brunch is the best

food for four

Who doesn’t love brunch?  You know what is even better than going out for brunch?  Having brunch at a friend’s apartment, all the food homemade.  This is something the four of us had been talking about for awhile now and we finally made the time to do it.  Hence why we may have gotten a bit carried away as you can see from the picture above.  Yes, all that food was just for us four.  Fruit with two kinds of dips, hashbrowns, muffins, bacon, french toast, coffee cake, and a dutch baby.  Everything was soooo good, thank goodness we are all too busy to do this on a regular basis or we would surely each gain twenty pounds this year!

My contributions to the spread was the pink fruit dip and the muffins.  Here is a better picture I took of the muffins fresh out of the oven.

I don’t even care for bananas that much, but I have been wanting to make these BANANA CRUMB MUFFINS anyway just because they are rated so highly on the recipe site I use.  Gotta admit, they were pretty darn good.  And had I not left them in the oven for a couple minutes too long, I am sure they would have been amazing!  I will definitely be on the lookout for another excuse to make them.

Click the link below for recipe:

BANANA CRUMB MUFFINS

my fifteen seconds

A few weeks ago I wrote about helping out at the Fountain Community Garden.  Well, even though at the end of the day they felt they were ahead of schedule, turns out they still needed a second work day, so of course we went again.  This time we started out in the kids area, weeding and arranging rocks.  But as more people arrived to the site the more we realized that wasn’t where our help was really needed so we switched tasks.

Next to us a fellow couchsurfer was filling up sandbags and stacking them up in a circle so we aided in that for a bit until it was done.  And then came the assignment.  My boyfriend had walked off and I am not exactly sure how it happened, but one of the supervisors gave him the job of continuing to dig the path where they would later lay gravel.  It only needed to be about three inches deep which sounded simple enough, but it wasn’t.  Still, the two of us kept at it, him with a pick axe and shovel, me with a shovel, and eventually two more helpers with shovels.  Time was running out but we were determined and somehow finished all the digging that needed to be done.  My boyfriend paid the price of his hardwork for days afterward, his muscles sore from wielding the pick axe for hours straight.

I can’t embed the video, but my shoveling skills made the news!  Click here to to watch the ABC news segment on the garden and try to find me!  I am so glad my fifteen seconds of fame came from doing a good deed and not a cameo on COPS are something similar.

too hot to handle

After the meatless meal the night before that was way more difficult than it should have been, it was time to bust out the crock pot and let it cook us some ribs while we went to work on Monday.  Both my boyfriend and I thought about nothing else that day other than the dinner we had waiting for us back home.  We arrived, I sat down my stuff, and went right for the pot.  The ribs were so tender they began to fall apart from each other as I pulled them out.  Then I licked my finger and… holy smokes fire in my mouth!  Now, I am no heat/spice sissy when it comes to food but even I had a difficult time finishing my share.  My poor boyfriend, who has a low tolerance for hot and spicy foods, I practically killed him.  He was a champ though and finished his, suffering the whole time I am sure.

Other than the heat factor these were excellent.  A lot of the reviewers said they weren’t hot enough for them, but it obviously depends on the chili sauce you use.  Unintentionally I picked a zinger.  Will absolutely make these again, but next time I’ll substitute with BBQ sauce.

I tried a new broccoli for the side dish, which was good except that I skipped the entire first step.  Other reviewers said this was fine, but I disagree because it was a little undercooked.  Will have to try again sometime and do it right.

The best thing that came of this meal is that I discovered an option on my camera which allows for close focus.  Amazing what a difference it makes and I am very proud of this broccoli photo.  If only I had discovered it earlier.

Click the links below for recipes:

SLOW COOKER BARBECUE RIBS

BRILLIANT SAUTEED BROCCOLI

slacking in the kitchen

Remember that time when I said I would keep up-to-date with my posts?  Ha!  That so didn’t happen and I have a few meals to blog about before I will be all caught up.  This one is from about two weeks ago.

My boyfriend was not feeling very carnivorous that day (unusual) and wanted something other than a hunk of meat with side of veggies like I normally make, so I took the opportunity to try a recipe I thought looked delicious called ST. LOUIS TOASTED RAVIOLI.

Alright, so the picture actually turned out pretty good, but I chose the best looking pieces to use.  This recipe was a pain in the arse!  All was fine until the coating in breadcrumbs part because they refused to stick to the ravioli.  Granted, it could have been partly due to the fact that I used 1% milk rather than whole milk, but I wasn’t about to buy a whole quart (they didn’t have anything smaller) of whole milk just to use two teaspoons.  That combined with the fact that I could only fry a few at a time… I was not having fun in the kitchen.  And to top it all off, this recipe was the cause of this misfortune.  In the end, I thought it tasted alright and my boyfriend devoured it.  Too bad for him I will not be going through the trouble to make it again, though I think he mostly liked it because the store bought sauce we chose was excellent.

And then there was the side dish.  Even though the PAN-FRIED ASPARAGUS I make a lot is some of the best asparagus either of us have ever had, I decided to do something different with the same veggie and went with a recipe called ASPARAGUS WITH PECANS AND PARM.

However, I didn’t read the recipe close enough when I made this decision and didn’t realize it called for a basket-style steamer which I do not have yet.  Yes, I know there are other ways I could have gone about steaming the veggie, but I was lazy and just pan-fried it the same way I do for the other asparagus recipe but using the ingredients from this one.  It turned out alright, but I can’t really judge it fairly since I didn’t follow directions.

So what is the lesson here?  Follow the directions.  If it says whole milk, buy whole milk.  If it says to steam, then steam.  And most importantly, do not dip a fork in hot oil and then put it in your mouth, no matter how hungry you are.

Click the links below for recipes:

ST. LOUIS TOASTED RAVIOLI

ASPARAGUS WITH PECANS AND PARM

can you say EXCITED!?

(if you have Quicktime, go here for better quality)

CROP walk for hunger

We found out about the CROP (Communities Responding to Overcome Poverty) walk for hunger in Ventura, CA from a girl who posted it on the couchsurfing website.  Since we were the ones who started the volunteer thread, and we didn’t have any plans for that Sunday, we felt it was our duty to go.  However, we didn’t find out about it until about a week before and didn’t feel that was a sufficient amount of time to get a substantial amount of sponsors (plus we don’t like asking people for money anyway).  But the good news was that, when checking out their website, it turns out they needed volunteers to do other things such as set-up.  Sweet!  We can still feel like we’re helping but don’t have to ask people for money, sounds good to me.

And so we drove 70 miles to volunteer.  It was worth it though, turns out we were the only non-family, non-church related people there to help (most helpers being adolescent grandkids of the organizers).  We helped set-up and then were given a lunch break so we cruised down Main Street.  A very cute area, with beach on one side and mountains on the other.  I would enjoy living there if it weren’t so far from everything.  Anyway, when we got back everything was kind of done… but then we were asked if we wanted to be a “big help” and do the dreaded job of walking behind all the walkers and taking down the directional signs.  Despite not being dressed appropriately to do a 10K walk, how could we say no?  Two healthy 20-somethings, and if we didn’t do it the task would be left to someone at least twice our age.  So we agreed and got to see even more of Ventura, including a surfing tournament as we strolled along the beach.

The weather was beautiful and we had a good time.  The organizers were super appreciative, though they couldn’t understand why we had driven all the way up from Pasadena to help them.  Honestly, we couldn’t really give them an answer.  In the future we hope to find volunteer opportunities a little closer to home, but it was fun to be part of this one event which raised a lot more money than they had anticipated.  Plus, we both got a slight tan!

Juan Carlos from Queretaro, Mexico

Juan was a different breed of couchsurfer than what we have experienced thus far for a few reasons.  One, while so far we have only hosted pairs, he was traveling solo.  Two, while so far everyone we have hosted has been first-timers, Juan is a veteran.  And three, while most travelers are here to… well, travel… he was here for the second time in a month to learn about career opportunities in post production.  Because of this his schedule was pretty full already and he had rented a car so we actually didn’t see much of him.  He arrived a little before 9pm on a Tuesday night, and as is happened with every couchsufer, we sat up talking for a couple of hours.  But this time instead of just talking about travel and our home countries, we also got to spend some time talking about post-production, which is what both my boyfriend and I do for a living.  And in exchange for us telling him all about that, he told us stories of couchsurfing “back in the day” which we greatly enjoyed.  Couchsurfing took off in 2004 and Juan has been actively involved since 2005, back when there was just a core group of them, not the one million plus members that there are now.

The next morning Jaun insisted I let him drive me to work, even though I kept telling him it was not necessary and completely out of his way, and that I was fine taking the metro.  I eventually caved however and we got to enjoy LA traffic together as we talked even more and continued to get to know each other better.  After work the three of us went out for sushi and he couldn’t believe how much better it was compared to what he gets back in central Mexico.  LA likes sushi, and while it can’t compare to what I ate in Japan (even though I disliked seafood when I went back in 2002), it has got to make the top ten list of best sushi cities outside of Japan.  There is a sushi restaurant on every block here, the trick is knowing the good ones.

Anyway, the next morning he departed.  He stayed in LA for a couple more days, but had previously decided to split his time between us and another local host he wanted to meet.  That is one of the things so great about Juan, he uses the site the way it was intended to be used, to meet people you can have a connection with and not just for a free place to crash.  So far we have been lucky and all of our surfers have been that way.  And now that we know Juan, we have a friend in a gorgeous and not well-known part of Mexico that we have now added to our list of travel destinatations.  Whether there or here, I have no doubt we will be seeing him again.

my mom’s favorite chocolate chip cookies

One of the great things about my new hobby of cooking/baking is that I can share it with the females of my family.  It is always something they have been able to bond over but I was left out of, and quite honestly wanted nothing to do with.  But those days are over and now I have been invited into the club, woohoo!  When I first told my mom that I had made chocolate chip cookies, and they weren’t even slice and bake, she immediately emailed me her favorite recipe so I could try it out.  This recipe called for one ingredient that I could not find no matter how many places I looked, but luckily my mom is awesome and she followed through with what she said here and mailed it to me.

My boyfriend, who said he liked the other ones I made but only ate a couple, ate FOUR of these for dessert the day I made them.  And he brought some into work the following day, both for himself and to share with his co-workers.  I took most of what was left to work with me and they were gone within an hour.  I guess all this means they were good, eh?  So now the important question is…

one

two

three

four

 My boyfriend and I had different favorites which is what inspired the question, but really I just wanted to play with the poll function on wordpress.  Please play along because it would be kind of embarrassing to set it all up and only have one person actually vote (thanks in advance AK).

Oh, and even though I got this recipe from my mom, turns out the exact same one is on the site I always use.  So…

Click the link below for recipe:

CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES V

yummy french dip

I was so excited for this that I even went out and bought special dishes to use for pictures from now on.

My crock pot was worth every penny after it made this yummy sandwhich.  And the name of the recipe doesn’t lie, EASIEST SLOW COOKER FRENCH DIP is exactly that.  Ok, I guess I can’t really say that since this was the first time I’ve ever made french dip, but it was easy!  All except for the fact that it took me four grocery stores to find dry au jus mix.  I still can’t believe the giant Whole Foods we have here in Pasadena does not carry au jus… not dry, not liquid… nothing.  But Gelson’s saved the day so they move up a notch in my book.  Anyway, back to the sandwhich which is making me hungry just remembering it.  When my boyfriend arrived home from work I removed the meat from the crock pot, started slicing it up, and actually began to worry a little because it seemed dry, and with so few ingredients I imagined it to be unflavorful as well.  Despite this, I went ahead and piled the slices on the hoagies, layered them with cheese, and stuck it in the oven for a few minutes until the cheese had melted and the bread had just barely started to golden.  Then came the moment of truth as I dipped into the au jus and took a bite.  Yummy!

I have had better in restaurants for sure, but they were good enough that I wanted to keep eating them rather than partake in the side salad I had made.

JAMIE’S CRANBERRY SPINACH SALAD is the highest rated salad on the site so I have been wanting to try it for awhile now.  Both my boyfriend and I agreed that, while it is good, it is just too sweet for our taste.  Sweet isn’t really what we’re looking for in a salad.  To each their own.

Click the links below for recipes:

EASIEST SLOW COOKER FRENCH DIP

JAMIE’S CRANBERRY SPINACH SALAD

small world

the only picture of me in high school that I have on my computer

Los Angeles is a big city, is it not?  My graduating class in high school was between 200 and 300 people ,which is relatively small, is it not?  So how is it that I walked by one of those people on my way to work today?  This wouldn’t be so random if I went to school in California, but I didn’t, I went to school in Washington State.

Truth be told, through the wonders of websites like myspace and facebook (neither of which I am a member of… yet) I knew this girl has been living in LA.  That is why, when we passed each other walking opposite directions on the crosswalk, I was sure enough it was her that I yelled out her name.  I crossed back to the corner I had just come from, we embraced and chatted for all of about sixty seconds before parting ways.  The two of us were more acquaintances in high school than we were friends… her being part of the popular crowd and me not so much.

There isn’t much point to this story other than to say that I enjoy this stage in my life.  I like being able to say hi to someone I once knew if I randomly spot them, but at the same time we don’t feel like we need to exchange contact information.  Just because we attended the same high school doesn’t mean we have to become best friends seven years later simply because we again both happen to live in the same city, one thousand miles away from where we grew up.

That being said… for those high school friends of mine who do read this blog, either by invitation or investigation, I am glad you’re here!  Some I have seen in person since 2002 and some I haven’t, but in all instances I owe my thanks to the internet for bringing us together again.