Food Arrest

I recently had a check-up with my doctor and she wasn't pleased with my 20lb gain over the past 2 years and told me "I'm putting you on a diet... and I want you to walk 10,000 steps a day... so get a pedometer". To which I then tried to throw a math problem at her by asking "so if I walk 10,000 steps a day at 3mph, how long would I have to walk"... she thought for a second and told me "I don't know, you do the math", LOL. So to simplify this math problem... if I walk 1 step per second than that's 60 steps a minute... so 60 x 60 is 3600 steps an hour... which means I'd have to do nearly 3 hours of walking a day (booooya doctor lady!! hah).

Now if you're like whoaaa that's a lot of walking... I'm not a gym rat which is why a pedometer comes into play as it'll count how much I move/walk throughout the course of a day at work or where ever I go. So now I feel as though I'm on food arrest or something as I have to sport a pedometer where ever I go so that I can basically be tracked (much like a person on house arrest, heh). Not to mention I'm having to start dieting again and well... I obviously have an idea of what not to eat... its just a matter of sticking to a healthy diet that I semi loath, bleh.

In case there were any dis-believers, here's proof!

On the upside my mom is proud that I have a positive outlook on this... and why wouldn't I? I only have myself to blame for eating cr*p food and having a lack of self control at times, pfff. Besides, I want to lose weight and having the doctor tell me to do something, well... it gives me a professionals nudge to what I've been needing to hear. So, lets get physical ;) physically fit you pervs! haha.

*Add this to my New Years resolution list*

Milani Polish in Gems

I recently purchased the Milani polish in Gems (530) as it seems to be a trending type of polish this fall. Gems is a clear based chunky glitter with multi colors consisting of gold, silver, fuchsia, green, blue, red, and orange. It has small and big chunky hexagon shaped glitters that are all multi colored in the same fashion. Upon application I found this is best applied in a glopping type of method rather than doing brush strokes in order to get even glitter coverage on the nail, so in that aspect this polish can be one you perhaps love or hate. I always find removing chunky glitter polish to be a bigger headache than application ;D However, I think this is a really cute, fun, and festive polish... nice for Christmas, New Years Eve and even Birthday celebrations.

Milani in Gems polish swatch

Char Siu Marinade Recipe

First off...I'm not exactly sure how to make char siu marinade or if there's a more correct way etc. of doing it. However, I have used a packet char siu marinade mix before and thus tried to recreate the mix with the ingredients that it said were in it along with a few additional things and such. Anywhooo... I made this recipe and it came out fairly decent so, I used it to marinade some chopped up Spam Lite for 30 minutes. If you're unsure about adding the red food coloring in this than you don't have to but it is generally the traditional color of the marinade as the meat should turn red in color. My Chinese friend and I always say or think something along the lines of "if it isn't red, than it isn't good char siu", haha.

1/2 Cup - Water, hot
1/4 Cup - Soy Sauce (I used Kikkoman Low Sodium Soy Sauce)
1 tbsp - White Sugar
1 tbsp - Honey
1/2 tbsp - Chinese Five Spice (contains: star anise, anise, ground ginger, cinnamon, and cloves)
1/2 tsp - Garlic Powder
1/2 tsp - Onion Powder
10 drops - Red Food Dye/Coloring *Optional*

Combine ingredients into a container and stir until sugar dissolves. Place meat of choice into the container (pork, chicken, duck, hotdog, spam, ribs, etc) and close container with a lid. Marinade for at least 30 minutes or overnight, be sure to move your container around to insure the meat inside gets covered in the marinade as this will more than likely turn your meat a red color (if you used the food coloring). Once the meat has been marinated cook appropriately and enjoy.

Char Siu Spam over white rice

Char Siu hotdogs with toasted sesame seeds

*When I fried up my marinated chopped spam pieces I poured out everything in the container into my frying pan and cooked on medium heat for 7-12 minutes until all the excess marinade had basically evaporated. I generally serve this with white rice but you can serve it with whatever you like. You can also add in some diced spring onion to add a bit of color to the dish. You could also try adding in or all of the following additional ingredients to this recipe... Hoisin sauce, black pepper, ground cumin, garlic salt, sherry or rice wine, or even toasted sesame seeds (as seen above). I'm not sure I have perfected this recipe as of yet but I do enjoy eating it!

My Thanksgiving Break

I've been a bit busy lately with things but I'm finally back and posting again :P I decided to take some time off of work for Thanksgiving week however, I didn't make any travel plans (although I had been thinking of going to San Francisco and I probably could have went, grr..) and ended up trying to find things to do with all my free time...

I managed to watch two new movies...Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 1 (or Breaking Womb as some people have been saying, LOL) and also J. Edgar (not my pick to watch but my dad wanted to see it). I really wanted to see the movie The Descendants but for some reason not many theatres around here are showing it??? WTHeck! Aside from movies I found out that one of the sushi places (Asian Garden) I go to around town (ok...the ONLY decent sushi place around this town) had NOT actually went out of business but had moved a lil bit down the street. OH! I did manage to find another sushi place (well, they serve a mix of Asian cuisine and are a bit world traveler with the music selection) and although I didn't try the sushi I did get some decent and made-to-order shrimp pad thai (although, 99% of the deserts are store bought) and I'll def be checking out Kazu again in the near future.

I even had time to meet up with a new net friend of mine and we ate a horrible meal at AppleBees where I got the Dijon Chicken with Mushrooms... so, I'm def not going back anytime soon :P My Thanksgiving day was spent with my dads family, good times as usual. Aside from getting my 7 math assignments completed during the break I also built an outdoor cat house with my dads' friend (sorry, no pics yet) and it took us around 5 hours to build, but it doesn't look like I'll be painting it...eh, idk. Anywhooo...his cat Squekers figured out what it was and now enjoys snoozing inside it ;D

I also went to The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, MD and there was sooo much art and artifacts that I did start to get a bit bored of it after awhile, heh. However, it was interesting to view the pamphlets of Archimedes as I learned that it was made from animal skin and has gone through tons of damage like... water, fire, wine spills, WWI, restoration, overlapped writing, candle wax, bad storage conditions, and riddled with bacteria (gross huh?). I also got to eat at G and M restaurant while out that way and the cream of crab soup was pretty tasty, similar to a she-crab soup.

Last but not least I also got in some web and store shopping during Black Friday and throughout the holiday weekend. Got a great deal on a tablet (early x-mas gift from my dad) and I bought myself a flat screen tv...which is pretty sweet, buuuut...I don't want to gloat or whatever since I'm feeling uber broke now, eheh. I also realized that it's the first tv I've ever actually purchased, as the ones in my past were either my parents old tv or handed down to me by someone else. So, maybe when I get some more $$$ I can afford to buy a wall mount, eheh (x.x)... no hurry. I have also been watching older movies recently on my free month of Netflix, since it means catching up on movies I have been meaning to watch that are no longer available at RedBox :P