The Diet is Officially Over! *Updated*

*Updated*

Three days of being off The Diet has translated to indigestion, heartburn, and a general feeling of bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh. I'll be getting back on it tomorrow, if not today.

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Since this is the end of summer (school starts again in a few days), I am proclaiming the end of The Diet.

However, I've realized that eating better means that my body feels terrible when I cheat and eat crap. I actually slept all day and wandered aimlessly around the house, though I was supposed to be packing for Kingston. It seems that I may get back on The Diet!

We'll see.

Anyway, my next dozen posts will be light on words. I am now two and a half months behind, and I desperately need to clear out my backlog!

So back to Kingston, back to school, and back to blogging!

Homemade Youtiao, Hang Jing Bian and Spring Rolls

Mom has tried to master her youtiao (Chinese donuts sticks aka gio chao quay in Vietnamese) dough all summer. Here's a brief run down of her trials and errors.

May 25-26th, 2009:

One of the first times she tried to make youtiao, it was actually an attempt at making hang jing bian, or something like that. It's the disk shaped deep fried dough with sesame seeds that you can find at Vietnamese banh mi shops. You can also find them in some Asian supermarkets, depending on if they sell youtiao and the bread for banh mi.

Anyway, after making the dough and letting it rest, my mom cut out circles of dough (for the hang jing bian) and cut some sticks for the youtiao. This isn't the traditional hang jing bian at all. It just resembles them a bit. I don't even know what they're called in Chinese. I think it's supposed to be ham chim peng... Does anyone know?

To finish off making the hang jing bian, she would put a bit of water and then gently press sesame seeds onto both of the sides of the circle of dough before adding it to the hot oil.

To make youtiao after cutting the dough, she would take two skinny sticks, add a bit of water in between the two, press them, stretch them, then throw them in the pot of hot oil.

Here's the finished product. Hang jing bian on the left and a tiny youtiao on the right.

The hang jing bian look like sesame balls, because they were so small. In theory, I'm sure you could fill it with some sweet bean paste or something, just like you get at dim sum.

The youtiao are tiny because my mom wanted to make them like they do in Cambodia, which are really small, according to my parents.

Since the oil was already hot, we took out some frozen spring rolls - that my mom made and froze (here's the recipe) - and fried them up. We also had some shrimp chips and tossed them in, too. Man was that an unhealthy dinner.

June 4th, 2009:

Mom experimented with making her own yeast and used it by using to make more hang jing bian and youtiao. We decided to eat hot pot that night, so the deep fried carb sticks were perfect for absorbing the soup. Omnomnomnom!

June 16th, 2009:

Bananas had gone on sale and we had a lot lying around the house. Since my mom had leftover dough from making youtiao some other time, she tried wrapping some dough around slices of bananas to see if they would turn out.

It would appear that they were perfect, but the oil was too hot so there was still some parts of the dough uncooked. These were dangerous once they were cooked, because the banana juice would burn you if you weren't careful.

My mom still needs to do some tweaking, but other than that, they taste perfectly fine. It tastes even better when you eat it with coffee, soy milk, or soup.

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My Pho vs Pho Mi 108 vs Chinatown Pho - May 21st

Update: June 25th, 2011
Pho Mi 108 has closed. A new restaurant, Koi Asia, took over. We dropped by for a visit and the pho tasted the same.

If you've been following the blog, you'd know that my favourite pho (pronounced f-uh, not foe... this funny video explains it) joint, in Ottawa, is Pho Mi 108 in Bells Corners. For those who don't know why, let me explain:

Once in a while, I crave the sweet pho soups of most of the pho places in Ottawa (and I'm specifically talking about Chinatown, cause we go there most of the time). But two years ago, I went pho crazy. I seriously had to have pho at least twice a month, and it lasted for a good six months. My parents kept telling me that homemade pho is much better than eating it at a restaurant. I didn't agree since we never made a consistant tasting pho broth at home.

After I went through that phase, I started to make pho at home more often - Lucy, Richard and Andrew can vouch for me (as they're now sick of pho). Pot after pot, I tried to solidify my "recipe". I now have the foundations of a good pho broth and tweak little things, here and there, with every pot I make. When you taste my pho broth, you'll notice that the star anise and clove are the stars, with the beef bones and aromatic veggies (carrots and onions) acting as support. You'll also notice that I don't use MSG, as the family hasn't touched it in a couple of years.
If you take Chinatown's pho broth and mix it equally with my pho broth, you'd get something like Pho Mi 108's pho broth. That's why I keep going back to the place.

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After coming back home from living at my aunt's house for the school year, I desperately needed to make pho, as I craved it so much throughout the year. (Pho in Toronto's Chinatown is no different than Ottawa's - in terms of their pho broth. It's a sweet broth with a hint of cloves, star anise and cinnamon.)

I invited some friends over for pho one night. Based on my experience with making pho, it's my personal opinion that you can't make a decent tasting pho broth (from scratch) in under 8 hours. So when my pho was to be served the next night, I started to prepare the broth.

To prepare the bones, you have to throw them in boiling water for a good 5 minutes to allow most of the blood to drain out of the bones and coagulate. After the 5 minutes, I rinse the bones and then throw them into a industrial stock pot that we have. The pot of murky water is then thrown out. The amount of water I use on the pho broth depends on how many people will be eating and how many bones we have in our fridge/freezer.

Star anise and cloves were then thrown into the huge stock pot with the bones along with honey dates. To make it easier to take them out afterwards, I use one of those metal tea balls.

Onions and ginger pieces were browned and the tossed into the stock pot, along with peeled and quartered carrots.

Finally, salt and rock sugar were combined with the stock. Rock sugar can be found in your local Asian supermarket. In terms of the flavour, it's similar to comparing granulated sugar with honey. Both are sweet, but the granulated sugar is too sharp. There's no flavour to the sugar to round out the sweetness. This is why I prefer to use rock sugar.

The soup was brought up to a boil and then turned off for the night, as I went to bed. The soup was then brought up to a boil again when I got up the next morning. After the soup boiled for two minutes (in the morning), I cranked the heat down to a little simmer.

Low heat is important for a clear soup broth. I don't cover the pot at this point, as I want the soup and it's flavours to condense. After 5 hours, I generally add more water. The soup is then turned up a bit until dinner time. I usually taste the pho broth an hour or so before it is served and then throw in a small piece of a cinnamon bark into the tea ball. I adjust the soup to the desired taste and then let the free-for-all begin.

There aren't any pictures of a bowl of pho that we ate, cause we were all too hungry. You all know what a bowl of pho looks like anyway. If you don't, then just keep reading below.

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Pho Mi 108 - June 19th
It was a Friday afternoon. Mom was working late, Lucy was getting ready to leave for her friend's wedding, and Richard was out with his frends. That left Andrew and I to make a late lunch or early dinner. We were feeling lazy that day and I was craving pho, so I suggested that we go out for pho.

We started with the greasy spring rolls. The thing about their spring rolls is that they double wrap theirs. It's a bad thing because that means that they have to have the oil and a lower temperature or else the outside will be burnt while the filling isn't cooked/hot. By lowering the temperature of the oil, the spring roll wrappers absorb more oil. I don't recommend you get this, even though I keep thinking that the next time I go, it might not be soggy.

My brother ordered the bun with BBQ pork, shredded pork and spring rolls.


I had a bowl of well done beef with slices of medium done beef (although the meat is always fully cooked by the time it arrives).


Here's a picture of a refreshingly cold pot of tea.


To sum up everything, my pho tastes better than both Pho Mi 108 and pho found in Chinatown, while Pho Mi 108 is better than all the pho found in Chinatown. That's just my opinion.

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Address:

Pho Mi 108

3825 Richmond Rd

Ottawa, ON

613-596-0760

Rules of “The Diet”

This summer, I decided to start eating better, in the hopes of being able to squeeze into a too-small dress. I really didn’t think I would continue The Diet after the first wedding, but then I realized just how easy it was. The Diet turned out to be my summer project. I even started a Twitter account to help me stay on track.

Anyway, I’m not quite sure where the rules of The Diet came from, but I must say that I was certainly inspired by Ed Levine’s Serious Diet, chronicled on Serious Eats. Moderation seems like such a simple concept, and yet, it’s such a difficult idea to put into practice.

I had a couple of false starts to The Diet before I realized that it’s not about sticking to a regime at all—it’s about changing your lifestyle. As it went on, it just got easier, but the start was a little rough.

So enough rambling. I’m just going to list the rules of The Diet as they pop into my head.


1. Eat until you don’t feel hungry anymore, not until you feel full. The brain takes time to realize your stomach is full, so if you eat until you’re full, you’ve already eaten too much. Overeating is a natural gift in my family, so this part was difficult for me at first.



2. Eat less meat, so you can fill up on vegetables. A proper serving size of meat is smaller than the palm of your hand. Plus, eating less meat means that I won’t feel lethargic and bloated after every meal.



3. Eat more vegetables. This doesn’t necessarily mean that I have become a vegetarian, but I have tried some vegetarian options (especially for lunch) that I normally turn my nose at. Vegetables are like magic foods. They fill you without weighing you down, provide you with nutrients and vitamins, and keep you regular!

4. Drink more water. I have never been able to drink the eight glasses of water/liquids a day, so I would mistake thirst for hunger. It sounds a little dumb, but it’s true. I still struggle with staying hydrated. Drinking more water also helps to fill the stomach, which prevents you from overeating. Now, I try to drink a full glass of water during my meals, giving my brain a chance to figure out that my stomach is filling up.

5. Eat less salt. Salt = water retention = bloat = bad when trying to squeeze into a dress.





6. Eat flavourful foods. When I started eating more vegetables, I realized that the tastiest item is normally the protein. With less meat and subsequently less flavour, my palate started to get bored. I started crave stinky foods (onions, garlic, fermented anything!) and spicy foods. This ensured that I didn’t miss the smaller portions of meat as much.

7. Stick to The Diet. If The Diet doesn’t work out one day, I try to make it up in the next 24 hours. It instils a sense of discipline and accomplishment when I get myself back on The Diet.



8. Eat what makes you happy. There’s really no point in starting a diet if you’re going to be miserable the entire time. You’ll just quit sooner, so I made sure to eat what want. I just ate less of it and less frequently. Then, these little treats become a luxury and a reward.


Of course, diet isn’t the only key to losing weight and feeling better. Exercise is probably the easiest way to lose weight. Once you start getting fit, your body naturally craves healthier foods. I’ve also started walking further to get my lunch (gotta work for it!) and taking the stairs. I am still working on trying to run in the morning, but I don’t think I’ll chronicle that in this blog, unless I start taking pictures of where I’ve been.

So that’s pretty much it for The Diet! It looks like a lot of work, but once you get in the habit of making better food choices, it’s pretty easy.

Fin.