Happy Birthdayversary

Finally, my “extended weekend” has just started. Today I’m officially adding another year to my age AND my blog (technically speaking, this blog was created on Apr 28, 2010- but just to make things easier, can I just combine it together with my birthday?)

So since this post will be about me and my blog, why don’t I just talk about those then?

I’ll start off with me first

• I am a Chinese descendant born in Indonesia. Both sides of my grandparents migrated from China, which makes both my parents the first generation. I speak very little Chinese (mandarin) and probably good enough to survive for food if I ever stranded in China and I have a pretty decent understanding of simple conversation. I can’t really call myself Chinese, although people first impression of me is Chinese until they learn that I don’t really speak the language. Sometimes I called myself an “exiled” Chinese.. LOL.
• I have 2 younger brothers and no sisters and sometimes I think I might be spoiled in some ways but I digress. I wish I have 2 older brothers instead.

• I used to dislike cooking and my mom even had to force me to learn cooking or else no guy would want to marry me… LOL. I don’t know how and when that I started to get more interest in cooking and exploring different recipes and technique.

Today’s breakfast/post workout meal

• I was never a tea drinker until I got married to Hubby K. Now I can’t live with my tea. Weekdays I have to be content with my regular green tea bags. But weekends or in this case for today (day offs) are reserved for loose leaf tea

• I’ve never been a milk drinker. I hate the taste/smell and how it makes me feel bloated and gassy afterward. However, today when I went to Henry’s Market to shop some groceries, I took a free bone density test and found out I am nowhere calcium deficient.

I had to put my bare foot on the device for the bone density test. Please ignore my scary big vein.

• Recently, I started to develop some interest to pretty up my blog food photography. After reading various food photography tips and tricks, I experimented on my lunch plate to look prettier.

• Prior going Paleo, I used to like baking my own bread and once in a while cakes and sort of miss it. So, since today IS my birthday, I decided to bake my OWN birthday cake! One challenge is I’ve never baked a gluten free cake. I’ve been eying this recipe from The Primal Palate and decided today is the day that I have to make this!

Strawberry Coconutty Cake (Adapted from The Primal Palate)
Ingredients:
6 eggs – room temperature
1/2 cup coconut flour
1/4 cup coconut oil (melted)
1/4 cup raw honey
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp vanilla powder
About 1/2 cup chopped strawberries

Directions:
1. Using a handheld mixer, beat eggs with coconut oil, raw honey, vainilla, baking soda, salt on high until the mixture turned to pale yellow.

2. Bring down the mixer speed, add in the coconut flour – mix until everything combined.
3. Pour in the chopped strawberries.
4. Pour into a 9” round cake pan (I used my angel food cake pan – big mistake)

5. Bake in 350°F for about 30-35 minutes

• I’m the worst cake baker. You might not see it, but my cake was a bit burnt because I baked it too long. You could kind of see the side edge is a little dark

• Finally, to wrap things up, I’m not good in any hand crafting stuff so that’s why my cake slice just didn’t turn out right. Topping with whipped coconut cream and scattered chopped strawberries couldn’t help this little cake piece presentation either!

I’ll do a separate post for about my blogging thing since this one is already pretty long. Have a great night!

 

Blasting Weekend

I had quite a very busy weekend starting from Saturday afternoon till right now! Believe me, I didn’t even turn on my computer at all yesterday. Anyway, this will be a super long post with lots of pictures and not too many words, I promise.

SATURDAY AFTERNOON

Chocolate Swirl Buns
After I finished my post, my bread machine beeping, indicating that my bread dough was done rising! It was risen beautifully high!!! I took it out, divided into 2.

half of the dough

rolled the other half. I used 2 cutting boards cause they're not big enough by themselves..lol

mocha essence diluted with a bit of water for brushing and chocolate sprinkle for the filling

brushed the mocha essence and sprinkle the chocolate on top

roll the dough lenghtwise, and cut using the dental floss for cleaner slice. you could use serrated knife dipped in water as well, but I prefer dental floss

First batch- done with the egg wash brushed on the buns! Obviously they're way too big..haha..I'm such a sucker in craftmanship

Baked for about 350F for 15-20 minutes then 375F for another 10 minutes. Look not bad, right?

Repeat the previous steps earlier and I got this second batch! Much better!!

I guess these are for my friend...they're better looking and more evenly shaped than the first one!

No need fancy packaging, right? It's the thought and effort that counts!

I got inspired to make my chocolate bread buns from King Arthur Flour Cinnamon Buns. Since I am not a big fan of cinnamon and icing, I just borrowed their technique to make my bread look a little more interesting. It’s actually much easier to do than filling the buns with chocolate, as I did previously.

The Potluck Gathering
My husband and I arrived at my friend’s place quite on time. We helped a little bit to make the wontons. It was so much fun!

Some of our other friends arrive a bit late because of a bad accident on the freeway they were on. By the time they arrived, we were pretty much starving already. Tons of good food, who could resist to dig in??

our host made this delicous Singapore Style Stir Fried Rice Noodles. Yumm!

Pan fried wonton or should I say potstickers?

I think this is the only veggie dish we had

Baked chicken that I made...turned out pretty good actually. Cut them into smaller pieces so it'll be easier for people to eat

Homemade meat loaf..it was pretty tasty! I'm planning to make a vegetarian version of this sometime

Korean Beef BBQ...yummy! I tried not to have too much of these..prolly only 2 small pieces?

Curry chicken with lots of bamboo shoots....was ok..but bamboo shoots aren't quite my favorite.

Peking duck - didn't have any...too greasy

Wraps for the peking ducks

Stir fry rice noodle

Mung bean congee (rice porridge). Supposedly we have this after having so much greasy stuff..but I didn't have any. In fact I ate most of veggies and some of the boiled wontons (not pics on these)

My first plate. I had another 2 plates, which mostly just more veggies and wontons

My other friend made this refreshing virgin mojito - in the mix were strawberries, orange, lemons, mint leaves and a bit of Mountain Dew

Nothing beats fresh strawberries! I think I had most of these.

Some kind of dessert of grass jellies in coconut milk? I am not a big fan of coconut milk so I passed on this one.

We just hung out and chatted here and there but didn’t stay that late. Some of my friends with kids obviously couldn’t stay too late because the kids got tired like around 9:30 pm. After helping with clean ups, packed some of the left overs we left and the next gathering will be next month for the June birthday girl. We got home pretty late, around 10:30 pm. After shower and everything pretty much it was about 11 something.

SUNDAY
Homemade Almond Milk
Just because we didn’t go for the beach run, didn’t mean it would be my workout day off. I did my P90X workouts plus ChaLean Extreme I’ve Got Abs and finished around 9:30 am.

After having a yummy bowl of oats for breakfast and 2 cups of hot tea, I started off with house cleaning! Usually I do that after lunchtime, but this time I felt I had to start it off right now or else I’d just procrastinate again. And we had tons of food in the fridge, some were from yesterday’s potluck, some were the baked chicken that I made for the potluck, so the only thing we had to cook was vegetables. No pics for lunch since mostly were just left over stuff..nothing interesting.

So finally, it was time to make my almond milk! I’ve soaked the almonds for about 24 hour already. I replaced the water twice yesterday because the water got a little cloudy and I didn’t want the almonds to get bad. Interesting how the almonds looked so plumped up after soaked for a day.

before

after

Rinse the water off and put everything in the blender. Add about 7-8 cups of water for 1 cup of almonds. My blender capacity was only 5 cups so I had to divide them in half (sorta).

nice and frothy

Use a fine strainer to prevent lumps in the almond milk.

Get the most out of it by pressing the ground almond with spoon.

Done! I added 2 tsp of vanilla extract for nicer fragrant. I didn't add any sugar or sweetener as I like it this way. You can add it if you want

Store in fridge and try to finish them within a week. Before drinking it, shake the bottle as it gets settle

What to do with the almond waste? I dehydrate it by heating it in my convection oven for about 4-5 hours in 150F (my oven’s lowest temperature) with the oven door slightly ajar.

There I got my own almond flour! I was too lazy to strain some of the almond skins. I might add this into my whole wheat bread the next time I’m making it.

My husband was teasing me if we are that poor that we had to conserve this almond waste…LOL.
This step by step of making of homemade almond milk is from Novel Eats Simply Vegan.

After all these, we headed to my in-law’s place for a dinner. I haven’t gone there for about 2-3 weeks and I think it’s better I go this time. Otherwise I’ll give a bad vibe as a bad daughter-in-law.

Dinner food

My mother in-law made these amazing zhongzi (glutinous rice wrapped in leaves). I love these stuff but tried to go easy on those as it’s very calorie dense and full of fatty stuff (chinese sausage, pork fat, nuts, etc?)

zhongzi-inside

stir fry choy sum with meats - lots of pork meats....I just had the veggies

another stir fry veggies - (ghong xing chai or Ong Choy or watercress veggies). Again..lots of meats and pretty oily too.

green beans cooked with pork bell slices and chinese sausages. I only had the green beans...in moderation

stir fry noodles

pork bone soup with tomatoes and carrots.

Ok it’s getting really late and I had to cut this post. As of today, here are some pics. Just some simple stuff.

fruit lunch

oats cooked in my homemade almond milk...super creamy and could really taste the almond!

dinner

after dinner dessert - non fat plain yogurt with bloobs

Nite all!

 

Getting creative

Well sort of. Yesterday I went to my friend’s place for a visit, and of course I couldn’t just come empty handed, especially she also gave me some of her clothing that she couldn’t wear or had never worn but now don’t fit her anymore. So I decided to bake bread rolls, filled with either chocolate or cheese. I know I couldn’t bake these breads yesterday as I had to go for a car service in the morning and by the time I got back, it would be lunch time and after lunch would be the time I had to get ready to go to her place.

I baked these breads after Saturday night dinner. The dough came out amazingly risen! Just look at this! It even hit the top of my bread machine!

shape everything, trying to get them in even shape. Believe me, I'm the worst crafter but great in taste..haha

grated cheese, chocolate sprinkle and egg wash

cheese filled bread rolls

chocolate filled bread rolls. Notice the ugliest one on far left bottom....that was my first attempt..haha

Bake them at 375F for about 25 minutes..and VOILA!

Phew, those didn’t take too long, good thing. I started around 7 pm and finished around 9pm (with clean up and everything).

Yesterday morning I had to take my car to a dealer for minor maintenance. I figured I cranked out my morning workout so at least I could get that out of my way. My appointment was at 7:30 am so after the exercise, I took a shower and packed my breakfast to eat at the dealer waiting room. The nice thing about the dealer I went to, they had this wi-fi station in their waiting room.

plain non fat yogurt, cottage cheese, some pb and kashi cereal

I was super starving after the workout and finished those instantly. The dealer actually provided some breakfast goodies, from the “bad” (croissants, pastries, giant muffins) to healthy ones (cheerios cereal single serving, granola bars etc). They also had coffee, tea, water, soda etc. But I was glad I brought my own breakfast so I didn’t have to eat the pastries.

The service took about 1 1/2 hour and I was out by 9:30 am. Got back home and chilled a bit (watching more animes online, reading some stuff). Lunch time was just simple: trout fish cooked with bell peppers, boiled nappa cabbage, boiled choy sum (Chinese veggies) and mixed veggies soup with frozen korean dumplings.



Since we were going to my friend’s place after lunch, most likely we would eat out for our dinner. Whatever you saw here would be for my lunch the next day, plus these fruits:

I chose some decent shape breads for my friend, packed everything in a zip lock bag. It didn’t look pretty or anything but who cares. At least they tasted great!

Before I went, I had some yogurt snacks.

We spent quite a while at my friend’s place, mainly just talked and played a bit with her little son. He’s getting so big and very active. He’s a good kid, at least not as obnoxious as my nephew..haha. And he loves the bread that I made, especially the chocolate one. That little fella has sweet tooth.

After we left my friend’s place, we were super starving so we decided to stop by to “Sanuki no Sato”, a Japanese soba restaurant that we went before a while ago. This place was packed! Their specialties are the homemade soba (buckwheat) noodles. We got our table about 10-15 minutes later.

my hubby was eyeing the Tokujo bento: assorted sashimi, tempura, broiled fish, Japanese omelet, fish, served with miso soup and rice

On the other hand I was debating between Nabeyaki Udon (noodle soup topped with fish cakes, shrimp tempura, half-boiled egg, chicken, shiitake mushroom, seaweed and sansai vegetables) or Yamakake Nishin (noodle soup topped with seasoned herring, quailed egg over grated nagaimo yam)

Unfortunately, the bento that my hubby wanted was only served during lunch time and the Nabeyaki noodle I want was only served with udon, not soba. So in the end he got Nabeyaki Udon and I got Yamakake Nishin. Haha..

Nabeyaki udon, with vegetable tempura instead of shrimps

Yamakake Nishin. Look at the quail egg..the yolk is so small! I didn't eat the yolks.

the soba noodles were hidden underneath the toppings!

I was super starving and finished the whole noodles! I couldn’t believe it myself either. Not to mention today was my day off from exercise. I was planning to get up and did some run/jog around my compound but I chose to get more ZZZ. Oh well.

Breakfast was a slice of whole wheat toast topped with PB, ate it before I went to work because I was super starving. At work, I had my yogurt-cottage cheese mixture topped with PB, dried fruits and Kashi cereals. Those hold my hunger pretty well until lunch time. I wasn’t even that hungry during lunch time. I brought 2 containers of fruits but in the end I only had the orange/blackberry/peach combo and had the cherries for after dinner dessert instead.

Dinner was simple. Steamed fish, stir fry shrimp with veggies and bell peppers and boiled choy sum. Also finished the baby carrots that I didn’t eat for lunch, with hummus. Yummy!

Ok that was a super long post and I’m ready to hit the sack! It was tough today at work, especially after you just got back from a long weekend. I had to think a bit where I left off on Friday..ugh!

 

Dairy Free Wheat Bread – SUCCESS!

I decided not to go to my in laws place today because my stomach was cramping and bloating. Kinda felt bad, but couldn’t help it. So mostly today just relaxing at home, watching some TV shows online and I remembered I was out of whole wheat bread.
I went downstairs and started making my whole wheat bread. I’ve been making raisin cranberry wheat bread all this time and for this one I decided to leave it plain. I gave another try for this dairy free wheat bread recipe and it turned out good!

OMG, this wheat bread turned out to be SUPER AWESOME! Much better than last time I tried this dairy free recipe!

Here’s the recipe
Dairy-Free (or not) Wheat Bread
2 1/2 cup white whole wheat flour or whole wheat flour
1 cup bread flour (or all purpose flour)
3 tsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt (omit if using 2 Tbsp salted butter)
2 tsp instant yeast
3 Tbsp vital wheat gluten (It helps to make the bread rise better. Skip this if you use bread flour. )
1/2 tsp dough conditioner (optional)
1-1/2 cup water
1/4 cup avocado oil or coconut oil (omit if using butter)
1 cup ground almond (use less water if using this)

I used instant yeast because it’s convenient compare to active dry yeast. Instant yeast doesn’t need to be proofed before use. You can basically dump it together along with the dry ingredients. Active dry yeast, however, needs to be proofed first. Mix the yeast with lukewarm water and a pinch of sugar. Wait about 5-10 minutes or until it looks bubbly and frothy.

Mix all the ingredients into the bread machine or stand mixer, just make sure to pour the wet ingredients first then the dry ingredients. Let the machine does all the work and you can just walk away, how simple is that!
My bread machine has a temperature to raise the dough so after I pressed the button, the machine did all the job until the dough risen (for about 1 hour later).

Ooo it rose pretty high in my bread machine!

Lightly grease 9” x 5” loaf pan with butter or oil, whichever you prefer.

Line the bottom pan with a piece of parchment paper. This to ease out taking out the bread from the pan.

fits perfectly & ready to be baked!

Preheat oven for 400°F. It takes about 5 minutes to reach that temperature. After it’s ready, turned down the heat to 350°F and bake for about 25-30 minutes.

Remove the bread from the oven, wait about 5 minutes before taking it out from the pan. Don’t leave the bread in the hot pan too long because moisture will build up and the bread will turn soggy.

freshly baked bread smells so good!

cool down time before slicing it!

While the bread was cooling down, I prepared a very simple dinner. I wasn’t hungry actually but it was already 7 pm and I usually dislike skipping meals or eat at different times as it might mess up my eating schedule. Dinner was just simple stuff: edamame, baked eggplants, baked carrots and left over from this afternoon.

i finished the lettuce and the last piece of the baked chicken

couldn't finish these. I made too much!

My brother wasn’t that hungry either because of his big lunch with his friend. He only ate a bit of egg yolk fried rice and maybe some lettuce. In the end I couldn’t finish the eggplants, carrots and edamame. Oh well, they’ll be at my lunch plate tomorrow then

After the bread has cooled down, I sliced them up. It was super duper moist and fluffy! Just look at these:

fluffy, just like those bread you got from the store!

very soft! Yum!!

I’d say this is the fluffiest bread I’ve ever made, and it’s dairy free also! It might be able to rival those organic breads..haha.
I can’t wait to have a slice with my crunchy peanut butter for my tomorrow’s breakfast! Yum yum!

Variations: Add 1 cup of dried fruit (cranberries/raisins etc)