Strawberry Fields

And this is definitely not it.

Every morning as I attempt to pull myself together for work, I look forward to having a giant bowl of Kashi's Strawberry Fields cereal.

But somehow at yesterday's weekly trip to Trader Joe's I got this!!

Crunchy fiber twigs?? Soy graham??

Ughhh.  0% luved this according to Kashi's site.  vs. 96% luved Strawberry Fields.

Sighhh. 

Twigs...I'm eating fiber...twigs...

Deserted Island

If I was stranded on a deserted island, this would be exactly it.

Probably near Caramel Cove.  Or Sprinkles Beach.  Or Coconut Mountains.  With a spoon, of course.

This might be a shirt...that I'm super excited to wear!!

Strawberry Lemonade

I think we've all had a glass of this at some point.

Someone needs to inform Panera Bread.

This morning on my way to work, I heard Panera's radio commercial for its latest summer feature: Frozen Strawberry Lemonade.  Which is of no interest to me considering I don't particularly like lemonade...or lemon anything.  But, what really bothered me (and many things do at 7:35 on a Monday morning) was that Panera acted as if they had invented strawberry lemonade.

Apparently, the "inspiration" (their words, not mine) for this frozen drink was last summer when they saw a Panera team member plopping strawberries into their lemonade.  And you want to know where this person got the idea from?  Maybe Disneyland?  Where they sell the Minute Maid frozen strawberry lemonades? Or maybe any restaurant that has lemonade on the menu?

How ummmm...inventive.

So this ad goes on and on about how amazing strawberries and lemons are together; the perfect pairing of sweet and tart.  And with just 2 more minutes left in my commute, I just about had it. 

And I decided to make it myself.

But not the frozen kind.  I don't have ice at home.  Something I'm working on.

So I started with some lemons.  7 to be exact.  Did I mention I don't really like lemons?  Like, at all?  They are just so so sourrrrr.  Blahh.  I can't even think about it.  And, juicing them!  Lemon juice makes my hands burn.  I know, I'm impossible sometimes.  But I have a new appreciation for kids that have their own lemonade stands. 

Then I added some strawberries and simple syrup.

Ok...3 cups of strawberries was a little much.  The puree was a little thick, but I'm sure quite healthy!

And I topped it off with some sparkling water for fancy-ness.

The verdict?  Homemade lemonade is super intense and lemony.  And pink.  I liked that.

Hide Your Kids, Hide Your Wife

It's just so catchy.



See?  It's so hum-able.  

If this YouTube hasn't crossed your computer yet, then click below for the original video from a local news channel in Alabama. 



At first, I thought this was just one of those things that gets stumbled upon during group study meetings for school...you know those moments when you're totally checked out of your group meeting, but you want to present the facade of studying?  And then, NPR gets involved!

Seriously, NPR!

And it kinda sucked the fun out of it for me.


Hopefully they'll never get their newswriting hands on this little gem.

The New To Do List

 And by new, I mean completely and totally devoid of anything relating to school, studying, group meetings, Power Point presentations and homework.

Instead it's a list of stuff I want to do. 

Like, research paletas recipe...find popsicle molds for paletas...look for a night stand...work out...bake chocolate loaf cake...find a pitcher for sangria...look for ice tray that makes perfectly square ice cubes...start organizing my spice collection...catch up on my Barefoot Contessa and Giada at Home episodes saved on TiVo (luv luv TiVo).

In no particular order of course.

Life without school has been pretty awesome.  I think if anything, school reminds you about how much you want to make use of your time...especially free time!  Hence, the continuation of the to-do lists...I want to get all the fun stuff in, too!  

Like...

Deliciously gooey slow cooker enchiladas.  Totally reminded me of nacho cheesy wonderfulness.

Snickerdoodles dough balls going for a roll in cinnamon and sugar.

Finished snickerdoodles.  Which is basically a sugar cookie rolled in cinnamon sugar, but for some reason always hits the spot.  I have yet to figure out why I adore them so.

Cheesecake swirl brownies about to go in the oven. 

Breakfast pizza.  I have been wanting to make this for months! 

Breakfast fruit crisp with a peach and a handful each of strawberries and blueberries.  Really good with a dollop of Greek yogurt and a drizzle of honey.

Leisurely Saturday brunch/breakfast.

Pasta with hazelnut and parsley pesto.  Weird?  Yeah, kinda.  Can't win em all.

And there were also these amazingly wonderful double chocolate chip cookies with almonds.  That Ina Garten knows her cookies.

Just when you thought crisps and crumbles were for dessert, a scoop of yogurt makes them breakfast!  There is actually only 2 Tablespoons of butter in the topping, which also qualifies it as healthy...if you're asking me.  I had 7 strawberries and a 1/4 cup of blueberries languishing...ok withering away in my fridge, to the point where they weren't servable as a fruit salad, but perfectl acceptable hidden under a crumbly layer of oats and almonds.

Breakfast Crisp

For the filling:

1 large-ish peach (2 if using just peaches)
a handful each of strawberries and blueberries, or any other berry on hand
1-2 Tablespoons flour (depending on your fruit mix)
1 Tablespoon maple syrup (or brown sugar, also depending on your fruit mix)
Pinch of cinnamon

For the topping:

2 Tablespoons butter, melted
3 Tablespoons brown sugar
3 Tablespoons flour
1/3 cup rolled oats
Pinch of salt
Pinch of ground cardamom
2 Tablespoons sliced almonds, pecans or walnuts

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
2. Slice the peaches into thin wedges, or chunks if you prefer.  Toss the peach slices, strawberries, blueberries with the flour, maple syrup (or sugar) and cinnamon.
3. Prepare the topping.  Combine the melted butter, sugar, flour, oats, salt cardamom (if using) and almonds.  Mixture should be sandy and crumbly.  Squish the topping in your hand if you prefer a more crumble-y texture.
4. Put the fruit in a small baking dish (I used a teeny tiny 5"x8" Pyrex) and top with crisp topping.
5. Bake for 20-25 minutes until browned and bubble-y.

Serve alongside Greek yogurt with a drizzle of honey or syrup.  Or ice cream! 

Cupcakes Are For Eating

Not reality tv.  Cupcakes are about sprinkles and happiness.  And gum drops and marshamallows.

Not bickering sister rivalry.

Ok, DC Cupcake?

Normally, I would dismiss of shows such as this and this with a click of the remote, but on a Friday night before finals, I was desparate for an excuse to not do my PowerPoint slides.  Boredom by reality cupcake tv seemed so much more appealing than boredom by PowerPoint.

And well, DC Cupcake you say?  I mean, this couldn't be the adorable little Georgetown Cupcake shop I visited and luved and raved about last summer?  Could it?? **Note: the berry lemon cupcake is from Georgetown Cupcake in DC**

It could.  And it was.  And I was devastated.  The image I had of this adorably quaint  cupcake chop with huge picture windows, pillowy cupcakes and decorative cake stands was totally crushed.  Destroyed.  Demolished.

What I didn't know was that this cupcake shop is owned and run by two sisters, Katie and Sophie and the mom "Mommy".  And Katie and Sophie do not get a long.  Like, you would think that it is impossible to fight around cupcakes.  I mean, how could you?



Well, apparently, quite easily.  This isn't the episode I tuned into last night, which involved a potted plant of cupcake flowers, a fire truck made of cupcakes and best/worst of all a sibling baking show down.

I was pretty turned off when sister's best fire fighter customer Rodney comes in and asks Katie to give him some baking lessons.  Just as this happens, big sister Sophie steps in and proclaims herself the better baker and more apt to teach fire fighter Rodney.  And well.  The baking show down begins.

Katie bakes her banana split cupcakes and Sophie bakes up a batch of campfire cupcakes.  And I think we all know that banana split - whatever always wins.  Always.  No toasted marshmallow topped cupcake can stand a chance against a banana cupcake filled with ganache and topped with a cream cheese frosting, salted peanuts and a cherry.   Come on, Sophie...people get faint just hearing about cream cheese frosting.  No one eats carrot cake for the carrots.  I'm just sayin. 

But Sophie was of course adamant that she would win and trash talked her way through the competition.  Well, they both did.  It's part of being sisters.

And in the end, (yes, I watched til the end), Katie (banana split cupcake) triumphed.  5-0.  Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.

And just like that, I watched my little Georgetown Cupcake that I luved in my memory faded away into this ridiculous sibling rivalry, customer drama and someone eating the caramel off the cupcake.

I wish reality tv would just stay out of my cupcakes.

Summer Pretties

As much as I kick and scream about how unbearable the summer heat is, I don't know where I would be without it.

Sure, my electricity bill sky rockets with my indiscriminate AC usage because I can only exist within a plus or minus 5-degree range of 80 degrees to maintain my temperature happy place.  And how I complain and whine about summer months before it's here because just thinking about the summer sun makes me sweaty.  The I'm-from-Hawaii-and-it-never-gets-this-hot-there excuse gets old with everyone (especially since I've been living here for nearly 10 years...holy moly), and then I start to realize that maybe, just maybe...I'm the unbearable thing.  And not the summer heat.

Maybe.  That's just a thought.

But this whole summer thing is in actuality a love-hate relationship.  As much as I say I can't stand it, I absolutely adore it.  The days are longer.  I'm not in constant worry of having a jacket handy.  The skies are a pretty blue minus the fog.  And the produce!!  It's what I wait all year for! 

The strawberries and blueberries have been particularly delicious this year.  And Trader Joe's has been selling them in bulk Costco packs.  And so, I have been buying them as such.  The blueberries are so sweet and floral I can hardly stand it!  I have a pot of blueberries bubbling and burping their way to blueberry jam.

As you can see, steam and an iPhone camera do not mix.  I accidentally dropped a Meyer lemon seed in there.  Somewhere.  I shrugged it off.

If you are lucky enough to be a member of a community garden (which I am not...sniffles), you might have a crop of lovely tomatoes.

My co-worker Megan is lucky enough to have a little garden plot to call her very own. 

They were quite juicy and not at all watery!

Which was just perfect for a chopped caprese salad. 

The zucchini and eggplant have also been veggie standouts this summer.  I see them everywhere in the farmers market!  So shiny!  Of course, I have a fridge full of these because I have zero self-control at a farmers market.  It might even be in the negative.  But my solution to too many veggies (if there is such a thing) is to make them into a salad or roast them.  Roasting usually wins.

Especially when I remembered the wonderfulness that is the Barefoot Contessa's Roasted Vegetable Orzo!

Seriously.  Best.  Orzo.  Ever!  And so so so easy.  I used her recipe here.  Except I added a couple zucchini because I had them, and I made it a Moroccan dressing of sorts by adding a 1/4 teaspoon each ground coriander and smoked paprika.  But the lemon and olive oil combo as suggested by Ina is also awesome.

But perhaps the winner of the summer pretty prize is this:

Sigh.  Yup, definite winner.  I mean, can you really compete with a Shun knife?  Really?  Of course not.

So for those of you that don't spend an inordinate amount of time reading food blogs and watching food shows, the above knife is like the holy of holies when it comes to knives.  I can't really tell you why except that they are made from fancy Japanese steel and are used by fancy chefs on tv.  Like a certain Giada de Laurentiis.  You know what that does to me.  But beyond my star-struckness, these knives are pretty amazing.  The curved blade and handle makes it very comfortable and easy to use and hold.  It also makes it very conducive to that rocking sort of motion used when chopping.

See?  Hand does not touch counter. 

Hand very close to counter.

Amazing! 

2 Houses, 2 Meals, 1 Day

As you can see, Sunday was a big day.  For eating anyway.

House 1 was brunch at the Ramos House.  Yes!  The Ramos House in San Juan Capistrano.  And it's actually a house!  Like a house house!  It's just so charming and adorable I can hardly stand it.  It's situated on a tiny road with other house house businesses including a petting zoo.  A petting zoo!!  Although I've been in Irvine for years...we won't go in to detail about how many...ahem...I have never once been to the Ramos House, or the cute little street it's on or the petting zoo...so I was seriously beyond excited.  I still might be.  Can you tell?

So yes, this road the cafe is on is small.  Like really small.  Like people walking in the middle of it and as you're driving down it, you can't help but to think that you really shouldn't be.  Which, as I found out later is the case.  The parking is in the back around the corner and on the other side of the train tracks.  It seems a little strange, but it totally works.  Once you walk over those train tracks, it's kinda like you're not in Orange County (whew! finally!), and you're in a quaint, quite little town where all the houses are old and interesting.  And you totally forget that you have to be at a group meeting in LA for school in 3 hours...maybe the best part.  And did I mention there's a petting zoo?  That might be the best part.

Or was it those amazingly pillowy buttermilk biscuits?  Or the apple cinnamon beignets?  Or Brian's giant sized bowl of ooey gooey mac and cheese?  I mean, seriously, mac and cheese at 9 in the morning?  But, sigh, I must take full responsibility for the irresponsibly early mac and cheese.  We brunched with Maryn and Brian, and I insisted we get there at 8:30 (yes, a.m.) because Ramos House does not take reservations, and I heard stories about 3 hour waits!  Apparently, they may have just been stories...urban legends, perhaps.  The place was totally empty at 8:30 a.m.  As in, choose your own table empty.  Heh.  Sorry Maryn!

Sorry for the lack of pictures, but see!  It's just another reason for you to try it and see it for yourself!  But I will say that everything was totally amazing and yummy.  I've actually been wanting to go so bad to see if this place lived up to all the hype, and while I think a 3 hour wait might be excessive, it was a really cool place to go. 

But that was House 1.  House 2 was umm...another story, shall we say?  Trio House is not a house, which is ok, IHOP isn't really a house either.  It's this smallish place that serves up a hodge-podge of Asian rice and noodles.  Their words, not mine.  Well, the "Asian rice and noodles"...I added the hodge-podge.  But it totally is!  Pho + Hainan chicken and rice  + fried Hainan chicken and rice (read chicken katsu) + pad thai + gyoza...I mean...seriously, who are we kidding here.  If I haven't said anything about it yet, I had a major aversion to fusion food.  And in my opinion, a restaurant that bundles up the entire continent of Asia into 1 menu, is close enough to fusion food.  Close enough to make me uneasy anyway. 

Oh and there was this too:

I know it's hard to read, but the menu says: "We are not responsible of any typos or misprints on the menu".  So much for accountability.

I'm not sure what would motivate a restaurant to print that on their menu, but my crazy imagination can only venture to guess that there must have been some incident that sparked this!  I imagine it went something like this:

customer: Where is the chicken in my Hainan chicken and rice?
server: Oh, there's really no chicken.  You ordered Hainan rice.
customer: But it says chicken and rice.
server: That must be a typo.  We can't be responsible for having an accurate menu.

A little far-fetched, perhaps.  But we did order the Hainan chicken and rice, fried aka chicken katsu by another name.  Along with some super spicy drunken noodles.  Definitely more spicy than drunk.

My little plate of Asian mish mash.

I Just Want a Dresser

You know, one of those things I can put my clothes in, so you know, I can get them out of boxes.

They've only been there for a month.  A month!!

I know what you're thinking, how hard can it be to come by a dresser?  Well, I'll tell you.  Not hard.  Not hard at all...if you're willing to spend like $2,000.  But if you're like me and not physically able to part with that type of cash for 5-8 drawers, then finding a dresser becomes quite the undertaking. 

Quite.

I'll spare you the details but a journey that started with "no way Ikea" to "yeah just go with Ikea" in about 3 weeks. 

42 steps, a few minor injuries and a few days later, this is what emerged:

Oh and this:

Yes, there's 2.  I know, I know!  What was I thinking??  The funny thing about Ikea furniture is that after a long day/week/seemingly lifetime of searching, you seem to forget everything you disliked about it.  Self assembly?  Hmm...how hard can that be?  Unfinished wood?  Details!

And then you haul it home and up the stairs and lay it out on your living room floor and stare.  The ridiculously giant bag of screws, the wordless instructions (steps 1-42), random pieces of wood, unfinished, of course, some of it a little dinged up.  And then the smell.  Gosh that smell!  More on that later.  And you come to the sobering realization that you yourself have to assemble 14 drawers. 

And then you pass out.  And I couldn't tell you if it's from the sheer work ahead of you or that pine smell that got to you first. 

But not to be out done by some Swedish furniture, it somehow comes together (with the help of an electric sander), and it's done!  Yay! 

You think.

Until you smell it.  Again!  Why won't that smell go away??

And so here we are:

Baking soda to the rescue!  Hopefully!  14 boxes of baking soda can't be bad.

It was totally worth the people at Ralph's thinking I'm crazy.