Take a Bite

If you're looking for something meatier, I'm here now.

~*~

Memorial Day Eats

When you get a big girl job that takes up your life 8+ hours a day for 5 days a week, with all those Christmas and Spring and Summer breaks taken away, you really appreciate the 3-day weekends when they come. I had been visiting Kevin several weeks in a row for various things -- an interview, Kevin's birthday, Kevin's USC graduation, helping him move -- so I made him promise to visit me for the long weekend.

The weather was finally nice (oh right it is almost June!), though we didn't make that much use of it -- the pool would have been great, but every family of 3 with a screeching toddler beat us to the punch. I didn't even want to think about the traffic over 17, either. We did go to the Tech Museum in downtown San Jose to use the Groupons I got several weeks back for the admission + IMAX for $5 (half off). We ended up parking far away (pretty much where I parked when I went to high school!) because there was an anime convention in downtown SJ as well and all the garages were full; so we did have a nice walk in the sun afterall. The Tech really is looking worse for wear these days. Hubble on IMAX Dome was worth the $5, though.

Of course, Kevin loves visiting me because it means I cook for him. Saturday I made Asparagus Risotto (recipe coming soon):


Sunday I took him to IKEA to browse the showroom for furniture to fill his empty studio. Mostly he wanted to pick out what he wanted, since his tiny coupe wouldn't be able to haul any of it back with him (another U-Haul rental is in his future), though he did get a new laundry hamper and two bar stools. I got replacement bulbs (finally) for my desk lamp; it lit my studies for 4 years before finally burning out the morning of my last final at USC, and I've been meaning to get a new bulb in the year since. That night (after a long nap -- walking around IKEA is tiring business!) we faced the usual, "what do you want to do tonight?"/"I dunno, what do you wanna do?" conversation. I brought up pool, since we hadn't played in a while and he had been teaching me some strategy. He thought it would be nice to make some food together. Somehow, he decided on hamburgers. So I browsed around foodgawker for a fun salad recipe to adapt and accompany our meal, and we made a grocery list.

Kevin thinks I give him the crappy jobs because I always make him cut the veggies (namely, the onions, though he always wears my swim goggles to save his eyes anyway), but I make everything delicious anyway so I don't think he minds too much. In the end, we had delicious cheeseburgers topped with caramelized mushrooms and onions, along with a tangy orzo salad (recipes coming soon) for a late dinner and an easy Memorial Day lunch:

~*~

Take 2

Dear theoretical readers,

So I started a website, and kind of abandoned it. It wasn't very good, and I'm kind of in a funk. I've kind of been in a funk for a while now. I'm working on it, okay?!

I'm not so good at this weblogging thing these last few years, am I? I guess life's got me a little tongue-tied.

I started reading old blog posts of people I miss dearly. I thought, "blogging used to help me feel less lonely," so maybe I'll give it a shot again. Adult life has got me a little robotic, and I hate that. Maybe blogging will help me find my voice again.

I'll be back. Soon. I promise. Or at least I'll try. Really.

~*~

I have lots of Iron Chef Blogger Challenges I have made and photographed, which I may get around to posting at some point. The idea was for them to go on the food page of my website, but we all know how diligent I was with that project.

Let's start with a summary of the high points in life since we last spoke...

Right around the time of my last post, my Mom had a heart+lung transplant...pretty much for Valentine's Day, which I found fitting. It was really intense. I guess I was spending a lot of time with her and my family in the weeks following that. It was a huge success, with pristine donor organs, and she recovered very quickly. My Aunt Elaine came to be her 24/7 caregiver for 3 months, and she moved into a temporary apartment with my parents just about a mile from my apartment, so I visited often. Her progress was so spectacular that they let her move back home after only 1 month, since it was still within 1 hour of Stanford in case anything went wrong. I am still amazed at how strong my Mommy really is:

My Mom with her Stanford heart pillow, 2 weeks after the transplant.
So strong and brave that you can't even tell, can you?

However, much to the dismay of my Mom, I'm trying really hard to get a job in LA right now. It's for many reasons. But mainly it's for a boy. Am I that girl? Apparently I am.

It's funny how much I hated LA when I first moved there, and then when it was time to leave, I was just starting to call it home. Home is where the heart is, right? Well what if your heart is scattered lots of places? A big chunk of it is still in LA. Hopefully, once I can get a job there, moving back will be the defibrillator I need to revive my Sara~ness from this funk I've slunk into since moving away.

So a lot of what I've been up to is applying for jobs. And the endless cycle of work and apartment, windowless office and dull chores. Most weekends I visit or am visited by Kevin -- my boyfriend and bestest friend. Every other trip to LA, I also visit other friends there that I miss so very much. Once I even met up with my old roommate (the best one! miss her so!), Patti. Before going out drinking with a few other friends, we exchanged gifts. She gave me a cute little sake set, which Kevin and I did sake bombs with the following weekend on the floor of my Mountain View apartment:


We also went paintballing that weekend. A few weeks ago we followed up with airsoft for his birthday. Then his graduation. Then last weekend I helped him move into his new studio, of which I am so jealous -- and I hope someday soon we can get a place together.

Okay so I've been up to a lot these last few months. I could have blogged. I could have done a lot of things. I'm a terrible friend, I'm sorry!

I've written down what I call my LA Pledge. It's a list of promises I've made to myself for if/when I get a job and get to move down to LA to be closer to many friends, and of course my Kevin. I won't share what's on that list (maybe I will when it's time to hold up my end of the bargain -- you can help keep me honest!), but I will say this: they're all geared towards me being a better person, and living a better life for myself. Because this funk just won't do! And you deserve better.

Sincerely,
Me.

~*~

How Sara!

In January, while I was learning Flash and very excited about learning to put it on the web, I had the brilliant idea to start my own website. So I registered my own domain name -- que-sara.com -- but kind of stopped there...until last week.

You see, I wanted to learn how to do some more sophisticated web-development stuff before publishing anything, but also realized that that 1-year registration was kind of useless with absolutely nothing to display, so last week I decided to throw something together. I learned some basic CSS to get me started (I had only ever made straight HTML websites in the past, and really wanted to learn a less-deprecated way of formatting), and had a basic site up on Thursday. Friday I re-posted all of my food blog entries (which I've added to tonight), and on Saturday, Kevin helped me transfer my web hosting from my free Go-Daddy account (since I registered through them) to his much faster (and ad-free) site5 account, which apparently lets you host multiple domains.

The site needs a major overhaul on looks, and the hobbies + Flash areas still need content, but that will take some planning and possibly some more learning before I get there. For now, enjoy the new site! I will most likely stop posting my food blogs on here and only post them at: http://que-sara.com/food.html

~*~

What isn't made of soy?

I've been burning candles a lot again lately, and have been avoiding buying more until I can find a place that sells soy candles (because I'm going to get cancer anyway, but I might as well avoid it where I can!), and while looking for freezer ziplocks, I stumbled upon soy candles at Safeway of all places! I only bought one -- lemongrass and coriander scented, though I sorely miss my cinnamon-scented one that made my room smell delicious! -- to see how I like this brand. So far it has completely taken over my room, but I don't mind yet =P

~*~

Chicken Cordon Bleu Deux

The first time I made chicken cordon bleu, I neglected to buy bread crumbs. Today I went grocery shopping and remembered! The third bowl in the breading process THIS time had ~1/2 cup of garlic and herb bread crumbs and ~1 tablespoon of Tony's seasoning (my favorite to put on everything!):

~*~

She's Got a Muffintop

This was definitely last week's Iron Chef Blogger Challenge....but you can read my last post to learn why this is out of order, because I definitely had my ingredients in time to bake these the end of last week.

~Apple Muffins~
Mix together dry ingredients: 1.75 cups flour, 1.5 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon allspice, 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, 1/4 teaspoon salt. Set aside.

Whisk together 2 eggs and 1.5 cups light brown sugar.
Add 1/2 stick melted butter.
Stir in 1 cup sour cream.
Mix in dry ingredients slowly.
Stir in 1 cup of pecans (or walnuts), chopped.
Stir in small pieces of 2 diced apples (small, or in my case 1.5 medium apples).

Pour into muffin cups (in a tin), 3/4 full.

Streusel Topping: 2 tablespoons brown sugar, 2 tablespoons softened butter, 1 tablespoon flour, 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon allspice, 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg. Mix together and drizzle on each muffin before baking.

Bake 20 minutes at 400F.
Cool on a rack before removing muffins from tin.
Store in airtight container (refrigerate after 1 day).

Enjoy them warm! I forgot to photograph until after I took a bite...



The first batch looked weirder than the 2nd, because the original streusel recipe called for 1.5 T of butter and it was not quite fluid enough to drizzle, and I had to spread on with a knife, so it went on thick and the tops of the muffins didn't crack. But so delicious! And I was too lazy to take and upload pictures of the more attractive batch. Just believe me when I say they tasted amazing!

YUM ALL GONE!

~*~

Cheesecakepie

So, I am kind of doing my Iron Chef Blogger Challenges out of order, here. But I had a pie crust in my fridge I needed to use, and when Kevin and I shopped for ingredients for last week's recipe, we also got the fixings for a cheesecake, because for some reason, they call it a cake even though you bake it in a pie crust! Both apple muffins and lime cheesecake were on the agenda for the weekend, and two things convinced us (well, me, since I do all the work anyway) to do the cheesecakepie first:

1. Cheesecake has to chill overnight, and Kevin needed to help me eat it before he left for LA again!
2. Upon returning from the store, I found that the next ingredient was cream cheese, and I just so happened to have bought 16 ounces of the stuff!

~Lime Cheesecake~
First of all, you're supposed to use a graham cracker crust. The pie crust I had was regular pie crust, but the only other pie Kevin wanted was apple, and that requires 2 crusts. So we settled on cheesecake! It isn't as decadent as graham cracker crust, but still tasty!

For the filling: Blend together two 8 oz. packages of cream cheese with 2/3 cup of sugar (oh, I 2/3s a recipe that wanted 3 packages and a larger pie mold). This works best with a mixer, but I don't have one, so I let it soften on the stovetop as I cooked dinner, then cut it up before putting in the bowl, and used 2 whisks to simulate a mixer. Yeah, I'm that awesome.

Stir in 2 or 3 eggs (it calls for 5, so 2/3 of that!) one at a time.
Stir in 2/3 cup sour cream.
Stir in 1 tsp vanilla (the recipe we "used" didn't call for it, but others did, so I added it).
Stir in 3/8 cup lime juice and the zest of 1 lime.

I'm pretty sure that's all that was in the filling. I kind of Frankenstein'ed a few recipes because the original one we had wanted crazy things to be done (baking it surrounded by water??) and actually wanted the low-fat version of cream cheese that I saw for the first time at the store (and didn't buy!).

Bake at 350?F for 45 minutes.
Let cool, then refrigerate overnight.

It was tasty!

~*~

Meat Purse Filled with Cheese!

Kevin came to visit this weekend, and as always I had the task of feeding him. He's kind of picky, but he enthusiastically volunteered chicken cordon bleu as a dinner idea, so I found a recipe and dragged him to Safeway. Even though I did most of the work while he watched Venture Brothers (oh, I guess he did make the rice pilaf Riceroni!), it was fun and delicious!

~Chicken Cordon Bleu~
Cut 4 slices of swiss cheese and 4 slices of ham into halves. Stack 2 of each and roll up (cheese on the inside). Fold a thin chicken breast around each and secure closed with toothpicks so you have 4 meat purses (hehe).


To bread, set up 3 bowls:
1. Flour
2. Egg Wash: 1 egg, 1/4 cup water -- whisked together
3. Seasoned bread crumbs (note: I overlooked this part when I went shopping, so I had to toast and cut up bread and mix with Tony's Seasoning to make my own; it looked pretty neat, but they were too big and hard on the roof of the mouth, so I don't recommend it!)

Dip in that order and place on a parchment-lined cookie sheet, toothpick-side up (I guarantee your meat purses will leak delicious melted cheese!)


Bake 25 minutes at 350 F.

Serve with rice pilaf!

~*~

Knitting My Troubles Away

All fall and winter I have been working on a red and black scarf for Kevin, yarn and dimensions of his choosing. It was really small gauge (I couldn't tell you how small because I'm a pretty ghetto knitter -- in fact, I learned that I don't know how to knit, only how to purl!) so it took forevererer! Knitting about 10 rows of 30 stitches each per ~hour-long episode of House or Dexter, I'd say I spent about 45 hours just knitting, and let's say another 3 going back to pick up a lost stitch -- 2 whole days! Also, I ran out of yarn and had to get more RIGHT before Christmas when Joann's was having a sale and sold out of the colors I needed!! I went to 4 or 5 Joann's before I finally obtained what I needed to finish.


It is heavy but very soft! Kevin loves it. I gave it to him on our 7-monthiversary, and it matches the bracelet I made him with magnetic clasps (which he picked out during that first trip to Joann's when he picked out the yarn!)

~*~

I'll Bring Home the Turkey If You Bring Home the...

BACON!

Kevin really wanted me to choose bacon when it was my turn, but I picked mushrooms instead and included bacon in my stuffed mushrooms. Well, someone picked bacon this week, so I get another go, and I chose to bake something.

~Maple Bacon Biscuits~

First, cook 1 12-ounce package of bacon, cut into 1/2 inch pieces, in a frying pan. I used low sodium bacon. Pat dry on paper towels to rid of excess grease.

Whisk together 3.5 cups flour, 2 Tablespoons sugar, 2 Tablespoons baking powder (recipe calls for 1, but my roommate Will told me to routinely double that to make stuff rise better), 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, and 1/2 teaspoon salt.

Cut in 2 sticks of butter "until it resembles small peas", whatever the hell that means. This part was very hard, so do your best.

Stir in bacon, 1/4 cup + 2 Tablespoons maple syrup (I used regular Ralph's brand pancake syrup, because I have a lot of it, which may have been a mistake, but they tasted good to me), and 3/4 cup + 2 Tablespoons of buttermilk. Mix together until the dough comes together; it will still be clumpy. I suggest using flour to help with this process.

Roll out the dough to 1-inch thickness on a lightly floured surface. Cut into 2-inch rounds (I didn't have a cookie cutter, so I used the 1/4 cup measure, and it worked okay). This should make about 24 biscuits.

Chill in the fridge for 10 minutes.

While they are chilling, mix together egg wash: 1 egg, 1 Tablespoon heavy whipping cream.

Brush the egg was on the biscuits and sprinkle 1 pinch of coarse sea salt on each biscuit (I didn't have coarse sea salt and wasn't going to buy it just for this, so I used a salt grinder that had course sea salt inside of it -- salt is salt!).

Place 1-2 inches apart on parchment-lined cookie sheet. Bake for 25 minutes at 350 F.

Drizzle 1 teaspoon of maple syrup (here I think the type of syrup is important...I probably really should have used maple, because mine came out REALLY sticky!) on each biscuit and bake for ~3 minutes more.

You tasted breakfast before you even got them in your mouth -- it was amazing! They were really sticky, which took away from the quality, in my opinion, because I don't like food that is too messy (sticky) to eat, but they were tasty. I brought them with me to LA when I visited Kevin, and he nommed on them pretty good.

~*~

Easy, Brie-zy

This week's ingredient was: brie!

Irony of ironies, the day before this ingredient was announced, Kevin and I picked up some brie and sourdough at Safeway to snack upon. But not quite enough left to do anything with, so another grocery trip was in order.

I shopped by myself this time around because Kevin was home with a fever -- pobrecito! That fact also resulted in a strange combination of foods in the meal.

I made Kevin soup out of chicken broth and rice noodles. For Iron Chef Blogger Challenge I made: quesadillas! Weird combo, I know, but if you ignore that fact, it was a tasty and filling meal!

For two quesadillas, split 1/2 pound of brie (including the rind, which I had to cut away from, so less than that), and diced: 1 roma tomato, half of an avocado, and 3 green onions. Using Kevin's new handy dandy sandwich grill (from Fry's -- impulse buy!), I melted the brie in the large, whole grain tortillas. When the brie was melted, it got everywhere! Then I added mixed veggies and served.

The brie was very mild, but the veggies added some good flavor. We added that red sauce you see at Asian restaurants, and it was pretty good, too. Quite the confusing combo of foods, but who cares as long as it tastes delicious?

~*~