insert them into port soil and magically they grow.

Mint in Balcony

Now they thrive in my balcony. They need only a lot of water and sunshine.

Afternoon Snack

This is a healthy, delicious and easy to make afternoon snack with oat cracker, low fat high calcium cream cheese and mint. The strong taste of the peppermint I pick from the balcony somehow disappear when mixed with cheese. The mint makes cheese very fresh and not so sticky in your mouth. My daughter loves it.

Order "Mint in Port Original Water Color Painting"

 They are also so pretty to paint with bluish green, golden yellow and dark purple stems . I painted two today.

Tree in April Round Glass Pendant and Sticky Rice Dumplings

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A cheerful glass pendant with the Tree in April collage print.

 Yesterday was traditional Chinese Duanwu festival. Chinese will make sticky rice dumpling for the festival. This is my first time to make sticky rice dumplings with bamboo leaves. I always thought that it is very difficult to make them. But after seeing a receipt in the Internet and found that the ingredients are simple, just that the wrapping maybe difficult, I dare to try this time.

You can see that the threads are not very well wrapped. It is so difficult to wrap nicely. But the dumplings taste very well despite the shape with a little bit of sugar. It is a very good desert that is ready to server for my baby and many of her friends dropping by during the school holidays.

Tree in April Collage Print, Baby Drawings and My Garden

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This is another version of Tree in April. Few weeks ago, I painted the acrylic version of Tree in April.

I like newspaper collage very much and also the music notes. It is very fun to play with them in this collage print.

The is the large print version. It adds very warm touch to the living area.

 Baby loves to draw these days. She spent hours and hours on drawing. Most of them are little people with boys and girls, princess and prince. The small people are very energetic and you feel the strong flow in the drawing. It amazes me every time.

My garden is flouring these days. The murraya tree suddenly blossoms with so many white small flowers that attracts many bees. It has very strong fragrance lingering in my balcony.

The herbal garden is grown very well. The newly planted lemon balm from cutting stems. They all survive very well. I like to make a lemon balm leave tea everyday. It is very soothing.

The rosemary and Thai sweet basil are growing very well as well. I used rosemary to bake or fry chicken and potatoes. The dishes are totally changed once the rosemary is added. The smell and taste are so much better that the rosemary gets ride of the original unpleasant tastes of the meat or potatoes. The basil is used to add into tomato ham spaghetti. The pretty Lantana is nearby with beautiful bright yellow pink flower.

Summer Pond Print and Cooking for the Family

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Waterlily pond always makes me excited. I took many photos of waterlily pond for references. As the weather becomes very hot recently,  the strong summer scent makes me feel to paint this waterlily pond.

I even cooked a dessert with waterlily or lotus: Lotus Root and Sticky Rice.

 Summer Dessert: Lotus Root and Sticky Rice

My younger daughter recently suddenly eats very little. She complaints that she feels pain here and there during meal time. To increase her appetite, I spent a lot of time in kitchen these days. I feel very guilty because all along, our family meals are prepared by my Philippine domestic helper. I didn't do anything except grocery shopping. Since I don't cook, I always buy the same type of vegetables, meat and fish and never dare to try some unusual and healthy food such as purple cabbage.Thus we pretty much have the same type of dishes in our dining table.

After spent some time and I found a very good way to cook meals. It is such a breeze to prepare meals now. What I do is that I look for those recipes that are not so difficult to follow in the Internet and copy them down in my notes. I write down all the dishes that I need for the week and their ingredients. I go shopping according to the list. The list consists nicely of soup, dishes and desserts. Sometime, when I see some nice healthy food in the market, I look at the Internet to find a good recipe for it. I'll make it into my week's list and buy all the necessary ingredients for the dish.

Before I always very scared to follow recipes because I always found that some ingredients were missing from my fridge during cooking. But now, I follow very closely to the prepared list during shopping and that prevents missing ingredients.

Everyday, I pick up the dishes that I want to cook and their recipes from my notes and just follow them during cooking. Now I have so many varieties in our meal table. I even cooked the above dessert that I cannot image that I am able to cook before.

It is cooked with lotus root and sticky rice. I stuffed the sticky rice into the hole of lotus root and steam it. After that I cut it and put some syrup to serve. It looks so pretty and tastes yummy too. It is also very healthy if  you don't put too much syrup because according to Chinese Medicine, the lotus root and sticky rice enhance your body blood function.