Lazy Cooking: Bistek

Ingredients:
1/2 kilo beef (lean)
vinegar
soy sauce
brown sugar
2 cloves garlic
1 large/medium-sized onion
3 bell peppers
salt and pepper to taste

1.  Cut beef into thin slices.
2.  Mix together vinegar, soy sauce and brown sugar. The ratio of these ingredients can  be 5:3:1 (for instance, 5 tbsp of soy sauce to 3 tbsp of vinegar to 1 tbsp of brown sugar), or you can also change it according to your preference.
3. Add in roughly chopped onion and garlic. Also add in the thinly-sliced beef.
4. Mix ingredients thoroughly until all beef slices have been covered in marinade.
5. Marinate for at least an hour (or overnight, if you want to have more flavor on your bistek).
6.  After marinating, slow-cook both meat and marinade, stirring occasionally until the marinade almost dries up. Add about a teaspoon of oil to the cooking meat, then add the julienned bell peppers. Add salt and pepper to taste. Cook until the bell peppers are soft.

Lazy Cooking: Corned Beef Patties

Ingredients:

left-over corned beef (about a cup)
1 egg
1 teaspoon coating powder (or cornstarch)
1 onion, finely chopped
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
salt and pepper, to taste
cooking oil

Steps:
1. Mix together: corned beef, egg, coating powder, onion, garlic, salt and pepper.
2. Get a spoonful of the mixture, form it into a ball and flatten using the palm of your hand to turn it into a   patty. Repeat step 2 until all of the mixture has been shaped into patties.
3. Heat cooking oil on a pan. Use enough oil so as to deep-fry the patties. Make sure that the oil is hot enough in order to prevent the patties from sticking to the pan. Fry until both sides become pinkish-brown.
4. Drain excess oil by placing cooked patties on a paper towel first, before finally transferring into a serving plate.

Easy as 1, 2, 3 right? ^_^

Detox For a Healthier Me

photo courtesy of  coloncleansertalk.com 

Over the past few days, I find myself thinking that I should take care of my health better simply because I am not getting any younger. I am already 30 years old and like it or not, my body's immune system will not always be at its optimum condition, especially if I don't make the effort to keep it at that state.

I am a "fried-food junky", a meat-eating couch potato who would not refuse a piece of fried chicken, a bag of fries or some slices of pizza any day. In short, i like food that are greasy and deep-fried, which I certainly know is bad for my health.

So, i keep thinking about trying out a 'detox diet', just to see if I can feel any improvement in my body, health-wise. I haven't done any thorough research about the types of food that can help detoxify the body but I've heard snatches of conversation that green tea is a detoxifying kind of beverage. Of course there are a number of fruits and vegetables that can help a lot in detoxifying the body, but since I'm not into those kinds of food, I still have to choose which among those I can actually eat on a daily basis (or as often as I can).

So far, the different kinds of food that are included on my list are:

Garlic
Apples
 Ponkan
Green Tea

Any suggestions? :)

Haemorrhagic Conjunctivitis

At the beginning of the year, in the middle of February, I experienced what is commonly called "sore eyes". I didn't know where I got it from, but a week before I had it, two of my nieces also got it.

At first, I decided to just let it run its course, because from what I read on the Internet, "sore eyes" or conjunctivitis usually goes away after a week. I did not try to treat the dryness and the itchyness of my eyes. Even if both of my eyes were very swollen, i still took comfort at the thought that this will all go away after a week.

However, on the fourth day, I woke up and I noticed bloodstains on my pillow. Looking at the mirror, I saw (in a blurry vision) that there were dried, bloody discharges surrounding my left eye. Again, I stood by my decision to just let it be and not have any medicine from it because from what I read, haemorrhagic conjunctivitis is a self-limiting condition (read: it will go away on its own).

since i failed to take a picture of my own "bloody eyes", i included a picture of how haemorrhagic conjunctivitis looks like (credit to the owner of the pic, www.stlukeseye.com)

But, It had been more than a week and there were still no improvements with both of my eyes. Both would still have bloody discharges, especially after I wake up from sleep. I finally decided to have my eyes checked by an Opthalmologist. In my check up with him, I told him that I did not take any medicine prior to the check up because that was what I thought was best. He told me though that that belief is already untrue, as there are already medicine that can help speed up the healing process.

medicine for my "bloody eyes"

True enough, after several drops of the medicine (Exopred Eye drops), I could already see considerable improvement on both eyes. It felt really good seeing both of my eyes slowly return to normal again. If only I had my eye checked the day I felt I had sore eyes, I wouldn't have waited more than 2 weeks for my eyes to get better. Oh well, a lesson learned. ^_^