Holiday Fun in Texas

I spent the final week before Christmas finishing up my labwork, cleaning my apartment, and packing. But there was also some holiday cheer, as well!

Rasika and I decorated the lab door for the annual door-decorating competition, and we won! The prize was a box of chocolate truffles. We shared them with the whole lab. Our door was called "Merry Mito-Christmas" because our lab studies mitochondria. We made a wreath out of green mitochondria, and put up ribbons made from the electron transport chain.

We had two days of Channukah in Texas before I left to spend Christmas in Toronto with my family. We almost forgot to do latkes! But one evening Brandon came home from work with some potatoes and applesauce. I was THRILLED. I went around telling everyone my boyfriend had bought me "a lovely bouquet of potatoes." No one got the joke but me, but that's okay, I still liked it. ^_^

So, we had Rasika over, and we lit the menorah and ate latkes. I explained how to play dreidel, but Rasika said if we played I would cheat by reading the letters wrong! She's a goof.

Showing off my mad Dreidel skillz.

It was really nice to have a proper Channukah before I took off for the chaos of Christmas/New Years madness. I'll do another holiday update after the New Year, when I'm back in Texas. Have a lovely holiday, everyone!

Okonomiyaki

I love Japanese food. And yes, I'm aware that's a bit of a cliche right now, but really. I love it. I love packing bento lunches, I love going out for sushi, I even make dumplings from scratch (I'll have to do an entry on that soon!) But one of the recipes I'm best at is okonomiyaki.

Okonomiyaki is a fritter loaded with vegetables and meat. The base is always lettuce or cabbage, but you can add whatever you want. It literally means "whatever you like, fried."

Brandon and I made a HUGE batch last week.

The assembly line.

Our base was cabbage and lettuce, then we added the other ingredients: purple onion, carrot, red pepper and tomato.

The meats: chicken breast and bacon.

Now, oknomiyaki is supposed to be fried in one giant piece and flipped all at once. But a while back, I discovered that you can also scramble it. This is a great solution if you're not wonderful at flipping things, or if you happen to get the mix wrong and it's not sticking in a fritter shape, or if you're just plain lazy (take a wild guess how I discovered this trick in the first place!)

I find that, when something is described as a fritter, people tend to think of a pancake with stuff in it. This can be misleading. With okonomiyaki, think of it as vegetables lightly coated in batter. Otherwise, you end up making a bland pancake with a few pieces of lettuce in it. Yuck.

Here are the proportions for my batter recipe:
2/3 cup flour
1 egg
1/3 cup water

This makes one serving. This recipe is very small. I always double, triple and sometimes quadruple it (but I also cook for leftovers, and Brandon eats a lot). So just be aware of that. As for the amount of 'stuff' to add, like I said, just make sure it's lightly coated.

At the end, you garnish with a dollop of mayo and lots of okonomi sauce, which is like a lighter version of BBQ sauce. You can get it online, or at an Asian food mart. My only advice is this: don't mix the okonomi sauce and mayo together. It ends up tasting like a Big Mac. Incidentally, I think the secret Big Mac sauce might be equal parts mayo and BBQ sauce: try it on your burgers and let me know how it works out!

This recipe also reheats wonderfully. It's one of my "kitchen sink" recipes that I use when I have things left in the fridge that need to be used up. It's healthy and, despite having such simple ingredients, is surprisingly delicious. Brandon and I crave okonomiyaki every once in a while, and just HAVE to go grab a cabbage so we can put some together. ^_^

Baking, as Always!

My mom had her baking marathon, so I had mine!

I sent cookie tins filled with goodies to several of my friends this year. Here are the action shots:

I did a recipe called "Gary's Favorite Cookies." It's a family recipe, they're oatmeal/walnut/chocolate chip. My mom thinks I make them wrong, because hers spread out super thin, and mine are like tiny cookie clumps.

I also did blonde brownies, which turned particularly golden this time around.

And I made a banana loaf for my brother, who can't eat anything overly sweet. So I thought this would be a nice middle-ground.

I started doing my own baking projects at Christmas-time a couple of years ago. My mom has criticized my holiday baking. She feels that cookies for the holidays have to be fancy. She says, holiday cookies require an extra step, like rolling, cutting, icing... something special. She says that blonde brownies and Gary's Favorite Cookies are every-day recipes, and are therefore inappropriate for the holidays.

Do you guys agree? Is there a two-tiered system for cookies? Should we only cook "fancy" foods on the holidays? Or is my mother being adorably snooty? ^_^
Answer in the comments section!

Thanksgiving

This is, in large part, a food blog. And when I'm too busy to cook, I have nothing to post! But that doesn't mean I'm not eating awesome food. Here's a glimpse of my Thanksgiving weekend:

I flew home to be with my family.

My mom insisted that she get to taste my pie crust, so I helped with the apple pie.

Turkey, of course.

Lovely table settings

And never a shortage of dessert.

I took a lot more photos of family, but I don't think people want me posting pictures of their kids on the internet. Plus I know you guys are really here for the food, anyway. ^_^

My mom bakes about a billion different kinds of cookies for Christmas every year. It has become a tradition for Max and I to assist with the sugar cookies. We now use Thanksgiving weekend as our cookie marathon weekend:

It was a family visit whirlwind, and then I was off! Back to San Antonio...

Where a very special guy helped me prepare for the next big holiday:

<3

Val Came to Visit!

Sometimes you just need some girl time. Val needed to get some fresh air, and apparently there's none better than the air your best friend is breathing. So she came to San Antonio, and we did the rounds:

The Cove.

The Alamo.

Cacti behind the Alamo.

The Riverwalk.

An interesting photo opportunity on the Riverwalk.

 

Girl's night in, with snacks and an episode of Star Trek: TNG!

Lounging around on the couch!

Chocolate chip & banana pancakes, and pepper-bacon!

Pizza at Home Slice in Austin!

Meandering around downtown Austin!

Looking pensive!

Much-needed girl time: success. ^_^