Soup on a cold night

...is a joy. 

Amanda made minestrone soup tonight from some sort of mix, throwing in fresh carrots, zucchini, and spinach, and I obliged myself to some.  It was cold, and I still haven't had time to go to the market, so I would have been in trouble without that soup.  And I didn't eat out!  Even better.

Two steps back

I already ate out again.  Isn't that depressing?  It wasn't for me at the time, but upon reflection, I'm not doing myself any favors.  Well, maybe some favors.  I had a very good hamburger yesterday after searching far and wide (pretty close to literally).

This is the Manhattan burger from Manhattan Roast and Grill.  I cannot believe I didn't try this place sooner.  It's a huge half pound burger, very nicely seasoned, with lettuce, tomato, onions cheese, bacon, and avocado with their own interesting thousand island-mayo spread.  It was quite good.  With fries and a drink, it came out to like $7, which is just fine with me.

Back in the Saddle

I cooked.  Finally.  I've been eating out almost nonstop for maybe a week, and I put an end to it tonight.  I went back to what I know to get me going again.

 

Pasta.  Meat sauce on top of spaghetti with some nicely toasted bread that Jonathan made, seasoned with oregano and olive oil.  I didn't cook the onion and bell pepper long enough initially, so I just had the sauce simmer a bit to make sure they got done enough.  The spaghetti was good considering it was generic, but it wasn't as good as Barilla.  Overall, not a bad way to get back into the swing of cooking.  It was easy and left lots of leftovers to make my life easier for the next few days.

Celebratory lunch out

Why do we go out to eat for people's birthdays?  Is it because we don't want to risk messing up cooking for the birthday person?  Is it because we want to be free to celebrate instead of slaving away in a hot kitchen?  I don't know, but the fact remains that people eat out for special occasions like birthdays.  This is a late post, but we went out to lunch for my grandma's birthday, and it was not too bad for a big chain restaurant.

This is the blackened chicken sandwich from The Cheesecake Factory.  While I will acknowledge that The Cheesecake Factory is pretty consistent in terms of quality, I don't know how to feel about it as a chain.  I mean, it's a chain, but they seem to do good work.  The only real fault I have with them is that their portion sizes seem to represent everything that's wrong with American eating.  I avoid eating there, but I generally enjoy when I do eat there.  It's a little confusing.  Oh well.

I also had In-N-Out yesterday.  It was glorious.

Thanks

Sorry this post is late.  I didn't have Internet last night.  I've got a lot of things to be thankful for, but on Thanksgiving, I'm especially thankful that I'm from one of the most Americanized Asian families ever. My mom and grandmother have our Thanksgiving meal down to a science.

Here's the rundown starting at the bottom going counterclockwise: gravy, dark meat turkey, white meat, corn, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, rolls, salad, jello, candied yams, and green bean casserole. I could go into detail about all of these dishes, but it'd take forever. It's in many ways one of those "You had to be there" kind of things. Here's a pic of my first plate:

Yeah. And I had another just like it. And a slice of pumpkin chiffon pie. I could not be more thankful that my family could enjoy this meal together. I wouldn't have missed it for the world. 

The day before I leave

Actually, it was the day before everyone else left.  No one's here, and I wouldn't be either except for the fact that I bought my plane ticket home too late.  Anyway, I didn't want to cook anything that would create leftovers, so I've kind of been slacking off.  Fortunately for me, Amanda needed my cheese to make grilled cheese sandwiches, so in return for my cheese, she made me a sandwich.

It was nicely grilled, and the cheese was great because it was cut thick.  I ate a few more leftovers to round out the dinner, but I avoided having to cook for another night before I go home.

Beauty and Art

Occupy Cal is an interesting movement.  In addition to making demands of the school and the University of California in general, they are very much about art, culture, and music.  Some protesters I've talked to explained that the artistic nature of the demonstrations helps to show that the protesters are there to create, not to destroy, which makes sense to me.  In any case, they've rubbed off on my eating habbits!

Just kidding.  This is the food table at the Occupy Cal sleep-out that took place tonight.  I was there checking it out, helping out with reporting, and I thought they had an interesting set up.  They're far better organized than anyone gives them credit for.  Anyway, here's the real post:

This is a cafe latte and strawberry danish from Caffe Mediterraneum.  Yeah, second visit within a week.  I wonder if I might have an obsessive personality type.  Who am I kidding?  I know I do.  I met Sarah, a not-so-long-lost friend, and we chatted over lovely coffee.  It was a little inconvenient because I somehow didn't properly think through the closure of Telegraph between Haste and Channing, but it wasn't too bad.  The morning started off very nicely.  Also, why don't more places make strawberry danishes?  That thing was amazing.  Now if had only been strawberry and cheese...

I'm not counting this as ATE OUT because it was inexpensive, and there's nothing you can do about it!

Rescued by cookies

Today was one of those days when I forgot to take a photo of everything I ate.  To be fair, this wasn't much.  I had a very poor lunch of cornbread and tortilla chips/salsa, then I ate out for dinner.  I had a pepper steak and garlic fries from IB's Hoagies.  Eddie wanted to go, so I couldn't resist, and I think I made a good choice - I love everything about the combination of thinly sliced beef, cheese, bell pepper, and onion.  They also threw on sandwich stuff like mayo, mustard, and lettuce, and I think next time I'll pass on that stuff.  Regardless, I was saved when Michelle brought over some freshly baked peanut butter cookies.

They were perfect, almost gooey with peanut butter on the inside, which is rare for a peanut butter cookie.  I also really liked the Reese's Pieces... piece in the center.  If it's only one, do you call it a Reese's Piece?  Anyway, it was soft and warm and just what I needed after a kind of heavy dinner.

Game Day

So the fire last night messed my entire schedule up.  I was supposed to go to Palo Alto for the Ink Bowl, the annual flag football game between the staffs of The Daily Californian and The Stanford Daily, but I was way too tired after staying up until close to 4 a.m.  I had to move on to my plans for actually watching the Big Game, which is to say I needed to find plans.  Since I don't have money to throw around for game tickets, I decided to stay home to watch the game, and that meant that I needed to cook something to enjoy while watching.  I decided to make chili and cornbread.

I've had this chili a thousand times before - this time, I used a recipe from my other grandmother, the Japanese one - but I had never made it myself.  It was an easy recipe, though, so I wasn't worried:  ground beef, an onion, a bell pepper, garlic, canned tomatoes, and canned chili beans.  Seasoning was salt, pepper, cumin, and chili powder to taste.  That's it.  Super easy.  It cooked for like an hour total.  I eat it on top of white rice because it soaks up the juices and adds a little more body.  The corn bread was Krusty's, and it was delicious.  Super easy to make, too.  It all made for a very nice football watch party meal.  If only Cal had won...  Maybe they needed some chili since it was cold and rainy over there.

Gluttony part II

I went to Crossroads again.  You know this story isn't going to end well.  Anyway, Ife owed me a meal since I edited two of his really long essays, so we went for lunch today.  It was pure gluttony.

This doesn't even include the three additional taquitos and half a roast beef sandwich I had.  This meal was much less tasty than the food was when I last came.  The fish, center, tasted like nothing, the rice and beans were undercooked and bland, and that roast beef was saltier than any roast beef I've ever had.  The clam chowder, left, was quite nice, though, as were the sweet potato fries and the potatoes and spinach next to the fish.  The taquitos were your standard premade ones, but I noticed something weird on the sign.  It warned against allergies to fish and soy.  If they're calling it a beef taquito, where do fish and soy fit in???  Anyway, I ate it without much question since it tasted pretty much the way any decent frozen taquito tastes.  Basically, I ate way too much and regretted it as I walked to class and got there late.  Why would any college student need the option of an all-you-can-eat buffet?

For dinner, I again experimented with my black bean chicken stew.  This time, I didn't add any liquid, and I cooked off a significant amount of water that was in the beans' soup.  It led to much more successful tacos that aren't pictured because they didn't look pretty.  Oh well.  It tasted great.

Post-raid Breakfast

So I stayed out all night yet again covering Occupy Cal, though this was special since the police raided them.  This was yesterday - I'm late once again.  Anyway, this took up my time from 3:30 a.m. till about 8 a.m.  After I got back to the newsroom, my editor suggested we get breakfast, and I wholeheartedly agreed.

This is from Caffe Mediterraneum - a Denver omelet, home fries, and toast.  The omelet was fantastic since the ham wasn't cubed.  It was slices of really nice ham, which I've never actually had in an omelet.  This plus a cafe latte made my morning quite nice despite getting no sleep and being on the verge of passing out.

I'm not counting this as ATE OUT.  You can probably figure out why.

An ATE OUT revelation

I've been eating out a lot.  It's the worst it's been for me here at Berkeley.  I basically need to start cooking ASAP.  But while I'm eating out, I might as well learn new things, right?  Franklin, my compatriot, shared a secret with me, one only rumored of in legend.

At Chipotle, they'll mix up your burrito ingredients before folding it up if you ask them to.  This time, I deviated from my normal burrito and got steak, rice, black beans, medium-spiciness salsa, sour cream, and cheese.  It was quite nice all mixed together, no creative burrito handling necessary to get well-composed bites.  I love you, Franklin.

A Desperate Dinner

Last night, I ate a plate of pasta faster than I've ever eaten one before.  It was another long day of journalism, so a few of us went to Gypsy's to pick up dinner before Robert Reich's speech last night.  The problem was that we got back when the speech was supposed to start, so we went down to Sproul Plaza instead of eating.  When I got back, I was glad that I had gone, but I was voracious.  Here's what I ate.

This Crazy Alfredo was gone in less than 10 minutes, but I'd be willing to wager it was even closer to five.  After running around talking to people all day, I definitely needed this at 9:30 p.m.  I felt bad for my compatriots who didn't have food waiting, but they got to leave earlier than I did, so they were able to eat not long after.  Except for Curan, that madman.

Leftovers: A Godsend at 9 p.m.

I ate on a weird schedule today largely because of, what else, journalism.  I didn't have a proper lunch until 3:30 p.m., and even that was chicken strips and fries from GBC.  When I got back, it was looking like a can of soup would be it until I remembered I had leftovers from my zucchini casserole.  What better time than now to get a little more in-depth with it?

The prep work thing is incredibly animalistic.  Grating cheese and zucchini, dicing onion, crushing Ritz Crackers, mixing it all together with raw egg and melted butter.  There's nothing elegant about the preparation, and come to think of it, there's nothing elegant about the dish.  It's just fatty and delicious despite it featuring mostly vegetables.  I actually baked it for about ten minutes too long, but it made the cheese brown really nicely, so much that someone from the Cal Cooking Club couldn't tell that the topping was just mild cheddar cheese.

This particular casserole is actually pretty special to me.  My family usually has it on special occasions - Christmas, Easter, maybe Thanksgiving - so it reminds me of all those times we gathered together to share our lives and food.

San Francisco and Cal Cooking Club Pot Luck

I didn't post yesterday in order to punish Sarah Burns for not doing her rhetoric homework.  That doesn't mean I didn't have anything to post, though!  In fact, I had plenty to post about.  Something very exciting:  In-N-Out.

I miss this so much when I'm in Berkeley.  I mean, I realize there's one not too far in Pinole, but it's not an easy journey via public transportation.  I just happened to be not too far away at AT&T Park (ugh) for the Cal football game (yay).  It was a worthwhile trip - we had to take the MUNI a few miles to Fisherman's Wharf.  I was really happy to have it.  Really happy.  Those are all the words I have to express my feelings about it.  Anyway, on to today (Sunday - I realize I'm technically posting this on Monday).

I've missed the previous two Cal Cooking Club potlucks for various reasons, but I was able to make it to this one, and it was a lot of fun.  The theme was autumn, and there were some fabulous fall-themed dishes.

This isn't even everything.  I made zucchini casserole (zucchini, onions, crushed Ritz Crackers, and a couple of eggs mixed together and baked with cheddar cheese on top), and also pictured are ratatouille (yes, like the movie), and fried potatoes.  There was also cheddar-bacon potato soup, brussels sprouts with bacon and blood-orange-candied pecans, mashed sweet potatoes with goat cheese and rosemary, a pear tartine, a cherry-apple cake, cheesecake, and some sort of muffins.  It was an incredible spread for the eight of us in attendance.  The only weird thing is that I was expecting more people.  The general meetings are packed (50+ people, it seems like), but only eight for the pot luck?  Who knows.  It just meant more for us.

Overall, a VERY, VERY good weekend of eating.  One can only hope for weekends like these.

Korean(?) BBQ on a cold night

On chilly nights, people often seek hot chocolate, coffee, or tea to warm them up.  The warm liquids make them feel as though heat is coursing through their system.  I'm not one of these people.  It's cold and rainy, and I sought out Korean barbecue, or at least that's what they called it.

Actually, what happened is that I came back from watching the Cal men's basketball team destroy UC Irvine's, and Casey asked if I was hungry.  I was, so we went to give Steve's Bar-B-Que a try.  It was okay.  The beef itself was kind of like a less tender version of Yoshinoya's, the kimchee tasted like it was just spicy tsukemono, but the bean sprout salad was lovely (it was, after all, just par-cooked sprouts with sesame oil).  They gave a lot of beef, but it also wasn't cheap ($8).  It was good to give it a try, but I think I'll seek out other late-night options next time.

My own melon

In the past, the only fruit I bought was single-serving - apples, grapes, pears, plums.  When I went to Safeway earlier in the week, another fruit jumped out at me:  cantaloupe.  Is it a fruit?  I'm not really sure.  But anyway, I smelled it, and it smelled sweet.  I brought it back, carved it up, and now I've got cantaloupe in the fridge for like the next week.

I didn't even think it was the right season for cantaloupe, but it's super sweet and juicy.  I think chunks are better than slices when it's this juicy.  It's sweet like candy, and that's exactly what I like from fruit.  Nathan will attest to that.

This should be the last make-up post for a while.  I'll be back to one post a day after whatever post I put up later tonight.

A leftover that became a taco

Sorry guys, this one's a super-late make up.  I stayed outside all last night talking to people, but before I did that, I had time to eat my leftover chicken stew thing in taco form since it had thickened while in the fridge.

I was right.  It made for an amazing taco.  I threw some of my salsa verde on top, and it really set it off.  I had toyed with the idea of throwing some shredded cheddar cheese on, but it didn't need it, and I was too lazy to shred cheese anyway.  If I make this again (Who am I kidding?  I'm going to make it again), I need to make it thicker and just eat it in tacos.

Experimentation

Reality check time:  I cook mostly from recipe.  I don't mean stuff on the Food Network website or from cookbooks; I mean my mom and grandma's handwritten (or emailed) recipes, the ones I loved when I was growing up (who's to say I'm not still, though?).  However, tonight, I felt ambitious.  I planned my photo poorly because it just looks like a mess, but it all came together very nicely.

It looks like a bowl of dirty rice, which I guess it is.  It all started when Aimee brought me several cans of Goya black beans in soup.  Now I didn't want to just heat them up and eat them.  I wanted to turn them into a soup or stew or something cool, so I did.  I baked some chicken breast just seasoned with garlic salt and pepper, and I cooked up some bell peppers, onions, and garlic.  Once the chicken was done, I shredded it, threw it in with the veggies, and threw the beans/soup in.  It was a little low on liquid, so I also threw in some chicken stock.  Then I added some cumin (thanks, Brianna) to give it that south of the border flavor.  Then I simmered it to cook off some of the liquid and concentrate the flavors.  I hate to pat myself on the back, but it was really good.  I first tried eating it in a tortilla, but it was a little too soupy for that, so I put it on top of  some white rice that I had frozen and mixed it all together.

I should have taken a photo of all the soupy goodness while it was still in the pot, but I was really interested to find out the best way to eat it.  The photo was sacrificed so I could eat, and I'm mostly okay with that.

Omelet + Sandwich = Delicious

Today's post is a rare look at one of my lunches.  I got a bit of a late start today, so my lunch was a cross between breakfast and lunch, but I wouldn't classify it as brunch since I ate it at noon.  Does time determine whether your meal is brunch or not or is it the type of food you eat?  Anyway, I made an omelet and ate it in a sandwich.  Simple enough.

I made a very simple omelet with two eggs, a sliced up hot dog, salt, and pepper.  My sister taught me that a real omelet isn't supposed to be brown at all, but that's how I like eggs (and most foods in general.  If it's got a good char on it, chances are good I'll like it).  Then I toasted some sourdough bread and put the omelet in.  Then I applied some of my La Victoria salsa verde and enjoyed my pseudo-lunch.  The only thing that could have made this better would have been cheese, but I didn't have any.  There's always next time (I have more eggs and like five more hot dogs).

When you're a journalist...

you don't have time to cook.  At least that's the conclusion I've come to.  I never ate more fast food than when I was editor in chief of my community college's newspaper last semester.  So far, when I've had long days here, it's led to me eating out, most often at Subway.  Tonight, the Subways on/near campus were closed, so I went for approximately the next best thing:  Chipotle.

I'll let you in on a secret:  when I first found out about Chipotle, I fell in love with it.  The only one near home used to be in Pasadena on Foothill Boulevard near Best Buy.  It eventually made its way closer, and perhaps the lack of distance made my heart grow less fond.  That doesn't mean I can't still enjoy a burrito from there, though.  This one had carnitas, their cilantro/lime rice, black beans, roasted corn salsa, sour cream, and cheese.  This is just how I like it when I don't want spicy - just as bright and citrus-y as it was rich and creamy.  I savored every last bite as I was making edits to the story I was working on.

I've eaten out for what, something like the last three days?  I'm putting a stop to that right now.  One week of no eating out starts now (unless someone wants to go out to eat, in which case I'll likely be glad to go along).

Unceremonious leftovers

I had a long, strange day today - work stuff, late lunch, late nap.  Around 8:45 p.m., I was hungry for dinner, and I already knew what I had to do:  eat the rest of the chicken I had marinated earlier in the week.  But this being an off-day for me, I decided to go the easy route and bake the chicken.

The chicken was healthier, to be sure, but it was also drier.  The rice was quite good still - I need to figure out how to make something like this without Knorr's help.  I realize this plate lacks green vegetables, but by the time I had everything hot, I didn't want to spend time waiting for frozen broccoli to microwave.  This was it, and it was a suitably unbalanced meal for a day that lacked any sense of flow or order.

Sunday may be better.  I make no promises, though.

P.S.  Crap, I forgot that I ate out for lunch.  Nathan suggested Gypsy's, and... forget it.  I don't even need to explain the effect that the mention of Gypsy's has on me.

Bonding

I'm all but certain I've spoken about this before, but if I haven't, here it is:  when people get together, the expectation is to eat out.  People only gather together to eat homemade foods when specifically designated; otherwise, they expect to eat in a restaurant or other establishment in which they don't cook the food (shabu shabu restaurants excepted).  Tonight involved two such instances for me.

For dinner, I went with old friends to KangNam Pho House in Oakland.  The pho here was excellent, unlike that of Pho K & K closer to campus.  The beef was perfectly tender and thinly sliced, the noodles had the perfect al dente texture, and the broth was flavorful.  A handful of bean sprouts, a few slices of jalapeno, and some lime juice later, and this bowl was an amazing meal.  I know I eat a lot of sandwiches, but I could just as easily eat a lot of bowls of noodles in soup.  The opportunity just doesn't present itself to me as often.  We had a fabulous time talking about awkward cultural differences and science fiction.

 Later on in the evening, the news department had a party that was a little too successful.  Suffice to say that the party transcended success since we ended up at Late Night at Crossroads around 12:45 a.m.

Chicken strips and fries will cure most ailments - I'm 99 percent sure.  The fries were supposed to be garlic fries, but I had waited a ridiculously long time for the entire meal anyway, so I decided just to accept my fate.  It wasn't a bad decision since I was able to throw Tapatio on them and make them extraordinary.  The strips were nicely breaded - probably the most consistent thing I've had at the dining commons.  To be fair, all they have to do is take them out of some bag (presumably) and toss them in a fryer.  Still, I found them delicious, though other factors may have affected my tastes at that moment.  Mary, Sarah and Sybil were especially excellent company for this meal since they appreciate food just as much as I do.

The short of this post is that I ate out.  Twice.  I'm counting it as once, though, because I can't tag this post ATE OUT more than once.  Like I've continually said:  If you're eating out with friends, it's almost always going to be worthwhile.

Two steps forward, one step back

I still had some of yesterday's chicken uncooked in the fridge, so it became today's chicken.  Fortunately, I had bought an appropriate side at Safeway ages ago just for this occasion.  It makes my dinner look pretty boss.  Have a look:

Is that a gorgeous plate or what?  I cooked the chicken the same as yesterday except I salted it properly, the rice is a chicken-flavor Knorr Rice Side that I got for $1, and the broccoli is, yes, from my invaluable frozen pack.  All in all, this wasn't too much like eating leftovers.  It became a dinner of its own, and it all was pretty darn tasty if I do say so myself.  Makes up for the crappy first batch of chicken I made yesterday when the pan was too hot.  The microwave made batch one edible.  I made this batch edible.

The only thing that would've made this meal the best is if it wasn't semi-homemade.  I shouldn't rely on these prepackaged sides.  I should try to make my own fancy, flavored rice!  Oh well.  There'll be plenty of time to try that for another dinner.

Top Chef night... minus Top Chef

Amanda, Michelle, and I got together to cook dinner in celebration of the Top Chef premiere tonight.  The problem?  The TV in our kitchen doesn't get Bravo, and the episode wasn't available... by other means... by the time dinner was ready.  That didn't take anything away from our fabulous dinner, though!

This was an amazing spread.  I made chicken breast (marinated in Italian dressing and garlic), and pan-roasted it in olive oil.  It needed salt.  I still haven't learned my lesson, apparently.  Michelle made Persian rice - which was amazing in its buttery, crispy goodness - and a Salad Shirazi (cucumbers, tomatoes, olive oil, and lime juice).  Amanda made the most amazing smashed potatoes with red potatoes, prosciutto, garlic, and green onions.  With Top Chef as the inspiration, I may be on a path to cooking/eating better.

Boba

I haven't had boba since I've been here.  Actually, I've had it, but not from a boba place.  I made the mistake of getting a boba milk tea from this Chinese place a few weeks ago, and suffice to say I wish I hadn't.  This time, I went to Tapioca Express in the Asian Ghetto.

It was pretty good.  The boba milk tea was up to the normal standard (do Tap Ex's around the world all have the same recipe or someting?), and the crispy chicken was pretty good.  One thing I didn't like so much was that the dude didn't apply the cayenne pepper/shake the bag for me.  To be fair, the portion was gigantic and he'd never have been able to do it, but I had to try to shake a bunch on top then mix it later once I got back home.  It didn't really work.  Also, the chicken was marinated, but it was a litle salty.  Anyway, I'd prefer something from home, but this did the job.

The unfortunate thing is that I spent enough to qualify this as ATE OUT, and I'm usually inclined to give myself a break.  Oh well!

Another night, another sandwich

Last night was one of those nights when I knew I was in no mood to make anything.  I knew that I had sandwich stuff and more canned soup (I definitely remembered the soup since it was heavy to bring back home), so that's what I did.  Again.

 

Okay, so that's a good looking sandwich.  Really good sourdough bread, a fried egg, turkey, and lettuce with mustard and margarine.  I didn't take a picture of it, but I had Progresso Italian Wedding soup, which is also quite nice.  All in all, it was a pretty good dinner considering it was quick and easy.

I'm convinced that the quality of my eating has deteriorated as the semester has gone on.  I'm going to have to make changes to my priorities to make sure I eat better.  Obviously, I just need to study less and cook more often.

Catching Up

Sorry for my lack of posts of late.  My computer stopped cooperating with me Saturday night, so I've since fallen behind.  I'll try to make accomodations to allow myself to continue to post regularly.  I must warn you, though, this post includes me eating out twice over the course of Saturday and Sunday!

On Saturday, I had an amazing hot pastrami sandwich from Cheese 'n Stuff for lunch.  It has some really well-seasoned pastrami, sauerkraut, deli mustard, and thousand island dressing of all things.  It's on a sourdough french roll.  It came together very nicely to make a rich, salty, even sweet sandwich.

For dinner, Amanda decided to make a jazzed-up version of a pizza we had at Cheese Board.  The dough was pre-made from Trader Joe's, and it had olive oil, gorgonzola cheese, figs, caramelized red onions, and prosciutto on top.  Then, she added arugula on after it was baked.  Everyone was impressed by this pizza, especially me.  I've never had a homemade pizza with such a fabulous combination of flavors and textures.  The figs and onions were tender, and since the prosciutto was on top, it crisped.  Delicious.

Sunday's dinner represented the first time I've splurged on a meal while in Berkeley.  Casey, Eddie, and I went to Angeline's Louisiana Kitchen and had a fantastic meal.  They do high-end Southern food (as if the name didn't give it away), and it didn't disappoint.  We each got a cup of gumbo to start, and I had the Cajun mixed grill, which was essentially a plate of barbecue:  an andouille sausage, three baby back ribs, and three grilled shrimp served with potato salad.  I feel a little bad since I didn't get the most refined of dishes, but who cares?  I love meat, and everything was cooked to perfection.  The sausage and ribs were beautifully glazed, and the shrimp had a lime sauce that kept the plate from being too heavy.  The potato salad was even exceptional - a little spicy, a little creamy, and all potato-y.  I spent more than I like to spend on three meals combined, but it was worth it to try once (maybe again if I have the funds).

That was my past two days.  I'm not entirely certain what's going to happen tonight, but I know one thing - no more eating out for a while.

Finally, a hamburger

I don't eat a lot of hamburgers.  I used to, for sure, but I just haven't while I've been here.  It's mostly because I don't often make my own burgers, which is why I'm lucky Amanda does.

This is a teriyaki burger with cheddar cheese, spinach, grilled red onion, and a slice of pineapple.  It's accompanied by some salsa verde Doritos.  At 11 p.m., this is exactly what I was looking for - tasty, kind of unhealthful, and it gave me an excuse to eat chips.  I made the burgers a little rarer than I would have liked.  I'll have to cook them at a lower temperature next time.

I won't belabor this, but I had a McRib yesterday.  I was near McDonald's yesterday while doing some work, and I couldn't help it.  I love it, and I make no apologies for my admittedly unfortunate feelings.

Running out of options

I haven't been to the market for at least two weeks, well before I went to San Francisco over the weekend.  That last trip, I spent more money than I usually do, but I also bought more food than I usually do.  In any case, I don't have a lot of fresh foods with which I can cook, and that was sadly evident in my dinner tonight.  Not that it was bad...

Clam chowder and a grilled bacon and cheese sandwich.  The soup was canned, just like every other soup I have, and the sandwich was the result of me basically just having bacon and cheese with which to cook in the fridge.  I tried something weird when I grilled the sandwich - I drained the oil from when I fried the bacon, but I didn't wipe the pan to clear the rest of the oil and burnt bits.  I thought it might give the bread more flavor, but it just ended up tasting a little burnt.  Also, I need a better pan for grilling sandwiches on this bread.  Not every part of the bread gets grilled when both slices of bread are on there.  Maybe I'll just do one slice at a time from now on.

I'm not 100% certain I'll be able to go to the market tomorrow, either.  If I can't, I really don't know how tomorrow's post is going to look.  It won't be good.  Pray for Safeway.

A South American sandwich

I'm an equal-opportunity sandwich connoisseur.  Pastrami from The Hat, banh mi from Lee's Sandwiches, tortas from Cook's - if it's in sandwich form, chances are pretty good that I'll like it.  Amanda felt like she owed me dinner, so she treated me to a sandwich.

This baby is from the Brazil Cafe cart that's parked at Telegraph and Bancroft every day.  To get right to the point, I should have tried it a long time ago.  This tri-tip sandwich was fabulous - garlic/cilantro mayo (or something, it was thinner than mayo), tomato, lettuce, and the aforementioned beef with grilled onions.  I wish the bottom bun was sliced a little thicker since it fell apart on the second half of my sandwich, but aside from that, it was perfection.  The whole thing was exploding with savory goodness.  I mean, often times I'm content with minimalist seasoning, but I love it when a combination of spices and sauces comes together perfectly like they did in this sandwich.  I'll be back, that's for sure.

P.S.  I was treated, so I didn't really eat out!  Don't judge me!

Making something out of nothing

Nothing might be a bit of an exaggeration.  Tonight's dinner was, as promised yesterday, a transformation of leftovers into something brand new.  My grandma is a pro at this.  Leftover roast beef is cooked up with potatoes and onions to make hash, picked-over chicken carcasses are used to make soup, and miscellaneous meat and rice are thrown together to make fried rice.

This is spam fried rice done the right way, no shortcuts.  I fried up the eggs, set them aside, browned the spam, set it aside, fried and seasoned the rice with soy and oyster sauces, then threw it all together.  Right before I was done cooking, I mixed in chopped green onions.  I purposely didn't use too much soy sauce since spam is pretty salty, and it was a good call.  There was a lot of spam, so it was feasible to have one piece with every bite of rice so you'd have the balance of salty and mild flavors along with the sharpness of not-too-cooked green onions.  I was pretty pleased with myself.

This is another one of those shout out to grandma posts.  She gave me a significant portion of my cooking acumen, and I'll never be hungry again because of it.  Well, unless I can't afford food to cook.  Let's not think about that prospect...

Care-package benefits

Over the weekend, I got some stuff from my mom sent along with Aimee.  Most of it was unremarkable except for a few things - three cans of Spam (expired in August 2010, but it never actually expires, right?), a package of dried, roasted seaweed (nori), and a spam musubi maker.  Guess what that means?

I made half a can's worth of spam musubi.  I first cooked the spam in teriyaki sauce until it had a glaze, and that was basically all of the cooking except for the rice.  The mold makes it really easy to make this because it's exactly the width of half a sheet of nori, and its area almost exactly fits a slice of spam.  All you do is fill the mold, use the little pusher thing to remove it, take the pusher off the top of the rice (the trickiest part), then fold over the nori.  This made four musubis that I sliced into fours (two are missing from the plate because they fell apart when I sliced them).  This was essentially my dinner, though I didn't need much since I had a late lunch.

I think the other half a can of spam is going to go towards some spam fried rice tomorrow.  Stay tuned.

Quite a spread

So I'm still in San Francisco, and I'm still eating out.  Last night, Suzette, Aimee and I were debating what to eat—it was between Korean barbecue and hot pot.  Long story short, Korean barbecue won.

This place, Muguboka Restaurant, put quite a spread out.  They gave a lot more little sides than my beloved Lee's Tofu, and everything was very tasty (as usually seems to be the case with Korean food).  I got a combination with the tofu soup in the bottom right of the picture and spicy pork not pictured.  Suzette got kalbi, and Aimee got spicy squid and veggies.  All that on top of these sides made for an amazing dinner.

One more day of eating out until I'm back in Berkeley.  Sorry this post is late, by the way!

Delivery

One of the worst inventions in the history of western civilization is food delivery.  I mean, it's convenient, but that's also the problem.  Do we really need that much convenience?  Plus, it usually comes at a cost, one that could very easily be avoided by buying enough food at the market beforehand.  We know this, especially as we place the order by phone or online(!), but we still do it.

 

This pizza is delivery, not DiGiorno.  It's actually from California Pizza Kitchen, which for some reason I consider to be the epitome of chain restaurants.  I try to avoid chains since I think small/local places have so much to offer, but I won't turn it down when it's offered to me.  In particular, this roasted garlic chicken pizza was quite nice since roasted garlic is always good, and the quarter-cooked onions still have enough bite to cut through the mild chicken and nutty garlic.  We also had spinach-artichoke dip as an appetizer, which is one of my favorite dips since it's got both green veggies and is creamy/cheesy.  The meal cost an arm and a leg, and we could have done just as well for half the price had we eaten somewhere on Irving St. in San Francisco, but it was just right for what we wanted: convenience while we watched Green Zone.

I'll put anything in a sandwich

Tonight wasn't one of those nights on which I spent hours preparing and cooking a balanced dinner.  Tonight was one of those nights on which a can of soup and a sandwich sounded perfect.  I only had one problem:  my turkey was too old to eat.  I did, however, have one more egg (which was also kind of old but not inedible yet).

I fried the egg first.  I'm not big on runny yolk, so I broke the yolk and made sure the egg was well-done and nicely browned.  Then I grilled the sandwich with the egg right in the middle.  It was a nice combination because it had a very breakfasty feel, but the cheese is what made it since the sharpness of the cheddar really cut through the richness of the fried egg.  I don't think I could ever go back to making grilled cheese sandwiches without sharp cheddar cheese.  The soup is Progresso light chicken noodle (the light soups were on sale at Safeway), and I microwaved it sometime in the middle of making the sandwich.  It was good enough, not remarkable in any way.

This wasn't entirely a meat-less dinner, but it was pretty close since the soup was just an accompaniment to the sandwich.  I know I could never be a vegetarian, but I could see it being easy with fresh eggs, good cheese, and other tasty ingredients.

Another late night breakfast

If we were to take a tally, I'm almost certain I've had breakfast foods for dinner far more often than I've actually had them for breakfast.  Tonight was one of those breakfast for dinner nights.  Carol, Amanda, and I got back from the Cal Cooking Club meeting pleased but ultimately unsatisfied by the fact that we only each got to have one mini cream puffs despite the bounty they had.  I knew that I had eggs, potatoes, and bacon, and Amanda's adept at making chocolate chip pancakes, so that's what we did.

I'm not going to get into great detail, but a lot of frying took place.  Essentially everything was cooking in a skillet, at separate times of course.  We did the potatoes and pancakes first, then the eggs in the pan the potatoes were fried in and the bacon in the cleaned-out pancake pan.  All in all, it came together quite nicely.  My only regret was that I didn't have salsa to go on the eggs.  Oh well.

The end of the world is supposed to be tomorrow.  Whose time does that happen on?  Today will eventually be tomorrow elsewhere, so does that mean we'll already safe in the Pacific time zone?  The only reason I'm wondering is because I don't know if I should plan for dinner or not.  If the world's going to be over, why should I waste time thinking about defrosting chicken?

Making the most out of eating out

for me, means going to Gypsy's.  By now, you've heard me say a great deal about Gypsy's and how highly I think of their food.  This time, I'll try to let the picture do the talking.

Thomas and I had decided to go out to lunch last night, but we originally intended to go to Zachary's in Oakland, but he didn't get up in time to make it all the way there and back in time for his class.  Instead, we went to Gypsy's because, well, we love it and it's close.  The wait was fairly long since we went right around noon, but we got our food in time for him to eat a good amount of it before having to run off to class.  What I have up there is chicken parmesan over spaghetti with a caesar salad on the side.  Needless to say, I wasn't disappointed.  The breading on the parm was as close to perfect as I've had - it wasn't too heavily breaded, so it didn't slip off the moment I tried to cut it.  Also, look how much mozzarella is on top of that.  Some restaurants clearly put one slice of cheese on top and don't even let it brown.  Not here.  The mozzarella is thick and plentiful and browned to perfection.  I know I've talked about it before, but their garlic bread is amazing in its simplicity.  It's really just toasted french bread with a roasted clove of garlic on top, and that's all you need.  The garlic is roasted so it tastes just the way you want it to - nutty and sweet without the bite that raw garlic has.  Look at me; I said I was going to let the picture do the talking and still ended up waxing poetic about the food.  It's just that good.

The best part about this is that it was too big for one lunch, so I brought back leftovers that became dinner.  It was a Gypsy's kind of day for me, to be certain.  I may not end up cooking tomorrow since I've still got leftover pasta from the night before plus there's a Cal Cooking Club meeting.  I'd hate to disappoint you, though, dear reader.  I'll see what I can do.

P.S.  Yes, I know, pasta again.  If this blog has taught me anything, it's that I love to cook pasta and Mexican food.  This is not to say that I don't appreciate other kinds of food; I just seem to gravitate to these foods when I cook.  I promise I'll make my grandma's chicken rice once I get a hold of some black mushrooms.

It's a process

Disclaimer:  This post features a dish I've already made before.  HOWEVER, as similar as it may have looked to the one previously shown here, it was different.  I'll explain after you have a look.

Chicken, broccoli, and garlic alfredo over spaghetti.  You and I have both seen it before (me more than you, I'm willing to bet), but I'm telling you, it was different.  The reason?  Salt.  I've said so before, but salt is sooooo important in making food taste good.  I thoroughly seasoned the chicken with garlic salt and pepper, and I added a bit more garlic salt when I threw the broccoli in (more of my frozen broccoli, microwaved a bit so they wouldn't be completely frozen).  Needless to say, I also salted my pasta water (Is your pasta bland?  The water probably just needs a couple pinches of salt).  The difference in flavor was noticeable from first taste, but it probably showed best in the broccoli.  Broccoli is, by nature, bland in an earthy way, so the fact that this broccoli tasted almost as good as the chicken is telling.

Another thing I did this time was not cook the crap out of the chicken.  I browned it, but I didn't cook it until I was certain the middles were done.  I let the sauce get close to boiling and covered it with the heat on low to let the chicken and broccoli heat through that way.  The chicken was really tender, and I think I owe it to letting the chicken finish cooking in the natural course of heating the sauce and broccoli.

I've never really been good about experimenting with cooking since I can't stand the thought of possibly ruining food, but it's been very refreshing trying different things to improve my food.  I need to break out of my recipe-slave mentality.

Plum good

I don't know if I adequately described my experience looking at produce at the farmer's market in Oakland on Friday.  If there's anything I like, it's looking at fresh produce to find the best of the best.  It just so happened that I found the best of the best at the first stand I walked up to.  

I can't remember exactly which kind of plum this is, but it's one of three I bought at that stand.  As usual with farmer's market fruit stands, they had samples available to entice people to buy.  I don't usually like plums, so I decided I'd try a piece to see if these could change my mind, and they did.  They really did.  They have relatively soft skin, nice firm texture, and are sweet as could be.  Not candy sweet, but sweet, a perfect dessert after I had my beef stroganoff leftovers (not pictured since it wasn't even nice to look at the first time).

I feel good about buying fruit that's not grapes.  I think I settled on grapes too easily before since they're easy to buy cheap in large quantities.  My three plums for $1.50 total has made me realize that I shouldn't just settle for what Safeway has on sale.  I also realized I need to become acquainted with Berkeley's farmer's market.  All in due time.

It's going to get better, I promise...

just not yet.  I'm going to get back to making stuff mostly from scratch.  It's just easier to do things semi-homemade (or mostly not homemade).  For instance:

This, friends, is Hamburger Helper beef stroganoff and some microwaved frozen broccoli.  I used to love that stroganoff as a kid because it was so rich, creamy and beefy and had noodles.  I bought the frozen broccoli a while ago so I wouldn't have an excuse not to have green veggies.  I can't feel too lazy to make veggies since all I have to do is microwave them for a few minutes.  The only problem is that they just don't taste as good as fresh broccoli.  That's the price of convenience, I guess.

Really late-night tacos

Okay, so a bunch of us went to the Cal/Washington State women's volleyball match, and after it ended around 8:30 p.m., Amanda wanted tacos.  Pork tacos.  She had a recipe but no pork, so we went to Safeway.  Once we came back, other distractions kept prep work from starting until like 10 p.m. at the earliest.  It all went somewhat according to plan, but that meant eating at like 11 p.m.  The end result was pretty good, though.

I feel bad because this picture is mostly lettuce and cheese, but there's so much more there.  The pork was salted/peppered and sauteed with onions, jalapeno, garlic, and lime juice with cilantro thrown in toward the very end.  I chopped up the pork into little pieces and loaded the tacos up just as seen here.  They were pretty darn tasty, but the recipe called for tomato, and we didn't have any.  It was good for a first try at the recipe, though.

Also, I ate out again today.  McDonald's.  Since we didn't get it the other night, I was determined to have it today since I was nearby.  It was gloriously unhealthful.

A brownie a day keeps the madness away

I haven't been baking.  Actually, the only times I've baked sweets while here was when I had that tub of already made cookie dough.  I took a step forward by making brownies tonight.

Of course, I made these from a mix, but that process was more involved than scooping dough out of a tub, so I felt a slight sense of accomplishment.  These are Ghirardelli double chocolate brownies (with chocolate chips inside!).  I didn't have any powdered sugar to top them with, and that's the only thing that could have made them better.  They're dense, rich, and intensely chocolatey, so much that it's more or less inconceivable for one person to eat half a pan in one sitting as one would normally be tempted to do.  A glass of milk or vanilla ice cream could have improved the eating experience, but I had neither, so I enjoyed the brownies as-is and shared with a few privileged people from my building.  If you ever want someone to owe you, give them a good brownie.

I actually came into this post feeling like my food was on the upswing from junk to swank, but I quickly realized while writing that this is just as bad as anything I've eaten in the last week.  The worst part about all of this is that I really don't feel guilty for eating bad and eating out.  Rehab, here I come.

Devolution

I think that as the semester rolls on, I'm becoming less and less picky about what I eat.  I mentioned peanut butter and jelly previously, and that's what I had for lunch yesterday.

Do you see the pieces of peanut resting atop my wheat toast?  That's Jif extra crunchy for you.  It was on sale (I think most people like smooth peanut butter), and I think it was a worthwhile investment.  You get the real peanut experience in butter form.  The strawberry preserves are generic; I'm not one to look down on the store brand.  All in all, I'm very satisfied by being able to have PB&J at any given time.

Sorry this post is so late, by the way; I went to the Cal/USC football game last night and did not return with enough energy to write anything up.  Plus, Kurt was already asleep.  Also, I ate out last night, twice essentially.  I had some chicken strips and Gordon Biersch garlic fries at AT&T Park (enemy territory, I know), and a few of us went out to eat at The Original Mel's after since everything else appeared to close right as we'd get to the doors.  I'm going to count it as one, though, since it was all in one night!