Category: Healthy Living

Yesterday, I purchased a Cuisinart Convection Toaster Oven Airfryer Digital in silver from Amazon. It was supposed to arrive between 10:00 – 3:00; it arrived at our house around 3:00 pm.

So why did I get an air fryer? It has been on my research list for quite a while. I was turned off by the bullet/egg-shaped air fryers that I had seen. I can’t tell you why I despise them. I do. However, when I saw the Cuisinart air fryer used on the YouTube user’s channel, I occasionally watched (Plantiful Kiki). I will admit that I was open to MAYBE getting one eventually. Yes, I know I can get the same crispness in the oven. However

1. I don’t always want to use the oven.
2. This uses a lot less wattage while cooking.
3. From what I’ve read, it does not take as long to use.
4. You don’t have to preheat.

My Cuisinart was packaged well. It didn’t take me long to set up the fryer and prepare my first meal. General Tso’s chicken. The chicken, which I’d cubed, and marinated, was crispy. It’s a shame that I did not take pictures or think to get my daughter to do that for me; however, there will be other times.

This morning, I cut up five russet potatoes to make my famous oven-baked crispy fries. After cutting the potatoes into fries, I let them soak in cold water for an hour. Why? The cold water draws a lot of the starch from the potatoes and results in a crispier fry. Another trick is to add a few tablespoons of vinegar to the water.

Once they’ve soaked, I place them on a paper towel, blot the excess moisture, and then add my seasonings.

I then placed them into the oven. Results? The fries were crispy; however, I still need to get accustomed to using the oven before I find that perfect crispness for the oven-baked, not fried foods that I make. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures of the prepared fries. I’ll get better. I thought the fries I made could have been crispier; my daughter loved the seasoned fries. Guess what? I’ve “fried” three items thus far.  I already mentioned the “fried chicken” and the homemade fries.

This evening, after work, I cut cornmeal tortillas into triangle squares, added a bit of garlic powder and a tiny amount of salt to them, and made pita chips. Those were also a hit with my daughter, and they were the perfect companion to the lentil soup that I prepared this evening. It’s still too early to tell how I feel about the fryer; however, I enjoy gadgets, and I love preparing homecooked meals, and my daughter loves eating them.

 

In other news

Today’s work remotely was overwhelming; being inundated with all the policies, procedures, and numerous steps I had to do, I felt lost. If I was the type that cried, today might have been one of the days I did that; however, I pushed through knowing that it would become easier. Also, I reached out to my mentor towards the end of our time together and asked if they would virtually watch me while I did the procedure. That worked out well since I was able to ask questions while doing the procedure. I have no one to blame but myself. I should have done that much earlier. While I did reach out, I did not request that they stay while I walked through an activity. Lesson learned.

Earlier today, I finally had the opportunity to unbox my Ooni Pro and bake a pizza!

I received it last Saturday; however, since it was raining outside, I did not want my first time with my pizza oven done in the rain, and although I was disappointed, I decided to hold off baking in my Ooni Pro until this weekend. I was praying that we’d have appropriate outdoor pizza oven baking weather, and we did!

I must say that the pizza oven was well packed. There was an exterior box that had the company logo, and upon opening that,

it was in another box with a lovely photo of the oven on one side and delicious pictures of pizza (on the other side) gracing the box.

 

 

The pizza dough was made last Sunday when I made a pizza in the conventional oven. The leftover dough was rolled into a pizza dough ball, wrapped, and had been resting in the refrigerator since that time. This morning, I pulled out the dough to be at room temperature by the time I made the pizza. Although it’s a multi-fuel oven, I’ll mainly use wood in my 16″ Ooni Pro. We have a wood-burning stove used when the weather is cool, so there was plenty of wood on hand.

It took about thirty minutes to heat the oven to the appropriate temperature. Although they recommend using a digital thermometer to check the temperature within the oven, I just looked at the thermometer on the exterior door of the Ooni Pro. I placed my hastily prepared pizza within the oven.

How long did it take for the pizza to cook? About 90 seconds. After about 30 seconds, I used my pizza peel to slightly pull it out of the oven, turn a few degrees clockwise, and place it back into the oven. I did this two more times (perhaps 15 seconds apart) and finished it.

I did have to chuckle at the pizza shape. It looks like a bicycle seat. But how did it taste? Amazing. My daughter loved it, and so did I.

I made this pizza fast. I tossed the ingredients on in the pizza in about three minutes. The ingredients were simple but flavorful. I’ve made fantastic pizza in our conventional oven; however, I must say that this is the best pizza I’ve made thus far, and that has everything to do with how quickly the oven cooks the pizza. Perhaps it being wood-fired has something to do with it also?

I do plan on using my outdoor wood-fired oven tomorrow if it doesn’t rain.

Short video of my Ooni Pro. In the video Regina, the cat makes a cameo.

I made a homemade pizza today. My daughter said it was excellent; however, I didn’t use my Ooni pizza outdoor oven. As mentioned, yesterday I finally received my Ooni Pro. It rained yesterday, and we received rain throughout the day today. Since I did not want my first experience with my outdoor pizza oven to be spent getting rained upon while I tested out the oven, I decided to postpone using the outdoor pizza oven a bit longer.  I’m hoping next weekend the weather will be much better.

I just used our regular oven to make the pizza. I used my baking steel for the crisp crust that my daughter and I love.

And since the pizza peel that I’d specifically ordered arrived this morning, I used that when sliding the pizza into the oven. You might see part of the handle in the above picture. I must say that the pizza dough wasn’t as flavorful since I made and used the dough the same day. I typically wait a few days before making the pizza since the dough is much more flavorful.

 

Yesterday I made my daughter homemade chocolate chip cookies.

I made enough to make four dozen. However, I only baked one dozen last evening.

The rest of the cookie dough will be baked at a later time. Chilling the cookie dough allows it to become more hydrated, and the flavor is enhanced. As the flour breaks down into sugar, the dough becomes sweeter. As with the pizza dough, I used my Ankarsrum 6230 stand mixer. I love that mixer. I’ve had it for a little over a year, and it’s worth the amount of money ($699) that I paid. It blasts through anything I place into it without any issues. It should outlast me. Thus far, the most I’ve mixed in this mixer was about 12 cups of bread dough.

Tomorrow, after work, I’m hoping to make sushi. I’ll make a vegan and meat version. Last evening I purchased a Sushi Bazooka maker from Amazon. It arrived this morning. The device should make rolling the sushi even easier than using the bamboo mat.

 

The above video is what made me decide to make the purchase.

Monday, I received the Zojirushi NP-HCC10XH Induction Heating System Rice Cooker. I’d been eyeing them for years; however, I did not purchase them since it seemed a bit”silly” to me to spend money on a rice cooker. Fast forward to now. My life is busier than usual, and I wanted a device to place my grains in and walk away.

Enter the rice cooker. Since I’m a loyal fan of Zojirushi’s products, I knew I’d buy that brand. Zojirushi is a Japanese company that makes top-of-the-line cooking equipment. I have several of their items, and I love them all. We mainly eat brown rice, and so I chose to cook that as my first selection. It wasn’t any old brown rice. I purchased this rice from Hmart, the Korean grocery store that I’ve been frequenting. At that store, they have an entire aisle dedicated to rice. Short, medium, or long-grain? Why yes, they do have that! Multigrain, brown, sweet, black, basmati, mixed. Yes, yes, yes, they have all those too! The challenge for me was deciding which rice to buy?

Although I make great rice in my pressure cooker, and on the rare occasion preparing it in a pot on top of the stove. The rice produced in the Zojirushi rice cooker is miles ahead of any rice that I’ve ever made.

Below, I’ve included two videos about the Zojirushi rice cooker, both were extremely informative videos about this brand.

Video from the Singing Cooking Man

 

Video from Appliance Buyer’s Guide.

 

This morning, my daughter and I returned to HMart, the Korean grocery store. We arrived at 9:45 and stayed about an hour. There’s so much to see in this store, and we had plenty of purchases to make.

They have large bags of sprouts! I don’t see that in the traditional markets, and so I bought one bag. I do make sprouts at home also. However, it’s been a while since I’ve done that. Purchasing the little containers at the regular grocery stores makes me think how much cheaper it is to make them at home; however, I’m not thinking about that at all with this oversized bag.

They also had large tubs of tofu—another first for myself. We have a few tubs of the small tofu at home, so there was no need to purchase any of that today. However, when it’s needed, we’ll buy it from HMart.

Since my daughter wanted squid, we went to the back, where they have their fresh and frozen seafood. They had live sea cucumbers and octopus here. I didn’t notice either last time, although my daughter noticed the octopus. I didn’t see them; I was experiencing sensory overload. The live octopi are kept in large aquariums. I must say I felt sorry for them, too bad I don’t have a large body of saltwater on our land. I’d have been tempted to purchase a few and set them free. We bought fresh squid at $8.99 apiece. I purchased two. The fresh octopus shown in the above picture alongside the sea cucumbers was (If I remember correctly) $5.99 each.

Once we were finished with the seafood, I stocked up on condiments; hot chili paste, bean paste, sour coconut paste, shrimp paste, linseed oil, fish sauce, more buckwheat noodles, and Chinese noodles. My daughter also selected milk tea and her much-loved bubble tea.

They had noodle baskets at HMart, and I bought one of those. I had it on my wish list at Amazon; however, this basket was much cheaper at the store. Since I purchased many basic Asian supplies, I spent a lot more than I usually would. In total, I spent a little over $156. Last week, I spent a little over $70 at the same store. My weekly grocery bill averages $55. I have no regrets about either purchase, and I’m looking forward to returning to the market within a few weeks. Of course, next time, my purchases won’t be as high. I’ll just be returning for their vast selection of vegetables and whatever seafood my lovely daughter wants to try. Their prices are low, and the quality of their vegetables and fruit are amazing so that I won’t be spending much money.

 

After we put everything away, we prepared this dish! I used one of the fresh squids for my daughter’s portion, and there were plenty of vegetables sauteed and added to the dish to make me happy. We even had baby bok choy as a side dish. My daughter loved the flavors and is looking forward to making more Asian dishes.

Tomorrow, we’ll be choosing something from China: The Cookbook to prepare together. I found it at Barnes & Noble much cheaper than it was on Amazon. I’d wanted to get it at our local Barnes & Noble. However, it’s not available. We’ll be taking a road trip to another town, about 50 minutes away, to pick up another copy. On our way back, we’ll look at the cherry blossom trees.

Yesterday, when my daughter and I were out, we saw a few cherry trees in bloom in our area, and we decided to make a memorable trip to see more of them today. After researching for places other than Washington, DC, I found a few locations about 30+ minutes away from where we live.  And so this morning, my daughter and I took a 40-minute ride to look at Cherry Blossoms in Ellicott City, MD. As we got closer, I told her we weren’t that far from DC, where they have a vast display of the blossoms. The blossoms located there are a huge attraction, and people worldwide have stopped by to visit the neighborhoods lined with cherry trees. The interest to see them was triggered when we were doing a few errands yesterday. However, when we reached our destination this morning, we noticed that most trees weren’t blooming yet. We weren’t disappointed; we enjoyed the car ride. We’ll try again next weekend, and this time we’ll visit Washington, DC.

Since we were in Ellicott City, I told her we could stop by H Mart. It’s a Korean grocery store. I’ve seen it from the highway for several years and have always “meant” top stop by. I just never got around to it until today. I’d told her we’d do the grocery shopping at this store to pick up the minimal ingredients needed to make Noodle Salad With Pork & Asian Lime Vinaigrette. Although I walked in with a shortlist, I left with three grocery bags full of items. Most of the items purchased were fresh vegetables, including a few Asian vegetables that I’ve only seen mentioned on Asian websites/blogs like Still Crazy After All These Years.

I was overwhelmed (in a good way) by the aisle dedicated to dried mushrooms and another designated for numerous varieties of seaweed. We love seaweed!

They have a seafood market in the back of the stores; several stalls of fresh and frozen seafood are available. Oh my! Wow, wow, wow… I must say that the vegetables at this market are much cheaper than at my local farm, and I will make a trip at least once monthly to purchase food items from there.

When we arrived home, my daughter helped put the groceries away. This is only a small amount of the groceries purchased.

While we were at HMart, she chose a variety of Asian snacks to try out. Some of them, she’d already had before. My daughter’s fascinated with East Asian culture and has learned a lot about some of them over the past few years. She’d been exposed to Japanese culture the most and started learning the language independently a few years ago. That’s a language that I’d also like to know.

Today’s lunch was the Noodle Salad With Pork & Asian Lime Vinaigrette dish that I mentioned yesterday. Instead of Chinese egg noodles, I used buckwheat noodles that I purchased from the Korean market. I added clams instead of pork.  My daughter saw the clams at HMart and wanted to try them. Initially, I was going to replace the pork with oyster mushrooms.

Even with the substitutions, this was a lovely salad. My daughter enjoyed it immensely, and I made enough for leftovers.

I added some of the salad that I made yesterday to my noodle bowl and was happy.

Although we didn’t get to see many of those lovely cherry blossoms today, my daughter and I still enjoyed our road trip, and we found an excellent Asian supermarket that we will frequent often.

 

 

 

For the past several days, when I’ve been at work, I’ve been eating salads. My salads are not elaborate, and that does not bother me one bit. They taste great, and I enjoy consuming them.

Take, for example, this simple green salad that I made earlier this evening. It has spinach, green onion, tomato, and bell peppers. I made the dressing with avocado, freshly squeezed lime, garlic powder, onion powder, ginger, nutritional yeast, hot chili flakes, a tiny amount of maple syrup, and a few more herbs and spices. The chili flakes gave it a bit of heat, and there’s a mild sweetness thanks to the maple syrup, and the nutritional yeast adds a cheesy flavor without the dairy.

However, earlier today, I decided that it might be good to purchase a book on salads.

After a bit of research, I settled upon buying the book Salads of the Day: 365 Recipes for Every Day of the Year by Georgeanne Brennan. I ordered it this morning from Amazon, and it arrived a little after 8:30 PM. Flipping through the book, I was impressed by the variety that of salads offered. My definition of a salad is an overabundance of produce and not much else, and this book definitely expands on that definition and includes much more. You won’t receive any complaints from me, and I’m willing to check out some of the “no-traditional” salads.

I handed my daughter the book and told her to choose a salad that she would like us to try, and she selected the recipe listed for January 3, Noodle Salad With Pork & Asian Lime Vinaigrette, located on page 15. For this recipe, we’ll swap out the pork and use oyster mushrooms instead. We’ll be making this tomorrow. We’re both looking forward to trying this dish. I’ll most likely flip through the book a bit more this evening and create one of the more traditional recipes in bulk, so I can take it to work a few days next week.

The main reason for purchasing the book is I’m going to consume nothing but salads for at least 30 days. I don’t see that being an issue since I ate only raw foods for well over a year.