My other top ingredients: black & white sesame seeds!!

Who of you loves the sesame seeds? I'm addicted to them! Unfortunately in the past period I had to quit having them in order not to aggravate my hay fever. Just a week ago I began to use them a little bit. I usually roast them and put them in my salad bowl (together the grated fresh ginger they are irresistible). Moreover, I often cook chicken with the sesame seeds. I prefer mixing the black and white ones because they present better and it's too hard to see when the black ones are roasted enough. When the white ones become brown then the black ones are ready too.

The sesame seeds are not only decorative and aromatic, but they are also very healthy. Sesame seeds help reduce blood cholesterol. They are a good source of calcium and contain a high amount of antioxidant phytic acid. The nutrients of sesame seeds are better absorbed if they're ground or roasted before consumption.

Today I'd like to introduce you one of my quick, easy and yummy recipe of spinach and sesame seeds. All you need is: about 500g. of spinach, 1 onion, 2 spoons of olive oil, 1 tea spoon of sesame oil, 1-2 spoons of Japanese soy sauce, a little bit of salt and a handful of black & white sesame seeds.

- Firstly, roast the sesame seeds in a small pan until they get brown and let out the fragrance.

- In a large pan, warm the olive oil, put the sliced onion and after some minutes, put the spinach little by little. Mix them well and let them cook for about 10 minutes.

- Then add the sesame oil, the soy sauce and a little bit of salt. Stir well.

- They're ready, serve the yummy spinach in a plate adding the roasted sesame seeds on top.

My top ingredients: Thai basil, chillies and garlic

I'm back with a hot & spicy tip ;) There're some ingredients I must keep in my kitchen such as chillies, garlic, fresh ginger, soy sauce, fish sauce, Thai basil leaves, coriander leaves, black & white sesame, curry powder and limes. Thanks to the Mediterranean climate, I'm able to grow many Thai plants. Some days ago, I was watching the TV program "Masterchef Junior Australia", I felt proud to see the kids using Thai basil, which is my favorite herb!

The combination of garlic, chillies and Thai basil is superb. They're great with meat, fishes, seafood, eggplant, pasta, spaghetti, in a few words they fit well with what you want! In these days I had many Thai basil leaves and chilies to use, so I've been cooking everything with them each day. Believe me, they're delicious and digestive.

For this plate, I simply stir-fried a little bit of chopped garlic and small cattlefishes with a spoon of olive oil. Then I added the Thai basil leaves and sliced chillies and continued to stir-fry for some minutes. I added a spoon of fish sauce (you can replace it with salt) and served them with Thai jasmine rice. Very easy but superb!

This's fine for vegetarians. I stir-fried chopped garlic, Thai basil and chillies with beans, mushrooms and Jasmine rice. Adding some soy sauce makes the rice tasty and brown.

These are all for now. I'll be back with some more ingredients ;)

Visiting Thailand in 2.54 minutes

This's too cool and I just have to share!!
Thanks to my friend Som who found it out...
and a big applause for the video's creator
Bangkok is always my paradise (despite its chaos)

Please enjoy....

A cool beverage & nutrient snack

These are my beverage and snack at the moment: Iced Ginger Juice with honey and Bruschette (roasted bread rounds) with Linseeds. The ginger juice is very digestive and the bruschette are rich in fiber and Omega-3. They're great for your afternoon break in summer time ;-)

Brain & Heart

The difference that makes sense

I'm not particularly a fan of Lady Gaga but I watch her performances with pleasure. As any worldwide famous public figures, she's always got many compliments and complaints. For her eccentricity, people talk about her in both positive and negative ways. Yesterday she was performing a big live concert at Bangkok. I've read that she felt very happy that Thai people welcomed her a lot and that she felt embraced. As you may know, some muslim and buddhist countries banned her performance. She might have been a bit surprised of how Thailand treated her.

As I mentioned before, I don't feel a particular sympathy towards her but I have nothing against her either. I somehow like some of her phrases. When she has an interview, I think she says things that make sense. Her odd ways of dressing and acting may get beyond the substance.

This post has something to do with my previous one. The "normality" I meant wasn't the way people always get used to. Sometimes we should dare to be different.

The sense of normality

It's too easy to lose the sense of normality. We often think what we're used to do/see or what many people are doing/seeing is normal. If others do it, you should do it too so you're considered "normal". On the other hand, you want to act differently but you feel ashamed or you're afraid of what people will think about you, so you end up with doing like others. I don't like this concept at all. I'm the one who loves reflecting and giving value to things by myself and caring less about others' comments. However, it's not that easy because you want to avoid complications or bad experiences, so you just agree with others.

This isn't intended to be a complaint, but I just would like to persuade all of us to question ourselves more often if what is considered normal is "really" normal. The world is becoming weird, more people are going insane, isn't this perhaps because we're losing the true sense of normality?