Sun rise : 3:07am Sun set : 22:04 pm
It´s being a lovely weekend, the sun were shining all days it´s so nice to be outdoor the whole time,getting things done. Things that need to be gone are gone now, except for Nelina´s old toys. Nelina want to sell it at the carnival flea market later before mid-summer. I helped her to packed them in plastic bags so it´s easier to transport. It will be exciting to see how she manage her business later.
Nelina were at her grandparent place the whole weekend, so Mattias & myself took the opportunity to work in the store room & garden. We were planting grass and build net for my strawberry & sweet peas plantation. Unfortunately I still can´t put the plant out because it could frost in the night. The ideal time will be around middle of June. We went for a walk into the wood to collect some stones & old tree trunk so I can create a landscape in the garden. There was so much to do & I hardly any time to cook. It´s much easier to set fire on the grill & just marinate meat & make burgers.

Here are few photos taken over the past few days.

My Asian food Supplier Jack´s Import has recently started selling Tofu (Sing $5 a piece) I thought I gave it a try. The tofu was excellent with satay sauce, Oh my! it felt like eating at a Malay store in Changi Village Hawker Centre. Sometime, I feel very proud being able to duplicate Singapore´s food here in Sweden. It´s a little hard work but it´s all worth the effort.
Nowadays I hardly had any extra time to specially make food for my diet, I eat whatever I made for my family & just avoid Carbohydrate like rice,potatoes & pasta.
I intend to eat more soup because it´s not only nutritious but also save time & money. So far there´s no complain from both Mattias & Nelina except that it was not filling with just soup alone.
I have also started some summer baking, (I made 40 vanilla buns yesterday). Buns is great to have at home just incase we have drop-in guest. Nelina can eat 2-3 of those babies when she come home from school everyday. It´s quite common in Sweden that people just have a buns for lunch or birthday party. I don´t. I still can´t do that, I am a typical Asian women who need to eat proper lunch. In Sweden, buns with meat filling is consider luxury. It can be consider as lunch or food. In olden time,to the Swede, food was´nt really important most people eat to fill their stomach, unlike Asian, food is a religion. We would pay $20 for a plate of fried kway teow at JB & are so spoiled with the choice of food available. Here, even if you are willing to pay $40 for fried kway teow, no one is selling.

We finally managed to clear some of the junk in our garage & it feel great!
I don´t understand how we could end up with so much stuffs. Right now Mattias is putting up hooks & holders so we could organize our ski & gardening tools. Getting rids of junks really help organizing our thoughts, I thinks that´s what we need ,to straighten out what we really want in life. It´s great to listen to Mia "Self-esteem" CD together while working in the garage. Spring is the busiest time, it´s hard to find time for us to seat & read, so listening while working would really work for us.
Beside clearing our garage, I am also in the mid of creating a outdoor kitchen
in our sun-deck. I learned that it´s a sin to stay indoor when the weather is so beautiful & since I spend most time cooking, a outdoor kitchen enable me to enjoy the nice weather while cooking.(Will take pictures & share them here later).
It´s good that Nelina was at Moa birthday party so we could concentrate on re-organizing our garage & without feeling guilty she has no activities. Nelina had a great time, she told us what happened at the party, how she pity those who had suffered from problems with allergy. There were many types of allergy here, some were allergy to diary products, pollen, nuts, MSG, colored fruit & vegi, cats, dog, pets, flour, mushrooms , you name it. I never heard of allergy in Singapore, I think the air is too clean here & therefore people are rather sensitive to the environments.

Obs! one great news, I think we going to be a grand-parent soon!!!

I love barbecue food,I can eat them everyday! Last Saturday, after a hard day of work spring cleaning our garden it´s nice to finally settled down on our sun deck for a simple barbecue dinner. We are lucky to have plenty of sun until 9pm at our sun deck. I love the idea of to be able enjoy our dinner in the garden stresslessly & quietly. Watching Mattias enjoying his new hobby - barbecuing, the aroma of red wine & fragrant of ginger from the pork chop..hm...I won´t ask for more.

I am beginning to adjust to not eating carbohydrate this days.Instead, I eat alot of home-made soya bean sprout & salad to replace rice and it make me feel in control.
I make sure I drink plenty of water & tea to keep me from hydration. Fruit is something I can´t live without, so I try to eat extra to help me forget about potatoes chips & chilly nuts. The only thing I can´t resist is dessert, I love a good chocolate cake (I heard that is harmless) but I restrict myself to max 2 small piece.
Nelina is eating like a horse nowadays, it´s cheaper to bake our own brownie & cakes so she have something to fill her stomach when she´s back from school.

Mattias is not coming home today this give me a reason not to cook.
We ate all the left over from the fridge, it´s a waste to throw away food.
Nelina had red eye, I think it is due to the "heat". I made some Chrysanthemum tea
to treat her red eye due to yin deficiency.

I love strawberry, I can eat it all year round. A litre of fresh strawberry cost around $6-7. Strawberry is a typical summer fruit here.

I think we ate too much of the "yang" food the past 2 days. Nelina & myself are having score throats today. This is what my mum would called "heatyness", after the long cold winter the barbacue food has shocked our body system. Since we are sick, I made porridge for dinner, I am afraid that my diet just have to wait for a couple of days untill I recover. Porridge is what I normally eat whenever I got sick.It´s like "comfort food" to me, the liquid from the rice really helped to protect the stomach lining from the strong medicine. I am feeling much better now.

Mattias don´t like jelly or any thing that look like jelly. Just like I don´t like the local cakes & dessert. I find it too sweet for my taste. But he thinks that the coconut & banana pudding is nice. My friends Joyce (who own a Asian fast food restaurant here)told me once, Swedish has very different taste, (I am sure everyone do) it´s no point selling stuffs we used to eat in Asia. The Swedish don´t dare to order them. They don´t feel comfortable when ordering anything they are not familiar with. I think this is because eating out is too expensive for them. By ordering the popular food to them is safer for their wallet. Joyce had alot of ideas (those of which Asian would love to eat) She gave up the ideas & stick onto the normal "Swedish Asian Food", it´s normally fried noodle, sushi, spring rolls, sweet & sour chicken and satay, since this ideas won´t work here.
I believed this is the same situation in any Asian Restaurant out of Asia. If your business lied on the local most, then it´s wise to cater to the local taste.

That´s the same situation when I invite Swedish over for dinner, since they are too afraid to try new food so doing the normal "Asian Swedish Food" is safer.
Like today, we invited a couple who live next to my Parent-in-law for dinner, it will be Chicken Satay, spring rolls and Salmons Otak(First time making Otak here, will share the pic later here)
Likewise, when I was invited to dine with Swedish. They often add a tablespoon of curry or sambal paste in my food. I think they just want me to feel at home ,how sweet right?

Here are a few pictures of what I ate today. I had cabbage soup for breakfast & went out for 30 mins quick walk in the morning. Have´nt feel so energetic for a long time!
The fresh steamed tofu with salmons is really good, I like it! Mattias came back from his job with his dad Lars, so we had him for dinner. He tried a few pieces of the deep fried tofu and absolutely love it! They brought home a few cup cake from Kerstin 60th birthday and I had "ONLY" 1 cup cake for dessert...I just can not resist a cup cake which look so delicious! This only mean extra work-out tomorrow.
I personally don´t believe that we must follow everything mentioned in a diet food list. Diet has to be something that would not make us feel lousy or guilty. Diet is a matter of choices and should be fun & inspiring! Diet is long term healthy lifestyle! We are what we eat. It´s important to exercises regularly, as this small steps will make a big difference in a long term. I used to lost 12kg within a month with Atkins diet but the minutes I fall back on my previous eating habit, I started putting on weight again, quick!

A gift from Carrie




I really miss Carrie so I invited her for dinner tonight again..she is now on her way back to Piteå. We had such a great time, I wish she move back to Skellefteå again. Since I am on diet I thought Mung bean noodle salmons soup would be perfect! I lost 12kg within a month eating mung bean noodle nearly everyday 13 years ago.
Poor Carrie have to put up with me on my diet food. We had green tea bubble drink as desserts.OBS, I´d cheated a little here. Anyways, the bubble tea should cost me a 5km fast walk tomorrow. I don´t intend to starve myself, I think I properly use the Atkins diet method, it worked for me 13 years ago, hopefully it work this time too.