Who’s the Champion?

I’ve been feeling weird lately ever since last Sunday.

Yes, I’m still sniffing, with some runny nose once a while, a little headache and a bit of scratchy throat. However, I don’t have a fever, body aching, nor coughing. It might be a sign that my body is still fighting hard to ward off the germs out from my body?

We’ll see who’s the champion in the end.

Anyway, yesterday I received Chobani’s newest product that I won from their giveaway: Chobani Champions – Greek yogurt for the kids!

Two flavors: Very Berry and Honey Nana (3 packages) – Woot!

I tried Very Berry today after lunch and it was actually pretty good. At first I was expecting the berry pieces would be under the yogurt but it wasn’t. They were mixed already. It was a bit sweet for my taste but overall it’s a pretty good protein snack on the go

Thank you Chobani for the package! It surely took a while to arrive, probably because of the weather.

Anyway, I will bring some for my friend G, who’ll be hosting a party for her 3 year old son’s birthday and D (her sister) this coming Sunday. She just had another baby last month. In Chinese tradition, after a baby is one month old, the parents usually having some kind of celebration called “Red Egg party” (please correct me if it’s wrong). But G and her hubby didn’t have time to host a party. Instead, they gave us a package contained: sticky rice, BBQ chicken leg and 2 red eggs.

I tried a little bit of the sticky rice and mostly I just ate the eggs as part of my breakfast.

Any plans for this coming Valentine’s Day weekend? Do you celebrate Valentine?
K and I won’t be doing anything special. Even when we were still dating, we didn’t celebrate V-day either. It’s kinda lame in some ways but think it this way: why do you need a special day just to say how much you care to that other person? It could be any other day, right? Yeah I know I’m lame. Besides I rather avoid the restaurant crowds on V-day and have my own home cooked meals

Sorry for the short post, I gotta hit the bed early to prepare myself to this “torture” tomorrow:

Source: Bodyrock.tv

 

Finally…

Happy Friday everyone! How’s everything? Any plans for weekend?

I will be hanging out with my college friends tomorrow for lunch and maybe bowling. I haven’t seen them for couple months because of some family matters. Anyway, I’m glad I finally can see them again.

Btw I FINALLY got my car’s bumper fixed! After shelling out $500 for deductible, I’ll just wait for the insurance to jack up my policy at my next renewal.

Tomorrow morning I’ll bring my car for 40k service – it’s been overdue! Heesh…I just wanna get the car thing outta my way.

Ok let’s go to the fun stuff.

I took a half day off from work today for an appointment. That didn’t take too long so I figured I wanted to stop by Sprouts Farmers Market — FINALLY!

I’ve heard this market before but I’ve never got a chance to check it out. There’s no Sprouts Farmers Market nearby my neighborhood area and today I decided to go to this one which I’d say kind of close by where I was today. Even that, the drive was waaay out of my usual route.

Anyway, my first impression: It’s like a Whole Foods with Trader Joe’s price The place is clean and their produce look very fresh! They also have a bulk bins of nuts, rice, flaxseeds etc. Their staff are pretty helpful. Earlier I saw their Organic fuji apples were not stocked and asked whether they still had them in stock. They happily went to the back to check and minutes later they told me they already restocked the shelf. Woot!

C’mon, when was the last time I could get Organic Fuji Apples for 88 cents/lbs?

These babies ARE HUGE too and they aren’t bad looking either! I restrained myself not to get too many or I’d blow off this month’s grocery budget.

48oz 100% Raw Unrefined Honey for less than $10.00? I’ll take that!

5lbs Organic carrots for $4.49? Sure, bring it here!

88 cents/lbs red seedless grapes. I immediately grabbed 2 bags of those!

For some reason, I COULDN’T FIND ANY full fat Greek yogurt, so I figured I’ll try these 2 brands.

For organic pricing, Sprouts Farmers Market has won my heart. However, since it’s located far from where I live, I don’t think I’ll make it part of my weekly grocery trip. Maybe monthly. It’s a different story if they start to open nearby my neighborhood place though.

Btw yesterday was the actual Chinese New Year (or Lunar New Year) and my workplace provided some kind of Chinese sweets for all the employees (geez I was hoping they’d give out the “red pocket” aka bonus)

Obviously I didn’t touch any of those sweets, not my favorite so no worth cheating.

But I scored this Loose Leaf Green Tea from one of the gift basket from our vendor!

And no Chinese New Year meal would be complete without NOODLES!

Noodles symbolize long life in Chinese, so during special occasions (birthday, new year etc) it’s good to have noodle dish. Simple dinner yet very filling and yummy Do you notice the ground pork dish? It’s the same ground pork that I used for the dumplings.

Just stir fry, added some veggies – voila – another dish!

And FINALLY, I made my OWN Coconut Butter – Thanks Katie for posting it!

It is SUPER SIMPLE!

Homemade Coconut Butter (from Chocolate Covered Katie)

Ingredients:
1 package of unsweetened coconut flakes (I used Let’s Do Organic) – I got those from Amazon.com – 12 packs of 7oz.  for $21!

Directions:
Blend unsweetened coconut flakes in your food processor and blender until it clumps up together- like this!

Be patient..just like nut butters, take a little a while sometimes..depending on your blender/food processor

Homemade Coconut Butter!

Any favorite grocery stores that you always go to?
I usually go to ethnic market rather than Vons, Albertsons, Ralphs etc. Since most of my dishes are Asian, I usually shop at Chinese market for veggies. For meat and other stuff, Superking Market, a Mediterranean-Mexican is one of my favorite as well and I blogged about it before here.
I very rarely shop at Trader Joe’s and never shop at Whole Foods (sorry for TJ and WF shoppers – no offense). For me, Whole Foods is like a rip off. Sure they have organic guarantee stuff, but I am not willing to spend my whole paycheck on it.

 

Where did my weekend go?

Hm..it’s already Sunday night? Where did my weekend go?

And lucky for those who has a day off tomorrow (Martin Luther King Day for those in the US). On the brighter side, it’ll be a better commute for me..hehe Gotta cheer myself up a bit to prepare for another week.

Thanks for the comments on my last post regarding laser eye surgery. It surely was the highlight of my day reading your thoughts about it!

Yesterday’s optometrist trip was a success! My prescription remained the same! WOOT!

With insurance, I only ended up spending $30 for eye exam, prescription for contacts and glasses and 1 full year supply of contact lens. K, on the other hand had to spend about $300 because he had to order a new frame. His prescription changed slightly..it was lower instead of higher. He wasn’t quite happy about it and decided to look for another optometrist next year.

Afterward we went to TJ which was located right around the corner and I picked up a bag of organic apples.

I know apple is one of the “Dirty Dozen” list but I’ve never bothered buying organic. But after I started going Primal/Paleo, I’m start thinking of getting “Dirty Dozen” produce organic. When K heard that, he just rolled his eyes and said that our grocery bills will be much higher.

After spending about an hour at the optometrist and another half hour at TJ, we decided to eat out for lunch. We went to Mughal Halal Tandoori Restaurant for an afternoon buffet.

The restaurant was not that big and there was a party going on at the other side of the room. The food was good, though not much selection. But for us who are not that familiar with Indian cuisine, having a buffet is a good way to try different dishes. Besides, they also offered Chinese food (egg fried rice, stir fry veggies).

An Indian restaurant wasn’t complete without its naan bread (garlic and plain)

soo soft and so good when dipped in the curry sauce. I had a little piece of these, despite it's totally not Primal/Paleo - gluten

My shares:

I’m completely aware that when eating out, it’s pretty hard to determine whether the food meets primal/paleo standard. But I won’t stress out too much about it.

K’s shares (and I nibbled on it a bit- the Chicken Biryani Rice was good…had a spoonful of it)

With Groupon, we ended up only with $1.90 something bill for total (my Groupon worth $20 and I only paid $10 to buy it). Of course we tipped them from the pre-discounted amount. The waiter must be super busy that he mistakenly took our $10 bill as $20. So we got a lot more change than it was supposed to be. We are honest people so we just left the extras.

Whew, I was stuffed from the lunch and even skipped dinner – I didn’t go to my in-law’s place because I figured I wouldn’t be able to eat anything anyway. Besides I was so dead tired, not sure why…maybe I was wiped out by my morning workout.

But I certainly can’t wait to taste this Dragon Fruit

Have you had dragon fruit before?

Organic or conventional produce? Thoughts?
I do worry about pesticides from the “Dirty Dozen” produce, but at the same time how do we know that the organic ones are pesticide free? One could argue that it’s just some marketing gimmicks to trick people to spend more money for their produce.

Have a good night!

 

A visitor, Prana Bar review and long term goal

I had a super bad stomach cramps last night after I finished my post and again now I am feeling it. The closest description I could come up is having your guts being squeezed and twisted…ouch..not to mention I’ve been feeling bloated and cramps for the whole afternoon, partly because of the “monthly thing”. Don’t you “love” your loyal monthly visitor, ladies?

Anyway, my P90X workout this morning was like blah…scoring from 1-10 (1 being the worst, 10 being the best) I’d give it 4. I even skipped the other abs workout that I usually do after the main one done, but today that just didn’t happen. This got me into thinking about all my workout routine for the past 6 months. More on this later. Now onto my munchies of the day:

For post workout/first breakfast, I had this super creamy oats in homemade plain almond milk with Prana Bar Apricot Goji

That bar by itself was at least 220 calories, plus the almond milk and oats roughly about 300 something calories? I’m not trying to count calories here, just want to give rough estimate. I was so wasted after the workout, really had not much energy and I felt I just had to load my oats with something a bit more dense. But this didn’t sustain that long either.

About 1 hour later, after I got to the office, I toasted 2 slices of Rudi’s Organic Bakery Honey Sweet Whole Wheat Bread, topped with super chunk pb.

I love this honey whole wheat ones. It tasted pretty fluffy though not as fluffy as white bread but still good. It had a hint of honey taste but not overpowering. I even ate this bread plain before, no pb, no butter, no jam, not toasted. Just plain and still good! But for today, I need some solid (second) breakfast, so I topped the slices generously with chunky pb. Yumm…so delicious.

Late morning snack: yogurt with mixture of Kashi Go Lean Crunch, Kashi Go Lean Cereal and some Cheerios.

this was already half eaten

Lunch: whatever left over from last night dinner: edamame, broccoli, yams (no pic) and first fruit serving (similar as yesterday’s fruit combos).

Afternoon snack: second fruit combo – strawberries and Prana Bar Apple Pie.


This bar was pretty good, not as dense and gummy as the other ones that I tried before. It had a slight cinnamon taste, and some bits of dried apples here and there and of course the nuts. It tasted pretty sweet, after I had it I drank at least 1-2 12 oz water. It was ok, not quite my favorite but good enough to sustain my hunger. Seriously, the strawberries weren’t enough.

So you think that bar will hold my hunger until dinner? Not really. Even though my brother was kind enough to boil bok choy and made steamed whole fish, I still had to wait for my brown rice to cook. Can’t eat steamed fish without rice!

bok choy

steamed whole fish

roasted duck - didn't have any

Some almonds afterwards and those are pretty much what I had for today.

As I am writing this post, I am still having some kind of “hunger” feeling that I still want to eat something, but dunno what. I don’t really feel quite hungry, just a feel want to munch something. My stomach isn’t cramping anymore, thanks to warm water + honey that I drank earlier, but still kind of bloated. I feel I ate quite a lot today, but don’t get me wrong, I am not feeling guilty or things like that. It’s just today I just constantly feeling hungry or wanting to munch something. Good thing I wasn’t craving for bad stuff like fries or anything like that.
But given to my not so good workout performance this morning, I was a bit confused. On the days I was so in my best performance, I didn’t have this kind of thing.

I am thinking of gaining some weight and I’m talking about muscle weight. I am not trying to bulk up or anything like that, but more lean muscles.

round 1 p90X

this is the most recent picture of me - day 30 of second round p90x

day 30 round 2 p90X- flexed

As you can see, I didn’t see much difference from round 1 and round 2, except perhaps maybe around my midsection area? But my arms and shoulders are SO THIN! However, I do have my problem area = lower belly. Though my upper part was flat (hell I am super flat chested- kinda embarrassing). I am thinking to increase my calorie intake. How exactly am I going to do it? I’ll eat more complex carbohydrates (brown rice, whole wheat bread, some noodles and pasta here and there in moderation) , more protein intake (fish, chicken, yogurt and maybe some red meat once in a while), healthy fat (nuts?) and as usual tons of fruits! It won’t be much different from what I’ve been having so far, but I’ll increase the portion size. One problem is, when I gain weight, usually ALWAYS show up at my lower belly area!! My plan for that? I’ll add more intensity of my ab workout, plus cardio and weight lifting. This will be my long term goal, even I’m done with my second round of P90X, which is by the end of this month.

Sorry for the super long post, but this is what I’ve been thinking for the whole day today.
Question of the day for ladies: Does your “loyal monthly visitor” affect your workout performance? As you can see, it does to me.

PS: I had a slice of another honey whole wheat toast with chunky pb and my “hunger” feel slowly disappeared!

Good nite!

 

Family and I, GNU review

I finally took my time and called my mom earlier using Skype! Gosh I know I’m such a bad daughter not calling her for quite a while (last time she was here was around 3 months ago!!)….*sigh* Sometimes I think I am always got too caught up doing my own stuff and keep procrastinate calling her. Felt bad….in some ways. I am always amazed at some people who can call their parents and talk to them everyday. Seriously, what possibly can you talk to them on the phone if you call every single day? Sometimes I hesitate to call my mom because I feel like I have nothing to talk about. Yeah just going to work, come home have dinner, shower and sleep. So majority of the time, my mom talks more about her stuff. My Skype account balance was over, but that wasn’t an excuse for not calling her anytime soon. I’m telling myself that from now on I should AT LEAST call her once a week…or more if I can!

Ok, lets move onto the food part!
This morning, I made another bowl of oats, topped with pb, low fat plain yogurt and some strawberries!!

didn't bother to cut the strawberries in half...I was a bit rush this morning

Cut up fruits for my lunch snacks as well. I’m so glad finally I could have more varieties in there besides orange, peach and papaya.

I knew that the bowl of oatmeal won’t last me until lunch time, so I packed GNU Foods Orange Cranberry Bar as my late morning snack at work.


The first thing that I noticed when opening the package was the strong orange scent. It had a sweet smell, like those orange candy, however, the bar itself wasn’t that sweet! For non sweet tooth person like me, it was tolerable. The bar was a bit chewy but not dense. It was actually considered to be pretty light. I could even taste the wheat flakes and some raisin chunks in between. It had a slight bitter taste though, kind of the bitterness from a fresh squeezed orange juice. Overall, I love this bar, can’t wait to taste the other flavors! For more complete nutritional info, visit their site here.

So today my lunch was consisted of lots of veggies (similar to what I had from last night dinner) plus I brought my nutritional yeast as my dipping. It was super good! Just as an info, nutritional yeast has lots of vitamin B12, thus makes your urine color neon yellow – based on the information that I searched earlier. I was a bit worried when I saw that, thinking I didn’t drink enough water. Usually my urine was colorless because I could drink 8-10 12oz. of water. After I knew it was from the nutritional yeast, I eased up a bit. But I think I’ll go easy on that. Don’t want to overworked my kidney with overloaded vitamin B12 which my body won’t absorb all of it, thus ended up being wasted. That thing wasn’t cheap either!

I was quite full after lunch, even only managed finished one of my fruit snacks, didn’t eat my edamame and yogurt. So those ended up as my dinner, minus the yogurt, along with some boiled green beans and broccoli and 2 whole egg omelets.

For those who live away from their parents, how often do you talk to them? For me, I am trying at least calling once a week. My parents are all the way in Asia so time difference plays some part here. Sometimes I chat with them, mainly my dad, early morning before I go to work, or call my mom in the evening after dinner.

 

Jogging, furniture window shopping and relaxing

My morning beach jog/run was fantastic! I even did a mini interval run/jog in between, synchronizing with my music. I thought today I couldn’t do much run because my left knee acting up, but that wasn’t the case. Also as usual Saturday morning is our grocery shopping time so we stopped by at Superking Market on our way back. Ever since I found out about them, I usually go there to shop produce stuff. They don’t label themselves carrying organic produce, but I could careless about buying organics. I chose convenience and budget friendly rather than organic. Besides, the stuff look fresh and decent price.
Surprisingly I wasn’t hungry at all after that run/jog interval, though I only did it for 2-3 songs. Usually I had to snack on some energy bar but not today. I still had it in my bag, but I wasn’t feeling hungry so it stayed in tact.

Ok my eyes are starting to closing up and have to shower and go to bed soon. Nite!
Finally, after I came home, I was so excited to taste Rudi’s Organic Bakery Bread for my breakfast!!

Cinnamon Raisin Bread and Spelt Ancient Grain Bread

I toasted both of these goodies in the oven for a bit to warm them up and also to get one side a bit crispy. Yesterday after I received them, immediately I put them in the fridge so they won’t get spoiled. These are organics, can’t stay outside too long, especially with this getting warmer So Cal weather.

fluffy cinnamon bread

I haven’t bought any bread from store for a while but I could remember how it tasted like. It was soft but empty at the same time. Also store bought wheat bread (any kind) always left some bitter after taste in my mouth. But not with Rudi’s Organic Bakery Bread! The cinnamon raisin bread had that typical cinnamon smell and the sweetness came from the raisins and tasted pretty solid. I am not a big fan of cinnamon, but I am not a hater as well. It’s just something I could live without but I won’t refuse it if it’s around either. Overall this cinnamon raisin bread is a must for all cinnamon lover.

Next is the Spelt Ancient Grain Bread, toasted and topped with Natural Directions® Organic Crunchy Peanut Butter.

Rudi's Organic Bakery Spelt Ancient Grain Bread - toasted and topped with chunky PB

close up view

I’d say this is my absolute favorite! Tasted pretty light, pretty unusual for whole wheat bread. Even the one that I usually make, I have to mix 50/50 with regular flour, otherwise it’ll be a bit dense. I read on a lot of baking sites, most whole wheat bread recipes that use only whole wheat flour tend to be a bit dense compare to white bread. That’s because whole wheat flour doesn’t have as much gluten as regular flour.
Ken, my husband (I think it’s time I should just refer him with his name instead of keep saying “my husband” all the time ) toasted Rudi’s Organic Bakery White Bread.

first round, a bit too toasted on the other slice

second round, much better! Not too burned!

He had total 4 slices of those, plus another 3 slices of my homemade whole wheat bread. He ate all of those plain, no PB, butter, nothing, zero, nada. Just plain toasted bread slices! I took a little bite of the white bread. I couldn’t remember when was the last time I had white bread! It tasted a bit sweeter than the wheat ones I had earlier (sweetness from the raisins doesn’t count), and much fluffier as well.

warm homemade almond milk

Delicious breakfast on Saturday morning!

I was feeling like to have my usual jasmine green tea

Ken was nice enough to brew some Ti Kuan Yin Loose Leaf tea. I had 2 cups of this

While we were having breakfast we decided to go to Living Spaces to shop for our living room furniture. Seriously we’ve been planning on getting furniture ever since we moved, but always got delayed. At least I want to get rid of this ghetto looking futon from my living room:

After we finished breakfast, showered, we went straight to the store, which wasn’t too far from our house. Walked around the store, saw some dining table sets,bar stools and our eyes went on this sofa:

Source: Living Spaces Website

Looks pretty nice and we actually wanted to get it, along with some bar stools that we saw. In the end did we get it?
Sadly, NO. Ken said he wanted to wait a bit for the sofa but next week we might want to get the bar stools. Why next week? It’s a long weekend and we have this wishful thinking that the store might have some big sale going on. We’ll see.

After that we headed out to have ramen for our lunch. We haven’t been to this place for a while so had to circle around a little bit because the “human GPS” which was me kinda forgot the cross street thus making a big circle to finally get to here:

Kinda funny the store uses "Gomen" as its name. Gomen in Japanese means "Sorry"

It was a small restaurant, and pack as usual during lunch time. Thus the meaning "Gomen" because the customer had to wait a bit for the table? haha.

Good thing it didn’t take us long to get a table. I was pretty starving so after skimmed the menu, I decided to get Combination Any Ramen with Gyoza Combo. I chose Chasu Ramen, can’t go wrong with that. Ken chose Yasai (Mixed Vegetables) Ramen.

Gyoza aka potstickers came first

Finally after 10 minutes wait, our order came at the same time!

Chasu Ramen in soy sauce base soup

Ken's Yasai Ramen. Looks pretty light and healthy! I think today I wasn't in the mood of healthy stuff haha

Various toppings to add to your ramen: Chili pepper powder, soy sauce, vinegar and white pepper

How to eat ramen the Japanese way? Use chopsticks to pick the noodles, put it on the spoon with some soup and enjoy! Itadakimasu!! (way of Japanese saying grace before eating)

Usually I couldn't finish that whole bowl of noodles, but today I was starving! All gone!

Despite not in mood of healthy stuff, I still set aside the fatty pork parts.

We were planning to go to another furniture store but Ken was pretty tired so we decided to head home. Guess what I got? My Garmin package has arrived!! Woot!

gotta charge it first and put it on test drive for my beach run/jog tomorrow!

can't neglect fruit serving of the day: mango, orange and peach..all yellow colored fruits today

So it was a lazy afternoon for us. Ken took a long nap and I was browsing the internet, read random blogs, watched anime until it was dinner time. Btw, I had this little bad boy again today:

Had to drink lots of water after this

Dinner was just whatever. Left over from yesterday, boiled some spinach and steamed sweet potatoes. I didn’t have much veggies in the afternoon so I maxed them up for the dinner:

I had another half of sweet potato after this pic and added more tofus as well. Love tofu so much!

 

Loving the run, pb and mango salsa

I had quite a good beach run this morning. No knee pain, no foot pain just enjoying everything! The weather was perfect too. Nice overcast morning sky, not too cold and best of all it was pretty empty! Who would get up and start running at 6 am on Saturday morning? Anyway, on the way back, we started to see more people just getting started their run/jog.

Anyway, as usual we had to stop by to get grocery on the way back so I prepared myself with Prana Bar Cashew Almond.

Ingredients: Organic cashews, organic date paste, organic almonds, organic agave nectar, organic almond butter, organic puffed amaranth, sea salt

This is the first Prana Bar that I actually like. It wasn’t as sweet and dense as the other two I had previously. It also has a generous amount of cashews and almonds. Very nutty and my belly was happy

very nutty!

yummy!

Anyway, thanks to Prana Bar, I was able to survive until I got home and made this super extra creamy oats cooked in almond milk and a bit of soymilk, topped with ice cream non fat plain yogurt and Natural Directions Organic Crunchy Peanut Butter.

Ingredients: organic peanuts, organic sugar, sea salt, organic palm oil

This is the first time I see an instruction to put pb in the fridge after opening.

Wow, this peanut butter tasted totally different even from Skippy Natural Super Chunk Peanut Butter. I could actually taste more of the actual peanuts and could see the actual peanut chunks! Very nutty and taste a bit lighter than Skippy Natural.
I couldn’t help but having a slice of whole wheat toast topped with this super chunk nutty peanut butter. Yumm..

you can see the peanut chunks there!

Well after chilled out and rested, we started to cook some lunch earlier because we needed to go to a furniture store to look for a dining table and a sofa. Seriously, we’ve moved to this condo for about 6 months and we still haven’t bought a decent furniture. Whatever we are having right now are pretty much apartment furniture and nothing’s match…LOL!
I made this super refreshing mango salsa that I’ve been craving for a while after seeing it on Yahoo! Food Shine. The only ingredient that I missed was cilantro. Darn the market didn’t stock up their shelf when we got there and I didn’t have time to wait around as it was getting crowded. So I just bought whatever that I could find: cucumbers, red bell peppers, white onions, limes, roma tomatoes, mangoes and canned pineapple. Added a dash of salt, black pepper, garlic powder and a bit of cumin powder, I got this bowl of mango salsa! First time made it and turned out great!

so colorful and appetizing!

Ingredients:
1 roma tomatoes – seeded & chopped into cubes
1/2 red bell peppers – chopped and diced
1/2 cucumber – seeded & diced
1/2 ripe mango – cut into cubes
1/2 white onions -chopped into small pieces
2-3 lime wedges
1-3 pieces of canned pineapple – chopped into cubes
1-2 Tbsp canned pineapple juice
1-2 cilantro -chopped (I didn’t have any so I skipped this one)
Salt, black pepper, dash of cumin, dash of garlic powder according to taste (I didn’t quite measure these).
Mix and serve! It’s that simple!

the rest of the lunch, pretty standard dishes

After filled up our bellies, we went to the furniture store. We looked around and saw some dining table that we like but still debating whether it’ll be a bit too big for our dining area. Our condo wasn’t that big and we don’t like bulky and big furniture because it’ll make our living space look crowded and small. I like open space and would like to keep it that way. In the end, we still came home empty handed…*sigh* We were planning to go to Costco to shop other stuff but apparently we spent way too much time at the furniture store so we decided to come back home and got ready to go to my in-law’s place for Father’s Day family dinner.
Before I went, I had a nice bowl of non fat plain yogurt with a peach and two peanut cream wafers..hahha…who eat wafer with yogurt? Usually people eat those with vanilla ice cream, huh? Anyway, I like variety.

Dinner at my in law’s place was pretty standard Chinese dishes: lots of stir fry veggies with meat, pork bone soup, roasted duck, roasted pork, oyster omelets, fish noodles and tofu. Sorry no pic…was a bit embarrassed to take the picture.
Anyway, time for bed. Nite!!

 

Review time for Boomi Bar and Prana Bar

I think it’s time for me to give some reviews on Boomi Bar and Prana Bar. Seriously, I still have a big stack of those and I’m just slowly trying them. The best thing is I packed some to bring to work and keep them in my office drawer as my emergency snacks.

Prana Bar Apricot Pumpkin

Calories: 190. Ingredients: organic pumpkin seeds, organic agave nectar, organic date paste, organic almond butter,organic dried apricots, organic puffed amaranth, sea salt

This bar is very sweet to my taste and it’s chewy and a bit dense. Probably because of the agave nectar plus the date paste. It has some bits of pumpkin seeds into it but not so much of the apricot taste. However, despite those, this bar has the least calories compared to the rest of the bars. I am ok with this bar, given I am not a sweet tooth person, but for those who like sweets, this would be perfect! Not to mention all the ingredients are organic and it’s certified USDA organic!

Boomi Bar™ Pistachio Pineapple

Ingredients: Pistachios, honey, dates, apples, candied pineapple, cashews, crisped rice, amaranth, salt

Calories: 200

I love this bar! It has a big chunks of pistachios and the rice crisps added the airy feel of this bar. Also unlike Prana Bar, this bar is not that sweet! Even non sweet tooth person like me can still tolerate it. Calorie-wise is a bit high (200 calories for this small bar), but if you’re active and workout a lot, it shouldn’t be a big problem. In fact, I had this bar as my late morning snack and I still could have my lunch at usual time. It holds my hunger perfectly.

Boomi Bar™ Bar Cranberry Apple

Ingredients: Almonds, honey, apples, cranberries, dates, crisped rice, puffed amaranth, salt

Calories: 210

I had this bar today for my late afternoon snack because the fruits that packed today didn’t do it. So I decided to give this one a try and I loved it so much! I might be wrong but for me this bar was actually less sweet than Boomi Bar™ Pistachio Pineapple. Also it wasn’t as chewy and sticky, a bit more airy. I could taste a hint of tangy from the cranberry bits. Not to mention big chunks of almonds.

Boomi Bar™ Complete Nutritional Facts
Prana Bar Complete Nutritional Facts

Overall, I’d say Boomi Bar™ is my favorite over Prana Bar. Boomi Bar™ is not as sweet, chewy and dense as Prana Bar. However, it doesn’t mean Prana Bar taste bad, it’s just not quite for my taste. I’d still eat it if it’s the only thing in my pantry and when I’m hungry, who cares how it tastes as long it’s still edible, right?

 

Experiments

Before I started my crazy busy day, I’ll recap a bit about yesterday and the day before. It wasn’t much different stuff except I tried my experiment of Thai inspired BBQ chicken last night and this time I used chicken legs instead of whole chicken.

Much better than the last time I made the whole chicken, but taste wise was a bit lacking. I should add a bit of salt instead of using all soy sauce and honey. And I have to add more basil leaves while baking it to get that nice fragrant basil smell….Also I will bake more chicken legs later afternoon to bring to my friend’s place tonight. We are having a little get together at one of my friend’s house..she’s nice enough to host this little gathering at her place. There will be lots of food so I’ll make sure to take lots lots of pictures and post them tomorrow.

Anyway, this morning I went to the beach for my morning run. It was definitely a workout while you try to run against the wind. I could feel my legs were a bit tight and had to slow down a bit couple times. Regardless I still had a good workout!

On the way back, even though I wasn’t hungry I was tempted to snack on Prana Bar Apricot Goji from the samples I got last time.


Ingredients: organic cashews, organic almond butter, organic date paste, organic agave nectar, organic dried apricots, organic puffed amaranth, organic goji powder, sea salt.

This bar is a little too sweet to my taste due to the agave nectar in addition to the date paste. The date by itself is already sweet. Also despite the flavor named “Apricot Goji”, I didn’t taste much of apricot and goji in there..more of the date paste and the cashews. Even in the ingredient list, apricot and goji are not at the top list. I didn’t take the picture of the inside..sorry, was too excited to chomp it down..haha. The bar is chewy and a bit dense for me and also make sure to drink lots of water after consuming it. Like any other bars, it’ll make you thirsty after eating it. Anyway, despite all of those, it’s still a decent after workout snack, especially if you need something to hold off your hunger. It’s still better than consuming a bar of Snickers or any other HFCS snacks.

Yesterday I finally had a chance to sample Larabar Cherry Pie for my afternoon snack.


Ingredients: dates, almonds, unsweetened cherries

Despite its name, it tastes nothing as sweet as cherry pie, which is I like. I no sweet tooth girl but more of tangy tooth girl..haha (is that even a word)? Due to its unsweetened cherries, this bar has a good balance mix of sweet and sour. I could even taste the cherry bits in there! I almost mistaken this flavor with the other Larabar that I had a while ago, Larabar Peanut Butter and Jelly.
Maybe the package color is almost similar? Or maybe I’m just going nuts..haha.

Breakfast was nothing too new, a slice of whole wheat toast with pb and ham & cheese bread from some Chinese bakery.

So, today will be my total experimental cooking and baking. I will bake the rest of the chicken legs for tonight’s potluck and cross my fingers that they’ll turn out better than last night. Also I am currently soaking the almonds I got today to make my first homemade almond milk tomorrow. I came across to this post on Novel Eats Simply Vegan, which shows you how to make your almond milk step by step with pictures! We’ll see how it turns out tomorrow.

Lastly, I decided to make a little treats for my friend who’s hosting the gathering. I’ve been wanting to be a little creative on my chocolate buns that I made last time, so this post on King Arthur Flour Blog inspired me. Instead of putting cinnamon, I’ll use chocolate sprinkles and no icing.
The dough is still in the process of kneading and rising in my little bread machine.

Wish me luck!!!

 

Boomi Day!

I finally got a chance to try the Boomi Bar samples that I got couple days ago!

As usual, my husband and I had our morning beach run and it was a blast! Surprisingly, I could run more and almost couldn’t stop at all! That was the first time I felt this way. Usually I always dreaded whenever I reached to certain point, but not this time! Since I don’t usually eat before exercise, I was super duper hungry afterward. Actually, I felt my hunger while I was running but I kept focusing on my run. I packed 2 Boomi Bars, thinking my husband might want to give it a try as well, but he didn’t. So I tried Fruits & Nut Boomi Bar™.

All natural ingredients: nuts and dried fruits!

The bar was a bit sweet, due to the honey and the dates, chewy and crunchy at the same time. After about 4-5 miles of run plus 1 miles of brisk walking in 1 1/2 hour, this bar was a good post workout meal, especially we had to stop by to do some grocery shopping on the way back. There was no way I could hold my hunger that long, and I do not like shopping in empty stomach because I’d end up buying junks in impulse. Some stuff we bought today were 2 salmon steaks, broccoli, cherries, 2 bags of red seedless grapes, more mixed nuts, 2 lbs frozen shrimps, Unsweetened Blue Diamond Vanilla Almond Milk, bananas (3 lbs for 99 cents? I take that!) and fresh basil leaves. I felt a bit awkward to be around people, especially I was sweating inside, my hair looked like a mess (had to keep the cap on) and in my running get up, but I don’t really care! The market was on our way back home from the beach, so what the heck, just finish it and leave. That place will get super crowded later of the day.

After I got home and showered, I made a bowl of old fashioned oats, cooked in almond milk, topped with a banana, 1 tbsp pb and 2 tbsp of non fat plain yogurt. This time the oatmeal was a bit watery compare the one I made yesterday, but creamier due to the almond milk. Delicious!

Now a little recap from yesterday.
After morning workout, I showered then made a bowl of oatmeal. Pretty similar topping as today, but cooked in water.
It was less watery than the one I had today, prolly I cooked it a bit longer.

Then I decided to give a first try to Boomi Bar™! I was thinking to have a bit more protein today so I picked Almond Protein Plus Boomi Bar™ for my late morning snack.

This bar didn’t taste that sweet at all!! And to top it off, the taste reminded me of some Chinese cookie that I couldn’t remember which one. It was dry, but didn’t have that “chalky” taste nor you could taste the Whey Protein. It was all good! Also it didn’t sit heavy in my stomach and hold my hunger perfectly through lunch time!

Lunch was whatever left over veggies and baked chicken from previous day dinner, plus cherries and mixed fruits which I didn’t eat the day before. All good stuff!

My brother made Chinese style steamed whole fish (he used tilapia) and my husband made a bunch of boiled veggies (romaine lettuce, nappa and broccoli).

Anyway, as I’m writing this post, I am thinking what to have for lunch. My husband will not be home for the rest of the day, so only need to cook for myself and my brother. I’m thinking of salmon…….