Friday, July 13, 2012

Moti Girl Diary: Moti Girl is indeed Moti

Salutations! I suppose I should make it official and confirm that I am indeed preggers with my third child. Yes, it has been a while since my last post so I wanted my next post to be special.  Well I had my 18 week appointment to find out the sex of our baby today and I was doing everything in my power to calm myself down before I got there. It's a 50-50 chance right? Boy or girl? Boy or girl?  AH I am blessed with two spirited girls and it would have been so nice to round us out with a little boy.... does our wish come true... see below to see my results....


Kevin our ultrasound technician: Bay Area Maternity

Maria my midwife from Bay Area Maternity
  

The verdict is in... we are due 12-12-12 iA and your motigirl is indeed Moti with a man child aH.  We are super excited, happy and cannot wait! I am looking forward to go shopping for  little boys clothes!   Who's with me?  This is your moti girl signing out... till next time.  :)

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Moti Girl Recipe: Tilapia a la Foil

Bonjour!  Or shall I begin with Ni Hao this morning? I begin today's blog post with a yummy-in-your-tummy,  healthy Asian inspired Tilapia recipe with a fancy French name. As my quest to shed my Moti Girl pounds continue, I came across an interesting recipe that I reconfigured a little bit to incorporate all my favorite ingredients.  It's quite simple, low maintenance and a delish recipe, that I had to share with you all!

I'm not much of a measurer, but I will do my best for you guys.

Ingredients:


  • 2 tablespoons of chopped chives
  • 7 garlic cloves grated in a microplane (I tend to throw in a few more cloves for added flavor)
  • 1 teaspoon of grated ginger
  • 1 tablespoon of red crushed pepper
  • 2 tablespoons of Sesame Oil
  • 1/4 cup of low sodium Soy Sauce
  • 1 teaspoon of Chinese 5 spice seasoning
  • 5-6 pieces of fresh Tilapia (you can probably do this with any kid of mild white fish)
  • Splashes of Ponzu sauce
  • Foil

Begin by preheating your oven to 350 degrees.  In a bowl, combine the first 7 ingredients and whisk it till the marinade/sauce is nicely blended together (chives, garlic, ginger, red crushed peppers, sesame oil, soy sauce and 5 spice). Whisk it good...



Take the Tilapia out of the fridge and rinse it under the sink and make sure to pat dry it with paper towels.  This is more so your marinade/sauce doesn't get the excess water in it.

rinse the fish
pat dry


Now tear out a large piece of foil out and place a piece of Tilapia in the middle of the sheet.   Depending on the sizes of fish, you can either put one big piece or a couple small pieces of fish together on the foil.  Spoon 2 generous tablespoons of the marinade over the fish and then splash (a teaspoon of the Ponzu sauce over the fish as well).  Ponzu is a citrus-based Japanese sauce and is available at any grocery store. I personally like to peruse the Asian markets for stuff like this, because it is a lot cheaper there (yeah I'm cheapo) and you get way more variety.  I like using it because it gives the dish a little bit of citrus flavor without overwhelming it with fresh citrus. I am partial to the lime flavored Ponzu Sauce.

adding marinade
Lime flavored Ponzu sauce
Neatly enclose the fish into a foil packet and place all the packets on a baking sheet.

Foil packets of Fish
Bake the fish for 20 minutes in the oven.  You'll know that the fish is close to being done when the foil packets puff up with steam and sauce emerges from the corners of the foil packets.  Variation:  Sometimes I like to add shredded carrots and broccoli on top of the fish.  Trader Joes has this awesome ready-to-go shredded vegetable mix for cole slaw that works perfectly with this dish.  I like to sneak in as many veggies as I can for the fams.

Puffed up foil packets
Now take the baking sheet out and open the foil pack with care, a lot of steam will escape as you open the packet. You don't want to give yourself a facial while cooking.

open with care
yummy tilapia
I like to make this with some brown jasmine rice and steamed bok choy.  This particular day I made it  brown jasmine rice with corn and shitake mushrooms and steamed baby bok choy with garlic.  I will share the bok choy recipe later this week.

Voila
I hope you guys will attempt this recipe and enjoy it as much as I do. It is truly very simple and tasty, not to mention healthy.  I think cooking in foil or parchment is easy and makes for a very flavorful meal   Feel free to leave comments on what you thought or on variations that you might have attempted.  


Thanks again folks, this is your Moti Girl bidding you adieu!  :)

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Guess who's back for some Moti Love

Well hello my faithful friends... do I even have any left out there? Thanks to some very persistent and encouraging gal pals (yes, that's you Ms Lakhani) I have bellyflopped back into the land of blogging. I know you're enjoying that lovely mental picture I just gave you.  I can't even being to explain why I took such a long hiatus from this world... suffice to say I'm baaackkkk.  You ready for me?




So I have absolutely no idea where to start.  New year, new beginnings, new fat I have found chilling on my body... yeah what a great start.  So, I begin 2012 with a promise to myself and my 2 followers that I will attempt to write weekly.  


When I first fell off the wagon of blogging, a good friend of mine had advised to write about my struggles and challenges with sticking with Moti girl, or to focus on how hard it is to stay motivated.  But I didn't heed the advice of the wise and the more time that passed, the easier it became to put it off even more. The next time I checked, six months had gone by sans blogging and I felt like such a loser and a quitter.  I need to follow through and hold myself accountable.  It wasn't so much about the dieting and losing weight, it was about making a lifestyle change that stuck.  Plus, the routine of blogging weekly was so great for my soul.  I wasn't ready for all the changes that came my way once school was over.  I didn't manage all the different hats I was wearing and more importantly I didn't prioritize very well.  So I plan to ameliorate that and hope to do it with your help.  :)

Unfortunately or maybe luckily my scale's battery is dead, so no picture today.  However the scale will be back this weekend and I will snap a picture and throw it on this blog on Monday next week.  I leave you today with one word and that is HOPE. I HOPE to keep up with blogging.  I HOPE to make better choices and I HOPE that I won't bore you to death with my ramblings of all irrelevant things.  Until next time... this is your Moti girl signing out.