Honeymoon

Yay today's the day we fly out on our honeymoon, LA, NY, SF, Korea!!!!!

Can't wait to try all the yummy vegan restaurants in these places...photos to come shortly

More recipes with freshly picked goodies

Sadly I wasn't able to go to the farm this past weekend and check on my little crops, would've been nice to make it though since I'll be out of the country for the rest of the month. But I know they're in good hands and the owner of the land will water them for me... but my folks did go and they brought back some fresh cherry tomatoes and some lettuce! ahhhh what a treat. It is amazing how different fresh produce tastes, who knew cherry tomatoes were so dayam sweet! They're like little balls of honey exploding in your mouth...

I know it seemed a bit of a waste to cook them and shoulda eaten them fresh, but couldn't resist the taste of them in my pasta. Last night I made up some Brown Rice Pasta w/ Fresh cherry tomatoes, zucchini, portobello and basil. Yum Yum Yum!!!

I still have a huge bag of yellow lentils my friend bought me and have been really into making lentil soup with them, the other day i tried to make french onion soup, and decided to add lentils...so really just became lentil and onion soup... LOL.. soo delicious and perfect since the weather suddenly got cold this weekend... also had to add some falafel on the side....How do u stop falafels from tasting a little 'dry'? Had to put some salsa on top cuz it was a bit on the dry side....

Beautiful Sunday - 5 more days till Honeymoon!!!

I cannot contain my excitement, 5 more days till hubby and I jet off to LA, SF, NY and finally Korea. So many places to see, places to go eat, places to shop and so little time. Basically have about four days in each place so need to make sure we can squeeze everything we want to see. I think we're going to need a holiday from our holiday.....

Past couple of days the weather has just been amazing, the first signs of summer showing, beautiful sunshine clear skies...but yesterday started to get cold again booo. I'm sitting here in front of my computer wrapped up in my terry robe and slippers with a hot cup of chai..... wondering where the suns gone :(

It's going to be cold as heck in the states esp. NY and Korea, but at least by the time we get back home the weather will definitely get warmer...

So since it was sucha beautiful day on Friday I decided to go yet again to my favorite restaurant for lunch. Now they have a rooftop dining area, which I've never sat at and OMG it is fantastic!! You don't get many cute and cozy places like this in Hong Kong. I wanted to take a pic but was sitting alone and felt like a dork...so just took a photo of my yummy dummy sandwich... Italian Veg sandwich (GF) with some kind of mock chicken (which was actually pretty darn good) and sweet potato fries...

I always wonder how they make their eggplant taste so damn good, how are the cooking it... has anyone tried to make a sandwich like this?? And how do you make sweet potato fries like this... i hope they're not fried like regular fries....that would be v bad totally pigged out on em....

When I got home I made some salsa to eat with the rest of my falafel sandwich....have I ever told you how much I like homemade salsa, no LOVE homemade salsa....mmmmm extra cilantro and EXTRA chili!!!

One BIG flop, one success

I have been PMS-ing pretty bad this week so I thought I would let myself indulge a bit and bake something to keep my spirits up. Now alot of the dessert recipes I've found on PPK, AFR have ingredients in them which I can't seem to find in my hood... but I did happen to come across one recipe that looked simple enough.....

Ginger Chocolate Chunk Scones Pile Up

Now, I thought i would keep it a little healthier and substitute some of the ingredients in the recipe, ooooohhhhh man was that a BAD BAD BAD Idea!!! I think for baked goods it's really hard to sub some ingredients unless you're quite familiar with how they effect the mix. So instead of using regular flour i sub'd for Brown Rice Flour, the sugar for this organic sweetener and for the chocolate I sub'd for Carob...this is what came out :(

So I guess brown rice flour shouldn't be used for cookies?? the mixture just looked and funny and didnt have the right texture...anyway suffice to say it tasted like s***! Ended up cutting up a fresh pineapple instead.... yum yum, shoulda just done that in the first place

My success for the day..... *drumroll please* Baked Falafel, added one whole chili to the mix to give it that extra kick. I love my spice and everything tastes better with chili (my husband says I should carry chili flakes in my bag since I"m always asking for it in restaurants) !!!

Along with the baked falafel I made some small portobello mushrooms sauteed with garlic and a lil EVOO and a side of baby kale.... I think I definitely got my days worth of nutrients on this one dish...

Bitter taste in my mouth....blech

For the past few days I've had the weirdest bitter taste in my mouth. Everything tastes bad no matter how fresh the ingredients are, no matter how much I stick to recipes. So I've been trying to think what it could be...could it be the after taste of the Chinese Medicine? No, the gluten-free snacks? No, the super green powder in my smoothies? No.....the fruit? Nope not that either... it's just been a bit of a bummer really because it's making everything I eat taste so crap...

So today I just had the last straw, I jumped online to check if anything came up... vegan, bitter after taste... and lo and behold what comes up...

PINE NUTS CAN CAUSE BITTER METALLIC TASTE IN MOUTH!

Who woulda thunk it!! WTF..... pine nuts?? and YES, I have been munching on pine nuts ALL WEEK!!!!!
I've been trying to include fats in my diet and according to the food pyramid I've been portioning like 1/4 cups of pine nuts or almonds a day...

Gross, the article says that usually pine nuts from China can cause this bitter after taste... so the next time you ever have these symptoms stop munching on those nuts..

No more pine nuts for awhile.... now I'm just wondering how long this is going to last for... :(