Taking It Easy, Way Too Easy?

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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!

 

Desperate Weekend

Thank you everyone for all your supporting and encouraging comments on my last post! This definitely a tough situation for both Hubby K and I but I’ll try to stay positive and keep our heads up. We might want to take this opportunity to take a little break before starting our job hunting. Besides we need to update our info and put our stuff together before applying. Again, thank you.

And despite the title of the post, don’t worry, I wasn’t totally super desperate and down. I’ve been rewatching Desperate Housewives older seasons for this whole weekend. Sort of having a Desperate Housewives marathon. Yes, I am not kidding.

Our weather has been pretty gloomy and cold since yesterday. It was actually raining earlier this morning.

Saturday breakfast: the usual loose leaf tea, 2 slices of Egg Loaf Frittata and some mac nuts plus shredded coconut flakes

Then we went off for our usual grocery shopping.
Lunch was more leftover: char siew slices, one small purple yam and steamed veggies.

After lunch I precut some ingredients for Yellow Tamarind Cabbage soup that I’m planning to make for today. Snacked on strawberries and some mac nuts while watching more Desperate Housewives.

Dinner was steamed spinach with Lemon Date Chicken which I prepared in the afternoon.

Sunday breakfast was courtesy of Hubby K. He prepared this plate in the morning.

Today’s lunch was 2 big bowls of Yellow Tamarind Cabbage Soup that I cooked this morning topped with leftover cooked grassfed ground beef. Kudos for precutting the ingredients on previous day. 😀

Hubby K always loves my homemade whole wheat bread so I made one loaf today (with dried cranberries and almond waste from my homemade Almond milk)

I won’t lie, I had one slice of my homemade whole wheat bread and it was delicious! Super soft and moist. Nothing beats a freshly baked homemade bread. Paleo or not, I savored this a lot.

Dinner today was pretty similar to lunch so no pic. You got the idea. 🙂

Well I don’t have the obligation to get up super early anymore starting tomorrow so I think I might wanna stay up a bit and continue watching more Desperate Housewives. Besides, I didn’t feel sleepy yet and it was 10:30pm while I was typing this post. Hubby K on the other hand actually went to bed earlier than me now. Hm what a contrast huh? And I haven’t been working out since yesterday which might explain why I wasn’t as tired. For the whole day since yesterday I was pretty much sitting in front of my computer watching DH. Half of the time, I also made an effort to sit on my stability ball, which gave some good sores to my core muscles. 🙂 So did it still count as a workout?

Anyway, good night everyone!

 

The Fated Friday the 13th

Number 13 is believed to be a bad luck number. Some buildings don’t even have floor 13, some houses avoid number 13, and some even believe bad luck falls on Friday the 13th. Are you one of those?

I don’t completely believe that entirely, but today’s incident kind of makes me re-think it and I was completely caught off guard, totally unexpected.

My morning started with the usual -working out then ate my breakfast/post workout meal after I got to work.
Baked sweet potatoes and a slice of Egg Loaf Frittata.

Got hungry a bit before lunch time so I scarfed down a small container of Bo Bo Cha Cha I made couple days ago.

And then the incident happened.

I was shocked, sad, angry, disappointed and had a little hard time to digest the whole situation when I was told from today I am no longer bringing home the check. To top it off, Hubby K also got canned couple days ago because the place went down. How could this happen? One of us, fine, we could do it. But both of us??? It was hard for me to digest the whole thing. I couldn’t even contain my tears whenever I thought back of what just happened today.

I had not much appetite but I still finished my “packed” lunch at home.

Shared a container of oranges with Hubby K.

We went out to shop some stuff for Hubby K (his wireless internet was getting annoying so he rather get the network cable)

We also made a pit stop at Henry’s Market cause I saw their macadamia nuts were on sale for $9.99/lbs! Can’t beat that price! (penny pinching mode has begun)

*sigh* I guess I really have to say bye bye to grass fed beef and organic stuff.

Got home, I felt like I wanted to sweat out all my devastation and anxiety so I blasted 2 more workouts back to back! Today I did a total 3 workouts! I was sweaty but at the same time I felt a bit lighter and not as devastated as before.

Didn’t really eat a full dinner, other than the last half baked sweet potato and munched on the macadamia nuts.

Anyway, this will be a big challenge for both Hubby K and I. I might want to sleep this over, get my mind together, fix my resume and start job hunting. We’ll see how’s out there. I will miss my beloved co-worker C, who was also being let go.

Not everything was bad though. I checked my email and my Braised-to-Oven Fried Chicken recipe was chosen by Tropical Traditons to be featured on their recipe page. As a reward, they’ll give me 1 FREE quart of Gold Label Virgin Coconut Oil. A small thing but it lighten up my mood today. 🙂 If you want to get a free coconut oil from Tropical Traditions, submit your favorite recipe using coconut at their website. More detailed info can be read here.

Good night everyone.

How do you deal with devastation?

 

Then It Finally Happens…

It’s Hump Day and before I know it, weekend is around the corner. This morning I did one of Bodyrock.tv older workout since Zuzana didn’t post any new one yesterday. It was ok, but I wish I should push myself harder to prevent plateauing. You might wonder why I am so eager to get up at 4:30-5:00 am in the morning everyday just to squeeze in the workout? Well, for me working out actually clears up my mind and makes me feel I accomplish something for the day. After working at the same place for a while, it could become daunting and flat. I’m not saying I don’t like what I’m doing now.

Anyway, enough rant. Let’s move on to the food.

I’m getting lazier to eat post workout snack and pack another food for breakfast to bring to work, so I just combined them together instead.
Half sweet potato and Applegate Organic Roast Beef Slices

That didn’t really sustain me until lunch time so I snacked on some coconut flakes.

Lunch was another deja vu from dinner.

Plus Lotus Root Soup.

Not sure why the lotus root soup turned out to be darker than the last time I made it. I made it exactly the same way. Probably because I boiled more roots in the soup?

Lunch filled me up pretty good, but in the back of my mind, I kept thinking of these babies:

So late afternoon, I ate them and was happy.

When I got home, I made Oven Fried Curried Chicken Fingers, Bo Bo Cha Cha and Easy Oven Fried Taro Fries.

Today’s Bo Bo Cha Cha combo was taro and purple yam 😀

While waiting for everything to be done, I was snacking on these. Do you know what are these?

Those are “loquat” or according to wikipedia it could also be referred as “Japanese plum” and “Chinese plum” (Wiki source). These fruits are used to make Chinese cough syrup known as “Pei Pa Koa“. You might have noticed I mentioned I took that syrup whenever my throat feels scratchy or dry.

Ingredients: Honey Loquat - just mix with hot water

This was my first time eating fresh loquat. The best part is they are ORGANIC because they came from my sister in law’s parent’s backyard. 😀 Currently they are not completely ripe yet so the they aren’t that sweet. When the skin turns into deep orange color, according to Hubby K, it’ll taste really sweet. Geez, I wonder if I could wait that long.

Anyway, finally dinner was ready and I devoured it.
And I had some taro fries afterward.

Ok now about the post title..you might wonder what is it about? Well let’s say that from now on I’ll be the only one who’ll bring in the money to the house. This means I might have to adjust our spending. If you notice, recently I started to shop at Organic store or Farmer’s market to get organic produce or grassfed beef etc. That might have to be limited. We actually do not eat out that often but we do spend quite some for grocery (plus mortgage, utilities etc). We don’t even shop clothing that much either, let alone furniture (it’s about more than a year we got this place and we are still using our apartment-style furniture instead of real ones).

Anyway, here’s my plan:
I will only buy strawberries for organic fruits. Other than that I’ll just either skip them or buy conventionally. For meat, I’ll stick to conventional lean cuts (boneless skinless chicken breast, lean cut beef and some lamb). For once in a while splurge, I might buy grass fed ground beef.

Alright, this gal needs to get ready to shower and get some zzzz so she’ll have enough rest and sleep to get up early tomorrow to bring home the food after her usual morning ritual.

Nite all!

Tell me about your food budget strategy. Ironically, Kath also posted something similar as well.

 

Blah Monday

Today was a total Blah day…*blame it on Monday*

I didn’t do any workout today, thanks to my laziness PLUS my neck still feels tight (on upper back left)….how could this last for more than 2 days? BLAH!

Breakfast just left over stuff and sweet potato – dang I got addicted to sweet potatoes and I could consume them anytime, not just as post workout meal anymore.

Since I didn’t do any cooking over the weekend, I will be cooking mostly quick simple meals throughout the week (that would be lots of stews/roasts). Today I made another beef stew (with 2 tomatoes, ginger and chicken broth) seasoned with Trader Joe’s 21 Seasoning Salute


Sorry I didn’t take the finished product because it doesn’t look much different from other beef stews that I made previously.

Made another batch of Roasted Curried Cauliflower again, which didn’t turn out quite successful, thanks to my half-ass experiment of using salted butter instead of avocado oil and salt…BLAH!

And we burned our pan while steaming stuff because both of us just totally forgot to check the water while steaming it on high fire..BLAH!

For some reason, something’s wrong with my appetite – didn’t quite enjoying my dinner today.

Butternut squash puree soup, steamed Chinese greens and failed Roasted Curried Cauliflower (I had the 21 Seasoning Salut Beef Stew afterward but too lazy to take the pic)

My neck starts to bother me again, so I better sign off and go sleep. Damn, I hate stiff neck! 😦 What do you do for remedy? Massage would be good but apparently I can’t stand being massaged too hard…I feel hurt LOL. Or maybe I should just put on that hot patch thingy, but I remembered we don’t have any at home now…*sigh*

Which cooking method do you do when in a pinch?
Mine would be steaming, stewing and roasting – less dishes to wash..HA!

Oh well good night!