Hiking

    I have been trying to find more things to do, besides gym and hanging out at my house, so I have spent a long time looking things up and finding places to do it in Kunming. I am going to TRY doing at least one thing outside a week. I found this nice mountain called 长虫山 which literally translates to Long Bug Mountain. It turned out that you can actually see the mountain from outside of my house! (I somehow never noticed it). Everything worked out really well with my first attempt at getting out of the house. I went with Jesse and Aleashea, she is Jesse's sister and my best friend, we didn't get lost, had a lot of fun, and the mountain turned out to be quite nice!

 Me and Jesse :)

                                                                              Aleashea

A tomb for ancestor worship

Hehe if only the people who left it new what that said xD For those who can't see it clearly, the paper that they are putting next to the tombs says "hell bank note"...that's not very optimistic...

Beautiful view! There was also a little stone table and 4 stools in the ground to sit on so I will be going back again for a picnic!

         Trail mix i brought :). I had dried dates, pumpkin seeds, almonds, sunflower seeds and      raisins (peanuts are good but I didn't feel like adding them)

                    A stray cat. I thought it was really pretty, but didn't have any food left to feed it.

Need to edit!

Wow lol I really need to learn to proof read better! Some of my posts are quite full of mistakes! I will get to it eventually ;).
Today I had a great time hiking (which I will post pics of tomorrow) and was quite satisfied by the quality of the horror movie The Descent that I watched with Jesse, my boyfriend.  I LOVE scary movies and am trying to watch 100. I think The Descent will be number 71 =D.  Tomorrow I also plan to make a rice noodle soup and possibly some sort of dessert. Just to give a little explanation; I am trying to make some sort of dessert every Saturday and a breakfast on Sundays.

Hot Chocolate

I noticed today that my coconut milk was espessially thick and creamy after being chilled in the fridge. I then decided, you know what? I really want to put a dollap of that on a bowl of fresh strawberries....BUT sadly I do not have any delicious, fresh strawberries; but I still really want to put a dollap of it on SOMEthing it just looked too perfect. So I decided to make some vegan hot chocolate =).




To make vegan hot chocolate you need these ingredients.


Sugar-I think powdered works the best
100% Cocoa powder
Soy milk powder or ,if you are not a vegan, regular milk powder

I am  not going to give an exact recipe measurement because different soymilk powders have a different percentage of soy milk and fillers and different people like their hot chocolate to taste differently. I make mine by taking a container or tupperwear to mix the ingredients first. I add the most soymilk powder, then a little less cocoa and then less sugar. After I mix it into the container really well, I put a tiny bit into a cup, add water, and see what needs to be increased. After I get it the way  I want it, I then have a nice large amount made up into the tupperware to make hot chocolate out of again later.
After I have prepared my cup I dollap just a few small scoops of the coconut milk into it and enjoy :). The coconut milk does a decent job of immitating the effects of melted marshmellows by adding some smooth creaminess to your hot chocolate.

Obviously hot chocolate is not something you want to indulge in too much but enjoying a nice steaming cup of home made hot chocolate isn't without benefits.

1. The pure cocoa powder has a lot of benefits for the body including iron and antioxidants.
2. The soy powder contains protein and other nutrients
3. The coconut milk, while high in fat, only needs to have a small amount added for a nice effect and does contain a lot of healthy fats.
4. I don't know if this is true for everyone, but a hot cup of chocolate milk really fills me up for a little while and it makes me feel warm and cozy on a cold day :).

My motto is this: Eat as healthy as you can normally so when you get a craving for something (like the chocolate cravings I have been having!) there will be nothing wrong with indulging. Also as you become healthier you realize you don't need to eat as much to get the enjoyment.
Savor it. Don't choke it down.

Some Pictures

I decided to go out and have my sister take some pictures of me. I thought these two turned out pretty nice :)

Vegetable Stew

Yesterday for Dinner I made a Vegetable Stew. I have always loved this dish and it is great for social cooking (cooking with a friend or family member) as it is does not take a lot of rushing around and mostly involves cutting up the vegetables.

Vegetable Stew

Ingredients

-1/4 cup of olive oil  -1 medium onion, diced -3 carrots, cubed  -1 ½ bulbs of garlic, grated  -1 cup of water  -5 tomatoes, diced  -2 red bell peppers, diced -2 cups of green beans  -2 zucchini, sliced into half circles  -2 potatoes, cubed  -1/2 cup of mushrooms, sliced (Pretty much any kind of mushrooms will work for this stew so just experiment with your favorites :) )  -1/4 cup of red wine  -1 ½ tsp salt  -1 tsp pepper  

Instruction
-Heat ¼ cup olive oil in large pot and add 1 ½ bulb of garlic, 1 onion, 3 carrots, and 1 cup of mushrooms, cook for 5 minutes.

-Add 1 cup water and bring to a boil, add 5 tomatoes, 2 red bell peppers and ¼ cup of red wine. Cook for 30 minutes

-Cook 2 cups of green beans, strain then add to a bowl; cook 2 zucchini, strain and add to bowl with green beans; cook 2 potatoes in salted water, strain and add the green beans, zucchini and potatoes to the pot.

Cut the zucchini into round slices and cut those in half

The green beans are best when at about this size.

-Add 1 ½ tsp salt and 1 tsp pepper and cook for 15 minutes.

Makes app. 12 cups  

1 cup is app. 105 calories

Tons of flavor and nutrients and low in calories. I love eating mine with crumbled up crackers!

Soy

Recently, on facebook, I had some one telling me how she has researched that unfermented soy is VERY bad for health. I have researched soy before, and finally decided just to go ahead and keep drinking soy milk and eating soy beans. Everyone has to decide for themselves what they will and won't eat and different people get effected differently by things; but here are my reasons for sticking with it.

1. It does not make up 70-80% of my diet as it seems to in all the studies and people who have had bad effects. I drink soy milk with my cereal, I eat soy beans on occasion with a meal, I use it to cook when i need to (which isn't that often) and eventually I will get soy protein powder. That still isn't even 40% of my diet. Of course you will have problems if you consume something as 70+% of your diet!! DUH. I don't think there is a single food you can do that with and not get some sort of health problem. Soy has just become something that people use as their substitution for milk, meat, yogurt, cream, cheese and a bunch of other things.

2. Everyone who says they have had negative effects can't even give proof that it was related. Tends to be "I got a thyroid problem and after researching I found out that because I drink a lot of soymilk that is what caused it." Hmmmmm.....

3. I am going to throw in the "asians don't have problems" line. EVERY site I go on this like "Oh well Asians only eat the fermented soy stuff." Ummm no I have lived here for fifteen years and hot soy milk is a staple breakfast drink, served in schools, restaurants, hotels, home etc. etc. and soy beans are eaten all the time as a dish.  Asians also are generally thinner than Americans, at least before all this American food came here. Also chinese woman have very small breasts and i have heard people say the estrogen in soy can give men breasts but if the woman barely have them and that kind of disproves the whole excessive estrogen thing (No that isn't racist to say chinese woman have small breasts....right?). They also have less cases of any form of cancer and thyroid issues than Americans =/. So I hate to pull out the Asians example but here are thousands of people who consume unfermented soy in healthy moderation and don't get any of the negative side effects that are supposed to happen =/.

4. Soy lowers testosterone. Ok so for this one the asian thing doesn't work so well since most Asian guys living in Asia are so unmanly it is sad but as biast as this may sound i think it is the culture because when you look at singapore the people their consume WAY more soy than China and the guys are more masculine there.. Thai people consume the least soy and they are some of the most feminine men I have ever seen (and not just the ones that are actually girls now...)


So yes this may seem a bit biased but if i actually thought soy was bad I could easily make almond or oat milk so there is no reason to be try convincing myself it is fine if it isn't. A lot of people may not agree and in the future if I find some real reasons to think it is bad I might change my mind; but for now this is just what i think.. 

It is always good to research things but always use your own good judgement too. Studies are ALWAYS contradicting and everyone has different opinions. For all I know I could be wrong! o.O

TTYL

My Dog Loves Veggies Too!

Here are some videos of my dog Meimei (that means little sister in Chinese)

Here Meimei is trying to eat a piece of broccoli through a glass door.

Here Meimei is trying to chew a cooked pea but is having problems because she has a gum problem and most of her teeth have fallen out or had to be pulled.

Dogs have to be the most fun beings in the entire world!