Have you ever noticed there are food trends?

Lychee is the new pomegranite which was the new blood orange. I noticed these trends while going out to lunch around the city, seeing what odd fruits suddenly appeared in grocery stores, and noticing what the special martinis are on menus. There is one food item that has been a major trend on its own and seems to be taking over the internet: BACON

Oh lordy how I do love bacon. My husband also loves bacon. All my friends love bacon. Bloggers love bacon. Non-bacon food companies love bacon. Geeky gadget companies love bacon! People who don't necessarily want to eat bacon, love bacon! (by the way, all those underlines are different bacon links around the intertubes, enjoy!)

One of the most mortifyingly terrific bacon concoctions I ever came across is the Bacon Explosion. We made our first foray into bacon explosion creation back in March. I was not completely satisfied. I wanted to take it to another level, make it more our style. Enter the Ba-cake Bacon Explosion Breakfast Sandwich.

We took the basic, and I believe original, Bacon Explosion recipe found here. Instead of BBQ sauce, we used maple syrup. Another change, we baked ours in the oven rather than on the grill. Cook the loaf at 325 for about 45 minutes to an hour using a meat thermometer to check for doneness.

The peice de resistance is the addition of Ba-Cakes, a favorite invention we came up with a couple of years ago combining the best of breakfast foods. Precook a pack of bacon; half gets crumbled into pancake batter and cook the 'cakes as you normally would. Our Ba-cakes become the bread of our brekfast sandwhich, which is then genersouly topped (or sparingly drizzled inside) the completed sandwhich. VOILA.

Check out the rest of the pictures from putting this together here.

I think I should submit this badboy to thisiswhyyourefat... On the night this was made, one of our friends whined that he just couldn't eat this heart-attack-waiting-to-happen so I made him an omelette of whatever I had laying around at the time (spinach, shallot, red and yellow mini bell peppers if I remember correctly). Notice what ended up on his plate anyway. Men...

I love surprises

of all kinds. An example of this was when last year when Eric had my birthday present on the kitchen table in a gift bag and I wasn't even tempted to look before the actual day. Another example: I didn't get on the internet, turn on TV or listen to the radio when the final Harry Potter book came out until I had read the whole thing as I didn't want any surprises spoiled (granted I read the whole thing in 2 days, but that is totally not the point).

My love of surprises extends to food. When you can take a very simple dish like chicken salad (chicken, celery, green onions, parsley, poppy seeds), add one surprising ingredient (red grapes) and turn the dish into something spectacular, well, that's what cooking is all about.

My dinner tonight was Sonoma Chicken Salad. This is a dish that I failed twice to replicate. It is made at the deli counter of Bryan's fancy schmancy overpriced grocery in Laurel Village in San Francisco. After trying both sour cream and plain yogurt as the binding agent, we finally had to ask at the counter what it was. The clerk gave us a strange smirk when she informed us, "it's mayonaise". As far as I can figure, the sweetness of the juice from the grapes must counteract mayo-flavor 'cos you really can't tell.
Eric's dinner: nothing; but around midnight the crackers and E-Z Cheeze made an appearance.

Generally speaking, I don't like salad.

Specifically speaking, lettuce is a tasteless waste of my time. However, I love vegetables. This quanundrum has led me on a lifelong quest to find tasty combinations of veg + sauce.

Earlier today I got to thinking about edamame and how much I like it and so I concocted tonight's side veg, which turned out SO good.

The biggest downside:
Shelling all those GD beans! My fingers got all yucky and pruny and it was very upsetting (not really, I am just having a princess moment). I think that Trader Joe's actually carries pre-shelled soy beans, but Safeway does not and, alas, that is where I was shopping.

To the shelled edamame, I added sugar snap peas which I cut into thirds, and 2 cans of whole water chestnuts, which I quartered.

The dressing I also made up and didn't take note of amounts, but the ingredients - with aproximations - are:
Juice from 1 orange
1TBS fresh grated ginger
2 TBS chili ginger oil
Salt
2 tsp soy sauce
sprinkle of sugar as I over salted

Isn't the color gorgeous?! The yield on the sauce is very low, but you don't want your veg to swim; it's supposed to be a light coating of flavor.

OOH! And I have another helpful tip: freeze your fresh ginger! It is super easy to grate it when you need it and you get much more out of your root.

The other great thing I did tonight was my first try at risoto. I read and see so many warnings about how hard it is to make risoto, but I kicked that rice's ass tonight. Heavenly good stuff. I just made sure to stir every few minutes while I was shelling and dicing. I followed the Risoto Parmigiano recipe on Cooks.com for this.

To finish up the meal, I made a really simple broiled lamb loin chop. I rubbed the lamb with a garlic clove, spread on some olive oil, and added salt, pepper and dried majoram. This goes under the broiler for 4-5 minutes per side for a medium cooked chop. The lemon wedge is a necessity for flavor, not just a fancy schmancy prop for my photo. Although it does look dashing up there.



Eric's dinner: re-heated pizza

Neccesity is the mother of invention

and I needed dinner. After a killer day at work I had zero energy to get to the store. But the good news was my mental inventory of the left-overs from this weekends cooking bonanza got my creative juices flowing and thinking about what I could potentially construct into a delicious dinner.

I would say this was a French Provincial Omelet**, but as Eric pointed out, I pulled that description straight out of my ass and I have no idea what "french provincial" really means, although he did say the meal, "sounded both hoit and toit" so that's fairly satisfying.

For the egg mixture, I mixed 3 eggs with a dash of milk, and some S&P. I sprinkled chopped fresh herbs (thyme, tarragon, flat leaf parsley & basil) over the eggs once they had set up slightly in a well buttered skillet.

The filling is 3 kinds of chopped tomatoes that I briefly sauteed with red onion. You have to watch the tomatoes so they don't break down and you end up with marinara instead of fillings for a hearty omelet. Once everything was together, I tossed on some goat cheese and a little more S&P.

Quick interjection: one of the best tricks I ever learned about making an omelet is illustrated in the image above: put all the crap to one side so you can slide that portion onto your plate first, then use the pan / momentum of the rest of the eggs to flip the top portion closed over your filling. I know, I know... any moron could probably figure that out on their own, but it's a good trick! And apparently I am slower than a moron 'cos I never figured it out on my own.

Anyway.

I finished the dish by adding Extra Sharp Tillamok Cheddar on top of everything and waited until it melted with a little help of mother nature the microwave. At first I was afraid this might be overkill, but it really did finish the dish perfectly. The mixture of varying levels of tartness, the creaminess of the goat cheese, and the fresh spring flavor of the herbs made this really astounding - much more then I even really expected. I wouldn't change anything.

Eat with some toast to sop up any remaining juices MMMMMMmmmmmmm. Happy tummy!

Eric's dinner: a box of Pasta Roni.

** According to a very pesty friend of mine who lives in Hong Kong, has a French mother, a Brittish father, speaks fluid French, but despite all this sounds like he is from San Diego, says if I am going to call it French Provincial, I should spell it "French Provençale Omelette" since that is the 'proper' French spelling. He also said that my Omelette was, in fact, French Provencal as it was country style cooking, and no, said country did not refer to Texas. Whatever that means.

I am in an MMO limbo

which pretty much blows considering it's one of my four passions. The last two years or so has been a game of hopscotch jumping between free RPGs - which I invariably quit playing within a week or two - and resubscribing to pay games, most notable, LoTRO WoW and EQ2.

We just re-upped our EQ2 accounts (for the third time). EQ2 is a really superb game and I hope that I gain some of that obsessive mmo gamer attitude for it over time because it has been a long time since I have felt that. This time around I am playing an arasai wizard.

That is not my character and in fact looks nothing like her, but blogs are boring without pictures, imo. That is a picture of what is probably an arasai monk with premade wings that I pilfered from online. Last night, I rolled a gnome inquistor, and everyone who knows me knows I loathe gnomes, but Sony gave the option of Pipi Longstocking hair and I couldn't resist. I named her Gnugget.(update: Gnugget is no more)

One bad thing about going back to a game that has been around for 5 years is that a lot of people are already over it. The information (espcially found via forum posts) is years old and obviously out of date; web pages are no longer updated; UIs are not supported; yadda yadda. Oh well. All I can ask is that it holds my attention long enough for Aion to be released.

Queue epic publicity screenshots:



So yeah.. its really pretty and you can fly. But there is also all sorts of cool mechanics that I haven't really seen before and loads of lore if you are into that sort of thing.

Anyway, release date is set for "sometime this fall" which isn't the most accurate piece of information, but certainly gives me something to look forward to.

In other news, China's first sex theme park, aimed at improving both the sex education and the sex life of its visitors, has been torn down before it even opened.

There is a cliche that states

"look before you leap". This saying has become a cliche for good reason, for it is wise to follow. But I will get to that later.

I cooked again! It's practically a habit already what with doing it twice in one weekend. My plan for Sunday's meal was Tziki, pasta, and steak, but when all was said and done (I'm looking at you, Leapy), all I had was pasta- which was BY GEORGE delicious. So let us start there.

I got this recipe from this months Rachel Ray magazine, which, if my dad didn't give me a subscription every winter I would have canceled by now. But, there is at least 1 recipe a month that I want to make and this was it for this month: Herbed butter linguine with goat cheese and heirloom tomatoes.

Take 6-8 TBS of butter in a pan, melt it, then add 2 shallots. After they soften, add 1/2 c. of white wine and let it reduce. To this you add about 1/4 c. or howevermuch you feel of fresh tarragon, thyme, flat leaf parsley, and dill that has been finely chopped. Cook some linguine al dente, and add 3/4 c. or so of the pasta water to the herb butter. In a bowl, dump everything together with about 8 oz. of goat cheese and 2 c. of chopped heirloom tomatoes. Sadly, Safeway was out of heirlooms, so I chose to use 4 varieties of tomotoes instead. Season with S & P. As you can see, the end result is fairly alfredo-esque.

Next, I got a hankering for some Tziki which is fairly straightforward: chop some cucumbers, add plain yogurt, garlic, olive oil, I added some red onions and dill and finsh with S & P.

Now, here is where the looking and leaping come in. As I was prepping everything up for assembly, I had all my ingredients out on the counter. I chopped all the veggies and plopped them in a bowl, and proceeded to dump all the yogurt in and that's when it hit me: the gently wafting smell of vanilla. VANILLA people - I grabbed sweet, Greek Style, vanilla yogurt instead of plain. Oh the humanity!

Not to be completely undone, I finished the dish and went about with a taste test, albeit a timid one. And then it hit me again... THIS WAS NOT THE FIRST FRAKING TIME I HAD DONE THIS. The taste of garlic and salt imbued vanilla yogurt is not a flavor one soon forgets, at least on a sensory level. So when I tell you to look (I suggest looking while at the store still, because even if you have the containers on the counter with you while you are chopping veg and the lovely vanilla bean caricature is staring at you in the stupid face for an hour you still won't see it) before you leap, I say it from the heart. Else you will end up with a dish that looks thusly:

In the end, after all this work and one of the two dishes ending in disappointment, I didn't really have the heart (or energy) to make the steak. Tonights dinner is steak and leftovers - exciting!

See more pictures of the process here.

Oh yeah, and Eric had burrito for dinner - leftr over meat from the nachos, cheese, and tortilla melted up in the microwave.

I got a wild hair up my butt

to make some dinner that didn't involve a microwave or the deli chick at Safeway who is quite willing to hand me a fully cooked meal. I actually do get this desire to cook up a good meal pretty frequently, I am just lazy as hell. I think tonight's meal should be called "Chunky Colors" which sounds like something you pay tribute to the Porcelain God with, but I assure it you it was much better.

First up: Panzenlla or Italian Bread Salad. Traditionally, I think the bread is supposed to be almost bread crumbs and not big pieces like I have here, but I like to chew and I like the bread to retain body. I took a nice sourdough loaf, cut it up, and put it in a low temp oven until it got almost croutony (Yes, it's a word... now). To that I added a yellow bell pepper, green onions, cherry tomatoes, 2 cloves of minced garlic, 30ish green olives - I got these spicy numbers from the Olive Bar - and about 20 leaves of basil. After tossing that all together, I drizzled about 3/4 cup of olive oil and tossed, then 1/2 c of red wine vinegar and tossed again. Cover, refrigerate, and stuff your face after an hour.

Next up: BBQ shrimp with orange bell peppers and more cherry tomatoes. I marinated the shrimp (beheaded, deveined, flayed, and amputated) in a mix of fresh orange juice, soy sauce, red pepper flakes, and ginger for an hour. After cooking in a basket on the BBQ, I decided there wasn't enough flavor, so I made a dressing of lemon and orange juice, ginger and white pepper which I dredged the cooked shrimp and veggies through. Delish! I was quite pleased with how this all turned out. I think the shrimp may have been missing something but I was never able to really put my finger on it. Maybe not tangy enough. Or fresh ginger - def will try that next time. UPDATE: this was GREAT cold the next day. Maybe toss it over a bed of butter leaf lettuce and add some mandarin oranges with a garlic/lemon vinegrette?

More photos of this meal in the making can be found on our Picasa.

Not that Eric ate any of this; he had nachos.




I 'spose I could have chosen the dishes better to make a prettier presentation, but MMMmm nom nom nom.

People keep telling me

I need a point in order to make a blog. Or to get traffic. Or to keep people entertained. Well, phooey on that. It is what it is.

I never got to updating the looks of this thing. I will eventually. I see a lot of great templates out there, but I'd much rather create the images and do my own design rather than use someone else's stuff. I used to do webpages so why not try it here, amirite?

For someone who is supposedly busy as hell at work

my day has gone something like this:

• Start watching Fringe
• Play with Tweet Deck
• Answer the PoTD and watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsBfj6khrG4 again
• Introduce friends to http://www.textsfromlastnight.com/
• Discover the uncensored version of MotherLover and listen 3 or so times
• Rejoice that TFLN also has a Flickr
• Read the entire Wiki for The Lonely Island
• Lust after an Android and look at apps; also look up how much its gonna cost to get out of my stupid Cingular contract and ditch the blackberry ($175.00 YUCK)
• Play the "this chick is so hot" game with Brian -also find the filter by color option google images added
• Start a blog (lol)
• Update and play with a shared notebook with the hubs to keep track of stuff for EQ2
• Decide which deity to follow in EQ2 - after much research

And the rest of my afternoon looks like:

• Finish watching Fringe
• Watch Lie to Me
• Play with blog layout 'cos it is currently ugly as hell

And I never even got to my Reader today...

Everyone Else is Doing It...

I wonder how many bloggers start their first post like this, and are never heard from again.