The fish was rubbed all over with tomyam paste (about 1 heaped teaspoon) and in the stomach, I had stuffed it with ginger strips to get rid of fishy smells. I had also sliced 3 openings on the fish. It’s covered all over with okra as well as one onion that was quartered up. Onions are great when you want to make a dish sweet without adding sugar. I did the marinating process while fish was on the foil so that I did not waste any paste at all. Everything was on the foil and later, my mouth.

After baking it for a couple of hours in the oven (I love them really soft) at 200oC, here is how it looks like. Looks yummy.

Another picture taken from the side. You can see that the fish looks great and it tasted great too. It hasn’t dried up at all and was moist, juicy and tender. My meal for today

What I did was stirfried some onions, garlic and sliced carrot in butter. I nearly didn’t want to add in the mince beef because the delicious smell of the butter was so tempting and fragrant that to add anything else would probably have been sacrilege. Well, the beef still went in else I wouldn’t have eaten enough protein for the day so in it went! After that, the 1 tablespoon of miso paste went in with a dash of Lea and Perrins Worcester Sauce, sea salt and pepper. I must say that the flavours came out interesting and it was pretty sweet as well.

One thing that I wasn’t really sure of was whether the mince meat should have shrunk to such little itty bitty pieces. Think I overcooked it in my effort to make sure that all the juices were soaked into the carrots and corn. Also, I wanted to make sure that the frozen corn had been totally unfrozen and completely hot even on the inside before putting it aside to be cooled down.

This unintentional beef stew was then eaten with a side salad dish of such redness in color, which had the tartiness of onions and sweetness of raisins. Fresh and refreshing to the mouth after the beef dish.

As I look back and read what I’ve just written, I can’t believe I wrote it down in such a posh manner. Well, as posh as I would ever be. Probably my brain having a go at me for being so relax and American at times.

Anyway, meal for the day yesterday. Today was just out and about so nothing much to see, really.

So have a great weekend everyone and cheerio!

Because I haven’t had seafood marinara in a long time and there were some leftover squid from the last dish I did, I thought I might as well make it. The last few days were spicy or oriental flavoured so why not a bit of Italian? Although I sort of regretted not taking the trouble to go out into Granny’s garden at night to grab some fresh basil. It would have made a difference so instead, I piled up the dish with McComick’s Salt Free All-Purpose Seasoning. I also found that butter goes wonderfully when cooking with prawns and squid. The aroma of the stir fry is so delicious that you could taste the grilled buttered prawns i.e. I browned some of the prawns a bit.

Seafood marinara minus the pasta as I’m still trying to lose weight. So, I had a stir-fry veggie to accompany it which was long beans stir-fried with garlic, mirin sauce and tamarind sauce.

One thing I’ve realized that it’s now fairly easy not to be tempted by food (well, not too much) once I clear up any open items. It doesn’t have to be something complicated like at work. It can be simple stuff like stocking up on food, making the effort to cook, heading to the gym to build up my endurance or making the effort to meet friends and family. So, definitely one item that is crossed out of my list : cleaning up my panties to throw away giant ones that I will no longer wear. Can’t believe it filled up 2 big plastic bags.

Anyway, tomorrow is a new day. I can already hear Granny asking, “So, what to take out for your meal for Friday ah?” She’s been a great sport helping me deal with my hectic schedule by helping to prepare the veggies to be cooked.

Well, that’s it for today. Have a great day everyone!

It’s a pretty simple dish and I had accompanied it with stir-fry spinach. I’m not sure how to call this spinach since it’s one of those that are long and thin but supposedly good for people with high blood pressure, according to Granny.

I wanted to get some chilli flakes to upped the spicyness but the Korean shop didn’t have any and the only other place that I remember selling it was Ta Kiong Supermarket, The Spring which probably has massive traffic jams considering the lateness of the hour. Anyway, I decided to just do without and just marinade the pork with ginger and a tablespoon of the chilli paste. I had fried some chopped garlic before adding in the marinated meat. Added in about 2 tablespoon of water so that the pork will cook more evenly and will have a bit of a thick sauce coating it all. A quick dash of pepper and voila! A quick and easy stirfy although not the most authentic Korean stir fry pork. Ah well. Next time.

A simple stir-fry spinach. Garlic cooked first, then the spinach with 1 tablespoon of water and some Worcester Sauce for a bit of sweet taste. That’s it.

Simple breakfast and lunch for tomorrow. Do I mind eating the same thing for 2 meals? Not really since Granny does that too. Besides, it’s still delicious food.

Next in line : learning to do some of those Korean vegetable kimchi so that I don’t have to spend a lot of time preparing for it. Problem will come when it’s been fermented for so long that it’s starting to smell. Talk about a pong in the fridge but maybe it wouldn’t be *too* bad.

I had rubbed about 2 teaspoon of tomyam paste all over this organic chicken. I then stuffed it with 3 stacks of lemongrass and 2 kaffir lemon (limau parut) that were pierced using a knife. I also cut one onion into quarters and just laid them on the side of the chicken. The onions eventually caramelized into sogginess because the chicken was in there for 3 hours @ 200 degrees Celsius. Then I browned it for about 15 min @ 220 degrees Celsius. It didn’t brown a lot because I didn’t have a layer of oil over the skin (trying to be more healthy).

So there you have it, quickie chicken. However, I think I probably had some transfat in there from the Tomyam Paste because the ingredients listed down palm oil and it’s probably hydrogenated. Now I would have to start hunting for a recipe on how to make the tomyam paste from scratch so that I can avoid the formation of transfat. See the lengths I go to just to see if it’s possible to eat cleanly and safely?

I had drawn what happens when I pick Good Choices and Bad Choices. These are thoughts and feelings that run through my mind either immediately after eating and/or after 1-3 hours after eating. The choices also included other scenarios when I’m faced with a decision of choice : which to pick? This or that? It was interesting to see what were the things that I was writing as it all came out. Writing it down and letting it all out really does help me to understand myself better i.e. I know now what triggers me to make bad choices and good choices as well. And looking at these emotions, it feels liberating to just let it all out. If it makes you uncomfortable looking at this, well, perhaps it’s time for you to have a look at yourself and decide whether you want to continue the way you’re living or make a change that will result in a better you. I took the leap of faith for a better me, even though the journey is pretty rocky and I do cling on to old thoughts and feelings.

What I did a week afterwards was to put down what I thought were ripples when I made Good Choices. It was not only about food and it included all types of Good Choices that I make in my daily life. Being honest is not always easy but I find that the more often I’m honest, the more I’m willing to let go of grudges or opinions of people. That I don’t let myself be caught in the emotion of the moment just so that I feel justified internally for my righteous anger which in the end doesn’t benefit myself or the other party.

The strange thing is that for every grudge that I’ve let go, I find myself more free and calm. Plus, my body is able to do more stuff like doing a better stretch or having better endurance when I do my strength training.

So why did I post this up? Well, my trainer said to put it somewhere where I can see it. So I guess other than putting it up on my room, I’m putting it online as well so that I can look for it easily. Will I follow it all the time? Not really. Even today, I’m having the problem of actually following it properly. I ate a bowl of spicy nabeyaki udon as well as some other stuff from Sushi King and ordered one vanilla/chocolate ice-cream cone from Sugar Bun. Getting on the scale just now, it tipped at around 81 kg which is not good considering that I weighed in this morning at 78.5 kg.

Ok, so to fix it, it’s a long cardio walk tomorrow as I only did some strength exercises today. Hey, for every bad choice, I still need to fix it, no? Only way to drop the weight is to walk walk walk walk it all off. And not eat frivolously! So, my plan for tomorrow :

1. Morning : Walk for at least one hour
2. Afternoon : Cooking roast chicken and making some tofu stuff.

The meals will be for Monday and the rest of the week. Any leftovers will be frozen and will be defrosted on the day that I intend to eat it.