How many hours have you been up today?
It’s been a long day for me. I’ve been up since 8 am (I know, it’s really late for some of you grannies, but it’s early for me!), and it’s been layers and layers of stress and worries piling on top of me, hour after hour from morning till now. And…I’m exhausted. Mentally, I’m burned out. Emotionally, I’m hay-wired. Physically, I just want to bury myself in my bed with my Pooh bear and watch trash TV until I knock out.
Spring break is coming, but I feel like I won’t really be able to enjoy it because I have two major mid-terms and a presentation project due right after. What’s more, I just found out that my project partner dropped the class without warning, and now I’ve got double the workload. The jerk didn’t even bother to respond to my emails. He just simply stopped showing up to class and our meetings.
The worst thing? I’ve still barely accomplished half the stuff on my To-Do List. The incredulous thing? I’ve got 2 whole weeks to do them, but I’m still stressing over them way ahead of time.
Stress. It’s basically self-torture. Think about it. No, really think about it. How much of the things you stress about…are actually worth stressing over? And of the things that are actually “worth” the stress…how much of it can you solve or accomplish by stressing over them? A man called Richard Carlson once said: “Stress is nothing more than a socially acceptable form of mental illness.” It might sound like an exaggeration, but right now…with my brain throbbing and my eyes crazed, I’m pretty sure his summarization is right on spot.
Stress. It comes through manyl forms, from circumstances to situations to relationships to random sequences of thoughts. But ultimately, it comes from myself: My own stubborn insistence that something is so important that it’s worth losing my inner peace over. My impatience, my perfectionism, my insecurities, my selfish ambitions and desires.
Stress. When used right, it keeps you on your toes, and motivates you to keep on going. When used wrong, it just drains the life and energy out of you. So how do we find the right balance so that stress becomes a productive factor instead of self-punishment and guilt?
I’ve come down to these few conclusions about stress:
- Stress is a Self-Infliction
- It accomplishes nothing; therefore, a waste of time
- Anything done under stress cannot be enjoyable
And thus, I’ve decided to deal with stress with these following steps:
- Recognize that nothing is more important than my inner peace and joy
- Analyze what stresses me out: Is it worth it?
- If it isn’t, puke it out; it’s just poison that will infect my entire system
- If it is, turn the stress into an incentive to do something about it
- Be positive about what I need to do…and enjoy it. I’ve got to do it anyway (since I decided that it is important), so I might as well make it enjoyable somehow.
It’s quite liberating, to realize that stress is really just self-torture, because that means that I have the power within myself to change that around. In other words, stress is in reality, powerless, unless I give it the power to inflict pain upon myself. Unfortunately, the problem comes with this strange streak of masochism we humans seem to have…for some reason, we just seem to love torturing ourselves.
Take, for example, this lovely jar of spicy oil:
Under the Foodzie affiliate program, I was recently sent this jar of Chile Crunch to review and sample from Chile Colonial. 
This jar isn’t your average chili oil. It’s Mexican in origin, and is chock-full of crunchy bits of fried garlic, onion, and chile de arbol, hence the name, Chile Crunch. 
Now, before I proceed, let me tell you something about me which you probably already know: I tend to venture to the extremes. There is no middle ground for me— I either love it or hate it; leave it or go the full way. And when it comes to spice, I definitely zoom up to the maximum level, especially since I’m Korean. Come on, we Koreans were weaned off with kimchi and gochujang. Point is: Unless you can stand the heat and have a stomach of iron like mine, don’t do this at home, kids.
As soon as I received this jar, I just had to sample it. Like, right away. My affinity for spicy stuff took over my rationality. So I took a big spoon, and… 
Oh, yes, I did. It was glorious, in all its crunchy, spicy, oily goodness. I say it with all honesty, despite the last weird face I made. For a moment, I actually even thought there was some kind of sweetness in there. All pleasure lasted for about 15 seconds while the contents were in my mouth. And then, they made its way to my stomach, and that’s when hell started to burn.
Don’t worry, I’m still alive. Nothing lots of ice-cream couldn’t remedy. And besides, I had to be alive to make this amazing dish next with this hot mama:
Chile Crunch Pasta with Spicy Caramelized Walnuts, Edamame, and Panko 
- 1/2 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped
- 1 tablespoon oil from Chile Crunch
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 3-4 oz whole wheat linguine pasta
- 1 tablespoon Chile Crunch
- 1/4 cup Panko
- 1/4 cup edamame
- juice from 1 orange
- orange zest, about 1 tablespoon
Heat up the oil in a skillet until hot. Toss in the walnuts. Add the sugar, and stir until walnuts are toasted and coated. Remove from skillet and let cool: 
You might want to leave a few walnut just for munching once it’s cooled and hardened. It’s awesome! Spicy, yet sweet from the caramelized glaze.
Next, bring a pot of salted water to boil, and cook pasta according to package directions. Drain. If your edamame is frozen, you might want to give it a quick boil, too.
Heat up the Chile Crunch oil in a skillet again. Toss in the panko, and stir to coat, letting it crisp up. Stir in the edamame and pasta and spicy caramelized walnuts, then squeeze in the orange juice, and sprinkle in the orange zest. Toss to mix, and serve. 
Ah! The dish turned out fabulous! 
It’s the first time I’ve had Panko-coated pasta, and I love the crunchy texture in there. 
I added edamame for some color, and it ended up working really well in this dish, and also added some good protein. 
The best component of this dish was definitely the spicy caramelized walnuts. I could snack on these all day long! 
I have to admit, this dish was spicy. It certainly cleared up any sinus I didn’t even know I had! If you’re a spice wimp, you can tone this dish down by using less chili oil, or just leave the heat to the walnuts and use regular oil for the pasta. 
The Chile Crunch is extremely versatile, so you’re not just limited to pasta. Sabrina from Rhodeygirl Tests used it to marinate shrimp. Check out her recipe here!
Okay, time to prepare for my mid-term tomorrow. Here’s an example of unnecessary stress: I was stressed because I felt like I had to blog, even though I was behind on my exam preparations. In the end, I still blogged (well, duh). But I told myself that I would blog…only if it became a form of recreation. And you know what? I really did enjoy writing this post. And now, I’m all ready to hit the books. Stress begone!
Question of the day: What is one thing you stress over that is not “worth” it? What is one thing that is actually “worth” it? How can you make that enjoyable?
P.S. In case you think I have forgotten about the “You Are What You Cook” Challenge…I haven’t! I promise that I will do a round-up soon! Oh, and if you haven’t already…check out the awesome recipes submitted to BSI: Brussel Sprouts!
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I think this is so true.. Stress is just from the devil, and he wants to steal kill and destroy our happiness. I don’t think stressing out about everything helps anything.. just wastes your energy and doesn’t let you accomplish anything. Good tips!
-Kenzie
Deep Fryers
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