Fridgg: What's For Dinner?

Weekly Wanderings {week 6}

The last couple of weeks have been more hectic than usual, what with dealing with taxes (bleh), and more client work than usual. Hence the lack of a Weekly Wanderings post last week, and a several-days-late post this week. On the bright side, I got a new desk chair! I’m all about celebrating the little victories. 😀

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I had to take care of something at my dad’s in the middle of the week, which was the perfect excuse to steal an old-school ice cream sandwich from his freezer. I never have these at home, but they’re like a taste of my childhood summers. Neapolitan for the win!

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Last weekend, we had to head inland to visit Son’s dad. For some reason, traffic was waaaay worse than normal, so we ended up taking a detour that cut through Chino Hills state park. Driving through the hills felt like we were on vacation. We even pulled over to the side of the road for a little bit to take in the scenery, while Son took a cool little video of the moon.

We got some much-needed rain that evening – as the sun was setting, you could see the storm clouds moving in.

We went for Korean food, as we tend to do when we visit Son’s family. Tofu soup is especially perfect on cold, rainy evenings.

Son opted for a spicy seafood hot pot that he had seen other people ordering in the past. He quite enjoyed it.

And we found the ittiest, bittiest, cutest little crab in Son’s dinner!

After dinner, we ventured through the rain to a dessert restaurant called Wähfle. I got the “Salted Ganache” Wähfle, with chocolate ganache, bacon, candied walnuts, and vanilla ice cream. Just as decadent and delicious as it sounds.

Son got the “‘Murica” which had berries and sweetened condensed milk, while his dad got the creme brulee Wähfle. All were delicious.

And then, on our way home, we stopped by the grocery store. And found a couple of ducks in the parking lot! Son herded them off to the side of the parking lot so nobody would run over them. As we left, the employees of the grocery store were tossing the ducks pieces of bread. Hopefully the ducks got home alright!

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Lest you be fooled by all the beautiful, delicious, magazine-quality food I post (*snort*), let me assure you that most of my meals consist of roasted veggies, rice, and frozen meatballs. And just in case you might think I’m the most amazing cook… you should probably know that I managed to burn all the green beans, asparagus, and mushrooms I made earlier this week. I’m super talented like that.

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Though I used to be a Girl Scout, I don’t really buy Girl Scout cookies much anymore. But I also can’t let a year go by without at least one cookie… and luckily for me, my mother knows me well. I had started craving Tagalongs, and when I stopped by to visit my mom earlier in the week, what do you know – she just happened to have a few Tagalongs set aside just for me!

My mom’s awesome like that.

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So… my younger brother is pursuing an acting and modeling career. Which is awesome. I’m totally jealous.

And his girlfriend (who’s also an actor/model), had the idea that Patrick should start taking ballet classes, to help with his career. Since I used to dance quite seriously, he asked me if I knew any beginner adult ballet classes he could take… and then asked if I would join him. I enthusiastically agreed, of course, as it has been waaaay too long since I’ve been in the studio, and I miss it dearly. Plus, I’m never in better shape than I am when I’m taking ballet classes.

Wednesday was our first class.

… I may have overdone it just a bit.

I couldn’t walk the next day… or the day after that. Or the day after that. And even now, nearly a week later, my calves are still rather tight.

Oops?

Worth it, though! Back to do it all over again on Wednesday! 😀

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Of course, the day after the ballet class, my sister invited me to go to the farmer’s market with her.

Remember the part about how I couldn’t walk? Yeah…

Well, she and her girlfriend felt bad for me, so they stopped by with flowers and kettle corn afterward! So sweet. Made my day. ^_^

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Our new favorite sweet snack: toast with sweetened condensed milk. SO. GOOD.

My brother’s girlfriend, who is also Vietnamese, suggested soaking French bread with Vietnamese coffee, then dipping that in sweetened condensed milk. Guess what I’m trying next? 😀

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Reading: I just finished Servants of the Storm, which I bought a couple of weeks ago when Amazon had it as a Daily Kindle Deal. It’s pretty good, not as spooky as I’d worried it would be, but still a good, suspenseful book.

Now I’m reading Libriomancer, which is a fun book. Kind of reminds me of a mix between the Dresden books and Percy Jackson. A nice, light read (would be a good beach read), and it also happens to be on sale for Kindle right now.

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And lastly, in case you’re worried my life was getting a little too boring, we spent our Friday night chasing a cricket out of our apartment. How it got in (and all the way to the back room!) we’ll never know, but it was a slow, jumpy chase to the front door that involved the tossing of decorative plates, see-through tupperware, and reflective poster paper. Thankfully, both for the cricket and for the sake of our sanity, we finally got the poor thing outside! Sweet, sweet silence.

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Links I’ve loved lately:

This is a powerful piece.

Uptown Funk is my jam these days, but this version is by far my favorite.

Who knew vegan ice cream could sound this delicious?!

I need this pork belly in my life.

Also, this Sriracha duck.

And I always love a good bacon waffle.

This strikes a chord. Even though I don’t have kids, work from home, and could be considered to be somewhat experienced in the kitchen, even I have trouble getting a good meal on the table most days! Sometimes, pre-packaged frozen foods (see: meatballs, above) are just easier, and tastier, and feel like a more reasonable option.

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Weekly Wanderings posts may include affiliate links. All opinions are my own.

Friday Fridgg Favorites

{photo credit: Adam Garratt}

a few of my favorite things on Fridgg this week:

japanese chicken wings are the best {La Fuji Mama}

healthy fried rice? i’ll take it! {No Spoon Necessary}

thai food has been my jam lately {The Endless Meal}

chocolate peanut butter all the things {Cookie Dough and Oven Mitt}

dangerous {SugarHero!}

these colors make me crave summer. and that recipe sounds amazing. {The Endless Meal}

i’m a potato girl, all the way {The Veg Life!}

mango lemonade. bring on summer! {Cooking Glory}

this shrimp dish sounds sooo good {Olive Dip}

green curry all the things {Feed Me Dearly}

the prettiest cookies {As Easy As Apple Pie}

i love brussels sprouts. i love honey-mustard anything. so obviously, i’d love this {Turnips2Tangerines}

i want this coffee cake in my life {No Spoon Necessary}

i prefer this kind of KFC {The British Menu}

adorable {Cooking and Beer}

this is a must {Cooking and Beer}

yum. {Shweta in the Kitchen}

my favorite banchan at korean restaurants {MM’s Kitchen Bites}

in high school i was obsessed with the violet crumble candy, so i really want to try this {Jane’s Adventures in Dinner}

spaghetti and meatball love. {Cooking and Beer}

i want these waffles in my life {FitCakes}

the prettiest chocolate raspberry tarts {As Easy As Apple Pie}

son is always asking me to make flan {Olivia’s Cuisine}

i would like a slice of this bread for breakfast {Cooking with Vinyl}

these waffles. so much yes. {No Spoon Necessary}

spice photos are so cool {The Fresh Kitchen}

my Friday Fridgg Favorites are a very small selection of the photos and recipes on Fridgg that I’ve loved in the past week. this is by no means an all-encompassing list of what’s awesome on Fridgg this week. take a look, and find your favorites!

do you have a favorite that I didn’t mention? let me know in the comments!

Friday Fridgg Favorites

{photo credit: Jane’s Adventures in Dinner}

a few of my favorite things on Fridgg this week:

good to know! {The Gracious Wife}

perfect cherry hand pies {Savory Experiments}

now this is my kind of taco! {Jane’s Adventures in Dinner}

this duck though {Jane’s Adventures in Dinner}

this chicken sounds fantastic {MM’s Kitchen Bites}

caramel macchiato cupcakes, yes please! {My Recipe Book}

dangerous. {Cooking and Beer}

brussels sprouts + runny eggs + bacon = the best “caesar” salad ever {No Spoon Necessary}

loving all the caramel-coffee cupcakes this week! {Homemade Food Junkie}

who says lemonade is just for summer? {The Kitchen McCabe}

roasted seaweed is one of my favorite snacks {Lara Ngai}

i’m intrigued {All That’s Jas}

sweet potato fries, always {The Endless Meal}

crispy skin, all the way!!! {a_boleyn}

i used to love snacking on taquitos after class in college, and these sound way tastier than the store-bought ones i used to get! {The Chunky Chef}

i love eggplant {MM’s Kitchen Bites}

comfort food {Basilico}

these brownies look like heaven {Turnips2Tangerines}

the classiest candy there is {Jen’s Favorite Cookies}

i want this soup. extra crispy onions, please. {Girl Gone Gourmet}

easy, healthy, super tasty. what more could you want in a breakfast? {What’s Cooking with Jim}

this reminds me of something you’d find in a Japanese bakery. {With a Blast}

Son wants me to make this asap, please {Cooks with Cocktails}

thin mint. dark chocolate. espresso. pot de creme. YES. {Cooking and Beer}

the prettiest styling evar. and that cake sounds delicious, too. {Tikkidio}

i adore butter chicken, especially when i can make it in the slow cooker! {Kitchen Sanctuary}

i kinda have a thing for quail eggs, so this is a must-try {Cooking Glory}

this chickpea salad sounds SO GOOD to me {Love From the Land}

bacon tacos? obviously, yes. {Cooking and Beer}

ninja turtle cake pops!!! {Kuhartnica}

i don’t even normally like black forest cake, but i totally want these crepes {Sweet2Eat Baking}

so much yes {Life Love and Good Food}

my Friday Fridgg Favorites are a very small selection of the photos and recipes on Fridgg that I’ve loved in the past week. this is by no means an all-encompassing list of what’s awesome on Fridgg this week. take a look, and find your favorites!

do you have a favorite that I didn’t mention? let me know in the comments!

Peanut Butter-Filled Brownies

When you’re just having one of those days (months… years?), when the stress is piling up and life has got you down, nothing beats the combination of peanut butter and chocolate.

Historically, the easiest way to get me out of a funk is with a pint of chocolate peanut butter ice cream (with a nice, thick peanut butter swirl, of course!)

But these brownies? Oh yes, they’ll do. They very much do the trick.

Richly chocolatey, with a thick, creamy peanut butter layer. I’ll bring the brownies, and we can commiserate together.

Recipe from Becca of Cookie Jar Treats, found on Fridgg.

Ingredients

• 1 cup natural peanut butter
• 1/3 cup honey
• 1/4 cup coconut oil
• 3/4 cup natural unsweetened cocoa powder
• 3/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup canola oil
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 large eggs, room temperature
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

Cooking Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line an 8×8 inch baking pan with aluminum foil. Grease foil with cooking spray.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the peanut butter, honey, and coconut oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator while you make the brownie batter.
3. Sift together the cocoa powder, flour, and salt into a medium bowl. Whisk to combine. In a large bowl, whisk together the canola oil and sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Stir in the vanilla. Add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and fold to combine.
4. Spread half of the brownie batter into the prepared pan. Pour the peanut butter filling over the brownie batter, and spread the peanut butter filling towards the edges.Cover the filling with the remaining brownie batter.
5. Place pan on the center rack and bake for 20-25 minutes or until a tooth pick comes out mostly clean with the exception of a few moist crumbs and a bit of peanut butter filling. Allow the brownies to cool in the pan for at least half an hour before removing to a cooling rack to cool completely. Once cool, slice and serve.
6. Enjoy!

Weekly Wanderings {week 5}

For those of you who celebrate, happy Lunar New Year!

Each year, Son’s dad wants to cook less and less, which means the responsibility has been falling on me more and more.

Which meant the first half of my week completely revolved around preparing the food – from a mad rush to find good recipes for all the new-to-me things I had to make, to somehow managing to entirely avoid the crowds when buying ingredients at 99 Ranch (talk about good luck!), to somehow managing to cook everything in one day while also attending client meetings and getting all my work done (I still don’t know how I managed to get everything cooked on time!)

This year’s menu consisted of stuffed bitter melon (a first for me)…

… catfish…

… egg tarts (which turned out SO GOOD – recipe coming soon!)…

… as well as boiled pork belly, rice, and a bamboo/pork belly/duck braise that Son’s dad made, that we ate in spring rolls.

And now I’m exhausted. I’m glad we only have to do this once a year!

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As my mom and her siblings are cleaning out my grandmother’s house, they’re finding all sorts of random stuff. My mom texted me a few weeks ago to ask if I wanted an exercise ball they had found deep in one of the closets… of course, I said yes.

Although brand-new, you can tell it’s really, really old – when we opened the box, we found an unopened VHS tape accompanying it! I feel like I’ve unearthed some sort of ancient artifact… 😉

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After the craziness of the Lunar New Year, I didn’t have the time or gumption to cook the rest of the week. So we went with one of our usual no-cook meals – meatballs from the freezer, in spring rolls with leftover veggies from Lunar New Year. Super easy, but still delicious!

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My favoritest thing about the Lunar New Year is the leftover bánh chưng (a Vietnamese rice cake filled with pork and mung bean) that we get to eat for the rest of the week! I like to eat it topped with coconut palm sugar; we also sometimes have it with a certain type of Vietnamese pickles.

Best ever.

I really need to learn how to make it one of these days.

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I ended the week by dragging Son to go see Los Angeles Ballet’s production of Sleeping Beauty… because my mom works for them as a costumer! It was really cool getting to see some of her work in action – she’s made plenty of costumes back when I used to dance, but this is the first time she’s actually built an entire tutu from scratch. Go mom! ^_^

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Links I’ve loved lately:

Ohmygosh if you haven’t seen this, you absolutely must go watch it now.

I wish I were Irvin’s next door neighbor.

If ever I make fortune cookies, it will have to be these.

WHAT.

The best thing I never knew I needed in my life.

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Weekly Wanderings posts may include affiliate links. All opinions are my own.