I've been absent...but I made zucchini pasta! (or noodles?)

I did it! I finally made zucchini pasta! I've heard so much about this raw pasta thing, but never had the energy to actually make it. And guess what? You don't even need a fancy shmancy tool to do it (although I kind of still want one.) Instead I used a cheese grater! That's right.

What you do is you simply wash your zucchinis, chop off the ends, and grate them just as you would like cheese. Tip: the further down you start on the grater, the longer the strands would be. Here's how mine came out:

When you get to the core and can't grate anymore, cut them up and toss it in with the rest!

To be honest, mine came out a little soggy once heated up for a few minutes. Will try it raw next time.

Sprriiiiiiinnnnngggg!

I love Spring in New York! Or anywhere really.

Boring salad? Not mine!

As a young kid, I never liked salads. Especially since I grew up in a traditional Chinese household where all our vegetables were cooked, eating raw vegetable was a strange thing to me. I would walk right by them at buffets, and just poke at them when they came with my entrees. Then I discovered not all salads are born the same way.

I will never forget the time I went to Cape Cod and had the most amazing seafood salad. Wow! The flavors, the crunchiness, the tangyness of the oranges, the sweetness of the cranberries and the freshness of the shrimps! Everything in there was so good! Nothing in that bowl was untouched.

A good salad, a TRUE salad, for me has to contain a couple of ingredients. Dark leafy greens (no lettuce!), some type of protein, some kind of nuts, a sweet or sour component such as dried cranberries or fruits, and lastly cheese. Once this is all done, the dressing can be anything simple like a vinaigrette or oil.

Here's one of my favs including a dressing that only takes three simple ingredients to make:

Kale is an excellent for salads because they actually taste better after a few days!

Ingredients used (no measurements by the way, just put however much you like):
Kale
Carrots
Garlic
Red onion
Almond slices or flaxeed
Cranberries
Cheese (I like Parmesan)
Dash of salt and pepper to taste

For the dressing (enough for a bowl of salad):
1tbs of fresh lemon juice
1/8 cup of extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tbs of honey

Now, do you HAVE to have flax seed or cranberries? No! Put what you want! Throw in some chicken or shrimp. I didn't have cranberries, so I threw in grapes and it tasted great! As long as you've got the dressing and the vegetables, you are golden.

I just took hip to another level- I made KIMCHI.

If someone had told me a few months ago to make kimchi, I would've said hell no. Have you seen the episode of Anthony Bourdain where those Korean ladies up in the mountains were bent over backwards making those hot balls of things?! But what do you know, here I was today making kimchi. 

After I heard of the health benefits of Kimchi, or any fermented food in general (read here), I quickly googled how to make kimchi. From what I gathered, there are many ways to make kimchi. One can put all sorts of ingredients in it as long as you've got the basics: napa cabbage, hot pepper flakes, fish sauce or soy sauce and salt. For the simplest recipe, I used Maangchi's 'Emergency Kimchi' recipe  here). Note, on the site the author calls "emergency" kimchi, meaning it's simple enough that it can be done in a situation of desperation. Well this was a kimchi desperation. 

If you are feeling more bold and audacious than me though, feel free to explore Maangchi's large inventory of kimchi recipes, this one just seemed the most do-able to me.

Ingredients used were:

2 lbs Napa cabbage (these things are heavy!)
1/3 cup Hot pepper flakes (This is NOT the same as chili pepper flakes!)
1/4 cup Fish sauce (Or soy sauce if you are vegetarian.)
1 Carrots
2-3 stalks of Scallions (green onions)
6 cloves of Garlic
1tbs Sugar
1/4 cup of Kosher Salt or 1/8 cup of regular table salt

Step 1. Wash and cut 2lbs of nappa cabbage into thin strips then drain. (*Tip: If you don't know how much cabbage you bought, check the supermarket receipt, they weigh it at checkout.)

It really helps to use a mesh bowl/salad bowl.

Step 2. Mix 1 cup of water and 1/4 cup of salt into cabbage, toss evenly with hand and set aside for 10 minutes. (You may use regular table salt, but note that you should probably put less since the grain size of kosher salt is much larger than table salt...I learned that the hard way.)

I'm using table salt here and notice I didn't fill the whole thing.

Meanwhile...

Step 3. Prepare kimchi paste by mixing:

-1/4 cup of julienned carrots (use a vegetable peeler to create thin strips for faster results)
-1/4 cup of diced garlic
-1/3 cup of chopped scallions
-1/3 cup hot pepper flakes
-1/4 cup of fish sauce
-1 tablespoon of sugar (or half tbsp of stevia).












Step 3.5. Check on cabbage, and rinse as much salt off cabbage as possible, repeat 2-3 times. Drain.

Step 4. Mix kimchi paste with cabbage, and mix it well. I strongly suggest using your hands!

The smell from this will REALLY make you drool.

Step 5. Put final mix into storage containers. Try to squish in as much as possible into each container. The tighter the space and lesser the air, the better the kimchi will ferment.

This is all 2lbs of kimchi, they really shrink!

Now you may eat some of the final product, which is delicious, but for true kimchi, you must leave it to sit in room temperature for a few days for it to truly ferment. After about 3 or 4 days, you should see air bubbles rising in the mixture. That is an indication that the kimchi is fermenting. I'm going to leave mine alone for about a week.

So there you have it. Even though it looks like a lot of steps, all there really is is a lot of chopping and dicing. You don't even need to turn on the stove. Treat the mixing like an arm workout. It's so delicious and worth it. 

END.

When life gives you bad bananas...you make bread dammit.

Hello,

It has been about six days here in New York since Hurricane Sandy hit and things are slowly but surely returning to normal. I hope power restores soon for those without it. Meanwhile I've been trying my best to relax and enjoy my free time, and one of the things I did was bake banana bread. I don't know if you have ever made banana bread before but oh it smells so good(!), and what a great way to use up those spotty bananas.

Here are the ingredients called for the recipe, but as usual I always try to substitute any ingredient I can to reduce sugar content. For original recipe please visit here.

- 2 cups of all purpose flour (I replaced half with almond flour)
- 1 teaspoon of baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon of salt
- 1/2 cup of butter
- 3/4 cup of brown sugar (I reduced that to 2/4 instead)
- 2 beaten eggs (I prefer to use organic eggs because they taste better in my opinion)
- 2 and1/3 cup of mashed banana (about 6 medium size bananas for me but honestly you can put more or less if you like)

Before you begin, preheat oven to 350F degrees (or 175C degrees).

Step 1. Mix flour, baking soda and salt. (That's almond flour on the left.)

 Step 2. Mix butter and brown sugar.

Step 3. Add in eggs and mashed bananas to step 2. Mix well.

Step 4. Combine all mixtures and make sure everything is well blended.

Step 5. Pour batter into 9x5 loaf tray.

Step 6. Bake batter for 60 to 65 minutes (60 did it for me), once toothpick comes out clean from bread, turn off oven and leave bread to sit for 10 minutes, and serve!

Enjoy! :)

- H

Candida and Delicious Low-sugar Smoothie

About two weeks ago I challenged myself to a detox diet called the candida cleanse, and what it is, is you basically try not to consume any type of sugar for a period of time. This includes both refined sugars and natural sugars from fruits. The main purpose of this cleanse was not to lose weight but to help restore my digestive tracts by getting rid of a fungal yeast called candida, and what feeds candida is sugar. We all have candida, it is natural, but the problem is when we have too much of it, and this some people believe can lead to a myriad of problems including digestive problems, skin problems and fatigue. I decided to give the cleanse a try because I had all those symptoms and I'm happy to report that I really felt a relieve from them after the cleanse. If you are interested I definitely encourage to you to look more into it. The Love Vitamin is a good place to start if you want to know more.

From the cleanse, I want to share with you all one of my favorite recipes. It is a recipe for a low-glycemic smoothie (meaning low in sugar), and this has been something that I continue to make after the cleanse simply because I love the taste of it. I know that there are a lot of fruit-smoothie recipes out there that taste great, but this one is unique in that it uses very little fruit and you still get the sweet taste along with all the health benefits.

The ingredients for the smoothie are:
- A handful of spinach
- Half of an avocado (or 1/4 if it's a big avocado)
- A cup of almond milk
- A splash of fresh squeezed lemon juice
- A cup of berries (I like blueberries, it has less seeds than raspberries and strawberries)
- A few drops of liquid stevia or a table packet of stevia (available at any local health food store)
- A few dashes of cinnamon (optional)

Recipe adapted from The 7 Day Candida Cleanse Challenge
by Tracy McCullough of www.TheLoveVitamin.com

Blend all of these ingredients in a blender and voila! You get a delicious, nutritious smoothie packed with all the vitamins and minerals that will really keep you going for the day. I don't know about you, but there is nothing more satisfying to me than putting something good and healthy in my body.

Rutabaga Chips

Today I decided to be a little adventurous and made some rutabaga chips. 

Rutabaga! Just saying it is fun. 

For those of you who don't know what a rutabaga is ("what the heck??"), it is a Swedish turnip. Yea, who knew? Now I don't know what people usually use rutabagas for but I came across a recipe for turning them into chips and I was sold. Plus, they are also suppose to be much healthier for you than potato chips because they contain much less sugar since they are not starchy like potatoes. 

Well it just so happens last week that I came across some at the farmers market, and well of course I had to try it. What did they taste like? STRANGELY like kale, yes, kale! Even as they were baking in the oven I thought they smelled a lot like kale.

 Here's what the end result looked like:

Yes, I did burn a few pieces.

I also decided to pair it of with some last minute guacamole.

Was it worth the effort? To be honest I'm not sure. Perhaps I didn't bake them at the right temperature or sliced them thin enough but they weren't crunchy enough for me, and the flavor was rather bold and kind of bitter. If I do make them again I'll definitely consider coating them with honey. Let me know if you have made rutabaga chips before and have tips on how to improve them!

Best,
H