Category: Eating Well

Brassica Vegetable

Now that my greenhouse is ready, I am embarking on planting leafy vegetables without the use of chemical herbicides or pesticides.  My latest experiment is in planting sawi (choy sum) and kailan, both of the Brassica family.  I love both this vegetables hence my choice of what I would like to start my vegetable project in the greenhouse was a no-brainer.  The sawi has a vivid green leaves whilst the kailan has a slightly bluish-tint to the green leaves.  The stems also differ with the sawi stems being a lighter, milky green whilst the kailan has a dark green stem. 

I started with seeding in beds and it took about 5 days for the little plants to start appearing.  Before seeding, I had prepared these beds carefully, breaking the soil and adding organic compost.  I love the feel of the rich and organic soil. 

Choosing to grow these vegetables as naturally as possible meant that a lot more effort was required.  Freequent manual weeding was required to ensure that the vegetables didn’t have to compete with the weeds for nutrients and water.  I also checked the leaves for any bugs – especially those leaf-eating ones and manually removed them.  Daily watering was required, sometimes two times a day, depending on the moisture in the soil.  Being blessed with having a clean water source, without any man-added chemicals, I was further assured of limiting polutants to my vegetables.

I have planted the vegetables in stages to ensure relatively constant supply, especially for my family and own consumption, with the remaining sold at my Sunday morning stall.
These leafy vegetables are best harvested either very early in the morning, just after Suboh, or late in the afternoon/early evening – just before Maghrib.  This ensures that the vegetables remain fresh longer.  Once harvested, I keep the roots moist to maintain its freshness until I cook it or take to market.

Both the sawi and kailan are rich in nutrients including iron, calcium, vitamin C, Bs and trace elements and minerals.  It is best cooked lightly or can be eaten raw for maximum nutritious values.  It can be an addition to salads. There are many benefits of these tasty vegetables:

• The cholesterol-lowering ability of these steamed greens is in their ability to bind bile acids in the digestive tract. When bile acid binding takes place, it is easier for the bile acids to be excreted from the body. Since bile acids are made from cholesterol, the net impact of this bile acid binding is a lowering of the body’s cholesterol level. It’s worth noting that steamed mustard greens (and all steamed forms of the cruciferous vegetables) show much greater bile acid binding ability than raw mustard greens.
• With its glucosinolates which are phytonutrients that provide us with unique health benefits because they can be converted into isothiocyanates (ITCs) that have cancer-preventive properties.
• The cancer protection we get from these greens may be largely related to two special glucosinolates found in this cruciferous vegetable: sinigrin and gluconasturtiian. Sinigrin can be converted into allyl-isothiocyanate (AITC) and gluconasturtiian can be converted into phenethyl-isothiocyanate (PEITC). Both AITC and PEITC have well-documented cancer-preventive and anti-inflammatory properties.

A simple but healthy vegetable dish would be stir-fried sawi with garlic where you can use olive oil or good vegetable oil and fry the garlic until soft before adding the stems of the sawi.  Once the cut stems are soft, just add the leafy portion of the sawi and salt to taste, and toss for about a minute and it is ready.

For the kailan, my favorite is kailan with salted fish.  I use the SHL salted fish.  First I would fry the cut salted fish until crispy.  Then I would use the same oil, albeit in reduced portion, to fry chopped red or yellow onions and garlic.  When they are soft, I add the stems of the kailan, cook until soft and then add the cooked salted fish along with the leaves of the kailan.  No additional salt required.

There are so many ways to consume this vegetable – can be added to your nasi goreng, mi goreng, mi rebus – it is limited by your imagination. So with its great taste and healthy benefits, try it – you may enjoy it 🙂

Eating Well – Fresh Water Fish

I am a firm believer that fish shouldn’t be fed carcasses of goats, chicken innards and other animal wastes as this will affect both the quality and taste of the fish.  My previous experiences of tasting keli and other fresh water fish had left me with an unfavorable memories.  Upon doing some research on what was fed to the fish and the water condition, it was no wonder that I do not enjoy the taste.
I decided to embark on my own journey of breeding and growing fresh water fish based on similar principles that I apply to my agricultural activities – going as natural as possible.  Hence began my adventures in aquaculture.

Pumping water for flushing

To begin with, utilizing the natural contour of the land as a basis, I deepened and widened the dried-up streams, following its flow, thus creating fish ponds that look like a small river on the farm.  The pond bottoms are not cemented but have a high content of sand, which was uncovered during the excavation process.  With the constant feed of water from clean upstream stream, the water quality is good and does not emit a noxious smell that is often associated with stagnant ponds.  Every quarter, I would do a major flush, pumping water from Sg. Lui into the pond, in effect renewing the water.
I use fish pellets that do not have land animal content in them, supplementing it with vegetation such as tapioca shoots and keladi shoots, to feed the fish.  Alhamdulillah, with the source of the water being from a nice clean river, there are also lots of small fresh water shrimps which the fish also happily consume.  These shrimps have taken residence in the pond so they continue to breed in there providing an on-going source of natural food for the fishes.
I am happy that my guests for Aidil Fitri 2010 open house gave favorable reviews on the taste of the fish.  For now, I have not put the fish on the market as I would like to increase the population as well as letting them grow to a good size of about 800g to 1 kg per fish.

Eating Well – Chicken Eggs

I am convinced that when we tinker with Mother Nature, there are consequences.  Take a simple item like chicken eggs.  If the hen layers have foreign elements injected into their life such as antibiotics, processed feed containing other than plant-based components, it is bound to end up in the chicken eggs.  The impact in humans may vary from person to person, depending on what we a susceptible to and knowledge on the impact is also very much a mystery.

With this in mind, I try to improve on my well-being with my own production of chicken eggs.  The eggs may not be as big as those available at supermarkets but to me, they are definitely healthier. At least I know what goes into the production of these eggs.
Since I am not able to eat the chicken that I raise, I only consume the eggs.  Somehow, I am unable to reconcile to slaughtering my own chickens, after all, I have named many of them.  At the farm, the average number of eggs produced per week is 22 but I hope with the new chicks born on the farm, the production can increase in the near future.

The chickens happily run around the farm ( or at least, that is what I assume), pecking at vegetation amd those insects and worms that seem to be tasty to them, hence my aversion and self-implemented ban to any chemical pesticide and weed killers usage on the farm except on the outer fence of the farm.  Hence, I have to resort to more creative ways to control pests and weeds.