Coffee, Arctic Zero, and new furniture!

This week has been a fun week with my new Verona Buffet from World Market. I've been meaning to buy more kitchen storage and World Market had a sale + 20% off coupon. I saved about $140!

While waiting for a friend to help me and come pick it up (it was well over 140 lbs) since it wouldn't fit in my Beetle, I browsed the store and tried some of their Peruvian coffee and Torani Sugar Free Belgian Cookie Speculoos syrup. It was amazing! I've been curious about this syrup and I'm glad they had it out to sample. Their Peruvian coffee blend was pretty darn good too, it's got notes of cocoa and bitterness and acidity is low to none.

By the way, the Verona Buffet took probably an hour to build by myself and was pretty easy. I love World Market furniture, the quality is excellent and the price is always right. Not to mention they have unique high-end looking designs too.

I have a couple of new obsessions this week:

• Cinnamon scrambled eggs with PB2 topping 
• Arctic Zero 
• Tempeh 

Cinnamon Scrambled Eggs Recipe

• 1 whole egg 
• 3 egg whites 
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon 
• 1 packet SweetLeaf stevia (this brand has always worked well for me) 
• 1/4 tsp Nielsen Massey madagascar bourbon vanilla extract (the only vanilla brand I will ever use!) 
• Splash of water (I find it makes the eggs fluffier) 

In a heated sprayed small skillet, pour the mixture into the pan, wait about 30-40 seconds and start pushing the edges to the center. Repeat this process until eggs are fully cooked. I will flip over the mass of eggs when there is little liquid left. "Scooting" the edges into the center seem to make it fluffy for me. 

To top it off, I put a scoop (or a couple) of Vanilla Maple Arctic Zero on top. The whole container is only 150 calories! They came out with a new formula and it tastes pretty smooth with a creamy texture. This has been a lifesaver when I just want to indulge mindlessly.

I kind of wanted another dessert as well so I made Arctic Zero affogato! Using my handy Nespresso, I brewed up some espresso and pour it over a scoop of Arctic Zero. I was trying to mimic my dessert from Pittsburgh last week:

Enough about sweets, let's talk savoury. After all, my new year's resolution was to retrain my tastebuds to crave more savoury than sweet! I bought tempeh for the first time last week. At first, I didn't know if I liked it since it's got a weird fermented pungent smell/taste. But once you get past that, it has a really good flavor! I don't know how to explain it, but I think growing up on Asian food has me really liking it. I stir-fried it with some shiritaki noodles, cabbage, and mushrooms and served over black rice for dinner.

A note on soy: whenever I can, I always opt for organic soy since it is often GMO and sprayed heavily with pesticides.

Tempeh and veggie stir-fry recipe:

• 3.5 oz Lightlife Organix Flax Tempeh
• 1/2 package of NoOodle, rinsed and drained 
• 1 cup of sliced cabbage 
• 1 cup of slice mushrooms 
• 1 - 2 tsp Frontier salt-free all-purpose seasoning 
• 1 - 2 tsp soy sauce 
• 1/3 cup black rice 

In a heated sprayed skillet, add tempeh. Stir until slightly golden and add the soy sauce. Then add the shiritaki noodles to remove the excess water. Next, add the cabbage and mushrooms. Stir until wilts a little and add the Frontier seasoning and additional soy sauce. I like it to have a little crunch in it, so I don't cook it for too long. Serve over black rice.

Enjoy!

> Read more ...

Pittsburgh

I went to Pittsburgh last week for a very short trip and I almost forgot my coat!!! The airport shuttle had to circle back to the parking lot so I could get it out of my car. That would have made for a miserable trip considering I think 50 degrees is winter. So at the airport, United was offering $200 vouchers for two volunteers to take a later flight. In about 30 minutes, they increased that to $300 plus lunch. Then about 10 minutes after their scheduled boarding time, it was $500! I wish I could have volunteered, but as I was traveling for work, it wouldn't be feasible.

Anyway, by the time I got there, I was starving! I ended up getting dinner at Crystal in downtown since it was recommended on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives (I love Guy Fieri!). My co-workers and I started off with their Combo Platter app and it was fresh and tasty. I especially liked their hummus since it tasted different with the cumin flavor. The feta was a bit strong for me.

For my entree, I ordered the Felafel Platter with a side of fries. Their felafel was amazing! It wasn't mushy and had a "meaty" texture to it. It wasn't greasy either. We all agreed their fries were amazing.

After all that food, we had to do some walking around town because we ate too much. We decided to walk down Penn Ave and explore some of the downtown area.

I secretly had a plan to look for a candy shop even though we were pretty full. I love buying local sweets and coffee while traveling! We came across Sinful Sweets which is a chocolate shop. I got their black and white bark with dried fruit as well as a peanut butter melt away. The bark was amazing!

Downtown Pittsburgh looked so fun to run but I didn't bring warm enough clothes or my GPS watch. Plus, I didn't want to get lost while on a work trip. Doesn't it look like a fun route?

Dinner the next day was at Lidia's, which was recommended to us by the hotel. We wanted something Italian and this place did not disappoint! The bread basket had these amazing parmesan sticks, I couldn't get enough. I ordered the fish of the day which was rainbow trout over grains. It was pretty darn good. I polished off my plate.

For dessert, i ordered their Biscotti plate. The ice cream came with espresso poured over in affogato fashion. The cookies included anise biscotti, chocolate crinkle cookies (very fudgy), peanut butter cookie, ginger cookie, pistachio cookie, and some kind of chocolate thins (which was a bit bitter). I could've easily finished, but I had self control and so I left 1.5 cookies on the plate.

Afterward, I made my way back to Penn Ave. by myself only find that the street was closed! Apparently, they were filming a Russell Crowe and Amande Seyfried movie! However, seeing as I only had less than an hour to make it to Sinful Sweets, I didn't even bother to try and see what was going on. I went down a back alley to get my chocolate fix. Yeah, it's that important. I got the dark chocolate with dried mango and pineapple bark, peanut butter bark, more of the black and white bark with dried fruits, champagne truffle, blueberry truffle, and ice cream malt balls. Yes, I ate most of it. I saved most of the mango and pineapple bark for my mom (she loves mango anything!). I must say, their dark chocolate is one of the smoothest dark chocolates I've had (my mom agreed). You gotta try it!

> Read more ...

Hello there!

Welcome to my very first blog post!

Monday, Monday, Monday. Why do you hate me so? I started off the morning with oatmeal mixed with PB2, two egg whites from Texas Chicken Ranch (each bird gets 100+ sq ft of roaming space!), and a couple pieces of diced apple. It was delicious! Mondays are always a "get on track" day from being sedentary all weekend long (trying to fix that). I went to the gym and worked on arms and abs today - I'm following the workouts from Jamie Eason's LiveFit program. I'm, not necessarily following the diet or the cardio (I do enough cardio on my own) and just need direction for lifting weights. I promised myself after the 2014 half marathon in January I would back off cardio and start lifting heavy!

Later, I ran just under five miles with mild hills with some gym buddies. The goal was to keep one of my running partners running the whole time without stopping, so I didn't try to run fast and just made it a leisurely run (as most runners know, that's easier said than done when you start bickering with your mind that every run needs to be a fast one).

I came home starving and fixed myself some dinner, which consisted of rainbow trout rubbed in Char Crust Hickory and Molasses, black rice, and spinach and grape tomatoes drizzled with Bolthouse Farms Blue Cheese Yogurt dressing. I am such a big fan of their dressings, especially the Honey Mustard, Miso, and Caesar.

I'll make it a habit to take more pics and have better topics to talk about other than my boring daily routine. Just wanted to get something out there. See ya soon!

> Read more ...