Wednesday, 31 July 2019

Fat Stubby Okra (Lady's Finger) - Harvesting The First Fruit.

I have planted normal green okra, long green okra, and red okra. Okra is also know as lady's fingers. One evening a friend passed me some okra seeds and she told me that this is the very short stubby okra specie. And she also gave me 2 short stubby okras to try. Definitely, I am interested and excited to grow this okra in my garden!
This is the short stubby okra flower and below it, you can see a tiny okra.
Can you also see some tiny white specks on the stems and leaves? These are the pests and to keep the bugs from destroying my plants, I washed the bugs off the plants with water on alternate mornings.
The first fruit of the short stubby okra. 
The 1 inch short stubby okra and more buds above it.
One morning, I harvested 3 long angled luffas and 1 short stubby okra from my garden.
Short stubby okra - the first fruit from my garden.
It is about 3.75 inch in length and about 1.5 inch in diameter.
Since I was cooking sambal stinky beans with prawns, I added the one and only short stubby okra to the dish. Taste wise, it is more crunchy than the other okra species. Waiting for more short stubby okras to harvest.
I also used the angled luffa to cook this simple dish.
Just garlic, luffa and egg.
The dancing ladies orchid is blooming again. As the breeze blew and moved these yellow flowers, they looked are dancing ladies.


Praise him with the trumpet and with lute and harp.
Praise him with the drums and dancing.
Praise him with stringed instruments and horns.
Praise him with the cymbals, yes, lour clanging cycmbals.
Let everything alive give praises to the Lord! You praise him!
Hallelujah!
(Psalm 150:3-6, The Living Bible-TLB)

Tuesday, 30 July 2019

Terracotta Warriors - Miniature Wonders Art Gallery, Ipoh

This is the continuation of our visit to the Miniature Wonders Art Gallery. If you have missed the first post, you can click here to enjoy the pictures of "Life In Ancient China". To view the exhibits on the next level, we paid RM 5 per person.
 A chance to get an idea of how the Terracotta warriors were made.
The Terracotta army is a part of a massive burial tomb built for Emperor Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China. (From Wikipedia)
It is a form of funerary art buried with the emperor in 210-209 BCE with the purpose of protecting the emperor in his afterlife. The figures were discovered in 1974 by local farmers in Lintong County, outside Xi'an, Shaanxi, China. (From Wikipedia)
 Feasting and performance
Heavily guarded
 A close up view of sword fighting performance
Side view
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The making of Terracotta Warriors of China
Terracotta warriors were sculptured into shapes and dried slowly.
There are many huts on the scene to shade the figurines. 

These carts were used for transporting the figurines.
  
After having dried thoroughly, the figurines can be fired in the kiln to become ceramic terracotta warriors which can be permanently preserved.
 The sculptured figurines were ready to be fired in these kilns.







The terracotta warriors, weighing hundreds of kilos had to be transported to a depth of 6 to 7 meters deep pit. Ancient Qin people used small wood stick roll and long rope to sent it beveling down to the bottom of the pit.  
 The terracotta figures are life-sized and most held real weapons.
 The figures and their uniforms shows their different rank and positioned accordingly. The formation also includes terracotta horses.

  The first exhibition of the figures outside of China was held at National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne in 1982.
 This visit to the art gallery gave me an opportunity to see the miniature terracotta warriors without having to travel to China to see the actual ones.


Don't be impatient for the Lord to act!
Keep traveling steadily along his pathway and
in due season he will honor you with every blessing,
and you will see the wicked destroyed.
(Psalm 37:34, The Living Bible-TLB)

Monday, 29 July 2019

Bak Kut Teh For Lunch At Sik Wong Restaurant, Ipoh

It was a Monday afternoon. We had to go to town to get something done.
It was a hot day.
This was before the lunch hour peak so the traffic was still smooth.
We finished whatever we need to do in town and drove back to Falim. We haven't decided what to eat for lunch until we saw this new restaurant.
100 Plus for hubby and herbal tea for me.
Condiments: Cut bird's eye chilies and chopped raw garlic.
Cut chilies in soy sauce for me and garlic with black soy sauce for hubby.
Bak Kut Teh (Pork ribs in herbal soup). We were informed that this is the northern state version unlike the popular Klang version.
This soup with coriander leaves was for me. Hubby not a fan of coriander leaves. The soup is lighter in colour. When we were approached for our review, we commented that the soup is milder in taste.
Bak Kut Teh (dry version) - this is very flavourful and yummy!
I was hungry and I was able to finish one bowl of rice all by myself!
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That evening, we had home cooked dinner.
Stewed pork ribs with salted black beans and home grown white bitter gourds.
Chinese mustard (gai choy) with prawns, egg, ginger and Chinese cooking wine.

You cause grass to grow for the livestock
and plants for people to use.
You allow them to produce food from the earth -
wine to make them glad, olive oil to soothe their skin,
and bread to give them strength.
(Psalm 104:14-15, New Living Translation-NLT)

Saturday, 27 July 2019

Cooking Home Grown White Radish Soup

This is my first time growing white radish. The radish plants are grown in 4 black plastic bags, about 4 plants in a bag. 
I have been checking on the plants and looking out for the white radish root. Since its my first time, I am not very sure how long it will take to harvest. After about 2 months, I pulled out 3 plants and only 1 radish was quite well formed. The other two radishes were still small.
I used the harvested radishes to cook soup with carrot, roasted pig leg, red dates and wolf berries.
I also cooked my home grown angled luffa with dried prawns.
This is my home cooked white radish soup.
This was our dinner for 2 people.
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Dinner for the next day.
Again, I cooked soup, this time using angled luffa, carrot, prawns, egg, etc.
We ate this soup with noodle.
 One early Sunday morning, we went to Ipoh old town to pay our credit card.
Next, we had breakfast in Ipoh old town. Walked back to the car and saw these puppies. They are waiting for kind souls to adopt them. The puppy looking up was barking at me earlier as if to say, "Woof, woof, please take me home with you!". I wish I could....

Linking to Saturday's Critters.

His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us
into his own family by sending Jesus Christ to die for us.
And he did this because he wanted to!
(Ephesians 1:5, The Living Bible-TLB)