Week-long food diary: Home-cooked and bought meals

I am always torn between choosing what food should I eat. Should I just cook food at home or opt to have a fancier meal bought in restaurants? I guess, same as eating a balanced meal, we should also have a balanced consumption of where we get our food. It's fine cooking meals at home, and it's also fine when you choose to treat yourself in eating something that someone work hard for in their own kitchen.

I'd like to say that it's only in restaurants that you can enjoy the variety of food you can eat. But working hard on the kitchen for a few hours can help you pull-off a somewhat fancy meal you can taste in fine dining restaurants. Remember, the mark-up of the food we buy outside is mostly for the effort of the people working in the restaurant's kitchen.

I'm not much of a fan of avocado, I just eat this for a healthier source of fat. That is why I put a sunny side up egg to make it more appetizing for me. Even though it's just a piece of toasted bread on the bottom of this, I was already full when I finished eating this one. It's a perfect breakfast that's easy to make.

This is definitely took a lot of effort and time! I worked on this for 2 hours, chopping into bits the shitake mushrooms, onion leeks, ginger, and cabbage. The last time I helped my sister making gyoza was last year, we stopped making these because we got tired of eating gyoza in a weekly basis 😅 When I tried folding the wrapper [again] for the first time. It took me a few pieces before I got the hang of it. It was fun because I was able to watch a TV series while making gyoza. I was able to make more than 20 pieces, cooked some, and stored the rest to consume until next month.

I can't remember the last time I had a whipped cream on something I've eaten. Whenever I would order something that has whipped cream on it, I would always scrape it off. It was because I've read somewhere that whipped cream is very unhealthy. The healthy version of this dairy costs more so I didn't bother looking for the healthier alternative. But just recently, I've been enjoying food (even the unhealthy ones) in moderate consumption. I am now embracing the principle that it's okay as long as I eat it in moderation. So here's a quick dessert that I made, I diced mangoes and sliced strawberries, add a little condensed milk as a sweetener, and put whipped cream on top.

What saved me during college years! Pasta! This may look like it's made with so much effort, but it's actually quite easy. The pasta noodles are easy to cook too. You can start working on the other ingredients while cooking the noodles. On this one, we used the canned aglio olio tuna and fresh basil. Everything was done in 30 mins, it's a quick meal to prepare since I was supposed to work in our laboratory on this day and I needed a packed lunch.

I remember this question, "What treat are you giving to yourself?", from the Korean drama series Hospital Playlist. Sometimes, we just really have to treat ourselves with something. It can be food, a purchase, or a restful sleep. For me, last week, I bought myself pastries and to-go coffee. I have also spent my Saturday with my friends and dined out in a restaurant.

This is the only one I was able to take photo of from our food venture last weekend. We went to Tablo kitchen x cafe, a newly opened restaurant near our area. The ambience was really great, but the serving time was quite long. We had to wait for 30 mins before this Nachos was served, and we waited for a few more minutes for the main dishes. The food was great though, it was worth the wait.

Found this gem this year and I've been buying from this pastry shop since then. I've tried almost all the flavors they offer but their best-seller box is my favorite: Cheese, Chocolate, and Oreo. This box is also filled with mini donuts, so it's easier to eat, for a few bites you can already finish a piece.

It was during one of my work from home set-up and I realized that I was already out of coffee. I'm someone who can't do work without having coffee in the morning, so I went to the Starbucks near our apartment. I was supposed to just buy a cup of coffee but I ended up buying a cookie too. No regrets! It's been a long time since I had a cookie.

Looking at these photos that I took from last week, I realized that I had a lot of meals that I truly enjoyed. It's nice to eat good food, home-cooked or bought. It's a treat you can give to yourself, have a nice week. :)