10/4/2014... Missing home... and relieving homesickness with pumpkin

Hello, you lovely people!
During my stay in Thailand, I have thought about "back home," a little. Honestly, I don't really think about the United States that often, I have been too preoccupied being involved with what I am doing in the now, and my plans for the future. I am having so many adventures here, and I love it! Each experience, whether positive or negative, is teaching me a lot: about life, about emotional stability, about taking care of oneself, about patience, and especially about food tolerance. Every now and then, though, I have that slight tinge of nostalgia. I miss some of my favorites cities and towns and I really miss food. I'm not talking about the KFC or McDonalds, either. I can get that here, but I don't want to. I'm talking about the food I would eat during the holidays: pecan pie, fudge pecan pie, key lime pie, fried turkey, and fried okra. These, by far, are my comfort foods. In the mornings, I especially miss the Greek yoghurt and muffins. And what about Starbucks classic pumpkin cream cheese muffins? Those, I would gladly spend the $3.50 for the overpriced hunk of deliciousness.

So, what do I do about this terrible dilemma? Imported Pecans are around 650THB (That's over $20 for a pound of pecans....) So.... it better be an extremely special occasion for me to be shelling out that amount of of money. And turkey? Forget about it! Key lime pie is almost possible, but I have not seen graham crackers or (bleh!->) vanilla wafer cookies on the shelves of the stores here.

What about pumpkin? Well.... there is no canned pumpkin. In fact, what they have here is Japanese pumpkin, which looks like this:

Yeah, it's kind of weird looking, and the name is pretty awesome! In Thai, the word for Japanese pumpkin is this:

ฟักทอง

Which sounds like 

FukTong

Hahahaha, it's a great word for the English speaker.

Now, the Thai people love to use the pumpkin for curries, and desserts (dessert: "Ka-nohm wahn"). Pumpkin in coconut milk is a fantastic treat.
I have never worked with any form of pumpkin other than canned pumpkin, so imagine my concern when I realized that there is no such form in Thailand. But there is pumpkin and it is by no means expensive. Looks like it is time to be creative.
My first trial with pumpkin is in my recent blog post, when I made Roasted Pumpkin with walnuts and garlic. It was a complete success, the pumpkin, after being roasted, softens very nicely. I also made those scrumptious cinnamon streusel muffin tops (muffies). Looks like there is a glimmering possibility!
The only thing: I need to learn how to make pumpkin puree for the muffin batter. Time to utilize that ever-so-convenient form of stalking: the Internet. I used a recipe from the How Sweet It Is blog, but, instead of using a pie pumpkin, I used the Japanese pumpkin, and cut it into chunks after cleaning and peeling it. Then I roasted it for about 40 minutes. and put it in the blender, adding some nutmeg(1.5 tsp), brown sugar(1tbsp), cinnamon (2tsp), and sage (3 tsp.) to it. This was my result:

It was a little bit sticky, and very dark, so I was a little bit worried, but it tasted quite good.
And this was the recipe I used for the Pumpkin Pie Muffin Tops, from Crazy for Crust's blog.

Of course, I couldn't help but add cinnamon Streusel to the top for some (refer to the same post I hyperlinked earlier, the recipe is there), and I decided to make some easy caramel, from condensed milk. (This recipe basically said to put a can of sweetened condensed milk into a crock pot filled with water on medium-high heat for ten hours.)
Result:

Final Result of pumpkin Muffies?
Massive pies of heaven.

On a final note: look what I found in Thailand!

If you guessed Gatorade, You are correct! Blue and yellow exist in Thailand (probably because they are the prettiest). Take, that/

4.4.2014- The Unfinished Coffee

I would like to express a pet peeve. It is not something serious and it will not be a complete rant.
One thing that gets under my skin is drink that is left out unfinished, especially if it is a hot drink, like coffee or tea.
While I do believe in the concept of the glass being half full, I also follow the practice of finishing something I have started when it comes to food specifically. I was raised to eat all of the food on my plate. For those who are concerned about my dieting habits as a child, this "finish all your food" concept also taught me not to put too much food on my plate. A good example is when a child goes to the magical funland of a buffet restaurant (my childhood buffet dream world was Ryan's, in Virginia)

I couldn't help but load my plate with all sorts of food: broccoli, corn, cherry tomatoes, cheese, ranch, fried chicken, macaroni, green beans, anything. Of course I wouldn't be able to eat it all, but I still expected to eat ice cream afterwards. Thus, being given this requirement to finish all of my food, I learned to prioritize the foods that I wanted to eat, and how much of those foods I should add to my plate before sitting and beginning my meal. It was a tough, but extremely valuable lesson.
Now, the way I see it, how you drink your coffee can say a lot about you. You may drink that caramel mocha frappacino. Maybe you just want a coffee milkshake?
What about that caramel macchiato? Something sweet and creamy, and fun! A cup of black strong coffee; maybe you are a little bit on the serious side, but also don't take what you think may be extra nonsense.
For me, I love my coffee cold, even in the winter. I always like to change it up: hazelnut, caramel, white chocolate, no flavor shot, cream, milk, soymilk, whipped cream, plain, cortadito, latte, and so on. The point about my coffee, I don't keep to the same because I get bored of the same thing every time. While, of course I know I will like something, I know that there are too many options available for me to ignore.
Sometimes I take my coffee on the go, sometimes I have it and drink it at the coffee shop, reading a book, looking at tumblr posts, reading Buzzfeed or HuffingtonPost. Either way, I am drinking it. I intend to get my full money's worth of the coffee; at my university, I typically shelled out a good $2.39 for (if we're talking about Starbucks iced coffee) or $2.75 for the delectable Pascal's Shakerado (which pairs magnificently with their chocolate chip cookies or Brazilian cheese bread. If you were wandering around, I would also suggest bringing something from Burrito Brothers there, and drink up on the balcony)


A Shakerado with a Chocolate Chip Cookie at Pascal's. (OM NOM NOM)
The way I view coffee is like this: it is meant to perk you up, so enjoy it. What you shouldn't do is completely negate it's value that is has in your life. As a non-routine coffee drinker (I limit myself to 1-2 coffees a week), I try to savor each taste I have. I go to different coffee shops to try their versions of something, attempt more flavors and styles of coffee. It is something that I make sure I enjoy. In fact, coffee time is considered "me time," meaning that I do not focus on anybody but myself and what I need to do for the next hour or so, depending on my schedule. I enjoy that time and that coffee.

(SIDENOTE: My coffee frequency isn't that I have limited access to the cup of energy, I just decided that I didn't need it on a regular basis.)
Others, I have noticed, have a different approach to coffee. One particular subject, my uncle, brought my attention to coffee drinking habits because of the habits he has with his coffee. He regularly drinks about four cups a day, of instant coffee with an Equal sweetener tablet and no milk. It doesn't change. His drinking habit with the coffee, though, is that he doesn't finish it often. In fact, he will drink about half of it, decide to go to the store, and leave out the mug on the counter. Because it is such a foreign idea to not finish a cup of coffee, it sticks into my memory of how my uncle doesn't finish his coffee. This made me think about how he lives his life as well. Honestly, it is not anything I would want to take notes on for the future. The way he runs his life with people is by rushing them at all times; he talks at people, not conversing with them; he shoves his ideas at you, expecting you to completely agree with him and thank him for his genius, even if he didn't ask you your opinion or plans; when it comes to traveling, when he wants to go somewhere, he wants to go NOW, or as soon as possible; if he wants to go to a shopping center, he wants to get there as soon as the place opens so that he can avoid all the people. To me, the way he is living is not for the joy of it, but bustling forward. That is like being served a five star meal ,and not even taking the time to chew the food, tasting it, before gulping it down and cutting the next chunk of meat. While, yes, it does get the job done, there is no enjoyment and critical thinking, or just pondering, involved, and that takes so much of the pleasure out of it.
While it is a minor event in which not much may happen, the way you accept your coffee really does say a lot about not just the person you are, but how you perceive things, and probably what you consider important: time, your personal time, business, socialization, food, energy, etc.

So, the next time you realize that you have a coffee in your hand, please look at your mug and let it know "Hey, I appreciate you." It might just brighten you perspective of your day.

Until next time,
K.