Life without hummus and recent obsessions

I told y’all I’ll be back really soon! 😆  Anyways, on to my “regular” post!

While I very much enjoy Taiwanese food while at home, I sometimes do miss the various nut butters and hummus that can only be found back in the States. For example, while prepping my lunch today, I was really craving raw broccoli and carrots with hummus.

No hummus? Any peanut butter? Sadly, we just ran out as well.

What’s a girl to do when she obviously needs some dippage to go with her raw veggies? After scrummaging through the fridge, I decided on this:

Obsession # 1: Black Sesame and Honey Paste

It’s definitely not your regular nut butter, but it’s still nutritious, full of healthy fats, and most importantly, delicious! I usually spread this on bread, but I took the chance and dipped my raw broccoli and carrots in there. Verdict? Not bad. I’d still prefer to have hummus for my raw veggies though

So I may be craving for hummus, but the everyday eats here still makes me one happy gal! 😀

Obsession #2: Sweet Sop (sugar apple or custard apple)

This fruit is native to tropical Americas, India, and Pakistan. It’s believed to have been brought over to Taiwan by the Holland folks about 400 years ago.

[Sidenote: Taiwan was inhabited by Hollanders in the 1600s]

Sweet sop, as its name implies, is very sweet, very soft, and has a texture much like custard. Its seeds are huge (you see the black oval shaped stuff there?) and are scattered ubiquitously throughout the flesh of the fruit. Much like avocado, it becomes softer as it ripens. At its ripest and sweetest time, you can easily cut the fruit open and either (more lady-like) scoop out its flesh with a spoon or (more barbarian) attack the fruit with your teeth. It is definitely not a pretty fruit to eat. You are going to be spitting out on average 4-5 seeds with every bite you take. You’ll acquire a gooey, sugar substance around your mouth too.

Despite its messiness, it’s oh-so-good! I don’t think I’ve ever seen it in California. Anyone else seen it in stores/farmer’s market around where you live?

Obsession #3: Oats with salted egg

It’s savory, it’s filling, what’s not to like? This stuff is perfect to fill up my hangry tummy after my morning Ashtanga yoga classes (2 hours!!!). I simply cook 1/3 cup oats with 2/3 cup water (shamelessly in the microwave) and then add chopped/mashed salted eggs into the oats. Stir the goop up and call it a satiating meal…and it is! It’s been awhile since I’ve had this combo of grains+protein, so I’ve been having this for lunch almost everyday.

What about the high sodium content? Okay, not exactly the healthiest stats, but I justify by claiming that I need to replenish my salt storage in my body after sweating off a a gallon of fluid in my yoga class.

Obsession #4: Mr. Mark Bakery

This is, hands down, my favorite bakery, ever ever ever, on the face of this planet. It’s got dozens and dozens of different types of whole-grain bread and pastries, from plain to savory to sweet. This is where I get my Black Sesame and Honey Paste from. Some of their breads include:

• Sunflower seed multigrain toast
• Cream cheese bun
• Barley and oats toast
• Green tea with red beans (adzuki beans) toast
• Soy bean toast
• Sweet potato stuffing roll
• Chocolate and walnut loaf
• Cream cheese and red beans (adzuki) loaf
• Crispy rye multigrain toast
• Chocolate truffle roll
• Organic vegetables toast
• Walnut and cheddar cheese loaf

Let’s see what goodies I got recently, shall we?

First up, red beans (adzuki) with sweet cream multigrain bread.

Secondly, rye multigrain bread with red bean stuffing with white sesame seeds sprinkled on top (see the red bean trend here? :)).

Last but not least, Original Sugar-Free Multigrain toast.

I certainly didn’t waste time tasting these doughy breads? I quickly incorporated the toast into my breakfast the next morning.

Original Sugar-Free Multigrain toast, papaya, guava, and Black Sesame & Honey Paste

Look how thick the slice is! So doughy and so soft! I ate that toast with some Black Sesame paste. On the side I enjoyed some fresh papayas and guava.I bet you’ve never seen green guava before :).

Guavaaaa, whole fruit.

Papayas the size (or larger) than footballs!

Cut up papayas and guava

Obsession #5: Amanda’s Blissful Banana Bread

I couldn’t help but pull out my baker’s hat (no I don’t really own one) after seeing Amanda, then Jessica, rave about it. I had a serious itch to try it, and it’s also been ages since I’ve made myself some ‘nana bread.  I deserve it. 🙂

I substituted the spelt flour for whole wheat flour, Greek yogurt for regular yogurt, and maple syrup for honey. I also didn’t have ground flax seeds (omitted), and neither did I have coconut butter (replaced with vegetable oil). With all these modifications, I prayed that it would turn out alright. It did.

I couldn’t resist to sprinkle some muesli and some mini chocolate chips on top. Why, hello beautiful! 😀

I made these two days ago, and I had my last piece today while shopping and with an iced Starbucks latte. Truly b-l-i-s-s-f-u-l.

Obsession #6: Quaker’s Barley milk

Have I told you yet how much I love 7-eleven’s here in Taiwan? Yes! This is another one of my fabulous finds there!

Barley, barley loveee! 🙂

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I’m meeting up with an awesome and lovely lady tomorrow for the first time. I’ll be showing her around Taipei city, as this is her first time to Taiwan. I cannnnnn’t wait! I’ve never done “touristy” things here before, so I’m actually excited to hop from one tourist attraction to another tomorrow!

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+ If you live in a big city or near tourist attractions, do you do “touristy” things?

+ Current obsessions?

+ Make sure to check out my guest post here!

Red, yellow, green

Unbearable…that’s how to describe Taiwan summers. It averages at least 90 degrees F here, which may seem ok, but take in mind that the humidity here is like 250%. I’m not even half exaggerating. The minute you walk out the door, you start to sweat like you just came out from under the Niagara Falls. Forget about taking a shower after your workout, because the sweating never stops!

Besides the unbearable humidity + heat here, my second day has been fab. I zonked out last night at about 9pm and woke up at about 5:50 am this morning. Woohoo almost 9 hours of sleep! And I’ve already completely overcome the time difference as I did not wake up even for one second during the night.

Anyone care for breakfast? How about some really fat finger bananas?

I taste like banana but have a slightly tart taste. I am also firmer than your regular bananas, but tremendously yummy!

I have a confession to make: I like finger bananas more than I like plain bananas. There, I said it.

I sliced half of this into a bowl with some kiwi and topped the fruits with some plain yogurt and honey on top.

One of the things that always catch me by surprise whenever I come back is how small everything here is compared to those in the states. Check out the size of this bowl! It’s literally palm-size. This would be considered a kids bowl in U.S. standards. No wonder people here are skinny.

On the side I had a slice of this bread that I got yesterday: whole grain with walnuts, dried figs, and brushed with honey on top. It’s one of my fav breads from one of my fav bakery! I always get this whenever I come back home.

Hey look! It’s a snail on my plate!

I also got the chance to hit up the gym this morning. Although it was only 25 min of running on the treadmill, I’m not joking when I say that every pore on my body was streaming out sweat. Okay that sounded quite gross but it was the only way I could think of to describe my condition as! I don’t sweat alot, but only in Taiwan do I sweat like this.

After that almost unbearable sweating session, my family and I went out for something totally bearable. We joined my grandparents for lunch at my favorite vegetarian restaurant here!

Beware! The sister makes her appearance on Om Sweet Om!

For starter, we had this “Energizing Juice“, a house specialty that blends various veggies, fruits, nuts, honey, and fruit vinegar into this yummy drink.

My main dish was a soup pot with a tomato-based soup, tons of veggies, mushroom, chestnuts, cashews, and Japanese sweet black beans. The soup pot came with 8 treasure rice, or, simply put, rice with 8 types of grains. This rice is really, really good! It has a slightly nutty flavor because of all the grains, and very chewy!

We also got a dish of stir-fry cabbage that was soooo sweet, soooo crisp, and just soooo yummy overall! The cabbage was cooked with mushrooms and goji berries. Two thumbs up!

The restaurant had a variety of soup pots to offer, and my sister got one of our favorite ones: Rosemary-infused veggie pot.

Remember the silver fungus I was talking about yesterday? Well, whaddya know, it has a cousin–the black tree ear fungus (aka cloud ear fungus)!

Similarly crunchy, chewy, and yummy!

My dad got the Cream of Veggies pot.

And my grandpa got the pumpkin fried rice.

And now, the most important part of a meal: dessert! I sound like a hypocrite saying that, because I didn’t have any! I was stuffed to the max by the time dessert came around. I think the heat really screws up your appetite.

Nevertheless…

Cold, sweet, thick mung bean and barley soup.

The afternoon was spent chilling and reading in a well air-conditioned (too cold!) Starbucks with my mom, and some cellphone browsing. iPhone or HTC? Well, I use a Macbook, so I think I should stick with the iPhone. 3Gs or 4? Well, I’ve heard enough flaws about the iPhone 4 that I decide to stick with the 3Gs. Hmm..that pretty much narrow down my choices to…one. If (or should I say when?) I am getting an iPhone, I’ll have to wait till I return to Cali since it’s alot cheaper in the U.S.

Before I knew it, it was time for dinner. My stomach agreed. Seriously, where did the afternoon go?

From top (clockwise): steamed cabbage, cold bamboo shoots, braised bamboo shoots/sea kelp/dried bean curd, and a Chinese veggie that has no corresponding English name. I ate this with leftover rice from lunch.

If you’re curious, bamboo shoots before peeling, steaming, and chopping into bite-sized pieces look like this:

To eat, these shoots are usually steamed first and peeled when cool. Afterwards they can either be cooked in soup or eaten cold dipped in some mayonnaise. We ate them cold tonight, but I went sans mayo since I’ve never been a big fan of mayonnaise.

I’m really sorry if I can’t give more accurate names or descriptions of certain vegetables that we eat here, because alot cannot be find in the States. Case-in-point:

On the top left is a type of Chinese vegetable that is usually stir-fried with some garlic. In raw form, you can see hints of red/purple in the leaves. When cooked, it leaves a residue of purple juice.

Protein of the night? A hot-spring egg that I got from 7-eleven today.

You must be thinking: What? At 7-eleven?! Yes indeed. I love 7-eleven in Taiwan because they offer a variety of health(ier) breakfast/lunch/dinner/snack food instead of your usual hot dogs, slurpees, and hot pockets. While they do sell those items at the 7-elevens here, there are actually more of prepackaged salads, fruit cups, yogurt, microwavable meals (okay, maybe not so healthy), fresh sandwiches, and rice balls wrapped in seaweed with either some sort of meat/seasoning/veggies.

What’s with the “hot springs”, you ask. It’s actually a Japanese-style of cooking eggs. These eggs are slowly cooked in hot water in hot springs (well, it doesn’t have to be cooked in a hot spring) of about 160 degrees F until the eggwhites are cooked and soft but the yolk is still runny. Kind of like your soft-boiled egg.  This one was probably cooked in soy sauce since it was well-seasoned.

Let’s talk about dessert…again. I did eat them this time.

My mom bought these cute little marshmallows as we were leaving Starbucks because she had an afternoon munchie attack. I ate them despite knowing that these contained gelatin. Here is where I am bending the rules of my vegetarianism.

Did I feel bad? Maybe a little. Was it good? Heck yes! They were soft and fluffy, maybe a tad sweet, but acceptable if you eat one or two at a time.

This is the type of situation where I let loose of my vegetarian lifestyle. Gelatin is derived from the collagen from inside animals’ skin and bones, and thus, not strictly speaking a vegetarian-friendly food. But over the past couple of years of my vegetarianism, I’ve come to accept the fact that I can’t always eat a clean, vegetarian diet all the time. There are gelatin hiding everywhere–in yogurts, candies, pudding, jello, marshmallows, desserts. Unless you have an encyclopedia of ingredient lists of all the food you’re eating with you all the time, it’s really hard to distinguish what has gelatin and what doesn’t when you’re eating out. This is exactly like what Katie was talking about, that sometimes veganism, or vegetarianism, aren’t black or white.

Marshmallows, as well as other food that may or may not contain gelatin (puddings, jello, gummy worms), are what I’ll term yellow light food. You know how when you see the light turning yellow, you’re not sure whether to step on the gas or hit the brakes? That’s what I’m referring to. There’s the obvious green light food for vegetarians (veggies, beans, tofu, milk, eggs) and the red light food (meat, duh).

Street scene on the streets of Taipei

But what about yellow? Should you go for it or stop yourself? Most of the time I stop (the same goes with my driving….REALLY!), but I can’t say that I’m completely clean.

So, dear readers, I leave you today with a question to ponder (before my laptop completely crashes from all the pictures overload): Are food items containing gelatin completely out of the bounds for vegetarians? Is an individual still considered a vegetarian if he/she knowingly consume food with gelatin?