Agave Nectar: Good or Bad?

I’ve seen several posts on tastespotting.com and foodgawker.com with recipes substituting sugar or honey with agave nectar.  I haven’t fully converted because I’m not sure if the taste and consistency would be the same and I haven’t really researched into the benefits of it myself.  (This website claims agave nectar is good for the glycemic index.)  I just assumed it was supposed to be a healthier alternative, but I just ran into an article on the Kitchn (and no, i did NOT spell that incorrectly) that made me re-think using agave nectar.  Maybe I’ll stick with honey for now.

Detox – Day 4…sort of

Menu:

7am (or upon rising): Glass of room temperature lemon water
8am: Herbal tea
10am (breakfast): Mango and Coconut Milk Smoothie (follow method for Blueberry and Almond Smoothie)
11:30am: Coconut water
1:30pm (lunch): Miso Soup with Watercress
4pm (snack): A handful of blueberries
6pm (dinner): Steamed Salmon and Greens

I stuck with the plan until the evening when I went to go watch a movie.  I had a small bag of chocolate goodies and candy…well, only $1.80 worth of it. I had decided after my dinner that I was going to quit this ridiculous detox.  Why?  Like I mentioned before, I felt absolutely no different.  Some may say that I didn’t give it enough time but I beg to differ – 4 days is more than half way through the regimen and in my mind, should have been sufficient to produce any sort of difference.  In the end, this detox probably wasn’t for someone like me who tries to eat healthy on a regular basis and more for someone who eats processed foods more than twice a week.  I’ve thought about doing the Master Cleanse, but I consider that the extreme and there has been some debate about the benefits of that detox.  Oh well!

Now, let me tell you how I enjoyed the rest of Friday night.  After the movie (saw Up In The Air which was a great movie), we went to Hue’s (korean bar) and I drank a nice tall glass of Sapporo BEEEEEER!!!!  THEN, I tried out short rib taco from the Mogo BBQ truck.  All of this was done late in the night, which is usually a no-no for my schedule, but I didn’t give a rat’s @$$ and it felt great.  Anyways, the taco was $2 and the flavors were pretty much what I expected from a korean-mexican fusion dish.  Not sure if it was worth the money as I feel I can probably make them myself.  People say the Kogi truck down in LA is much better so I guess I’ll need to give that one a try.

Surprisingly, I didn’t gorge too much on bad food over the weekend.  But I tried to expand my cooking repertoire and made Thai food for the first time.  I made tom kha gai and pad thai.  The soup came out okay, but the pad thai was subpar mostly due to uneven cooking of the noodles.  I used Trader Joe’s rice sticks, which were thicker than normal noodles for pad thai.  Here are the recipes I used:

Tom Kha Gai Soup
(adapted from thaifood.about.com)

Ingredients:

• 4-6 cups good-tasting chicken stock (SERVES 2-3 people) (LIES! The soup was plenty enough for 4 – 5 people)
• 1 stalk lemongrass, minced, OR 4 Tbsp. frozen prepared lemongrass (I cut into 2 inch strips and mashed them)
• 3 kaffir lime leaves (couldn’t find the damn leaves so I used the zest of one lime)
• 3-4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1-2 red chilies, finely sliced, OR substitute 1/2 to 3/4 tsp. dried crushed chili
• 3 Tbsp. fish sauce (available at all Asian/Chinese food stores and some supermarket chains)
• a generous handful of fresh shiitake mushrooms, sliced thinly (used 1/2 can of straw mushrooms)
• 12 medium raw shrimp, shells removed
• 1/2 can good-quality coconut milk, OR 1/2 can evaporated milk
• 1 Tbsp. freshly-squeezed lime juice
• 1/3 cup fresh coriander (cilantro), roughly chopped
• optional: 1/2 tsp. sugar (skipped this)
• optional: extra vegetables of your choice (I added sliced water chestnuts)

tom kha gai

Preparation:

Pour stock into a deep cooking pot and bring to a boil.

Add the lemongrass and boil for 1-2 minutes. If using fresh lemongrass, also add the upper stalk pieces for extra flavor.

Add garlic, chili, lime leaves, and mushrooms. Reduce heat to medium and simmer 1-2 minutes.

Add the shrimp (plus other vegetables). Simmer 3-4 minutes, or until shrimp is pink and plump.

Reduce heat to medium-low and add the coconut milk plus fish sauce and lime juice. Stir well to combine and gently simmer until hot. Test the soup for salt and spice, adding more fish sauce instead of salt (I usually add 1 more Tbsp.), or more chili as desired. If too sour, add 1/2 tsp. sugar. If too spicy for your taste or if you’d like it creamier, add more coconut milk. If too salty, add another squeeze of lime juice.

Serve in bowls with fresh coriander sprinkled over. For an extra hit of flavor, you can also add some Thai chili sauce, either store-bought or the homemade version.

Pad Thai
(adapted from sweetsavorylife)

Pad Thai sauce ingredients:

• 4 cloves of minced garlic
• ½ cup of palm sugar (I used brown sugar instead.  I think I’ll use palm sugar the next time)
• 1 ½ tbl. white sugar
• 1/3 cup of fish sauce
• ½ cup of tamarind juice concentrate (I’m thinking of reducing this amount and adding soy sauce.)

Pad Thai noodle stir fry ingredients:

• Dried rice stick noodles – ¼ of the package
• 1 egg
• 4 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 6 tbl. of vegetable oil
• ¼ cup of red onion, thinly sliced
• 1 cup of mung bean sprouts
• 1 cup of carrots, match sticks
• ¼ cup of green onion cut diagonal in ½ inch segments
• ¼ cup of cilantro
• 1 ½ cups of either thinly sliced chicken, beef, pork, shrimp, or tofu (I used chicken breast and shrimp.)
• ¼ cup of toasted peanuts chopped.
• Lime wedge

Pad Thai

Directions:

To make pad thai sauce, heat a small pan on medium low and add fish sauce, palm and white sugar, tamarind concentrate, and garlic. Cook sauce until palm sugar has completely dissolve. At this point, you will want to taste the sauce and tweek the sweetness or hotness (be careful, the sauce will be hot). To make it more spicy add a little Thai chili powder. Remove from heat and allow to cool 10 minutes before storing it in a jar or plastic container.

To Stir fry the noodles,
Boil noodles for 4-5 minutes and drain immediately rinsing with cold water for a few seconds. Noodles should be slightly firmer than Al dente. But don’t worry, they will continue to soften and cook later when stir frying. Using kitchen shears, cut the noodle clump in half. This will make it easier to fry and eat.

Heat 3 tbls. oil in a wok or frying pan on high and cook raw chicken, pork, beef, tofu or shrimp for 3-4 minutes. Remove meat/tofu/seafood into a small bowl. Next, heat up 3 tbls. of oil and then add garlic and red onions to the hot pan and stir fry for 1 minute stirring the garlic mixture so it will not burn. Add noodles and stir for 1 minute. Add 3-4 tbls. Of Pad Thai sauce continually stirring noodle mixture until well coated with sauce. Add cooked meat/tofu/seafood back and fry for 2-3 minutes. Move the noodle and meat mixture to one side of the pan and crack an egg on the other side. Scramble the egg with a wooden spoon and cook for 30 seconds. Add carrots, green onions, and sprouts and cook for one more minute frying everything together. Test the firmness of the noodle. If the noodle is too firm, fry for an additional minute. If your noodles need more flavor, add another tbl. of sauce and fry another half minute.  Remove from heat and serve. Garnish with remaining raw carrot match sticks, spouts, cilantro, toasted peanuts, and a wedge of lime. Enjoy!

Detox – Day 3

Menu:

7am (or upon rising): Glass of room temperature lemon water
8am: Herbal tea
10am (breakfast): Oatmeal with almond milk
11:30am: Coconut water
1:30pm (lunch): Blueberry and Rice Milk  Smoothie
4pm (snack): Cucumber, Lime and Basil Juice
6pm (dinner): Super Greens Juice / Miso Soup with Watercress

YAY!  I get to eat some carbs!  Nothing beats eating a hot breakfast on a cold, rainy day like this morning.  The oatmeal filled me up enough to last me till lunch.  I went home to make my smoothie for lunch and juice for mid afternoon snack.  I don’t have a juicer so I blended all the ingredients in my food processor with 1/2 cup of water and squeezed the crap out of it through a strainer.  I can’t imagine doing this everyday – it’s a lot of work.  For dinner, there was more juicing…and it contained one of my least favorite vegetable….the dreaded celery.  YUCK…the other ingredients barely masked the nasty taste of celery.  OH SHIT…I just realized I forgot to add the ginger!  oh well!  Anyways, my stomach is now sloshing with tons of liquids and I hate this feeling.  Overall, I wasn’t as hungry as yesterday…AND I wasn’t craving sweets or carbs.  However, I still don’t feel any different and not quite sure if I ever will during this dreaded detox process…I can’t believe it’s only day 3.  RAWR!

Detox – Day 2

Menu:

7am (or upon rising): Glass of room temperature lemon water
8am: Herbal tea
10am (breakfast): Raspberry and Rice Milk Smoothie (I had another Blueberry and Almond Smoothie)
11:30am: Coconut water
1:30pm (lunch): Detox Teriyaki Chicken and Steamed Greens
4pm (snack): Miso Soup with Watercress
6pm (dinner): Pea and Basil Soup (I had Broccoli and Arugula Soup)

Today was a bit tougher than yesterday because I started craving sweets.  I kept looking through tastespotting.com and foodgawker.com and couldn’t help but drool at the photographs of baked goodies.  It probably wasn’t a good idea to be looking at those pictures either.  By the time of my 11:30am coconut water intake, I was pretty hungry and was looking forward to the chicken.

teriyaki chicken (photo from goop.com)

The meal looked promising because the marinade tasted pretty good.  However, the final product was subpar.  I don’t know why they called it teriyaki because it definitely didn’t taste like anything close to a teriyaki chicken.  The broccoli and arugula soup sucked the 2nd time around, but I was too lazy to make the pea and basil soup.  I’ve thought about quitting several times today…I’m such a weaksauce.  I will be bitching and whining all week.

Detox – Day 1

So remember my New Year Resolution post and how I plan on doing the whole clean eating thing?  Well, I didn’t start 2010 off very well, especially last week in DC where I gorged on Lebanese, Indian and Chinese food.  Thank goodness I’m now doing the much needed detox.  I’ve been doing some research on which detox regimen to do.  The one that didn’t rely solely on a liquid diet nor seemed like I would be starving myself was from Goop, which is an online newsletter by Gwyneth Paltrow.

So what is exactly involved in a detox?  It essentially rids the diet of all things I love…including dairy, grains with gluten, meat, shellfish, anything processed (including all soy products), fatty nuts, dark veggies (potatoes, tomatoes, peppers and eggplant), condiments, sugar, alcohol, and caffeine.  Yeah, I’m basically torturing myself…but it’s only for 7 days.

Anyway, the menu for today was as follows:

7am (or upon rising): Glass of room temperature lemon water
8am: Herbal tea
10am (breakfast): Blueberry and Almond Smoothie
11:30am: Coconut water*
1:30pm (lunch): Salad with Carrot and Ginger Dressing
4pm (snack): A handful of mixed pumpkin and sunflower seeds
6pm (dinner): Broccoli and Arugula Soup

I made sure I drank lemon water BEFORE brushing my teeth – I can’t stand that nasty taste of toothpaste and citrus…YUCK.  Surprisingly, I didn’t have any hunger pangs until 10am when it was time for my smoothie.

blueberry and almond smoothie (photo from goop.com)

The smoothie didn’t taste all that bad.

salad with carrot ginger dressing (photo from goop.com)

I’m not a big fan of pure liquid meals and I need the variation in textures with my food so I definitely welcomed my lunch salad.  I LOVED this salad dressing – it packed a lot of flavor with not too much oil (I cut the oil portion by half).  The avocados made it even better.

broccoli arugula soup (photo from goop.com)

Here we go again…more liquids.  I got full from the soup, but wasn’t very fulfilling.  I started to crave starches like a nice crusty bread to compliment this soup, but sadly it’s not part of the detox!

So, did I succeed today?  I think so except for the fact that I cheated  I had a piece of gum, which is a no-no on the detox…but I’m not beating myself for it because it’s just gum.  So far so good…I can’t wait to eat some chicken tomorrow!

New Year Resolutions???

With the New Year, I’m sure people have made or thought about their resolutions for 2010.   Here are some interesting facts I found online about New Year resolutions:

• About 40 to 45% of American adults make one or more New Year’s resolutions each year.
• Most popular resolutions include promises of weight loss, exercise and quitting smoking.
• Also common are resolutions dealing with better money management / debt reduction.
• The following statistics reveal how many of these resolutions are maintained as time goes on:
  • Past the first week: 75%
  • Past 2 weeks: 71%
  • After one month: 64%
  • After 6 months: 46%
  • About 67% of people make three or more resolutions.

http://www.newyearfestival.com/new-year-resolutions.html

Sadly, I haven’t really thought about my own resolutions until now.  My mom says that it should be to find a husband, but I will conveniently dismiss that one…she thinks she’s SOOO funny.

Since this is a food blog that I intend on updating frequently in 2010, I thought I’d make some food related resolutions.  As mentioned in the statistics, one of the most popular resolution is weight loss.  That’s definitely always on my mind, but in order to help achieve that I will attempt to maintain a clean eating diet.  Actually, scratch that…it’s not really a diet.  According to cleaneatingmag.com:

Clean eating?  It’s simple, really.  Consuming food in its most natural state – or as close as possible to it — is the soul of clean eating.  It’s not a diet; it’s a lifestyle approach to food and its preparation, leading to health, well-being and a lean look.

I attempted to do this several times since I’ve moved back to San Jose, but the baking/food experimentation has steered me away from it.  I’m hoping to utilize this blog and keep myself in check by posting some clean eating recipes.

BUT…

I still intend on baking and occasionally eating the not-so-clean foods like…pork belly…mmmmmm…

Anyways, I’m curious to hear about your resolutions.  Please comment…the comment box is looking a bit lonely and bare!  HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!