philosophie.

Very tasty Alberta beef

Fine dining at Three Ravens – a reward for myself for the past stressful and music-less days. Must say, the beef tenderloin is delicious! Just the right portion for a girl like me.

Thai red curry rice noodle (serving for 2)

Whenever we are too busy, Eric loves to order this kind of spicy pad thai (it’s not traditional but we like it) for take out. One day I decided to try it out (my own rendition of course), because I really love the taste of Thai basil in a stir-fried noodle dish.

So, here is the recipe as requested by my dear friend Jean (sorry it’s so late!).

 

You will need:

1/ one soup spoon (in Chinese cooking we measure with a soup spoon) of Thai red curry paste. this is the kind I use:

2/ fresh Thai basil
3/ string beans
4/1 red bell pepper, sliced
5/ if you like spicy peppers, you can put in some as well
6/ peeled shrimps (you can also substitute with poultry or red meat; the only meat I eat is seafood)
7/ juice of 2 limes (I didn’t happen to have them, so I used apple vinaigrette instead; white vinegar can also do)
8/ 2 soup spoons of fish sauce
9/ 2 soup spoons of soy suace
11/ 3 soup spoons of sugar
12/ Thai rice noodle (enough for the serving of two)

Preparation:
-  soak the rice noodle in lukewarm water before you do anything else

Now, cooking!
1/ (you will need a steeper pan or wide pot for this)heat up the oil, put in 1 spoon of red curry paste, mix well
2/ put in the string beans, stir well (maybe around 5min)
3/ put in the sliced red bell pepper (and other pepper if you wish), stir well
4/ now put in the soy sauce and fish sauce, stir and mix
5/ after about 5 minutes, put in the peeled shrimp, stir for about 3 min
6/ put in the lime juice and sugar, stir for another 4 min or so
7/ at this point, drain your soaked rice noodle and put them into the pan/pot (the noodle should be still a bit hard, but definitely much more softened)
8/ stir and mix well, until the rice noodle absorb all the liquid, add water if needed
9/ if you want to fold in an egg, just push everything to one side of the pan/pot, crack open an egg, after it cooks for about 1 min, fold it into everything else
10/ put in the fresh basil leaves (I like a lot of them, but if you don’t like the pungency, put in a few) and stir them in
11/ after the texture of the rice noodle is right, turn off the gas/heat and serve!

dessert evening

Had a long day.

Going out for a lovely dessert in the evening definitely relaxes me a whole lot. Decaf earl grey with red velvet cake is such a delicious combination!

comments fixed – I PROMISE!

I know I keep posting about how I fixed my comment function on this blog, but this time I really fixed it! (I realize it was a problem with one of the many plugins I installed, most of them I don’t even use anymore anyway, so I just disabled most of them.) So, please, help me testing this out by leaving me a comment or two (and let me know who you are and that you are there :P)

This morning I took out the bitter melon and cut it open, only to realize it was RED inside. This startled me. But upon research (thanks google) my worry that the melon might have been some form of mutant was eliminated – the seeds are red because it’s over ripe, and the seeds are sweet (plus a hint of spiciness). :)

lose some weight for the fall

The topic of body shape and weight loss is discussed readily in pretty much all beauty/health/fashion magazines out there. While the trend for the past few decades has been focusing on the skinny-type bodies – as we see on the runway and magazine covers, I commend that there is more and more awareness of being healthy in contrast to the exclusive desire to be thin germinating all over our youth culture and pop culture.

I am of the opinion that women (and men) look most beautiful (handsome) when they are healthy, and this salubrious consciousness doesn’t just display on the outside, but more importantly, it should be felt inside. So goes my personal story about a very fascinating (to me anyway) journey in the vicissitude of weight.

I was actually very lucky to be born with a fast metabolism which enabled me to eat anything to my heart’s content without gaining one single pound. So the whole weight gain/loss issue was something co-existed with my world in another parallel universe – until about a year ago. I still haven’t figured out why this happened, but I’m guessing being a woman in her mid-twenties, the age definitely has something to do with it. In any case, I gained about 10 pounds and because I had always been skinny before, my friends and family (especially my mother) were very happy to hear about this change in weight. I absolutely didn’t mind to begin with – as I stated earlier, I think as long as women feel and look healthy it’s all great. But after a while, sometimes I realized I eat too much before I go to sleep that I cannot sleep well, consequently the next day is met with less energy. The “Michelin” is starting to beckon at me in my abdomen area and of course this is not attractive and I didn’t feel good about it.

One day I met up with my good friend Effie who has begun her vegetarian diet a couple of months earlier, and I was telling her about my fascination regarding the weight gain originated from not eating well (remember this was never an issue for me before, so to see my body actually do that is somewhat of a slight miracle to me) as well as some of my concerns. She mentioned about her diet and her friends’ “success” stories in losing weight (I cannot deny that some of them are a bit too extreme for me, losing weight drastically just to look super skinny) by implementing a vegetarian diet.  Right then and there,  I listened to it as a story from one of those magazines – after all, what does vegetarian diet have to do with me anyway? I am world’s last carnivore standing and am proud to eat meat every meal, three or more times a day, even for breakfast (I’m not just talking about sausages, I’m talking about red meat, that’s right) because I don’t consider a meal without meat a “meal”.

But one thing I did remember was that she said, give it a try for a month and just see how it goes, you have nothing to lose.

For the next few days, I still kept on eating my usual meal until one day while watching this Chinese TV dating show for fun, I saw a guy who came on stage and introduced himself as a vegetarian and talked about the pros of a vegetarian diet. I remember some of the things he said – which were the things that attracted me the most about a vegetarian diet – one being that it enabled him to think more clearly and move more swiftly and lightly (even though this sounded a bit like some zen exercise for me) and cultivated a good daily habit of treating things with equilibrium.

I don’t know how, but this along with Effie’s advice all came together and gave me the thought of starting to eat vegetarian meals.

Of course, the first few days were a little bit difficult to get through, but nothing so dreadful I couldn’t handle. Today I was digging out my fall/winter clothes from the closet, which included a few pairs of pants that I buried deeply underneath everything else because I just could not fit into them anymore. I summoned up the courage and tried them on – the zipper closed effortlessly! What can I say, 1.5 months of vegetarian and abstemious diet later, I am 6 pounds less and I feel great.

Some of my friends were asking me how I did it; honestly, I don’t exactly know how other than not eating meat. I guess this proves that it really wasn’t a big effort for me at all – at the same time, it worked. So here are some of the things after looking back, I realized what I had changed, and I’d like to share them with all you lovely ladies and gents out there.

(proclaimer: I never starved myself, because I am grumpy when I’m hungry. But of course don’t eat until you can’t walk either – you won’t feel good afterwards anyway)

1. As an Asian I eat a lot of rice, so whenever I made rice I added mixed grains (buckwheat, oat, mung beans, etc) to my white rice.

2. I stopped eating meat but ate lots of shrimp, and some fish. I still consumed milk and eggs (in moderation, of course)

3. I tried to have my dinner before 7pm and not eat anything after that (this one was actually the only difficult thing for me to do, more than not eating meat. but you’ll get used to it after a few days)

4. I ate a variety of veggies (this is really great because I never appreciated nature this much). Think green leaves taste bad by themselves? Try a light stir-fry with shallots and oyster sauce, works for me!

5. Tofu is good.

6. Fruits are good (apples!)

7. I had a lot of congee (again mixed grains) and soup (with mushrooms, tofu, etc.)

the next two are just things I think might also contribute to weight loss:

8. I was naturally born without a sweet tooth for chocolate, cookies, cakes, brownies, etc. and I don’t munch on junk food (I have no craving for it) so I eat nothing outside of my meals.

9. I don’t drink coffee (again it’s not a choice: my stomach feels weird if I drink it). Tea, however, is wonderful to drink. :)

The result? Well, more than the happiness of feeling great about my body, oddly I do think that I think more clearly. I believe more than anything it is also an attitude towards life, to give up something that is a cupidity frees up our body and soul and therefore we can act and think with a lucid mentality.

My dear readers out there, in my friend Effie’s words: give it a try for a month, you have nothing to lose (exception maybe a few pounds, if you don’t terribly mind ;) )