Off to New York!

PHOTOS ADDED
Just thought I'd blog last night and this morning before heading off! I'll be gone till the 2nd, and hopefully eat some awesome food, see Equus (!!!!), hang out with relatives, see museums, and shop, of course.
My cousins came for lunch and we took them for dim sum at Ed's Potstickers, which has a different name now, but I don't remember what it is. Either way, it's probably the only Northern Chinese restaurant in Chicago, and is pretty authentic. We're regulars here, which is a nice feeling.
WE ORDERED SO MUCH FOOD! Most of it was meat, so fortunately, I didn't end up eating TOO much.
For the meat eaters we ordered:
Ed's famous potstickers, which are rolled up in a cigar shape
Shrimp dumplings-- I originally ordered these for myself, took a bite of one and realized that it was mainly pork. Didn't swallow it or anything, but a year or two ago I would have been really upset. Luckily, I'm not as fragile about that right now.

Wonton soup

Stir-fried lamb from Xinjiang province (Muslim region that uses cumin and eats flatbread)
Some kind of pork dish that turned out to be at room temperature
Scallion pancakes with sliced pork in the center
Shao bing, sesame bread, with more meat in the center

What I ate:
(or drank)-- fresh soymilk, which only my dad and I appreciate. It's so light and refreshing!
My favorite dish was a classic peasant dish of cornbread and fried fish. The fish weren't fried as in breaded-- they were just crispy, savory and delicious-- also probably the cheapest kind of fish you can get. I love the cornbread because the only ingredient is corn-- this is very, very authentic.

The weirdest tofu soup ever, but I loved it. The broth was cloudy and tasted a bit like soy milk, but also had undertones of sesame. It had little strips of fried tofu that soaked up the soup. Of course, it also had cilantro.
Vegetarian potstickers-- I'm not really a big fan of potstickers, esp. not vegetarian ones. I tried part of one, and it just had cabbage, carrots, and I don't know what else. I'd rather have the real thing.
Stir-fried sweet and sour cabbage with peppers-- this isn't really sweet and sour like Panda Express makes it. It's just full of vinegar and not too much cornstarch. The vegetables are crunchy and tangy, and I couldn't rave about this dish enough. I order it all the time in Beijing.

Last but not least, vegetarian shaobing (the sesame bread, remember?). Not bad considering you can't really get them in the U.S., but they were a little on the bland side, and not hot enough. Of course, I doubt they were made fresh, so I shouldn't complain.

All in all, I definitely recommend this restaurant, ESPECIALLY if you're a pork fanatic.

Last night I didn't end up going to that birthday party. Instead I went to a family gathering of my friend's-- the same one I hung out with on Wednesday. They're relatively religious (Jewish), so it was kind of like a big Shabbat dinner! They eat vegetarian (plus fish) like me, so the food spread was absolutely ideal. I was in heaven!!!!





There was challah (not homemade, but apparently it usually is!), and then the food appeared. Seriously, this spread had ALL of my favorite foods. Here's what there was:
Baked salmon wrapped in tinfoil
Brussel sprouts
A kind of not-quite kugel-- it was called a baked latke
Homemade apple sauce and sour cream
2 salads: one with chickpeas (dried and soaked, not canned) and those other big white beans, mushrooms, greens, sweet peas, and cherry tomatoes, the other with pears, avocado, and pecans.
I only had half a piece of salmon... I would have gone back for seconds, but nobody else did, so I just hung out. However, when I got home I was pretty hungry and had yogurt, grapenuts, and berries.
I definitely ate more than what was pictured.

Last night I was woken up at 4 by the LOUDEST thunder and BRIGHTEST lightning ever. I love thunderstorms, and just lay there listening to the sounds, but it did make me kind of tired. I was thinking of working out before we left for the airport, but decided against it-- I was really sleepy and there wasn't that much time, since our flight leaves at 11.
For breakfast, I had a really filling bowl of oatmeal... I accidentally dumped in half the bottle of vanilla and had to pour it off, but let's not talk about that.
1/3 cup oats, a little more than 1/2 a banana, 1/3 cup vanilla hemp milk, 1/3 cup water, applesauce, part of a crumbled oatmeal raisin cookie, a spoon of Greek yogurt, and peanut butter (plus spices and wheat germ).
Man, was this filling. Maybe it was that little bit of protein from the yogurt that did it?

Anyways, we have to leave soon and I have to finish packing my carry on. Hopefully I'll keep blogging in NY, but if not, I'll do one of those summary posts where I list the highlights.
Bye!

3 days worth of blogging

THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE PUBLISHED YESTERDAY, BUT MY INTERNET DIED.

Hey guys! I AM SO SORRY FOR THE LACK OF POSTING. Today I can say my reason was that I was out literally all day, but I have no excuse for not posting yesterday or the day before. I think part of it has to do with the fact that when you cook more, it's hard to relive that through writing about it... cooking really is a time commitment, and I've been doing it a lot.
So I'll just do a quick recap of Thurs through Sat
THURSDAY
Breakfast: cottage cheese and yogurt with blueberries, grapenuts, and peanut butter. yum.
Snack: none
Lunch: I also made my friend Kaitlyn lunch! Yes, I did go through with the marshmallow-Nutella banana sandwich. It looked great, but we only had pumpernickel, which was a bit strange, and she didn't finish it :(. but for dessert I did pack her fancy French chocolates.

i left notes on the lunch objects in French (kind of our thing) and also wrapped the sandwich in gift paper.

some of her friends also made her this outrageously disgusting-looking food coloring cake.

As for me, I had a wrap with tofu, rapini, spinach, and mustard, carrots and celery, leftover cauliflower, and an apple.

Dinner:

I cooked for myself. Yes, this photo makes it look great, but all my cooking times were off :(
I made eggplant stuffed with brown rice, feta, eggplant cubes, rosemary, etc. over cherry tomatoes and white wine. The problem was that I was only cooking 1 eggplant, and I couldn't figure out how to cook the eggplant until tender without making the rice stale. In the end, I just ate the eggplant a little underdone. This was actually pretty small, so i had both halves with some pinenuts and a blob of hummus.
Dessert: Greek yogurt with blueberries and Annie's vanilla chocolate bunnies-- i've been very good about portion-controlling my cereal!

Workout: I was going to run out side, but do you have ANY IDEA HOW FREEZING IT IS OUTSIDE? It was in the TEENS on Thursday... instead I went to the workout room at my school, but I really wasn't up for too much cardio. I warmed up with a mile on the treadmill, then did a bunch of weight machines and abs-- I was actually really sore the next day! Then I cooled down on the elliptical.

Friday: I was super tired and just not in a work out mood... I was just in the mood to crawl into bed after school, which I get out of at 1:45 on fridays! it was great... I literally lay in my bed watching Gossip Girls that I'd rented until it was time to cook dinner. What a wonderful waste of time.
Breakfast--Oatmeal with buttermilk, blueberries, PB and flax.

Snack-- dates and dried apricots
Lunch-- tofu, hummus and cucumber sandwich, carrots and celery (really running out of vegetables at this point), an apple, a Zensoy pudding


Snack: no snack, but I did make myself a chai latte with half milk and half water and stevia.

Dinner-- I made dinner for my aunt Claire! I realized how empty the fridge was, so I decided to empty it. I made the stuffed pumpkins from the Flexitarian Table that I was originally going to make for Thanksgiving, but I swapped the quinoa for brown rice, given the abundance of brown rice we had in the fridge. It turned out to be pretty good!
I threw out about 3 bags of rotting vegetables while looking for something edible to cook-- I stir-fried a mixture of kale and some vegetable related to baby bok choy with some edamame, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, vinegar, and of course, some cornstarch. Then I drizzled it with sesame oil and topped it with sesame seeds.

Dessert: a pear


TODAY WAS SO BUSY!
I got up at 7 and worked out downstairs-- I did my usual 35 minute interval set on the elliptical with my biology book... I can't say I internalized much, but it was useful. After that, I just did some more easy elliptical so I could burn a little more than 400 calories. Before I left I had 1/2 a banana.

Breakfast: no dairy with this breakfast because I knew I was going to Istria for coffee and I wanted to get something nice and milky then. I had 1/2 cup of oats with 1/2 a banana, 1/2 cup oat milk, the last of the blueberries, slivered almonds, and peanut butter.

We headed over to the cafe and I got some good studying done. Of course, I got my usual decaf nonfat mocha... Seriously, delicious.

I had my piano quartet from 11:30-12:30, and then Aunt Claire and I had lunch at Fox and Obel! I really wanted sushi, but given the temperature, I decided against it. I definitely didn't order enough food, though! I only got half a sandwich with a side salad... somehow I remember the sandwiches being bigger than they were. The sandwich I got was basically a ton of vegetables with hummus on multi-grain. Aunt Claire had a turkey, cranberry and brie sandwich, and I also had a bite of her ginger cookie, which was the most delicious thing I've ever had.


Anyways, I had to go back to music for more quartet, theory and duet from 2:00-4:00. I actually forgot my hunger. We went to Whole Foods and now I can say that there is stuff in my fridge and stuff to cook. YAY! We were going to go see Twilight but Claire is kind of sick :(
We ended up getting stuff at the Whole Foods salad bar, since I've always wanted to try it.
Sadly, I WAS DISAPPOINTED! None of the stuff I took had any flavor whatsoever. I had my big salad with some tomato-red pepper soup and some of the stuffing from my pumpkins, and that stuffing blew all the Whole Foods stuff out of the water!
I took: Greens, chickpea salad, shrimp cabbage slaw, tofu that tasted like nothing, sweet potato, beets, artichoke hearts, a bit of peanut noodles, cauliflower and peas, and probably more. The point is that it didn't taste like much and wasn't at all satisfying :( I didn't finish it because I was afraid I would get a fiber-stomach ache.
I am definitely having dessert...

I'm not in a bad mood or anything, just really tired and craving something sweet and either a nice book or bad TV show.
I ended up realizing I was HUNGRY, so I had a ton of yogurt and cottage cheese with blueberries and GoLean Crunch.

Thanksgiving

This post is exciting for a few reasons:
1. I've been checking out other blogs, and most of them show relatively traditional Thanksgiving food. Of course, I did kind of miss the turkey, stuffing, and apple pie, but I also love how we mixed it up and created a menu that still had a lot of Thanksgiving-ish ingredients, and yet was definitely modernized.
2. Last night was also my first official time as "head chef." I mean, my dad made the chicken and string beans, but I made everything else by myself. I feel now that I've "entertained" once, I can do it lots more in the future! It was really fun!
So yesterday I started cooking first thing in the morning. First, I had a very good breakfast: Thanksgiving oatmeal!
It had 1/2 cup oats, 1/2 cup soy milk, some leftover pumpkin, 1/2 a banana, maple syrup, pecans, cranberry sauce, and a dollop of yogurt.
Then I started cooking. All the dishes were spread out over the course of the day, so I didn't feel pressured. I popped the Autumn Millet Bake back in the oven because it hadn't finished cooking, while I worked on the other baked dishes, that I figured I might as well do now if the oven was on. I made 101 Cookbook's Firecracker Cornbread and a recipe I got on Epicurious for Apple Quince Crisp with Rum Raisins. I modified that one a bit-- we didn't have rum, so the raisins became bourbon raisins. I also changed the topping and used Deborah Madison's, since I prefer my crisp topping to have oats in it. I also included walnuts and used half butter and half walnut oil in the topping. Flambee-ing the raisins was awesome, although it doesn't really show in the picture.
My dad couldn't resist taking some really unflattering pictures of me.
For lunch I wasn't that hungry, so I definitely ate more than I should have. I made a big salad with a bunch of random things-- spinach, some leftover cauliflower croquettes from the night before, some rice and beans, and hummus. I also had a piece of bread with cucumber and laughing cow, and then, just because I wanted something sweet, I had a zensoy pudding with half a banana and a drizzle of peanut butter. My eyes are always bigger than my stomach, and for some reason I always finish what's on my plate. I'll get to that in a minute, but this is definitely a bad thing.
I also had an apple.
I only went out of the house once-- how sad is that?? I really really really hate being cooped up in the apartment, which is why today I'm just going to get out for the sake of getting out. Anyways, at around 3 I went running with my friends-- the friends I went with yesterday are super fast, with 5 minute miles or something. I was really afraid I wouldn't be able to keep up with them, and there were stretches when I couldn't, but I basically stayed with them the whole time and felt like I pushed myself without hurting anything. Also, we didn't go that far-- I met them at the Point, and then we ran to just over the hill (before the playground) and then ran back not quite to the Point and did a bunch of striders, which we used to do when I was a sprinter, but they were obviously longer (for distance). Then I ran back to my house. I was thinking about having a snack but realized I had to get cooking and forgot all about it, which was VERY good, considering the amount of food we had later.
We actually changed the main course, because I realized that if we were going to have the autumn millet bake, our original stuffed pumpkins would be too similar. My dad took care of the Cornish hens, basting them with some kind of marmalade marinate, while I still tried out a Flexitarian Table recipe for Lemon Thyme tofu. I was a little worried about this, since I've never had "Western-style tofu" before. I also ended up using two kinds of tofu: both extra firm, but one was silken, and it kept falling apart :(
I also realized when the guests showed up that I was the only American-born person there! I guess Thanksgiving wasn't a tradition to any of these people: most of them were either Chinese or Korean, and one was Belgian.
Inspired by Kath, I made menus: check out that sparkly paper!
My dad also made his traditional turkey centerpiece:
First course (too lazy to write it out-- just check the menu).

For some reason I perfected the dressing this time by using balsamic instead of lemon juice. The combination of salty, sour and sweet were perfected. This was really good, if I do say so myself.



Meanwhile, my dad stir-fried the string beans and served up the chickens. It was too hard to get everything out at once, so we ate everything gradually. For some reason, I got full much more quickly than usual! I can normally eat HUGE amounts of food, but yesterday I couldn't. My downfall was either a) being the cook-- real chefs hardly ever eat because they're around food all day. Not saying I'm a real chef, but you know what I mean. b) the HUGE AMOUNT OF STRING BEANS MY DAD GAVE ME in order to compensate for lack of chicken. I really shouldn't have eaten all these, esp. since they're not a "special occasion" food, but they're so good... and they are vegetables.
I had a tiny sliver of cornbread, two helpings of cranberry sauce, and a small piece of the millet bake. Everything was really good- the cornbread especially, since I rarely cook with butter. The butter was infused with cayenne and made the cornbread spicy and moist. It was also good that I used millet because they use it a lot in China and Korea, and I think it was interesting for the students to see it in a Western way instead of just labeling is some kind of hippie dish, since most of us think of millet as bird food.
As for the tofu... It was a little strong for me. It absorbed the flavors so thoroughly that I think it would be better on a sandwich or in a salad. Still, it was definitely interesting, and eating it in bigger chunks made it feel more substantial. I had one half triangle and I didn't end up eating all of it.
One student made some kind of Chinese buns with gluey rice flour on the inside. I had a bite, but honestly I've never really liked Chinese baked goods.

I don't know why I was so full at this point! But I knew it was Thanksgiving and I was really looking forward to dessert.
In addition to my crisp, people brought a blueberry cheesecake and some ice cream. The only thing I really felt was worth splurging on was the crisp, and I really wish my mom had been there to try it. YOU WOULD HAVE LOVED THIS, MOM.

I was afraid it would be too boozy, but the bourbon just added another dimension to the filling. The contrast between the apples and quinces was subtle but definitely there-- the quinces were chewier and more tart. I had the crisp with some full-fat Greek yogurt and it was great. I went back for seconds. I thought it was justified.
By the end of the night I was full but not actually stuffed-- I think the problem was the massive amount of fibrous green beans sitting in my stomach.
Afterwards, we all signed the menus-- not sure why, but I think my dad is going to save it-- he joked about framing it as a way to document my first real dinner party. Actually, it wasn't really, since I've cooked for friends before, but I've definitely never made so many dishes at once.

However, this is the unfun part to say. I'm realizing that I have gained weight. I don't regret not being stringent and borderline Orthorexic (do people actually use this term? I've only recently heard about this), but I do regret not treating my body well and listening to myself when I'm not hungry anymore. It's not just that my jeans are tight, but also that I don't feel good when I keep eating when I'm full. My goal is to not stop myself from eating one thing, but to start with smaller portions and get more if I'm hungry, rather than setting out a huge food spread for myself and devouring it all, because I'm just not the kind of person who can leave food on my plate-- maybe it's an Asian thing. Either way, this isn't going to be an "I'm going to lose X pounds" type of thing, although I would guess it's probably around 5 pounds. If I were really going to go back to how I was at my thinnest, it would be around 10, but I was too thin then, I wasn't healthy and had to go to the doctor, and I also didn't have as much muscle mass... also, I was an inch or two shorter. Anyways, you see my point.
I just want to eat more slowly and really savor everything.
What advice do you have?