Stir-fry From Scratch

April 21, 2013November 25, 2014 ~ Sophie ~ 4 Comments

I love stir fries or rather frys(new word?!). I also love stir frys that are from scratch. Being able to whip up something amazing in just a few minutes from scratch is so awesome.Its double fun. I think. Anyway I wanted to share this recipe with you and I hope you enjoy. Remember you can substitute anything for anything.

What you will need:

1/2 C Eggplants cubed

1/4 C Carrots sliced

1/2 C French beans julienned

1/4C Mushrooms chopped

1/4 C Pineapples cubed

1/4C Chilli sauce

1 Tbsp Sesame seeds (roasted)

1/4C Tomatoes cubbed

1 Medium Onions diced

Salt

pepper

oil

In a frying pan, combine the first three ingredients with the oil. Cover and let cook for 3 minutes. Open and stir while adding salt, pepper and the next three ingredients. Cover and let cook for another 3 minutes. Lastly, add the sesame seeds, the tomatoes and the onions. Keep stirring for another three minutes. Remove from fire and let cool. Goes well with rice.

Note: The consistency will be half cooked crunchiness. If you want it to be more cooked, keep stirring until your desired feel.

Enjoy

PS: I suck at creating directions I hope you don’t mind mind.

🙂

Sophie

The Living Out Loud Challenge

April 13, 2013 ~ Sophie ~ 9 Comments

When this year started, I had a 25+ long list of resolutions. I made them simple and easy to achieve so I can get committed to them. One significant resolution was the living out loud challenge I set for myself after an inspiration on Pinterest. This challenge was supposed to be a-photo-a-day challenge but then I realized I do not have a camera to take daily pictures. I was determined to come up with something as creative and as fun as the photo-a-day challenge, after all I was still in the new year’s mood(feeling energetic, fresh and all). And so I decided to record extra ordinary moment in my life daily. Something that happened that put a smile to my face or that gave me a contented feeling. Daily. It made sense. I was to write them on small pieces of paper and then label them “Day 1, Day 2,…” Its seemed and sounded reasonable and ever since that day one(January 1 2013), I have been writing these notes. Of course I had to make sacrifices such as letting go of my personal journal but it was all worth it. There are times I read some old notes and I instantly remember what happened on those days. The challenge has been an aid in inspiring me and has brightened my days. In fact it has been so great and amazing that I have decided to expand it here on Rare Beauty as a feature by interviewing several different people. They will be able to share with us on how they strive to live an inspired life, a life full of meaning in this chaos that we all face daily. How they are able to overcome challenges and live out loud. We have one life and instead of looking for dust in the diamonds, we should focus more on looking for the diamonds in the dust. I hope you will be inspired by these amazing people. Stay tuned.

🙂

Sophie

On Improving Vocabulary

April 4, 2013 ~ Sophie ~ 2 Comments

It’s April 4 already and I didn’t get a chance to fool anyone! That sucks considering the fact that I was fooled more than a couple times. Anyway, today we are talking books (ok not really but sort of. I had no option but to photograph books. I hope they do justice to the post) and I remember way back in grade 6, our English teacher was really tough on us when it came to reading, spelling, cursive, book reports and spelling bees. She made sure we all did our assignments and participated in all the activities. By doing so my vocabulary memory grew real fast. Before I suffered the laziness disease, I read and read and read. And as time went by I realized that books would always be a part of me one way or another. On any given day one would find me engrossed in a text book whenever I ran out of books to read. Yeah that’s how much I read. But as time went by…changing schools, friends and many more factors, my reading habits started suffering an awful disease called laziness. Considering the fact that I read books for inspiration, and discovering new things, I began to feel less motivated and my vocabulary started to dwindle. What’s sad is that the busier I have become, the more I have stopped developing it. After a long time of thinking and re-evaluating my values (that sounds deep), I came up with a strategy to rekindle my vocabulary mastery. So here are the steps I created that have actually helped me although I am still struggling with step 2.

Make Time

First thing is that you gotta make time. In your daily activities, at least set aside 15-30 minutes of reading a chapter or page or more (if you aren’t a book worm already). When you make time, you will find your routine moving smoothly and you will progress.

2. Make a Commitment

It’s one thing to make time and another to be committed! You’ve got to make a commitment with yourself that you won’t miss a single day (it’s more of a new year’s resolution that stays put).

3. Collect Books

Yep. Collect books. Any books. If you are in college like me, you end up being surrounded by books most of the time. Make sure that you get books that you can actually get around to read (don’t get ‘A Nurse’s Guide to Drugs’ when you aren’t really interested in medicine or what happens in hospitals… you get what I mean). Remember to collect any books; they can even be E-books.

4. Read a Chapter/Book a Day

Reading is fun when you get yourself around it. Really! Make sure you read at least a chapter if not a whole book.

5. Identify ‘New’ Words

While reading, make a list of ‘new’ words or words that you are not quite sure of the meanings. And of course by ‘new’, I mean words new to your ears. Collect as many as you can find.

6. Have a Dictionary Around

After listing all the words you wanna know, look them up and familiarize yourself with the meanings, synonyms, and definitions. It’s much fun just having to flip through the dictionary to look up words. Well, at least I think so.

7. Practice the Words

Practice saying the words in your daily conversations. You can talk to family members, friends and workmates and when y ask what the words mean, gleefully answer them by reciting the meanings and encourage them to join you in the vocabulary building challenge.