Favourite foods # 1 - Tomato Tulips

I have a tonne of academic writing work to do but I am uninspired to do it. My muse is silent. I'm getting zilch. Zero. Nada. I wonder if it's because I still have not done enough to fill up my gas tank, so to speak. I blogged recently about the "tyranny of the urgent" and the challenge I find making decisions that get the job done while remaining personally fulfilled. Currently, I am feeling depleted and I'm having difficulty finding something of note in my empty gas tank to write about in my assignments. So, I am going to try an experiment on myself and see if it works.

Graduate school is teaching me to examine my mindset. I have been challengted to have an honest look at what makes me tick and to decide if my old mental models will serve me well moving forward into a new decade of life and opportunities. So, in the interest of openness to self-discovery and living dangerously (in my mind anyway), I am allocating my precious time this evening to doing things that make me smile. Here's one of those actions I am taking to fill my tank. I'm looking for memories that make me smile and writing about them."Jia youw" is an expression in Mandarin that means, "add oil". It is an expression of encouragement and support. You hear this from Chinese fans at sports events like the Olympics. Most recently, in a YouTube video, I heard medical staff in a Wuhan hospital energize their Covid-19 patients with this ubiquitous phrase.

Graduate school is teaching me to examine my mindset. I have been challenged to have an honest look at what makes me tick and to decide if my old mental models will serve me well moving forward into a new decade of life and opportunities. In the interest of openness to self-discovery and living dangerously (in my mind anyway), I am allocating my precious time this evening to doing things that make me smile. Here's one of those actions I am taking to fill my tank. I'm looking for memories (photos) that make me smile and blogging about them.

I enjoy creating in my kitchen. Considering I burnt toast on my honeymoon, I have come a long way. Thank you, Food Network. One of the ways I show love to people I appreciate and who appreciate me is to experiment with and perfect recipes that pique my interest. I believe in eating first with my eyes so when I entertain or gift something from my home, most of the time, I will do what I can to make it look pretty.

Here is a definite keeper of a recipe. It's from Maria Emmerich's cookbook, Ketogenic Cooking. She also shares a lot of recipes on her blog and this recipe is one of them. I will share the link below. Basically what you need are some spring onions, some grape tomatoes, some cream cheese plus some herbs and seasoning. There are two things I would add to the recipe: 1) the amount of filling is enough for second pint of grape tomatoes and 2) after gutting the tomatoes, I' suggest you turn them upside down on paper towels to keep "draining". You want these babies to be as "dry" as possible before you start squeezing the filling into the tomatoes.

I had the perfect white platter for this recipe and my tomato tulips were the perfect contribution to a family Easter meal. Enjoy making some for yourself and your loved ones. Oh, and by the way, preparation time took a lot more than 10 minutes, it was more like 45 minutes and I'm adept in the kitchen. Oh, and I used the uneaten spring onions in a stir-fry the following day. Never waste food!

PS - grad school also reminded me of the fight or flight reflex when faced with danger. Maybe I'm engaging in my flight reflex, running away from my to-do list? Hmm....

Inspired by Maria Emmerich: https://mariamindbodyhealth.com/tomatoes-tulips/