Growing Yellow Cucumber In My Garden

I had a chance to visit a vegetable farm once and at that time they were growing cucumbers. I learned from there that yellow cucumber (which we use for boiling soup) does not grow from the same cucumber plant (which we use for salad or pickle). I tried growing yellow cucumber from the seeds I obtained from a yellow cucumber which I used to boil soup. If you are interested, you can click here to visit the post. That plant produced only 1 yellow cucumber because the plant was infested and destroyed by pests.

For the 2nd time, I used seeds bought from a plant nursery. There were very few seeds in the sachet, so I sowed all the seeds. Only 3 seedlings sprouted and after they were transplanted into the big pot, only 2 survived. Their flowers are similar to the normal green cucumbers.

This is the first fruit. It started like normal green cucumber.

This is the 2nd fruit.

It is shorter and broader than the normal green cucumber.

It also has tiny prickly things on the skin.

It started to turn yellowish when the fruit is about 2 weeks.

From the 2 vines, we only got 3 medium and 1 small sized yellow cucumbers.

Cucumber plants are prone to attract pests.

I noticed that the leaves were beginning to turn yellow and there were no signs of new fruits on the vines.

One day I noticed this little cucumber hanging from the lower part of the vine, almost touching the soil.

Daily I have been watching and waiting to harvest the first fruit.

Then I noticed tiny crack lines on the outer yellow skin.

When I harvested the above first fruit, it was about a month old. I used it to boil soup with pork rib, carrot, red dates, wolf berries, and cuttlefish.

Yellow cucumber (lou wong kua) soup.

Yellow cucumber soup is very popular in Malaysia, especially for Chinese families. It has "cooling" properties and is good for our warm and humid weather. It is also high in nutrients and vitamins. A soup good for the old and young.

Young men are admired for their strength.

Old men are honored for their experience.

(Proverbs 20:29, International Children's Bible-ICB)

Yellow Cucumber Soup, Fried Fish & Mui Choy Kau Yuk For Dinner

This was last month, 5th Saturday. Under EMCO, we cannot dine-in, so hubby went out on his motorcycle to buy take away (tapau) for breakfast.

I requested for flat rice noodle with shredded chicken meat and prawn (kai si hor fun). This time they didn't give enough of the red oil. Taste was ok even though look was not ok.

Hubby wanted to buy stewed chicken feet with mushroom noodle but it was not available, so he just bought plain rice vermicelli tossed with soy sauce, etc.

He picked only 3 pieces of fried items to go with the plain noodle.

This was our first meal of the day.

Pretty pink Mexican petunia from my garden.

~~~~~

Dinner.

I harvested the first yellow cucumber from my garden.

Ingredients used: 1 yellow cucumber, carrot, red dates, wolf berries, dried cuttlefish, and pork ribs. Gave a big bowl of soup to our neighbour.

Fried fish.

Almost hidden underneath the generous amount of crispy ginger strip and chopped garlic, soy sauce and fragrant ginger and garlic oil.

Mui choy kau yuk (pork belly with preserved vegetable)

(from our neighbour)

This was our dinner.

I have finally cleared all the fish from the fridge.

~~~~~

The following photos were taken when we visited the Kampar Tin Mining Museum in 2015.

Tin Mining - Gravel Pump Method.

2 life sized female models of dulang washers using dulang tray and water to separate the tin ore from the sand.

Linking to Happy Tuesday, Image-in-ing & Tuesday's Treasures.

Keep your eye on the innocent. Model your life after the blameless.

Everyone who loves peace has a future.

(Psalm 37:37, The Voice-Voice)

Fish Noodle Breakfast At Kopitiam Huan Le

In yesterday's post, I took my friends to Restoran Yei Lock, Jalan Kampar for "Lenggong" noodles. If you have missed the post, you can click here if you are interested. After breakfast, we made another appointment to meet up again for the next day's breakfast. We were able to dine-in because it was 2 days before lockdown (MCO2.0). 

Breakfast at Kopitiam Huan Le, Taman Pertama (First Garden), Ipoh.

For 4 people, we ordered 3 bowls of Fish Noodles (rice vermicelli) with wine added. Hubby and I shared a bowl of noodle.

We also ordered the above items consisting of fried beancurd sheet, stuffed beancurd sheet, stuffed green chilies, fried tofu and fried dumplings.

This kopitiam serves very good coffee. We ordered 3 hot coffee and 1 coffee with ice. Our friend also ordered a bowl of herbal tea to try as it was their first time here. Future breakfast appointment will have to wait until the lockdown is lifted.

This bright yellow, bigger than palm size hibiscus never fails to cheer us up even on a day with gray sky.

~~~~~

Simple home cooked dinner for 2 people.

Sweet potato leaves harvested from my front garden sauteed with ready made sambal belacan bought from Penang.

Yellow or old cucumber soup with carrot, goji berries, red dates and pork. This time I didn't use pork ribs. Instead, I use pork with soft bones or cartilage which is called "yuen kuat" in Cantonese.

When it comes to soup, some people will only drink the soup and leave behind the rest. As for me, I will drink the soup and eat the remaining items such as the old cucumber, carrot, and pork. 

This was a no rice dinner.

If we get hungry later, we will have a cup of hot milo plus some light snack.

Be careful - watch out for attacks from Satan, your great enemy.

He prowls around like a hungry, roaring lion,

looking for some victim to tear apart.

Stand firm when he attacks.

Trust the Lord; and remember that other Christians

all around the world are going through these suffereings too.

(1 Peter 5:8-9, The Living Bible-TLB)

Winter Melon & Pork Rib Soup

A friend gave me a small winter melon. I usually use winter melon to cook sweet drink (tong sui) and soup. I used two-third of the winter melon to cook sweet drink with dried longan and loh hon kor. For this sweet drink, I didn't add any sugar because the sweetness from the loh hon kor and longan is enough for us. The remaining one-third of the winter melon was used for boiling soup.

Winter Melon & Pork Rib Soup - my dinner.

Ingredients used: winter melon, pork rib, carrot, and red dates.

Winter melon soup with noodle - hubby's dinner

No carrot for him because he doesn't like carrot.

Peace Lily (spathiphyllum) from my garden.

Love the pure white colour of the petal.

This type of insect is attracted to the flower spadix.

Few days ago, a friend sent me some nice images which was taken in Kiara Park. Below is an image and a video of a weird looking beetle.

Trilobite beetle (Platerodrilus)

Photo credited to: AshleyJ/Nyappy.

Trilobite beetle (Platerodrilus)

Video credited to: AshleyJ/Nyappy.

Linking to Garden Affair & Saturday's Critters.

But you, Timothy, man of God: Run for your life from all this.

Pursue a righteous life-a life of wonder, faith, love, steadiness, courtesy.

Run hard and fast in the faith. Seize the eternal life, the life you were called to,

the life you so fervently embraced in the presence of so many witnesses.

(1 Timothy 6:11-12, The Message-MSG)

Home Cooked Old Cucumber Soup With Pork

Some days, we don't feel like eating noodles so we ended up ordering some fried stuffs from the noodle stall at our regular coffee shop. Hubby ordered unsweetened black coffee and I ordered herbal tea. Then I ordered 4 pieces of fried bean curd sheet with fish paste+nestum, 2 pieces of fried wonton and 2 pieces of fried tofu.

Simple breakfast for hubby and I.

Most days I ordered herbal tea without the egg. Some times I will order herbal tea with the hard boiled egg.

~~~~~

Back in my garden.

Aglaonema - Thai Beauty.

Croton - green and yellow leaves.

Ixora buds.

Red Dragon Fruit plants grown from seeds. The plants are still in a small pot. I have not decided where to place these Dragon Fruit plants because these plants have long and sharp thorns.

My creamy white fragrant Gardenia blooms.

Firecrackers flowers.

Purple orchids

~~~~~

Home cooked dinner.

A friend gave me an old cucumber. I used it to boil soup with carrot, red dates, goji berries and pork with the skin on.

I took out the pork from the soup when it was cooked just right, cut it into pieces and serve in a separate plate.

I used sambal belacan with some lime juice and soy sauce as dipping sauces for the pork.

This is our home cooked dinner without any rice. The leftover or whatever pork we could not finish, we kept for next day's lunch.

Linking to Wordless Wednesday & My Corner of the World.

This Good News tells us that God makes us ready for heaven

- makes us right in God's sight -

when we put our faith and trust in Christ to save us.

This is accomplished from start to finish by faith.

As the Scripture says it,

"The man who finds life will find it through trusting God."

(Romans 1:17, The Living Bible-TLB)