These are a few of my favorite things! Part I

For some reason "Sound of Music" is big during Christmas time. My cousins learned picked up English (or diction?) from this movie, and since they ate with me I felt this was appropriate as a title.

Also it's true.

On the East Coast there exists a little town in PA that makes beer that is only good because you can't get it on the west coast. Also it is good with food.

Also comes in "Black and Tan," folks!

Like this food:

Apparently all Asian grocery stores have always had these peanuts, but the parental generation has been holding out on this 99¢ gem until now. It's different from the chili/spicy peanuts you get in American stores. This flavor is more like the chili you get in the little jars at the restaurant table.

Be careful... it is horribly addicting and you will want beer.

The other thing the East coast has that the West does not, is Full Key -MD. Don't be fooled. The one in Gallery Place-Chinatown is okay. But it's not as good as the one in Wheaton. For some reason when I order these dishes elsewhere it's just... not. good. Even relatives from LA and NYC want to eat here when they're in town. Cantonese-crack!

You've seen this before, but this time it was something I ate: steamed egg and shrimp on rice

For future ordering reference: "Wat dan ha yun fan"

We also go roast chicken, black bean clams, and stir fried beef/rice noodles:

Close ups you say? But of course!

The sauce is so good on rice. There's jalapenos and onions slow simmered with these bad boys.

Ingredients are simple, but it's actually harder to make at home than you think!

Oh yea, we also got some other noodles, but I forget what it's called. Pork strips and snow peas. The noodles are crunchy but get soft as they absorb the sauce.

Bacon stuffed Etta's

My friend had a genius idea for her birthday: everybody must bring something stuffed, and bacon must be one of the ingredients. I was going to cheat and make jalapeno deviled eggs (see Thanksgiving) and just add bacon.

Turns out, when you try to plan in advance and boil the eggs ahead of time, but don't remove the shell you're going to just have a bunch of yolks. My co-workers said that eggs have a membrane inside that kind of dips up on the wider end. If you poke a hole or make a tiny crack on that end before you boil it you should be good.

Experiment for next time. Instead I made stuffed mushrooms:

The biggest appeal was that it had all 4 food groups! Veggies (spinach, onion, mushroom), Carbs (bread), Meat (duh. bacon!) and BLUE CHEESE! (used Saga).

Mmm. So melty. Actually, I would have preferred a lighter cheese. The blue cheese over powered everything else (or I used too much). Goat cheese would be my substitution, and I used turkey bacon so you can pretend to be less fat.

Went to brunch with B and Mar at Etta's! I've been waiting to try that place for forever! Unfortunately I wasn't in a breakfast mood. So I got crab cakes!!

Mar got the special of the day - which I forget the name of.... let's just say slow cooked ham.

Are you drooling? Because I am.

Market house corned beef hash: sister in-law needs to try this. It comes with habanero ketchup! (Did you know habenero is not spelled with the ñ?)

Yummy crab cake with buttered kale and fries. (Green thing is tomatillo sauce). Most of the time I find crab cakes to be too breaded and takes away the flavor of the crab. I don't know what was holding this thing together, but it was all crab meat! mmm

Next Etta's goal: Make it for "crabby hour" --> how can you resist a name like that?!

♫ Tis the Season for Clogging Arteries ♫

November is Dine Around Seattle month. Good chance to sample some fancy (or the not as fancy, but questionably priced) restaurants for $30.

Smash and I went to Nishino's - which my work used to hire out the chefs for our Holiday parties back in the times of plenty. Pricey, but fresh fish and they have inventive rolls. Plus the Central district just doesn't get explored as much as it should.

I got the wine pairing option, which meant dessert came with sake! I haven't been much a fan of it in the past, but sake is definitely growing on me.

I think it's the sourness. I'm not sure. Anyway, they had yummy cakes made by Hiroki’s Specialty Desserts, because what's the point of the title of this post if I didn't shove heart clogging food into each meal??

Green tea tiramisu and pumpkin something cheesecake.

Sorry, I should update more often. I'm beginning to forget what I ate!!

I re-visited my favorite lasagna recipe to test out my new deep dish ceramic cooker! The scraper is not designed for lasagna I don't think. I probably should have cooked something else the first time I used it to get that "base." The premise is like a wok or the grills you would use camping. You grease it up, and don't wash it. As you keep using the dish it'll develop its own non-stick layer.

I don't know why lasagna's always runny. I think maybe because I shove more spinach and mushrooms than the recipe calls for. (it cooks down... so why not? besides the runny-ness). That's what makes it "lean" right?

This meal re-affirmed how much of a foodie my friend is. We geeked out over my recipe books and planned a feast that is probably not going to happen. But it'd be so good if we actually made it...

Speaking of which, the Stranger had an article about fried foods. I'm not much of a fried food person in general (in fact, feeling a little nauseated as I type this) BUT! they also said corn dog! I have soft spots for certain types of fried food that come and go. And after reading about their interesting spin on corn dogs how can you not want to try out the Unicorn?

Start out with your basic chili cheese corn dog -

Ok it looks a little bit like poop, but it was good! Not very wow-good. Just more like -hm. Why haven't I thought of this before? It's good.- good.

What I really loved was the cat-dog!

That's right! catfish! On a stick! Deep fried in corn dog breading with orange sauce! I have no idea what the sauce is. Website says "frank's red hot aioli." Anybody else thinking of a buffalo wing spin off from the red hot?

They also had deep fried burger (bleh. kind of like a mini Big Mac).

and Mac and Cheese (I have out grown you, plain cheddar mac&cheese. I prefer sharper cheeses like Dubliner and Gruyure).

Seriously, it was like part American cheese part plain cheddar.... yich to American cheese.

And what would a blog post these days be like without a contribution from my Ladies' Dinner Club?

Psych it's brunch. (Remember when it used to be spelled "sike" or was I just illiterate back in the day?)

I was an hour late but they saved me a plate. Cousin met the host for this meal right before the event so I had a couple of days of anticipation after hearing the cooking process.

Top: pumpkin cake, poached eggs with spinach and tomatoes and short rib hash.

The hash was rubbed with kona and cooked ahead the day prior. You know what that means? A tender piece of meat. With caramelized onions, peppers, asparagus, and potatoes. Savory goodness.

But there was more!! I just couldn't fit it all on one plate.

Pumpkin scones with home made maple icing, chocolate-peanut butter dipped oreos, peanut butter cookie with a Reese's mini

Yes, you see seconds of the hash and the pumpkin cake.

Thanks-birthday

My birthday usually falls around Thanksgiving weekend, so I usually try to do small things since people are revved up for big cooking. Also, I like doing small things so you can have time to actually hang out with people instead of a giant loud mob of people you don't really spend time with.

First up: I had a birthday brunch with my girl's night crew. I also got a great early birthday gift from cousin: Ad Hoc cookbook. I love that my friends like cooking:

Starting at 12 o'clock: asparagus strata with poached eggs, vegetarian quiche (goat cheese), quinoa muffins, green onion potato pancakes with smoked salmon (and horseradish sauce). The potato pancakes were form the cookbook. Turns out, having a shredder blade on your food processor does make a difference.

Also, I need a food processor. More recipes that I pick out seem to call for it (a sign of aging?)

Hasbrown baskets (half with bacon and half without). Bottom layer is hash browns that you bake, then you crack an egg into it and bacon if you want. Bake again. So good and individual sized!

Cranberry french toast (with home made cranberry syrup!). Similar concept to the strata (soaked overnight in the egg concoction). So it was like having a savory and a sweet option. Also, if you don't want a whole piece of french toast this is a nicer way to portion control and not miss out on flavor.

Plate 1 - only because it all wouldn't fit on it at once.

Plate 2: the syrup was good on the muffins too. Not pictured - bloody mary, mimosa, and watermelon!

Brunch was at 11, I was supposed to go running at 4. Running didn't happen.

Next: Bizzaro round 2. I had been craving spaghetti carbonara and one of my frequent foodie in crime wanted to eat for my birthday. Had to try Bizzaro.

Snap pea carbonara - it's a well rounded meal with all 4 food groups!

One of the specials of the night: Chestnut ravioli stuffed with mushrooms and served with beef brisket in truffle sauce. Just look at it...

They are also famous for their meatballs. I had to try one:

And for those of you out there that miss gluten free Italian food - they have gluten free pasta!

I come from a long line of foodies. My uncle is one of the more vociferous producers of foodie delights. Thanksgiving Lunch was a perfect example of the random smorgasbord of deliciousness that we can conjure. Especially when uncle has obtained a smoker...

Homemade cheese ball (bacon, green onion, red onion, walnuts), scotch cheddar - I don't drink scotch... so I failed at picking up the flavor well, brie, and a blue cheese cheddar thing. Think blue cheese but yellow base. Soon to be - newest member of the family (cousin's fiance) made the cheese ball. She'll fit in just fine.

Cheese ball with a spicy option!

The full menu clockwise from top left: grapes, jalapeno/habanero deviled egg, tomato/cucumber salad, smoked chicken with cucumber sauce on grilled pita, smoked fish with (um.. I forgot the sauce) on cracker, smoked (what I called pork, others called duck) with cheese crumbles on a toasted baguette, smoked duck with cilantro and plum sauce in a steamed bun, and smoked duck with a mushroom-vinegar reduction.

You know I did close ups, right?

Duck/pork? Either way, yum.

What I thought was duck 2 ways (but it might have been 3 ways).

Chicken with cucumber sauce.

Smoked fish. It wasn't exactly tartar sauce.

Spicy deviled egg!!!

With Thanksgiving dinner we just continued the cooking factory:

Roasted vegetables, sticky rice and snap peas and mushrooms (made by Aunt), kale salad with mango (made by another Aunt), garlic mashed potatoes and port cranberry sauce (made by cousin), last minute giblet gravy - a collaborative effort once we realized there was no canned gravy, and of course... deep fried turkey (by the man with the smoker).

Some of you may wonder - what's with the sticky rice? When we used to bake the turkey the sticky rice was the stuffing. And let me tell you... it is SOOOOO good. Can't really do the same when you deep fry, but it's still considered a necessary (and very popular component to Thanksgiving meal).

The gravy was a close call this year. Usually my brother makes giblet gravy. He's got a system down. Since he's moved to Japan for a while we thought there would be canned gravy, but when we looked in the cupboard we couldn't find it.

Cousin (that gave me the cookbook) and I decided to wing it / look up a recipe online. It's a bit tricky when there's no flour in the house or any turkey drippings.... She found the recipe, I found ingredients / asked Aunt where they were...

Cousin that made the cranberry sauce also has a tradition of making the dessert. This year she made chocolate bread pudding with dark chocolate Guinness sauce.

No, that's not rye or pumpernickel. It's the chocolate that turned that bread brown! We also get tons of persimmons from (pay attention now) my sister in-law's dad's tree.

If you've never had one, they're like the consistency of an apple with the sweetness of .... well it's between an apple/peach on the sweetness scale I would say. Hard to describe. Anyways we decided to try and incorporate the persimmons into our meal beyond the usual eating the fruit as-is. Enter: Persimmon pie.

What's that? How's it all look together? It looks like it also comes with dairy free vanilla ice cream!

I insisted that a birthday cake would not be necessary since there would be way too much food. Here is what my loved ones did to improvise:

Those are slim jims stabbed into the middle of those twinkies. They added the candles because the slim jims wouldn't light on fire. I thought the powder was black pepper, but it turns out they sprinkled the dish with cocoa powder, and surrounded it with fresh berries. I ate the berries. One of the dogs wouldn't even eat the slim jim.

It provided good fodder for our frying experiment:

What do you do with a vat full of frying oil after the turkey is done? Why you find other things to throw in there. The next day we had our sweet plate- fried twinkies, fried persimmons (not actually bad), and fried snickers.

The marinara sauce goes with the fried mozzarella sticks (on the left plate with the fried oreos). And our random plate: fried bananas, pickles...

And oh yes, we fried corn. It is GREAT, but I don't know how people get the kernels to stay separate.

To celebrate my cousin's engagement we went to a french restaurant ( I don't know the name. tbd). Foie gras two ways, and pumpkin soup

It introduces itself:

To clarify - it was the wild huckleberry.

And the restaurant fancified the couple of honor's candy bar:

They ate the chocolate disk that said "Congratulations" before I took the picture. Awww cute raspberry jam heart.

Cookbook cousin made me breakfast this morning! Beer cooked shrimp and grits with cheese/jalapeno and kale. (and bloody mary).

Close up shot!

mmmm. We learned that orange juice does not substitute lemon juice or lime juice in a bloody mary. Also, adding beer doesn't help.

Diet starts when?