Daily Dining - Seared Tofu with Black Bean Salsa

 

This was last night's dinner. I actually did not make this simple yet delicious meal. Sean made this simple meal for us to enjoy. Lately, I have been eating incredibly unhealthy and then two nights ago it hit me that I could not do it anymore. I felt so disgusting eating (buffalo wings) that evening. Sean talked me into starting all over and doing a reset. I am trying to cut down my crappy eating by focusing on healthy food. I am going to put together a weekly menu of the food we eat and hopefully I can add the recipes to it from there.

I love tofu, believe me I do. I can live off of eating this everyday, but it has to be prepared differently. Otherwise, to me it would be eating the same meal everyday. I don't plan on eating or living off of tofu daily, but I plan on incorporating it as a huge part of my diet. My main goal is how many different ways can we cook tofu. How many different ways can we prepare it and serve it?

I am still debating if I should start a new fitness blog or just incorporate it here. Decisions, decisions..

Update and Review - Gardening

I want to share with you my mini review and experience with SeedsNow. A few weeks ago I purchased these sample seeds from SeedsNow.com. At first I was hesitant because I was reading that if you are a beginner with gardening it probably is not best that you plant seeds. It is better to go with something that is already grown and learn to care for it first. Then I was bouncing from different gardening blogs and came across this guy (I apologize I forgot his blog) who has been gardening and he lives in a small apartment. He talks about how he makes it work and how he cares for his plant. He had great reviews and points for SeedsNow and it led me to try out a few sample packs.

As mentioned I was hesitant at first because I was not sure why the 3 previous plants that I bought from Lowes did not seem to be getting any love. They were watered twice a day to avoid getting dehydrated, but parts of it seem to die. It was not recently did I see that there are new blooms and I just need to continue cutting off the weeds. I shelled out the $5.00+ for shipping and handling to try out these samples. I received a free sample of the buttercrunch lettuce and decided to try that out first. In the beginning I did not notice it at all. The packages have labels that tell you approximately how long it would take for it to sprout.

This is the work of about 2 weeks if not more or less. I do the same thing that I have with the other plans and water it twice a day. You wouldn't believe how thrilled I was that even as a beginner I was able to achieve this and so far no bugs have been around it. I am going to move it to a bigger pot and add some compost with egg shells to avoid any creepy crawlers in the future.

I copied this off their site about who they are:

Growing your own ORGANIC & NON-Genetically Modified (NON-GMO) food isn’t hard to do. Seriously. It's not.  In fact, it's actually pretty easy

They are very big about their seeds being GMO free. So I would have to say that their shipping and handling is great. The samples come in these small ziploc bags with a label and the expectant time to see the seedling sprout. I would absolutely recommend them! The prices are not bad at all. If you are hesitant you should purchase a few samples to try out. I purchased a few samples and shipping for 7-10 business days was $1.95. You could pay the $5.00 if you want it to get to you in 3-4 business days.

I am not big when it comes to writing reviews, but I wanted to share about my gardening experience with seeds. I feel a little more confident about the garden I am trying to grow. Fall will be coming and I am doing a bit more research on the types of veggies and herbs I can grow during that type of weather.

It may take some time to grow and I know that I am just starting out, but my main goal is to have healthy produce grown in our little garden. This will save us lots of money in the long run if all works well. That means that we do not have to constantly buy tons of produce every time. I know that we would have to continuously grow a lot of it to be able to really save money, but at least this gives me an idea of what to expect and how long to expect it. I ordered a few more seeds and I can't wait to get them. I am in the market to find bigger containers to grow them in.

As far as my gardening is concerned I feel like they are doing swell! I love that I get to go outside everyday and stare at them for a few minutes. I get to glance at the new sprouts and just admire the beauty of it. I am no pro, but I bet you can tell that I am a beginner. I am so happy about the smallest sprouts and I am determined to continue. I didn't think that this would be something that I would be interested in since I am not the type of person that enjoys getting down and dirty.

Yesterday I decided to buy a few more samples. They are different varieties of herbs and chilli's. I haven't bought more than just the samples because I want to see if it is something that I want to grow a lot of. I want to be able to sample and get my hands dirty with what I have before committing.   I am going to purchase bigger containers to transfer the plants once they get bigger. Sean and I went to Lowe's last night and bought a few more items for me to get the other seeds started. I am excited to start seeing them sprout! Some of them will take 2-5 days for us to see the sprout and the rest will take about 7-14 days.

They look a bit messy because I just watered them, but I am so happy to see these little boxes all filled up. This weekend I am going to get a few more plants and I am going to make sure I document everything!

Coffee Mondays

 

Hey everyone! This is the first linkup I have for ItsAbbyTime. It's called Coffee Mondays. I want to thanks Kathy from Vodka and Soda. She had a post up sometime last week about what kind of conversation would you have with her if you were to go out and have coffee. It sparked a light bulb in my head to start Coffee Mondays.

Coffee Mondays is a linkup where you can write about your Monday. What are you thinking of before or after you get your cup of jo. Perhaps you can spend your coffee Mondays about rants going on in the office for the week, or better yet what kind of conversation would you have with someone on a coffee Monday.

• Work always see so stressful the moment you walk in on a Monday. I have this routine where I walk in and chat with my coworker for a bit about her weekend and go back to my desk. The moment I sit down I end up getting sucked into work mode. I barely take my breaks or lunches. I end up eating lunch or taking my break at my desk while working. Yes, it gets that busy.


• I spent my whole Sunday cleaning and doing laundry. Can you believe that I am not even done yet? I honestly felt like super mom since I was all over the place toggling different jobs all day. Being a mom can be so tiring, but so rewarding at the same time. Yes, I spent the whole day cleaning but at the same time the perks of it being able to walk around a nice clean home which makes me feel relaxed at the end of the day. I hate chaos. I'm a very unorganized person and so I really need to keep myself on check. Otherwise, I would let things sit wherever they were left.


• I am slowly getting into the whole gardening thing. Last I wrote a post about my plants I just started. It's a bit weird because there are parts of the plants that are dying, but there are also new sprouts. They are so strong and well worth continuing. I was so impressed with the three plants and my lettuce that is growing that I planted some garlic and Alfalfa Sprouts. I can already think of a few recipes I want to use the sprouts for!

• I am excited to get curtains this weekend. We have two huge windows in the dining area and the living room. I am excited to finally measure and get some curtains up. I will also be putting the same curtains up in the bedroom. Ryu's room already came with the curtain rod and the drapes so we really didn't have to do anything there. However, I am excited because every time I have money I tend to forget to get it done, and I end up not having the funds later on down the line to do it. I am determined to get this done this weekend.


• I ordered prints online. I tried out this new company. I will do a review once I receive the pictures in the mail. I was able to order 100 free prints and all I have to pay for was the shipping and handling which was around $6.00. If you divide that it's about $0.16 per picture. I still didn't have to pay for the actual print so I save money on that plus the shipping and handling. Hopefully I like it! I am excited to start scrap booking. I have been lagging it long enough.

 Come join me and link up your coffee Monday post!

Pork Sinigang (Filipino Sour Soup)

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Last Sunday my friend Erika and I got together with the kiddos to have lunch together and go swimming. I offered to make Sinigang and Lumpia to go along with the soup. Erika has never made Sinigang before and wanted to learn. I will talk about the lumpia that she help make in another post. Sinigang is a Filipino soup or stew characterized by its sour and savory flavor most often associated with tamarind (sampalok). It is one of the popular viands in Philippine cuisine. This dish is one of the very few Filipino dishes I know how to whip up.

I grew up in a Filipino household, but was never completely fond of all the Filipino dishes. Throughout the years I became aware of the very few dishes that I enjoyed. I made sure that I knew how to make it myself. I have also made this dish in a Vegan version. I will post that recipe some other time as well.

This is so delicious with rice. You can cook this soup with shrimp, fish, beef, chicken, or tofu.

[yumprint-recipe id='4']This is so easy to make. The only part of it that becomes time consuming is the boiling of the meat. The reason that I boil it first before cooking it with all the vegetables is to get rid of that odd pork flavor. I want to make sure that all the excess fat that can be boiled off will be removed. You can also add more veggies to this such as daikon, potatoes, spinach if you do not have pechay and so forth. I used what I did because I did not find what I needed to at the grocery store for this recipe.

I used a pack and a half of the tamarind packet because I prefer it to be extremely sour. However, you can control this by putting a little at a time. You do not have to have this soup extremely sour or spicy, but it is preferable that way.

Thanks to my friend Erika for helping me make the soup. I was in the process of giving Sean's sister a haircut and since she wanted to learn I took advantage of that, ha! I was directing her along the way. She seemed to have done perfectly fine. It really is not a difficult dish to make.

here is a picture of the kiddies as they were waiting to eat before they went swimming. Of course we waited for a bit before they took a dip. They didn't last very long since they had food coma! ha

Facebook Controversy

People are so fat, it's disgusting. Yes I said it, I'm angry!! #youcanthandlethetruth - Facebook Post by Unknown

This is what headlined on my Facebook feed this morning. I read the back and forth responses of the person that wrote this and the people that didn't seem quite happy with the comment. To be honest I sat at my desk reading the different responses are and as it seemed to have gotten heated I almost wanted to comment, but did not. I am friends with this person that wrote this and do I think that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, well yes. However, I don't think that I would be so bold to have posted that. I won't post the details of the responses received on Facebook, but I was wondering what your opinion was if this is something you saw first thing in the morning.

The person that wrote this is a writer. In fact the point that was coming across after they explained seemed legit. However, the wording seemed wrong. I agree that this is in fact a super bold statement. I would never say this out loud in public or post it anywhere if I was not open to criticism or people putting in their two cents. Let's just say that the conversation got heated and someone was called ignorant for even posting words of that opinion for people to say something about. Then the topic of being bulimic and anorexic came up which frankly to be honest had nothing to do with the actual words written.

In a sense truth is I slightly felt offended by this comment. Though the back story to why this opinion was, made sense; the actual wording did not. Some people would disagree and say it is the meaning behind it that matters the most. Sure, that matters but really with a comment like that it does not look like the meaning behind it would still be a good excuse to say it. I am mildly offended because I have never been skinny, fit, fat (in a sense of being obese), or disgusting. I am in the middle. I have hit a point where I lost so much weight that I in fact became unhealthy. I pushed myself to continuously do the wrong thing just to fit into the "picture perfect" body type that I thought people would like me to be. I was not the happiest nor was I the healthiest. Yes, I am overweight now and above the range of my BMI, but I would not say that I am just plain fat or disgusting.

I commend people that do work out and put lots of time, patience, and motivation to get where they are at. I too want to be one of those people one day. I agree that complaining about it will not do anything. However, there are also people out there who are overweight for different reasons. Whatever their reason may be that is a decision that they are willing to be. Skinny is not perfect, fat is not perfect, and even I believe that fit is not perfect. Perfect is the body type you are the happiest in. It is what you are comfortable with and what makes you; well you. I am far from being perfect, in fact I have tons of body image issues due to the fact that I am always hearing or reading that being skinny is sexy, or you have to look this way for people to like you which is major crap. Being too skinny (unhealthy) and overweight (unhealthy) can both cause severe medical issues. You can die being too skinny (hence being anorexic or bulimic) or die being fat (hence heart attacks, strokes, etc..).

As mentioned it IS a very bold statement and I am not sure that people realize that what they say can really hurt someone or hit home. This is the type of comment or reason that we see that can drain someone. This type of comment does not make us look any better. In fact, as mentioned by someone it just made that person look ignorant.

What do you think or how would you react if you saw this somewhere? Better question would be is how would you react if your children wrote this or if they read this? How does this affect our youth today?