Treats from China!

I've revved up my workouts these last couple weeks and now am barely coherent from the pain... yet strangely addicted to doing interval training and with a new appreciation for both my treadmill and my (newly toned!) biceps. Thought I'd make note of that since I am now hanging on to my sanity by a thread as I write this post...

Dad arrived home safely today after almost two weeks in China for a business trip, and brought many goodies with him! Though he only went to Shanghai and Hangzhou, Mom told him to make sure to bring back some Beijing pastries, and I'm consuming them without an ounce of guilt, though probably worth more than an ounce on the scale.

A whole huge bag of famous beijing pastries! You can't get these anywhere but in Beijing, so my dad had a friend bring him some. He also got a bunch of candy from Shanghai, which is famous for it's treats as well as for it's delicious White Bunny milk candies. He visited many specialty candy stores in search of yummy satisfaction for our family.

More delightful soveneirs...

Cute bracelets made from the same kind of wood they make buddhist prayer beads out of.

Photo of the day #7: Japanese tea cakes

One of my dad's business associates gave him these; mini cream-filled puffs that are supposed to be for "tea time". Delish, and super light and fluffy. Barely any sugar taste at all but quite good with a cup of heavy coffee.

Halloween cookies- Nutella to the rescue!

Making homemade treats for kids on Halloween is a time-honored tradition that this year, I've decided to join in myself.
Originally, I had planned on making chocolate "Mummy" cookies with M&M eyes, and bloody marshmallow treats. However, when I checked the pantry today, there was no cocoa powder and no grape juice! I was strapped for time and in need of a chocolate cookie recipe that didn't require any cocoa powder or baking chocolate.
Then my eyes happened to rest upon this lifesaver:

Total "Heaven Hallelujah" moment. (And by the way this whole post is pretty much an ode to how unprepared I can be at times.)

I used this super simple 3 ingredient nutella cookie recipe, but you can add any variety of variations, uch as adding some chocolate chips or chopped almonds, or melting ome mini marshmallows on top. Caramel would be great too...
I added 1/4 of a cup of peanut butter to make the nutty taste stand out more, but left the cookie mostly plain for further decoration.

RECIPE:
*1 cup nutella
*1 cup flour
*1 egg

PREPERATION:
1.) Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2.) Mix all the ingredients together. The dough will be a bit crumbly but will hold.



(Yes I realize this looks quite dubious)



3.) Roll into 1 inch balls and then press down until they are round and flat
4.) Bake for 7-8 minutes

They don't turn out super pretty, but are quite delicious and not too sweet.

Then I drizzled them with vanilla frosting and put two Skittles to resemble eyes on top. I had originally planned on M&Ms to do that but couldn't find them, so I substituted with Skittles.

You can use a flat piper and make bandage-like strips (which was, again, what I had been planning on doing, but I had lost that particular piping tip so I had to make do with drizzling.)
or you can go creative and decorate it with skull heads and such. I was strapped for time and too tired to be creative, so the results were less fantastic as I would've liked the to be, but they still turned out great and plus I had everything done in under 30 minutes.
Happy Halloween!

Second trip to the fair!

Got a boatload of pics this time of my trip to the state fair with my kick-ass family! Please excuse all the exclamation mark as I just downed like 10 brownies after coming home from a good game of tennis and all that sugar is just buzzing in my system...
Anyways, enjoy!




Fried Bologna on a stick! Split this with my little bro. You've gotta start off with something to eat, right? The excess of oil and sodium made it taste great, but when it cooled it tasted like spam. Kinda like most fried foods at the fair...

Crab fritters stuffed with chopped veggies, crab meat, and egg, deep-fried in batter, then served with some SouthWestern sauce. Really nice, and some real traditional home-style cooking.

Something sweet! A frozen banana dipped in chocolate. And just to inform y'all out there, the reason I'm not clinically obese yet is due to the fact that I take nibbles of everything! So pretty much all the food in the pictures were either split with someone else, or my brother or dad was eating it and I tortured them by making them pause to snap a pic. 

 

Visiting the animals

 A real horse's ass. Okay, I know it's immature, but pictures of animal butts still never fail to amuse me, so please bear with me through the next couple butt-shots.

 

Cows in a row

 

Okay last cow butt picture, I promise! When I was little I used to think that chocolate milk came from chocolate cows. Guess that fantasy still hasn't been broached. Wonder where strawberry milk would come from then, since I've never seen a pink cow before.

Anemic-looking sheep. I'm pretty sure it ate some lady's hat...

Another animal butt picture! I'm sorry, but I cannot stop myself from thinking of bacon every time I see a pig. And yes, I realize the irony of posting farm animals that are very butcher-ready when I am such a carnivore.

Wilbur from Charlotte's Web, anybody?

Cutest little piglet! Only 13 days old... (And in my sick mind: not yet fully formed pork tenderloin.)

I milked a goat! It wasn't even mildly scary, as goats seem to be such stubborn and interesting creatures that we actually get along very well. Visions of Heidi drift in my mind.

Chicken Einstein

Placid-looking goose.

Ginormous turkey leg the size of my arm. And though I have short arms, let me tell ya; that's a big-ass turkey leg! Kinda felt guilty about eating it though after just seeing all those turkeys in the fowl building.

 Said turkey leg about 10 minutes later, gnawed clean by the combined efforts of me, my dad, and my brother.

Brisket sandwich for my brother, ordered at my fave southern-style food stand. Really greasy and flavorful, with the gravy soaked into it and the meat just coming apart in your mouth.

Ice cream machine from 1939

Refreshing strawberry ice cream freshly made from that machine

Ketchup and Mustard flavored lip balm! They handed them out for free somewhere in the fair, and I got super-obsessed trying to mix the two into the perfect orangey combo. The ketchup tastes more marinara sauce-like and almost cherry-ish, but the mustard was full-on mustard! Very interesting when I mixed the ketchup with my other french-fry flavored lip balm.

And that's the end of my state fair adventure! Until next year!