My best friend in weight control

Fire-roasted tomato soup with rainbow chards, black-eyed peas, and Tofurky vegetarian sausages

Almost all of the food media I’ve read recently had a feature on soups. This is hardly surprising since eating soups is a great way to stay warm during the winter. How can I offer a fresh take on a much-written topic? 

While I am not on a diet to lose weight, I’ve found soups to be very effective in making me feel full with relatively few calories. Obviously I’m not a dietician, but I feel confident to share my experience because I’ve read a lot and tried different things to maintain my weight successfully.

The high water content of soups is key. I drink a lot of water at work not only because doctors tell us to do so, but it also helps me stave off hunger, especially on a drowsy afternoon. I am able to resist junk food most of the time because of this. The same applies to soups, and thank god, they are a lot more flavorful.

The other point about soups is more subtle. I strongly believe we eat with our eyes – figuratively, not literally of course. I am intrigued by the findings by Prof. Brian Wanshik, bestselling author of Mindless Eating and founder of Cornell’s Food and Brand Lab. His research reveals that we respond to visual cues when eating, so we subconsciously eat more if we have a bigger plate, for instance.

Soups “trick” us in believing that we’ve had a lot of food by their sheer volume. Whereas the ingredients in one serving of soup may take up a small plate only. When I eat soup at home, I deliberately use smaller bowls so I can have multiple helpings to reinforce this “illusion.” You think it’s BS? It works.

Then there are practical reasons for having soups. I cook soups over weekends to use up ingredients in my fridge. Soups are forgiving so less-than-perfect ingredients do not affect the outcome noticeably. Even when a recipe calls for broth, I just use water without losing much flavor.

As always, my soups are easy to put together, usually in less than an hour. I don’t have a blender so pureed soups are out of my league. Because I often work after I return home now, I haven’t tackled time-consuming soups as much as I want.

Easy miso-soup with spinach,  tofu, and enoki mushrooms topped with nori seaweeds

Two things the more weight-conscious of you probably know already: soups made with a lot of cream, potatoes, etc. probably won’t help you with your weight. Same if you eat a lot of bread with your soup, as I tend to do.

Losing weight is hard.

Not exactly a diet recipe but good for a cold night: rice noodles with mixed vegetables in spicy broth

Enjoy the three soups I bring you today at least: fire-roasted tomato soup with rainbow chard, black-eyed peas, and Tofurky vegetarian sausages (probably my most favorite fake meat); miso soup with spinach, tofu, and enoki mushrooms; and rice noodles with mixed vegetables in spicy broth.

In the mood of Chinese New Year

Last Sunday was the first day of the Chinese New Year of Tiger. Since I didn’t have to work, I felt the urge to celebrate by trekking up to San Francisco.

Chinese New Year was a big deal when I grew up in Hong Kong. But since I came to the US, it gradually felt off my radar because the last few cities I lived didn’t have a sizable Chinese population or a decent Chinatown, so there was no large-scale celebration.

Cantonese opera-singing outside of Chinatown on New Year’s Day

Maybe because I hadn’t taken Chinese New Year seriously for such a long time, I really looked forward to it this year. I thought much about the trip to San Francisco during the week leading up to the New Year.

So what did I end up doing in San Francisco? The first place I went was San Bao Temple, a Buddhist temple of Taiwanese origin. I wanted to follow my family’s custom of visiting a temple at the beginning of the New Year to ask for blessings from the gods.

After a ceremony to dedicate our offerings to the Buddha, the temple served a vegetarian lunch for the congregation. Even before I became a vegetarian, I liked to start the New Year with a vegetarian meal. The idea is to avoid any killing.

The temple serves amazing Chinese vegetarian food. The main dish for the day was lo-han vegetarian medley (consisting of napa cabbage, bean curd sheets, black moss seaweed, mushrooms, etc.), served along several stir-fries, brown rice, and soup.

I then moved on to Chinatown to get my dose of unhealthy festive food. I gleefully threw my New Year resolution to eat healthier out of the window, at least for the day.

As if I were on a high, I picked up deep-fried dough balls coated with sesame seeds, steamed buns filled with lotus seed and custard pastes, a glutinous rice ball dessert, and a couple of Hong Kong-style bakery items.

(From top left, clockwise) Dim-sums, Hong Kong-style buns, and deep-fried dough balls coated with sesame seeds

Glutinous rice ball dessert with coconut filling

I enjoyed these treats by sitting on the grass in the nearby Washington Square in North Beach, people-watching at the same time. Talk about low-cost entertainment!

Before I headed back to San Mateo, I couldn’t resist and bought a round cake of nian gao (glutinous rice cake) to savor at home later. The cake was tinted red to signify good luck. I hoped the color didn’t come from artificial coloring.

But I craved nian gao so much that this was hardly a concern. The last time I had it was EIGHT years ago. When I bit into the warm, pillowy, coconut milk-flavored slices of nian gao after heating them up at home, memories from Chinese New Year in Hong Kong rushed back to me. All the food. All the people. All the noise.

Unhealthy festive food: deep-fried dough balls and nian gao

I went so far as eating almost nian gao only the following day. Was it nostalgia or homesickness? Now I have to think of ways to lose the pounds I’ve gained from all the carbs…

Wishing you an auspicious Year of the Tiger!

Root vegetables to beat winter blues

Winter in the Bay area is quite mild compared to the "Snowmageddon" engulfing the East Coast over the last two weeks. Despite having lived on the East Coast for years, I still find our winter to be uncomfortably chilly. Especially when it gets rainy and windy, I feel as if my soul were drawn out of me.

One way I deal with the winter blues is by having dessert soups. But I can't have desserts all the time, plus I vowed to cut down my sugar consumption this year. What else can I do?

Answer: root vegetables. During the winter months, root vegetables such as potatoes and turnips take center stage in farmers' markets as there isn't much other produce. As a result, I buy them almost every week.

Cooking and eating these vegetables warms me up and makes me feel grounded. Like beans and soups, their starchy and filling nature restores my energy level immediately. Not to mention they are nutritious.

Roasting brings out the best flavors of root vegetables. It's really no-fuss, and I can do something else as they are cooking in the oven.

I usually just toss the vegetables, peeled and diced, with salt, pepper, and olive oil before popping them into the oven for about 45 minutes. Occasionally I add sprigs of herbs such as rosemary or spices such as colander into the mix. The vegetables usually have enough flavor and don't need too much condiments.

If you don't want to bother with the oven, stovetop cooking works for some vegetables too. Recently I did a rotini with sweet potatoes, peas, and sundried tomatoes. I first sauteed the sweet potatoes with diced shallots, and then added some water to cook them.

 Whole-wheat rotini with sweet potatoes, peas, and sundried tomatoes

The flavor was not as intense as in the case of roasting them, but they were still delicious. The dish kept well so I brought it for lunch in the office the next day too.

I will close with a big dinner salad made with roasted rutabaga, kohlrabi, and walnuts on top of a mixture of frisee and arugula and drizzled with champagne vinaigrette. Sounds fancy, isn't it?

Frisee and arugula salad with roasted rutabaga, kohlrabi, and walnuts

I bought the rutabaga and kohlrabi from a stand known for heirloom and obscure varieties of produce in the Menlo Park farmers' market (another of my favorite markets in the Bay area). I like that the roasted rutabaga and kohlrabi are mild-flavored so they didn't obscure the freshness of the salad greens. The vinaigrette added a nice dimension to an otherwise clean-tasting salad.

By the way, Happy Chinese New Year and Valentine's Day!

Breakfast sugar battle

I felt guilty when I saw that I haven't written a post for 3 weeks. January was unusually busy for me, and now we're in February, I know I can't put off writing anymore.

A friend asked me recently how I am keeping my New Year's resolution to eat less sugar. Do you want to know too?

While overall I've succeeded in having just one BIG dessert each week, I found it's difficult to eliminate sugar completely from other meals, especially breakfast.

Since coming to the U.S., I've grown used to eating something just a bit sweet in the morning. Fruits containing natural sugars are okay. What I've been trying is to avoid added sugars in breakfast foods.

Believe it or not, many kinds of breads in the market contain added sugars, be them honey, molasses, or plain white sugar. French or Italian breads tend not to have them, but sandwich bread and other eggy breads such as challah usually do.

I typically don't eat muffins or pancakes for breakfast either because they are too sweet for my palate in the morning.

But there are times when sweet cravings strike. So my strategy of dealing with them? I make my healthier version of sweet baked goods.

Previously I only did so over weekends when I had more time. I've since found easier recipes that I can make on weeknights, so I can have homemade baked goods in the morning. Weird as it sounds, baking at night is also a stress reliever after a long day.

The recipes are mostly quick bread recipes that keep well in the fridge so I can eat them over the week. Not only did I cut down the amount of sugar in the recipes significantly, but I also used applesauce to substitute for the eggs and most of the oil, and white whole wheat flour to increase fiber content.

Here are two recipes I felt were superb: cranberry tea bread adapted from a Martha Stewart recipe, and gingerbread cake adapted from a New York Times recipe.

Vegan cranberry tea bread featuring fresh cranberries sitting in my freezer

 

Incredibly moist vegan gingerbread (applesauce) cake

The secret ingredients were the orange or lemon zests in the batter. They lifted the quick breads by giving them a fresh and fragrant flavor. Thanks to the applesauce, the quick breads were wonderfully moist. You wouldn't know they are vegan and contain no eggs.

So things are going alright. There were days I felt so tired after returning home from work that I slipped and stuffed myself with less than healthy food. Getting enough sleep every day is key for me going forward so I'll have the willpower to stick to my regimen and win the sugar battle.

In fact, I am even snoozing when writing this post...

 

What is this? Yeah, the panettone I shouldn't have eaten 

for dinner and breakfast, but it was delicious...