Today to break my fast (which you can read more about here), I decided to try my hand at a delicious vegetable soup. It consisted of:
It totally fit the bill, and I was licking the bowl afterwards it was so good!
Check out the full recipe here!
So the fast is done. If you have been following me through this, you would already have read my previous days: 9, 8, 5, and 2.
It has been a very interesting journey, one that I have learnt a lot about what people believe, what I believe, what I am capable of, and also what it feels like to go without food for so long. I have proved the myth wrong that a person cannot go without food for such a long time, well maybe it’s not so much of a myth as something that scares most people.
One thing that’s amazed me is that my fridge still has some food in it that hasn’t gone bad! I’ve been writing food blogs like crazy at Exercise and Mind, that have been making me get much more excited about breaking this fast, but now that I am here at this point of break, I eat a little bit, and my stomach cannot handle any more! There are so many things that I want to start eating, but I suspect it’s going to take a few days before my stomach is back to proper working order.
I broke my fast at the hour I started it, 1230hrs, with 1 apple that had made it with me through the whole fast. Yes, it tasted like a million dollars and I ate the whole thing, seeds and all. I am aware the apple seeds aren’t the easiest things to digest, maybe I’ll start an apple tree in my stomach… I had another apple at 1330hrs. Shortly after the first one, I was feeling much livelier, with much more energy. It’s an amazing thing what food does to our bodies, a little bit of nutrition goes a long way.
For my first main meal, I had some homemade carrot and yam soup! Now, I’m not sure if it was because I hadn’t eaten for 10 days, but it was absolutely delicious! I have to be careful about how much I eat though, for if I get too carried away or have too much rich foods, my stomach really isn’t going to like me too much.
This morning I took the time to meditate and do a full stretch. It felt really good, and I always get discouraged when I realize that the fast is over and I haven’t dedicated enough time during it to meditate. I guess this is because I am so focused on what I’m actually doing to take the time. After meditating though, it feels extremely good, I feel lighter, brighter, and a lot more alert and at peace with life; this is a good thing. I appreciate what I have a lot more I feel, and I also feel more in tuned with my surroundings. I like this a lot.
Will I do it again? Absolutely. Will I do it for 10 days? Thats questionable. Will I do it soon? That is doubtful.
It was a great experience, but the fact is, it takes a lot out of me, pretty much takes all my conditioning and training and flushes it out the door. It keeps me fairly un-mobile for the whole time, every bit of energy I do spend weakens me greatly. It was not a health fast, or a cleanse, it was a fast: Spiritual and mind, which is part of the reason why I get upset with myself for not taking more care to meditate; this is ok, and I am pleased with myself none-the-less. I have learnt a great deal about myself, my habits, what I can believe, and also what is important to me as a result of this fast, which yes, I did have a lot of knowledge of these things before the fast, but at some point there was a clearing up of the mess.
You know when you’re absolutely spent, like you’ve just had a day on the ski slopes, and all you want to do is sit back in the hot tub and suck back a beverage, enjoy it and let your muscles get relaxed, and this is all you can think about? Well, that’s sort of what happens. You loose sight of minor complications, overlook trifles, and realize that all of these sort of insignificant disturbances are nothing to get excited about and are all just things that will happen anyways, so just be happy and all things will work themselves out with care and attention.
So, in conclusion, it was a great success, I received some great support from people all around the world here, and on twitter @kingkabuz, and I am a very happy boy.
Thank you all for your encouragement and wise words, and I am back to normal again!
Tonights dinner was sliced and fried chicken thighs, or what I like to call Chicken Basletta. It was fried up and placed on a rice field with a few tomatoes to garnish the dish.
Of course extra virgin olive oil is added to the pan.
I sliced up the chicken thighs, and spiced it up with basil, tarragon, curry powder, sesame seeds, poppy seeds, tumeric, and cumin. I vary the amounts depending on my moods, but always go heavy on the tarragon and sesame seeds. This time, due to the balsilica influence, I went heavy on the basil as well. Also, to this basilica chicken, I added two slices of onion and two cloves of garlic.
During this whole process, the rice has already boiled and left to simmer so they will be done at the same time.
When the chicken is about 3/4 done, I then add chopped mushrooms (2 large ones), a chopped carrot, and a cup of broken up broccoli, and let this fry with the chicken.
After this fries for a little longer, and everything is almost done now, I chop up a tomato into cubes and add them to the frying number. I left a few slices to garnish the dish at the end, which I flavored with sea salt and black pepper. This simmers for a little while longer, and is ready to be served.. maybe with a glass of pinot noir?
I would love to hear how it turns out for you, and if you have any suggestions on how to give this dish some extra life!
Its turning into summer, so I thought I’d share with you my homemade guacamole recipe I’ve perfected over the years.
It involves, 2 avocados, 1 clove of garlic, 1 tomato, sea salt, and chips to dip with!
First step is to de-pit the avocado, so your left with the good stuff, into a bowl. Take a spoon or fork to mash it all up, some people enjoy little clumps, I dislike having clumps from the avocado.
Next, finely chop up a clove of garlic, and tomato, and put that into the mix. Your tomato and chop it into small bite sized pieces that are big enough to be seen, but small enough to fit onto the chip without over taking it. Then sprinkle some sea salt into the mix.
I’ll leave the presentation part up to your own creativity, but now all you need is chips and hungry mouths!
Tonights great snack came to me through a Easter party from a friend showing off! She wrapped slightly boiled asparagus in bacon and threw them on the bbq, and oh my goodness were they ever good. So, I am going to tell you how to make them.
First off, wash and chop the ends off the asparagus. Then starting at one end, like taping the end of a hockey stick, wrap the bacon around the asparagus. The trick here is to wrap it almost around once to hold the starting in position, and then wrap it tight, so the hands do get a bit dirty!
When your done it should look like this:
Now, put them either on the bbq, or in a frying pan and get them pigs sizzling! Remember that you want the bacon to cook all the way through, although it is a myth that pig is dirty and if you don’t cook it till crispy it will kill you, it still tastes better if it has brown to it.
Enjoy this easy delight!
For some ideas on how to get a more healthy snack or meal, check out Exercise and Mind
Served tonight on my camping gear was a portobello explosion. I managed to do it all on my pint sized pots designed for compactness, and not for extravagances like I think my cooking is!
To begin the ordeal, rice goes into pot to bring to a boil, then simmer for 15 min (yes I have white jasmine rice) with equal amounts of water to rice, rinse the rice a few times before to get rid of some of the shells etc.
I can’t help taking a few seconds to contemplate the logic of wasting water to rinse rice….. hmm… Is this the fight I should start?
Wash the vegetables chosen for this gourmet delight, which are portobello mushrooms, green pepper, tomato, onion, and garlic.
Portos are sliced into equal slices, tomatoes are diced into chunks, onions are chopped into small bits, as is the garlic and green peppers.
Put the portos into the frying pan, with some butter for extra taste, I used extra virgin olive oil and put the heat on medium. Add the onions and garlic shortly after, or even at the same time.
I used some ground ginger, coriander, and poppy seeds, which I add now.
After this has fried for a short while add the green peppers to give them a little softening and finally the tomatoes at the very end to warm them up a little. I like my tomatoes to stay fresh still in my dishes.
As the frying finalizes, it should be timed perfect with the rice, and both should come to fruition at nearly the same time.
Love to hear how this turns out for you, and remember to eat with chop sticks!
Tonights dinner was what I call Chicken au de Rouge, and yes, I do think I’m fancy because I put a French twist to the title. It consisted of fried chicken with a red tomato paste on a bed of spaghetti. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and its a recipe I stole from my girl Sare, but she’s nice like that and doesn’t mind sharing a bit.
Ingredients:
Spices:
To start off with, get some water boiling for the spaghetti. While your waiting for this, I emptied two cans of tomato paste (little small ones) into a pot, and put the heat on very low, leaving it to simmer. I added about 2 cans of water to this mix over time, stirring the entire sauce constantly. Take 3 cloves of garlic, mash them up into a paste, and add this to the sauce. Also, take about a tablespoon of basil, tablespoon of oregano, and two cloves and add them to the sauce to give it flavor. Don’t be afraid to go crazy on these spices for you cannot have to much. Stir it lots. At this point I put a lid, very loosely and crooked, on top of the paste, just to keep the pot from spitting out the paste all over, not to keep the steam it at all, in fact, you want to let it breathe. Stir this frequently to keep the paste from burning on the bottom of the pot.
By now, the water should be boiled, put the spaghetti in there, and keep it boiling. I don’t use salt in the water, but do as you choose.
Turn on the chicken now. I spiced it with some sesame seeds, poppy seeds, paprika, and some ground coriander seed, along with a splash of extra virgin olive oil to keep the texture nice and juicy and non-stick. Stir occassionally.
Take the time now to cut up your vegetables. I cut my onions first, so I could put them into the chicken right away to get them roasted a little. I used half a red pepper, half an orange pepper, 4 mushrooms, 2 slices of onion, and 1 carrot.
I wait until the chicken is just about finished cooking, that is, there is no more pink showing on the chicken. I stir the chicken occasionally, so when it gets to the point of almost done, there is only about 1 or 2 chickens that have a slight bit of undone (pink) to them. Flip those pieces showing pink so they cook, wait about 2 minutes, and then at this point add all the veges to the mix, and cover the pan with a big lid to let it steam cook for a few minutes.
The spaghetti should probably be done by this time, so strain that and set it to the side.
When the chicken mix has been steaming for a few minutes, remove the lid, and pour the tomato sauce (that you’ve been stirring constantly!) into the chicken and vegetable mix.
At this point, I don’t like to let it cook for to long with the sauce in there, I like each thing to keep its own taste, and I like my veges to be a bit hard. I keep the heat on low, so the sauce doesn’t spit everywhere, and let it simmer for a couple of minutes, until I get to hungry to wait any longer, and then serve!
As you can see, I added some cucumber slices, and red & orange pepper slices to add some gourmet appeal. I’m trying to remember the old axiom: “Appearance is everything.” Its a long and slow battle trying to make dishes pretty.
I’d love to hear if you make this, see any pictures, and how you liked it if you try. Any suggestions on how to change the recipe?
So tonights dinner consisted of my own rendition of a Jambalaya. It was amazingly delicious, quite possibly from the sausage juices, more great meat found at Devicks Ranch.
To start off, I put the rice on as usual. 1:1.5 rice:water combination. For myself, it takes about 1/3 a cup to make enough rice.
Then, I chopped up the sausage into little slices, and put them in the frying pan, which I turned on at the same time the rice came to a boil, turning the rice down as low as it goes after it came to a boil.
Then, I chopped up my garlic and onion, putting them in as quick as possible with the sausage, allowing them infuse their flavor into the sausage.
At this time, get a little water boiling below a steamer for the peas or corn to come.
While waiting for the frying, chop up a carrot(1), mushrooms (4), and red pepper (1). Wait until the last 5 minutes to put these vegetables into the frying pan with the sausage. When all the vegetables are in the pan, put a lid onto it for a few minutes to steam the carrots and red-pepper a little, to reduce the crunch just a tid bit! 🙂
At the same time the chopped veges go into the pan, put the green peas (1/2 cup) or corn on to steam for a few minutes.
When all things seem done, pour the rice and peas into the frying pan with the rest of the Jambalaya; mix it around getting the rice soaked in the sausage fat! Yum. And presto!
Hope you all enjoy, more great food ideas can be found at Exercise and Mind! Let me know how it turns out; I’d love to hear.
Tonight I went for dinner at a place called Bennigans, thats right next to the Miami International Airport, conveniently located right next to the hotel I’m staying at tonight. To be to the point, I was very disappointed.
First off, on the menu, they have a picture of a full pint, 
with big arrows pointing at how regular pints fill up to ‘this’ certain line, but theirs fill up to ‘this’ certain line. We received a pint that was about the size of a glass you usually get in a hotel room in a plastic wrapper. Very unimpressed. The folks took a lot of offence to this, egged on by me, they complained, and we eventually got a 1/3 or so of the mug filled up to make up for the lacking pint. Sure, this is alright, but seriously now. If your a manager of a restaurant, and somebody complains about their pint being pint sized, and you know that the flyers are lying, not to mention that you’ve watered down the pints, do you not give them a full, complimentary pint? I would. But then again, its a restaurant thats besides the airport, which means very few returning customers, and the staff seemed about the ‘just graduated’ age. So, I guess things are becoming more clear.
We sit around, me finally with my bottled bear (a buddy of mine once said: “I always get bottles of beers because each one is especially brewed for you”. I now see his point.
Dinner is served. Let me first say that it was tasty, yes. How can a beef dinner not be tasty smothered in gravy? yai. SO I will not fuss further about the meal. No, wait, I will.
My meal was beef soup or something like that, which was basically chuncks of beef mixed with some red potatoes. Yum. yes, yum. But the side they gave me, was mashed potatoes. Red Potatoes. Kinda odd no? I did, as it said on the menu, have a choice between about 8 other sides (substitute the mashed red potatoes for them) but, I did in fact receive a caesar salad to start with too. So, it wasn’t anything I couldn’t deal with. But really, its odd to be smothering your potato chunks with mashed potatoes…. If you ask me.
So the fellow that was serving us did have some fast service, and he humbly and care-ingly accepted the complaints we put forth. But, at the end of the day, what is a tip for? Service, enjoyment, the whole experience? Yes I think so. So, at a place like this, where we were very unpleased with a few things, but satisfied with a few other things, how do you decide?
We found out, that a gratuity was already automatically added onto the bill for us, at 15% so we didn’t have to debate how much to tip. I didn’t like this part of the whole deal. Tipping is for service thats already known to be very good, at a place thats very classy and only really rich people go there. This place was more like a run down Red Robins, or a Chucke Cheeses. I was very unimpressed with this little fact that was added on the bill. Automatic gratuity. We should have definitely raised a lot more stink there than we ended up raising, but let it be known from here on forth, I, or we, will never again visit a Bennigans.
The end.
So yesterday I had the good fortune to experience some of the fine dining down here in Miami, and what a treat I was in for.
When we rolled into the parking lot, the first area of parking we hit, we decided to stay clear of it cause there was a group of people with their hood, trunk, and a few doors open. Can you say a robbery? The next area we drove into there was a couple in a Neon changing their babies diaper. How cute.
Into the Golden Corral. I suppose we should have been horrified immediately by the fact that the lineup for the steaks was about the line up you could expect for a super bowl halftime bathroom lineup, and of the lineup, I think it would have been hard to find two people that were not extremely overweight, yes most women had spandex on and most men had cutoff t-shirts. What amazed me most was the hair most of the women had. Some of the most amazing feats of hair composition I’ve ever even imagined to see. It kind of reminded me of the pages you see like “people of wall-mart” where you see grown men in batman costumes etc. yai.
We squeezed ourselves into the seating, where we had to ask around how to begin eating. Found some plates and attempted the all you can eat buffet. I turned my head as I watched a few people using their hands to poke and pick at some of the food as they waited in line for their steaks, and continued onto the salads to get myself a nice chicken ceasar salad. It was very decent.
Yes, I did wait in the linup for a steak. Yes, the kind lady in front of me called the griller doing the steaks ‘darling’. Yes, I did get a dessert: one slice of chocolate cake, and one slice of apple pie. Yes, there was food all over the ground getting stepped on. Yes, I did see an extremely fat man wearing sweat pants and grease stains included. And yes, I did work out this morning.
What amazes me the most is that people like the lady beside us, she managed to, on her first pass, get one steak on her plate, plus a side dish for another steak, which she lavished over. Her husband also went up to get a dish, and brought himself back a steak and his wife another steak. When we were leaving, she had three steaks, which were each about 10o oz. steaks each, and one on her plate. Seriously? Yes, I’m totally serious. And it wasn’t just her. Everybody around us was going up for their 4th and 5th plates, drinking their sodas.
You know what though, I feel kind of bad for judging these folks. In the most part, every single one of them seemed to be in a jolly mood, giggling and laughing to each other, having a gay old time at the Golden Corral. Who couldn’t with all that food in their bellies though?
I just wish I could be able to bring a first date to a place like that up in Vancouver!