Weekend happening: sleep, eat, gym and repeat

The past few days were total relaxation. Due to Star’s luck of sleep on his business trip, all he wanted to do is to sleep (day and night)! As Erin would say:” Yes, my lord, sleep we’ll do! Other than the 5k race on Saturday’s morning and my dearest friend’s birthday party at night, we just stay at home and relax.

I finally convinced Star to join my beloved gym! He’s been sedentary for more than a decade. I encouraged him to exercise more but always failed until now. He has turned 34 few months ago and it became mandatory for health purpose to start exercising, specially with his propensity to have diabetes (his mom has it). So, now he has committed to go to the gym whenever he stays with me (hopefully >3 days a week). So far he’s liking it and I like it even more!!! Because now I don’t feel bad to leave him at home alone when I go to the gym~~~

While he takes long naps… I bake

for my lord: peanut butter cookies with homemade PB

I used roasted peanut with sea salt. Ground 7 min and done! Nothing else, just peanuts!!!

beat 100g butter with 80g of sugar and 2 eggs

once it becomes white, add 100g peanut butter

add 200g flour

and 1/4 cup of sesame seeds

bake at 375F for 20 min.

I also made multicolored soy milk (soy, aduki, mung and black bean) for breakfast

served with homemade multi-grain bread with butter (above) and PB (below)

It was the last piece of bread… so I’m making a new bread (as I type)

Other eats:

noodles with bok choy, eggs and olive preserved olive leaf

tortilla pizza topped with cauliflower and a pumpkin sauce made with pumpkin puree and tahini

I’ve started to make nutritious soup that takes >4 hours to make. I made black chicken soup with assorted chinese herbs on Saturday and this one on Sunday.

this one has pork feet, black beans, shiitake and red dates. I made sure to take out most of the fat from the pork feet, so what’s left is the collagen. Collagen = beauty weapon against saging!!! All asian girls know that

If you excuse me, I need to look how the bread-making is going and to prepare lunch for my lord. hahaha… That’s how I feel today, most of the days I feel like the queen and he my loyal servant

Q: Are you a soup person? What’s your favorite soup? I’ve never been a soup person, but my acupuncturist told me that soup is good, specially for people with weak digestive system, so more soup for both of us!

Challenge J&J #12 & Dirty Talk

#1 I finished writing the first draft of my paper!!! If I had to spend one more day on that, I’m going crazy! Obviously, I’ll have to spend few more hours on editing and making it more readable, but that’s going to be easy

#2 Last week’s TCM series touched a dirty topic, but why not? why we don’t talk about it? It’s soooo important to you! If you go to a TCM doctor, he’ll ask you about it in <5 sentences. “do you sleep well? how’s your appetite? are your bowels moving? what’s the consistency?” At first you might be shocked that he’s asking you that, but then after he explains you the importance of it to your overall health, you’ll get used to it. In your second visit, you’ll be talking about “it” with details and all! So, let’s talk.

Q1: How often do you go to bathroom?

I used to be very constipated, like once every 3-4 days. Nowadays, once-twice everyday.

Q2: What’s your trick to make things moving?

I’ve tried tons of methods in old days. These are some that worked for me:

1. soak flaxseed (1-2 tbsp) with 1 cup of water overnight and drink the whole thing first thing in the morning

2. soak dry prune (4-5)  with 1 cup of water overnight and drink the liquid and eat prunes first thing in the morning

3. whenever things gets really bad. I’ll do a mini detox with consists eat only oatmeal cooked with white fungus for a day.

4. coffee helps a lot.

5. EAT! if you eat like chicken, you’ll poo like such.

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J&J #12 @Eat Clean Cookbook: Black bean with Rice

ingredients:

• brown rice
• black bean
• celery
• onion
• olive oil
• S+P

• cumin
• diced tomato

Method: add everything and cook for 1 hours. Done!

It doesn’t look like the picture because brown rice is sticky and the original recipe calls for basmati.

it doesn’t look pretty but it’s really tasty and nutritious!!

accompanied by tofu stir-fry

and asparagus

look what was the helper for paper-writing anxiety?  1 lb of fresh strawberries!!!

It’s soooooo sweet! I love it! But after I finished it, I had a stomach pain! Too much a anything is bad

Giveaway alert:

Nature path granola bar by Krista

Challenge J&J recipe #1

Day 1 of my new challenge was GREAT! The simple fact that I’m doing something new and fun excites me! I dunno…. sometimes I’m really easy to please

What I made? Meatless Burger

here are ingredients that I used

Since I didn’t follow the recipe 100%, I think it’s safe to share my version here, but please note that the original recipe was from Eat Clean Cookbook

Ingredients for 2 big burger

• 1/2 cup black bean
• 1/4 cup oat
• 3 stalk medium celery
• 1/3 green pepper
• 1 oz. almond
• 1 tbsp flaxmeal
• 1 tbsp minced garlic
• dash of worchestershire sauce
• 1 egg + 1 egg white
• 1 tbsp coconut oil
• S+P+italian seasoning+chili pepper flakes

Blend everything

form two burgers and bake for 25 min at 375F turning it middle way

DA DA!!! Meatless Burger with green bean “fries”

I top it with some mustard

For a second, I almost thought it was the REAL burger! Doesn’t it look like one? It’s tasty, moisturized (coconut oil) and crunchy (almond and celery). I think it was a BIG success!!!! And SOOO easy to make. 5 min preparation and 25 min baking!

For dinner I made something yummy too: An Asian Flavored “noodle” stir-fry topped with “fake” steak.

The fake steak was the portobello mushroom. I marinated it with some oil, soy sauce, mirin and brow sugar and bake it for 30 min.

“noodles” was spiralized zucchini (I almost forget how good it is!!! Haven’t used it for >3 months )

What are the key ingredients for asian flavor? Sesame oil, soy sauce and sesame seeds. So I used them to make the stir-fry. YUM YUM YUM~~~

Dessert was the LONG waited but DISAPPOINTED unripped kabocha! I can get very angry when I don’t find good kabocha!

to console my soul, I had some lotus powder!

I called it a day of good eats, do you agree?

I have in the oven recipe #2! Stay tune!

Q1: What’s your favorite burger?

Q2: Does anyone knows why kabocha is so “bad” lately?