When The Cold Bug Strikes

stomatitis

I was down with colds for about week or two and the stomatitis on my inner cheeks made it even worse. Stomatitis can be very painful because it makes food ingestion such an agony which is of course not good when you're sick, you have to nourish yourself with food and heaps and heaps of liquid because nothing beats water therapy. I guess the sudden temperature drop and cold bug I caught from our household was the culprit along with my not so strong immune system which of course I often attribute to age. When you live in a household with people, you catch whatever pathogens and cold bug they have especially when they're about to heal, the virus jumps to another unarmed or should I say next person with a weak immune system. I just recovered from colds few days ago and found a home remedy for my stomatitis by mixing equal parts of water and  hydrogen peroxide, an automatic antibacterial gargle which not only reduced the swelling and pain but hastened the healing process in the absence of an antibacterial/mouthwash. How come I never knew that before? Gargling with hot water mixed with salt did not help neither maybe it's 'cuz I have a small lesion inside my mouth. Anyways, I'm glad the inflammation is somewhat gone as I feel a whole lot better now. I also had tons of ginger ale with honeybee, an excellent natural antibiotic. 

Moving on, I have been busy learning new things. I've been using mug cake recipes to make one of those easy bake cup cakes for my niece's packed lunch which I have the recipe below. I used an electric/convection oven for this by the way so I don't know how it will work for conventional ovens. 

Basic Moist Cupcake Recipe 

(Makes 3 tiny cupcakes)

• 5 Tbsp. Flour
• 1/8 tsp. baking powder 
• 4 Tbsp. Sugar
• 3 Tbsp. Milk
• 3 Tbsp. Canola Oil
• 1 Egg
• 1/2 tsp. Vanilla Extract
• 1/2 Tbsp. Matcha or Purple Yam powder (optional for flavor)
• Chocolate Chips (topping; add as you please)

-Mix wet ingredients first, add in sugar. Set aside.

-Sift all dry ingredients together then mix with wet ingredients. 

-Preheat oven at 200•C (10mins)

-Bake for 18-25mins. toothpick checks in between.

my version of Bento featuring my home-baked 
Ube/purple yam cupcake.

Bento 🍱

I have been stoked watching Japanese ASMR food videos on YouTube lately and thought I want to make my own Bento meals someday and so I did. An ASMR video by the way is often a no talk cooking/food making video wherein you won't hear anything but the clanking of kitchen utensils, sound of a gas burner being switched on, water pouring, clattering of grains etc. It's just so satisfying to watch really. Here are some of my favorite Japanese YouTubers who does ASMR food making vids just to site a few. 

JunsKitchen - This guy surely love cats like I do. He's got excellent plating skills and is very fluent in English. 

Cook Kafemaru - She's got awesome Bento meal and dessert ideas. I like her video editing style as well, simple & very straightforward

Peaceful Cuisine - This guy is a professional Chef obviously. I love the way he presents his cooking videos, very clean and precise.