Monday Musing

Yesterday’s Mother’s Day dinner was awesome! Lots of food and I even thought that 2 dishes that I brought were barely made any appearance among all these food that FIL (father-in-law) cooked!

Yes, I consumed gluten/grain/sugar/vegetable oil (the only food I didn’t have were the deep fried egg rolls and the fried fish)…I gotta had my father-in-law’s homemade fish noodles because it was made from scratch! Worth the cheat! Even Hubby K was a bit surprised when I asked him to give me some of those..hehe.

So what about breakfast and lunch, you asked?

Here you go.

We were actually planning to eat out for lunch but figured restaurants might be very crowded because of Mother’s Day. So after we shopped at Henry’s Market, we came back home and heated up whatever we had.

I’m not sure if you noticed, but I didn’t do ANY workout over the weekend so today I blasted 6 minute workout for 2 rounds and that was enough to pump me up for the day.

I didn’t really have any post workout meal, so instead I combined them together as my breakfast: Sliced of a whole Japanese yam with 2 slices of Applegate Organics Roast Beef.

I loaded my b-fast a bit because my lunch was a bit skimpy on protein side.
3 slices char siew, steamed spinach and hidden slices of Bo Kho

Fear not, I also packed some Full Fat Fage Greek yogurt with strawberry slices

Which I ended up not having it as my afternoon snack but as my after dinner dessert.

Usually I always pack a lot of healthy snacks in addition to my main meal. The reason being is I rather over-packed than under-packed. In some ways by packing enough/lot of food gives my mind an ease that I won’t be food deprived in case I’m hungry in between meals. Sometimes I don’t even eat my snack if I don’t feel hungry in between meals (just like today).

Dinner was just whatever available in my pantry and I’m telling you I cooked way too much Char Siew. Gosh, no way I’m going to consume pork all week…not a big pork fan. Once in a while is fine.

AndI have this baby.

Are you thinking what I am thinking?

Yup, you guessed it right. Here’s my dinner. Left over Bo Kho (tasted even better now!), Roasted Curried Cauliflower, steamed Chinese greens, and sliced avocados.

And I don’t want to eat more pork so I cooked up some grass fed ground beef seasoned with taco seasonings.

My lunch for tomorrow is set!

Btw my mom is thousand miles away from me and technically we don’t celebrate Mother’s Day the same day as US and Canada. Indonesians have their own Mother’s Day, which falls on December 22. But I’m guilty enough that I don’t even remember to call her on that day. Speaking of which, I actually called her while writing this post…yeah multi-tasking.

 

One Day Trip Getaway

Living Primal/Paleo doesn’t always associate with food choice and working out. What’s the point of eating healthy and exercise if you’re not enjoying your life to the fullest? I realized all of this time I’ve never really taken one day to just get out from the regular chores and just relaxing.

Yesterday, Hubby K and I went for a day trip to Santa Barbara. Since we would want to enjoy our time as much as possible with the least stress, we decided to take a train instead of driving.

For Los Angelenos people like us, it’s pretty rare to take public transportation. Most people prefer to drive on their own because our public transportation system is plainly…HORRIBLE. Unlike Asia or Europe, if you miss the train/bus, you either have to wait for another 15 minutes or 30 minutes. Weekends are the WORST. Back home, I always took public transportation everywhere because it was super convenient. Buses were always come every 5 minutes, so no need to sweat if you missed it. Not in Los Angeles.

Anyway, it took us about 3 hour to get to Santa Barbara vs. 2 hour if you drive – but then you’ll feel tired and had to worry about parking etc etc. Plus, we won’t be able to enjoy some scenery on the way if we drove.

Before heading off the the station, I refueled myself with whatever left over in the fridge for breakfast (beef stew plus asparagus stir fry)

Packed some Primal friendly snacks, which we didn’t touch except for one of the “hacked Larabar” that I made (will post the recipe soon).

The train was delayed a bit on the way so we arrived 30 minutes later than the scheduled time. But no worries, we had plenty of time to enjoy ourselves since our return train won’t be there until 7pm.

We went to The Palace Grill, a Cajun Cuisine Restaurant for our lunch.

The inside was pretty small and decorated with New Orleans style.

After reading the menu, we decided to order “All the Best” Platter which consist a little bit of all seafood stuff (main, appetizer and (gasp!) dessert)

appetizer, main dish (see the mini muffins and small potatoes?)

Apparently, they’re famous with their Bread Pudding Souffle – which was included in our order.

But I told the waitress if I could substituted one of the dessert with gluten free one and she said yes….with an extra charge of course.

Bread pudding souffle (left) with creamy whiskey sauce and Homemade Mango Sorbet (right)

Not gonna lie, I polished off the sorbet AND also nibbled some of the Bread Pudding Souffle as well (Hubby K had some of it), but in the end we still couldn’t finish it. It was pretty good actually – just a little hint of sweetness with cinnamon. I think it was sweet enough without having the whiskey creamy sauce poured into it (the waitress just did it right after she brought in to our table and I didn’t get a chance to tell her to hold off on the creamy sauce).

Oh, I also confessed I took a bite of the muffins and had some rice from the platter earlier as well.

For the rest of the day, we walked off our lunch around the area (from downtown to the pier and the bike path and came back). Another rule from Primal: Move around a lot at slow pace plus we got plenty of sunshine for the whole day!

It was really sunny but VERY WINDY AND FREEZING!

Lots of wine! Too bad we don’t drink.

World Market – carry everything from furniture to grocery stuff! (Bacon Chocolate anyone??) – Too bad it’s not Primal/Paleo – lots of forbidden ingredients like soy lecithin, emulsifier etc.

Got some simple meal for our “dinner”.

salad for her, sandwich for him

I ate my way around the grated cheese and skipped on the croutons and the dressing. Veggies taste good enough without any dressing already.

On our return trip, I’m happy I was able to snap these sunset scenery!

Got another delay, and didn’t get back until 11pm as opposed 10:30pm.

Overall, we had a nice, short and relaxing trip, although we slept in until 9am today and didn’t get to eat breakfast until 10:00 am

breakfast??

Plus I woke up on the wrong side yesterday so I’ve been having stiff neck (couldn’t even turn my head to left) and today was a bit better although still a little stiff.

Nibbled on some unsweetened banana chips and some macadamia nuts as well.

Now going to run to grocery store to replenish my pantry, plus hopefully I could cook some meal for the upcoming week.

*sigh* Back to the usual routine – never ends!

Public transportation vs driving – which one do you prefer?

 

Birthday Gifts

Dearest hubby K,

Happy Birthday! I know you’re pretty sensitive for getting a year older that you even had hard time sleeping last night so I understand that you had to sleep in today. And I didn’t mind you woke me up earlier this morning to keep you company until you could fall asleep and even though I couldn’t really go back to sleep, I wasn’t cranky either (Thanks to Paleo/Primal that my body doesn’t get sluggish that easily).

I woke up and had a grand plan for the upcoming week meal to make sure you won’t be food deprived.

But first of all, let me fueled myself with some breakfast which mostly left over Stir fry Kale with bacon and last of purple yam. Oh not forgetting my usual loose leaf tea.

I remembered you liked my Almond Butter Beef I made last time, even though it got burned a bit, so I made that specially for you today.

At the same time, I had to replenish my post workout meal (aka sweet potatoes) so I baked these in the oven in 425°F for about 45 minutes after brushing them with avocado oil.

I also pre-cutting all the necessary vegetables, sauteing grass fed ground beef as our emergency protein supply and made Roasted Curried Cauliflower.

While doing all of these, I had a sudden crave of Hard Boiled Eggs Stew and decided to make that one as well.

I got all of these ready by lunch time and sorry, sweet potatoes are only here just for the picture-sake But don’t worry, you’re more than welcome to have them if you like.

Did you see the Almond Butter Beef? It’s the center dish and I’m happy this time it turned out PERFECT. I was so happy that you told me you really enjoyed it a lot and couldn’t stop raving about it.

And after lunch, I wasn’t completely done with our meal prep. Remember the giant butternut squash I got couple days ago? I’m planning to make Butternut Squash puree so I cooked them in my pressure cooker. I had to do them twice since my pressure cooker couldn’t contain the whole thing at once.

While waiting for the squash to be done I did quick house cleaning that I’ve been neglecting for a while and I take this as my workout of the day.

Since today was your special day, I decided to go with you to your parent’s house for a family dinner, even though I know I won’t be able to stay truly paleo/primal due. That’s what 80/20 rules in primal are for.

You know I used to like your mom’s homemade deep fried vegetable rice paper wrap but know it’s not Paleo/Primal compliant, so you were willing to split some with me, even though you already had one earlier.

Came back home, you surprised me with these!

Aww, that’s so nice of you! I know we share the same birthday month but you really didn’t have to give this iPod touch and a case as an early birthday gift for me.

Not to mention I got an early birthday gift from Clif® Bar as well!

Umm….I feel bad for not giving you gifts for your birthday except for this bowl full of strawberries, blueberries and grapes

….which in the end I ate the most!

Hope you enjoy your birthday “gifts” from me and thank you for your early birthday gift to me

From your wife

 

Flaky and Buttery

This is a lame post..so feel free to skip if you like.

I confess, that I strayed from my path yesterday, by biting into this monster

Gluten and sugar loaded cookie -it’s even bigger than my palm!

I’ve been resisting myself to eat it, but it’s always in the back of my mind..somehow.

Sweet tooth or not, I can hardly resist a big buttery and flaky cookie from an Asian bakery. So I gave in.

It crumbled easily and melt-in-your-mouth type of cookie.

YUM

And no I didn’t share this with hubby…AT ALL.

Consumed the whole thing.

It was sweet and buttery at the same time.

Not too fond of the sweetness. It left me with this “indigestion” feeling afterward.

I didn’t beat myself up for this. I chose to do it. Why? Because it’s not doing me any good either to keep resisting myself while it constantly haunting me in the back of my mind. What’s the point? It just adds more stress to my mental, which won’t do good for my health. Might as well eat it, then move on.

Ok, enough rant.

 

Wedding Weekend Indulgence

Saturday wedding went well with some minor stuff here and there – who could expect a wedding to be 100% perfect, right? There’s ALWAYS something didn’t go according to the plan, but overall it was a nice one. Brother-in-Law J and his wife J put a nice wedding together. I won’t bore you with details. In fact just enjoy the pictures below.

Long story short: I actually DIDN’T help out much because I seriously didn’t know what exactly need to be done. J didn’t really tell us exactly what was the wedding schedule etc just we just rolled along with it.

We got there around 8 am. K went off with J to pick up the roasted pig, flowers and the bride. I stayed at JJ condo with in-laws. Pretty much I just sat there quietly, waiting patiently for other relatives to come.

Mother in Law set up this "offering" for a good luck?

 

The bedroom was decorated in red. In Chinese, red color is used for all celebrations.

Breakfast was all dim sum stuff which I didn’t touch at all

Thanks to my 3 bacon and 3 eggs breakfast I had prior.

And I sort of packed “my food”

yea I know that Berry Yogurt had some evaporated cane juice as sweetener, but I only ate 1 and gave another one to K. Pretty much I finished everything with the exception of the canned sardines.

Finally around noon, the bride and groom came. In Chinese wedding, the groom party would go to the bride’s house, bringing a whole roasted pig along with other gifts. The bride and groom would then serve the tea to the parents and older relatives and in return they give them red pockets with some money in there. After that done, both bride and groom went to the groom’s family side and did the tea ceremony as well. Speaking of which, they also served us the tea as well and we gave them the red envelopes..haha…since we’re older than them

The roasted pig - The bride family took the middle part and returned the rest to the groom side

Lunch -Catered Chinese take out

I only had the broccoli stir fry and the roasted pig – dang those skins were soo crispy! That would be my first and last to have those. I knew that I won’t be able to stay truly Primal/Paleo for today so I won’t sweat it too much.

Topped with the yam that I brought from home – DELISH!

After lunch, the bride and groom party went to a park for pictures, while we all cleaned up and headed back to parents in law place to chill a bit before going to the restaurant and preparing the set up

Around 6pm, there was open bar with snacks and mixed drinks. Mostly pastries, pudding and tempura sushi which I skipped and only nibbled the fruits.

The banquet: 10 course meal (obviously I missed some pics)

Since we were sitting in the main table, the server portioned our dishes instead.

OOoh goodness..the deep fried crab ball! I was debating if I should just cheat for this whole day, and decided to hell with it and consumed the whole thing. No more. It was super greasy and didn’t make my throat felt good afterward.

Had some wine – super good! I am not a wine/alcohol drinker but this wine was great! J totally had some taste in wine.Only drank a little bit though.

The only dishes I didn’t touch were the fried rice and the red bean soup. (no pic)

Wedding cake slice – had some – minus the cream

We left the restaurant around 11pm, dropped off all the stuff at in-law’s place and head back home. After showered and everything, crashed to bed around 1am and got up the next day around 9am.

Overall, I took today as my full cheat day of from Primal/Paleo, but at the same time I didn’t derail too much. At least I still made a good food choices and only cheat when it was worth it. In some ways, it helped me not to over indulge thanks to my “packed food” so I didn’t feel starved.

 

Primal Eat Out and Bowling I Can Not

Hi everyone! How’s your Sunday going so far? For those who are in the US, anyone watching the Superbowl? I am not a big fan of sports so NOPE, though the commercials are usually pretty interesting. I heard for a mere seconds of commercial spot, it could cost million $$.

Anyway, today I’ve been sniffing, have scratchy throat and a little lightheaded.
It might be because yesterday I didn’t wear enough clothing when hanging out with my friends. More on this later below. But that didn’t stop me to do today’s workout from Bodyrock.tv. Hope by sweating it out would ease me up a bit.

I’ve been drinking this Chinese sore throat herb syrup to ease it up.

Ingridients: Honey Loquat - just mix with hot water

Anyway, yesterday I was out for almost a whole day.

It started with my morning car service appointment, which I was told would take 2.5 hours (40k service, they had to do some fuel injection cleaner). Good thing they provide free wifi so I brought my laptop

They also provided free tea, coffee, cappucino etc and sugar loaded carbs.

donuts anyone? Not me, thanks.

Even during my pre-Primal/Paleo, I usually don’t eat sugary carbs like donuts and pastries.

 

I packed my own breakfast instead! A bag of grapes, Oikos yogurt and green tea- which I refilled twice with their free hot water.

I watched Inception on my laptop and I’d say that story is pretty good. Something about a dream. I won’t spoil it for you in case any of you haven’t watched it.

Turned out my car took about 3 HOURS!! I rushed back home, quickly did my workout, showered, ate the last 2 of tea eggs that I made couple days ago and went to the lunch gathering at BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse.

We got our private indoor patio so it was quite nice. There were total 12 adults plus 2 kids

I was about an hour late, but wasn’t the last one. There were 2 more after me.

They ordered some appetizers. I just avoided anything deep fried, grains and gluten. Besides it was a good thing I snacked 2 tea eggs before I came so I wasn’t super starving and started indulging the carbies.

Chips with Ahi tuna dips - skipped the chips and just tasted the tuna dips - I thought those were tomatoes until someone told me it was raw tuna...eww..I dont like raw fish

Had one stuffed mushroom - not bad

Some chicken taco salad - no wrap for me, just nibbled on the veggies

Totally skipped these:

bruchetta

Pizza

Some garlic toast with pasta dips?

I ordered their Old-Fashioned Pot Roast with oven roasted vegetables – substituted their mash potato & gravy with extra steamed veggies and a cup of fruits.

The pot roast was super tender and tasty! It really inspired me to make my own too. Shouldn’t be too hard. The only thing is I don’t have a slow cooker but I think I should be able to make it with my pressure cooker.

The restaurant gave M, the birthday boy a free vanilla ice cream pie.

Cake for M, the birthday boy.

chocolate coffee cake

Cake for D, our friend who’s going back to Taiwan for good later of this month.

cute strawberry cake

I had a slice of each cake. I know it’s gluten, sugar = not primal approved. But this is when 80/20 rule comes in. There are times that I can cheat a little bit. This gathering is for M’s birthday and D’s going away party. Besides I haven’t seen my friends for about 3 months.

Besides French style bakery is super good! The cake is very light and not that sweet.

I usually don't eat the cream

Our gift for D's farewell

And all we hailed to Lucky Strike for bowling! 2 friends with kids had to leave, so did another one. So total only 9 people left.

But we weren’t so lucky! The lanes were all full and no open lanes until 2 hours later.

Enter smartphones!

After searching around we went to another bowling alley nearby.

I was totally sucked! Despite I am a regular exerciser, I couldn’t even bowl properly! Only got one strike and lots of ZERO! Both games!

first game

me..sniff sniff

None of us were hungry but the day was still early so 7 of us headed to Tea Station.

But for some reason all of my friends ended up ordering some food (err thought you all said you weren’t hungry?)

They also offered me some but I politely refused because I wasn’t hungry. In fact, I wasn’t hungry at all. I had a pretty good lunch and good thing I finished my whole portion. Most people bagged their lunch, but not me. Even though I finished my lunch, I wasn’t feeling sluggish or tired. On the other hand I felt energized. Even watching my other friends having their dinner, while I only drank my Star Fruit tea (the only one of a few of caffeine free drink choices I had here), I wasn’t even craving for it. Being primal surely nice, eh?

Hot Star Fruit Tea - You could ask them to refill the hot water

Dried star fruits

Today I went to stash up my grocery and found this!

anise!

roasted with coconut oil

It tastes like onion to me – without that onion smell. It was ok, not over the top. I’ve been wanting to try this ever since see some bloggers posted about it. But I think it’s not something I’d crave for.

 

Are you good in any sports?
I’m really bad in any kinds of sports, despite I do regular exercise. Anything with hands, feet and ball coordination, count me out!