All about fermentation

Here I am, blogging in the library since I have last period free today. I'm blogging now because there's a pasta party immediately after practice and I don't know how much time I'll have before I get home. I GET TO SHAVE TODAY!


Breakfast (this kept me full all the way till 5th period!): two pieces of pumpkin bread with peanut butter and banana, cottage cheese with blueberries, strawberries, wheat germ, honey, a sprinkle of grape nuts and slivered almonds, and the rest of the chocolate soy milk, which was literally one sip.
I have to say though, I went back for some more cottage cheese (I need at least one and a half servings to fill me up) and cereal (puffins this time), and cut my mouth when I was chewing! Has this ever happened that something you're eating has a sharp edge and scratches the inside of your mouth? Painful!
Anyways, bio was super interesting today, since our current unit is metabolism. Today we talked about fermentation, and our teacher asked for us to name some fermented foods. I immediately starting naming the works: tempeh, natto, kimchi...
and he said, "Kimchi's good! And what's the Western equivalent?"
I immediately answered "Sauerkraut!"
Him: Cabbage fan!
The conversation kept going, until he mentioned Middle Eastern preserved lemons. I accidentally blurted out "I LOVE THAT STUFF!" and everybody game me a weird look, including him. "We'll talk privately," he said.
It turns out that he bakes bread (we talked about the biology of alcohol fermentation vs. lactic acid fermentation) and we own the same great food science book, On Food and Cooking.
I WISH I HADN'T DROPPED FOOD CHEMISTRY! It's a spring quarter elective, but it meets during Art History :(
Anyways, he put a picture of natto on the project for everyone to see. Most people couldn't tell what it was: some thought it was a rice krispie treat, beans and cheese, or even larvae.
He brought out a jar of millet miso from this Massachusetts miso company (South River Miso) whose miso is actually made by stomping on the soy beans! He put it into some scary-looking machine that could detect C02 and O2 emissions to test the level of living bacteria in the miso.
Something else I remembered! He makes sourdough by adding GRAPES in with the flour-water mixture before adding the starter! They have to be organic, though: apparently the white film around the outside of organic grapes are all organisms, so they help the fermentation happen faster. Cool, huh? Also, apparently the reason almost all soy products are fermented is because they're more nutritious that way.
Around 11:40, I had my blueberry z bar.
Lunch: very filling! Leftover pumpkin and lentils and couscous, plus applesauce and an orange. It was so juicy, my hands still smell like oranges!

That's about it for now. I'll update what happened with the pasta party later. Pictures will also be posted later.
PS: an example of a lunch that is exactly the opposite of mine? Behold my friend Kaitlyn's: pretzels, 2 Uncrustables, Cheese Nips, mandarin-orange ish fruit, and a banana.

Pumpkin and Apples

Dinner was great! Unfortunately, it didn't photograph very well. My mom used 2 kinds of lentils (sadly, I don't really know the names, just the colors). The recipe called for kale, but we didn't have that, so we used escarole instead, which doesn't have as much flavor, but it does add volume. It reminded me a lot of the vegetable tagines I make, except that my mom added PARMESAN at the end! I thought that was a weird chose, given the Middle Eastern flavor palette, but it ended up tasting fine in the end. In fact, it was delicious! We ate it with Israeli couscous (the bigger kind), since the extra fine regular couscous would have gotten lost under all the pumpkin. The couscous and lentils were very similar in size and shape, so it was a fun mix of textures.

Dessert-- we bought a bunch of small apples that were too mealy (nothing worse than mealy apples) to eat raw, so my mom through them in a pot and made applesauce. She left the skins on and they were red, so what we got was this beautiful PINK applesauce. In terms of flavoring she added cinnamon, lemon zest, ginger, nutmeg, a bit of sugar, and, inspired by last night, a little cayenne, which you couldn't really taste.
It was the best applesauce we've ever had! It would be great in oatmeal.
I was craving some fresh fruit though, so I also had some strawberries and blueberries.
Good night!
SECTIONALS IS THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW. AAAAA.

Confined in a little space

I'm starting to realize that if I don't exercise, I start to feel sick. Seriously! Today, I couldn't figure out what was wrong. I had no appetite, had a horrible sinus ache, felt nauseous, and literally lifeless. I never wanted to see the apartment again: it was too bright, the corners too sharp, and I had never felt more claustrophobic. For a minute I really thought I was on the edge of a mental breakdown. I didn't get hungry for lunch until 4:00... everything seemed delayed.
For some reason, my breakfast picture didn't upload, but I thought I would share my dad's super Asian breakfast because I thought it was so cute (PS, he usually is more of a toast/ bacon and eggs guy, so this is not especially typical). He got back from China yesterday, bringing with him awesome whole grain breads from the little restaurant downstairs: corn, black bean, and a little corn bun filled with wild vegetables. The black bean smelled almost like vanilla (the black flecks reminded me of vanilla beans too). Of course, they were still tasteless (but delicious), so I ate mine with peanut butter. My dad ate his plain with some hot soymilk.
For lunch, I took leftover black beans and diluted them into soup, adding turmeric, cinnamon, paprika, and a little coconut. I ate it with Greek yogurt and more of the Chinese monk buns (so I like to call them).
By late afternoon, I finally realized what was making me crazy was lack of exercise, so I went for a run. At almost 5! That's really rare for me, especially because I wasn't used to the humidity (I'm used to going first thing in the morning). I ran to the 43rd street bridge, which is where I usually go, but for some reason it literally seemed to take only 10 minutes to get there, even though I didn't feel like I was running especially quickly. The run was over too fast, and I was not ready to go back indoors. My knee was starting to hurt, so when I got back to my house, I walked to the Point, watched all the people BBQing and picnicing, then ran back very quickly. I was soaked with sweat. It definitely wasn't tiring, but all I needed was to get my heart rate up a bit. At least that way I had an appetite for dinner! I felt bad that I couldn't help make it (originally I was thinking about cooking), but when I got back it was already 6:15!
We had couscous, which is usually my dish, but today my mom made it. We used all our fresh farmer's market vegetables: butternut squash, zucchini, carrots, as well as chickpeas, raisins, dates, prunes, and a lot of cilantro and parsley. There wasn't enough couscous, so we also made rice.

On the side we had a frisee salad and I made a really good (if I do say so myself) yogurt tahini dressing with a little bit of olive oil, lemon, and paprika.
I need to find things to do on Sundays, otherwise I really may go insane. so far there isn't enough homework to keep me occupied, and I NEVER thought I'd say that... last year I literally had 4 hours a night, and now I don't even have 2. What HAPPENED? I thought junior year was the most stressful one!