New Almond Butter, girly purchase and more suprise!! ^_^

Okay. Let me say the surprise first! Star is NOT coming this Friday, but TODAY!!! I'm going to pick him up right after I finish this post!!! YEAH~~~ I love him!!! He knew that I wanted him to come as soon as possible so he booked the first flight he could get, which is Wednesday night and he'll arrive on Thursday 7.30 AM!!! So excited!!! ^_^

Now, let's move to the new batch of Almond Butter. I made not one, but TWO kinds! The simple one, with just roasted almond and pinch of salt.
This time, really smooth!!!And the other one is a new creation. Remember my failed maple-raisin AB? I used half to made cornbread and was having the other half for breakfast, but I wasn't enjoying it much. So, something must be done! I used some of the new batch of AB, the rest of maple-raisin AB, 1/3 cup pumpkin puree, 2 tbsp maple butter and 1/4 cup raisin! Result? An extremely smooth Pumpkin maple Almond Butter!!! IT's sooooooo good!!!
Look how smooth is thisThe best part of making nut butter is to clean this with my tongue.... hahha.... such a tough job!!!^_^ Now, girly purchase! Look what I got today in the mailI bought all these for <$15. Lips colors Lovely pink nail polish
Check out my entire selection of nail polish
I don't know why I have all these, because I usually go to manicure and only use them for fun! ^_^ How many nail polish do you keep?

Finally, food! Another great day, followed almost the new challenge guideline.
Breakfast

• 1/3 c. rolled oats
• 1/3 c. almond milk
• 1/4 c. wheat berries
• 1/4 c. pumpkin
• 2 tbsp flax meal
• topping: 1 tbsp low fat plain yogurt + 1 tbsp maple-raisin AB + blueberries

YUM YUM~~~
I didn't really need AM snack, but had it anyway when I was waiting in the doc office: 1/3 of honest granola bar. (bad)
Lunch: chicken bamboo shot dish over "noodles" and a chopped tomato
Dessert: 2 squares of almond cornbread
I kep PM snack small (good): 1 slice of WW with LC and an apple
I went to swim pool, swam for an hour, showered, moisturized and felt amazing!! :)
Early dinner at 7pm (good): tortilla veggie pizza!!! I used Tj's rice tortilla for the dough, topped with homemade sauce, mushrooms, mini peppers, broco-flower and part-skim mozzarella.It was delicious!!!! I need to have this more often!!!
Dessert was amazing: 1 cup of low fat plain yogurt + 2 tbsp wheat berries + 1 square of almond cornbread crumbled + coconut flakes
It was delicious, but maybe too much yogurt, I felt a little bloated afterwards!
Day 2 of the challenge and Day -1 of Star arrival was FABULOUS!!! ^____^

Question: Any guess about how I'll spend these two days with Star? What kind of dates do you think we'll get?

New food adventure!~~

After seeing Heather and Maggie having green oats, I wanted to try it out. But it took me a long while to actually do it. Yesterday I had my first glorious green oat and I loved it! As some of you know Heather latest combo is purple cauliflower oat and Maggie loves her spinach oat bran. Since I was adventurous yesterday, I combined them! I used 1/2 cup broco-flower puree and a big handful of spinach to make this amazing green bowl
It took me like 15 min to make it: puree the cauliflower, re-heat steel cuts with almond milk and then blend with spinach. I also added 1 small banana to give it more sweetness as well as vanilla for the flavor. Final result: DELICIOUS!!!
I topped it with Cinnamon Swirl PB (finishing another jar, I'm so proud of me!!!) and coconut spread.
I love love love this combo. But I need some technical advice. How to blend spinach and not splash everywhere? How do you guys do it? What I did was adding spinach directly to the pot and blend it, obviously the pot is not as tall as the blending cup, so I splashed all over the kitchen table. HELP!

After breakfast and blogging, I called my mom and talked about an hour. It was great to know that my Dad is feeling better. My mom also told me that my Dad was doing great on managing Diabetes. He started to exercise, like walking 2-3 times a day for at least 30 min; he is eating less and counting calories/carbs; and his glucose has been declining steadily. I'm so happy to know. I started to think that this Diabetes thing might be "good" for him to force him to finally decide for a healthy lifestyle and that will lead him to actually live longer and healthier! ^_^

The rest of morning was spent doing errands, buying some little things for my new apt. I love going to ROSS to find cheap but great items for home. Do you guys go to ROSS?

For lunch I made a big fresh salad with mix greens, tomatoes, mushrooms, olive and balsamic. And the main course was black/brown rice with smoked salmon frittata. Mi, you can find the recipe here.
Dessert: dairy free chocolate pudding and tea. Gina, I think the secret to get a smooth pudding is blend it well and add exact amount of liquid. And the brand of the silken tofu might be a reason too. I use Nasoya.I spent the afternoon watching TV, deal hunting with Qiao and office hour at school. Munching on strawberries. I think I had about 1 pound of it. And before I went to the gym I had the last half bar of Honest Food.
When I was running on the treadmill I began to plan for dinner. Mental thoughts: what do I crave? Nothing really. Then What do I need? Some proteins. What do I have? Chiken, rainbow carrots, onions, etc. What can I make from them? Balsamic grazed chicken!
I wasn't especially hungry for meal... so I had small portion of the chicken and some broco-flower puree over spinach. But I did have appetite for dessert. So... 3 course desserts:

Steamed kabocha (a big bowl)
White fungus drinkBlueberries cottage cheesecakeQuestion: When was your last vacation? How long it was and what did you do?

half-productive black day~

Yesterday I only worked half day (6 long intense hours thought) because I went to IMF library to search some old staff papers which turned out to be completely useless!!! grrrrrrr........ All the commute (car, metro, walking) for nothing!! Very frustrating! :( But it's part of life, we CAN'T be doing productive/useful 24 hs a day, right?
I woke up a 6.30 am a little tired since I went to bed at midnight the day before. I did 20 min power vinyasa #3 trying to feel better, but no, I should have known that it was not going to be a perfect day! Boo....
However, the breakfast was delicious. I had AGAIN oatbran. Plain AGAIN: 1/2 cup oat bran, 1.5 cup water, pinch of salt, 1 beaten egg. To add extra flavor and cal. I add GYG as usual and a spoon of chocolate PB.I had it with an apple and a POM tea. You can imagine how full I was after finishing all of them! But it was delicious!!!
Lunch at home was black chicken soup that I made the other night with bok choy. And the rest of Nut-Thins.Have you guys ever seen this kind of chicken before? it's black in its skin, low in fat but high in nutrients. We, Chinese women eat it pretty often because it's very high in iron.
Dessert at office: two black chocolates!the chicken, the chocolate, perfect for the BLACK day.
PM snack: I was craving carbs and fat. So, I had Tj's pop seeds bread with 1 packet of AB. And a tea of course.2 hours later: I was hungry again!!!! More AB. I would have had other snack, but I had nothing but AB in office.Back home exhausted at 7.30pm. I felt needed to reward myself a good meal...but at the same time I was very tired. After struggling for a while, I chose to cook, otherwise my day would be really BLAH.
Sauteed chinese leeks with tofuSauteed soy bean sproutsA soup made with 1/2 cup of diced tomato, 1 cup frozen okra and 1 beaten egg.All together with black aduki porridge as usual.Really yummy dinner~~~ I finish almost everything (not the soup).
Dessert came half hour later: yogurt + frozen blueberries + wheat berries.I ended my day with some leisure readings at 9.30pm.

Question: How long do you spend on commuting? how does it affect you emotionally? Fortunately I live near campus and walk to my office everyday for <15min.>

Is it sunday night already??????? grrrrrr.......... Help needed!

I had to ask twice to Savannah whether is it Sunday night already? I can't believe my weekend is over. I think because I worked yesterday, I only had one day for relax, which is way to short. Okay, one more week to go until I fly back home.

I woke up at 6am (so glad that my almost 8 hours of sleep is back). Prepared a very blue bowl of breakfast

• 1/2 cup multigrain
• 1/2 cup almond breeze chocolate
• 1/2 banana
• 1/2 cup frozen blueberries
• 1/4 Tj's high fiber
• 1/4 cup oatmeal beverage

I missed my colorful oatmeal.
I was supposed to have my favorite yoga session this morning. Totally excited after one week of no yoga, I drove down to the yoga studio to find out that the class was canceled. I can't believe it!!!! They just canceled this morning. I was about to argue with the receptionist, but it took me just one second to decide not to, because I was sure that Kim canceled it because of something urgent. And as we're human, we all have urgent issue to take care of. So, I just walked out and called Savannah that I was heading home and we'll have a home session of yoga. ^_^
Oh..I had a big spoon of PB before I left home.Lunch was 2 dishes and one soup.
Bambo-chicken stir fry
Stir fry spinach and mushroomsSeaweed egg soupAnd rice
A nutritious, balanced and delicious meal.
We went to shopping mall but didn't got anything interesting, went to Tj's for Fage supply (no food was needed since both of us are going home in less than a week, so just clean the fridge and pantry).
Back home, starving, I made a sammie mess with apple, Tj's High Fiber and oatmeal beverage with tons of cinnamon. mmmmmmm........ so good!!!
Savannah wanted to have pizza for dinner, so pizza we had. And some lentil soup.topping: broccoli and eggplant, sauce and cheese.
Dessert: FAGE + Cinnamon. The most amazing and simplest dessert ever!
I still can't believe that it's Sunday night!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ~~~~~~ grrrrrrrrrrrrrr............

After thinking and discussing with my mom about my birthday, which is Dec 25th, yes it's on the Christmas day (fortunately people in China don't celebrate it), I decided to hold a party at home with family. And I will cook a non-Chinese meal for them, since there is no good western food in Shanghai, I thought it will nice they could try something different. I decided to do that because I am sure that's the way to make me happy on my birthday, spend great time with all people I love, give them good food and cook a lot of delicious dishes!!!!

So, I need your help. I need appetizer/dip/dessert/meal ideas for a buffet for around 15 persons. Preferably if I can prepare one day before the party.
You can send me either by email or leave as comment! I'd really appreciate any suggestion.