This time when I visited my mother in Indiana, I got a new container of 100% pure black sesame seed powder at the local Chinese grocery store. I was used to getting black sesame porridge in small pouches, already mixed with sugar. I remember it fondly from my days in Taiwan when I first discovered Sesame Seeds and Joy. A very important character in my novel, Our Lady of Kaifeng: Courtyard of the Happy Way, is even called Mr. Sesame or 芝麻老師.
The pure black sesame powder with sugar added on top
I asked the woman at the grocery store for the black sesame porridge in pouches, but she said: "This is better. This is pure ground sesame -- nothing else." Well, she didn't have it in any other form, so I bought it.
Now, many people add either rice or flour along with sugar to their black sesame seed powder to make porridge, but this time around I contented myself with just adding boiling water and sugar. The powdered black sesame seeds contain a lot of very healthful fat.
The idea of adding too many extra carbs besides the sugar to sweeten it did not appeal to me. So I kept it simple.
Bow loves sesame seed porridge, But this time I made it a bit watery, so it was more like a drink, and that's how Bow treated it.
Whether you drink it or eat it, black sesame porridge is always good.
Bow's friend has been bringing him Pickle Ice, and he has been enjoying this treat very much. It's delicious!
But many people may not know that there could be health benefits to enjoying this salty treat. Pickle Ice consists of frozen pickle juice. And pickle juice is made of water, salt and vinegar. There are no calories in it at all.
Sodium is good for hydration, so having some Pickle Ice on a hot day is much better than a sugary popsicle. But there's also another surprise benefit I had never heard of before I researched the topic.
There is said to be an antiglycemic effect to ingesting pickle juice before mealtime. As I understand it, that is the vinegar at work. I am not sure as to the validity of this health claim, but if you look at the second reference I have listed below, you can read the abstract by the authors from Arizona State University and perhaps research it yourself.
You can buy the Pickle Ice treats at your local grocery store, or you can make your own in an ice cube tray by using leftover pickle juice.
During my first year in Taiwan, I had a slow cooker. Well, it wasn't really mine. A friend lent it to me, and I returned it to her at the end of the year. But it was a nice way to prepare food when there was not time to slave over a hot stove.
Here in Missouri, I don't have a slow cooker. But I have found that if you leave the burner on low, the food cooks more slowly. Last night, two hours before dinner, I threw into a pot some chicken stock I had left over, which also contained two baked onions, and about a cup of brown rice. I let the concoction boil, then cool down, and I left that on the stove for over two hours on low. At the end of the two hours, the rice which had at first been almost invisible, came to dominate the pot.
It was our main course for dinner. Here is what Bow's dinner consisted of:
His rice bowl looked like this:
Bow asked for his red apple first, then the yellow one. After that he asked for the rice. I was not sure whether he would like it, but he seemed to relish this part of the meal and gave me back a clean bowl.
After that, he asked for his Kedem Biscuits. They are from Israel, and my mother brought them over for us in a bag of goodies during her Thanksgiving visit.
Bow eyed the handful of biscuits I gave him, trying to decide which deserved to be eaten first.
Of course, it really did not matter which one he started with. He finished them all.
After he had done with the biscuits, he asked for his turkey breast, and after that the "big" banana, followed by "more banana." By then the entire meal had been consumed.
Bow went to bed on a full belly and in a very good mood.
