Getting Caught Up

Well, it certainly has been a while. Our camera was broken, or rather, my computer was broken, so we couldn't upload the photos from the camera. In either case, I simply cannot blog without photos. And so, a hiatus happened.

But much has happened since the last time we spoke! Are you ready for a photo-dump? Because it's going to be epic. Here we go.

Firstly, we got a pet cat!!

Her name is Qorra. She's 7 months old, she used to be a stray, and she is VERY playful.

She's also extremely intelligent, which is good, but also difficult. We have to keep her occupied and challenged all the time, otherwise she starts to get bored and antsy. But it's also fun to watch her figure out the many puzzles we give her to play with.

We went rock climbing with Rasika in Austin!

I also got an Xbox360!

And then, of course, there's the food. Last month's cover story in Bon Appetit magazine was about fried chicken. We followed the instructions to the letter, and it was probably the best fried chicken I've ever eaten.

I made Brandon a Valentine's themed bento.

My dad gave Brandon and I bottle of champagne as a gift, so we got some brie to go with it and had a fancy snack for dinner.

We got some ahi tuna and made shish kebobs!

I learned how to poach an egg!

Veggie burgers from scratch!

Miniature frittatas for breakfast!

Snacks for our Game of Thrones parties with friends!

And that's it for food! Here, have one more picture of Qorra, for good measure. She's relaxing in Brandon's lap. ^_^

Now that we've solved the problem with the camera, I should be able to blog more regularly from now on. Now I just gotta remember to take pictures...

Lots of love!

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. ^_^

Myelin is a Busy Lady

We've been taking a lot of pictures of Myelin lately. She's slowing down in her old age, but she still manages to be mischievous and adorable.

And, as usual, we've been cooking. This was a last-minute dinner one night that ended up working out nicely. We fried some eggs in little red pepper cups with green onions, and some bacon and toast.

I also made beef stew this week, with mustard greens. Later I added corn and peas, and it cooked down a bit more.

Its juuuuuuuuuuuuuust barely been cold enough out lately for hot drinks, so I steamed up some milk and made a chai latte one night. The milk froth was PERFECT.

Love you!

Halloween!

So, we planned a Halloween party. I made lots of themed snacks, and put together a last-minute costume.

I invited 5 people, and 4 bailed. So it ended up being me, Brandon and Rory hanging out with WAY TOO MUCH FOOD. But it's okay, I needed a laid-back evening. It turned out to be really relaxing.

Photo dump!

I dressed as a 1950's housewife.

We went to the store in the middle of the day, but I didn't break character!

Foods!

Hot spiced apple cider with rum! 

Happy Halloween!