Holy Crap, best lunch ever

So, Brit (my room-mate) has decided she needs to loose a bunch of weight before short season and has set herself a fairly sizable goal. Being as she kinda has strange eating habits, and issues, I've been charged with meal planning. Actually, meal planning is not something we've really been doing, just kinda randomly eating whatever we want.

So in line with the fact that May is 'Stick to your budget, and your diet' month, I've actually gone and made an actual meal plan. It's been crazy. But today for lunch was an amazing mixture of delicious and yum. Today was chickpea salad and broccoli soup. Soup and salad for lunch? Who would have ever thought!

Chickpea salad is as follows:

• One can of chickpeas, drained
• 3 T of finely chopped red onion
• 1 garlic clove, smashed
• juice of a lime
• one rib of celery finely chopped
• 2 T of soft tofu mashed up or 1T of mayo (or something like that)
• salt, pepper, whatev other stuff you usually put in tune/egg/potato salad
  
• a handful of lettuce
• a handful of tomato, chopped or whatev
  
• a handful of cucumbers, chopped up

In a bowl, mash up the chickpeas with everything other than the lettuce, tomato and cucumber. In whatever bowl/container you're going to eat it out of, add the lettuce, tomato and cucumbers. Whenev you're ready to eat it, add the chickpea mixture on top of the lettuce mixture. Holy yum. Seriously? Other than the bad breath, with which to offend my colleagues? Perfecto.

Broccoli soup I've posted about before. Together is a delicious lunch extravaganza full of fiber and with tons of fat fighting potential.

I'm also on a 'bring your lunch to work' thing. So this is day 4 in a row, and so far it's managed to actually do good things for our afternoon. And I've learned that a salad only option is going to leave me totally hangry later in the day. I have a massive craving for a tunafish sandwhich, but that's so sadly out. But tuna salad? I can totally do that...perhaps tomorrow.

Claire came over last night and we had some delicious bean and mushroom burgers. It's pretty much exactly what you would expect them to be made of, and they'll be on the salad sometime later this week. Oh yeah, we ate them last night with a lettuce 'bun'.

When did the lettuce 'bun' become an ok substitute. That's totally a girl/diet thing right? I obv can't eat it, but don't other people want to rebel against the lettuce 'bun'? I want to try for a polenta 'bun'. I'm going to think about it. What about a polenta toad-in-the-hole? Oh holy crap I'll bet that would be good...so on the breakfast list.

OK, I'm going to get to work!

He's A Natural Born Lover...

...and he takes care of business!! He's an NBL and a TCB, NBL and a TCB, NBL and a TCB!!!
Sharon Jones and the Dapp Kings "Natural Born Lover" is rockin out my ears this morning and by the by, I love an acronym.

If this song does it for you like it does it for me, also check out "How Long Do I Have to Wait for You?". Doing some chair dancing and revising my initial Thursday angst (yelled loudly to everyone about how it was breaking my spirit to deal with a Thursday for the last couple of weeks) It's Friday tomorrow gang, the fact that I can say that makes me happy. For now I'm going to keep workin it Sharon style.

Pilates & Korean

Jumped onto the pilates train this evening with the girls, engaged the core and it ROCKED. Soooo-hhhoooooo-oooooo exhausted and limp on the couch. Our teacher is really inspiring, a pole dancing master who's so cut and fabulous. Decided to get Korean tonight bc it's a super easy option if Craig and I are both getting home later and hot damn, it was good!!!! Lots of protein and cabbage. My dinner...


Thank you kimchi and pilates for fantastifying my Tuesday. Soooo tired and old.... deciding between passing out on the couch and climbing upstairs to bed...... need some ZZzzzzssss, night! XX P.S. Night Jess in HK!! Missed you tonight, know you're rockin the South! Enjoy!

This was supposed to be a comment, but there was some flailing involved.

Jess here, I am jumping on this Bento-train like it's my last chance out of...someplace unpleasant...like a mall...or a house that smells like cat pee...or work on a friday afternoon. I even made Brittany and myself a 'take delicious and healthy food to lunch' incentive chart. You know how we love an incentive chart. And I found this online :

http://www.reusablebags.com/store/laptop-lunches-bento-wbook-p-528.html

Gettin me one of those.

My Name is Clam

Way back in '07, the first time I went to Estados Unidos otherwise known as Ame-rica, the people in Starbucks couldn't figure out what my name was. They asked for my name after I'd paid so they could yell it out once my giant coffee was ready and I told them and got some really confused looks, then was asked again, and again, and then it was decided my name was Clam. 

In Australia we speak with a very flat nasal "a" sound, whereas the Estados crew have the Big R sound and big A so announcing my name in my Australian twangy, unlovely accent was heard as "Clam", and incidentally, I find clams delicious. Was I compelled to nibble on myself after accepting my new name - surprisingly no. But we do like to go down to the market nearby and grab some to cook up. 

Easiest recipe ever, and provided guests eat shellfish, this one is ALWAYS a hit. 

To make, prep some veggie stock, then cook a load of finely chopped garlic, chillies, and shallots, put it all together in a pot and get it boiling, add some white wine and a pile of clams (we usually do a kilo-kilo and a half) and cover for 8 mins, until most of the clams have opened up. Spoon out large clumps of clams and eat with salad and a baguette for dunking in the broth. Discard all clams that haven't opened up.

 

Inspired by the fabulous justbento blog I took this photo of my staple salad. Adapted from a Susan V. salad, from the point at which this photo was taken you can go in all sorts of directions - adding big gorgeous borlotti beans, tuna, shrimp, semi-dried tomatoes, black kalamatta olives, banana (for the fruit fiends, ahem), lentils, brown rice - anything!!!! This morning I made a kick-ass dressing made with sliced and chopped garlic, honey and white vinegar. All that was missing was hummus which I have the hardest-corest-craziest craving for today. Mack-damn-it I am so hungry for some hummus. Making some later. Will be worth the wait.  

It's hot and we've been getting our summer drink on. Hanging out on the verandah (deck, patio, whatever) drinking wine and cold beer in the afternoons. LOVING IT! Fab weekend vibes sending out to yall. XClam  

Gazpacho, with a hint of pasta

For this week's cooking extravaganza, we invited my friend Madoka, who is totally adorable and fun, and Robin, also fun, but I'm afraid Madoka win's on adorability. Robin has other fantastic characteristics. I'm sure she can swear in Mexican and drink tequila better than Madoka, but I would like to see the tequila part put to the test.

So, while in the park the other day I read something about sweet potato french fries with honey, cumin and ginger. I wanted to try that out, and since it's spring time we wanted some spring like food, so we made spinach salad with strawberries (except there weren't any and we used papaya instead) and gazpacho. I learned my gazpacho recipe from my friend's mom way back in the day and it used V8 juice instead of stock (which makes the whole process go about 20X faster) but lacking that, I used a tin of spaghetti sauce with italian herbs. The result was good, but had hints of pasta.

                                                                                                                                                                        Madoka got the fun job of wrestling with the sweet potatos to turn them into fry shape, she did admirably. The blender did a fantastic job with the rest. The salad was the winner in my opinion, I'm going to do a lot more spinach/fruit salads in the near future. I liked the papaya as it was not too sweet, and when mixed with some balasamic/mustard dressing because rather delicious. Also it's very colorful and I'm into that. My mom used to make a spinach salad with rice noodles. I must ask her for that recipe sooner rather than later.

Summer in Shanghai being what is, it's very key to have a good stock of cold and easy dishes available.

I'll get on Claire to post some pictures and write more! Anyone who wants recipes, write and tell me! I'll be happy to post but right now I'm pretending to write for work...

Makin' cheese and polenta, then putting them together

In an effort to make ourselves feel better for missing Nina's birthday, we decided to gorge ourselves on polenta and home-made cheese in an open 'lasagne' situation. Taking some fantastic cues from the wonderful lady at 'fatfree vegan' we made a totally not vegan option, that I am soon going to make into a not even vegetarian situation.

Basically it comes down to 

a) Making polenta, and I added some bay leaves and dried herbs to the water. I forgot that I find making polenta mindnumbingly boring, but the result is so awesome that I'm going to suck it up and do it again.

b) Making cheese. The best thing I ever learned how to do, and I can't believe I just learned. It's  SO. FREAKIN. EASY
c) Making some vegetables, adding the cheese to it.
d) Making some tomato sauce. We used a can of chunky tomato                                                         sauce and then added some onions and other deliciousness.

If there was more time available I would have correctly baked it, but I didn't care and it was so incredible as it was. We just make a pile. I now love polenta more than life itself, although it doesn't make up for not being able to eat bread.

NEXT TIME...or sometime sooner than later, I read a recipe in a magazine for baked sweet potato wedges with ginger, honey and cumin. Um, yum?

OK, back to work!

p.s. I have an unhealthy addiction to pineapples at the mo.

FOOD & a Vacation

Back from an AMAZING trip back home to Australia and just had my first day back at work - into the deep end, the only way to return from a vacation.





Faced with a decent sized kitchen, draws of exciting accouterments and a food processor I couldn't resist cooking. Anyone who knows me
also knows -


1. I'm a feeder (I prefer enabler haha) and I talk about food ALL the time.
2. I love to preach, or rant, both good ways to lose people's attention.


I love, love being a fake vegetarian or pescitarian episcopalian (not the latter, just think they kind of work well together). So naturally I had to do some cooking and rave on to my gorgeous family about how to cut fat when cooking, what's freakin crazy good for you and how awesome Susan V. at the fatfreevegan.com is. Answer: Extremely awesome. They're all pretty health conscious so I always learn from them too.

Some things I made -

1. Fava beans or foul mudammes

2. Egyptian Tomato and Cucumber Salad

3. Orange, Mint and Pistachio Almond Meal Cake (my Mum always gets me to make this when I'm home)

4. Tonnes (capital T) of Hummus

5. Quinoa Paella

6. Rice Paper Raw Spring Rolls with Chili, Mint, Peanut, Ginger & Coconut Dust (my brother asked what the sawdust inside was, so there it is)

7. Tomato & Turmeric Moong Dal

8. Tzaziki (just bc it's crazy delicious)

I ate this bircher muesli in Byron Bay for breakfast with two strong, strong cups of coffee after camping and a gigantic walk across the beach up to the lighthouse there. The photo of me eating fish and salad was on the beach there, and the one of the first photos is another fab breakfast down at Bondi Beach in Sydney with my beautiful sister Janeyo.

Holy crap we ate some much good food, some highlights, bbqd salmon, felafel kebabs, barramundi and smoked trout, cheeses, my Mum's killer yum ratatouille, a leaning tower of frosting, carrot cake and toffeed nuts, artichoke and cheese heart attack dip and the MOST incredible, incredible CHERRY PIE. I'd never eaten it before and it rocked my world - didn't expect the cinnamon.

Jess, Brittany and I are planning some kind of quinoa extravaganza, so get excited bc we're on the hunt to find it, and then cook it up and destroy it. Hopefully there will be some time to take a photo :)

Great to be back in the High, with Craig, gorgeous friends and stinky Foxy cat.

xXXXXXXXXXXXXClaire (and the fish!! they're alive and kicking!!)

Holy crap the fish are alive.

Dear Claire.

I absolutely can't believe I didn't kill your fish. I also, in a fit of something or other, in the store across the street, did not buy bacon and cook it in your house.

I did make some incredible soup using your blender, and I will make it again. It's almost vegan, but not quite. Pretty vegan. It does involve a lot of broccoli, tofu some onion and some potato. And a blender. The vegan part is the cheese after. But I suppose that's optional even! One time I might try a version where I fry the onion in bacon and then blend everything together else separately and have onion and bacon crunchy bits. Maybe one day when I'm feeling the need for heart attack food.

Anyway, here is a picture of me and the Fox eating, and here is photographic proof at least 3 of the fish are alive. This will be considered complete sucess, because even though I think there might have been four of them at one point, the entire tank is not a dead black mess which is what I was pretty sure was going to happen.

Horray! I'm so happy you're back.

Brittany and the case of the missing fiber

So, I made something delicious the other day for dinner. My roomie, does not like to eat vegetables that much, and although she loves healthy food, sometimes you have to hide the fact that she's eating it from her. So I made up some delicious extra-fiber/protien potatoes which are also awesome due to the fact that you can also...OMG!!! I just had the best idea ever. You can also turn them into something called 'champ' which is like...the most delicious/decadant mashed potatoes ever and it would totally be (slightly) a healthy version.



Here's what you need for Brittany's fibery mashed potatoes:



1 can of white beans (3/4 drained)

2 medium potatoes (cubed)

1 clove garlic

1 small onion (chopped into bitty pieces)

some sage, or rosemary or some kind of herb mixture you like

salt/pepper



1. Boil the potatoes and the garlic clove until soft, then drain

2. Fry the onions in a bit of oil, add the herbs, fry a bit more until the onions are soft and translucent.

3. Add the beans and the liquid leftover and fry for a while, until you feel like it's time to start smushing them around. I waited about five minutes to cook them, then started smushing.

4. Add the cooked potatoes and the garlic, and continue smushing and cooking it all together until you're satisfied with the mixture.



If it gets too dry, you could add some stock I suppose, or milk, or whatever suits your fancy. The point is you want enough bean juice that you don't have to add more liquid.



CHAMP!!!!



1 bowl of Brittany's Fibery Potatoes

1 T (yes, that's a T and not a t) of butter

a bunch of blue cheese



With the resulting mashed potatoes in a bowl, make a little well in the top and put the butter in it. It will be like a delicious butter/potato volcano. Then add the blue cheese around the crater like rocks. If you like you can make some little passages for butter to run over the potatoes like LIQUID HOT MAGMA.



When you eat it, you're supposed to have a forkfull of mashed potato, some cheese, and then dip it in the butter. Holy crapola I haven't had that in years.



I didn't take pictures because we ate it too fast. Next time I make it (soon!) I will.



Claire I miss you!!!! I'm eating a really small banana and I'm going to eat strawberries soon and then have way way way too much energy!!!

Claire!!!! She's only been gone since Friday, but I miss her anyway

Dear Claire, here is what happened over the weekend.

I was going to do some awesome making of breakfast bars this weekend, but then I realized that my cereal of choice for said breakfast bars contains wheat flakes, and sigh...I have to give up on the delicious delicious breakfast cereal idea all together. So it's going to have to be an oat/bran based bar. Maybe some soy flour, but apparently that's actually quite hard to bake with. I need to do more research.

Brittany and I took a giant bike ride through what was supposed to be a sunny day but ended up being a cloudy, cold and windy day. We went to Origins, which is a beautiful, delicious, organic and can be vegetarian brunch in Taikang lu. I highly recommend we go there when you get back. They also have slammin lunch specials. Also for the brunch you can get a 'bowl' of coffee, which is perfect.

After we went to Marks and Spencer and got a bunch of canned soups and tins of organic tomatoes, which is so so so so so exciting I could pee. I think that on Wednesday night I'm going to make a big pot of lentil soup and then I can maybe freeze some of it for delicious eating next week.

Erika sent me an email and said that she wants to do more vegetarian cooking, and I don't know if you know her but she's super fun. So next time we cook we'll try and invite her. She also has a wicked kitchen, so we should try and convince her to let us cook there. I cooked one of the Thanksgiving turkeys there.

Today at work was fun, I had a few meetings, made a presentation, did some power-pointing (I'm about to do more, I also learned how to do screen capture shots on Friday, so that made me feel awesomely special.)

I hope you're having a great time in Australia, and are going to blog about how much fun you're having and the awesome things you're buying for use when you get back.

Miss you!!!!
Jessi

Market Lovin

Finally made it to the markets with my camera in tow. Thought maybe the vendors wouldn't be down for some blog cameos but they were LOVING it so I was able to do some happy snapping in one of my most favorite of places.



Being vegetarian in China is the easiest thing in the world. Just go to the market where you can buy freshly made tofu - pressed squares (I eat these bad boyz raw for an instant hit 'o protein), in dry sheets (great for substituting tortillas, yes world I just blasphemed but I swear it's good :) molded into shapes (meat like shapes, sausage shape most common), marinated in 5 spice seasoning and in large blocks of semi-firm form waiting to be cut.





New favorite vege friend = wheat gluten or seitan. Why only new favorite now? I've really only seen it used in Shanghainese cooking and to be honest, cold and coated in thick sweet black gummy sauce and covered in peanuts is just not my thing. Great is taking this low fat versatile wheat flour bi-product (way to make seitan sound sexy), cutting it into toasts, spreading a miso-soy marinade on either side, throwing them on a baking sheet and grilling them in the oven. We ate them on baguettes with salad and bbq sauce. YUM. At 3 kuai (less than 50c US), fresh ready made seitan is def something to get excited about.


Holy son of a married couple. Spinach has arrived and she's more lovely than ever. This week I've been eating a LOT of raw spinach. The markets and supermarkets all have it, and after a good wash, she's good to go. Planning spinach hummus, spinach and pumpkin salad (word up to Sasha's where we went for brunch over the weekend where I ate it and fell instantly in food lust) with pinenuts, and wilted spinach with garlic and sesame seeds as a little side som'in.

(no spinach in this shot, but the greens are smokin hot all the same)

Last but not least. For those wanting to buy tahini go to the market! There you can pick up a jar of tahini (zhimajiang) for 10 kuai. It's not oily and has so much flavor and is so good in hummus, in dressings and marinades or on it's own spread on some seitan. MmmmmmmmmmM!

Winter Knit Obsession

I just got an fabulous catch-up email from an old friend who asked me what I was up to, knitting-wise this winter. This winter I've been completely obsessed with handwarmers. I can't stand gloves, mittens are a pain, so this falls awesomely in the middle. I told her about my very first pattern that I made and said I would post it here. It's a super easy pattern derived from a knitty pattern and I changed the ribbing, thumb and length.
The cables are a braided kind, but you can easily change that by making some alterations in the ribbing, if that is too much to bother with. Cables are easy, but a bit of a pain.
I'll write up the real pattern if anyone wants it, but here at least is a picture. It's knit with a fantastic alpaca yarn a friend of mine gave me for Xmas, but I think would be fine in any sport weight yarn.
Here's a picture of me looking unexpectedly sleepy, after 11 hours of sleep last night.

Smooth with a capital SMOO

So, the other day my roomie asked me about making our own body scrub as hers is running out and it's freakishly expensive here. So being the good Googletarian (a word I just made up) I looked it up online and did some (cursory) research which led me to combine a few approaches into the following.

1. Get a handful of coarse sugar and put it in a cup or something.
2. Add a tablespoon of baking soda
3. Add your shower gel
4. Mix it around with your finger, forgetting to get your clothes off first so you then are left with a very soapy finger and have to find a way to get that off before disrobing.
5. Shower and then scrub it all over until you're no longer covered in winter-gross skin

Yay!

Things I'm going to do to make this even better: Get some lemon grass and then stick it in a jar full of the sugar/soda mixture to be added in small batches to my totally boring and scentless soap.

Next thing I need to figure out is how to make my own SoyJoy bars because a)they're too small for a real breakfast, and b)they almost all have raisins in them and ew, I hate raisins. Anyone with any suggestions, bring it.

I'm Going to Miss You When You're Sour & Expensive

I've had to limit myself to 10 of you a day, sweet tangerines. I think you may have given me cavities. You make me hyper and not able to sleep. You're already starting to be replaced at the fruit shops with nasty inferior oranges. I need your candy like goodness to give me energy on long rides or at breakfast when you wake up and give me an instant hit of sugar that makes me speak really fast, sometimes making no sense.

Tangerines, you will be missed. Until next season. You were delicious, every time.

Chunky Chat masala

Jessica: I'm extremely addicted to popcorn. There, I said it. I am also addicted to adding Chat Masala, which theoretically is for fresh vegetables. I don't care. I'm totally eating it on popcorn. It's going to be the next big potato chip flavor, I can tell.

Frackin Early Goodness

Oh happy yawn!

It's 9.15am and JessnClaire (we're just one entity online - we morph into one giant open-mouthed muppet face of html) are out! We met at 7.30 in the middle of an intersection river of bikes and cars and people and rode around Shanghai to find some coffee. 20 tangerines later, 2 medium sized lattes and we're alive and not in our apartments, yyyyaaaayyyy!!!!

Pre-coffee bike lurve

<-Jess & my frackin sexy clown bike

Me & the curvaceous lady of bikes->

Plans for today: Jessica
Go to the bank, go to the police office (nothing terribly sinister, just re-registering), go to Gubei and extend my visa, read Conde-Nast Travel, work on blog, knit with bamboo yarn. I have to do some test swatches as I haven't used it before, so I'll see how it goes and then decide what to make with it.
I'm also going to try and spread the word 'emomo' as in 'overly emotional + momo'. A momo is a Nepali dumpling.

Plans for today: Claire
Okay. Dish for today. Get set it's coming...... After a hugely successful tofu marinade baking scenario last night I'm back with more vegan cooking tonight thanks to the INCREDIBLE recipes or SusanV at fatfreevegan.com. Tonight I'm throwing together some roasted red pepper, hummus and portobello mushrooms with some kind of delightful crunchy salad sitch.

This is going to involve a market trip. The sun is out so photos will be taken. Can't wait to show yall the mushroom stall, oooo and the tofu crew at the markets here. It'll blow your mind!

Nuff for now.

Let's get this blog started.