Cooking Compilation Post!

Alright. Considering the ridiculously long hiatus, I think it's no secret that I have been too busy/lazy/distracted for real blogging. That pattern has yet to break. So here is a super lazy post outlining some of the awesome things we've been cooking lately:

When Melissa was here, she made veggie burgers. They were DELICIOUS.

Then I made a quick pot of borscht.

I sauteed the onions and cabbage separately.

Cooked up the beets in the tomato sauce,

Pureed the beets and tomatoes, then added the cabbage and onions.

Then, Shepherd's pie.

I didn't get a finished shot of this one, sorry. We topped it with provolone and parmasean. 

One weekend I did a bake-a-thon because I was sending out care packages to some friends. I took some before shots of my ingredients and cookware, but totally forgot to get any after shots. 

Suffice to say, there was a massive pile of cookies. 

Then, fried tofu!

I marinated the tofu in soy sauce, brown sugar and sriracha, then we fried them up in olive oil with a little sesame oil infused.

I put the tofu over rice that was cooked in chicken broth, and threw together a salad with just balsamic vinegar and pepper for dressing.

And for lunch today, I had bruscetta.

It's okay to be jealous. ^_^

Apologies.

They say you shouldn't spend half your blog apologizing for not posting. So I generally try to avoid it. But the reality is, I haven't been posting very regularly for a while, and I know I won't be any time soon. Things are so crazy hectic right now, I'm preparing to present my thesis proposal to the Committee on Graduate Studies, I'm doing microscopy training, classes start in a couple weeks, I'm at a pivotal point in my research... And - this is going to sound silly - I'm working on writing a screenplay. Yeah, I know. I'm crazy. But it's really relaxing and is helping with the stress.

Anyway. I still have to catch up on Melissa's visit. We haven't taken very many photos since she left (because we're not doing anything of note), so I'm not actually too far behind. I guess as long as we aren't doing anything interesting, then there's nothing to blog about...


Anyway, the point was: sorry. We'll be back to regularly scheduled programming in... a few weeks. ish.

Home Slice Pizza

After our hike in the dry riverbed, we were STARVING. We went to South Congress Avenue in Austin and decided to finally, finally try Home Slice Pizza.

Every time we go to Austin, Home Slice Pizza has at LEAST an hour wait. This time, we decided it was worth it. We put our names in, then sat on their back patio and had a drink. 45 minutes later, we had our table.

 

Those are some hungry people.

Appetizers!

For our appetizers, we had their garlic knots, which come with house-made tomato sauce for dipping, and a walnut, pear, and gorgonzola salad with a very subtle vinaigrette; I'm forgetting what it had in it. Sorry guys. 

Then there was the pizza. We got a margherita pizza, which was phenomenal. They DID NOT skimp on the garlic. This pizza was drenched in garlic. The basil and tomatoes were fresh and bright, the cheese was melted to perfection.

I haven't had pizza this good in a very long time.

Brandon got a calzone. It had spinach and ricotta cheese inside, and more marinara sauce for dipping. Normally, ricotta is an expensive cheese and restaurants use it sparingly. This calzone was stuffed to capacity with perfectly melted ricotta.

They clearly made their dough in-house. It was fresh, warm, doughy... And the marinara sauce was clearly just roma tomatoes blended to oblivion, with a lovely blend of herbs thrown in. Again, fresh, bright flavor.

The crowd at Home Slice is definitely very hipster. People hang out on the back patio drinking beer and playing ping-pong. Most of the staff are covered in tattoos. But a lot of these hipsters are parents now, so there were a lot of kids there. We noticed that at tables that had children, the waiter brought some pizza dough for the child to play with. I felt it was somewhat of a waste of food, but every child there was thrilled (and well-behaved), so I suppose it was worth it.

If you're ever in Austin, just know that Home Slice is worth the wait.

Adventures with Melissa!

Brandon's parents left, but now we have Brandon's sister! She is crashing on our couch, and we are having a great many adventures.

Over the weekend, we went to Austin and did some hiking. First hiking trail was short, and the only major focal point was a tiny cave, surrounded by a rock wall to keep people from falling in. So naturally, we hopped the wall to check out the cave.

Siblings on the rock wall.

It was less of a cave and more of a tiny hole in the ground.

Up-close pictures made it look more cave-like.

Oh yeah, I was there too!

It was so hot out. So, for our second hike we decided on a trail that supposedly lead to a lovely little swimming hole under a tiny waterfall. We soon found out that "the dry season" means just that. 

This is the riverbed. We are standing in it.

So we walked along the riverbed for a while!

...Until we came to the famed waterfall and swimming hole.

We sat in the shade for a bit,

Melissa saw her first Texas lizard!

And then, naturally, we decided to climb the waterfall.

And chill out on the rocks.

After regaining my energy, I got in on the action too!

Upstream, Brandon found a plaque in what would be the middle of the river.

The rock formations were really pretty. Everything was very smooth.

We climbed around for a bit,

Cooled off,

And hung out. 

 After a while, we had our fill, and went back to Austin for a bite to eat...

TO BE CONTINUED!

Shameless Plug

My friend Hal is a writer for Brighthub.com - as in, this is actually his livelihood. Which is pretty impressive, if you ask me. It's also the only reason I would ever promote something on this blog that has nothing to do with my life here in Texas. ... ... Also Hal is a damn good writer.

Hal reviews video games on BrightHub. He's written some interesting articles, including one on Facebook credits: What even are they?

And this one on Minecraft, which is a game I'm hearing more and more about lately.

So, if you're into video games, go check out his profile and see if he's written articles on anything you're playing. His game guides are really useful and easy to understand. Also, he gets paid by the pageview.... so... help a guy out, will ya?

Alright, that's it for my shameless plug.

Family!

Apparently I give just enough hints on my Facebook as to what I'm doing to be annoying, but not enough details to satiate my mother's appetite for information. She insists - no, DEMANDS! - more photos of Brandon's family. And here they are.

We went to the Alamo!

And hung out in the courtyard!

We went to a flea market!

There were silly hats!

And action figures!

... One of which, Brandon bought!

We went to Rudy's BBQ!

Brandon's sister arrived!
Then we went to Mi Tierra's downtown!

Reading the menu!

Dos-rita!

Mariachi bros!

Attempts at getting photos of the whole table!

Crazy decorations!

The whole gang!

Next week, on Texas blog: More Texas!