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!

Christmas Morning: Hors D'eouvres Party

My grandpa has 8 siblings. They each got married and had kids, and their kids all had kids. This massive family gets together every year on Christmas morning for a laid-back little shindig in Burlington, Ontario.

I just love the atmosphere. People mingle around the room, chatting and catching up. And I've heard it said multiple times that if you bother to bring a boyfriend or girlfriend to Burlington, it had better be a serious relationship, because otherwise what's the point of overwhelming them with so many relatives!* It's a truly, truly crowded party.

Tinsel! I just love it.

But aside from seeing all my great aunts and uncles, one of the things I like about the Burlington party is the creative food. It's all finger-food, and it's all insanely rich. I was able to snap a few photos after the crowd had cleared.

This year, someone brought brie with what I think was a sundried tomato spread on top. It was phenomenal with some wheat crackers. Behind are pinwheel sandwiches - I think that'd be a great little bento treat. They're very colorful, light and fun, but the creamcheese gives it a hint of protein so they're substantive too.

The pigs-in-a-blanket are a mainstay of the Burlington party. They're there every year, and they go SO FAST (there was only one left for the photo!) I'll admit, they're a bit pork-heavy for me, but I have one every year anyway. It's a guilty pleasure.

The little sign next to this one said "marinated goat cheese" and I thought it was my aunt's recipe, which calls for a variety of olives, but this seemed to be more herb and onion-heavy. It was a nice combination.

Oh, I honestly don't remember. I believe it was a salmon spread? Either way, it was delicious. And the chives are a lovely garnish.

Someone made a variety of little pastries that were to die for. Some had pork, some had spinach. They were all very delicate and very rich. I need to learn to make a flakey pastry crust like this so I can make little turnovers: again, perfect for bentos. This meal is full of lunch inspiration!

This is a mere SAMPLING of the desserts that were there.

Like I said, it's supposedly a light meal because it's all finger-food, but this is not a meal to mess with. Very rich, very heavy... pretty much 100% "guilty pleasure" territory.


*Yes, Brandon has been to Burlington. ;-)

Apparently Christmas Happened!

Wow. Funny thing about January: it flies by. We got back from break and we have both just been swamped with work. I'm sorry for the super-delayed update. So, now that we're halfway through January... who wants to talk about Christmas dinner? Anyone? No one? Too bad, it's all I've got.

When I go home for holidays, I often take photos of friends and family, only to get back and remember that people don't like me posting photos of them on the internet. This year, I made sure to take some pictures of the food and decor, too, so I'd have something to blog about.

When my mom and I arrived in Kitchener/Waterloo, I saw what I feared might be the only snow I was going to experience all break long. So I asked my mom to take a picture of me outside.

As you can see, it's so warm out I didn't even need a jacket. So naturally, you can understand my concern that this would be my only snow of the season. Shortly after this photo was taken, we jumped in the car and drove to Toronto, where we did our Christmas Eve celebration with my extended family.

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My mom asked me to help with the apple pies, which we brought with us. I can easily say this was the best pie crust I've ever made. I don't even know what I did differently, it was just serendipitous. I'll try to recreate it so I can take photos for you guys, but I can't make any promises!

My uncle's dog is named Angel, so my cousins decided she should have an appropriate costume for the party. 

I tried to get a picture of dinner before the crowd got to it, but i was a bit too late. My aunt's turkey gravy was phenomenal: it was dark, rich and heavily seasoned. I sent her an email to ask what the secret is, she said white wine and fresh thyme. I'm officially adding it to my list of things to try!

I tend to geek out about the fact that we have a mixed family (I think I'm the only one who does), and I was in charge of bringing napkins, so I decided to have some fun with it. 

It was a really hectic, fun party. One of my groups of cousins is a set of triplets, and they're 4 years old this year. Things are always busy, busy when they're around!

We actually had two more parties on Christmas weekend that I want to tell you about; the party on Christmas morning is an annual tradition with my extended-extended family and there are some inventive snacks and desserts there that I want to show you! So that'll be next time. Take care. 

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. ^_^