I am leaving for Berlin in a couple of hours! We are spending the weekend there and getting back Sunday night. Just got out of class, and I need to pack. I haven't planned exactly that I am going to do there yet, but on Saturday night, we are going to see a show at the Friedrichstadt Palast. We bought tickets to Yma way in advance, and it should be really good.

The train ride there is going to take three and a half hours, even though it's an ICE. Oh well. We waited until the last minute to buy the tickets, and they were rather expensive. Even with a 25% discount card, it was still over 100 euros. Ouch. Well, lesson learned.

Yesterday, I went to Deutsches Theatre and saw the play Der Besuch der Alten Dame. It was very hard to understand. One, it was in a modern style, so there were little props or scenery. Two, they spoke really really fast German, so I couldn't catch a lot of the words. Three, I got THE worst seats in the house: the very last row at the very top. I had to literally lean over to barely see the front of the stage, where most of the action was.

Although I couldn't understand anything and the whole thing baffled me, it was an experience. I'll just leave it at that.

I won't be taking my netbook with me to Berlin, so I shall update after this weekend.

Read More

Johanniskirche

On Monday, I had no class because of a religious holiday. Instead, I went on a historic tour of the city. We had a choice of the tour in English or German, and for some reason, I chose German. I didn't learn much, partly because I couldn't understand everything the tour guide said, but mostly due to my lack of attention span.

We passed by St.-Johaniss-Kirche during the tour, but I actually climbed up one of the church towers the day before. It costed 2 euros, but for the view, it was worth it. Plus, I got some serious exercise!

Schöne Göttingen

I love this city, and I can't get over how beautiful it is. I've seen a lot of it already, but I'm sure there is more to see. I can just walk around the city, looking at little boutiques, stopping for an ice cream, or just wandering around and people watching.

While we were in the tower, we saw a peregrine falcon eating a dove! It was just going at it and ripping pieces of flesh off. There is a peregrine falcon nest in the church, and they are protected since there are very few of the left. A French man told me that there were three living in the church tower. They are wunderschöne :)

I took a few snapshots during the tour. I feel like I can point my camera anywhere and it will be picture perfect.

Got hungry from all that walking, so we went to a creperie on Goethe-Alle. I think it was called GroMo. I wanted to order a pepper, tomato, and cheese crepe, but they weren't serving peppers or tomatoes due to the e.coli scare. Schade. I got a cheese and ham crepe, instead, but it wasn't what I wanted. Heck, I need to eat more vegetables! Just can't live without them ):

After the crepe, I wanted something sweet. There's this gelato store that I really liked. I got Schwarzvanilleeis, black vanilla ice cream, and it was DE-LI-CIOUS. It was black, but it tasted so good, like vanilla frosting out of a can. That sounds gross, but it's a really intense vanilla flavor. I would get it again, but I wanted to try all the flavours.

There was 'Mozart', based on the chocolate covered marzipan candy; 'Raffaello', that coconut covered Ferrero candy; 'Ferrero Rocher'; 'Kinderueberraschung', literally 'Children's Surprise' based on the Kinder chocolate candy; 'Stracciatella'; and much more.

It is always a hard decision to make, but I decided on Erdbeer-Joghurt and Schokolade (strawberry yogurt and chocolate). It was a good choice. The chocolate was a deep deep chocolate and very rich. The yogurt ice cream is my favorite, though. It has a strong tart yogurt taste, not too sweet, and richer than frozen yogurt. It somehow feels lighter, though. Yum :)

I want to try almost every flavor. I think it's possible to average one flavor a day, and it's great that it's relatively cheap. Only ,80 euro per kugel (scoop). For high quality, delicious ice cream, I'd say that's a steal.

Don't worry, I'm not just eating ice cream and cheese. This afternoon, I went into the city to go grocery shopping. For dinner, I just ate a huge bowl of vegetables and some delicious whole-wheat bread full of sunflower seeds with camembert spread on it. It was simple, but it satisfied my cravings for veggies. I bought a lot, so I'll be eating more vegetables for the next few days. That makes me a lot happier :)

Today, I also went hiking in the Göttingen Forest, but more about that later.

Read More

I've been here a week, and I have only written one post. So sorry about that, but I've been really busy! Still trying to figure out how I should write these blog posts, but I'm just going to ramble about what I'm doing. Forgive me if my writing is all over the place. 

Everything here is new to me, and I have gone around the city many times already. I've tried a few restaurants, cafes, bars, and ice cream shops. Downtown Goettingen is in the style of old European towns, with half-timbered buildings. There are so many little boutiques, book stores, cafes, imbiss stands, and much more. I'll slowly make my way through the city, seeing and eating whatever looks good. I live in the Goethe Institut, which is kind of in the suburbs of Goettingen. The walk into town isn't bad at all, though. There are also grocery stores not too far away, so even without a bike or car, getting around is pretty convenient.

Panorama of the Rathaus and the Platz it's in. There's a great ice cream/cafe shop in the corner to the right, where I had a waffle with joghurt ice cream, fruit, and strawberry sauce and a cappacino. Everything was delicious and so pretty! There are some ridiculous ice cream creations here in Germany. One of the most well-known ice cream specialty is Spaghettieis, vanilla ice cream that looks like noodles, topped with strawberry sauce and grated white chocolate. Germans just like to make ice cream look like other things, like birds nests, pizzas, tacos, etc. The ice cream creations are crazy.

Waffeln mit Joghurteis, Obst, Erdbeersauce, und Sahne. Lecker!

Other delicious looking ice cream creations

Near the Rathaus is a statue of a girl in the middle of a fountain. She is called Gänseliesel, and graduates come to kiss her, even though it's technically against the law. I had the luck of witnessing a graduate kiss her. She drew a large crowd, and everyone was taking pictures, so I didn't feel like a creeper.

There are many bookstores, here, and I just want to go into one and spend a few hours looking through books. I haven't had the time, yet, but I'll probably go during this week. I went into a large bookstore called Thalia, and of course I had to go into the cookbook section. They have a wonderful selection of cooks, and most of them are in full color with beautiful pictures of the dishes. I wanted to buy at least one, but couldn't choose which one. They were also pretty pricey and I have to be selective with what to fill my suitcase with. 

I want all of these!

On Saturday, I came upon an antique store tucked away in a narrow alley between two buildings. There were a lot of knick knacks, porcelain, glass, books, etc. I looked through the books, and found cookbooks! I got one, and it was a really good deal. Got the book plus two little things for gifts, and it was only 4 euros. 

I am looking through my new cookbook, and planning on making some of the recipes. Breakfast is included with the room and board, but I have to make my own lunch and dinner. Going out for food can get expensive, so buying groceries and making food saves a lot of money. I haven't made anything complicated yet. Pasta is the easiest thing, so I got some premade tortelloni, pasta sauce, and mushrooms that lasted me for two meals.

Wasn't too bad. I've also been surviving on muesli and joghurt and chocolate. Cooking is hard since there are limited pots and pans, and the stove smaller than half the size of my stove at home. It seriously looks like a toy.

Read More

Abroad in Deutschland!

(I wrote this on the train on the way to Goettingen on my first day. It's my third day here, and I'll write more about stuff later)

I am in Deutschland! Right now, I am on the Inter City Express from Frankfurt Airport to Goettingen. I have made it this far, hopefully I can find my way to the Goethe Institut, where I will be studying German for eight weeks.

I feel kind of clueless, and I was hoping to meet up with people from my program so we could ride the train together. However, their plane was delayed, so I didn't want to wait at the airport for two hours. I had no idea how to ride the trains, but I (hopefully) figured it out, and this train that I am on will take me to the right city!

I left home Sunday afternoon, and my plane arrived in Frankfurt early Monday morning. I didn't sleep very well on the plane, so I am terribly jetlagged. It's not even 10am, and I am so tired! I'm running on adrenaline, here.

Well, it's good to know that my German is good enough to find my way to the right train platform. Haha I am so proud that I bought my train ticket all in German. I didn't say much, but I understood the ticketing lady's questions and directions to the platform.

Before getting on the train, I exchanged some money to Euros and bought two Vollkornbroetchens, or whole grain rolls, for the train ride. Damn, everything is expensive, and changing dollars to Euros makes me feel poor. Well, I'll have to learn to budget my money and be especially careful when I'm buying food!

My train arrives in Goettingen in about 45 minutes. From the train station, I'll take a taxi to the Goethe Institut and check in. Until then!

Read More

Hiking Old Rag in Shenandoah

I went hiking with my brother on the Old Rag trail in Shenandoah National Park. The trail is roughly 9 miles, including about a mile of rock scrambling. It's pretty challenging, and requires hand over hand climbing over rocks and through narrow passages. I love this trail, and the rock scramble is my favorite part. It's so fun to climb and jump around on the rocks. 

We did the whole trail in a little over 4 hours. I think we only stopped for 30 minutes for lunch, and didn't take many breaks. I kept a pretty fast pace, but I was still surprised that we completed it so fast.

It was quite a view from the top. 

Read More

Chocolate Coconut Almond Cookies

I've been baking like a manic. Been making a lot of cookies and breads. I am a rather lazy baker, and cookies are so easy to just throw a bunch of ingredients together. Quick breads also don't require much effort. If you know the ratios of flour, sugar, fat, and liquids, you can adapt a recipe to many different flavors and add ins. 


I wanted something chocolate-y and coconut-y. I like almonds, too, so what the hell, I'll toss those in. These have whole wheat pastry and almond flours, and olive oil as the fat. They have plenty of chocolate flavor and a hint of coconut. The texture is crumbly, and the edges get a little crispy. 


Feel free to adapt this recipe to your liking. These would also be good with chocolate chips or chopped almonds mixed in. Replace the milk with some strongly brewed coffee for mocha-ish cookies.

Chocolate Coconut Almond Cookies
Makes 40 cookies


Dry:
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour (or all-purpose)
1/2 cup almond meal
1/2 cup turbinado sugar (or white sugar)
2/3 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup shredded coconut (I used unsweetened)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
Whole or sliced almonds (optional)

Wet:
1/2 cup light olive, canola, or other mild oil
1/2 molasses
1/2 non-dairy milk
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 F.
Mix together all the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Add the oil, molasses, milk, and vanilla (wet ingredients) to the dry, and mix thoroughly.
Grease two half baking sheets. Using a tablespoon, scoop heaping spoonfuls of dough onto the baking sheet. With a moistened hand, gently flatten the cookie dough. If you'd like, press a whole or a slice of almond on top of each cookie.
Bake for about 13 minutes, taking them out when slightly firm on the edges but still soft in the center. You don't want to over bake these or they will be too dry.

Read More

Sweet Potato Bread

I love sweet potato fries. I have been making oven fries quite frequently, and the last time I made them, I tossed a whole sweet potato in the oven, as well. I wanted to make something with the baked sweet potato, so I decided to make bread. Although this is a yeast bread, it is very easy to mix together because it does not require much kneading.

This is a high hydration bread, so the dough is very soft and can get sticky. The trick is to not handle the dough too much. When mixing and kneading, gently scoop the dough onto itself instead of punching and pushing the dough around. The bread is yeasty, slightly sweet, and has a closed crumb. The color is more orange-y than pictured. 

Sweet Potato Bread
Makes one loaf

1 tsp yeast

2/3 cup warm water
1 medium sweet potato, baked
2 Tbsp turbinado sugar (or white sugar)
2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 tsp salt

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Add the yeast to the water, and let it sit for about 5 minutes.
Scoop out the sweet potato flesh and mash well with a spoon in a large mixing bowl. Add the sugar, salt, and oil. Add the yeast mixture and mix well.
Add the flour to the sweet potato mixture, and mix until a dough forms. Use your hands to gently knead the dough. It will be a very soft dough. Add a little flour if it gets too sticky. You want to knead/mix until the dough is uniform.
Place the dough in an oiled loaf pan. Cover with plastic wrap and let it rise in a warm place for about 60 minutes.
Preheat oven to 350 F. Bake for about 35-40 minutes.

Read More

A little bird visited me this morning.

It chirped a "hellogoodmorning".

In a flurry of yellow , it flitted from tree to tree.

And just as quickly as it came, it flew off to bring a bit of sunshine to someone else on this cloudy day.

Read More

Sunday Dumpling Making

Dumpling making is a labor of love. It takes a lot of work to make dumplings from scratch, but the results are so worth it. Every ingredient has to be chopped finely, each wrapper rolled out, and each dumpling formed by hand. There are shortcuts, such as buying dumpling skins or frozen dumpling ready to be cooked, but I much prefer to make them myself. If there's a hard way to do something, I'll be likely to try it.

Last Sunday, my mom and I spent the whole morning making a large batch of Chicken, Pork, and Chinese Chive Dumplings. We boiled some and made some into pot stickers for lunch, and froze the rest for easy meals in the future. The Chinese chives we used came straight from our garden, freshly cut that morning. In Chinese, they are called jiu cai (geeyou tsai). The smell is incredibly fragrant and onion-y, and are delicious in dumplings, savoury pancakes, or simply stir fried.

My mom picked a huge basket full, and carefully picked through them before giving them a thorough wash. It looks like a huge pile of grass, but trust me, it's a lot tastier than grass.

Read More

Healthy Green Tea Ice Cream

Remember that peculiar photo of ice cream ingredients from my ice cream sandwich post? Well, the green tea ice cream I made was vegan, adapted from a recipe in Veganomicon. I have a bunch of cookbooks that I haven't used much, so I am going to try some recipes from them this summer.

This recipe uses coconut milk and tofu. It's a lot healthier than ice cream made with egg yolks and heavy cream. This summer, I want to experiment with making vegan ice creams. Some recipes I've made in the past turned out too icy, watery, and too hard after freezing. This recipe was just okay; it could be better. Because of the coconut cream, it ended up with a coconut-y flavor, not surprisingly. It was also a bit icy, and the mouth feel wasn't what I wanted. I'll have to tweak this some more, or use a different method.

Here's the recipe, anyways. It gets pretty hard in the freezer, so just let it sit at room temperature for 10 minutes before scooping.


Vegan Green Tea Ice Cream
Adapted from Veganomicon


6 oz. silken tofu
1 cup non-dairy milk (I used soy)
1/2 cup coconut creme (see note)
1/2 cup sugar (I used turbinado)
1 Tbsp matcha powder

In a blender, blend all ingredients until completely smooth. Chill in the fridge for at least 2-3 hours. Churn in your ice cream maker according to manufacturer's directions. Eat immediately for soft-serve consistency, or place in the freezer for a few hours to harden.

Read More

Honey Vanilla Oat Bread

Baked goods get eaten up so quickly in my house. The ginger cookies I made yesterday were gone in less than a day. Today, I threw a quick bread together, and it is almost gone, too (half of the fault is mine). Heck, I'm not complaining, though. It just means that I get to bake more! And experiment with my recipes.

Usually when I bake, I just toss things together if it's something I'm familiar with. I've made quick breads countless times, but have never written down a recipe. And since I'm eyeballing ingredients, I don't know the amounts I used. Oven time is also "whenever it's done". Some results are better than others, and it's a shame that I don't have the recipe to breads that turn out really well. Like this awesome pumpkin bread I made once...

This time, I measured ingredients out carefully and noted the oven time. Since I just pulled this recipe out of my head, I wasn't sure if it would turn out okay. Seems like I was successful this time.

This bread is hearty, nutty, and chewy. It's slightly sweet, and not overwhelmingly so. It would be perfect for breakfast or a snack with a cup of tea. Or maybe toasted with a drizzle of honey or a bit of jam.


Honey Vanilla Oat Bread

Dry:
1 cup oat flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour (or all purpose)
2 Tbsp flax meal
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
rolled oats (optional)

Wet:
2 ripe bananas (see note)
1/2 cup honey
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 Tbsp water

Preheat oven to 350 F
Combine oat flour, ww flour, baking powder and soda, and salt in a large mixing bowl (dry ingredients)
In a blender, blend bananas, honey, vanilla, and water until smooth (wet ingredients). Alternatively, mash bananas well and combine with rest of the wet ingredients.
Add the wet mixture to the dry, and mix until well combined. Spoon batter into a greased loaf pan. Sprinkle the top with some rolled oats, if you'd like. Bake for 28-30 minutes, or until a toothpick poked in the center comes out clean. It will become a dark golden brown.
Cool completely before slicing.

Note: Using bananas in this bread gives it a slight banana-y flavor. If you don't like the taste of bananas, you can sub 2/3 cup apple sauce for the bananas.

Read More

Spring Refreshments

Just got back from a morning run and now I'm sipping a delicious, massive green smoothie. So refreshing :) I only ran for 30 minutes today. It's pretty humid after a night of thunderstorms, and my blood sugar was crashing since I only drank black coffee before heading out.

When I got back, I needed to eat something, and fast.

Oh hello there, delicious

So I blended up this massive smoothie with a cucumber, an orange, a frozen banana, and a huge handful of spinach. My Vita-mix blended it into a really smooth, deliciously green drink that revived me ;) Did I mention how much I love my Vita-mix? LOVE

I want to eat you :P

One of my goals this summer is to eat healthier. After a semester of eating crap, all I want to eat are FRUITS and VEGETABLES. Or as I like to call them, froo-eats and vuh-getuh-buls. Froo-getables? xD

I drank all this, times two...
Hey, there's no such thing as too much of a good thing, right?

Although it's not too hot yet, I like to sip on yummy, refreshingly cold things, like iced tea, iced coffee, and this spa water I made with thinly sliced lemons and cucumbers. Plain water is good, but flavour is even better :) I think it's a waste of money to buy those expensive flavoured waters (like Hint) and powders that are full of nasty chemicals. I generally don't buy bottled water, anyways. Why spend that money when you can make it yourself?

This is so easy, that I'm not going to write a "recipe" for it. Just toss your sliced lemons and cucumbers in a pitcher with some filtered water and let it sit for a few minutes. It should keep in the fridge for 1-2 days. I sometimes add a little more water to it after pouring myself a glass to replenish it. The flavour won't be diluted too much.

Read More

Green Tea Ice Cream Sandwiches

I am treating my cooking deficiency. For therapy today, I made green tea ice cream and ginger cookies, and then made them into ice cream sandwiches.

I first made the base for the green tea ice cream so it could cool in the fridge while I baked the cookies. I'll be posting the recipe in the next few days.

Ice cream ingredients, hmmm.....

Read More

I still have a ton of pictures to share from my Hawai'i trip. Of scenery, friends, sea turtles, candids. Today, however, I'll just focus on the food. I'll get to the other stuff later, I promise. Kind of. Eventually.

I just like to talk about food, okay?

The first night we were in Kona, we wanted to find a little hole in the wall for some authentic Polynesian food. After hanging around at a small beach, we were getting hungry. It took us a while to find a place to eat. At first, we tried to find a restaurant called Rappanui. It turned out to be a tiny place in a strip mall, and couldn't accommodate a large party. So we had to look for an alternative. We ended up asking a local for a recommendation. This is a risky strategy, because his recommendation took us to a rather interesting place. I would have never considered going there, had he not have recommended it.

We were led to a tiny tiny kava bar, Kanaka Kava, tucked behind some larger restaurants on the busy street. We squeezed into a long, narrow table booth and the charismatic hostess offered us a bowl of kava. Being ignorant and excited for some Hawaiian enculturation, we ordered a big bowl of kava for the group.

Has anyone had kava before? Let's just say the flavor was very earthy. Like dirt. Bitter, bitter dirt. Mouth-numbingly bitter. Kava is a drink used by natives and hippies for relaxation, socializing, rituals, etc. Kind of like drinking booze. It has sedative and anesthetic properties, but apparently kava relaxes you, but doesn't impair mental clarity.

Read More

A Sweet Ending to Sophomore Year

The boxes are stored, the suitcases are packed, and finals are over and done with. Sophomore year, and half my undergraduate college career is over. This feels like it should be something significant, but I don't really know how to react. Is it really something to get worked over about? I don't want to think of my life as a timeline with pre-determined points where I have to "be somewhere" in life. I just want to live in the moment. That doesn't mean that I don't have a care for the future. I just want to be satisfied with the now, and not live with any regrets or unrealistic expectations.

On this last night at school, I am content. With my life, friends, family. Okay, maybe not school, I could still work on that. In two years, I will be graduating and starting a new chapter of my life. I don't know what that will be, but I am confident that I will figure it out, and life will go on.

Okay, less sentiments and more food! Tonight, I spent my last night here with friends. Dinner, four desserts, and two coffees later, I said goodbye to my friends for the semester.

[[ Sorry about the poor photo quality.These photos are crappy because I had to use my iPhone. Low lighting plus iPhone= no amount of photoshopping that can save these grainy, blurry pictures.

Clockwise from upper left: Key Lime Tart, Ginger Bar, Raspberry and Currant Bar, Chocolate Raspberry Cake. Most were tooth-achingly sweet, but we devoured them nonetheless. This year ended in a blissful sugar coma, and no regrets :)

Read More

I miss my Vita-mix :(

Tonight, I decided to make a green tea smoothie. I bought some vanilla frozen yogurt, got some ice, and threw it in a blender with some matcha powder.

I was hoping for a creamy, smooth smoothie, but I got icy slush instead. Granted, I did add too much ice, but the damn blender just wouldn't get it smooth enough! Also, I didn't want to make too much noise and disturb my suite mates who are probably hard at work studying for finals (ignore the fact that I'm not). I gave up, and scooped my green tea slush in a bowl, and ate it with a spoon. It was still sweet, green tea-y, and yummy, so not a total failure.

At times like these, I really miss my Vita-mix blender. IMHO, the Vita-mix is the best blender out there. Actually, that is not my humble opinion. That is a fact. The Vita-mix is THE best blender. Full disclosure: I was not paid to say that (though I would gladly say it again for some moolah ;) ) I had mine for a year, and it is one of my most used appliances. It is so versatile, not just for smoothies, too. You can make hot soup in it. Yes, you can actually cook in it, that's how powerful it is. None of this slushy nonsense.

I'll be going home soon, and you can bet that I'll be blending up smoothies, ice cream, soups, sauces, nut butters (still need to try this). I'm so excited to go home because I can cook, in an actual kitchen. YES, five more days.

Read More

Hawaii: The Foodie's Destination

Hawai'i: it's the perfect destination. White sand beaches, tropical climate, beautiful sunsets, etc.etc. A few of the many reasons why Hawai'i is one of the top vacation spots. I have to add one more reason to visit: the food! In fact, it was the topic I chose to do my presentation on for "Hawai'i class". 

Hawaiian cuisine is peculiar. It has evolved from Polynesian cuisine, who were the early settlers on the island. Influences from all over the world brought a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, livestock, and flavors to the island. Many foods associated with Hawaii, like pineapples, coconuts, and taro, were actually introduced to the island. Hawai'i is a mixing pot of cultures, and the cuisine reflects that. Consequently, interesting dishes appear in the cuisine, such as Spam masubi, the ubiquitous plate lunch, and Loco Moco (hamburger patty over rice, topped with gravy and fried egg).

Read More

A Farmer's Market in Hawai'i

On the second day in Hawai'i, we rode a bus that took us from Hilo to Kona. As we were waiting at the bus terminal, we found a small farmer's market across the street! Of course, we had to go check it out.

There were a few stands, mostly selling fruits and vegetables. Some had flowers, and one sold homemade sweets.

Read More

Procrastination

One more week until I go home. I feel like I am just waiting for the end. I only have two exams during exam week, and they are a week apart. My first exam, German, is tomorrow, and I should be studying. But I want to procrastinate a bit more (the night is still young!), so I will share some pictures from my trip to Hawaii. These are long overdue; my trip was in January! Oops, sorry about that.

In January, I took a trip to Hawaii for a "class". A bunch of us in the group decided to go a few days early to party chillax in Hawaii, so that's what we did. We stayed on the Big Island, mostly on the Kona side.

I first flew from DC to St. Louis. From St. Louis, we flew to San Francisco, then to Honolulu, then finally to Hilo on the Big Island. It was a heck of a lot of flying.

It was cloudy as we were flying into Hilo

Read More