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Lazy Dog with Friends

For some reason I woke up at 4:30am and tried to go back to sleep, but that didn’t happen. After tossing around for about an hour, I decided to rise up from the bed, played some silly bubble game on my iPod until I got bored. Then I remembered I still “owed” last 2 rounds of the killer 400 reps variations of Burpee workout from Thursday.

Reluctantly, I warmed up then completed the second round. You can read more details about it here if you’re interested :)

Despite skipping dinner, not having breakfast, I didn’t crash while doing that intense workout, which amazed me in some ways. But worry not, I’m not going to do intermittent fasting way too often as fat/weight loss is not my fitness goal. On the other hand, it feels good to give your body a little “break” from digesting food.

So here’s the breakfast/post workout snack for the champion :D

Medium size of baked Japanese yam with a tin of wild sardines in spring water. Yay, I got my natural Omega-3 intake of the day, which what I prefer the most. But getting Omega-3 from supplements is not a bad idea either though. Better than nothing, right?

We went to Farmers Market afterward to restock the strawberries and also bought some cherries (it’s cherry season already. Lots of booths selling cherries)

About noon time I went to meet the gals (Hubby K stayed home since he had to go to his parents place for dinner and I wasn’t sure how long this gathering would be) at The Lazy Dog Cafe in Huntington Beach.

The walls are full of dog pictures..haha hence the name!

I’m not a dog person, but those dogs in the pics surely look cute!

Before went there, I did my little homework for some gluten free friendly menu that I could order so I asked The Lazy Dog Cafe on their FB

And I also snacked bunch of macadamia nuts and some banana chips (from Henry’s Market) to make sure I won’t be too starving.

unsweetened banana chips!

Since our group was kinda small this time (2 birthday gals- total 5 people) we decided to share the food. I still ordered that Bacon Wrapped Coulotte and asked for steamed broccoli and gravy on the side. Hm, I forgot to ask the waitress to sub the mashed potatoes with steamed broccoli, but I think she forgot to separate the gravy on the side.

No biggie, I just ate around it a bit.

The rest of the food that Yen, one of the b’day gal ordered (since she’s been there before)
Sweet Potato Tater Tots with some kind of dip sauce – I couldn’t resist to have a little bite of those (no dipping) – pretty good

Pizza Margherita – looks delish but I didn’t have any

Pesto Chicken and Hummus

The pesto sauce was delicious- I didn’t try the sundried tomato hummus since I can’t handle beans (all kinds of legumes) that well.

Spicy Moroccan Chicken and Couscous

My friend M got the spicy kick from this dish while for me it wasn’t spicy at all (or maybe I was lucky enough not to get the spicy part?) Pretty delicious actually.

And the restaurant gave each 2 birthday gals, Ay and Yen a cup of ice cream sundae!

Our organizer, Sweet J bought this nice Oreo and Cream Cheese Cake from a Korean bakery.

I’m not a sweet tooth gal, but didn’t want to be a stuck up not having a little slice of the cake. Thank goodness my gut didn’t hate me too much. The cake was ok, but a little too sweet for me. My taste buds is very sensitive to sugar now (other than fruits).

When the time for 3 of us to split the bills, M was nice enough asking me if I was ok with the amount. Since she’s technically the only friend that reads my blog, she knows the current situation that Hubby K and I now. I appreciate her concern but I assured her I’m fine with the amount. Besides, it’s not like I’m always splurging all the time.

It was such a GORGEOUS day! Sunny, blue sky and cool breeze!

We hung out a bit, just walked around at the Target store nearby the restaurant then we bid our farewell for the next gathering in July. It’s always nice to catch up with friends and in some ways it’s good that we are keeping in touch by having this once a month gathering. After graduating and start working/family, we tend to be busy with our own schedule. It’s all thanks to M’s idea for having this once a month get together. :)

On the way home, I stopped by Walmart to get some avocados. (Gotta LOVE that 50 cents avocado)

I wasn’t too hungry but I am not intend to do another intermittent fasting since I just did it yesterday. It’s not something that I should be doing too often. So for dinner I just whipped some simple spring mix salad with some protein, avocado and sliced of whole tomato. No pic, but you got the idea.

Have a great weekend!

Btw, does your neighbor usually have a party with loud music when it’s long weekend? When I was typing this post, I could hear my neighbor was playing a loud Spanish songs. It’s always like this when it’s a long weekend. *sigh*. It doesn’t bother me much since my room is facing the other way (thank goodness).
And by loud meaning I can actually hear the music from my room if my window is open. Good thing he doesn’t have that heavy base speaker otherwise it’ll be waay too much!

 
4 Comments

Posted by on May 28, 2011 in food, life

 

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Strawberry “Cake” Paleo Birthday

I had a fun time hanging out with my friends who were nice enough to have a get together to celebrate my birthday. Usually the birthday person got a chance to pick his/her own restaurant. I picked a Mexican restaurant, ChaCha’s Taco & Tequila in Brea.


Complimentary tortilla chips (which obviously I didn’t touch) and salsa.

Prior coming to the restaurant, I was aiming for their Roasted Chicken which what they’re famous for. The restaurant claim that they use all natural meat and free range chicken. Okay..sounds good to me. The waiter told us the Roasted Chicken are usually only served during dinner time, but lucky for me, they actually already made at least 5 of them so I could order it. SCORE!


I basically asked them no tortilla, rice and beans and asked for a little extra veggies. I was unaware that there were corn, but no sweat, I just ate around them.

Hubby K ordered “Wood Oven” Carnitas without any beans (just rice and flour tortilla on the side)

Usually when dining out I just stick to H2O, but I heard the waiter mentioned their freshly squeezed lemonade doesn’t have any added sugar in there.

I tasted it and I could tell you that they might still add some sweetener in there. There is NO WAY a pure lemonade doesn’t taste completely sour. It has some sweet taste in there. Lesson to learn, just stick to WATER (or plain iced tea) when dining out, no excuse.

Everyone else ordered some Enchiladas, tacos, mahi mahi, carnitas etc. I was so glad that everyone really enjoyed their meal and they liked the food. People kept asking me if I ever came here and I said no, just read it online. :P

The restaurant gave me a complimentary birthday cake, Tres Leches Cake. Pretty much a vanilla chiffon cake soaked in tres leches (some kind of milk?). I knew this cake would be super sweet beyond my taste buds could handle so I let each of my friend had a little bite from it. (ugh..I guess I’ll just rot in hell later for passing on the “evil food” aka sugar and gluten to my friends)
Sorry I just realized I forgot to copy the picture to my computer and I already erased the ones in my camera! ARgh!

Anyway, the biggest highlight was this gorgeous Strawberry “Cake” that was “made” by the get together organizer, my friend, Sweet J.

I mentioned her not bother buying a birthday cake, instead just gave me bunch of strawberries in a box..LOL. I didn’t expect her to actually arrange them nicely like this! This surely made my day. :D The best Paleo birthday “cake” EVER! Isn’t she so sweet?
Thank you Sweet J for the lovely Strawberry “Cake” for my birthday!

But I am not completely innocent though. I did had some small bite of gluten this morning for my breakfast.

No, not that! That’s my gluten free Coconutty Strawberry cake:P

This guy!

I might not mention it but I had to start purging all my flour in my pantry, so I made a Cinnamon Raisin Wheat Bread couple days ago.

Sorry, I can’t justify myself to just throw away all those wheat flour and stuff. Those things cost $$$!

Anyway, I gotta get ready to go to bed. One day out meaning all weekend chores/meal preparation all got pushed back to…tomorrow!

Good night!

 
4 Comments

Posted by on April 30, 2011 in food, life

 

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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! :D

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!

 
3 Comments

Posted by on June 14, 2010 in food

 

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