Trying New Recipes

The other day I was searching recipes online and stumbled across this recipe called Chinese Pepper Steak.  I decided to try it out since I had most of the ingredients and I didn’t need to do a lot of prepping. The recipe turned out really good I used 2 steaks so I added 1 - 1/2 more of every ingredient. I will be posting the original recipe and write what I changed at the bottom. (This recipe is not mine)

(Original)

Ingredients:

1 Pound beef top sirloin steak

1/4 cup Soy sauce

2 Tablespoons white sugar

2 Tablespoons cornstarch

1/2 Teaspoon ground ginger

3 Tablespoons vegetable oil, divided

1 Red onion, cut into 1 inch squares

1 Green bell pepper, cut into 1 inch squares

2 Tomatoes cut into wedges

Directions:

1. Slice the steak into 1/2 inch thick slices across the grain
2. Whisk together soy sauce, sugar, cornstarch, and ginger in a bowl until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture is smooth. Place the steak into the marinade, and stir until will-coated
3. Heat 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil in a wok or large skillet over media-high head, and place 1/3 of the steak strips into the hot oil. Cook and stir until the beef is well browned, about 3 minutes and remove the beef from the wok to a bowl. Repeat twice more, with the remaining beef, and set the cooked beef aside
4. Return all the cooked beef to the hot wok, and stir in the onion. Toss the beff and onion together until the onion begins to soften, about 2 minutes, then stir in the green pepper. Cook and stir the mixture until the peppers has turned bright green and started to become tender, about 2 minutes, then add the tomatoes, stir everything together and serve.

Now here is what I did differently, for the most part everything is pretty much the same just more ingredients because I used more steak and I cooked all the meat at once instead of taking it out and repeating multiple times. I am too lazy for that.

Ingredients:

2 Beef top sirloin steak

1/4 cup and 2 tablespoon Soy sauce

3 tablespoon Sugar

2 1/2 tablespoon Cornstarch

1 teaspoon Grated ginger (I am using one from a tube)

2 tablespoon Olive oil (or cooking oil of your choice)

1 Red onion cut into 1 inch squares

2 Green bell peppers cut into 1 inch squares

1 Large tomatoes cut into wedges and then halves

1 teaspoon garlic (I am using dried garlic fresh is fine)

Directions:

1. Slice the steak into 1/2 inch thick slices across the grain
2. Whisk together soy sauce, sugar, cornstarch, and ginger in a bowl until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture is smooth. Place the steak into the marinade, and stir until will-coated
3. Let marinade for about 30 minutes; take out of fridge 10 minutes before cooking
4. Heat oil in pan add garlic stir for 30 seconds or until you can smell the garlic before the garlic starts to brown
5. Add all beef and stir fry until almost done
6. Add in onions and bell pepper cook until bell pepper is tender
7. Add tomatoes cook for another 2 minutes so that tomatoes warm up and starts to soften
8. Serve with rice.

If you are starving and don't want to wait for the meat to marinade, you can start cooking right away after mixing and coating the meat into the marinade.

I packed this for my boyfriends lunch for work.  He said he loved it!  He added sriracha and a little bit of soy sauce to his rice as well.  He really likes eating sriracha and soy sauce with white rice doesn't matter what he's eating with the white rice if he can get his hands on those 2 he will added it.

Garlic in Olive Oil

Marinaded beef ready to go.

Remember a recipe is just a base for you guys to explore new flavors. You can always adjust these ingredients to your liking like I did. So please enjoy, explore, and have a happy belly.

First Time at the Groomers

Mochi’s hair is getting out of hand.  She looks like a big furry cotton ball so we decided to try taking her to the groomers for the first time.  I was a little bit worried about leaving her with strangers because she does have a little bit of an anxiety issue, but she did great!  We took her to Petco and they took their time with her giving her a break here and there.  The package included free nail painting which we will be skipping if there is a next time because it seemed like they didn’t really cut her nails and just painted it.  Other than that everything seemed to turned out ok. My fur ball now looks half the size she was.

before

after; my boyfriend forgot to tell them to trim her tail.

at the groomers

she spotted us!

Her painted nails that just look black

Loosing Weight

For years I’ve always wanted to loose weight but I never really tried hard.  I would start to work out but fall off the wagon a couple of weeks to a month later.  It was always hard for me to keep going once I started.  But this year I started to drink more water.  I started out with trying to drink about 24oz a day and increased it to 32oz a day.  I’ve also noticed I started to eat less than I normally would eat.  Most of the time some people would eat until they are super stuff and in food coma especially during the holidays.  But lately I’ve notice I don’t do that anymore, when I start to feel full I stop eating even when I’m not super stuff.

I am still drinking soda and eating what I normally eat just drinking more water.  Recently I just bought a new water bottle which is 50oz.  I got it at Sports Authority as they are going out of business and I love this water bottle!  My boyfriend got one as well because he wanted to drink more water too.  There is measurements on the side so you know how much you are drinking.  I try to drink at least 1 bottle a day.  To some it might not be a big deal but to me who doesn’t like to drink water often, it could be pretty challenging.  At first it was a struggle but now I don’t mind. I like my water super cold so I would leave it in the fridge over night or add lots of ice to the bottle.

So far since I’ve started drinking more water I have lost around 40 pounds! 40 POUNDS! That is amazing to me just because I never would have thought I could lose that much weight.  When I started to weight myself I didn’t believe the scale I thought it was broken.  I was like no way this can’t be right…. Even thought I wasn’t sure if the numbers on the scale was correct it did boost my confidence that I was doing something right.  By the way the scale isn’t broken, I checked my weight at my aunts house and it matched.  I started this in January and it is pretty much the end of July so I’ve lost about 5-6 pounds a month! I’ve gone 2 pants sizes down which I think I could have gone one more pant size down.  The jeans I’m currently wearing are a little baggy I guess I missed judge my size.  I did order them online because I was to busy to go to the mall.  I do kind of regret that decision now because Torrid jeans are not cheap!  But o-well its too late now I just have to wait until I go down a couple more sizes.

It wasn’t a continuous weight drop, the weight did go up and down a couple of pounds but for the most part I have been able to keep the weight off.  The problem now is, the weight is coming off but I am not toning or muscle building.  I know I need to work on it to get a better shape for my body but I just hate working out.  I might try to do yoga again thats what got me into working out before.

The water bottle brand is: CamelBak Chute

Going down!

Rough First Time at the Beach

We decided to do a bonfire at the beach last weekend and it would be Mochi’s first time exploring the beach.  Picked up food at Boston market and went to set up. The beach we picked wasn’t crowded and it was a nice cool day.  She seemed pretty interested in the beach.  She rubbed her face all up in the sand.  She wasn’t loving the water too much though.

As we ate other people started coming to the fire pits next to us.  Which was fine but the guy had no control over his dog he thought it was cute that his big dog kept coming over to us begging for food.  The dog came over 2-3 times and we would have to cover our food and stop eating.  Mochi seemed ok with it until I’m not too sure what happened the dog barked at Mochi and she totally freaked out.  After that she was totally over the beach, over the day, didn’t want anything to do with it, and wanted to leave but we just kept her close to us to calm her down.

Anyway, I’m done with the rant.  After he finally stop coming over because he put his dog on a leash.  Everything in the end turned out great. Mochi still didn’t want to do anything and just sat next to me but eventually my boyfriend got her to walk to the water again even if she wont go in.

She drank some water and got sand on her face

Boyfriends Birthday

This year for my boyfriends birthday I decided to make him a call of duty cake since he loves that game.  I have to admit it could have turned out better compared to the Minecraft cake I made for him a couple of years ago.  But I thought I would surprise him with a cake anyway.  I bought the molds for the bullet and gun on amazon and I used green and black edible spray paint from Walmart it was the first time I had ever used edible spray paint.  I attempted to spray paint the guns black but the color kept melting off the chocolate gun. I had to do a couple of layers for it to be somewhat black.  I printed out a call of duty logo and did the words using white chocolate and filled in the back and boarder with milk chocolate.  It could have been a little bit cleaner but for my first time I thought it was ok.  I didn’t have a plan for this cake like I did with the Minecraft cake so it was a simple design.

My boyfriend did love the cake it turned out good, so I was pretty happy with that.

If you would like to see the Minecraft cake please click here -> Minecraft Cake

Red Lips

I've always thought I could never pull off red lips. That my skin color was too dark or my lips were too small to pull off any type of bright color lipstick.  But my cousins keep trying to put some color in my life.  This look is by her.  She attacked my face with a little bit of make up because I didn’t want to put any on.  It was just the basics eye liner, eye shadow, false lashes, eye brow, and lipstick.  I must say though I actually like the color on my lips and how everything turned out even though I didn’t put any foundation on.  The only thing is I was still a little bit nervous going out in public with bright color lips.  I’m the type of person that likes to wear dark color clothes or any non bright colored clothes.  I’ve been trying to change the way I dress and trying to have the mentality of who cares what I wear or who stares. But the introvert side of me is always there giving me unnecessary thoughts like if I wear this what will people think. But honestly I know no one is looking and you will never see that person again ever in your life.  I just get a little bit of anxiety sometimes.

^^ makeup by my cousin

I decided to try and be brave by wearing some lipstick to Universal Studios

Shadows of the night

A couple of weeks ago my boyfriend parents asked us to go see some houses with them that they were looking into purchasing.  We saw about 5 houses that day it was long hot and for the most part not that impressive.  One of the houses we went to see was strange.  1st we drove past a cemetery so thats already creepy, 2nd when we got to the house the neighbors were already so rude.  The house itself looked creepy we found out that it had been a foreclosed home.  So obviously the previous owners were pissed.  The front door had been nailed shut with wood boards from the inside, smashed windows, and everything inside the house was a hot mess everything looked trashed or ripped out of place.  The realtor said that the house is being remodeled but it didn't look that way too me.  While I was walking around the house I started to get bad negative energy like I wanted to get out the house as quickly as I can. The atmosphere just seemed off so I told my boyfriend I'm done and I'm going to the car.

Later that night my boyfriend and I were in his car talking about the houses today and other things we didn't want to talk inside his parents house because the walls were pretty thin and it was late at night.  So we're just chilling talking and I'm siting side ways in the front seat facing him when all of a sudden I see a shadow of a bald man on his neighbors RV.  For some reason after I saw the shadow I burst into tears. It initially did scary me when I first saw it because a shadow came out of nowhere but I wasn't scared of it so I have no idea why I started to cry.  Even though it was for a second I saw it go towards the darkness on the side of the house.

I feel like because we went into a bad negative energy house and we did argue a little bit in the car that it could have created more negative energy just enough for it to manifest itself for a split second. It was creepy though and I would be ok with not ever seeing it again.

Flea Collar

There are dogs on both sides of my boyfriend’s house and I have seen fleas before in his back yard while we were barbecuing.  So the first day we brought our pup home we let her run around outside before we started to groom her and there was already a flea on her.  So right away we went to the pet store to get flea medication.

Buying flea medication for your dog can get a little expensive over the years.  I usually get frontline plus, it's the brand that I've used for as long as I can remember.  But recently while browsing for flea medication we stumbled across this brand Seresto flea collar.  What caught our eyes was that it last for 8 months.  At first we were skeptical because all other flea medication only last for a month.  But we decided to try it anyways if it doesn't work, it doesn't work and we'll just go back to what we know.  Now this is in no way trying to put a bad name to frontline I love it, it works! It's just a little expensive.

It's been 8 months now since we put it on her and I can definitely say it does work.  I have not seen any fleas on my dog.  It also comes with little reflectors to put on the collar but in my opinion it doesn't really do anything.  So it's your option to put it on the collar or not.  We did repurchased this item and will most likely be using this brand from now on as long as it keeps working.

Reflector on her collar