Pops De Milk

Okay so maybe sometimes I can be a little ambitious when it comes to cooking and baking. Because this weekend my sister is in town for Thanksgiving, and because our friend is celebrating her birthday this month, and because another friend requested food from my kitchen, I planned a small dinner party. A bit of food and a birthday cake. This is fine but then I thought, “Why not get ahead in tomorrow’s Thanksgiving cooking and bake one of the desserts today?” So on top of making the main dish (which thankfully was a one-pot-wonder), a salad, and a birthday cake, I also made a pumpkin cheesecake. I got started really late this morning and yet I managed to clean the apartment, shower and even read for a few minutes way before my guests arrived. Sounds easy doesn’t it? Well no, especially if you’re also going to a club after dinner. So here I am now, home from the club and telling myself to go to sleep because tomorrow is going to be the death of me.

Recipes on tonight’s dinner, which by the way was fantastic, will be posted tomorrow…I hope.

Spreadable, unpasteurized, raw buckwheat honey draped over a slice of fresh baked bread. Heaven.

Toasted Weight Watchers jalapeño corn bread with a slice of melted havarti cheese in between. Amazing. Here is a very similar recipe to the one that I used.

I was tossing and turning last night as I slept and dreamt of a horrifying scenario. I had a dream that I had been asked by someone important to make cookies for a very special event. Because I had spent the day playing Lumines on the PS3 and generally wasting time doing other things, I never took the time to make the blasted cookies. I was fussing over what to wear for the event, trying on different dresses and tossing the unflattering ones over my head when I realized I only had fifteen minutes to bake four dozen cookies. Panic ensued. My sisters, who were also in the dream, told me not to worry about it but I just couldn’t forgive myself for not baking the cookies. I was crying and I was angry. I was half naked in the kitchen pulling out ingredients from the cupboard even though I knew there was no way I’d make the cookies in time. I woke up, thankfully, relieved that it was only a dream.

I wonder if this happens to most chefs out there.

In about a month, I will need an amazing beach body. I will need a Slim in 6/Turbo Jam/Power 90 type body. Two reasons:

1. My dear friend is getting married and I’m her maid of honour, so I must look hot
2. I’m going on holiday to a tropical country

And, of course, just because I want to get in shape (I’ve got some knee problems my doctor attributes to weak inner thigh muscles). We all know that if you work hard and if you really want something, you’ll get it…eventually. Well, I must not REALLY want to have a fit body since I’ve been trying to get in shape for nearly 8 years now haha. I can’t help it though, I just love food too much. Exercise you say? Yea, that’s for people who don’t cringe at the thought of jogging for 5 minutes.
Ok, Ok, I do workout and I do enjoy it. I also try to jog every now and then because I love the feel of the wind in my face. But my body can’t handle jogs and I usually end up doubled over after 10 minutes wheezing and coughing.

I started a workout routine last month and I was pretty consistent about it. I actually did workout for a whole month and I noticed a difference in certain parts of my body (my thighs mostly…rock hard, oh yea…) but overall I didn’t lose any weight at all. Was I doing the exercises all wrong? Was I not working out long enough?

Well, the answer is that diet plays a massive role in weight loss. Everyone knows that but I figured that since my metabolism was super fast back in high school then I wouldn’t have a problem dropping pounds. If you’re trying to get fit or lose weight or whatever then you have to eat super healthy and exercise. I’ve learned that you can’t do one without the other. If you want to see rapid results then you need to adjust your diet to include foods that will help you lose weight faster and you also need to eat 5 to 6 times a day (small portions of course). For breakfast, I eat an egg white (instead of a whole egg since the yolk contains all the egg’s fat and cholesterol) and half a cup of pineapple or a banana along with my coffee. I know the coffee should be black but this is where I cheat and I add a splash of milk. Since the beginning of this month, I have started to eat healthier foods. I’ve cut out salt and sugar and less cooking oil. And, as of this week, I’ve cut out bread. Bread! It’s pretty hard since I live with Jay, who loves eating “man-wiches” (huge sandwiches with nice, thick, chewy bread…Mmm bread…)

Anyway, my challenge is to play around with recipes to make them healthy, yet delicious, and combine that with my workout routine. I know I won’t look like Jessica Alba in a month but I’ll feel way better! Let’s see what happens. I will post info as I travel through this challenge.

This is the first step. I open up Word and that damn cursor blinks expectantly. Oh the pressure! It’s telling me that whatever I decide to type next should be and must be good…and free of grammatical and spelling mistake so that I’m not plagued with those pesky squiggly lines. Am I the only one who finds those lines annoying when they don’t go away even after you’ve gone repeatedly over that sentence? Anyway, I’m getting carried away. This is a food and baking blog. Not English 101.

At last, I enter the world of The Blog. I am such a late bloomer and it’s because of my attitude toward it.

Indescribable…Indestructible! Nothing Can Stop It! Run! Don’t walk from…The Blog!!

Yes, I also watch too many movies. Surprisingly I don’t watch many movies about food. I find sometimes the food looks crazy amazing and then I remember it’s a movie so the food isn’t even real and the expressions on the actors’ faces are fake. It’s not a meaty lasagne full of cheese and loaded with carbs. It’s a slab of carb-free cracker made to look like soggy lasagne, topped with lactose free tofu cheese and simulated brown meat. Well, that’s what I think. I could be totally wrong, heh.

I wonder now how that would taste. My dad is a vegetarian so whenever he visits me I have to make sure I make him a vegetarian dish while the rest of my family is happy eating whatever dish I make (usually loaded with meat). As of late, however, my mom isn’t able to eat certain foods. Unfortunately, these are ingredients I tend to use a lot of such as eggs, dairy and chocolate. How sad is that? Once, I tried making a butterless, eggless, milkless chocolate cake for her (this is when she was still able to eat a bit of chocolate) and she said the cake was horrible. She said it didn’t taste at all like a cake. Pretty harsh, no? Of course she didn’t say this when I served her a thick slice of the cake. She told me months later when I asked if she wanted me to make her another butterless, eggless, milkless chocolate cake, sans the chocolate this time. I guess some things are sacred and are not meant to be messed with. Like a slice of sinful (real) chocolate cake.

As I was saying, I was somewhat against starting a blog because I was a bit intimidated by the thought of having to constantly write entries…with pictures. Let me tell you, I am horrible with taking food pictures. It’s not that I’m terrible at taking the pictures; it’s that the food is already in my stomach and going through digestion when I remember I needed to take a picture. I also live with an impatient man-friend, Jay, whose mouth starts to water the minute I bring scorching food out of the oven. He forgets to wait, or at least blow on his food, and thus I often hear “Ahh!” “Shit that’s hot!” and “Ow!” The food is in his stomach and already digesting way before I’ve had my first bite.

And so, for my first entry I do not have pictures, or even an item to showcase. It is, after all, breakfast time and I don’t normally cook up a storm for myself. Just coffee and a little something else.

See? Empty cup, coffee already nagging at my bladder.