December 5, 2014
Food is life.
And unlike my teen years, cooking is now one of my favorite ways to unwind. Normally this is a win win and PiC benefits from the messes in the kitchen.
I don’t want to admit that I can’t keep up with everything but let’s just pretend, as an intellectual exercise and a nod to moderation, that cooking after delivering Little Bean is not super likely. I used to cook most nights, now I’m down to 1-3 nights a week. Add a potentially squalling, but definitely feeding every 2-3 hours newborn to the mix and I think we all know the real end of that equation.
But who wants to rely entirely on take-out or delivery? It’s a nice treat on occasion but I get tired of restaurant food faster than it takes to outspend the grocery budget.
Like squirrels, we’ve been stocking the cupboards with the basics: pasta, rice, quinoa, boxed broths, and KIND and Luna bars for days when I just can’t face a meal or just need an easy boost. Flour, sugar and brown sugar goes on sale a lot around the holidays so I’ll stock up on that for prep as well.
We don’t have much storage or a very big freezer unfortunately, so my plans to prep/precook some food that should be easy to throw together later have to be modest.
I’ll be:
Poaching chicken thighs and freezing them whole,
Poaching whole chickens and shredding it for use in soups, quesadillas, with rice, whatever. I tend to throw together really haphazard soups so we’ll just prep ahead whatever of the standard ingredients freezes well. I know onions do fine, but I’m not sure about carrots, potatos and celery yet. I know for darn sure I’m not going to be up to peeling and cutting up potatos, though.
Attempting premaking pizza from scratch for freezing, toppings and all, and a lasagna recipe (also intended to be frozen). I always want lasagna and rarely make it so that’ll be really nice to have a few premade.
I’ve also written up a detailed list of our local restaurants that are good for either delivery or take out, including all our usual orders so that if it’s that dire, we don’t have to make any real decisions.
We tried Munchery.com for some real food delivery as we have mostly Asian take-out around here and most don’t deliver. They do more American style foods, though in smaller portions, but it’s a reasonable cost per meal with discounts so that’s on our list of go-to food choices.
This should be helpful to out of town visitors who might be here to help with LB too, they won’t have to ask or figure out what’s good that’s also nearby. While I’m at it, I’m including grocery stores as well. That bit’s purely for convenience.
Notes: I always crave cake and most especially cakes from Nothing Bundt Cakes. Failing that, (anyone who really loves me and wants me to be stocked up on cake, take note) we’ve discovered the Super Lemony Lemon Cake Bites from Trader Joe’s and I nearly demolished the whole package in one go. They’re not the absolutely most amazing thing ever, but they are close enough for me. Yes yes, I should be eating my veggies but I also need my cake, y’all.
August 18, 2014
We had a bad experience at Nopalito some time ago, not being seated at all or called for our table after THREE hours of waiting (2 of which were on the phone in wait list), and were pretty grumpy about it. A complaint yielded some results so we decided to give them another shot.
The wait staff this time around were great: attentive, helpful, and genuinely nice. I don’t know if we’ll ever risk dinner with them again but a weekday lunch worked really well. Everything was amazing, and I think we could make a meal of any variety of appetizers.
I thought I was just ordering fancy chips and dip with the Totopos con Chile but nope. SUPER fancy, very filling, very generous serving.
Had my doubts about the brown paper wrapped Carnitas for about a split second, then I smelled it. Then I tasted it. *swoon*
The taquitos de papas were fun and easy (I have a soft spot for taquitos); and I’m going to be dreaming about those empanadas.
Nopalito may not be authentic Mexican food but all that flies out the window when you’re served.
March 23, 2014
This isn’t a tutorial on saving since the champagne’s a cheat but I pick the bubbly at home. I’m not just frugal, I’m seriously lazy.
We had friends in town recently. The default MO when this happens is we go out to brunch, lunch or dinner before they leave, depending on their travel plans. With some friends (ahem, his), it’s a fight over who pays the bill, with them snagging it more often than we can. This means we end up in a bill-war, vying to pay for the next round, every time we go out. It’s exhausting and a pain in the budget.
At the core, the problem is one of culture. For PiC, eating out is part of his family bonding culture; for me, cooking together and eating at home is part of my family bonding culture. Up til now, we have heavily favored his but it’s time to start observing mine when we’re here at home.
We’ve slashed this year’s food, entertainment and travel budget by 20% because we spent WAY too much in those areas last year. Anything approaching five figures for only two people (and for entertaining) is outrageous, IMO, and I really don’t know how the others do it considering they eat out at least twice as much as we do on their own.
We may not be able to cancel the bill-pay arms race but we’re sure as shootin’ going to approach Quality Time differently.
We’re off to a fine start hosting a champagne brunch where we focused on a couple stars for the meal: the champagne and the best bacon ever. We’re finally cracking open one of two bottles of Korbel that were gifts; they’ve been sitting untouched with only the two of us to drink it. With guests coming, I squeezed grapefruit to make orange and grapefruit mimosas.
And bacon. Oh the bacon! I’ve always been a fan of bacon but most of it’s been run-of-the-mill variety. I hadn’t know real bacon until my friend ruined me forever with a gift of Zingerman’s bacon for our wedding. Now THAT is applewood smoked bacon: aromatic even in the shipping container, cut so thickly that diced for pasta you get big chunks of smoky meatiness, with hardly any fat to trim. Swoonworthy bacon. The only catch is it normally runs $12 a lb. So it’s the special occasion bacon, even if I could easily find (make up) a reason to pop half a pound into every recipe.
The rest of the meal was simple: scrambled eggs with green onions, whole wheat pancakes with maple syrup, and almond croissants.
Bacon: $6
Pancakes and syrup: $3
Eggs, green onions: $3
Almond croissants: $2
Juices: $1
Even paying for and making the whole meal we’re paying less to feed 4 than we would for the two of us at the local diner so that’s nice. The drawbacks, of course, if you don’t like to cook is that you’re cooking and cleaning, and the guests are getting what we choose to make. Sorry, guys. 🙂
On the bright side, we’ll soon be taking advantage of a new wafflemaker to expand our repertoire. Chocolate chip bacon waffles, here we come!
Other breakfast ideas: I may relieve my friends of their smoked salmon (which they’ve been trying to get rid of) to try making eemusing’s potato cakes with salmon and eggs.
I’m good at making dinners but my breakfast/brunch cooking is pretty limited. If you’ve got any delicious and easy brunch suggestions, throw them my way.
June 24, 2013
Pardon the really dark photos of the sushi, they don’t do the food justice.
The burger craving is an intense and life-enhancing phenomenon. So is the sushi craving, but I hammer that one down more often than not, sushi’s too expensive in the Bay Area to enjoy frequently.
Usually, the need for burgers means we have to trek out to one diner or another and pay about $25 for a couple of burgers and fries. It’s mostly good but not so amazing that I don’t get a little squinty-eyed over the cost vs my satisfaction.
Then miracle of miracles: a mega sale on ground turkey AND I found the most amazing, simple turkey burger recipe. With a few Just Because alterations and voila! Magic!
Makes 8 fat round patties
2 lbs ground turkey ($5)
1/2 onion, diced finely ($0.25)
1/2 garlic bulb, diced finely ($0.30)*
1 egg white ($0.40)
2/3 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
2 Tbsp breadcrumbs ($0.20)
Burger buns ($2.49)
Combine all ingredients in a bowl and form into 8 patties. Cook over medium heat until they reach an internal temp of 180 degrees.
I made the patties, and the potato salad, then let PiC do the cooking and prep of the condiments and sides. His execution was flawless: he made surprise bacon! I danced with glee.
Sides: sprouts, cheddar cheese slices, grilled onions, sliced tomatoes, thinly sliced red onions, sliced avocado, grilled mushrooms, bacon, ketchup, mayo.
These burgers were, I kid you not, the best burgers ever. Perfectly cooked, delicious, way more flavorful than turkey burgers I’ve gotten at any diner. Three bites in and I was already worrying about my next portion because clearly, I can’t have just one.
Total: $8.64 for eight burgers
*Strictly speaking, the recipe only called for a couple cloves of garlic. But you know me, I’m constitutionally incapable of using less than 4 times the recommended amount.
Potato Salad
1 lb sliced fingerling potatoes
Vinaigrette
1 Tbsp dijon mustard
1 Tbsp red wine vinegar
1 Tbsp water used to boil potatoes
1 Tbsp diced capers
(2 sweet onions) – used 1 shallot and 1/2 green onion
Boil potatoes until tender, 6-8 minutes. Reserve 1 Tbsp of the boiling water for the vinaigrette. Pour potatoes into a medium mixing bowl. Prep the vinaigrette ingredients: mustard, vinegar, water, in a separate bowl and whisk until mixed thoroughly. Pour over the potatoes, add capers, shallots and green onion (or sweet onion), mix evenly. Add salt and pepper to taste. I didn’t use any.
*The original recipe called for 5 cornichons sliced thinly and 1/3 cup of olive oil for the vinaigrette but I don’t know what cornichons are and I just plain forgot the olive oil. It was good anyway!
That’s the burger craving taken care of … about that sushi!
Now Serving: Sushi
We found Sushi Tomi in Mountain View with four star ratings from 1000+ reviews; that was promising. We ordered a soba, a hamachi don, and a sunomono with octopus.
The nine hamachi slices topping the sushi rice were thick slabs of fresh, delicious fish. I haven’t seen sashimi that size ever. The sunomono was full of great big pieces of octopus, not fried, but a little on the chewy and unseasoned side. Possibly how it’s meant to be but I was rather expecting to see the salad be dressed in some way. It was good enough not to induce regrets but I won’t order that again.
PiC’s soba was good, but since he always uses a bit of wasabi, slightly off-putting to me. The perils of sharing food! 🙂 It was tasty and flavorful even if I thought the portion was on the small side.
The bill would have been more reasonable except I misunderstood PiC saying he had added tip but not tax. That’s backwards to how I do it, adding tax to the main bill we split and then adding tip afterward, so our miscommunication led to a $50 bill. Not the end of the world, but pretty irritating that it went right over my head. Be more careful next time!
And speaking of next time, we wouldn’t make the drive just for the sushi but if we were in the area, we’d definitely go back and try other things.
Final assessment: I’m not the kitcheny genius that @mochimac is, so we’re not going to master the art of Japanese cooking anytime soon but perhaps that should be a project on our list.
Egads but I love good food. I’ll eat not great food too, but I really really appreciate amazing food. And more so when we learn how to make it at home. Mom was always a whiz at that. She could taste a meal once or twice and with some experimentation, reproduce it exactly or better.
:: Am I the only one for whom food is a wondrous thing?
June 10, 2013
From top left, going clockwise…
Our three across the top are Happy Hour appetizers from a little place called Cactus, in Kailua. The waitstaff looked to be shorthanded: they were a bit harried and slow, though very nice. We never make it to Happy Hour anywhere on the mainland but took advantage of our slightly more relaxed schedule on “vacation”. They had both indoor and outdoor seating, and moderately good food. Our friend didn’t like half the dishes we order (by consensus, mind you!) but since I’ll eat just about anything once, it was good enough for me.
Happy Hour beer was a Negro Modelo for $3 (staff took the initiative to substitute it for the foamy and warm Dos Equis) and frozen margaritas were $4.
Meal for three: 7 appetizers and 3 drinks for a total of $32, tax and tip included.
Cactus (tripadvisor reviews)
767 Kailua Road Suite 106, Kailua, Oahu, HI
Lower right corner: sauteed mushrooms.
Honestly, I’m selfish. I don’t even want to tell you about this place because the wait is long enough now if you don’t get there early enough. But it’s pretty amazing. We did a family style dinner, ordering WAY too much food for two people: sauteed mushrooms, pan fried pork chops, fried rice. I don’t even like mushrooms and I would eat these every day and twice on Sunday.
This was much pricier than our usual meals up to that point, having eaten rather frugally, generally speaking.
Meal for two: 2 beverages, 3 entree sized dishes for $59.50, including tax and tip
Side Street Inn on Da Strip Kapahulu Ave (tripadvisor reviews)
614 Kapahulu Ave, #100, Honolulu, Oahu, HI
Middle bottom: plate lunches
We were searching for a musubi specialty place and ended up here. Ironically? Stupidly? The place we couldn’t find was actually called Iyasame Musubi. And Sugoi didn’t have any musubi at all. What the hell.
Anyway, we got great lunch plates anyway: an amazing garlic chicken and chicken katsu curry. Mmm.
Neither of us was a fan of the mac salad though, it was absolutely glued together with mayo. I’m a fan of mayo but not in that quantity.
Meal for two: 1 beverage, 2 mini lunch plates (1 scoop of rice, 1 scoop of mac salad, entree) for $15.50
Sugoi
1286 Kalani St. #B-106, Honolulu, HI
Bottom left corner: Taiwanese style shave ice
This is why I hate paying cash (aside from not getting points): I can’t remember where we went for shave ice and I have no credit card statement to refer back to. It was pretty good though. It was walking distance from the Hawaii Convention Center though.
We picked the mango combination flavor and shared between three people.
Middle left: Hot pot!
We were told that we couldn’t leave Honolulu without trying this hot pot restaurant. You get to pick your broth which is prepped and brought to the table, order meats from the servers, and fetch everything else (vegetables, seafood, seaweed, etc.) from the two fridge units. They also had a sauce station with about a dozen sauce options for you to mix and match. All my mixes were terrible. Turns out you really can go wrong when experimenting. But it was good.
Oh, and the funny thing? They get so much business that they actually put you on a dining clock. You’re allotted 90 minutes to eat and git! We didn’t keep very good track of our time so we overran by about ten minutes. The one server was pretty grumpy about it.
Meal for three: water all around, about 12 plates of meats, vegetables, noodles, mushrooms, seafood balls, tofu for ~$50.
Sweet Home Cafe
2334 S King St, Honolulu, HI 96826
Other great foods:
Leonard’s Malasadas: A dollar for either a sugar or a cinnamon sugar pastry. Absolutely AMAZING. We’ve decided a hot, fresh malasada is basically the best dessert in the world. [feast your eyes]
Rainbow Drive-in: A bit of a classic recommendation for plate lunches.
Honolulu Cookie Company: they have yummy shortbread cookies and bins of samples in their stores. Mmmmm….
Garlic shrimp trucks: You can find these on North Shore, there’s one in Waikiki and a great one on the way down to Lanikai from PCC.
PCC: If you’ve never done a luau, the Polynesian Cultural Center’s supposed to have a good one. I didn’t feel the need to go to another luau this time because I really just want the food and not the show, but they also have (rather expensive but good) Dole whips here.
Over to you: have you got any favorite Hawaii foods? Did I miss any crucial Must Eats in this list? Or favorite travel foods you’d go the distance to eat?
April 8, 2013
On a very quick visit to the Midwest…
A) I nearly shivered myself to pieces in the approximately 30 degree weather. Brrr. Brrr…. BRRRR….
B) Thankfully PiC really loves me and on a morning jaunt, scouted a Top Shop for me. Seriously, the guy remembered the one store where I like to get my leggings. My one pair of leggings I’ve ever bought. Thank goodness for the ridiculously good Patagonia jacket he found for me a couple years ago.
C) The Water Tower had a fun art exhibit and I had to document a few things for @CthulhuChick. Cthulhu-rabbit! Octo-heart?
D) What trip isn’t all about the food for me? Thanks to @aledonne for the recommendation, we stopped into Giordano’s for a few different pizzas. They were pretty good. Of course, I had to stop into Downtown Dogs for a Chicago dog appetizer ….
E) We also tried macaroni and cheese pizza, grilled chicken pesto pizza, and a fish fry. So. Good. (I want to eat mac and cheese pizza forever.)
F) My second old-fashioned with a cinnamon stick. You wouldn’t expect that a single detail like that would make a huge difference but it absolutely made the drink.
Except for the cold, I loved the city, the feel of fun and culture, and most definitely the food. We’ve been there on another quick trip in the past and were focused on Millenium Park and saw the famous Bean, etc., and I’ve worked in the city (again, briefly) and saw the Field Museum during a closed exhibit.
It feels like getting little very spaced-out nibbles of a vast and wonderful area.
Have you been to the Midwest? (I know some of you are FROM there!)
Next time, what would you recommend?
March 4, 2013
I played tourist with some friends a while ago in Japantown… then I realized that I don’t live in Southern California anymore. I really am a tourist! So out came the camera.
There was a festival of some sort going on in the center of the plaza, so people and food stalls lined the walkways, ringing in the entertainment “venue”. There were so many Japanese pastries and treats! And cute little knickknacks that I’d never look at twice if it weren’t for the holidaying atmosphere. I had to stop myself from buying completely unnecessary things like (enormous) stuffed critters for Doggle to snuggle.
For the record: when you forgot to pack your bottled water, in genuine LA heat, cold bottled water for a dollar a bottle is very much not a ripoff.
This is where I got to try revolving belt sushi for the first time. You might think such a thing was terrible or you know, no more than a novelty to entertain children, perhaps, and you’d be half right. I was hugely entertained and it was actually pretty tasty.
The key was probably that they did a brisk business and so the sushi on the belts was constantly turning over. It’s no ridiculously good fancy-schmancy sushi, but it’s more than good enough to fill an empty roving touristy belly with a range of basic sushi options and a few delicacies like snow crab and toro.
Such a lovely way to top off a day with friends.