Getting Ready

Hi all! Thank you for the wishes on my last post! We surely had a blast and it was a nice to actually splurge ourselves once in a while.

Today I got up super late (like 9 am?) haha..I guess the cocktail drink I had last night surely had some kick in me. Believe me, I am not a drinker at all.

Since I didn’t feel hungry, I skipped breakfast and just had 2 green tea bags and continued working on my stuff until lunch time. Honestly, my lunch today looked EXACTLY the same as yesterday.

After lunch, I was preparing all the ingredients for my newest recipe experiment: Coconut Lemon Custard Chicken.

Then I continued with whatever I was supposed to do until finally I had enough and did the newest workout from Bodyrock.tv.

It was almost dinner time so I kept my Post workout snack small – 2 small slices of sweet potatoes (purple and Japanese) – I put the clothes pin next to them for size comparison (got this idea from Fit Daffy ) Sometimes it’s hard to imagine the size just by looking at the pictures.

Finally, the chicken was done and this accident happened when I tried to take a picture of the perfectly sliced pieces.

Darn it! I LOST 2 pieces of goodies there! Argh! Believe me, I was quite mad at myself, which made me feel even more stupid. It was actually all my fault for moving the table when the plate was on top of it and I was stupid enough to tilt the table..ARGH!

Anyway, dinner was yummy and small as well.

I realized I still had lots of coconut milk in the fridge and it’s been sitting there for a little while. Good thing it hasn’t gone bad yet and an idea came up. I poured them into my ice cube tray and froze them. This way the coconut milk will not be spoiled and it would be super easy when I need to use them. Just take out 1-2 cubes or whatever I need. Too bad I can’t consume straight coconut milk, otherwise these would be a perfect coconut milk “ice cream”.

Btw, I’m in the process of transferring this blog to be self hosted. Gosh, seems like it’ll be a long and slow process..not to mention I might have to blog at two places at the same time to save the future trouble. We’ll see!

What’s the clumsiest thing you’ve ever done?

Have a good night!

 

4 Year Anniversary at The Sky Room

Today is our 4 year wedding anniversary and I know it’s the most perfect time to use Groupon for The Sky Room in Long Beach! I had to make a reservation a day before as part of Groupon condition.

But before we went, I did some 10 minute burpee challenge.

View from the outside (took this after the dinner) – the restaurant is located at top floor.

When we got in, we actually had to wait for an elevator attendant.

The elevator attendant told us a bit about the building, that it was the original Hilton Hotel and has been around since 1938. Another interesting thing is Elizabeth Taylor actually had her wedding in this restaurant. You can read more of the history on their page.

The entrance to the restaurant. Btw since this is a fine dining type restaurant, business casual is the dress code.

We got a nice table next to the window with the harbor view. If we got here after dark, might look nicer with all the lights on.

I ordered some cocktail based on the waiter’s suggestions:
The Rosenson Raspberry Lemon Drop for me

Hubby K ordered The Sweet Troublemaker (basically watermelon with vodka) and those red powder along the glass rim was cayenne pepper.

The waiter gave us some bread slices, which Hubby K devoured all (including my portion). Served with butter and some salt.

After scrolling around the menu, we decided both would have the steak.

I ordered Prime New York Steak (I asked the waiter to make sure it’s gluten free and he happily accommodated it) – no sauce and only steak and veggie of my choice.

Boy, that steak was HUGE and I admit that I finished the entire thing! On the second thought, they might give me a bigger portion of steak since I didn’t have any carby dish (potatoes, rice, pasta etc) and might not be enough if they just gave me the typical small portion. Oh well, I won’t refuse more protein!

Hubby K ordered Prime Fillet Mignon which arrived with an interesting mashed potatoes set up

We also ordered some salad and even though usually they charge for splitting the dish, the waiter waived it for us. How nice   I chose Salade de Maman which came with a dijon mustard dressing, but he put it on the side PLUS he brought us olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

We talked and pretty much just relaxing and waited for the alcohol to wear off a bit. This was our first time ever to have a fine dining. If it wasn’t because of Groupon ($25 for $50), I don’t think I’ll ever think of going to a fine dining restaurant, especially not in our current situation. Since we both were stuffed from the meal, so no desserts. After all, I already had enough sugar rush from the cocktail drink. No need to add more.

In a nutshell, it was a nice 4 year anniversary celebration.

 

Simple Meals on a Simple Day

Hey all
For some reason I got up quite early today cause I was itching to keep continue working on my work stuff. I know, I know I might sound like a broken record keep talking about it but seriously it actually helps to motivate myself to keep doing and not giving up. You see, I do have a tendency to put myself down a lot and comparing myself to other people – whether in fitness, food choices, cooking skills, job etc.

Anyway, I had a simple breakfast with 2 tea green tea bags – I wanted to take a little break from making loose leaf tea. It’s good but just require a little effort. Tea bags are more convenient, don’t you agree?
2 slices of Egg Loaf Sweet Potatoes & Carrots Frittata that I made yesterday plus some veggies.

Then I sat on my stability ball, working in front of my computer for the entire morning, while also snacked some macadamia nuts – Promise this time I didn’t finish half of the bag in one sitting. A handful at the most.

Btw I only have 1 bag left..ARGH!

Lunch was a huge plate of greens, shredded carrots, whole avocado drizzled with Balsamic Vinegar, some sweet potatoes (purple and Japanese) and some beef dish I made yesterday.

It was my first time cooking with parsnips and I’m not a big fan of it. When I saw them on sale on my local grocery store, I was intrigued to try adding them into the beef dish that I made. The taste wasn’t bad, but it had that off taste I just don’t like- sorry can’t explain that more.

Then I continued working on my stuff while got distracted along the line by checking emails, Twitter, FB and now blogging!

Anyway, Hubby K and I are off to have a dinner for some special occasion. Can you guess what is it?

Later all!

Do you compare yourself with others a lot? Do you like parsnips and turnips?

 

What is Paleo?

Nothing could explain more what is Paleo diet than the graphic below. Major thanks to Patrick for creating this brilliant, educational visual guide about Paleo diet.

Learn more about the Paleo Diet.

 

Quick Post

I had another great workout from Bodyrock.tv and I also made up my own exercise challenge after I finished with Bodyrock.tv workout.

Breakfast/post workout meal – nothing could beat these colorful sweet potatoes and some chicken!

Lunch was yummy Roast Masala Lemon Date Chicken with sliced of whole avocado and steamed veggies, drizzled with Balsamic Vinegar reduction.

And I continued working on my portfolio website, and took me an entire afternoon figuring out how to upload the site using FTP and put up the splash page. I don’t have the entire thing ready as yet, but at least I want to put a placeholder instead of the default page from my hosting.

I took a little break from the computer so I made another beef stew (another type beef stew- will post recipe and think of a better name) and also I made another Egg Loaf Frittata. This time the combo was shredded carrots, shredded sweet potatoes, green onion, seasoned with garlic powder, Red boat fish sauce and some pepper.

Here’s my dinner

Ok now I gotta go back working on my stuff.

Nite all!

 

Time to Get Back to the Game

Hi everyone! Today I totally declared that my lower back pain is 100% gone *knock on the wood so I won’t jinx it* so I totally could get back working out regularly. Wanna know what I ate yesterday and today?

Yesterday
After my workout, I warmed up some left over Asian Style Cauliflower “Fried Rice” with slices of baked Japanese sweet potato and 2 fried eggs.

We went to Curry House, a Japanese-style curry and spaghetti restaurant to meet 2 of my former colleague, C and Val for lunch. Technically speaking, it was almost nothing I could eat entirely Paleo at Curry House – majority of their menus are full of rice, spaghetti and not to mention their curry sauce ingredients contain non Paleo stuff: wheat flour, corn syrup, peanut oil, rapeseed oil, palm oil, and monosodium glutamate(!) How do I know this? Well that’s one nice thing of their menu.

So I ordered Hamburger curry, no rice, extra salad and no curry sauce.

I should asked the waitress no salad dressing next time. I am not sure what kind of dressing it was, but it tasted like miso style dressing. It was good, but combining it with the juices from the hamburger was a bit too salty to me.

It was actually nice to talk to some of colleagues that you got along with. Val told us there were 2 more people being laid off. Btw Val totally missed me and C as lunch buddies cause now he doesn’t have anyone he can share his stories with, other than his cousin, who’s also works there. Joking and teasing Val around with C is something that I will definitely miss from my former job. Ha!

Val had to go back to work cause his cousin, who came along for lunch was on hourly schedule. So I chatted with C and we were catching up. C is a nice person and someone that I actually enjoyed working with. Definitely will miss her as my colleague.

After we got back home, we snacked on some berries. Perfect for this hot and kinda humid weather.

And what’s for dinner? More Asian style “Cauliflower Fried Rice” topped with sliced of whole avocado.

I was still a bit hungry so I sliced some baked yam to curb my appetite.

****
I had such a blast at my morning workout today that I even added my own workout circuit after Bodyrock.tv workout. When I opened the fridge, I saw a bowl of that Baked Mashed Cauliflower with Sliced Beef (somewhat similar with Paleo Shepherd Pie) which has been sitting in the fridge for a couple of days. Seems like the boys are not a big fan of that so I guess I had to finish that thing today or it’ll just be there! So I deconstructed that “Shepherd Pie” into Mashed Cauliflower Beef with Tomato, with some slices of baked sweet potatoes and I got my post workout meal/breakfast!

And as usual, I drank lots of tea along with my breakfast. You could say I’m a tea addict

I prepared some marinate to cook my next whole chicken (will post the recipe soon- it was super simple, really) for dinner as our food supply was getting low.

For lunch, I had the remaining Oven Fried Curried Chicken Fingers with the last batch of Asian style Cauliflower Fried Rice with some Chinese veggies on the side.

And for the FIRST time since I was out of job, I spent my entire afternoon putting together my resume and work samples for my job interview preparation. I thought I already lost my passion on my chosen career, but apparently yesterday’s meet up with my former colleagues sure had something to do with this. Everything just triggers me and suddenly I have this urge to put myself together and be back in the game. I was so excited that I already purchased a domain and a hosting site to put up my work samples. Speaking of which, there might be a chance I’ll start self hosting my blogs – fingers crossed.

I forgot how I could lose track of time when I start working on my project that I had to start dinner a bit late. Good thing I already marinated that chicken in the morning so by dinner time, I just need to cook, bake and serve!

More berries after dinner, shared with Hubby K.

Apparently, after a little break from being working, I actually start to feel a little excitement of working again. I’m even excited that tomorrow I’ll start putting together my work sample website so that I can start applying for jobs. Not sure how long it will take me to finish everything, but I am aiming for this entire week and start hunting next week. Wish me luck!

Good nite all!

 

Weekend Eats and Poker

I’m happy to let you know that starting tomorrow I’ll be back bodyrocking like before thanks to my healed lower back pain When I woke up this morning, I knew that my lower back pain was about 90% healed. However, I decided not to do workout too hard so I did a 40 minute yoga (I made up my own sequence btw). I haven’t done a full yoga for a while so this morning yoga was really good. Yesterday I did a quick 12 minute strength training, which I came up on my own.

Breakfast/post yoga meal
Baked Japanese sweet potato with a tin of sardines – YUM!


A little better than yesterday’s breakfast – 2 slices of Chocolate Espresso Gluten Free Cake with sliced strawberries

Lunch was really simple: steamed spinach, sliced of whole tomato, Baked Mashed Cauliflower with Beef (it was ok, not great so won’t post recipe, unless you really want me to ) topped with macadamia nuts

Ironically, it almost looked identical with yesterday’s lunch (also my dinner) (just different type of greens and fat)

Spent the entire afternoon cleaning up, organized paperwork, paid bills etc and by dinner time, I had the urge to be a little more creative on my food so I made a big batch of Asian Style Cauliflower “Fried Rice.”
This time the combos were 1 cauliflower head,sliced beef milanesa, sliced egg omelet, diced carrots, minced shallot and garlic, chopped 3 stalks of green onions (white and greens separated)


Seasoned with salt, white pepper, Red Boat fish sauce, sesame oil, and coconut aminos.

I LOVED my dinner today! I had 1 1/4 of this plate.

After dinner, Hubby K and I were playing poker. This was my first time playing it and I think I started to understand the game a bit more. Gotta be a good in bluffing and reading your opponent’s reaction and have a poker face.

We used tea bags as our “chips” (each of us had 10). If one lost all the tea bags, had to take off one shirt..haha.

I won at first round and Hubby K had to take off one of his shirt.

Unfortunately, in the end he won back his shirt and I LOST and I had to lose one of my shirt (still wearing a tank top, so get your mind out of the gutter) and sadly I didn’t win it back…*sigh*

I don’t usually play cards and never a big fan of it. Once in a while I do play Black Jack if I go to Las Vegas, but I don’t usually play big. I’m waaay too cheap to just gamble my money away like that. But the poker game that we played today was quite interesting and fun at the same time, probably because we only had to use tea bags as the chips, not our real money.

Any card games you’re good at or like to play?

Have you made up your own workout sequence?

Have a great night!

 

Keeping My Plates Colorful and Gluten Free Chocolate Cake

Thank you everyone for all your nice comments regarding my lower back pain. I took a complete 2 days off from working out, but I made sure that my eats stayed squeaky clean as much as possible.

Wanna see what I had yesterday?
Breakfast
Simply 2 slices of Egg Loaf Frittata that I made the day before. This thing tastes good even out from the fridge!

Lunch was simply shredded chicken from Citrus & Spice Baked Chicken, steamed veggies, sliced whole tomato and diced whole avocado. Look how colorful my plate is

My afternoon fruit snacks was colorful and tasty as well. I shared this bowl with Hubby K as well while watching Sex and the City 2 the Movie.

Dinner was very simple yet yummy. Last remaining of shredded chicken, some quick stir fry beef, steamed veggies sprinkled with TJ 21 Seasoning Salute, topped with macadamia nuts. I enjoyed this dinner with Hubby K while watching some random episode from LOST Season 1.

****
Today my lower back felt a lot better although I still could feel it hurt, especially if I’m trying to bend down to sit down or picking up stuff from the ground. But no worries, at least it’s not like it hurts everytime I move. So this morning I did 12 minute workout from Bodyrock.tv and some additional upper body strength that I came up on my own.

After stretching and cooling down, it was quite a horror when I saw this

OMG! Are you freaking serious?! My fridge was totally almost empty! There was no more protein other than the eggs (hell I could only eat so many eggs in one day!). And silly me not pre-baking any sweet potatoes for my post workout snack so I had to improvise a bit.
Breakfast/post workout meal
3 over easy fried eggs, steamed veggies from last night and thinly sliced pan fried sweet potatoes

Afterward we ran to grocery store to shop the essentials. Came back home, I just had to whip up quick and tasty protein for lunch so I made Oven Fried Curried Chicken Fingers. Those stuff was easy to make, no need to marinate too long and so damn yummy! Nothing could go wrong with it (unless you don’t have the curry powder). Hubby K made a simple Tomato and Egg dish and steamed veggies.

While waiting for the chicken fingers to be done, I experimented making Plantain Chips. These are great!!

I don’t have a mandolin slicer so I used my not-so-great knife skill to slice the plantain as thinly as possible. Pan fried this with some coconut oil in medium low heat, I got myself Plantain Chips!

Lunch

Ever since I saw Fit Daffy made her gluten free Chocolate Cake, I’ve been itching to make some as well and today finally I did!
I followed the recipe from Tropical Traditions Gluten-Free Chocolate Cake and made some modifications here and there.

Chocolate Espresso Gluten Free Cake (modified from Tropical Traditions Gluten-Free Chocolate Cake)
Ingredients:
9 eggs
1/2 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsp instant coffee
1 cup honey
1/4 cup coconut milk
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla powder
3/4 cup & 1/8 cup coconut flour
3/4 tsp baking powder

Directions:
1. Combine the dry ingredients (coconut flour, coffee, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt, vanilla powder) mix and set aside
2. Melt the coconut oil then mix with honey and coconut milk and set aside
3. Beat the eggs with hand mixer on high speed for about 5 minutes (until the mixture is pale yellow and not much bubbles)
4. Lower the mixer speed, spoon in the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients one after another. Keep mixing using the mixture to avoid lumps
5. Grease 9″x5″ loaf pan with coconut oil and pour the batter in
6. Bake in 350°F for about 40-45 minutes or until the tooth pick comes out clean
7. Remove from heat and let cool before slicing

BOY, this is so DELICIOUS! Unlike traditional cakes, cakes made from coconut flour tends to be on the dry side. Mine has a bit thick crust probably I baked it a little bit too long, that it got burn a little, but still yummy though. I reduced the honey since I don’t want it too sweet and the coffee added some bitterness to it, which I like (bitter sweet taste)

My dinner was exactly the same as my lunch (minus the tomatoes) but in a smaller plate. And after that, I had the chocolate cake. Super yummy that I couldn’t help myself to have 3 slices! Not gonna lie about it.

This x 3!

Earlier today I spoke with C, my former colleague who got taken out the same day as I did and we will be having lunch this coming Monday with our other colleague, who’s still employed btw. Talking to her kinda reminds me that I need to get my act together again. True, I’ve been enjoying this little break, maybe a little too much. However, job market out there isn’t that great either. Couple days ago, Brother A told me his friend just got laid off while he was on his vacation. Isn’t it sucks to find out that you no longer have your job after you come back from your vacation? Life can be harsh sometimes.

As you noticed, lately my eats aren’t as varied as before, because of my lack of cooking inspiration. But I do try my best to keep my plates colorful as much as possible. I want to show that even with simple ingredients, I can still make my plate look appetizing, taste great and good for my body. Just because I’m at my lowest point of my life now, doesn’t mean I should give in to the junks, right?

Anyway, enjoy the weekend.

 

Stretchy

After I finished the last post, I decided not being a total bum and took a walk outside my house.

According to my Garmin Forerunner 305, I walked about 1.26 miles in 27:37. Slow huh? Actually I walked in normal pace, at least faster than strolling. Oh well, it’s still better than being cooped up in the house for the entire day while it was sunny and breezy outside.

Back home, I was guilty enough snacking on these banana chips -totally addicting!

Followed by a bowl of strawberries

Later I joined Hubby K doing P90X X Stretch. Wow, I haven’t done any P90X workout for such a loooooooooong time and actually after stretching for about an hour, I felt a bit better. Like Tony Horton said stretching is very important for you.

Dinner was super simple: steamed veggies with last beef patty and some lamb that I cooked earlier today (no recipe for now – it tasted ok, but I think it could be better).

 

When It’s Time to Back Off A Bit

I took a whole day off from working out yesterday because my lower back was still feeling sore from that 300 squats challenge and I think I’d do the same for today as well…and maybe the next day and the day after. It seems like my lower back pain will linger a bit longer than I expected. Usually after a hard workout, I’d feel sore a little bit here and there but it didn’t last as long. Today, my lower back pain is still a bit too much and I even feel painful when I try to bend over – though not that bad if I just do it slowly.

So I’ll listen to my body and give it the rest that it needs. I rather be completely recovered than injured myself further. It’s pretty challenging for me to just take one complete day off from workout, let alone not exercising for 2-3 days or more! But I’ll try my best – fingers crossed.

Ok enough with boring and painful stuff, how about we moved to the food? Don’t you wonder what I ate?

YESTERDAY
Breakfast
2 beef patties with left over baked mixed veggies from last night dinner, served with a cup of loose leaf tea (and I drank more than just one cup every morning) – I’d say I’m a total tea addict.

During breakfast, Hubby K and I decided to go to a movie theater to watch Bridesmaids. When checking the local show time, we knew we won’t have much time to prepare lunch so we kept it simple. Good thing I started steaming the Citrus and Spice Marinated Chicken when I was having my breakfast so it finished by lunch time. I kept the veggie dish super simple steamed green beans with cauliflower, sprinkled with pepper and slathered with some butter.

We drove off to the movie theater, which was located inside a mall. Boy, the mall and the theater were totally deserted! Hubby K and I are not a big fan of going to a movie theater, because of the high ticket price. But since we got bargained priced tickets, it was ok. Besides, another good excuse for us to have a little date. The movie was pretty funny and enjoyable. Go watch it if you haven’t

After we got back home, I literally didn’t have to cook anything since we still had left over from lunch. I was craving for some fruits so I washed some strawberries and cherries.

You’d think dinner was pretty much taken care of? Not for Hubby K as he was craving for something else.


He drove off to the nearest Jack-in-the Box for his dinner. I tagged along just so I could that the pics and watching him eating to accompany him. And yes, he finished everything that you see in that pic.

Afterward he told me he was feeling guilty of eating those and felt sick of the grease. Oh well….And what’s my dinner? Well my dinner = my lunch, literally speaking.

After I finished dinner, we were watching Red Riding Hood as our movie night. The story was ok, totally different from the original story though. I won’t spoil you much more, go watch it when you get a chance.

********
TODAY
Breakfast
Just a simple baked Japanese sweet potato with lots of loose leaf tea.

Since I couldn’t do any exercise, I had to distract my mind doing something else other than sitting around. So I experimented a different technique making Egg Loaf Frittata.
This time, I beat the yolks and the whites separately. When I was separating them, one of the yolk fell into the whites. Good thing I could saved it without contaminating the whites. Just a tiny trace of egg yolk will prevent the egg white to reach its peak when beaten.
So here’s what I did to make “Chiffon” Egg Frittata
6 eggs – separate the yolk and the white (best when eggs are cold)
Shredded chicken meat from Citrus and Spice Baked Chicken
3 stalks of green onions – chopped
1 shallot – minced
1 tomato- diced
1 tsp celery salt
1/4 cup coconut milk
1/4 cup coconut flour
1 tsp black pepper

Directions:
1. Wait until the eggs are in room temperature. First beat the yolks in high speed using hand mixer until they turned pale yellow and smooth. Lower the mixer speed, add in the coconut milk in steady stream. Continue beating, and add in the coconut flour until everything incorporates

2. Turn off the hand mixer – mixed in the rest of the ingredients – set aside

3. Use a whisk attachment, beat the egg white in lower speed and gradually increase it until the egg white turned white and stiff.

4. Fold in the stiffed egg white into the egg yolk mixture. Do not over mix.

5. Grease 9″x5″ loaf pan with coconut oil – pour in the batter and bake for about 40-45 minutes with 350°F or until the center is cooked (insert toothpick to check)

Here’s my lunch!

Ok now I gotta do something to distract my mind.

Have a great day!