Food: meals

Since I rediscover my love (a short one) of stir-fries, I had it several times last week, mixed with other meals.

#1: lotus roots, bell peppers, onion, mushroom, bamboo, romaine and tofu with olive preserve olive leaf

served with oatmeal

#2 Miso soup with seaweed and mushrooms

It’s highly detoxing this soup.  I had it with a grilled wrap filled with scrambled tofu with onion and asparagus

#3 Seafood rice porridge

#4 Another stir fry made with onion, mushrooms, brussel sprouts, peppers, romaine and tofu with a miso-tahini-ginger sauce.

served with toasted tortilla

#5 A staple soup (that I’m getting sick of): tomato seaweed soup with tons of white pepper

tortilla pizza using May’s magical sauce

I follow almost exactly her method

1. Heat the tortilla on stove in a oven prove pan

2. Spread it with 2 tbsp of tomato paste mixed with italian seasoning and minced garlic

3. Top veggies as desire. I used broccoli and eggplant this time.

4. Spread the magical cheeseless sauce: 2-3 tbsp hummus, 1 tbsp nutrition yeast, 1 tbsp water

5. Dizzle tahini (I used 1/2 tbsp) diluited with water

6. Broil for 5 min until cripsy

7. Cut it with something really sharp! (I’m getting a pizza cutter tonight!)

Fantastic meal! I enjoyed every bite of it! Besides that this is more healthy than conventional pizza, I like its taste much more and it won’t disturb my stomach and guts!!! YEAH~ Obviously I’m going to have it more… hopefully I don’t get sick of it too soon!

Q: Do you like unconventional pizza? which one?

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!

What makes me happy lately

My presentation went well… at least that’s how I felt (and that’s what ultimately matters ;)).  But today I want to talk about something else. I want to talk about what makes me really happy lately (other than having Star close by ;)).

I’ve been feeling a lot of love from some new (old) friends lately. Old because I’ve known them for years. New because I just discover how wonderful they are and we’ve became closer.

Each time they show affection and care about me, I feel so grateful.

Every time we spend time together, I have so much fun.

Every time I think about them, I feel warm and I smile.

This recent discovery was due to something I learned.

I learned to forgive.

I learned to understand them.

I learned to accept that sometimes they have more important things to do than hanging out with me.

I learned to appreciate every friendly gesture.

I learned to not expect.

I learned to not take anything for granted.

In sum, I took a step back from my expectation about friends. However, a little step back actually worked as a big step forward, because I received so much more love and support! 😆

********

Yesterday I craved eggs. In particular, running egg yolk. So I had an unconventional breakfast combo 😉

running yolk on toast with butter. Woooo….. I was in heaven! 😀

just before going to school for the presentation I snacked yogurt + sample pack of bran buds

didn’t like it much… it was tasteless and too dry. But it did the trick. I didn’t had lunch until 4PM.

my wonderful friends organized a dinner and movie night to celebrate my presentation. 🙂 I didn’t have to bring anything because they were in charge of everything (including the movie ticket! How awesome they are!!! ;)), but I wanted to give back. How? Making bread!!! 😆

They are all argentineans so I made an argentinean type of bread called Figazita de Manteca

Ingredients (20 small buns):

• 1/2 cup of milk
• 1/2 cup of water
• 3 oz. butter
• 4 cups of all purpose flour
• 3 tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp yeast

Method: Add them in this order to the bread machine. Choose dough cycle. Form 20 buns and let it rest and rise for 1 hour. Bake at 350F for 20 min.

Pre-baking

post baking

Tester A: “I can’t believe that you made this. This is exactly like the ones we get from bakery.”

Tester B: ” This is very very good! It reminds me more of Argentina.”

Tester C: “Amazing. I assign you to be the official bread-maker of all our future dinner/lunch/BBQ events!”

YEAH~~~ 😆

Dinner was simple. As appetizer we had guacamole, cheese and figazita de manteca.

main dish was too kinds of pizza: one with mushroom, onions and cheese

and the other one was ham and tomato. I had one slice each. I don’t remember exactly how they tasted. All I could remember was how much I enjoyed just being with my friends! 😉

After dinner, we went to watch Wall Street 2. It was not as good as we all thought. We were a group of economists expected the adrenaline of wall street, but we found a love/family story instead. It was a good story but just not as we expected. I arrived home at 1AM… satisfied with the day! 😀

Q: Have you rediscovered any friend recently? What do you consider the most important factor determining a good friendship? In addition to what I said above, I think BE THERE for friends when they need you is really important. No matter how busy you are, if your good friends need you, STOP whatever you’re doing, just BE THERE for them.