iHerb!!!!

CMR202

I am so excited to share with you something amazing that I have found in Korea (well, America with very cheap shipping, but still!)

A few weekends ago I learned about iHerb a wonderful American wholefood and health food online shop. I ummed and aaahed about it and finally decided to take the plunge! I love it!

Almond butter. Tahini. Wholewheat pasta. And so cheap! If you spend over $60 you get shipping for $4…that’s the same as a one way taxi to HomePlus!!! Eeeeeh!

I’m so excited!!!!

I’ve already made 2 orders and I’m prepping my 3rd one for next week I think! It is definitely aiding my healthy eating initiative.

I still love all things Korea, don’t worry! I will never stop eating Korean, but it’s nice to be able to stock up on little things like spices and stock cubes! YUM!

If you go on it, use my coupon for a discount…

CMR202

Breakfast of Champions!

Now, I have to admit, this doesn’t look all that filling or appetizing, BUT (and what a bit BUT it is) it was not only delicious but quite filling. I am allowed 400 calories for breakfast so I had 1 slice of wholewheat toast topped with 1 tablespoon of peanut butter and 1 teaspoon of strawberry jam; 2 satsumas; a cup of water with fresh lemon. Once I got to school I also had 100ml of soya milk with some coffee.

This helped me through until Meal Two (another 400 calories!). This entailed a wonderful cup of yogurt with 2 tablespoons of nuts and 1 apple, diced. I think that came to a little under my allowance, but it tasted quite wonderful!

For Meal Three: Lunch.
I managed a whopping 5oz of pork baked with 1 egg white, 2 table spoons breadcrumbs, carrots, herbs and pepper; green leafy vegetables and 2/3 cup of barley.

It doesn’t wound like that much food, but I can tell you it is soooo much!!! It is both wonderful and really hard to eat so much. This diet (or eating regime – as I prefer to call it) is quite nice!

I have noticed that I am really bad at taking photos of food! I will try and rectify that as soon as possible!!!

Get eating healthily and happily people!

Reform

Last week I made a change. It was quite a big change in theory. If it works. My friend, C, asked me to join her for a workout called Insanity. I have been getting a little lazy since I stopped training with my friend and his family. So, I said yes.

Now all I can think about is healthy food. Eating the right amount of calories and eating the correct foods for slimming down.

I have been looking at recipes and really enjoying myself.

I saw this cake from The Rawtarian. I love this blog and I am looking forward to trying new things. This cake is a raw chocolate cake!!! No cooking people!!! You can eat the batter! This is amazing! The only change I foresee is using regular cocoa powder instead of raw cocoa, but I’m ok with that 🙂

I am also on a budget these days. This makes eating healthily pretty tough. But I am liking the challenge and enjoying the feeling I’m feeling from eating so healthily.

I am planning on trying to show you all one of my meals everyday so you can see that it isn’t as scary as we all thought it might be.

Have you changed something recently? Please share 🙂

The Joys of Stick-on Nail Varnish!

I have always marveled at the Korean way of life! I often wonder how they can do their nails and lead such busy lives!

Well, might I answer my own question…

It all started yesterday when I asked my students how I should paint my nails. I have been making an effort to paint them recently as I work with my hands a lot. I sew and knit and bake and teach. When I’m pointing at my students’ work I want it to be with a nice finger, not a grubby “I’ve been running and digging in mud” finger!

And actually, I’m not bad at it!

It’s actually fun to design and execute new ideas in the nail department!

And buying nail varnish: SOOOOO much fun!

Who knew!?

Well, I stumbled across something quite convenient in Etude, a Korean beauty store:

Stick on nail varnish.

I thought it would be really hard to do on my own, but I tried one last night and by golly was it easy.

And it doesn’t look too bad!

Yes, I left it at one as I had to study. But in Korea that’s ok. Maybe tomorrow I’ll come to school with 4 and then each day change the number until they start falling off.

I’m going to keep some in my bag for parties. This is just the trick for covering up chipped nails you don’t have time to redo…

Oh Korea, you have out done yourself!

❤

 

 

 

Polkadot Flowers, Brown Eggs and Patbingsu

This weekend I was supposed to go to Gwangju. It had been planned for months, but in true Korean style a lot of other things then came up and so I was left with the potential of taking a 4.5 hour bus ride all the way to Gwangju to see some friends and then come all the way back in the same day. This is not so much my idea of a good day out anymore. Maybe I’m just getting old.

So, instead of going away I helped surprise one of my friends for his birthday and then spend a long time chatting with another friend. It was a very worthwhile night.

Then on Saturday I watch Bones (I love this show – I just started watching it and I really love it!) and knitting the blanket for my friend’s baby! Do you remember this post, where I talk about my 300 minute egg experiment. Well I think this is what it was supposed to look like when I cracked it open. These eggs are very common in Korea. I’m actually glad I didn’t get it right the time I tried as I didn’t like the taste and ended up throwing them away. Just goes to show…

No, really! Whoops!

Then on Saturday night I met up with my friend and introduced her to a Korea summer dish called patbingsu. It has crushed ice, a little icecream, nuts, red beans, fruit, ddok, and many other little bits. We had it at Caffe Bene but they are everywhere now the weather is getting hotter. Thankfully she loved it and we devoured it all over a long chat about life, love, religion and food.

Michi getting ready to dive in! It was so good we finished every last drop!

We called it a night early and after a good sleep I met with another friend, Jessica. She kindly offered to teach me how to make flowers in exchange for ‘helping’ her at the bank earlier in the week. They look so delicate and beautiful, I thought they would not only be very hard to make but they would take a long time.

So pretty!

Jessica made this so easy that in no time I had completed the bones of the flower. My centre is a little clumsy but all in all I’m very happy with it! And I will most definitely be trying this out again, in all different sizes and no doubt writing about it!

Jessica showing me how it is done. Working on her flower, adapting and changing as she went, until it was perfect!

 

This is my 1st attempt, and I’m pretty proud of it. The centre needs so working on, but that will come with practice ^.~

So, although I am really sad that I couldn’t spend time with my friends in Gwangju, there were other plans keeping me here, and look at what I achieved!

What did you do this weekend?

The Things My Mother Does…

Yesterday I got an email from one of the school administrators.

It read:

“Hi, there is a package for you in the Admin Office.” I had spent the week hoping the box would finally arrive!

I’m not entirely sure, but I think I ran to the office. A huge smile on my face. The ladies all watched as one of the staff ceremoniously handed it over to me, asking what was inside.

“I have no idea” I responded. It was the truth! I kind of knew what the contents were, but in reality I could only imagine what extra surprises my mother had included!

I got over excited and opened it before taking the picture!

Inside were some boots, a bag from my parent’s latest vacation, some toothpaste, some chewing gum (I miss English gum!) and my most prized gift:

A CARD!!!

My favorite part of all these gifts my mother sends me is the cards. They normally contain information that is long since known, spoken about, dissected and moved on from, but I love them! Seeing the curl of her handwriting and the way she signs off at the end. Nothing makes my day more.

It takes me back to the times in university when she would send me a little card with a 20 pound note telling me to buy the house pizza. Or on having a troublesome exam, she would send me a happy floral card to make me smile!

The act, done with such love, overcomes the bigger greater gestures.

This particular card tells me of news I know. Things we have discussed, and then she just slips it is:

“I’m proud of you for taking the test, even when you thought you might fail”

This means a lot. 

I am a starter. I always start things, but do not finish them, especially when I think they might not be fully successful.  It made me proud to possibly fail! Hahaha…how ridiculous :p

Have you ever felt like this? Please share your experiences…

300 Minute Eggs

Finally, I have time to update you on my recent project!

Cracking my egg open was a monumental event after waiting for over 3 hours!

After seeing my best friend’s post about 300 minute eggs I knew I had to try it. I love eggs. Scrambled, boiled, runny, hard, cold, hot, benedicted, with mayo, any way! And this was something I hadn’t tried yet.

So I did some research and found out that these slow cook eggs originate from North Africa on a low heat, for a long long time.

I was a little apprehensive about making these as I like in Korea and my oven has been known to consume energy ~ not that that that has ever stopped me in the past.

Last Thursday I decided to bite the bullet and try it. I got home before 5pm and knew that I could finish them before bed time (well, I am getting on in my years!)

Here is my 300 minute egg story:

I put 4 eggs on the grate in the middle of the oven set to 50 degrees celcius.
They looked so happy there!

 

I don’t want you to think that I simply waited in my apartment for these little beauties, but I had to turn the dial every 60 minutes, so I kind of did :p

I love the way these developed as I slowly cooked the eggs. It was salt!

After 300 minutes (or 5 hours) I plated these delicate eggs, and prepared for the unveiling…

Aren’t they beautiful!?

The anticipation was building, I’m not sure how I managed to take a picture to be honest!

I have to say I didn’t expect it to be this color…

OK, so this is when I admit that it’s probably not gone to plan. But I should try it to see

Me enjoying my eggs after waiting for 5 hours. The color wasn’t what I expected, leading me to think I did something wrong, but I will just have to keep trying!

 VERDICT:

So, although these 300 minute eggs didn’t turn out the way I expected them to I still enjoyed them and the task of trying to cook them. It was interesting to try something that I had absolutely no idea about. I’ll definitely try it again and post my results!

For other (more successful) links for more information and different ways of cooking these:

Spark Recipes

 FX Cuisine

cook eat FRET

and my all time favorite:

Prep and Polished

Not just for the kids!

I found this while I was working on a lesson plan for school.

I plan on trying it out tonight! Hopefully I’ll be able to post pictures as I go along…

I’m so excited!

Have you found anything exciting to make or share recently? I would love to know 😀

Wondering what happened to me?

Sorry for anyone who actually follows this blog. I have been a little lax recently. Mainly because I wanted to keep my different topics separate. You know the drill, home and work life separated and all that jazz…but I plan on updating here a lot more starting soon. So if there is anything you would like to know about: cooking, sewing, homemaking…please please ask!

As for work life and Korea, please follow this link and take a look!

Keep safe and happy!

Spinach and Sweet Potato Soup

Last week I found some spinach in one of my western local Korean shops. I know that makes little sense, but if you’ve lived here then you’ll understand.

I really wanted to make a spinach soup. I freaking love spinach. Same with sweet potato!

I scoured the internet for recipes and found diet soup, cream soup, interesting soup and down right odd soup! None of them tickled my fancy so I put off making anything.

Until I opened my fridge and decided it was time.

Throwing in a sweet potato, onion, a little olive oil and tons of spinach. Chicken stock and water. Brought it to the boil and simmered it for 40 minutes. Blended it (this included spraying said delicious soup all up the wall!!)

For some weighr I added some cottage cheese and small chunks of salami.

I really enjoyed it hot and cold and can’t wait to make it again!

♥