This post comprises a mashup of things that aren’t quite enough for separate posts on their own.
First and foremost, I must say thank you so so much once again to my very sweet and generous friend, Mary, for giving me these…
…sets of easy-to-cook instant Thai delights. At this point in time, I am not sure when I will be using them to whip up those dishes yet – for one thing, I will have to go and buy some basic ingredients first but of course, when I do so, I will surely blog about it and give my true and honest review of the product.
In the meantime, I had some of those frozen beef balls in the freezer, Rambly’s, I think, and one morning, I took them out to cook my own version of the Indonesian bakso…
…using another packet of the noodles that I still had after cooking my Marmite mee that day.
There wasn’t much beef taste in the soup so I added a teaspoon of Marmite and a bit of salt and it turned out pretty nice. I also broke an egg into the boiling soup and the thinly sliced sawtooth coriander (刺芫荽 or ci yan sui/ketumbar Java) from my garden…
…sure brought the taste to a whole new level.
Feeling inspired, I went and bought a packet of frozen minced beef to try and cook this same dish but it was disastrous. I think there was way too much fat in the beef so though it tasted all right, it turned out quite inedible and in the end, we just tried a bit and threw most of it away. One thing’s for sure, I will never buy those packets of minced beef sold at the supermarkets ever again. Once bitten, twice shy!
When we moved into our house in the late 80’s, the previous owner left a lot of plants behind, discarded, some in broken pots, others growing rampantly wild so we had to clear up the mess. However, we did save some that we could salvage and there was this one pot of aloe vera. You can read up on all the (health) benefits and uses of the plant here and according to this website, this is a plant used in the rituals against bad luck and envy, as it is said to be one of the strongest to fight against bad vibes. It is known for attracting prosperity and positive energy anywhere in the home where it is located. Many people believe that when the aloe vera plant grows…it is attracting good luck. If it fades, it is because it has absorbed the negative energies and has protected us.
The plant grew and multiplied in that one pot and I did transfer some into individual pots and they went on multiplying so I got some more pots for them. I have this very big one…
…the mother plant, in my living room now and I took one to my girl’s quarters in her school in the jungle. For one thing, it is claimed that it is an air purifier and will absorb carbon dioxide and give out oxygen.
After all the repotting that I did, other than the big one in the house, I also have these four…
…and a few smaller ones as well. I sure wouldn’t mind giving them away, not all, of course, if anyone is interested.
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 
I never bought those ready minced meat at the market, don’t know what goes into it. If I have to buy minced meat, I will choose the meat, ask them to wash and minced for me. Once I ask the butcher to trim some unwanted fats from the meat I bought and guess what, after trimming he keep the unwanted fats in a plastic basin with some other meat. He say he will minced it and sold them to those selling sio bee.
I prefer to chop and mince the meat myself using a chopper, not a blender – too fine, not to my liking. I did buy once from a butcher and he cut a piece from the ones hanging at his stall to mince for me, even without my asking – he did not take from the ready-minced pile by the side. I hear they throw all the unwanted parts of the pig in that.
ooo handmade pad thai – that sounds like painstaking to prepare for a commercial store-sold version!
They do have handmade noodles at those pan mee stalls too – I guess if one is used to it, that shouldn’t be a problem.
Rambly’s beef so big?? Never bought it before. Nice??
Your pots are so nice. Mine just the normal one. Not as pretty as yours. Hehe.
I went and bought new ones – only RM9.50 each, so cheap. I expected them to be more expensive, these big ones.
The beef balls are nice, no offensive meat ball smell like some of those pork ones…but no beef smell either so when boiled in soup, you do not get the beef flavour – that was why I added Marmite (no Bovril in the house). No wonder the bakso at the Malay stalls and shops here is so strong on the msg! They should have bought beef bones to make the stock for their soup.
Your bakso is so tempting that I wish that it is right in front of me to eat, keke…
Any nice bakso in Singapore?