chirashizushi (sushi bowl)

When I see my mum in Sydney or if she visits me in Canberra, she often provides me with an abundance of food, ranging from home made minced beef, to abalone soup and fish/corn stirfry. Last year she gave me a couple of packets of Japanese style eel, something that I love eating in restaurants... but haven't figured out how to cook.

I've also been trying to overcome my fear of eating carb-dominated food at any meal except breakfast. When I say carbs, I mean brown rice, wholemeal pasta and bread rather than the carbs you find in fruit/veges. However, I realised that I need carbs for longer term energy (2-4 hours) rather than relying on the sugar boost that fruit will give me. I stomached the courage to remake chirashizushi, which is sushi in a bowl. I tried it once in a Sydney restaurant and loved it. I made this before but burnt the eel by overcooking it in the microwave. Silly me.

My nutritionist recently advised me that if I continue to maintain my underweight BMI, it is likely my bones will crush and I will have huge skeletal surgeries when I'm an old shruken lady... okay not exactly, but being underweight is a huge risk factor in having low bone density and all sorts of issues in the long term. So this is the first meal I've cooked in ages that has rice.

The base of the dish should include sushi-style rice (rice cooled with sushi vinegar). At the last minute, I realised that I didn't have sushi vinegar so tried to substitute it with rice wine and white vinegar... haha and it was nothing like sushi rice.

I topped the rice with blanched carrots, snow peas, green beans and chinese cabbage. I also added shitaake mushrooms marinated in soy sauce and mirin. I made a Japanese style omelette - this consisted of egg, soy sauce, mirin, sugar and salt and I tried rolling in the way Japanese restaurants do. (visible in the second picture). This time I didn't burn the eel (yay). I added some wasabi for a kick and sesame seeds. 

The second time I prepared this, I also add bits of seaweed. More of a sushi experience! 

guilty eating

One evening, Dan and I spontaneously attempted to make 'chocolate banana ice cream'. We had to freeze the bananas then blend it with a little cocoa and milk until it's the consistency of soft serve. However, we were pretty impatient and didn't wait til the banana was completely frozen... So we ended up with a cocoa banana mousse. It was a bit sickly to eat on it's own so I put it on top of a gingernut biscuit.

The quality of this photo isn't the best. It's difficult to differentiate between the light brown colour of the biscuit and the dark brown creation in the background and there's too much white balance in the background. The pictures and content in my blog aren't perfect either.

I'm quite self-critical in areas of my life, especially with what I eat. Society doesn't really set achievable standards either. In particular, females always chuck around invisible standards of the 'perfect diet'. For example, I could be out with a group of friends having lunch at a cafe. We all order salads but one girl orders chips and gravy. She sees that her choice isn't as 'healthy' as everyone else so makes excuses for herself such as 'Oh I'm just being a phat bat today' or 'I should really eat better like you all'... there's like an invisible standard that salads are the norm and chips are a 'guilty' treat. Should the girl have to feel 'guilty' about it and compare herself to others? I understand that it's not nutritionally healthy to eat chips all the time, but it's about the feeling associated with eating chips. Guilt and like you've done something wrong.

These social dynamics appear in heaps of situations. People (females) at work snack on chocolate and often saying 'oh I'm being bad today'. Screw that. Treats should be a considered a normal part of a healthy diet - it shouldn't be considered a 'bad' thing.

Although I criticise these social norms, I'm definitely not above them when I choose what to eat. I rarely choose to eat chips/gravy or chocolate. But if I do and express how guilty I feel, people around me would say 'oh it's okay, you eat healthy normally and you are skinny so it's okay'... People don't really know what it takes for me to stay skinny. To me, this implies it's okay to eat junk food because I try so so hard to stay skinny by eating small amounts, restricting my diet and exercising when it's thundering.

I'm trying to be more aware of what feeds (pun not intended) my self-critical nature so some day I can eat chips/gravy/chocolate/junk food without feeling an intense amount of guilt.

morrnnniingg

Far out. It's 8am and I'm already exhausted. I've taken rec leave from work today to attend a few appointments so hopefully I'll squeeze in some time to relax. I don't want to waste my time by meaninglessly staring at Facebook, but watch movies, write in my journal, read etc.

To start off the day, I've made a vegan avocado cocoa spread for my toast. The spread is pretty delicious and is like a healthy version of nutella. I got my mini food processor and whizzed some avocado, cocoa, rice malt syrup, vanilla essence, oat milk to thin the spread and some hazelnuts to give it that Nutella taste that I love. The spread was a bit chunky, but I think it adds character to the spread.

And here I am, sitting next to my warm radiator, blanketed by my night robe. Amazing.

hot cross buns, hot cross buns

I know its months past Easter but I still want to post up pictures of my favourite hot cross buns from Easter.

I've been living with my current housemates for about one and a half years now. During that time, my male housemate frequently mentions that he gets a free batch of hot cross buns from the Silo Bakery every year as his parents know the owners. For those not familiar with Canberra, the Silo Bakery is quite well known in town for its bread and pastries. Its situated among the popular cafe scene of Kingston.

I'm a bit skeptical of 'popular' eateries. Is it popular because it has a 'unique' brand but the food is actually the same as everything else offered in the area? Is it popular just because its sophisticated for Canberra but in the grand scheme of things (aka v.s. other cities) its actually bland? Is the eatery trying too hard to be cool that it becomes contrived?

I woke up on the Thursday before the Easter weekend and it was a major struggle to get out of bed. I was pleasantly surprised by a package waiting on the kitchen bench - free hot cross buns! They looked kinda rustic.

The hot cross buns were actually really good. There weren't too many sultanas and there was a good balance of spices. The top of the bun was glossed with a nice marinade. And the buns were satisfying - none of the 'just spiced fruit bread' bullshit.

That day, I also tried Woolie's 'sticky date and caramel' hot cross buns for the first time. I was intrigued by the concept but the buns were pretty ugh - bland fruit buns with overpowering hits of tough caramel. 

I remember I ate 2 hot cross buns that day, not doing any exercise and feeling bloated and guilty. I'm probably too hard on myself - I guess I don't eat fruit buns all year round.

black sesame rice paper

I was browsing the Asian grocery stall at the Mawson shops and came across a suspicious looking product. They were like Vietnamese rice paper rolls with black sesame seeds. I'm a huge fan of Asian black sesame dishes so I thought I'd give this a try. Each pack was around $3 and came with 3 sheets - half the quantity of packets of normal rice paper rolls. I prepared them like rice paper rolls by dipping the sheet in very hot water and rolling them up. I was quite intrigued by the texture:

Each sheet was quite thick, became a bit slimy and was very hard to roll up. They were also quite tough and chewy to eat. I soaked the sheets for a bit longer, but even after 10 minutes, they were unpalatable. Makes an interesting looking dish though! Like ants or sea animals swimming?

After some googling, I realised the rice paper was meant to be warmed up in the microwave or in oil, allowing the rice paper to fluff up like a prawn cracker. Whoops and cool! I served them like sang choy bow, using the rice paper as a bowl for marinated veges. Fun and crunchy!

brb, i'm just going to warm up an apple in the microwave

I usually snack on apples at work but since the winter cold has hit Canberra, I haven't really been tempted to bite into the cold crunchiness of apples. Instead of wasting the lot of apples I bought for that week, I needed to adapt... how could I prepare them another way? I realised that work has cooking appliances that actually apply heat to food - amazing! This included microwaves, sandwich presses, toasters and ovens. During a mid week hump hour (1-3pm ish after lunch when my energy usually crashes), I prepared an apple in a microwave safe dish. I cored it, stuffed it with frozen raspberries, popped it in the microwave for around 4 minutes and voila! The raspberries melted creating a moat of juice around the apple that helped stew it. The inside of the microwave was pretty colourful afterwards - it looked like something from the planet Mars decided to have a mental breakdown and splatter everywhere. Nevertheless, with a dollop of natural yoghurt, the baked apple was delicious and homey.

And I tried again another day by chopping up the apples and with mixed spices. The cut up pieces of apple reduced the cooking time by half.

And the name of this blog entry comes from a conversation I had with a colleague, who recently inspired me to get back into food blogging! It helps to be open and honest with the right people.

work snacks

To celebrate surviving hump day of the working week, here are a few pictures of snacks that get me through the 9 to 5 day:

Banana pieces 'iced' with cashew nut butter and sunflower seed butter

A garden looking snack. Carrot crudites with a spinach garlic dip.

Broccomole (guacamole made with broccoli and silken tofu) with carrot crudites. I got the dip recipe from this website, with a few amendments to make it less spicy.

zucchini fritters/omelettes

I eat half a handful of nuts everyday and if I'm lucky, I might have some meat/tofu/legumes with lunch or dinner. I realised that I need more protein in my diet, so I bought a packet of eggs... other than morning pancakes, I've lived without eggs for so long that I kinda have no idea what to do with them. Fritters maybe? I've had some pretty good fritters from restaurants and cafes.

I grated one zucchini, mixed it with one egg and some gluten free flour (this was leftover from my diet earlier this year). It looked kinda promising. I also put some spinach in a couple of fritters.

As I poured the mixture on the pan, I gradually realised that they looked like mini omelettes... I waited with patience...

And who would have known, they tasted like omelettes too... (of course, you idiot). Nice and mushy on the inside. I think they had too much liquid in them, probably from the zucchini. I should have squeezed the water out of the zucchini beforehand. Or I should have put in more zucchini to increase the solid:liquid ratio. Oh well... next time!

gluten free bread: Deeks Bakery

Ever since my non gluten/soy/nuts/dairy diet, I've become more appreciative and aware of what food substitutes exist for key food groups and how these can help form a balanced diet. During my diet, I remember craving the texture of bread. I then discovered gluten free flour and it felt like I was alive again.

Deeks Bakery is a specialist bakery in Canberra offering a complete range of gluten free products, from loafs to sweet baked goods. Their loafs can also be found in major supermarkets such as Coles and Woolies. During one boring work lunch, I decided to browse Coles, and bingo - Deeks' bread was on sale.

With gluten free baked goods I've eaten, the key difference between them and and produce with gluten is the elasticity. Biting into Deeks bread was like biting into cake - there was no stretching of the bread, no bounce and no 'tearing' across the grain of the bread. But this isn't a bad thing, it's just different. The bread probably doesn't fill me up as much as, say, Burgen bread would, but I could definitely live on it.

http://www.deeks.com.au/

veggie patties attempt

I love eating pre-made veggie burgers and sausages from the supermarket. But as usual, I wonder how natural these products are, how much unnecessary sugar/salt/flour/vegetable is added, how different would it taste if an ingredient was substituted for another. I've made my own veggie patties in the past but they were unsuccessful as they would either crumble in a heaped mess or taste bland. However, I gave it another shot.

I wanted something that was dominantly vegetables rather than legumes/beans. I used mushrooms, carrots, zucchini, home grown herbs, home made wholemeal breadcrumbs, brown lentils, garlic and onion.

I put all the ingredients, except the lentils, in my food processor (first pic below)... however, the mixture crumbled everywhere as I tried to assemble the patties. I was almost close to giving up, then thought I should pop half the lentils in the food processor. Out came a mix that looked like dog food, felt dense and compactable (second pic below). I could then assemble the patties.

I used a cookie cutter to shape the patties and baked some of them in the oven til they were crispy (I froze the rest). They looked adorable! The texture of the cooked patties was good, but they needed more flavour, perhaps through the addition of more herbs, spices or a nice sauce.

I sauteed some mushrooms in a home prepared Moroccan spice, tossed them with some raw spinach and voila! I made myself 4 lunches and many more to come.