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?

 

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!

 

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!

 

Moves and Eats

Hi everyone, hope most of you enjoy the extra weekend (for those who are in the US). Sorry for the lack of updates but seriously I didn’t do much differently other than usual eats and some moves

Wanna know what I had? Well a little hint, I didn’t exactly have squeaky clean Paleo approved food.

Let’s start off from Sunday
Breakfast/pre workout meal
3 over easy fried eggs sprinkled with Trader Joe’s 21 seasoning salute and sliced of a whole avocado

For lunch I made some grass fed beef patties, seasoned with curry powder, Red Boat fish sauce, green onions, pepper, puree onion/garlic/shallots and an egg, pan fried with coconut oil.

Plus more yuca root fries

You’d think I’ll dig in to the lunch? Er, not so fast. I brazed myself to complete this killer 600 reps fat burner workout, which roughly I finished about 1 hour (including rest in between first and second round). I’ve never sweated so much in my life!

After that workout, it was good to devour this lunch plate

As usual I had my afternoon snack bowl of fruits (strawberries and cherries) and might be some undocumented amount of macadamia nuts.
Can you believe I already finished a bag of these already? I finally decided to do subscribe and save order from Amazon since my local Costco doesn’t carry any of these babies!!

For some reason I didn’t take my dinner pic but I think it was a super simple meal of some steamed broccoli and 2 grass fed beef patties. I wasn’t that hungry. Yuca roots always kept me full for a long time.

Monday
Breakfast
3 over easy fried eggs (seasoned with TJ 21 seasonings) served with steamed broccoli and sliced of a whole avocado

Eggs for breakfast in 2 days in a row? Let me tell you, I’ve been OUT of eggs last week and I missed them so much!

Hubby K brought back his mom’s homemade Chinese sticky rice (zongzi) the night before so I had some bites of it for my lunch, along with last of yuca roots, steamed bok choy and last of Bo Kho.

I love Chinese sticky rice (zongzi) and prior Paleo I could finish the entire thing in a second! It usually filled with some Chinese sausage, peanuts, and some pork meat. My mom’s homemeade zongzhi is something that I missed dearly. Now I know just to have a little bite of it or else I’d be a bottomless pit! Yes, that sticky rice is surely addicting!

As I thought I wanted to take a rest day, but my inner side kept bugging me to at least do some short exercise challenge, so I did 300 reps squats. Boy, I surely felt it today on my lower back and buns!

For dinner, I made Pan Seared Lamb Shoulders seasoned with Homemade Taco seasonings. The direction was exactly the same as this Crispy Taco Chicken.
Served with sliced of whole avocado and Baked Mixed Veggies (cauliflower, carrots, tomatoes, with 2 Tbsp Kerrygold Salted butter)

And I had some bowl of fruits afterward and called it a night!

Have you had any Chinese sticky rice before?

 

Taking It Easy, Way Too Easy?

**UPDATED 5/23/11** Enjoying Healthy Foods is giving away $10 off Applegate Farms coupon. ENTER NOW!!

Hi everyone! Hope you all are having a nice weekend. If you’ve read my blog recently, you would know that weekdays and weekends do not make any difference for me. In some ways, I do enjoy it but on the other hand back in my mind, I do feel a little guilt for taking this way too easy. More on that later.

Apparently, I’ve been in the mood of easy cooking as well.

Like this Easy Tandoori Chicken – which what I had for today’s lunch

With the Cauliflower “Mashed Potatoes”

And yesterday I made a big batch of Bo Kho (Vietnamese Beef Stew) – this time I used Red Boat fish sauce and TONS of lemon grass, 3 huge carrots and 1/2 cabbage head cut into chunks!

I also made a little effort to make my own tomato paste by cooking 8 tomatoes until most of the liquid evaporated.

Boy, I have Bo Kho to feed an army here

I froze some so we won’t be sick eating Bo Kho for the next couple meals.

Now you know what I’ll be having for dinner later

But taking it easy doesn’t apply to my morning workout. Yesterday and this morning workout left me sweaty and pumped up, in a good way.
Yesterday and today’s pre workout snack – 1 small Japanese yam

Yesterday’s post workout snack – 1 small Japanese yam and 1/2 chicken breast left over from Crazy Chicken dinner

Lunch was super yummy and easy as well. Cheater’s Shish Kabob Chicken with sliced of whole avocado, Baked Cabbage and steamed Chinese Kale (gailan)

And I had mid afternoon snack of bowl of fruity goodness: cherries, strawberries and sliced of an orange.

Which kept me full that I almost didn’t need dinner, but couldn’t resist to taste Bo Kho that I made.

Today’s post workout snack was combined as my lunch, which I already posted earlier. And I had some purple yam in the oven and by the time it was done, I couldn’t resist to have some. I only intended to eat half but then ended up consuming the whole purple yam. Gosh, I love purple yam way too much!

Now I wonder if I’ll have a dinner later.
Ok, here’s my dinner

Anyway, back to the topic I mentioned earlier on this post. It’s been a week since that day and to be honest, I haven’t really made an effort to prepare myself for job search. On one hand I’d like to take my time to do it, but on the other hand I’m a little scared that I’m getting a bit too comfortable with my situation now. I’m not saying financial won’t be an issue because eventually it will catch up! We can’t live off on our entire savings forever. I’ve been having this “guilt” at the back of my mind that I should put my act together and stop being a slacker.

Ok enough rant. I just want to write it up to make myself feel better.

Have a great day!

 

Food Porn Friday

Post workout snack – one baked sweet potato (sorry recycled picture)

Lunch – yes another shredded chicken (almost done here!), spring mix, macadamia nuts, sliced whole avocado, sliced whole tomato

Dressed with homemade dressing (Red Boat fish sauce with lemon juice, orange juice, avocado oil)

Ate another sweet potato as afternoon snack (not actual pic, I had a small Japanese Sweet Potato – white colored as opposed orange)

Made Baked Cabbage inspired from Nom Nom Paleo’s Braised Cabbage recipe.
My Baked Cabbage has:
1/2 cabbage head – cut into 8 wedges
4 Tbsp homemade chicken broth
2 Tbsp Kerrygold salted butter – cut into pieces
1 giant carrot -diagonally sliced
Chopped onions
Dash of black pepper
1 tsp paprika powder
1/2 ts chili powder

Cover the dish with foil – bake in 325°F for 1 hour, flip the cabbages around, bake for another hour. I skipped the broiling part cause my cabbage looked wilted enough and the carrots were already soft. Still turned out yummy!

Of course I topped this with the last remains of the shredded chicken (finally done!) I promise you, I won’t make that shredded chicken until much much later.

So what was the protein? Well Crazy Chicken take out!

I had a coupon get 10 pieces of chicken (any cut) for $10 (regular price is $10 for 8 pieces). Not totally Paleo (chicken might not be pastured raise) but it’s flame grilled and they’re yummy! I’d say Crazy Chicken is one of my Paleo to go fast food restaurant, in addition to In-N-Out Burger.

Dinner: Crazy Chicken, Baked Cabbage and Steamed Chinese Kale (Gailan)

Do you care if a blogger recycle his/her pictures a lot?

What’s your favorite “healthy” fast food restaurant?

 

Wacky Wednesday

Guess what?! I got bitten by a vampire in the morning!

Did that get your attention? No..ah darn it..gotta come up with a better one next time.
Okay, I had my blood drawn and some other physical tests this morning, which means I had to be fasted starting midnight (no food, no drink and that includes water). The person who drew my blood might be her first day doing it. She poked my arm at the middle part, which I clearly knew that wasn’t the right place. I sort of told her that it should be the one a bit on the side. Well what she said? She said that my vein was really deceiving and poked at the place that I told her. DOH!

The weather was really cold/cloudy and rainy! We’re in May, aren’t we supposed to have sunny and a bit warmer weather?

on our way to grocery store

Don’t get me wrong…I do actually enjoy this kind of weather (and right after I said it out loud, the sky cleared up and the sun came out. Grr..just can’t see me enjoying something huh??)

I had a super late breakfast: coconut pancake, braised coconut shredded chicken and sliced of whole avocado.

I made this coconut pancake after seeing the recipe on Nom Nom Paleo. Actually it was her husband’s, Fitbomb, who came up with this. I didn’t remember exactly what he put in his, but roughly my coconut pancake had:
3 eggs
1/4 cup coconut flour
1/4 cup shredded coconut
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

I fried them with 2 Tbsp coconut oil on medium heat.

The pancake was on the bland side (I purposely did it that way since I don’t want it to be sweet anyway), but it was on a drier side. After checking back the original recipe, I figured I forgot to add at least 1 Tbsp of fat (butter or coconut oil). DOH! Well, I still finished it and saved the other one for a snack.

I couldn’t have enough of yucca root fries,  so I made another batch, which also the last batch.

Because of those, I didn’t really have a proper lunch. Pretty much I polished off the entire plate throughout the day. Even as my post workout meal.

Had some strawberries, which I made a little effort to cut off part of the stems away. Usually, I just pluck the leaves and left the stems and I am not embarrassed to admit that I just swallow the entire strawberries including the stems.

I was so happy when these babies finally arrived!!

Red Boat Fish sauce, a Paleo approved fish sauce! No sugar added, no chemical, no gluten, no gimmicks! Just anchovies and sea salt, that’s it! Authentic from Vietnam and I can’t wait to add these into some of my cooking or use it as a dip! Woot!! Big thanks to Nom Nom Paleo who spread out the word of this item gem.

So finally I got a chance to cook the white perch fishes that I got 2 days ago. As I mentioned, when the fish is fresh, just need to salt them a bit then pan fry them and enjoy it!

Served with a dipping sauce (mixture of juice of 1 lemon with 3 tsp of Red Boat fish sauce). YUM!

Red Boat fish sauce tastes very differently from other fish sauces that I’ve had before. It’s not as fishy and salty. It’s just perfect! I’m pretty sure it’ll be wonderful as part of marinate as well!

I’m still pretty full to have a dinner (blame it all to the morning fasting that threw my eating schedule to a whack!), but these fishes and the dipping sauce surely tempt me….A LOT!

I’m still in my Desperate Housewives marathon, but don’t get me wrong. Although I still spend quite sometime in front of my computer, 80% of the time I’m sitting on my stability ball. How’s that not a great core workout?

Have a great evening everyone!

**UPDATE**
Ok I just had my very light dinner although I wasn’t hungry but I rather eat something now rather being starving later midnight. Btw, Kath is having her first blog giveaway! Go visit the post to learn more how to win $30 Amazon.com voucher!

 

Not too bad actually

Thank you everyone for the great comments on my last post! I’m sure I could go thru this situation just fine. Sometimes when you think about it, eating healthy is actually more expensive compare eating junks. But let’s think it this way. We rather spend a bit more on good quality food rather than medical bills and medications, right?

Being healthy is expensive (I translated literally from Indonesian’s famous proverb- sorry if it doesn’t quite make sense).

So speaking about food, what did I have for today?

Breakfast/post workout was exactly the same as yesterday – sweet potatoes and Applegate Roast Beef slices.

Lunch was also exactly the same as dinner..LOL…I know I’ve been having lots of food deja vu lately.
Oven fried taro fries, Oven fried curried chicken fingers and steamed Chinese veggies.

Dessert was the last container of strawberries (gotta get more this Saturday from Farmer’s Market)

Those kept me full until the time I got home and started to get hungry while I was driving home. Luckily, since Hubby K is now temporarily a stay home hubby, he already started cooking some dinner (mainly steaming veggies and reheated some Char Siew) while I made Egg Loaf Frittata.

Too bad I was too hungry to wait for the frittata to be done so I ate without it.

Plus I ate another avocado after I polished off the entire plate.

Tomorrow is finally Friday, (YAY!) which also mean the last workout of this week for me. Weekend, here I come!!

Tell me, what’s your biggest expense? Food? Clothing? Or other stuff?