Can you guess what this bag is made from?

28/01/10 - It's made from recycled recycled construction fencing!

Courtesy - via swiss-miss

Homemade Sourdough Bread

My friend, hosy, came back from a trip to the US. She was visiting her friend and he gave her some sourdough starter, which she shared with me. I love making my own bread, but I've never tried sourdough. I have to feed the starter every week with 1 cup of warm water and 1 cup of flour. Initially, my dough failed to rise, and then I realised that the starter needed to be warmed up to room temp before I could do anything with it.

I followed this recipe using my bread machine to do all the kneading (yes, I'm lazy!).

Here's my starter. This is what it should look like after you have fed it and let it sit for more than 2 hours. I took my starter out of the fridge, let it sit til room temp, added 1C warm water and 1C flour and let it sit some more - the longer it sits, the more sour it gets.

I then mixed 2 cups of the starter with the 1tbsp butter (I used olive oil), 1/2 C warm milk, 1tsp salt and 1 tbs sugar (see below). I poured this mixture and the flour into my bread machine.

After all the mixing, I put the dough into a bread tin and let the former rise until the top of the tin. Bake at 375F for 10 mins followed by 350F for another 30-40 mins. Yummy!

My old coat from H&M

This is the extremely old and out of fashion coat I'm refashioning. It's at my chop shop and in progress. Yes, it's big, and YES, I could be a convict on the run! According to my hubby that's what they wear, or rather that's what they show in the HK movies. Well, at least I don't look like the Michelin man!

Frugal Board game - Snakes and Ladders

My son learnt how to play snakes and ladders at school, and he has asked me whether we have the game.... erm, no..... Haven't had the time to buy it either... but today, we could play Snakes and Ladders by using an old calendar, scissors and colour pencils. We had fun deciding where the ladders and snakes would be. Start would be at day 30, and the winner would have to get to day 1. We didn't have a dice so we cut days 1 to 6 and took turns to take them out of the bag. The only downside is that my son got confused with which way to go as the numbers are not in order, but he soon got the hang of it and had lots of fun - we played it soooooo many times.

If you get tired of the game, you can redesign it with another month of the calendar! To make it more exciting for the whole family, the large floor tiles can be designed as the board game with washable crayons. Each member of the family would be the moveable piece :-) There won't be a giant dice, but fun all the more !

How many do you have?

Ever since we had the Bring Your Own Bag campaign, the retail industry has been churning out lots of reusable bags of all sorts of shapes and sizes. They can be free with a purchase, or you can buy them at the counter for a couple of dollars (well, that's if you are not going for an Envirosax bag!).


I have 13 reusable bags (see pic below), and they all came free. I don't know why we were handed out teeny reusable bags as gifts, and I told colleague 1 that I didn't need one (why do I?). My other colleague decided that she didn't need one either, to which colleague 1 said "Are you sure? It's free?".

Top row - ACCA bag from a tax seminar I went to; KK hospital after I gave birth (4 yrs old and still sturdy); 2 freebies from ??

Middle row - light blue bag from an insurance org; burgandy bag with extra padding from Maxims HK (good for my lunch box); green drawstring from Toto; AVA bag advertising the benefits of eating frozen meat (good for the supermarket)

Bottom row - freeby from office; bag from Hang Seng Bank HK (from sis-in-law); from a friend who chose to gift wrap my pressie with a reusable bag; Recycling Day bag from NEA; bag from Hang Ten (don't think they give them anymore, this was 5 yrs ago)

I think it's time to stop taking them. In fact, I think the industry should stop manufacturing them. We have too many and eventually most of them will sit in our drawers and never get used !


This post is inspired by : How big is your bag-for-life mountain?

Ugggghhh....

Uuggggghhhh....It's only Jan.... and it's been very slow in terms of blogging and doing my reconstructions, yet awfully busy with work. In fact, work has turned into one big non-stop rollercoaster ride; I'm not enjoying it anymore (neither is my colleague). I have been lugging my laptop home EVERYDAY...

I have no time to finish my latest project. My trip back to HK for Chinese New Year is approaching and I'm tearing my old coat from uni years (for those who know me, yes, it's THAT old) and trying to get it to fit me. I'm leaving in 3 weeks time.... if I don't complete it now, it will have to wait another year .... Nooooooo.....

My son's preschool is doing a recycling project, or rather an arts & crafts project with recyclables. They are tasked to take 2 toilet rolls (minus the paper) and an empty milk carton. I hope they do explain what recycling is. Maybe it's time to whip out the Charlie & Lola video. Have a nice wkend all!