Home-Style Chinese Fried Rice

Freshly cooked fried rice–yummy!

I’ve been on a semi-cooking kick throughout Swiss National Day long weekend.  Mostly because I made one dish and had leftovers…  so then I had to doctor it up to finish up the leftover food…  which resulted in another dish.  And then I even took the leftovers from that dish and stretched it out for another meal the following day.  Absolutely awesome.

This also means that I haven’t been eating my usual diet of cold cereal and peanut butter, so I think I’m been packing on the pounds the last few days.  And all the munching on ice cream bars to cool down in the heat probably hasn’t helped either.  :O  

Blueberry, Watermelon and Walnut Salad

Light and refreshing–and so pretty to eat! 😀

I have a ton of walnuts at home.  I bought them in a fit of inspiration, thinking I would bake chocolate walnut brownies by the bucket load.  Even after making a double batch for my birthday and eating brownies for breakfast, as mid-day snacks, and after-meal desserts, I figured making more brownies probably wasn’t the answer if I wanted to maintain my figure for bikini season.  

A Bite of China

Dinner tonight was a hard-boiled egg, a giant wedge of watermelon, a handful of walnuts, a bunch of cheese, a bowl of fruit and bran flake cereal with soymilk, a spoonful of creamy peanut butter, and a glass of self-brewed luo han guo (羅漢果) tea.  Yeah…  I know it doesn’t sound very appetizing, but it was good sustenance to fuel a couple of rounds of myVEGAS slots and Candy Crush whilst chair-dancing to Energy Zürich and taking a short break to Skype with my mother.

As my very close friends and family know–I can’t cook.  But I sure fool everyone on Facebook with a ton of mouth-watering Pinterest photos, hehehe…  😉  

Chocolate Walnut Brownies

I turned 36 last Tuesday.  As the years go by, my birthday ceases to be a special occasion and I don’t feel much like celebrating it.  This year would have been no different, except for the fact that it happens to be the Year of the Snake in the Chinese zodiac, and my brother and sister-in-law came to visit me for the first time since I moved to Switzerland in 2009.

It was just a coincidence–my birthday wasn’t their original intention for visiting–but I was very happy that they could come visit both Switzerland and Europe for the first time and also be with me on this special day.

Slow Cooker Coca Cola Barbecue Chicken

Since U.S. Men’s soccer is playing against Germany today, I figured that it would be fitting to do a good ol’ American style meal for dinner.  In comes the Slow Cooker Coca Cola Barbecue Chicken recipe that I found on Pinterest, courtesy of Six Sisters’ Stuff website.  (Oo…  side note:  USA just scored again.  2-0 to Germany.  Yay!)  

Moist Chocolate Cupcakes with Buttercream Icing

I used to volunteer quite a bit in the United States.  I think it was ingrained in us as Americans to help others out when possible.  As a Girl Scout, I remember visiting the local retirement home and celebrating the 102nd birthday of one of the residents and singing Xmas carols at the mall during the holidays.

How to survive in Zurich (and how not to make dinner)

I just spent the better part of this afternoon struggling through my German homework.  It’s pretty sad;  I had to look up practically every word, and then it still didn’t make any sense, so I had to type in whole phrases verbatim into Google Translate to see if it could work wonders.  All this heartache and headache for a fill-in-the-blank one-pager.  Yes, my German is that pathetic.  😦

I had wanted to get some exercise this afternoon in my first attempt to slim down for the bridesmaid dress, but by the time I finished doing my homework, it was already past 7 pm, so I decided to make dinner instead.  Yes…  gasp!  I actually attempted to cook today.  

Red Bean Braided Bread

The loaf got a bit dark from the egg wash but still looked very pretty.

After a glorious weekend, the weather’s now cold and rainy again.  I suppose this is how everything stays so lush and green in Switzerland.  I hate walking in the city in my work shoes when it’s raining.  My feet get soaked within 10 minutes.  I better remember to wear my boots to work tomorrow.

When the weather is cold outside and I’m tired, I tend to hole up indoors and just stuff my face with food.  I just polished off half a box of cereal while surfing the web, and that was AFTER dinner.  Crunchy foods are just so addicting…    

Traditional Taiwanese breakfast

Let’s start our day with lots of dough, sugar and deep-fried carbs…

Oo… what a nice post about traditional Taiwanese breakfast.  YUM!

flydrivewalk

Let’s start our day with lots of dough, sugar and deep-fried carbs…

Breakfast on the street

In Taiwan, breakfast is often sold by street vendors who set up their stalls in the morning to serve commuters on their way to work. These vendors often specialize on one breakfast dish, e.g., some would only sell sticky rice rolls (however, in many different varieties), others would sell dumplings, while another vendor might sell egg pancakes uniquely.

Breakfast shops

Another traditional way to have breakfast in Taiwan is to go to one of the typical breakfast shops (“zao can dian”). They are not only opened in the morning, but sometimes also the whole day, some of them even 24/7.

So what is served for breakfast?

Fried dough sticks (“You tiao”)

A long stick consisting of a deeply fried mix of flour and baking powder. You can have it plain, as an ingredient of sticky…

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Red Bean Buns (Dousha Bao 豆沙包)

Arghh….  this whole morning has gotten off to a bad start.  First off, I couldn’t sleep, so I crawled out of bed at 8 am…  on a Saturday morning.  So much for trying to sleep in.  >.<  And then my internet was kaput all morning, so I wasn’t even able to get online until the late afternoon.  I tried to occupy myself by cleaning the kitchen and bathroom, which were not the most exciting activities, but I guess they needed to be done at some point anyway.

It’s cold and rainy outside, so I’m kind of hibernated indoors.  Only two days ago, it was sunny and warm.  Last weekend, there was some freak snowfall.  But mid-last week, it was actually very warm and sunny…  like shorts-weather.  And before that, it was cold.  Ah…  just your typical spring weather in Switzerland.