Food: dinners and KABOCHA is back!

Dinners had to be quick because I was always tired when I got home, just wanted to eat and visit my couch!

#1: oatmeal, veggie tofu stir-fry

this one has celery, black fungus, tofu, oyster mushroom, seasoned with tamari and sesame oil.

#2: Tortilla pizzas, chopped tomato

#3 porridge and spicy-sour cabbage

cabbage sautéed with oyster mushroom, black fungus, seasoned with chinese vinegar and spicy sauce

#4 Wonton! Let me show you how I made it. My mom prepared the filling before she left so I just need to wrap them

used this seaweed soup for the base

put the wonton in boiling water, cook for about 3-4 min

prepare the soup, add more seaweed and boiled romaine lettuce for extra veggies

top with tons of white pepper. The whole dish wouldn’t be the same without white pepper!

#5: porridge, celery salad and soy bean pancake

For the salad I simply boiled celery and dressed with tamari, vinegar, sesame oil and 1 tsp sugar.

Yummy pancakes!!!

And the biggest NEWS is KABOCHA IS BACK TO MY LIFE!!! After not having it for over 5 months (pregnancy aversion), I finally love it again!

Every night I had a bowl of roasted kabocha for dessert, sooooo good! I don’t think I like it steamed yet (as I used to) but I do love cinnamon roasted kabocha. It reminded me grad-student life, when every night Kabocha was my companion. 😉

I still can’t eat steamed corn. I had it once and felt nausea afterwards. I guess the 5 packages that I have in the freeze have to wait a bit longer. 🙂

Q: Have you reunited with any of your past food love recently?

Food: mom cooks and I bake

Since mom arrived 1.5 month ago, I haven’t cooked AT ALL! When it was only mom and I, we ate simple food. A lot of veggies and some seafood. But now that my dad arrived, more food is needed. Let me tell you, my dad has a monster appetite!!! 😯 He seems to have a bottomless stomach. He doesn’t excercice other than walking 1-2 hours everyday, but his appetite is ADMIRABLE! He’s 64 yrs old and he eats like a teenager! Everything seems so tasty to him and he likes trying EVERYTHING! I’m the bad “daughter” telling him constantly to “Not eat too much”, “it’s high in saturate fat”, “it’s high in colesterol”, etc. Sometimes he’d listen, sometimes not. 😦

Samples of daily food:

cucumber sauteed with shrimp head

broccoli with mushrooms

tofu with shrimp

garlic green peas

bok choy with mushrooms

辣酱 my dad’s favorite dish. Cubed pork, potatoes, carrots, oyster mushroom, smoked tofu cooked with a red spicy sauce.

fried fish cooked with chinese pickles

bok choy

water chesnut sauteed with chinese pickles

chinese chives sauteed with pork, smoked tofu and dry chili

sauteed green beans

My mom is in charged of the cooking and I do the rest: BAKING! 😆

The day we came back from Orlando, I baked her pound cake with green raisins.

and when my Dad arrived the following day, I made him bread with dry pork floss

I’m clipping a lot of other baking goodies to make. They’re leaving tomorrow for a tour (Niagaras Fall, Boston and NYC) for 6 days. A little break from my dear parents 😉 Wait… does it mean I have to cook? Maybe! Mom prepared 70 wontons for me in case that I continue to be lazy 🙂

Q: What’s your parents’ eating style? My mom eats everything in moderation. My dad is a lost case. 😦 He enjoys EVERYTHING TOO MUCH!

“Single” Valentine’s Day

I spent the Valentine’s Day alone just like the last four years, but this is the first time that I “celebrated” it. How? Treating me with this beautiful chocolate cake. 🙂

When I was making the cake, I thought about Star and these 9 years and half that we’ve been together.  I realized that even though he’s not perfect and has things that I still don’t like (although I can accept them now), I can’t imagine spending the rest of my life with anyone else. I know that some of my friends might think that I’m with him because I feel safe and comfortable, that he can give me things that other men can’t, that marriage shouldn’t be so rational. blah blah! Well…. I am comfortable with him, but what’s even more important is that I am comfortable with myself when I am with him. He allows me to be just me. I don’t have to change myself to please anyone, I don’t need to pretend or hide my imperfections in front of him, I don’t feel the urge to change him. Believe me! It’s not easy to find these! For me, marriage is not just about passion and feelings, it is a rational decision too.  I know this sounds bad. But passion or feelings fade away with time and they are not obstacles-prove. Only when I rationally think that we’re meant to be together (i.e., matching personalities, values and goals) I can be certain that he’s The one. Just like Gina said, the more time we  spend with him, the more we love him. Maybe it’s not the same kind of love that we felt at the beginning of the relationship; maybe the initial passion and craziness is no longer there. But the love we built together is beyond that…. it’s much stronger and soul-healing. Soul-healing? yes! Because we don’t feel alone in this world anymore.

Single serving Chocolate cake, adapted from Grain-free bitter chocolate cake for one

• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 tbsp pumpkin puree
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tbsp coconut oil
• 1 tbsp honey

Preheat oven to 375 F. Mix all of the above ingredients together. Add a splash of water until it reaches the consistency of a thick pudding. Bake for 20 min.

Other eats: stir-fry of red pepper, zucchini, oyster mushroom, egg and yam noodles.

I crave spicy food lately, so I sauteed it with soy sauce and a lot of spicy sichuan sauce.

served with homemade multi-grain bread

Poached salmon (soy sauce, cooking wine, brown sugar, ginger powder, S+P)

served with sweet hot mustard

sauteed chinese greens with mushrooms

This is my latest favorite snack combo: steamed corn + kabocha

I’ve been eating them in the afternoons, mid-mornings, before bed, heheh…. anytime 😉

Q1: What marriage means to you?

Q2: What’s your latest favorite snack?