Gone Bananas: Home Made Yogurt

It was a very rainy Sunday yesterday and it didn't affect our plans to have a day in at all. I had a very interesting chat with Wee Siang about his experiences in making yogurt and I was intrigued enough to give it a go!

Making Yogurt
The only thing that I needed to buy was milk and yogurt.

I poured the milk into a pot and heated it till it frothed and then left it to cool.

After it has cooled sufficiently, add in the yogurt and stir. I read that you're supposed to add it when it's around 110 ºF. I used a thermometer and added the yogurt it when it was around 40+ ºC.

Next, I covered it and left it for about 6-7 hours, giving time for it to ferment.

The result? Instead of a cup of yogurt I got a whole pot full of it.

Keep a small batch to re-use in future yogurt making sessions and keep it in the fridge. I used approximately 700+ml of milk and I got the above bounty. Not too bad I think.

With honey and banana

The taste is very plain and the texture surprisingly nice. You can add honey, sugar or anything to it as you like. It's very easy to do and we will definitely be doing more in the future. To top it off, we made banana cookies as well to go with the yogurt.

Next time we'll be using chocolate milk.

Getting Six Packs

I made it my aim to get a six pack for 2010 and by October that year, I claimed partial victory. The problem was that the six pack showed up on a part time basis - that is, I have to stand in a certain position while flexing them and they tend to disappear after a heavy meal.

Throughout 2011, almost everything took a back seat as we prepared for the birth of my son. After CNY 2012, I've decided to overhaul my entire life, taking a look at what my priorities were and how I can change my life to fit that. There were many motivations, and one of the things that we started doing was focus on health and how we can eat better. That added with exercise and I'm pleased to say that I've finally offered my abs a full time position (with off days for long weekends and festivities).

I want to share a few pointers with all who are aspiring to get theirs as well.

Abs are made in the kitchen. 
I've been exercising pretty hard and all for 2 years but still the 6 packs weren't showing up. The biggest change I made was changing the food I consumed. We cut down on processed foods as much as we could and focused on eating wholesome foods. Instead of eating out we brought our lunch box to work. We allowed ourselves to eat out once or twice a week though. Foods that we ate more of included a variety of vegetables, lean meat (fish, chicken), sweet potatoes, etc.

Salmon + Spinach + Cheese + Garlic Bread

Interestingly, before we started out on this, my weight was hovering around 64-65 and now it's 62-63. I didn't lose much weight, which wasn't my goal in the first place, but lost just enough for the six pack to appear. Make time also to eat the sinful foods that you crave, don't totally cut it out but work around it. I've mentioned about ego depletion before and forcing your body to an extreme may cause a backlash.

Another thing to note is don't eat too heavy a supper. The main meal should be dinner and then maybe a light snack an hour before bed, overeating at night is very bad for your abs.

As for workout routine. I do both cardio and strength training with every session with more emphasis on strength (30%-70%), but this depends a lot on the individual.

Honestly I don't think there's one magic thing you can do to get a six pack, but rather it's the combination of habits, diet and exercise. So just keep at it, don't give up and let me know how it goes for you.

The OCD Chef

Look what the mailman brought yesterday!

The OCD chef board is one of those 'instant buy' things for me. It also helped that I was looking to replace the old one which was rotting.

Food in our house has never looked so good!...or neat.

Why Does Time Go By Faster Every Year?

I read something last night that I think makes a lot of sense.

'...Michel Siffre, a French chronobiologist (he studies the relationship between time and living organisms) who conducted one of the most extraordinary acts of self-experimentation in the history of science. In 1962, Siffre spent two months living in total isolation in a subterranean cave, without access to clock, calender or sun. Sleeping and eating only when his body told him to, he sought to discover how the natural rhythms of human life would be affected by living "beyond time."


Very quickly Siffre's memory deteriorated. In the dreary darkness, his days melded into one another and became one continuous, indistinguishable blob. Since there was nobody to talk to, and not much to do, there was nothing novel to impress itself upon his memory. There were no chronological landmarks by which he could measure the passage of time. At some point he stopped being able to remember what happened even the day before...As time began to blur, he became effectively amnesic. Soon, his sleep patterns disintegrated. Some days he'd stay awake for 36 straight hours, other days for eight - without being able to tell the difference. When the support team on the surface finally called down to him on September 14, the day his experiment was scheduled to wrap up, it was only August 20 in his journal. He thought only a month had gone by. His experience of time's passage had compressed by a factor of two.'

Sounds familiar? The feeling that an event has sort of snuck up on you when in fact it's always been the same date every year? (What? Chinese New Year over already??? or that sort of thing) It is interesting how Siffre's results have implications for us. The above passage is an excerpt from Joshua Foer's 'Moonwalking with Einstein : The Art and Science of  Remembering Everything.' I first came across Joshua Foer's article in the NY Times Magazine last year regarding his attempts at training his memory for competition. The book is a more in-depth account of that experience. He does a lot of research not just on the art of memorizing but on how the brain functions and this is one of those detours.

He goes on to say 'Monotony collapses time; novelty unfold it...If you spend your life sitting in a cubicle and passing papers, one day is bound to blend unmemorably into the next - and disappear. That's why it's important to change routines regularly, and take vacations to exotic locales (agreed!) and have as many new experiences as possible. Creating new memories stretches out psychological time, and lengthens our perception of our lives.'

My wife has always laughed at my penchant for choosing the same option repeatedly - if I really like a certain dish (say curry chicken chop kon lau mee), I can eat the same dish everyday for 5 days in a week, 2 or 3 weeks in a row. She, on the other hand, will seek to add in as much variety to everyday choices. I remember before we got married, we would always eat out once a week on Sunday and what vexed me most at times was the rule that we must go to a new place every single week. I'll always suggest KFC, and say that we've tried all the restaurants in KK already and she will always suggest some obscure place I've never heard of. But she's right. She's on to something.

I've not thought of a resolution to aim for this year, but if anything, this will be it. To experience life from another perspective and as differently as I possibly can. To try anything and everything (within legal means) at least once.

Oh and to answer that question - why does time go by faster every year? It doesn't. 

'Life seems to speed up as we get older because life gets less memorable as we get older.'

Solids

Baby Cyrus has turned 6 months and started taking solid foods. We have fun experimenting with foods and seeing his reaction to them.

Today we're trying pumpkin porridge

Wat the....?!

So we switched back to what he's familiar with...

...and added some of the pumpkin porridge

But he found out...

...and kept his mouth closed. Lol.

He did finish the whole thing in the end. We've found out that he likes apple, bananas, grapes (with a very sourish face) and papayas. Sweet potatoes, potatoes...not so popular with him. We hope he will enjoy as wide a variety of food as we can give to him, with it being easier now at this age when he can't talk back or refuse to eat. 

Season's Greetings

It's been an unforgettable year for many reasons and we'll cherish the good ones and learn from the bad. Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy 2012!

An Altercation

Something interesting happened this morning. I was with a customer and suddenly there were these voices (a young man and an uncle) shouting at each other. I didn't see the incident before that but apparently a child was playing around while his parents were paying at the cashier and didn't see the uncle pushing a trolley in the adjacent lane and got his head knocked. A very minor incident, not even a bruise... but not for the father. His fists were raised and ready to strike the much older man down.

The younger man ironically shouted that the uncle had no manners and didn't even apologize, and the uncle said back to him in this frame 'as if you should be talking about manners'

To the uncle's credit, he tried to calm the younger man down saying that he didn't see the child running or turning, and the parents should have been more mindful of their child. The younger man got so pissed that it could have been his fault and started shouting at the uncle, that he should be more careful when there are children around.

The 'triumphant' father who has defended his family's honor...or has he?

The whole thing is silly really, it's really no one's fault and accidents happen all the time. So has the young man really won? It would appear so. But then again, what the father is saying indirectly to his child is

1) It doesn't matter if it's your fault, I will bring you their severed testicles on a plate for lunch.
2) It's ok to be rude.
3) It's ok to be disrespectful to strangers, especially the weak and elderly.

Great parenting dad! Watch out for the little one during his rebellious teenage years... you won't be spared.