Catching up with Chinese food :3

Haro humans!
I'm sorry I have been neglecting my blogging duties! I have been extremely busy helping out at my dad's workplace. However, I have been quite good at taking delicious pictures of food! It all starts with dessert ;)

Red bean dessert. Kind of like a sweet soup. We (my family and I and Lucas) went out to dinner and this restaurant just happened to know that Lucas loves this dessert. They brought out a HUGE bowl for him. I felt like a peasant eating my tiny bowl beside him.  

Then my parents made congee for the weekend. Mmm....congee. If you don't know what congee is, it's basically rice porridge. I like mine with chicken. Sometimes pork is very acceptable. :3

Chicken congee! I made some garlic pita/toast to go with it. It tasted pretty good together. 

I got a rare day off the Thursday, and Lucas came over to make food with/for me. It was a delicious egg with beef, mushrooms, peppers and onions in a pita. Yummmz...

The egg cooking in the cast iron pan (don't you just love how it's a square?) 

The filling of the egg. Beef, mushrooms and red bell peppers! Delicious :3

Finished product! This was my brunch. <3

Then it turned out that on my day off, my parents worked extra late at work and asked me to make dinner. Soooo, Lucas and I ended up making a last minute Chinese meal

Left: Green cabbage stir-fried with coconut oil
Top middle: Steamed pork on a bed of oyster mushrooms
Bottom middle: Steamed egg with a little bit of sesame oil
Right: Purple cabbage stir-fried with coconut oil
All served with a bowl of rice. Doesn't it just look so healthy and yummy? =)

Now, since we've been so busy at my dad's work, we haven't really been cooking at home too much. So we went out to dinner once again! (I was too hungered to take pictures of the food...sowwie) This restaurant gave us fortune cookies! Here's what mine said ;)

Mister fortune was being really nice to me! I can't wait to see what this wonderful thing is =D

Last but not least, tonight! We went out to dinner to celebrate that we finished a large order at work. We decided to try a new place (my little brother was studying and couldn't join us :( but we got him take out!) This place tasted soooooooo good! We had: chicken congee, "fried two" (ja leung) a fried dough wrapped in a thin rice flour wrap, onion pork chop with rice, soft-shell crab fried rice, street style XO sauce rice flour pancakes, and calamari. I didn't get pictures of everything (because we were busy devouring it all), but here's pictures of the ones I managed to catch.

Onion pork chop with rice. They put the rice in a pyramid shape! It's the cutest thing ever! It also tasted heavenly <3

Soft-shell crab fried rice. OMG guys...I'm allergic to many shelled seafoods, so for me to to eat this, and for my dad to order this for me meant a lot to me. I took a risk here. And it was well worth it. Super delicious! 

Stree styled XO sauce rice flour pancake things. These are so delicious! When dipped in the hoisen sauce and peanut sauce it's just super good. A little spicy from the XO sauce, and a little sweet from the hoisen and peanut sauces. A must try! Even better if you have these in  Hong Kong where they are sold on the street like hot dogs are sold in North America. ;)

That's been my life so far. Nothing too extraordinary other than food galore! Oh I got a job! It's an extremely part time job where I am on contract for a certain time whenever they need me (if I'm available). So I'm really lucky and happy!

An update on my trip to Asia! Everything is pretty much planned, plus minus a few details. I have made a packing list and bought my medicines and certain essentials. I really want to start packing, but I know that's just really ridiculous. It's just because I'm super excited and nervous to go on this trip! Three weeks from now I will be on a plane to travel across the world!

I shall update you guys later! Until next time food junkies!
-Chrissymon

I have been a derp >.>;

Hello internet addicts!

Since my last post, I have been pretty busy with family and stuff. Our house guests left to go back to their home, and we had to get things back in order. One thing that happened while the guests were over was that my dad and I both got addicted to this Chinese snack that we used to eat when I was vewy little. I stopped having it because it didn't stick to our "as little processed food as possible" diet. But now that we're addicted...there is a pack here and there throughout the house. What are these snacks? Want Want Rice Crackers. Not just any one. The "Snow" ones. Omg...they are so delicious...Here's a picture :3

Since we are both addicted, we bought the "family pack". These things are amazingly good. 

I normally like eating them right out of the packet. I don't like dirtying my hands >_>;
P.S. sorry for the blurry/low quality photo. I started eating the cracker before I was fast enough to grab my camera, so I made do with my phone...

On to another reason why I was too "busy" to make blog posts about anything. (mostly, I have just been lazy and boring, but it's also due to the fact that I had nothing too interesting to write about) My parents found a good vacation deal to go on a tour of Asia. So naturally, they told me to go (I say naturally only because my dad isn't well enough to go travelling. Else he would've left me and my brother home alone for two months...) So for the past little while I have been planning this vacation with my Bff(s) and it's going to happen! I will officially be going on the first FAR away vacation UNsupervised. Be proud of me and scared for me. XD While I was planning, my boyfriend brought over his large suit case for me. He also thought it would be a good idea to see if I would fit in it........I ended up making this short video for giggles. (I seriously laughed for a long time before, and after filming this) I hope you laugh/giggle as much as I did :3

Now onto a food discovery! We all know the health benefits of Kimchi, and if you don't, please google it! I cannot spend a whole blog post talking about the benefits of it (cuz I rather not copy and past wiki). We also know how delicious roast beef is (for those of you who can't have beef, I'm sorry. Perhaps you could try with chicken? C:) So the discovery is putting the two together, in a tortilla and rolling it up like a burrito/fajita. It tastes amazing for lunch! Another discovery was spreading some peanut butter onto a slice of tortilla, then some nutella on top of it, and spreading banana slices in the middle then rolling it up. That is a beautiful and quick breakfast idea (not super healthy, but it'll do ^-^). Here are pictures I remembered to take of them:

Not the prettiest of pictures, but it sure was delicious! I feel that it could use some lettuce/green onion too. 

This was delicious! I served it with a side of golden delicious apple. You can't really see the peanut butter here, but I assure you it is resting comfortably under the nutella. 

Let me know if you plan on trying these two creations out! (If you have instagram and would like to show me, please feel free to tag me @rikateddy )

Other than that, I have nothing more to update! When I DO leave for my vacation, and if you DO want to keep updated, try to subscribe to my YouTube page. I will be trying to upload vlogs to that. And if I don't end up uploading while I'm there, (highly likely that I wont end up having good wifi i most places) then please please please be patient with me. I WILL be gone for about a month, and will be returning on the evening of Lunar New Year. So I really will not be updating right away (and I will have to edit the vlogs...soooo...yah).

Okie dokie, I wont waste any more of your time.

Until next time~
-Chrissymon

Halloween and My Birthday :3

Hello my humans of the interwebs!

Prepare yourself for a long post! :3 (Consider this a warning)

So this Halloween (Thursday, October 31), I invited some buddies over to just hang out. I didn't want to hand out candy anymore...because many high school kids don't even dress up and it irks me. Back in my day, we had to make an effort to get candy! One time, this house made me sing/dance/tell a joke to get candy, I was already in a costume too! (I was like...14? Don't judge! I'm Asian. I look young enough to pull off 18 even now so yeah ^-^;;) Soo...my iPhone broke halfway through the evening. That meant that all my photos and information was gone. I went to get the phone fixed the very next day, and I have recovered my precious data!!! (you have no idea how ecstatic I am about having my phone back) Here it is! :3

Our delicious snackies and drinks :3

Decided to party like adults for a day.
We are all of legal drinking age around the world and drank responsibly.  (I promise)

Chocolate covered almonds, popcorn, Reese minis, dark chocolate M&Ms, Tostitos and Terra chips. Delicious!

I was dressed as little miss Beetlejuice. ;) I'm little miss Beetlejuice and not lady Beetlejuice cuz I didn't have time to go grab a wig and all that makeup business...yeah I had a bad day and I was lazy. 

Sourpuss and perrier cocktail (we added fruit juice in it later on too!)
Got these cute martini glasses from my mom. 

We partied like nerds we played Puerto Rico (blurry picture...perhaps I had one too many drinks?)

Apparently I did drink too much...cuz I knocked over the M&Ms and almost ate a colonist (the brown dot that isn't an M&M) while I was trying to tidy up my board. Aaaand the picture is blurry again! sigh.... 

Also on the very next day (Friday, November 1), Lucas' best friend brought us to Nando's after we went to the phone repair shop. Now, for some of you, this might not be something amazing, but I've never been. The boys were just raving on, and on about the ice cream dessert, and I just couldn't wait to try it. This is what happened:

We were order number 2! I don't know why, but this pepper thing was really interesting at the time...

I had the Peri-Peri chicken (1/4 chicken) and fries (I wanted vegetables, but I guess the lady didn't hear me)
It was pretty delicious! I'm glad I went with Medium spiciness because it was just right. :)
In case you were wondering, the boys got either Hot or Extra-Hot (deadly X_X)

The infamous ice cream! It is soooo cold, but so delicious! I highly recommend this!

There is mango ice cream on the inside, vanilla on the outside, then it is rolled in a layer of fine coconut flakes. (It looks like an egg!)  It is then topped off with a generous drizzle of chocolate sauce. Mmmmmm.....
I normally dislike the taste of coconut, but this beauty is delicious.

Saturday! I made a little hangout plan with my bffs of all time (the ones in the tea picture I posted last time ;3). We just decided to grab brunch at my favourite brunch place everrrr (Cora's) and then we just hung out and watched movies (I earned myself a movie migraine from this...=_= but it was worth it!). Giggled and gossiped like girls (not really......>.>;;;) Then for dinner, we just made some gourmet looking instant noodles ;) Here's what this eventful day looked like:

I started off my day with some Peppermint Mocha from Starbucks! (My order is generally really fussy...heh...)
I was really sad to see that the fall drinks were gone. Cuz apparently...fall ends after Halloween =( I really wanted PSL

I ordered the Theo Skillet at Cora's. Doesn't it look delicious? (I managed to grab a picture after 3 bites of food)
A baked skillet of a bunch of veggies and potato with cheese.
Topped with an egg cooked to your liking (I like over easy), served with a side of fruit. 

I also got a delicious Strawberry banana smoothie!
It comes with a slice of fruit! (It was garnished with a slice of pineapple, but I gave that to one of my friends to eat...) 

Aside from their food tasting great, I love that Cora's presentation for their food is exceptional. Look at that beauty!
I love that the food always looks exactly like the photo taken for the menu. <3

One of my bffs went to visit Seattle, and I asked her to bring me something from the original Starbucks. My wish was granted! I am so happy! (If you want, you can find her blog here, http://jygsawpuzzle.blogspot.ca/  She posts awesome stuff on her adventures around the world (kinda but not really). She takes really good pictures ;3)

She bought some more mugs for her apartment, and we used those to drink water and stuff today.

This is our gourmet instant noodle dinner. Doesn't it just look amazing?
We have dip and veggies in the center in case we got the munchies in the middle or after dinner. :3

It's gourmet because we put a lobster tail there (I took reactin before eating ;3), a poached egg, kale, spinach, garnished with some red pepper and sesame seeds. *drools*

Finally, we have reached Sunday, the day of my birthday. Yes, I was born on November 3. Growing up, nothing exciting ever happened on my birthday, and it always made me a little sad. But now that I'm older, I really don't care too much anymore. As long as I had good company and a nice birthday cake, I'm all good.

I started my morning with a surprise visit from my little brother (whose room is down the hall). He wished me happy birthday and ordered me around his room to give me my birthday present. This meant a lot to me, since it reminded me of the good old days when we would just fool around and bother each other. Then we went for some dim sum with my family and Lucas and his dad. If you are Chinese, or know other Chinese people, you will know that you can never get between them and their dim sum. So needless to say, I didn't get time to take pictures before the food was devoured or being devoured. I'm sorry.

The real celebration was with the dinner. My loving daddy cooked the whole meal for me (step mum made the veggies) Now, I just realized as I am typing this sentence that I did not take pictures of my birthday dinner. I feel really bad right now...I'm really really sorry! I was really just happy to spend this time with my family and I honestly forgot to take pictures. I can only explain what I had:
          - Steamed Chicken
          - Steamed Pork Ribs
          - Mustard leaves (boiled)
          - Boiled baby Bok Choy
          - Wok fried Cabbage in coconut oil
          - Mapo Tofu
          - All served with a healthy serving of steamed rice
What I CAN show you is my birthday cake (Strawberry Custard Cake), and my lovely baby orchid plant that my parents bought me. A few months ago, I might have mentioned that I wanted one. They surprised me with it by remembering, and it is really beautiful.

Strawberry Custard Cake (bought from Longos)
It is decorated with glazed strawberries and marbled chocolates. The edge is covered in toasted sliced almonds.
The little thing with my name on it was a block of pure sugar. Yummy, but deadly.

Baby Orchid plant! It may not look small in this angle, but I assure you the pot is the size of my iPhone. Or smaller!

This was a very busy few days for me, and it was very enjoyable. I warned you at the beginning that this would be a long post. I'm grateful that you have made it this far! You have my thanks and respect c: (Also, if you wish you comment, say..."chinchillas are cool" in your comment to show me you have a greater attention span than a goldfish...and me...combined. >_>;)

I didn't show my "birthday treasures" because I don't believe in flaunting the materials you have/get (other than the super awesome plant that I really thought was cute and just had to show the world!). In my opinion, my birthday is a day to celebrate that I am alive for another year. I am thankful that I have been allowed to walk this Earth and meet the people that I have met, and had the chance to know and love. So I thank you all for reading my blog post(s), and I hope you will follow me on my journey of recording events of my life so I don't forget them later on.

Much love, good luck, and I wish you all happiness

-Chrissymon

What I have been up to.......nothing much.

Hello wonderful humans!
I know, I know. It's been a while. Honestly, my life hasn't been too interesting since the last post, and I didn't really do anything special. Before I go onto the wonderful awesome-ness of Halloween, I shall do a quick recap of the semi-interesting/new things that happened. (Mostly just food ;3)

Outfit of a day (went to help my dad work)
Crop top: Garage
Tank top: Forever 21
Jeans: American Eagle
Belt: Forever 21
Boots: Payless Shoes

Healthy snack to accompany a not-so-healthy lunch. (Instant noodles =3)

Finally pulled my carrots out from the ground. They're so weird =_= But they taste so pure =3

Traditional homemade BeiJing wraps. They are sooooo good ^-^

This is what one of my wraps looked like before I wrapped it. 

This is a steamed bun. Also homemade! Doesn't it look beautiful, sitting in its little bed of chilli oil? 

This is how the steamed buns looked like before we steam them. 

This is how they look like still in the steamer (so pretty)

This is how they look like after we take them out and prepare to eat them ALL!!! 

Stay tuned for a very exciting update about Halloween and my birthday! Coming soon! ;)

-Chrissymon

Home Alone...Kinda

Haro wonderful humans of the interwebs~
Sooooo, it is a long weekend here in the wonderful land of Canada (Thanksgiving). My parents decided to bring my step grandparents to travel around (Montreal, Ottawa and Québec), leaving myself and my younger brother home...alone. My boyfriend also went travelling with his family over to the US of A. My brother, decided to make plans and he is out basically every night =( I have been here...alone...(Have I said I was alone yet?) This started on Friday (since we took a super long weekend) and sooo...this happened.

Friday:
I started off the day with my boyfriend surprising me with breakfast he cooked <3 Then we watched a movie on Netflix (The Other Guys) and then he had to go home to prepare for his trip. My brother then left to go hang out with his friends, leaving me all alone. So I took this time to pop in another movie (The Ramen Girl). After watching a movie about food, I decided I needed some dinner (it was like...6:30pm) I headed to The Real Jerk that just opened down the street to grab some delicious Jerk Chicken to go. I had that with another movie! (Unleashed) I probably should have stopped watching movies at this point because I was starting to develop a headache, but being the dumbass that I am, I watched another one (Ip Man). I ended off the night with a horrifying migraine and feeling nauseated. =\ (Yeah. I'm so smart...)

1/2 Jerk Chicken with a bottle of Ting

Saturday: 
I woke up with the same horrible migraine and was still nauseated (which sucked...). So instead of making food for myself and my brother, I texted him to ask him to do it. His room is down the hall...the fact that I had to text him proved how bad it was. Instead of making food, he got his friend to buy it for us. lol (that's how our friendships work...) So after I had some bbq pork and soya sauce chicken over rice, I tried to rest up some more. I started to feel better (still had the headache but not nauseated anymore) around ... like 4pm ish. By then I called my bestfriends foreverrrrrr and they ended up dropping by and checking up on me and just chatting to get my mind off the pain. (I love you guys <3) At the end of the day, I just had a salad that was left over from the BBQ my family had (I added strawberries and a boiled egg in it) And of course, in my half dead state, I didn't remember to take a picture. Forgive me?

Sunday: 
Today was a promised day for baking muffins. The two besties who came over on Saturday came over today to make some delicious muffins with me. We made batches of gluten-free apple muffins and a healthy lemon poppy seed quinoa muffin. We also steamed some dumplings while the muffins were in the oven (because we needed some lunch). My parents came home Sunday morning (4am) so they didn't really wake up until 2pm today. We had an early dinner (well...not that early) and then we decided to have midnight snack (pizza). Today was a good day with no headaches and no other illnesses or symptoms (celebrate!!!). We kinda celebrated Thanksgiving a little early (not really...lol) with the pizza, but we plan on having some turkey leg on Monday. 

Apple muffins and lemon poppy seed muffins. =)

Pizza and wedges from Pizza Pizza. Sad thanksgiving dinner >_>;

Monday: 
The plan for today was to sleep in, enjoy some of them delicious muffins and then have a nice dinner with my family. Things never do go according to planned...right? (or is it just me?) Soooooo...I was rudely awakened today at the ungodly hour of 10am (those of you who are early risers are probably scoffing...but I went to bed at 2am =( cut me some slack). I was told that we had to go have some dim sum with my uncle and aunty. Being the good little child I was, I woke up and got ready to go (even though I don't enjoy dim sum). I went, didn't have too great of a time (and of course didn't take pictures...sorry) and returned home to finally enjoy two of my mini muffins. 

I love my shoes!!! C: I get a 2.5 inch boost ;)

All ready. It's already getting really cold in Toronto.
If you're lucky enough to be still wearing shorts, savour it!

The weather here in Toronto is pretty crazy. It's generally warm enough during the afternoons where you can get away with just a sweater and long pants, but once evening comes around, you better have some warm clothes to crawl into. The temperature can do a 10 degree drop in like...an hour. I kid you not! I'm not going to start with the stupid wind that blows as soon as you are out of sunlight. Sighhh...I kinda miss summer, but at the same time I love cuddling and fuzzy/cozy clothes. So I'm kind of torn between loving and not-so-loving the current weather. ;)

Back on topic, my friends came over again (a different pair of friends), but just to hang out. We just chatted and watched YouTube for a bit (Kpop Star Season 1) and then they headed home and I had my dinner. In the middle of dinner, Lucas dropped by to drop off some souvenirs. He came back from his trip to the states and brought me a wonderful gift! (along with a present for his BFF that I'm assuming he wants me to wrap up) I've been wanting one of these for the whole summer (and ever since I started making my own fruit flavoured waters).

Flavour Infuser Pitcher. I love it! Already putting it to use ;)

All in all, this long weekend was wonderful. I am pretty thankful for what I have now. Sometimes it's easy to fall into a depression and forget the wonderful things and people you have close by. I do this a lot. I guess, I want to correct that and start to have a happier life. Who wants to do this challenge with me? Just forgetting the things/people who piss you off or just don't see eye-to-eye with you, while loving and caring for the ones who deserve it. I learned something valuable this Thanksgiving, and I hope I will be able to remember this for the rest of my life and learn from it. (Now that it's in writing, I hope I can remember it the next time I get upset over something small) I hope that made sense...it's kind of hard to express what I feel right now. =|

Anywhooooooo, for those who live in Canada, I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! And for those of you who don't, I hope you had a good weekend. I will see you all next time! Stay warm, and eat lots of food yummy foods! =3

-Chrissymon