每天很忙

(that chinese says mei tian hen mang which means every day very busy)

be careful what you wish for? i went from having 0 commitments per day to having scheduled myself for a 45 hour week. that being said, it's still very flexible and will be totally fine/a really nice change.

this morning i made smitten kitchen's 44 clove garlic soup. i think the actual roasting of the garlic in the oven might have been even better than the soup itself. the whole house smelled like olive oily, sweet garlic. you roast 26 cloves in the oven first, and then saute the other 18 with onion. the best part of the whole thing is dipping bread into the leftover olive oil in the bottom of the roasting dish, now that it's all garlicy and hot.

it kind of looks like wallpaper paste (delicious wallpaper paste), so i didn't take any pictures, but i highly recommend it for a winter weeknight soup.

mademoiselle

it's a wonder that i don't weigh 300 lbs based on how much i love chopping, cooking and eating. on my first day home from camp (after a lovely lunch with the staff for the last time), i made alex's mom's green smoothie. 

when i was on the phone with gram walking through the grocery store, i was telling her how green smoothies are all the rage in blog world and how it's like a regular smoothie but with added kale or spinach to make it a little healthier. she said 'whenever they add vegetables to smoothies, i think it tastes like mud.' (or something). i triedd to tell her that everyone says they're delicious and you can't taste the hidden stuff.

anyway it turns out that you don't taste it at all. i used curly kale so it didn't want to completely blend.. (and i have limited patience to wait for the blender to completely liquify..) but it was really tasty. majjy made a smoothie of strawberries, frozen pineapple, blueberries and yogurt tonight. it was delicious. i couldn't talk her into adding kale though.

and thenn for dinner, i made smitten kitchen's ratatouille for the first time, with a mandolin bought expressly for that purpose.

it was fun to slice everything and layer it. she created the recipe based on the ratatouille in the movie. really yummy on top of cous cous. i used cotija cheese instead of goat cheese (not in the picture), and it was delicious. 

yoga tomorrow! and i'm closing my bank of america account. they're charging me a monthly fee now that i'm not a student. good riddance. 

rode in on a song

we had a lovely mother's day at the lake. all 3 kids, shishkabob marinade, cornell bbq chicken on the grill, my mom's friend and her husband came. it was very nice. at one point, jeff and matt were on the jet ski and ripley, who hates to be left behind, swam out to 'turtle rock' which is a rock 10 feet or so from the shore that forms a little island the size of a hula hoop, and barked until they were out of sight. i brought the fancycam and didn't take a single picture.

cornell bbq chicken marinade, courtesy of about.com

2 c vinegar
1 c oil
1 egg
3 T salt
1 T poultry seasoning (or sage)
black pepper to taste
6-8 chicken breasts or a package of chicken tenders, tendon removed

about.com says to blend it in a blender.. but we don't. you need to leave it at least overnight. we've left it for a couple of days before. it is deeeelicious.

we never really do interesting presents for mothers or fathers day.. but maj had just commented on how cute the measuring cups were at anthropologie and i was down there the other day. so cute. plus they're called austin's flora. how perfect is that.

ready to run

this was week 2..

and this is 3 weeks (or so) later! yellow squash is against the back wall, tomatoes in the back corner, cucumbers along the fence, herbs in front of that and a tomato plant right by where i was standing. everything is doing well and i've only seen and destroyed oneee caterpillar!

we've been trying to use more herbs out of the garden, so tonight jeff and i tackled ina garten's pesto (more or less). we did as much as we could fit in the mini chopper since someoneeee (it may or may not have been me) talked maj into getting rid of the food processor. whoops. that was before i knew about ina.

we eat salmon during the week while faj is gone because he isn't a big sammy fan.. and it was deeeelicious. so yummy. usually we just do olive oil, salt and pepper, but we decided this is even better. you really need to cook it a little bit though because the garlic is reaaaally intense. we used 3 cloves and you could barely eat it before we added a whole bunch of romano and then let it mellow out on the fish while it was still grilling.

and p.s. congratulations to the o'sullivans on their pregnancy! they started a baby blog if you'd like to follow along. they're still in taiwan.

even if they could

random picture day! this is the lettuce that i have fretted over all winter. naturally, i would never think about the freeze warning until i had just turned off my light and put my head on my pillow. can't count the number of times i ran outside in my jammies to cover up this patch of lettuce. the onions seem to be hanging in there too.

 i feel like i write about this all the time, but i've been making weekly fritatas for a while now. no crust, no real recipe. three eggs, a splash of milk, some kind of cheese and whatever random vegetables are on hand. it's almost become a game of how effortless it can be and still taste good.

 the biggest time savers are sliced swiss cheese cut into squares and not using any crust.

 this one was yellow bell pepper, red onion, asparagus, yellow squash, zucchini and swiss. our house fav though is potatoes cut up really small, white onion, bacon and maybe some random veggie thrown in there. really anything with bacon turns out delicious.

 and we end with this picture of jeff doing the 'double ear pet' on a rainy day. we watched ina garten make comfort food while we sipped tea and watched the rain.

ripley kinda looks like a pony if you squint.

when the sun goes down

jeff and i had a very productive day today. the best stop was the tea shop. 

[photo from teaembassy.com]

the tea embassy is actually this historical home in the middle of downtown. the rooms are filled with teapots and strainers and tea cups and it has creaky old wood floors. behind the counter, they have bazillions of beautiful shiny silver tins full of tea. today there was only one guy working, tim. we loved him. cute, knowledgeable, rides a scooter.

 he taught us about the difference between the three jasmine teas. it has a bit to do with the quality of the tea leaves.. but the biggest difference is how many times they process it. apparently, jasmine tea is made by mixing fresh jasmine flowers with tea and then they mix it all up, let the oil from the flowers get into the tea, and blow on it with a special fan that blows the flowers away and leaves the heavier tea behind. the more times they mix in the flowers, the stronger the tea, the more expensive it is.

last time, i bought the least expensive one.. jasmine joy. today we bought the next one up, jasmine pearls. it's hand rolled into little pearls. and we brought him some tea to identify. alex had sent it to me, and it had the chinese name on it, but i didn't really know what it was. tim thinks it's a white tipped formosa oolong. ..after a little wiki research and character/pinyin matching on the tag, i think it's dong fang mei jia oolong aka oriental beauty. need to ask alex. 

and maj and i made ina garten's shrimp scampi for dinner. it is so easy/yummy.

(and has anyone read great house by nicole krauss yet? it's our second book club book.)

two aunts, one recipe

think i feel a little bit of a cold coming on, so i'm headed to bed early this evening, but i wanted to leave you with the bok choy salad recipe aunt carol andd aunt margy sent me. 

it was very yummy and super easy, but i will say that you might only want to dress half of it at a time unless you're going to sit down and eat it all immediately. jeff and i halved the recipe and used one head of bok choy and it was enough for us for lunch, but the noodles do get soggy pretty quickly. i didn't add the whole 1/4c of sugar either, just a couple teaspoons.

beatin' like a hammer

apologies for the recent silence, but i've been busy working my way through the how easy is that cookbook and other culinary adventures. this week was the fresh peach cake.. aka peach cobbler. it's yummy, not overly sweet. 

 it took half an hour longer than the recipe called for because the middle refused to set up.

 we're trying not to eat red meat while faj is gone during the week. but when i'm in charge of menu planning.. we end up with meals like these:
monday: gram's mussels, baked breaded eggplant, peach cake
tuesday: a morsel of shrimp scampi (half a pound of shrimp intended for shrimp cocktail does not quite a meal for 3 make.. although it was delicious), cous cous with toasted pine nuts (minus the currants), tabouli
wednesday: leftovers
thursday: turkey and spinach lasagna

..i guess now that i've typed it out, it doesn't sound quite as random. need to find something with chives so i can use some of the chives from the garden.

long long long ago

made the french lentil salad in ina garten's new cookbook today. you start with lentils and add an onion, studded with whole cloves, and a turnip cut in half. she saysss that the recipes are tested something like four times each, but i don't know about this one. you're supposed to discard the onion and turnip after you simmer it with the other ingredients, but the onion had separated into a million pieces, and i just don't like the idea of throwing a turnip away after using it to flavor some lentil water. 

after you drained it, you add 4 teaspoons of dijon mustard, 1 T of red wine vinegar and 1/4c of olive oil. it was powerfully mustardy. next time, i would cut that way down. 

i think i'm the only one in our house who has/will eat it. but it's nice to eat something you haven't tasted before, at the very least. 

and this is what i'm counting for the creative every day challenge today. i made these passport pages for the mandarin preschool in indesign. the top two pages were modeled after a template we found online, and i copied some of the stamps on my own passport for the interior pages. wingdings does occasionally come in handy.

gram had an operation to have a little skin cancer taken off her nose today, so if we could all send some healing thoughts her way that would be nice. 

weekend

so this weekend jeff and i made a feast of greek food. falafel. tabouli. tzatziki (which i challenge you to type. it's hard.) all of it was relatively easy. in the great purge of 2010, i convinced maj that we never use the food processor and could therefore get rid of it.. but i was kind of missing it as i blended chick peas for the falafel in the mini chopper. but it worked out.

jeff and i were unprepared for how the oil temperature shot up when we threw the falafel in. maybe because of the baking soda in them? or is that normal? i've never fried anything.
but yuuuum was it tasty.
easy tzatziki. yogurt, sour cream, cucumber, dill, garlic, lemon juice, oil, vinegar, salt & pepper.
and i've been pestering my friend dave for ages about what to do with bulgher wheat, which he's a big fan of. he suggested tabouli (which is what started the whole idea of the feast). it is so easy and fresh and good. i had a huge bowl of it for lunch with a big dollop of tzatziki.
and maj and i planted some more of the front beds. neither of us really like how it turned out. but i'm just glad we got rid of the creepy vine that took over the beds.

kitty's favorite spot is the pot. he doesn't care if there are flowers in it or not.
..and now for the most exciting news of all! we have little baby lettuce coming up in one section of the garden. i don't know if the rest isn't getting enough sun or what, but only one patch has sprouted so far. they're very cute though.

recipes via foodnetwork.com:

falafel

tzatziki (from ina garten!)

tabouli

do just fine

whenever i need a recipe for something, the first place i search is smitten kitchen. deb, the woman who runs it, picks delicious recipes from gourmet magazine and other cookbooks and magazines and almost everything i've tried from there turns out really well. the best part is that they all require some real cooking. no silly shortcuts or 15 minute promises.

it was laughably messy to rinse/dry/chop two bundles of swiss chard. i was covered in water, the island was all wet, the floor was wet. but it was a lot of fun.

so no one in our family has had swiss chard before and since we have two giant plants in the garden, i wanted to find out what it tasted like before i harvest my own. i made spaghetti with swiss chard and garlic chips and it was delicious. really garlicy. the chard is really yummy, and somehow it seems healthier than spinach just because it tastes earthier or more mineraly.
the recipe calls for green chard, but sprouts only had red, so mine doesn't look quite the same but i can't imagine the different varieties taste too different. maj and i decided we would make it again.
next time you need a recipe, try something off that website and let me know how it turns out. her recipe page is organized so well. you can look at recipes by season, ingredient, type of food, etc. it's great.

fall

taking a little break from the china pictures because i made alex's mom's apple crisp recipe and it was deeeelicious and perfect for a rainy fall day in austin.

kelly came over and we chatted about taiwan. she and her boyfriend are moving there in december to teach at the same school i taught at. i'm so excited for them! they'll have so much fun.
yum.

why're you always lookin' so sweet

this is a bad picture but look at those teeny bell peppers. they're probably the size of golf balls right now. something is wrong with that plant though. the edges of the leaves are curling up and it isn't because of lack of water.

we had two mushy bananas the other day and i couldn't find a recipe that wasn't full of oil until i came across this recipe on epicurious for 'low fat banana bread.' we didn't have buttermilk, so i used milk with a squeeze of lemon in it.. worked fine. the bread was really good. didn't seem low fat at all.
but the best recipe of the season has been smitten kitchen's watermelon salad. i mentioned it last time i made it but forgot to take/post a picture. it's so pretty and so tasty and fresh. really fun to make too, especially if you love chopping. HEB was out of mint so i used some lemon basil from the garden ( ! ).
and last but not least on this random day is jeff's pictures of the new kitty on the block: our kitty's twin. our kitty is the one by the trash can, the new one is under the truck. we haven't seen either of kitty's girlfriends in quite a while. it's a mystery.
the weather in austin was unbelievable today. i think the high was in the mid 80s. it was crisp and the breeze felt cool. all of the kids at school were wearing pants, and a fair number of them had hoodies. it just felt like fall.

she's gonna teach me how to swim

i'm in love with smitten kitchen and her summer salad recipes. today i made the chopped vegetable and watermelon salad and ate 3 bowls of it throughout the day. it has a million things in it.. cucumber, watermelon, tomatoes, bell pepper, mint, feta, greek yogurt, scallions, oregano, radishes. super refreshing and cool on a hot day. the dressing is really thick and delicious.

and matt came over with some of his bread. i loaned him my artisan breads in 5 minutes a day book and he's been sending nonstop pictures of bread all day long:

some were from yesterday. anyway it's really tasty and it turned out better than all of the bread i've tried to make from that book. i'm going to go to his house one day and see how he does it.

interview tomorrow at a private school!