run molly run

March is here, and I'm excited yay! Can you believe it?! I remember just saying happy new years to you guys just a while ago, and it's already the third month of the year?!

February was a really wonderful month full of good vibes and energy which was nice because it was also a really stressful month of having lots of coursework and social outgoings.

So for March, I'm going to focus on two things this month (besides focusing on my coursework) and those two things are:

1. Run twenty miles in the month of March
2. Read the vegetables and fruits sections in my The Encycylopedia of Healing Foods

I've been trying to get back into running for a while now, and it's harder than it seems! Mostly due to a lack of time and also because I can't find my exercise clothes (has it really been that long since I last exercised?) So my goal for March is to start small, but just start. The hardest part of doing anything is starting, so that's what I'm going to do this month.

I've had this book for a few months now, and it's time to get serious about reading this thing (also because I've been really enjoying eating a plant based diet). Not to mention there's lots of vegetables I haven't tried yet like artichokes, beets, dandelion, etc.

February goals that were a success (or almost a success) //

1. Maintained a fairly clean room for almost the entire month of February; then again, I was barely ever home, so I didn't really have the opportunity to mess it up.
2. My focus on school was on point. I stayed up on nights that I went out so I could work on my coursework and projects a little before heading to bed.
3. I actually ate more veggies! Can I get a high five? This has been a goal for mine for how long? Also started meal prepping and drinking more tea wooohooo. (I'm on a roll here.)
4. I also continued blogging; there were times when I didn't want to, not because I didn't find it fun, but because I wanted to be lazy and just not do it. But when I'm lazy in one area of my life, it starts to affect all the other areas in my life so I tried to be as not lazy as possible which turned out great in the end. (x)

How did your February go? 

Are you excited for March?! Any plans?

update on the new year

So since I made lots of goals for this year and since this year is going by so fast (it's already Februrary 5th). I'd thought I'd check in and see how I'm doing.

HEALTH //

1. I have been cooking lots and eating a lot of vegetables. And I can't remember the last time I ate out three times in a row, which is great.
2. Also cooking and just being in the kitchen in general has my new therapy. I even love washing dishes, although I've always loved doing dishes. The thought of cleaning and organizing my dishes just clears my mind, if only I thought the same way about my room.
3. I didn't want to exercise today, but I did anyway and it was great. But I have been moving around more and I don't hate walking as much anymore.

SCHOOL //

1. Not behind yet, still organized (somewhat), and still showing up to my classes so I must be doing something right.
2. As far as being on track goes, I'm doing a pretty good job at it. But I kind of really suck at time management still, and at not being lazy.
3. I'm having fun with my Adobe classes despite that dreadful five hour gap. I'm also learning a lot for my Psych Human Growth and Development class and I'm really excited to get to the young adult time frame (because that's where I'm at now).

MISC //

1. I've been watching less Netflix, which is good. But sometimes, I still hear Netflix calling my name and I just have to answer.
2. My sleeping habits are still undetermined. I have this horrible habit of needing to watch mindless T.V. shows or movies before going to bed, and I'm trying to kill that habit. But I have been getting up earlier, which is also on my "goals" list so I'm pretty happy about that.

Overall, I think I'm doing a pretty good job so far. There's still a lot of room for improvement, but I'm proud of what I've accomplished so far.

How has your year been going so far?

falafels and quiche

I fell in love with falafels when I had my first bite at a food truck at Off the Grid in San Francisco. After that, I tried making my own but the taste and texture just didn't compare. The idea of attempting to make my own again came to me last week and this was the recipe I used.

 

I decided to bake them instead of frying them. Frying isn't exactly one of my best skills (or even something I'm remotely good at), so I always prefer baking (less effort involved and it also means I can do something else while waiting).

 

 I made more than twenty falafels so it was more than enough to share with everyone and to last for several days. I plan to make these again sometime in the following weeks. 

I was pleasantly surprised because my quiche turned out a lot better than I expected! 

It was also my first time making my own crust and grating my own cheese. The texture was really good, the crust was crunchy enough but not too crunchy or baked, and everything just went well together. Even my dad liked it!

It was so good I made another batch of quiche last night since I had extra ingredients leftover and I didn't want my spinach or mushrooms to go to waste. (Half of it is already gone.)

This happened on Tuesday and I spent 6 hours cooking that day and I didn't even notice until my feet started hurting due to standing the whole time, but everything turned out good so it was worth it.

my first month of cooking // what i learned

 I.

Read through the recipes before starting again, including going to the grocery store. Always read the recipes. Read the reviews after, they're helpful. Trust me. Double check everything on your list and cross it out as you go along, because if you don't, you'll probably forget to buy something you really need (sometimes even the main ingredient.)

II.

Every recipe out there seems to call for salt. The only measurements tools you ever seem to use are the 1 cup, 1 tbs, and 1/4 tsp.  Things that come in handy: having a food processor, parchment paper, butter, all purpose flour, eggs, a whisk, lots of spoons, nonstick cookware, a spatula scraper, a variety of different spices, and lots of time on your hands.

III.

I'm really bad at measuring and I always lose count. I'm also bad at following recipes. I've learned that it's good to not expect your first try to be perfect, but it's good to try again. Practice helps you improve, like with anything else in life. You won't be good at it at first, but if you keep going, you'll get better. Even though I'm nowhere near good at cooking or baking, I love looking at recipes and getting new ideas.

 IV.

I love taking pictures of my food; I put my camera strap across my shoulder so I'll always have it on me while I'm in the kitchen (except for when I'm washing dishes - that's just asking for trouble). By the time I'm done with everything, my food is already cold. But that's okay. I've never been a big fan of eating my food while it's hot anyway.

V.

But what I love most is that I'm always making mistakes, because that's how I improve. That's how I get better. I learn from my mistakes and I'm more aware the next time around. I love spending hours at a time making food. I love taking photos of my food. I even love washing dishes. I also waste less food this way because I'm eating in more rather than eating out. I pay more attention to the produce at the store.

Learning to cook and bake has been such a rewarding experience so far despite burning myself sometimes and having killed our small oven.

a day of homemade goodies

And by goodies, I mean food. Because a good chunk of my life goes toward food and eating.

This morning, I actually woke up at 9 am today (throws confetti). It's one of my new year resolutions/goals to wake up earlier, and I've been having trouble with it recently because one of my other resolutions to go to sleep earlier and whenever I tell myself to do that, I actually end up going to sleep later. Anyway, after I woke up, I made myself a delicious green smoothie.

 

After, I went to the grocery store to buy some vegetables and sweet potatoes to cook for lunch.  And while I was browsing through the fresh produce section, I came upon amaranth leaves so I had to try them because I recently learned about amaranth (the grain) which I haven't tried yet. My dad helped me make lunch today and it was nice because we managed to get lunch on the table within an hour; I was rushing a bit because I had an appointment but I cancelled it due to lack of time. I wish I had taken a picture of the food with my camera because the colors looked really nice, but I did manage to take a picture with my phone. The food was surprisingly good! I wanted to make yam salad, but I accidently baked it instead of boiling it in water. Maybe next time!

After that, my friend came over and we "baked" cheesecake and oreo truffles dipped in the chocolate ("baked" since we didn't use an oven). The cheesecake turned out surprisingly decent despite not using vanilla extract and substituting sweetened condensed  milk.

 Oh yeah, and we also made oreo truffles! We should grind them instead next time; we crushed them, the photos would turn out way nicer if the oreos would grounded. (Confession: I'm always thinking it terms of how the pictures would look instead of how the food tastes.) But they turned out really good! I don't have a sweet tooth, so about one or two just about hits the spot for me.

 

I have work this weekend, but I'm planning to spend more time in the kitchen after I come home from work (and also hopefully spend more time on my studies!) Also, classes start again next week so I have to get as much cooking done as I can so I know what to meal plan (what I like, what I don't like, what works, what doesn't, etc.)

• How has your week been?
• Have you been cooking or baking anything new lately?
• How is January treating you so far?

quinoa and smoothies

I've been eating more homemade foods lately, and I'm loving it. This blog and being able to take pictures again really helps and motivates me. I can't remember the last time I use my camera before this blog, probably not since a little after high school. It's still a bit tricky trying to make lunch/dinner recipes; I feel like it's always a hit or miss.

Breakfast 

 

I love putting my breakfast foods and smoothies in mason jars. The colors go nicely with each other and it's so bright, and it looks wonderful.

Currently out of Greek yogurt, so I only had coconut milk avaliable for this fruit bowl. Hopefully I'll get a chance to restock this week; there's not really any American grocery stores near where I live, and I don't like driving there just to get one or two things. But I'll be going to school again soon, which means there's a Safeway on the way back home yay!

Smoothies

  I recently started using my Vitamix blender again, and wow the smoothies taste so much better now. The consistency and texture of it is just amazing. And I got a really nice shade of green in yesterday's smoothie (the third one).

 

Also went to the library this week to print my school stuff out and did a book haul. I don't know why I still check out recipe books, even though there are a million recipes online, but the photos just look so good. And people put lots of work into their books, so I thought I should take the time to look through them.

Dinners

 

I made quinoa mac and cheese with spinach last night; the first bite was really good. But when I tried it again later that night, my stomach started hurting (might be because I might be lactose intolerant). Maybe there was just too much dairy for me. :(

EDIT // The quinoa mac n cheese is super yummy; my friend and her mom loved it. I had the leftovers (I gave most of it to my friend) for lunch today and I loved it. Turns out the leftovers are better if you bake them than microwaving them - just a side note! And I think my dad likes it as well! (He normally doesn't like these types of foods.) Definitely making this again sometime soon - hopefully tomorrow after work. I don't want the leftover milk in my fridge to go to waste and I still have butter leftover.

Not pictured, but I also made sweet potato jasmine rice patty cakes. I substitued quinoa with jasmine rice because I had just made a fresh batch. (It's going to take me a while to learn how to follow recipes and cook.) But it was really good nonetheless and reminded me of how much I love sweet potatoes!

lettuce wraps and leftovers

Lettuce wraps and leftovers. It's my new favorite thing.

The idea first came to me last Friday after I came back from my run; by the time I finished showering, my stomach was making noises at me. So I looked in the kitchen to see what I could quickly whip up. Normally I would do some cereal breakfasty like, but I was out of granola, so that was a no go. Then I saw the egg carton and saw that I still had some leftover ground beef, so I did a quick stir fry and use romaine lettuce to make three lettuce wraps. And let me tell you, it was amazing.

So when I woke up this morning, I knew what I wanted. More lettuce wraps, but with guacamole this time. (It was a good choice.) I wish I had some cayenne pepper to go with it, but that's okay.

 

 This is also a really great idea for me because I've always been bad with a. using/eating all my vegetables that I buy and b. eating my leftovers. I'm pretty sure 99% of my leftovers go bad; I'm working on changing my habits on that.

• What have you been eating lately?
• Do you have any favorite foods to put on lettuce wraps?

molly eats

One of my new year goals was to try out more recipes and I'm happy to report that it's been working out so far! I've been spending more time in the kitchen lately and it's been a blast.

  My second batch of cranberry sauce turned out way better than the first one I made it! Probably because I actually followed the instructions this time and added a cup of sugar like it told me to.

It was almost as good as my acai berry bowls, maybe even better. I love how almond butter looks on top of greek yogurt. Don't you think the colors compliment each other?

 

I actually cooked beef, for the first time in my life! Amazing, isn't it? And I didn't poison myself or anything, thank goodness. Ever since I was little, I had this fear of eating meat that wasn't fully cooked so I always stayed away from cooking my own meat which meant I had to go out to eat because I'm really bad at trying to be a vegeterian. And I love lamb too much. But now that I know how to cook beef, who knows what else this year has in store for me. Anyway, you can see the acorn squash beef bowls I made on the right. Everyone loved it, and it's really filling.

 Oh yes, and then I made some sushi rolls with my dad's help. I need to work on making sushi rolls this year, because it's harder than it looks apparently. I also made homemade mayo, which doesn't really taste like mayo and I don't know what to do with that mayo so if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.

The pumpkin bread I made turned out to be really yummy! (although the coconut oil wouldn't mix so I ended up having lumps of coconut oil in my batter) When I got home after going to the grocery store, I realized I didn't buy a can of pumpkin and felt really stupid, because well... that's the main ingredient. Does that ever happen to anyone or is that just me? But luckily, I bought a can of pumpkin a while back and it was in one of the cabinets. Yay! I put greek yogurt, my cranberry sauce, and a dash of hemp seeds on top - try it, it's really good! I didn't know whether I wanted hot chocolate or tea that morning, so I made both.

Last but not least, I made Thai red curry soup today! I'm not sure if this is how it's suppose to taste, but it's good enough for my first try. Hopefully I'll get better with better, but I'm excited about trying this Thai beef recipe tomorrow after work! It sounds delicious. And Jasmine rice with coconut flavour? Yum. One of my other goals this year is to learn to make Thai food, since it's one of my favorite cuisines. And on the right, you can see my nonbaked sweet potato fries.

Thank goodness for the Internet and the amount of recipes avaliable! (So many exclamation marks because I love food.) My goal is to do one of these food posts every now and then to make sure I'm actually cooking my food and not eating out as much this year, and to share my love for food. Until next time, bon appétit!

• How is 2014 going for you so far?
• Do you have any favorite recipes? Have you tried any new recipes so far that you would like to share? (I would love to try them.)

a simple thing: first read of the year

Normally when you read a book, you find out very quickly whether it's a book you want to continue reading or not. So after finishing the first chapter of A Simple Thing by Kathleen McCleary, I knew I had to keep on reading it; I started on Saturday night only being able to read for less an hour before going to bed and continuing on last night from about 7 pm up until 2 am when I finally finished the book.

Confession: I cried, a lot, while reading this book. And it remembered me of why I loved reading so much back in high school; I can always connect/relate to the characters in the books I read and it was comforting because more than not, I felt like I didn't really connect with anyone in my own life. There are times in your life when someone says something to you or when you read something or hear something and you can instantly connect with what is being said and you can feel your whole body tingling with emotion.

"'Don't confuse guilt and shame,' she said. 'It's okay to feel badly about something you've done. But don't let it make you feel badly about who you are.'"

Something happened last year, and it didn't just happened once but twice. And for a long time, I couldn't forgive myself for it. The only reason I stopped torturing myself by blaming myself day in and day out was to stop thinking about it completely, but that also meant that I had to stop thinking about everything else in my life as well. So that's what I did. But I became numb to everything, empty, confused, and lost. And when I did feel something, it was sadness and anger and sometimes it was a combination of both. I thought that because I had done this horrible thing, I would never be able to forgive myself or look at myself again and I couldn't understand why anyone would ever forgive me if they ever found out.

Like Susannah, one of the main characters, I also constantly worry about everything in life and what could go wrong (even when I have little to no control over what is happening). In the novel, she had a hard time moving on from the past and it haunted her up until the very end when she was finally able to let go and forgive herself after having a conversation with her mom over the phone about what happened when she was thirteen.

To me, this book was about self discovery, forgiveness, and letting go of your past - things I am currently working on. No one is perfect and I know that's been said over time and time again, but it's true. Accidents happen. And sometimes people make poor decisions, but that doesn't mean that we have to spend our whole lives punishing ourselves for it. It doesn't make you a bad person. You don't have to punish yourself for the rest of your life for it; it won't solve anything and it won't change the past.

"'Whether you want to admit it or not. I'll tell you, it's only when I learned to accept that I was a lot like my mother that I began to be happier. I suspect you'll find that to be true yourself. Our mothers are the most influential in making us who we are. As long as you regard your mother with distaste, it's not possible to view yourself charitably, with the kindness and self-acceptance so essential to personal happiness.'"

This novel touched a lot of nerves for me. I'll just leave it at that, before I end up writing a novel on how this novel made me feel. But it made me reflect a lot on my past and how essential it is that I forgive myself because I need peace in my life. I'm really glad I read this book; it's a great start to the new year, because it reminded me that I need to forgive myself and I need to not punish myself or blame myself for what happened in the past or what didn't happen. I need to practice self-acceptance, because truth to be told, I deserve and need a little peace and forgiveness in my life. And I need to not feel guilty about it.

I have a really good feeling about 2014.