Steamy

This is a fun quick meal. Pair it with an Asian soup or some rice and you have yourself a meal.
(Wow those last 5 words remind me of a very funny long story joke that has been told a few times in my prescence.  Anybody know the joke?)

I digress...

You fill a wok up with a few inches of water and place the steamer on top. You can bring the water to a boil and then turn down to a simmer.


Place the frozen buns, wontons or pot stickers inside and place the lid back on.

(Trader Joe's is a killer place for these frozen masterpieces.  They have vegetarian, pork, & chicken varieties.  The pork are usually the most tastey as well as traditional.)

I had placed the lid on for the steaming session, but in order to get a photo of the action, I quickly removed it.   Literally, we have steam in this picture.

Steam these little babies until they turn opaque or until the buns are soft and warm inside. About 7 minutes or so.  You could add the frozen brown rice (miecrowavable), sesame oil and green onions together in those 7 minutes and you're ready to go. 

Tip: The (pork) buns come with little papers on the bottoms, leave those on as they are there so that the bun doesn't stick to the bamboo. Sticky buns is not the goal here.

Have a rockin day and eat well and play well~

Sunday Prep

What do you do when a you have an extra hour on a Sunday?

No matter how busy the weekend has been, you usually can find an hour or two of time to prep for your week.  I like to use this time to prep the kitchen for the week.  I work 40 hours plus a week with 2 hours daily commute, so our midweek time is precious to say the least.

We recently purchased a juicer and in order to make juice, you need items to juice; clean items is a good place to start.  I must admit the juicer purchase was sparked from my hub watching a video about the topic and all the benefits it brings.  We used a coupon, used an exchange of something else we needed to return and talked them into free shipping when they didn't have the one we wanted in stock.  So all in all I think it was a good purchase.   The jury is still out...   Luckily it is from BB&B so a return is possible any time.

We've been juicing away ever since.  We're not juicing all day or even as meal replacements really.  Mostly as snack or small meal replacements. 

We have a veggie wash which MIL(mom in law) got for us and and here it is being put to work.  Juicing takes a lot of veggies so i had a lot of veggies to wash.  Aren't they gorgeous? 

This Sunday I went to Sprouts (some previously Henry's) and stocked up on some fresh goods. Their prices can be manageable, if you pay attention.  Wednesday is actually the best day to shop there because they have both week's sales on, but as I mentioned I like to most of my shopping on the weekend when I can take my time and be in my "cute sweats" or "Saturday pants". 

Here's the beast.
I'm not at home right now but boy is my body craving a green juicey right now.





Ignore the glare in these photos but here I had packed up some salad fixins' for a couple of days.   The tub on the left came from the deli (Ralphs I think) the day or prior when I must have been feeling frisky and purchased a small tasting from their olive and cheese bar.   Olives, feta cheese and olive oil, I believe.   My grape tomatoes container was approaching empty so I poured the remainder in the tub, and then I layerd on some mushrooms.   Notice, the mushrooms stay out of the oil because of the tomato buffer.   

Here we have some white bean hummus and some freshly cut carrots.   I am about to package the hummus up in individual containers so they can be eaten at work, on the pool deck (the hubs), in the car and more.


Here we have the jar which these white beans soaked in over night.  It is a pretty jar. You can get a sneak peak of it full of beans in the veggie drying picture above.

Add the beans to a large stockpot and fill with a couple inches of water.

Boil up for about an hour or so.   Little inside EWPW secret, I had these boiling Sunday evening while watching TV Sunday evening (these were the last of my day's project) and I let them boil a little too long and we started to smell a little browning or the start of burning.  I jumped up and rescued the little suckers and come to find out, there was a layer of perfectly toasted browning on the bottom and the taste was kind of catchy.  I may almost burn them every time, we'll see....

 Have a fresh day and eat well and play well~

Yogurt

Now some would ask, Why would you go through this hassle when you can just buy the preflavored individual ones?

  And I get that, in fact I do often do just that, I am just choosey about which ones I grab.

When you take the time to flavor your own plain yogurt, you are controlling what additives, sugar, HFCS, and unrecognizable additives that you are putting in it.

I pretty much have yogurt every day, if it is available in a fridge around me.  So if you are going to put something in your body every single day, don't you want to be able to recognize the words in the ingredients?   There are some very, very popular brands of yogurt that claim to help you lose weight, and help you fit into your skinny pants but what they don't tell you is that it has HFCS in it, which has been directly related to obesity and creating increased sugar cravings. 

This particular instance, I had just gotten back from a Costco trip, as you can see the Kirkland brand berries.  You can usually find the 0% Fage yogurt there and it is priced decently there.  Fage is a Greek yogurt, which seems to be all the rage right now, one reason is that it has been touted as having one of the highest protein %.  Protein is usually a good thing if you are trying to watch your carbs or calorie intake.  If I haven't been to Costco recently, which is more often that no, I usually buy a different brand because the Fage is pricey.  

 

The hubs likes mango so we had to throw a little frozen mango in some.

This is such a scrumptios breakfast to me.  My homemade yogurt, a little treat of a half of a fresh crossaint, a glass of natural OJ, and some hot tea. 

A great way to start off the day and play well. ~

This Kirkland brand of berries is a bargain for the amount of precious berries that you get.  This is another item that if you don't buy at the right place, then you can be paying a very high price.

Garlic with some pasta

The title is not a mistake. This meal had a new twist to it and it was raw garlic and lots of it.

The Hubs was taking a study break and saw this quick pasta dish and decided to whip it up for us one Monday evening. It was a whole wheat pasta base with fresh spinach cut into small pieces. The sauce was spinach and 5 cloves of garlic and some olive oil. Now hind sight suggests that it should have been probably one clove of garlic.

Cooking is a bit of an experiment at the EWPW household, but that's what makes it fun.

The dish had a really wonderful taste but the garlic burned the tongue both while eating it and afterwards.  I most always have sparkling  water (Trader Joe's) with my meals and drinking this after eating the dish was creating such a burning sensation on the tongue.  Whoo... it brought a new meaning to the word "kick."  

All in all, I would eat it again but I think he'll cut down the raw garlic cloves quantity.  Have a great day and eat well and play well.

We had a fun Sunday dinner with friends last Sunday, I am excited to share the prep photos with you soon.

WinCo Foods

Speaking of Markets, earlier today, I found myself at a new market today and boy was it ever fun.

I was told by a gal who lived in South Orange County that they went to the WinCo Foods in Moreno Valley about once a month for their bulk foods, such as oatmeal and rice.  I was shocked that she would drive herself that far for a grocery store and it peaked my interest.   A month or so back, I heard that there was a new WinCo foods in Lakewood and I had had it on my radar since then.   After having breakfast in Long Beach with a girlfriend whom I hadn't seen in waay too long, (Oatmeal and a Side of Turkey Bacon, yum) I had an hour to kill and some shopping to do.

It was all that I had hoped for and did not dissapoint from my original expectations.   It is kind of like a Food 4 Less but a lot bigger and a lot nicer.  Being that this store was fairly new, it was very clean, I am not sure how they all are.

You are guided through a tunnel of boxed food at the entrance (One way in and one way out) and when you round that corner you are greated with this beatiful sight.  A huge room of produce, who could ask for more.

 As I approached the bulk section I started to get very excited, I think they call it like a kid in a candy store.  I had to text a couple of my girlfriends and shared this spice photo with a friend who loves to cook.  Talk about spice options.  The nice thing about this is that you can buy as little or as much as you need, oh and it is cheaper than buying spice in the bottle.   (They had cute little empty bottles down at the bottom in case you did not have any .)

 There was 4 full rows, front and back, of these bins.  Barrels on the bottom and push containers on the top.    I am practically dancing at this point, but trying to appear to be a composed shopper doing my thing.   Out came the camera for a second.

This one is a little blury because there were fellow shoppers around and I took the photo too fast.  Patience is not my best virtue...  These are beans, beans and more beans.  I got dried lima and a 13 bean soup mixture.

I just thought this was a funny section.  It varied from red hot candies, to tapioca pearls to instant nonfat milk to instant yeast.  Wow.

 Thought this was interesting and odd at the same time.   I didn't get any but I grabbed the recipe.  It was dried hummus mixture.  I have made homemade hummus a few times with chickpeas but I wonder what this is all about.


They had these cute little recipe cards that you could take.  Inspiration as they see it.

 Snackers heaven.

 Let's not forget our furry friends, this section was all dog treats, dog food, bird seed, etc.
The table in the middle distance was the make your own nut butter counter.

Need some coffee?

 

I had to try out the deli, which had an array of items.  Here we have pea salad, which reminds me of my mom always.  The price was right too for deli items.

 The fried chicken seemed to be a popular item but I did not partake.

 Nice little fish section.  Crawfish reminded me of Lake Arrowhead for sure.  We used to catch them under the bridge with a bucket and raw bacon then boil them up. Good times.

 I was standing there staring at these, contemplating buying them for a split second so I thought I should take a picture so it would last longer.

 Here we had a row of butter, margarine, crescent rolls and the likes.

 A whole aisle of frozen veggies.   A girl could stock her freezer full.  I'll have to look but the prices didn't seem super low on these to me.

 I don't remember why I took this photo but since it's here I will explain.  Looks like the row of frozen potatoes, french fries, sweet potatoe fries, etc.

 There was a whole aisle practically of frozen breakfast items.  I wondered if I would find anything healthy and priced right and then at the very end I found the Van's frozen waffles section.  They were priced about half or less then what they are at other stores.  Called for 2 boxes the freezer.   Topped with peanut butter, these make a balanced breakfast or what I like to call second breakfast (10am).

Last but certianly not least we have the wine section, the only thing I took from this aisle was a picture, I am such a good girl.

Here is what I came out with from the bulk section.  I was trying to behave myself and not over purchase just because it was so new.   Clockwise from the top left: Steel Cut Oats because that is a staple part of my meal plan and because this was the topic of discussion when I was given the tip about WinCo from a gal pal.  13 bean dried beans because I wanted a challenge and will now have to find a recipe.   Frosted flakes, well because a girl doesn't have to have a reason to buy a sample size of frosted flakes, now does she.  Lima beans because they just sounded good the other night and they remind me of my childhood.  Dried Peppers because I had a recipe in my purse (See I wasn't totally aimlessly shopping) for Quinoa Chile which had red peppers in the ingredients.  And dried hominy, because posole stew has been made a time or two in our household.  I wonder if I could make cornnuts out of them instead.  Hmm, wondering.. 

For a second you may think I have squash here in a bag, but no these are dog treats.   The left are the green dental chews that are normally very pricey, the right are heart and chicken boned shaped chews.   She will get one when she gets home from her nail trim, and ear wash today. 

 Here is my fruit and vegetable purchase.   Brussels because well the girl loves brussels, lima beans because the same reason as dried above (I think I'll be making some for my afternoon snack today), nectarines because they are devine to snack on, green apples because the hubby loves green apples, lemons and limes because they can be used on so many things in so many ways.

My out of ordinary splurge was the above.  Precooked Gyro Slices, I had never seen them before and had to try them. 

Not sure how well these maps do it justice but just the fact that they have a map is alluring enough.  Oh look, the entrance tunnel that I described earlier is actually called the "Wall of Values"

Have a great rest of your afternoon, it's a beatiful day. Time for me to get outside.   ~