My Christmas and Trip to Hong Kong Part 1- beauty

Hi everyone, I haven't blogged for a month. I must admit I was lazy to blog after coming back from my holiday. I was lazy to go to the gym and I put less effort in making healthy food. Nevertheless, I hope you all had an amazing Christmas and had lots of yummy food. I had quite a bit. I will quickly show you what I had for Christmas and then move on to my trip to Hong Kong.

I spent Christmas day with my boyfriend and I cooked the dinner. I didn't make turkey or lamb as I'm not a fan of them. I only like turkey when its been stir fried and I hate the taste of lamb. I made roast chicken with roast potatoes, parsnips and carrots, garlic sauteed the brusselsprouts with a hint of lemon zests and macaroni cheese. I spent almost 4 hours in the kitchen cooking and my boyfriend was just sitting in the living room, watching TV and waiting to be fed. But I'm happy that he enjoyed the dinner as he had seconds as soon as he finished his first plate.

I should have turned the chicken around for a better presentation. The other side was browner and looked better. The potatoes and macaroni cheese were actually golden brown but my boyfriend's kitchen light makes everything look really yellow in photos.

 

The recipe for brussel sprouts was from Laura's Kitchen YouTube Channel, she has lots of good and simple recipes. Adding lemon zest gave it a zingy taste and covered the bitter taste.

Voila! Christmas dinner

On boxing day I went home with my boyfriend and had lots of seafood. My dad made majority of it and I cooked two pots of mussels in tomato white wine sauce.

My dad's hands lol. Steamed scallops with some vermicelli noodles, minced garlic and spring onions.

 Just plain boiled prawns with chilli soya sauce dip. I couldn't have this because the scabs on my face, I will talk about that later. There were a lot more prawns than what you see in the photo, I forgot to take a photo in the beginning.
 

 Mussels in tomato white wine sauce, I forgot to add a bit of chilli to give it a kick but it was still good. It felt good having my boyfriend helping me cut up the ingredients and watching me cook lol. We dipped toasted ciabatta bread into the tomato white wine sauce, it was so delicious.
 

Razor clam with vermicelli noodles in black bean sauce and tong ho stir fried in fermented tofu. It was my dad's first time cooking razor clams and didn't turn out too good. He over cooked it a bit. The colour isn't too nice because he didn't add dark soya sauce as I can't have soya sauce at the moment.We also had some vegetable gyoza but no photo for it, sorry. In total, there were six courses and we couldn't finish the last two course.

Back to the main topic, my trip to Hong Kong. Two weeks in Hong Kong was not enough, I didn't have time to go to all the places I wanted to. But I still ate lots of delicious food and did some shopping. In part 1, I will be talking about beauty and part 2 will be about food.

First of all, I've had a mole removal laser treatment done. I did it on the day I left Hong Kong as apparently you're suppose to avoid certain food and ingredients once you have cuts on your face; that includes, soya sauce, vinegar (anything that is sour) and egg. Right before the treatment, I bought an egg tart just to have a final taste of it lol. Hong Kong has some really good egg tart but very fatty.

I had 4 moles removed and they cost $100 each which I thought was a really good price. The whole process was less than 10 minutes and it did hurt! The pain level is a bit higher than when you first had your eyebrows or lips threaded which makes your eyes water. I could hear and smell the moles burning. The laser thing made a "zzzz" noise and burning smelt like burnt flies lol. If you've used those electric fly swatter you know what I'm on about. Once a fly gets caught between those wires and you press On, the fly will burn and creates a bad burning smell. 

This is a photo of me before the treatment. You can see a mole on the left side of my chin, one next to my nose on the left, one on the right side of my face parallel to the one on my chin and one on the nose. My moles are all scabby now. I still go out, they don't look too bad as they still look like moles but bigger. When I first looked in the mirror, I was thinking "why are my moles bigger?" lol. I'll show you the result once they are all off.

I got loads of Korean cosmetic products this time, some are from my cousin, my uncle and Godmother as Christmas present. Korean cosmetic are just irresistible. I love how they branded their products, makes you want to buy everything.

 

Laneige Sleeping pack from my uncle. I haven't tried any of the products as I'm waiting for my scabs to come off. I need to avoid getting them wet as much as possible. Yes, I have washed my face but have been extremely cautious. 

Etude House is one of the places I went to get those cosmetics. Even the shop front is very quirky. I love it!

Anyways that's it for now, I'll blog about the yummy food I had in Hong Kong in my next post. Thanks for reading.

{WIAW & RECIPE} Vegetable Pancake

Hi guys, it's been a while since I've done a WIAW post as I've been instagramming my food instead. Follow me on Instagram @missyungquainth =)  The weather in the UK has been up and down, mostly freezing cold and now I'm feeling poorly. I've got a cold and a cough; my nose is totally blocked and runny. I can't believe I'm ill before going away. I'm going Hong Kong for two weeks next Monday and I hope I'll be better by then. I need my taste bud to be working properly as I'll be pigging out everyday and night!

Today's WIAW post won't just be about what I had during week but will also feature a recipe for vegetable pancakes. =)  This week has been an indulgent week for me, I've been eating a lot on Wednesday and Thursday night and I broke my vegetarian diet. lol. But only for two days.

On Wednesday, I went out with my brother for dinner at Cha Cha Moon. I bought a Groupon deal pay £20 for £40 worth of food. We ordered three noodles main courses and one starter.

The first one is Fujian style udon, it has fishcakes, prawns, squid, belly pork and choi sum. 

This is seafood ho fun made in a black bean sauce; scallop, prawn, squid, red and green pepper. They put a bit too much dark soy sauce making it too dark. 

This was our starter, marinated sticky chicken. This was really good. I had two small bits as I didn't want to have too much meat.

The lobster was tiny and it cost us £25. Not impressed with the price, the taste and quality. The noodles tasted a bit like soap, they probably didn't rinse the noodles after cooking it the first time. The lobster was a bit over cooked making the texture very rough.  

After the dinner, we wanted dessert and so we walked to Häagen-Dazs for waffles. On our way we actually stopped at Cinnamon buns and got 2 mini buns for £1. A starter to our dessert lol. At Häagen-Dazs, we shared a Belgian waffle with raspberry and chocolate ice-cream. 

Thursday night was a date night with my boyfriend. We did a lot of walking. We walked from Liverpool street to Brick Lane and found a chocolate shop, they sold different flavours of homemade chocolate truffles and hot chocolate made with REAL chocolate and NOT powder. You can actually taste the cocoa. I bought a cinnamon hot chocolate.

Then we went to a bagel shop and bought some freshly baked bagel with smoked salmon and cream cheese and a block of almond cake. We ate this when we got home. We then walked from Brick Lane to Haggerston to my boyfriend's old work place, Ribeira, and we got free food! Lol. The chef made us both a salami sandwich, it was delicious! The bruschetta bread was crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, just perfect. We also ordered a smoothie like cocktail, was so refreshing.

This was just a snack before dinner. We then walked back to Kingsland Road for some Vietnamese, I ordered a bowl of pho with king prawns and my boyfriend ordered beef with ginger and spring onions and rice. Sorry didn't take a picture.

Sunday was my pancake day. If you're regular reader of mine you will know I love to experiment with my pancakes. On Sunday I decided to make some savory pancakes for lunch. The original recipe is from Shape Magazine but I adjusted a couple of things.

Ingredients (the following measurements are an estimate, I just went by my preference);
-1 cup of thinly sliced/shredded cabbage
-1 cup of carrots peeled like ribbons with a peeler
-1 cup or kale thinly sliced/shredded
-1/2 cup of spring onions shredded
-1/2 cup of diced mushrooms
-1/2 cup of all purpose flour
-3-4 eggs
-salt, pepper and other spices to season.

Method:
1. Cut up all the vegetables and then toss them together in a large bowl

2. Add the flour and toss well until all vegetables are coated

3. Beat the eggs and add to the vegetables and mix well. Add the spices to season.

4. Add a drop or two of oil into a non-stick pan and heat the pan. Once the pan is hot, turn the heat down to medium- low. Add about 2 spoonfuls of the mixture and use spatula to flatten it out like a pancake.

6. Cook each side for about 3-4 minutes or when its golden brown.

I served it with cottage cheese and it was a bad choice, I tasted better with ketchup. But if you seasoned it well you shouldn't need any sauce to go with it.

Thanks for reading!

Turning into a Vegetarian

Hi guys, are you all looking forward to Christmas? I'm looking forward to December because I'm going to Hong Kong for 2 weeks! I get to escape 2 weeks of cold weather.

Going to Hong Kong means I'll be pigging out everyday and lots of carbs. I love the variety of breads and buns that Hong Kong have, I'm so looking forward to it lol. So, I will need to eat extra healthy and clean and get my body into good shape. To do that, I've turned myself into a vegetarian since the start of November- guys are doing Movember but I'm doing "Vegember" lol. Sorry, I know that's a very poor pun.

To be exact, I've been a semi-vegetarian (not sure what's the exact term); no meat but still eat seafood.
I've gone without meat for 3 weeks now and I've got to a point that I'm not even interested in having meat. I still cook meat for my family and boyfriend though because they "need" it.
I've also minimised the amount of white carbs I'm eating, some days I try to avoid them totally. I can feel the difference already. I feel a lot lighter, more energy, haven't been feeling sluggish, and my stomach doesn't bloat after a meal. Just feels great.

...Ok, I have to confess, I did have a bit of meat last week. It wasn't because I couldn't resist but because my boyfriend put a lot of effort into the dinner; he made roast chicken wings and vegetables, boiled white rice and some sauce he created. I only had two wings though. The sauce he made was delicious, he said its a secret recipe.

Below are photos of some of the food I've been having.

Breakfast-  same as what I normally have.

Hot eggy porridge topped with banana, gojiberries, sunflower seeds and linseeds. I've mixed baobab powder into the porridge.

I still have warm lemon water on an empty stomach every morning, my daily green smoothie. Haven't had yoghurt on its own in a while.

Some red and green beans and mung beans porridge that my dad made. I topped with with some sunflower seeds and linseed

This brunch was so yummy! Chocolate flavoured wholemeal pancakes, Chinese turnip cake and scrambled egg whites.

Warm eggy porridge topped with figs, sunflower seeds and some homemade roasted butternut squash seeds.

I haven't had bread for breakfast in ages, this wholemeal bap was so soft. I bought the baps fresh from a bakery warehouse, it was still warm when I got it. I served it with prawn cocktail mayonnaise and pan fried egg white and cheese. 

Lunch and dinners- been having quinoa and butternut squash a lot lately. 

Massive bowl of raw spinach, with 2 boiled eggs, 3 small figs, 2 cooked beetroots, and sprinkled some sunflower seeds.

Quinoa with roast courgettes (zucchinni) and vegetables from beef stew.

Quinoa with sauteed vegetables

Jacket potato topped with quinoa bake, roast butternut squash and melted cheese.

Bulgar wheat with some sauteed shredded courgettes and carrots.

Bulgar wheat with roast butternut squash, boiled romaine lettuce courgettes wrapped in romaine lettuce. Trying to be creative here. 

That's it for now. I'll keep posting my vegetarian meals. I'm loving them!.

Are you a vegetarian? Do you have any good vegetarian recipes you share with me? 

{Recipe} Sunday Fusion Brunch

Hi guys, today I made a massive Sunday fusion brunch,  Chinese and Western food together. I obviously made pancakes because its Sunday! I also made some really light and fluffy scrambled egg white and some Chinese turnip cake. (The turnip cake is something Chinese people usually have during Chinese New Year and will give it as a gift to friends and family. But you can also eat it in restaurants that serves dim sum.) Since its so cold, I made a ginger tea/ water. In this post, I'm going share a few recipes from this brunch. :)

I think my brunch looks like a meal from the Breakfast Club (a really popular independent cafe in London), but a lot cheaper. If it's at the Breakfast club, I think this would probably cost almost £10. I know they don't do turnip cake, they have bacon or sausages instead. lol

Those pancakes where made from wholemeal flour so I can say they were healthy ones. They were extra light and soft today, I think it might because I put the batter in the fridge for about 30 minutes and it allowed the batter to settle. I left the batter in the fridge because I remember watching a cooking show in Hong Kong, they were making Japanese style pancakes (very similar to American pancakes) and the chef said to leave the batter in the fridge for an hour. I don't remember why, it was something to do with the bubbles. lol.
During the 30 minutes, I did some ab, butt, thigh and arm workout. I've been slacking with my workout lately, not good I know.

Wholemeal Banana Cocoa Pancakes (makes about 6-7 pancakes)

Ingredients:
-3 heaped tbsp of wholemeal flour
-3 tbsp of hemp milk (anything milk you like)
- 1 tsp cocoa powder
- 1/2 tsp of baking powder
- 1/2 a banana (or a whole if you want)
- 1 tsp of vanilla essence
- 1 egg (for a vegan recipe, exclude this)
- 1 tsp of cinnamon, nutmeg (optional)

Method:
1. Sieve all the powder ingredients; flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and the spices( if you're using them). Mix them well.

2. Add the egg and milk into the dry ingredients and mix well. Add the vanilla extract and mix well.

3. Mash up the banana or pour the batter and banana into a blender and blend until smooth. I did the latter as it's a lot easier.

4. For the pancakes to be extra soft and light. Pour the batter into a jug or bowl or whatever and place it in the fridge to settle for at least 30 minutes. The longer the better. You can skip this if you want to eat them ASAP.

5. Heat a pan with a tiny bit of oil. Once the pan is hot, turn the heat to low and pour dollop of batter. I cooked each side about 1.5 minutes. I usually flip when the pancake starts to bubble and the sides are drying up.

6. Serve with your favourite toppings.

Fluffy Scrambled Egg Whites

Ingredients:
- 3 egg whites
- 1-2 tbsp of hemp milk (any milk will do)

Method:
1. While I was making the pancakes I was whisking and whisking the egg whites and milk together. When I finished making the pancakes, the egg mixture was really frothy.

2. Then I poured the egg mixture into the same pan that I made the pancakes, still on a low heat. Sprinkle some salt and pepper to season. Use a spatula and just gently stir, scrap and fold the egg mixture.

3. Once all the liquid has been absorbed your scrambled egg is done!

Ginger Water- This is something that Chinese people like to make during the cold weather. It helps to keep you and your stomach warm. Ginger is a superfood.

Ingredients:
- A few slices of ginger ( I used about 2 inches of ginger and just sliced it up)
- 4-5 cups of water (depends on how many cups you want to make)
- 2-3 tsbp brown cane sugar.

Method:
1. Slice some ginger and add them to a saucepan/pot. Add the water and sugar and bring to boil.

2. Once boiling, turn the heat to low and simmer for at least 10 minutes. This is to bring the flavour out of the ginger.

3. Serve it hot. You can always reheat it and refill some water. 

Chinese Turnip Cake

I will blog the Chinese turnip cake recipe next time, I need to ask my dad as he is the one who made it. :)

What did you have today? Did you make pancakes on a Sunday? What do you to keep yourself warm in the winter?

October Healthy Food Haul

Hi guys! I love shopping for healthy food and drinks. Holland and Barratt has been doing the penny sale this month (3 days left! So hurry before it finishes.) and I have of course done some shopping but only a little this time just to restock my kitchen. 

I ran out of baobab powder, protein powder and sunflower seeds so had to get restock them. Out of the three only baobab powder was on sale, £14.79 for one and so two for £14.80. The last protein powder I used was Good Hemp Fit Shake protein powder and since then I have developed a love for hemp protein and seeds. I like trying different brands so this time I bought Pulsin' Hemp protein, and it tastes a lot better then Good Hemp. (I recently found out that hemp is a type of cannabis, I am so slow! Lol. Did you know that?)  The sunflower seeds were only £1.99 for 500g, I thought that was a good deal. I love adding sunflower seed to my breakfast because it creates a nice crunchy texture.

A couple of weeks later, I went back to H&B to use my £4 reward coupon and I picked up a pack of cocoa nibs. Never tried it before but I seen it a lot on instagram. I follow a lot of healthy and fitness people on instagram, like me they post photos of their food and cocoa nibs have been featured a lot. 

I've been adding the cocoa nibs to my breakfast and it's got a quite bitter and slight sour taste. I'm not sure if I like it. I will try melting them in pancakes and see if they taste any better.

I went Sainsbury's the other day just to get Good Hemp milk and they have stocked some new stuff. Rude Health non- dairy organic milk. I bought all 3 including Good Hemp Milk. 

What I really like about Rude Health's milk is their ingredient. It short and simple. Only has words that you can pronounce, however I don't know how true that is because how do you make milk last for months or a year? But they have won a Soil Association Organic Award 2013 so must mean something.

Some of you might be thinking "why don't you just make your own non-dairy milk?" I know I can, I mean anyone can but the process is too long. I might do it when I have time though. 

I will definitely do a review on Rude Health's milk very soon. 

Did you buy anything from the penny sale? What did you get? Do you like buying healthy food and drinks?

{How-To} Roast butternut squash seeds

Hey people! Another mini recipe I want to share. I'm not sure if this counts as a recipe as I'm just showing you how to roast seeds. I made roasted butternut squash for dinner the other night and saved the seeds. This is my second time roasting seed, first time was with seeds from a mini pumpkin.

Method:

1. Get a big metal spoon and scoop out the seeds into a bowl

2. Fill the bowl with cold water and then just separate the membrane and seeds. 

3. Dry the seeds with a paper towel. To speed the drying process up, I just patted them with paper towel and then toasted them on a pan for until the seeds were dry. 

4. Mix the seeds with a bit of olive oil and salt. 

5. Spread the seeds onto a baking tray and roast for about 12 minutes at 200 degrees. 

6. They should turn out golden brown and crunchy. They taste like popcorn. I used a bit too much oil as you can see below. I used a paper towel to soak the oil.

7. Eat and enjoy them or place them in a air tight container. They should last for a couple of weeks. 

Thanks for reading. If you liked this post please share! :)

Have you roasted seeds before? If so, what's your method and what do you add to it?

{Recipe} Quinoa Superfruit Pancakes

Hello my lovely readers and foodies. I know I've been lazy with blogging lately but not with cooking healthy food though. Sunday means pancake day for me! Last Sunday I made bulgar wheat pancakes, this week I experimented with quinoa. Initially, I made a pot of quinoa for lunch and dinner but then decided to make pancake with them.

I made the pancakes with wholemeal flour, I also added two superfruits, baobab powder and gojiberries, making them filled with antioxidant, vitamin C and potassium. The quinoa also makes the pancake high in fibre and protein. The pancakes turned out quite soft and delicious! I didn't measure the ingredients I just spooned them in according to how I felt. lol. I made 5 medium sized pancakes.

Ingredients for the pancake:
- 3 tbsp of cooked quinoa
- 3 tbsp wholemeal flour (you can use regular flour if you want)
- 1 egg
- 4 tbsp of milk
- 1 tsp of baking powder
- 1 tsp of vanilla extract
- a pinch of salt
- 1 tsp of brown sugar
- 1 tsp of baobab powder
- 1 tbsp of gojiberries

Method:

1. First cook the quinoa. I cooked 1/2 cup of quinoa with 1 cup of hemp milk and a pinch of salt. I usually cook quinoa with water but decided to try something different. Bring to boil and then half cover the pot with a lid and simmer for about 15 minutes. Once all water/milk has been absorbed, take off the heat, cover totally and leave to stand for about 10 minutes.

2. Mix the quinoa, flour, milk, baobab powder, baking powder and egg in a bowl. Add vanilla extract, baobab powder, mix well. Finally add the gojiberries- I would soak the gojiberries in hot/warm water for a minute or 2 first to soften them a bit.

3. Heat the pan and add a little bit of oil. Little meaning 2-3 drops.

4. Pour some batter into the pan. Fry each side for about 1.5 minute on LOW heat; the sides will have turned slightly brown and the middle will be bubbling. I found that 1.5 minute will brown the pancakes perfectly, see below.

5. Served with your favourite toppings. I served my with butter, maple and carob syrup, frozen blueberries and dusted some cinnamon powder on top.

That's it for now. Thanks for reading, I hope you liked this recipe and if you did please share! :)

Did you have pancakes today? Have you made pancakes with quinoa?