Challenge J&J #5 & More bread love~

First of all, my presentation yesterday was a total success! After 38 min of talking, 2 hours listening to friends/professors for more feedbacks, I had a bloating feeling of accomplishment in me! I’ve never felt that before and wasn’t expecting that for the presentation at all. Although I wasn’t nervous about it like I said, I don’t consider myself as a good communicator so it wasn’t the most pleasant thing to do for me either. I’ve always been better coming up with ideas than communicating them to others. Well…. I think (and my friends told me) that I’ve improved a lot, and even not far away to be a good presenter.  What made me happiest was first my best friend in the program congrats me at least 20 times within 2 hours. He kept saying: “it was really good presentation. I haven’t seen any presentation as good as yours in years.” Well… these words from him means a lot!!! Not only because it comes from my best friend, but also he’s the most sincere person in the program. He would never say something just to make me feel good. If he doesn’t like something, he has no problem saying it. (once I made him brownies and after a bite, he said: “not offend you, but I don’t like it.” So I smiled back and said: okay, I’ll make it better next time) So I totally trust him! The second thing was that one of the most critical/skeptical professor was really friendly during the presentation. He didn’t criticize anything that I said and even defended me when other faculty said something. He even approached me after the presentation for more suggestions and comments. I was feeling up in the AIR!!! I am soooo grateful for everything I’ve received the last couple of weeks. My committee members were very helpful and supportive to my work. My friends were supportive and encouraging. Many of them called/txt me to see how I was for the presentation, if I needed someone to vent out. I feel such a lucky girl!!! 😆 And you know what? I think part of all this is because I’ve changed lately. 🙂 Horay for being POSITIVE and HAPPY!!!

Sorry for the long rambling. It was an important event for me and I need to record it! 🙂

Okay. Into J&J #5 @Eat Clean Cookbook: bread pudding

my version used:

• 1.5 Rudis WW bread cut in cubes
• 3/4 cup soy milk
• vanilla/cinnamon/nutmeg
• 1 grated small apple
• 1/4 cup egg white
• 1/2 cup frozen strawberries

I think maybe because I changed the recipe a little too much, but it wasn’t that good. The bread was soggy and had a bland taste. So I add some coconut ice cream to make it more interesting

much better 😉

I might give it another try later following the recipe strictly.

What a normal person would do in the presentation day? well… the reasonable answer would be PREPARE for the presentation.well… that’s not what I did. Usually before the exam or presentation, I’m much more relaxed and have more free time than a week ago. I’m not the procrastinating type person. I’d rather finish everything a week before the due date 😉

So, spreading more bread love to friends~~~

I used 3 cups of normal bread flour, 1 tbsp sugar, 1 tsp salt, 1 tbsp olive oil, 1 packet of yeast to make four big rustic bread

I don’t bake them in the bread machine, instead in the oven at high temperature and with steam. That’s the magic to create the hard crust and soft crumb. After shaping it, rest for 20 min. Blush with water and make a cross cut.

middle way through, remove from the baking sheet and put them on the rack

end product

Hard and crunchy crust, soft and moisture crumb

I brought 3  of them for my friends. They LOVE IT!!!!! They had brought lunch but they happily ATE the WHOLE bread as well!!! 😆 Double accomplishment!!! We’ve already set up a BREAD-PARTY this weekend!!! I’m thinking of making french baguette, onion rolls and italian focaccia! 😆 I’m being the witness of an old saying: Giving brings more happiness than receiving! 🙂

Q: Have you ever attended/organized a topical-food party?

Giveaway alerts:

Celestial Seasoning @ Me

SnackTaxi@Michelle

Challenge J&J #4 & Why am I so HAPPY lately?

First, check out my Celestial Seasoning Giveaway!

I haven’t told you guys this, I’ve been feeling full of joy, excitement but at the same time calmness lately. I find everything I do interesting or even fascinating, I feel I can finally LIVE the present. Even in days that I don’t do any progress in term of work, I’d feel okay, and if I squeeze a jog/yoga or read for few hours, I’d be fresh again. Even in days that I wake up at 3AM I don’t piss off, instead I take advantage of it and fully enjoy some reading. I feel more open to people and learned to focus what I like about the person instead of what I don’t like. I feel more indulgent to myself by learning what are my strength, weakness and how to use them to boost the authentic happiness. (I promise to do a full review of the book). As a researcher, I look for reasons/causes of this wonderful feeling: is it this book and that book that totally changed my mind? is the new challenge that I started? is the spring season? I don’t know…. maybe a little bit of everything. 😆 Whatever it is, it’s working!!!

I feel I should write this down because I find that people tend to write/express when they’re depressed much more often than when they’re happy. But why is that? Shouldn’t we record more positive feelings?

okay. moving onto J&J #4 @Eat Clean Cookbook: kasha breakfast pudding

My adapted version used:

• 1/2 cup soy milk + 1/4 cup water
• 1/4 cup buckwheat
• 2 egg whites
• 1 apple grated
• 1 oz. almond chopped
• pinch of salt/vanilla/cinnamon/nutmeg

1. Bring the milk water mixture to boil

2. add buckwheat

3. grate apple

4. add in the rest of the ingredients to the liquid

5. Bake for 30 min at 350F and boil 5 min at the end

it was AMAZING!!!! I’m speechless! That it was really really REALLY good! I never liked buckwheat until I tried this. MAKE IT! You’ll thank me! 😆

Jess asked me if I’d recommend this book? What do you think? Absolutely!!! If I don’t like it, I’d never started this challenge! 😀

Q: Have you tried buckwheat? What’s your favorite way to have it?

As this post gets published, I’ll be presenting my paper in our department seminar. I’m not nervous/anxious at all. I feel relaxed and confident! 🙂

Challenge J&J recipe #2 & “productive” afternoon

The new challenge got more fun! I’m glad that it brings me excitement as well to some of you 🙂

I made morning berry strata yesterday. It should look like this

ingredients

1. one slice of Rudis honey WW bread

2. Make a mix of: soy milk (1/2 c), 1/2 tbsp coconut oil, 2 egg whites, vanilla, cinnamon, sea salt and chopped almonds (1 oz.). Pour over the bread and add 1/2 cup of frozen blueberries

3. Fridge overnight

4. Bake for 30 min and top with Coconut bliss ice cream

it got really spongy 😉

Although the end product doesn’t look like the original one, but it was good, spongy bread, crunchy almond and the addition of ice cream to the just baked goodie hit the spot! 🙂

Toutou and I had a very “productive” afternoon in term of relaxing us from the stressful work. We went to Bethesda downtown, first thing we did was to have some frozen yogurt! 🙂

and then visited some cute stores

We even jogged for 4 miles! 😆 We felt like super woman afterwards.

And we ended going to WF and Tjs for groceries. This week’s food load

I picked  few new ingredients to make recipes next week: beets, artichoke (are they in season now?)

I got some buckwheat! 🙂 Haven’t had this for years!

Do you guys think that’s a lot of food for one person? Toutou asked me again how I put them into my system. I thought I was normal, but apparently not. What do you think? $50-$60 bill in groceries every week for just one person is a lot?

Q: How was your Saturday? Productive?

I was planning to have another “productive” afternoon today, but I just got an email from my authors, apparently we have <12 h. to submit our paper. 😯 so no play for Coco today.

Q: What’s your favorite way to eat Artichoke?