Friday, July 5, 2013

Step into my shoes (and my kitchen)

Summer is like that one popular (but obnoxious) relative we all have. When she arrives, she makes a grand entrance and steals the show, but then makes everyone go into hiding due to her overbearing and rude personality. Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, but this summer kind of feels like that. It's been in triple digits for the past week here in Sacramento. Stepping outside feels like stepping into a blazing furnace. Let's just say, I thank God every day for the person who was brilliant enough to invent air conditioning.

Anyway... I just want to share a few things from this week...

My goal this month is to cook more and go out less. Partly, this is to prepare myself for independent life in Dallas, and partly because my mom (who normally feeds me) is on vacation and so I'm forced to cook. I consider it a win-win. Something you should know about me is that I actually like to cook. I'm not talking about the kind of cooking that requires following a recipe. I'm talking about the check-whats-in-the-fridge, pinch-of-this-and-pinch-of-that kind of cooking that's creative (and kind of risky). So, this week, I cooked almost every day. Sometimes this cooking was nothing more than making a sandwich or salad, but for all intensive purposes, I call this cooking too!

Here's the story behind each one of my meals:



1. I'm a chicken kind of person. I mean, red meat is good but I try not to eat it very often, let alone cook it. But, I wanted to face my fear of red meat and try cooking it for the first time. After spending at least 15 minutes at the Safeway meat section, I finally settled on buying some premium cut beef (whatever that means). It was already thinly sliced so it was perfect for tacos! I skillet fried the meat, added some spicy taco seasoning, and wrapped it up in warm tortillas with fresh avocado, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, cilantro and canned corn! The meat was just a bit too tough but it was still delicious. I made enough for dinner and still had enough left over to bring in to work for my coworkers. Cha-ching!

2. My asiago cheese bagel with turkey, lettuce, avocado, cream cheese and pesto was a simple yet super filling meal. I really love pesto, especially on sandwiches. Making my own pesto is on my cooking bucket list. Anyone have a good recipe?

3. When I went grocery shopping at the beginning of the week (which was super fun!), I bought these great spicy buffalo chicken strips. Tossed in an iceberg lettuce and spinach salad with bell peppers and shredded fermano cheese, the chicken added a great kick. Ranch dressing cooled it down. It was a good combo. I ended up making this salad twice because it was so good!

4. Thanks to the wonderful blog of my friend Olviya (http://servingsisters.com/), I got exposed to this great way of eating grapefruit! Broiled! The recipe (which can be found here) is very simple and quick but the results are amazing. Who knew that sprinkling sugar and cinnamon on a half-cut grapefruit and broiling it would make it so delicious?! The picture above is from the first attempt of the recipe at my friend Lilly and Vlad's house... We all loved it! I made this again at my own house and shared a grapefruit with my grandma (who loves grapefruit) and it was a great late-night snack for the both of us. We drizzled honey on the sugar/cinnamon encrusted grapefruit and scooped it out with a spoon. Yum.

5. Stuffed mushrooms are kind of my favorite. I usually just make mine stuffed with cheese, chopped mushroom stems, and salt and pepper, but this time I had spinach and bell peppers in the fridge so I made spinach/bell pepper/cheese stuffed mushrooms. The key is in the cream cheese that binds all the ingredients together. They turned out yummy, although I thought the bell peppers took away from the spinach too much. Next time, I'll pass on the peppers. I brought extras in to work and my coworker loved them so much, she asked for a recipe... Umm, I didn't use a recipe! 

6. I work with this older gentleman named Mike, who is quite the ladies man. He always brings fruit, candy and his homemade food for all the ladies in the office. He loves to make people happy and is genuinely kindhearted and sweet. It was his birthday the other day and we wanted to return the kindness. So, we secretly planned a little potluck and invited him into the meeting room for a "meeting." He was definitely surprised and really appreciated all the attention! It was a success! Of course, the night before the potluck, I came home around midnight without a clue of what I would be bringing. After looking through the cupboards and the fridge, I settled on making a pasta. My grandma had some pretty yellow squash and zucchini in the fridge so I decided to make a yellow squash/zucchini and chicken angel hair pasta. I sliced up the squash and zucchini and fried them in olive oil. After a while, I tasted the veggies. The squash was perfect, but the zucchini skin was too tough. I probably should have peeled it. I ended up picking out all the zucchini and tossing it out. The zucchini idea was a fail, but I still wanted to salvage the dish so I cooked up some more squash, tossed it in with chicken, fresh tomatoes, and marinara sauce and voila! I had a pasta dish ready to go! Granted, it was at 1 a.m., but I did it. I made way too much pasta (I always overdo it on pasta portions!) so I had enough for the potluck and for people to take some home for their families. I think cooking for people is always way more fun than cooking for myself. Even at 1 a.m., feeling incredibly tired, I had fun cooking everything up, experimenting, and improvising. Is it just me, or does cooking give off an adrenaline rush?

7. Wait, there was a #7?! Yeah, (un)fortunately, I don't have a picture of this one. That's because it was gross. I made tilapia fish in a clam chowder sauce and it tasted nasty. Whatever you do, don't add canned clam chowder to perfectly good tilapia fish and try to bake it. It doesn't taste very good. Lesson learned.

Overall, it was a rather successful week staying true to my more-cooking-less-going-out goal. I only went out once - to sushi with my wonderful friend Amanda. I couldn't resist sushi (or hanging out with this beautiful soul sister!)
The name tag is from visiting
Bridegway Church's young adults Tuesday
night service (...which I loved).
In other news, my friend Natalie (who blogs with Olviya on http://servingsisters.com/) had her baby girl Fiona this week. Isn't she just precious? I can't wait to meet her, and squeeze her little dimpled cheeks! 
Congratulations on your
bundle of joy, Roman and Natalie!