Perfect rice!

I’m in love with my new kitchen toy: the rice maker. It makes the most delicious brown rice ever!!!

I have three delicious meals to share today, so let’s start.

Breakfast: fage + aduki beans + coconut butter.

It is delicious and filling. Coconut and aduki is a magic combo. It reminds me the aduki aduki mousse.

Lunch: mashed cauliflower + baked salmon + sauteed mushrooms

mashed cauliflower: 1/2 head of steamed cauliflower, 1 tbsp butter, salt, pepper and 2 tbsp of almond milk. I don’t like mashed potatoes, but I love this!

And the brown rice. 1 cup of brown rice, fill water just at the 1 cup line for brown rice

choose brown rice option

about 2 hours later. the best homemade brown rice ever!!! And I didn’t even soak it! I was really amazed. Usually I’d soak the rice over night and still don’t get this. I’m soooo happy with this purchase. Thank you, Maggie.

and then I wanted to recreate the squash tofu that I had in Soeun

I forgot the tofu and used only veggies that I had: 2 mini eggplants, chinese cabbage, broccoli and kabocha

steam it for 10 min while I made the sauce: white miso paste (1/4 cup), tahini (2 tbsp), ginger and garlic

all to the food processor + 1/2 cup water

done

heat the sauce in a wok

add steamed veggies

cook for 5-10 min until veggies are done.

Serve

Dinner: veggies in miso-tahini sauce served with brown rice

It was really good (although still not as good as Soeun’s). I enjoy it so much! I thought I didn’t like rice anymore… I was wrong. Now I want to eat rice everyday!!!

Q: Have you re-fall in love with any food recently?

 

Bread lover~~

I love bread!!! I love baking it, I love smelling it, I love eating it!

Every time I have bread as meal, I feel satisfy. Every time I bake breads, I feel accomplished.

I’m glad that I’m not in a low-carb diet. I’m glad that I’m not gluten intolerant. I’m glad to be in US that offers so many varieties of breads!

heheheh…. that was a long quote about my love to breads! And as a true lover, I love  breads in all forms and source, not only those that I bake

for lunch I had a sandwich made with Rudi’s organic 100% whole wheat bread. They asked me if I’d like to review their bread because recently Every Day with Rachael Ray magazine awarded Rudi’s Organic Bakery’s 14 Grain Sandwich Bread top honors in the multigrain category. Guess what I said: Of course!! more bread = happier Coco

I’ve never made sandwich bread by myself and I doubt I’ll be able to make it as good as this one. It’s dense but soft enough to be qualified as a sandwich bread (I don’t like low-carb or low-cal bread because of their last of texture and taste). It’s slightly sweet thanks to organic brown sugar and molasses.

I used 3 oz. of baked salmon to make a spread over lettuce and mushroom

some ketchup too

wrap it, grab an apple and I had my lunch ready to be enjoyed in the seminar

It was also used for breakfast.

LC and homemade apple butter

grill for 5 min and ready to be devoured

served with more apple (I have <10 apples left from the 30 lbs batch )

I also had several slices of the bread, PLAIN, no toasted, no spread, PLAIN! That shows how much I like the bread, right? heheh….

On other note. I want to share with you a recent purchase that I didn’t like.

Coffee au lait in the morning is sacred for me, but with all the controversies about milk… I tried to find a substitute. I got this Coconut Milk Creamer. It’s made with ORGANIC COCONUT MILK (ORGANIC COCONUT CREAM, WATER, GUAR GUM), ORGANIC EVAPORATED CANE JUICE, COLORED WITH TITANIUM DIOXIDE, DIPOTASSIUM PHOSPHATE, CARRAGEENAN. It is creamy but it is tasteless!!! Although it’s made originally with coconut milk, it’s highly processed, so the end produce is just an artificial product that looks like cream but tastes nothing. So, I decided to stick to organic milk (preferable whole milk because it tastes better and it’s less processed). Just remind myself that Everything in moderation leads to good health and good mind

Q: Have you tried anything recently that turns out not as good as you thought?

Lunch at Good Health & Pumpkin scone

Sunday before I left NYC, Maggie took me to another of her favorite restaurant: Good Health

the place is small and very familiar. Perfect for a weekend Brunch

Bobby ordered Mexican Wrap filled with quinoa, tofu , beans and veggies

Maggie ordered veggie egg scramble

and I had Macro Platter (recommended by Maggie) that came with brown rice, tofu, beans, steam veggies, seaweed and an amazing carrot ginger dressing

and a side salad

we were all very happy with our meal

the lovely couple!

Me (sorry for the scars in my face, I hope it goes away soon) and Maggie. I think we enjoy each other’s company a lot

After lunch, we walked to Central Park. I really like Maggie and Bobby’s company. It’s so relaxing. And I learn from them too. They communicate a lot, even small things. I sometimes get lazy to tell Star about everything I do and think, but I think it’s a great way to communicate and stay close. Need to work on that

Shortly I had to catch the bus way back to DC. It was a short visit but perfect weekend trip to be with a great friend We already scheduled our next !!!

On the bus back, I got sad. I missed Star terribly, specially after I got the news the night before about his changing plan. He was supposed to be back to DC on Monday, but there was an urgency about the project he’s working on, so he had to flight to Mexico instead. When I heard the news I wasn’t too affected because I was with Maggie. But when I got alone and after being with a happy couple, I was sad. But that’s life right? There will be always unexpected things happening. We should learn to look at the bright side always. However, during that 4.5 hours on the bus, I couldn’t see the brightness, all I could feel was missing someone until it hurts.  But don’t worry, I’m ok now. I talked to Star yesterday by phone for almost 2 hours when he was transiting in San Francisco, I plan to visit him in Mexico City, a place I’ve never been. Changing plan = spontaneous trip!

Sunday morning I woke up and feel like scone for breakfast. I guess it was the inertia after that. So I made Pumpkin Scones

Ingredients:

• 1.5 cup WW flour
• 0.5 cup brown rice flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• cinnamon & pumpkin spice
• 1 cup roasted squash or pumpkin puree
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp baking stevia
• 2-3 tbsp almond milk

Method: Mix squash/pumpkin with egg and almond milk

mix butter with dry ingredients

combine them and bake for 15 min at 425F

I opened a new tin of tea: Kusmi‘s sweet love

the scone came out dense, buttered and slightly sweet. I love it!

I ate without reading anything just missing someone

Q1: What’s your favorite scone?

Q2: What was the last meal you had at restaurant and recreated at home?