The star curse

I remember being a kid and thinking "there's one thing I'll NEVER eat!" whenever I saw a starfruit. I don't know, they just looked so weird... and the skin looked like some sort of larvae... so a fruit that looks like a star-shaped larvae should not be trusted!

Until one day I tried carambola juice. Just one of those powder, artificially flavored juices, you know? It was so sweet and citric and aromatic... but I still wasn't convinced. It wasn't until I was around 27 years old that I tried my first bite of carambola, more commonly known as starfruit. 

carambola

It was love at first bite.
Ever since, whenever I get the chance I like to buy some and eat - I always eat by myself since my husband seems to have the same kind of prejudice I used to.
The past couple of months I had been consuming a bit more of it and as a connected citizen of the year 2012, I always took pictures of it. Then a friend from facebook sent me a message:

"Dear Elize,
I hate to kill the mood, but I should warn you - eating too much starfruit can be bad for your health. Apparently, the fruit has a toxin that is bad for your kidneys (my dad is a doctor and he corroborated  this fact). I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, I too love it and feel bad for not being able to eat it very often!"

Heartbroken! Obviously, the first thing I did was google it, and sure enough... here's what I found on wikipedia:

Carambola contains oxalic acid, which can be harmful to individuals suffering from kidney failure, kidney stones, or those under kidney dialysis treatment. Consumption by those with kidney failure can produce hiccups, vomiting, nausea, and mental confusion. Fatal outcomes have been documented in some patients.

So it pains me to say, but if you - just like me - are a starfruit lover and have a certain propensity to kidney problems... stay away from carambola. I don't intend to totally cut it off, but cut back for sure. One way I really enjoy eating my carambola is by cutting three to five slices of it and serving with flan - it's tasty and cuts off the excessive sweet of the flan, and goes really well with the caramel topping. Besides, it's a very cute ornament to the dish. Hope you try it and like it!

flan and starfruit :)

Meatless Monday pre-post

Saturday we went to my husband's parents' house again, and he made some Taiwanese green onion pancakes. I posted the picture on my Instagram account, and it was very popular. A lot of friends asked me for the recipe, so I decided to post it here.

I decided to do it as a pre-post for Meatless Monday, so maybe you can do it tomorrow for an appetizer or even breakfast. The first time I had it was back in California, we used to go to this Asian store called 99 Ranch Market and they sold frozen pancakes... my husband loved it and remembered having it back when he was a kid living in Taiwan. They're very plain (thus, easy to make) but also very tasty.

Ingredients:
. 8oz/200gr of white flour
. 5oz/150ml of luke warm water
. 1/2 cup of chopped green onions
. cooking oil
. salt

Preparation:
Put the flour in a bowl and mix the luke warm water. Knead to form a smooth dough, then cover it and let the dough rest for 15 minutes. Take a pinch of the dough, spread flour on it and over the counter and rolling pin. Flatten the dough, put a little bit of oil and salt then add the green onions. Roll the dough and form a twirl, then flatten it again. At this point, be careful not to add too much oil, because it will make it harder for you to flatten it later (the dough may "pop".
Use a frying pan or wok, add some oil and fry it until golden brown on both sides.

I got this video on youtube so you can watch it and follow step by step how to make this delicious green onion pancake :) I do not own the rights to the video.

 

Enjoy! :)

Meatless Monday

I've been wanting to write about this for a while, and today I finally got the time and the timing right. Has anyone ever heard of "Meatless Monday"?
In a nutshell, it's a way of bringing the goods of vegetarianism to everyone. I am not a vegetarian myself, and it's a shame I don't work harder on that and my husband would never be able to pull it off either, but Meatless Monday does make a difference.

A lot of people I know say they could never be vegetarians (my husband included) because they just LOVE meat so much. And I understand that, we're raised in a carnivore world, it's like saying "can you live without chocolate the rest of your life?" - unless you have a personal distaste for it, you can't, and most people just so happens to love it. That's why Meatless Monday is so great - you get to be a vegetarian, only one day a week.

Refraining from eating meat has countless benefits. Health is one to begin with... a lot of heart problems are related to meat consumption, so this definitely helps. Environmentally, it also makes a huge difference. Anyways, I won't number them here because I'm not the most qualified person to do so, instead I will give you the links to read more about it.

Here are some links to it:

Meatless Monday (USA)
Segunda-Feira Sem Carne (Brazil)
Lunes Sin Carne (Spain)
Lundi Sans Viande (France)
Köttfri Måndag (Sweden)

My purpose in writing this is because eventually I want to post some recipes of vegetarian dishes I like to make. I'll do that whenever I post on Mondays.

Happy week everyone! :)

Symptoms of old age

A friend of my parents once told me "Being old is just a matter of point of view. In my opinion, old is someone who is 30 years older than me."

That makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? When we're kids, teenagers even... a person who is 30-something or 40 is OLD. We think they're just so old they should be in a museum. And they're so old-fashioned and narrow-minded, and their taste in music is so yuck, and - hello??? How can they not like the music I listen to, it's just so kewl!

And when you're that young, you also think it's never gonna happen to you - you're never getting old, your body will never ache, your health and eyesight are always gonna be super, you're going to be a very hip and tolerant person, and life will be the same, party every day! Well... that's not at all how it goes.

I remember when I was 25 years old, life was a bliss. And I had a friend - who was 27 at the time - who used to take multi-vitamins  on a daily basis. One day I called her out on that, I thought it was unnecessary and exaggerated of hers to do that. She said she was just being cautious and that, with age, you start feeling the need to take extra care of yourself.
I thought that was just ridiculous that she would treat herself as an old lady. Until I turned 27.

It was around that time that I started getting joint pains, back pain, gaining weight... my body shape changed completely, I went from a size 4 to a size 12 (no kidding), and just didn't have the energy I used to.
I tried going on diets, many diets, the diet pills I took a couple of years earlier did not have the same effect anymore, it was just too hard.  Then I joined the gym.
Exercising is the best thing you can do for your body - really. Much easier said than done, I paid 6 months at my local gym, only went there 4 times. But back in California I used to go 3-4 times a week, I joined the 24h Fitness closest to my house and hired a personal trainer for the first month and it made me feel really good about myself and sure made a difference in my life.

I went down to being a size 8 now, although I weight exactly the same, but I'm not bloated anymore and have more muscle mass and a little less fat in me. Still have a long way to go though.

Yeah... we do get old, whether we like it or not, and it sucks. But I still believe we're never too old to make a change :)

Where's the "i" in "will"?

I guess there are few people in this world who are over 25 years old and have never gone on a diet. Even when we're thin, we insist we should go on a diet to lose those disturbing extra ounces.

For me particularly, going on a diet is just evil. I've never been able to find enough will to pull it through.
I can go a week eating super healthy, salads and fruits... maybe a grilled chicken breast one day... but then there's this ONE day that I go "ohhh I've been so good about the diet, I think I deserve this break" - and then I eat THE WORLD.

And you can work out all you want (although I actually NEVER want to work out, so...), but bottomline, the key to losing weight is to just stop eating.

Girls always tell me "the hardest part of diets for me is to stay off chocolates". Now there's a chocolate diet for all those girls! Seriously!!! There actually *IS* a diet where you're supposed to eat a piece of chocolate every 2 hours, and then BAM, you lose weight. My friend lost about 15kg on that.
Now, my food sin is just snacks and junk food. I don't care for chocolate at all, in fact - in 30 years, I've never been able to eat a whole chocolate bar in one take. I eat one row, 2 at the most, and I'm sick of it, it's just too sweet.

So I guess today's message is: please, nutritionists of the world, invent a junk food diet and I will happily follow it!