New Food

If you have read my previous posts, I'm constantly obsessing with my weight.  I eat less junk food and try to eat healthy most of the time.

I cut down on ice cream and potatoe chips, but last weekend I lost it : bought a huge bag of chips and ate the Häagen-Dazs bucket in one evening (ok only 1/3 but my husband ate most of it).  I felt terrible, my stomach can't process that anymore.  Anyways, it felt good to let it go a little.

The next evening we ate homemade sushis and edamame beans.  It's the new food trend now, edamame.  They are addictive.  You can find them at Picard, if you live in France. In Canada it is easier to find  them at L.o.b.l.a.w.s or C.o.s.t.c.o. They sold them already peeled. I found out about the beans 2 years ago in Canada.  I asked my friend what is this hairy bean? She was shocked that I had never had edamame beans before.

If you haven't tried them already,  you can use those beans in an Asian style salad or any recipes you like or as a snack. 

When there's snow in France it's the end of the world

A couple days ago, we experienced snow storms on the northern regions of France.  I don't know exactly how much centimetres of snow have fallen, but I'm guessing less than 10 cm.  Well school was cancelled, lots of workers didn't show up at work.  Our employees decided not to come 2 days ago. TGV trains were cancelled.  The government had to deploy some "emergency plan". We don't have mails for 2 days. It was that bad.

It  is really frustrating.  The government knew there was going to have a snow storm but why didn't they get their snowplows to run?  rural roads are taken cared by communes (municipalities), highways by the regions. It's like the country is crippled by the snow.  Even if it doesn't occur often, there is no budget allocated to this kind of events.  I just found out that roads of our village is "cleaned" by a farmer, who does that in exchange of a full tank for his tractor, offered by the village.  It's like there is no such thing as a snow removal company.  Even if they wanted to use private companies, they would have to make a call for tenders.  Since it seems so complicated, they choose to do NOTHING.  And of course, French people don't have winter tires, except for the ones who live in the Alpes.

No need to be a genious to see that absenteeism in the workplace, no school, cars accidents on the road, are much more costly than spending a little on private snow removal companies once in a while.  I really wonder how the French government spends the tax revenues. My Canadian self can only shake my head. 

Quinoa

As I said on a previous post, I really want to reduce my meat consumption.  With all the meat scandals in France and Europe, it is a eye opener on the food we buy.  Besides, eating meat has an impact on the environment.  A prof at the University repeated a few times that it takes 16 000 liters of water to produce 1 kg of beef and those animals are fed by genetically modified soy beans from Brazil.  Every purchase we make has an impact.  I'm not saying that I will go vegetarian but I'm aware that meat can no longer be part of my everyday meals.

So where can I get proteines if I eat less meat? How about quinoa.  Since I've been in France, I've been eating a lot of couscous, and quinoa is a great way to replace the wheat and proteine.  It has no gluten, lots of proteine and has omega 3.  What's not to like?  I'm cooking my quinoa like rice, don't know if it's the right way or not though.

I have made sauteed vegetables and tofu with curry, with quinoa.  It was delicious.  I also make tabouleh with quinoa.

 Do you have quinoa recipes to share?

Recette de crème caramel

I haven't been inspired lately, but I am always willing to blog about food.  Recently, I have calculated the amount of food I spend every week, and it is shocking : 160 euros per week, for 2 people.  It really doesn't help either to have a neighbour who sells pork directly from his farm.  We work from home so lunches are included in our weekly food shopping.  So we've decided to cut down a little bit on meat.  Our goal is to eat meat once a day, or even less if possible.  I just ate the perfect lunch : capelli with mushrooms and green lentils, with tomato sauce. 

I never buy extras, such as "transformed" food, like cookies, or ready-cooked meals, or any desserts.  But sometimes, I have sugar attacks, so here's the simpliest dessert ever, and it is cheap too.  Only 3 or 4 ingredients.

Crème caramel

Yields 7 small ramekins

3 large eggs or 4 medium eggs
62,5 grammes of brown sugar or white (I used brown sugar with vanilla flavour)
375 ml of whole milk
75 ml of cream

1. Boil the cream and milk together.
2. In a bowl, mix eggs and sugar until it is foamy.
3. When the cream and milk mixture is boiled, gently add to the beaten eggs, whisk the mixture while adding the liquid.
4. In 7 ramekins, put a teaspoon of caramel (homemade or store bought). You can add a little bit of liquor if you are fancy.  I added irish coffee in mines.
4. Pour the egg mixture into ramekins (I had 7 smalls ramekins that fit into a plate that goes into an oven)
Add water into the plate and put the ramekins in the plate.
Cook in the oven for 45 minutes at 200°C.

It is cooked in a bain-marie so the bottom won't burn.  

The fancy version is "crème brûlée" which is pretty much the same recipe but you only put the brown sugar on the top and burn the sugar with a small burner or put the crème brûlée under hot grills for a few minutes. Put the ramekins into the fridge for at least 2 hours before serving.  You can present the ramekin as it is or flip the crème caramel upside down.

Now you can impress your guests with a simple desserts and they will think you're a fancy cook.

My Trip to Asia

Visiting Asia for the first time was amazing.  I had the chance to go to T.h.a.i.l.a.n.d and C.a.m.b.o.d.i.a. (sorry for the dotted words but I don't want to be read by my father who must have a google alert in his email on anything related to this country).

The trip was, at time, chaotic. I travelled with my sister, her BF and my husband.  Since she has been there  before, we totally relied on her for the trip.  She told me to bring only a backpack and some bed sheets in case the ones in hotels are dirty.  We bought 2 huge backpacks/trolly.  I wasn't able to put it on my shoulders.  I don't think it was even really designed to carry it on the shoulders.  I thought I have packed the strict minimum, but there we were with those huge luggages, unable to carry them around.  We thought that Thailand and C.a.mb.odi.a had no stores or something.  Backpack is the way to go if you want to move around.  We mainly travelled by bus/boat and having heavy luggage is not fun. 

In T.h.a.i.l.a.n.d, they are so many 7/11 (convenience store).  The pattern was : hotels, 7/11, drugstore.  We were amazed and pleased to see how Thailand is tourist oriented it was.  It made our trip really easy.  

After a 10 hour flight, we landed at the suvarnabhumi airport, located at 40 km from B.a.n.g.k.o.k.  No visa is needed if you stay less then 30 days. We called a taxi and we arrived at Kaosan Road, a district in B.a.n.g.k.o.k., where most backpackers start their journey.  If you like lively nights, the place is for you.  I don't recommend this to people who want a goodnight sleep though.  We haven't slept much, we could hear live shows just below our hotel.  The next day, we visited the Wat Pho.  It was so nice.  We strolled around B.a.n.g.k.o.k, took a ferry, got lost and landed on the Factory district. The place was so clean we thought we were in Canada  for a second.

 
After 2 days in Bangkok, we left for S.i.e.m  R.e.a.p.  We bought our tickets from a travel agency, just near the hotel  where  we were  staying.  10$ US  per  person  for the ride,  and  40$ pour the visa to  enter  C.a.m.b.o.d.i.a.  We knew that getting our visa by ourself would be difficult, so we let the travel agency do the  work.  Normally, it will cost you 25$ for the visa.  I think the best thing to do is applying for a visa online before departure.  However, the ride to S.i.em R.e.a.p took forever.  The agency told us it will be a 7 hour-ride, but it was more 14 hours.  C am bodi an authority is corrupted and is not helping tourism by being so inefficient.  Crossing the land border can take 3 hours.  So if you really want to visit C a m b o d i a, I recommend taking a flight, it's around 200$-300$ from Bangkok.  If only we have known it was that difficult to get there, we would have taken a flight.  There are less hassles for visas if you land directly at the airport.

S.i.e.m R.e.a.p

We arrived late in the evening.  The bus left us somewhere (maybe at travel agency, we can't see in the dark) and a bunch of tuk tuk was there to  catch some clients.  I told my sister I want a cab because there was no way I was going to ride on a tuk tuk, but she said there's no taxi in the City.  So we hopped on tuk tuk and luckily the driver knew where our hotel was located. I was scared for nothing, the ride was quite fun.

The next day, we visited Angkor Wat.  It was magical.  The weather was really hot, but the visit was worth the effort.  We had a 3 day pass, so the next day we woke up early to see the sunrise.  The red sun wasn't there, I think there is too much fuss over this sunrise at Angkor Wat.  We didn't see anything impressive but we had breakfast in front of Angkor Wat and it was priceless.

After 4 days in S i e m Reap, it was time to leave for Phnom Penh, the capital.  We took the river boat on December 25th. It was gently sailing on the Tonle Sap (river).  It took us 5 hours to get there.  My sister thought it would be nicer than taking a bus.  It cost us 35$ per person.  I found it expensive.  The boat was small and old and we were on the roof and we got burned by the sun.  Our sunblock was worthless against the power of the sun rays.  I was happy to see the scenery but I couldn't get off the roof for 5 hours to get inside the boat, because I was too afraid to fall from the boat.

P h n o m  P e n h

We arrived earlier than expected.  We relaxed in our hotel and went to the restaurant with my uncle who lives there with his family.  We were surprised by the way things are in Phnom Penh.  A lot of SUV's, toyota, Lexus and so on.  There's no public transportation, but lots of luxurious cars, and tuk tuk and motorcycles everywhere.  The traffic is so dense and nobody respects the traffic lights.  Walking is not really recommended.  We also visited Oudong, a mountain, located at 40 km from Phnom Penh.  It was one former  Capital of the country.

K a m p o t, K  e p and S i a no u k v i l l e

We gladly left the big city after 4 days.  The capital is bustling with activities and we were happy to leave for quieter areas.  We went to B o k o r, and the view was breathtaking.  We spent the night in K a m p o t, and visited a market briefly to purchase some peppercorns. Some people may say it is one of the best in the world.  The region is bordered by the sea.  We slept the next day at Kep.  We had crabs with green pepper.  It was fresh and very tasty.

We left the next morning to Sianoukville.  It was a 4 hour ride from Kep to S i a n o u k v i l l e.  The city is renowned for its beach.  We were on December 30th, and we didn't make any hotel reservation.  A mistake, because all the hotels were booked and when we arrived, the bus left us at a "terminal station" /guest house. 

 We took a room at 70$, that we had to share with the 4 of us.  I was totally disenchanted.  How can hotel owners can take advantages at tourists like that.  There was no time to lament, we headed to the beach, as we had only one day in the city.  The beach was nice, but plastic bags and other garbage were laying in the shore.  Not a pretty sight.  Plus, we were harassed by so-called masseuses and kids who sells some bracelets or sunglasses.  We were bothered by the masseuses, the kids and the beggars the whole time.  My flip flops have been stolen.  I left french fries on the table, and some kid asked the waiter if she can help herself and grabbed them immediately.  How can a beautiful beach can turned into a pittyful place. Not only the hotel rooms are over priced but the beach has nothing to envy Kep or K a m p o t.  Sianoukville is packed of tourists and lots of restaurants owners are foreigners. The greediness of the hotel owners and the locals will definetly drive away prospective tourists.  If you can, avoid this city.  We left the next morning to Koh K.o.n.g , our last day in Cambodia.  There wasn't much to see.  A small city, the closest to the Thai border.  The next day we took the bus for K o h C h a n g in Thailand.  The border crossing was easy, we had no problems entering Thailand again.

K o h C h a n g, Thailand

My sister chose Koh Chang for our last week of the trip.  She ramdomly picked out this island, but we wanted to avoid Pattaya, where things are too "hot" over there. It took 8 hours to  get there  from  K o h     K o n g, C a m b o d i a   to   K o h C h a n g, T h a i l a n d : distance on google maps : less than 200 km! We booked the ride from our Hotel.  The bus picked us up at 1pm.  It took us 1 or 2 hours to cross the land border.  Then, a mini-van picked up us at the Thai border.  Then we had to wait for a a taxi "pick up" that would bring us to the ferry.


Then we finally took the ferry, and another pick up taxi.  When we arrived at our hotel, Kai Bae Hut , at 9 pm, there was no light and we had a hard time finding our hotel.  The receptionist was in a hurry to leave and she almost left without giving me my hotel room.  Even if the welcome was odd, we had nothing to complain about the hotel.  The beach was practically at 20 meters from our room and the sight was nice.  We did kayaking, snorkling, swimming.  It was a really nice break from all the travelling from the last 2 weeks. 

The trip was so much fun.  I admit I had apprehensions about going to Asia, but there is nothing to fear about. I did take some precautions, such as having hepatite A shot, andtetanus-diphtheria shot etc.  As for the mosquitos that would transmit malaria, I don't know if taking pills was really necessary.  There wasn't no mosquitos during the dry season.  The malaria vaccin exists since 2007 but is not commercialized because big firms are not interested in investing in non-Western diseases.

We were caucious over the food but then again, there wasn't nothing to be scared of.  Hotels are really cheap and for30$ you can have a really nice room.  Don't expect a normal  shower and toilet though. Overall, if you have not been to Thailand or C a m b o d i a, you should definely go.  You only have to pay for the plane tickets, and the rest, it is really affordable.  You can eat for as low as 3-4$ per meal.  The weather is so warm that you loose your appetite.  We managed to loose a few pounds there, because we didn't even eat at noon.  And also bring only a backpack.  You can get nice cheap clothes in Asia.  To get around, from city to city, travel agencies are everywhere or you can directly book at your hotel for a bus ride.  Prices vary between 10$ to 30$.  Really low prices but don't expect to arrive soon, bus trips are long.  Expect to sweat a lot, and bring sunblocks.

You can contact me if you need further infos on these countries.