Fridgg: What's For Dinner?

Friday Fridgg Favorites

{photo credit: Nicky’s Kitchen Sanctuary}

a few of my favorite things on Fridgg this week:

these sound pretty damn delicious {What’s Cooking with Jim}

i’m intrigued {How to Philosophize with Cake}

this is a fun idea {No Spoon Necessary}

i would like these in my life {Cook This Again, Mom!}

i’ll take three of these, please {Cooking and Beer}

this thai grilled corn sounds amazing {Create Mindfully}

these eggplant rolls are so pretty! {Halal Home Cooking}

i fell in love with burrata last summer, so this is definitely happening asap {Family Foodie}

i’m not usually a granola person, but i could totally change that for this coconut macaroon granola {Kitchen Sanctuary}

this butternut squash and bacon mac n’ cheese, please {No Spoon Necessary}

ooooooooh! {Nutmeg Nanny}

egg tarts are my favorite {Lara Ngai}

these macarons are super hot {The Devil Wears Parsley}

pretty pink frosting {Homemade Food Junkie}

this dressing {Healthier Steps}

this salad looks so delicious and refreshing {Kitchen Sanctuary}

love this idea! {Nosh My Way}

i’d give you my heart for these tarts! {Cooks with Cocktails}

i hardly even drink much, but this just feels so classy {Blossom to Stem}

chocolate lava cake for breakfast. omgyes. {Catching Seeds}

crispy brussels sprouts are one of my many weaknesses {The Endless Meal}

need to make these chocolate raspberry tarts for my mother – she’d love them! {Homemade Food Junkie}

i’m not really an omelet person, but i totally could be for this omelet {Lifestyle Food Artistry}

these cookies. so delicate! {Kitchen Sanctuary}

ohmygod this. {Domestically Blissful}

i want a big bowl of this in my tummy now, please {The Chunky Chef}

also, these. gooey caramel is the bestest. {The Chunky Chef}

japanese curry is my ultimate comfort food {Foodie on Board}

this lasagna looks like fun {Joe’s Healthy Meals}

i’m obsessed with the colors in this photo. also, lobster spring rolls WHAT. {No Spoon Necessary}

i have absolutely zero problems with this cake, except for the fact that i don’t have a slice of it in front of me right now {Sugarhero!}

these sliders, to beat out all other sliders {Noshing with the Nolands}

this photo makes me want to go back to london {All That’s Jas}

the chocolatiest chocolate tart {Melanie Makes}

oooey gooey delicious {Cooking and Beer}

this sauce sounds amazing {Catching Seeds}

the cheesiest! {Homemade Hooplah}

the prettiest pistachio cupcakes {Food By Mars}

four words: dulce. de. leche. madelines. {The Spiced Life}

this bundt cake are what dreams are made of {Noshing with the Nolands}

WHAT. {SugarHero!}

chocolate peanut butter everything {Use Real Butter}

like the japanese an pan i grew up eating {From My Lemony 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!

Weekly Wanderings {week 4}

The last week’s been a crazier than usual one, the kind where you’re insanely busy but don’t get a single thing crossed off your to-do list. Blogging fell by the wayside, but in its place came lobsters! Random screaming animals! Tasty cheese! So, you know, I’m not complaining.

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For the longest time, Son was NOT a cheese person. He didn’t like it, he didn’t really understand why people loved it so much. So for the past ten years, we haven’t really been a cheese-eating household, and I had to go elsewhere to get my occasional cheese fix.

But recently, seemingly out of nowhere, he suddenly LOVES cheese. He likes to eat the Laughing Cow wedges with bananas (apparently this was a thing he did as a kid), and then I bought a creamy swiss from Good Eggs and he adored that (on slices of French bread) as well.

Then, last week, we were at Whole Foods and he was drawn to the cheese section. He kept going back to the triple-creme bries, because he loved how soft they were. So we got one (and I’m still trying to get over my shock of Son voluntarily buying fancy cheese!)

Oh my goodness, it’s so good. Like butter! We’ve been eating it on these raisin pecan crackers, and we’ve had to severely limit ourselves lest we overdo it because it is so darn delicious.

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As self-employed software engineers, Son and I have a pretty stereotypical programmer schedule. On a normal night, we’re up coding until 3 or 4 in the morning, and then wake up around 11am or noon (unless we have an earlier client meeting).

So it was particularly unpleasant getting woken up at 6am mid-week, by the most horrible, creepy, inhuman screaming right outside our bedroom window.

After quickly determining it was definitely not the sound of one of our neighbors being tortured or the baby next door screeching her head off (which does, of course, happen on a regular basis, as babies tend to do), we got up and peeked outside in the dark to try to figure out what the heck was going on.

Only to find one of our neighbors outside in his pajamas with a flashlight, with a wide-eyed, freaked out look on his face, tiptoeing around trying to figure out what the hell had woken us all up.

Possum in heat? Raccoon torturing a small animal? We may never know… but luckily for the entire neighborhood Mr. Flashlight scared it into silence and it hasn’t been back since.

In comparison, getting woken up by loud gardeners or crying babies is music to my ears!

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I know you’re all going to hate me now, but this whole Southern California not having a winter thing is getting just plain ridiculous. It’s the middle of February, and I’m wearing shorts.

Yes, yes, I know I sound like a spoiled California brat. (Who am I kidding, I totally am – I’d never survive a snowy winter!) But seriously, we’re in such a bad drought in California, and we need rain so badly!

How about this – you send cold rainy wishes my way, and I’ll send warm sunny thoughts toward all of you in colder climates. Deal?

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As my mom and her siblings are cleaning out my late grandmother’s house, they’re finding all sorts of treasures, some of which I’ve inherited. (I am now the proud owner of a grand thimble collection!) My grandmother was an avid knitter and crocheter, so she left a ton of yarn, and quite a few partially- or mostly-finished projects.

So I’ve decided to take up crocheting and knitting. Eventually. Because I definitely need more to do in my life.

But a very (very!) easy first project was to finish off the potholders my grandmother had made. There were about ten that were almost completely finished, just needed to be sewn up the middle to complete them. My mom gave me the task of finishing them (which turned out to be an excellent, mindless thing to do during meetings that didn’t require a ton of my participation), with the agreement that I was allowed to keep whichever ones I wanted. Best deal ever!

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All my life, I’ve been an on-again off-again insomniac, so I’m always looking for ways to get to sleep easier. I recently read about the 4-7-8 breathing technique, where you breathe in for four counts, hold your breath for seven counts, and breathe out for eight counts. It’s supposed to be a good way to calm your mind and help you fall asleep quickly.

Friday morning I was going to have to get up quite a bit earlier than I normally do, so Thursday night I decided to try the technique. It seemed to be working well, and I was dropping off to sleep…

… and then, while holding my breath for seven counts, I accidentally let out a little squeak.

I peaked open one eye, to see if Son, who was still up watching TV, had heard, and found him looking down at me with a confused expression.

I totally lost it.

I spent the next ten minutes in tears because I was laughing so hard, which was made even worse by his first comment: “Did you fart?”

Suffice to say, the 4-7-8 breathing technique backfired dramatically.

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I spent several days last week at my dad’s house, staying with him while my sister was out of town. We expected her home early Friday evening – just in time to coincide with a fresh seafood delivery that one of my aunts had sent us.

However, early Friday afternoon, we discovered that she had left something behind, and had to go back for another night. So she wouldn’t be getting home Friday night.

… which meant that all of a sudden, I had to figure out how to cook the four live lobsters and five pounds of mussels that had arrived earlier that day.

Have I mentioned that I had never cooked, much less touched, live lobster before? (In fact, the only other time I’ve ever cooked any sort of recently-alive seafood resulted in a rather hilariously terrifying experience.)

I swear the lobsters were mad-dogging me the whole time.

I did it!

Mind you, I had to put on the dishwashing gloves before I could even get up the courage to touch one, and was trembling like crazy after I got it in the pot of boiling water, but I did it! And by the fourth one, I was barely even shaking anymore!

I also made moules frites (mussels and french fries)… with Five Guys french fries. Cooking four live lobsters and a pot full of mussels for the first time was enough for one day. I have my limits. 😉

The highlight of the day was when I went to serve my dad the lobster, he took one sniff of the melted butter and asked, “uh… which butter did you use?”

I looked back in the fridge, to find that the butter had an expiration date of May 8th, 2005 – one week before Son and I started dating. Hah! Needless to say, we got rid of that butter and melted some much fresher butter, for a very delicious lobster dinner. 😀

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I’m currently reading pretty much everything Brandon Sanderson has ever written. I had been introduced to his writing when he finished off the Wheel of Time series after Robert Jordan passed, but had never pursued his other stories. However The Way of Kings was free on Amazon for a while, so it was an obvious foot in the door. Although it started off slow, I ended up devouring The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance… only to discover that they were the only two published books in a much longer epic fantasy series that wasn’t finished yet. -_-

I moved on to the Mistborn Trilogy, and absolutely loved it. Now I’m reading Firefight, the second book in the Reckoners series. This series of his is less epic fantasy and more superhero, which is fun in its own way.

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Links I’ve loved lately:

I wish I were the kind of cool cat who could pull off having tea parties, just for a good excuse to make these pretty elderflower and goldenberry friands. Yes, I just said cool cat. Which is a good hint as to why I’m not one.

I love the idea of living in a neighborhood where all the neighbors are friendly and invite each other over for dinner. Like this.

This photo styling! So good. Also, I totally want that cake.

The sucky part about being a female in a male dominated industry. I feel lucky that I’ve always been able to work with men who aren’t assholes, and have been supportive of us female programmers.

I’ve decided my life goal is to learn to knit, so I can KNIT SWEATERS FOR PENGUINS! I’ve found my calling.

This is the best article to read on Valentine’s Day. Got love in your life?

I’ve fallen in love with this travel blog. Every article makes me want to pack up and take a trip somewhere interesting.

I wish we could actually have a winter in LA (see: 80°F+ temperatures, above), just so I could have a good reason to make this hot chocolate. Hot chocolate just doesn’t feel right when it’s hot enough to wear shorts and a tank top…

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

Weekly Wanderings {week 3}

Started off the week with a bit of green.

One of my favorite comfort foods is a bowl of brown rice topped with sliced cucumbers, then topped with a swirl of Kewpie mayonnaise, a generous drizzle of okonomiyaki sauce, and a hearty sprinkle of bonito flakes. It’s light but filling, and fairly healthy. My favorite sort of “reset” meal.

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It’s tradition for us to watch the Australian Open every January, and I’m a little disappointed now that it’s over. But holy cow, that last match between Djokavic and Murray was exciting!

It’s crazy how hard they work. I’m pretty sure I’d collapse on the court after the equivalent of just one of their rallys. o_0

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What’s going on here?

Lots of people refer to inari sushi as “footballs”, so obviously they make the perfect Super Bowl snack!

But I couldn’t just bring plain inari. It’s become tradition for me to bring my spicy shrimp inari every year. They’re easy to make, and everybody loved them.

I also made my grandma’s seven-layer dip recipe, which the guys were crazy about. It will definitely be coming back for next year’s Super Bowl party.

Also at our Super Bowl party this year: Rolo pretzels, chocolate chip cookies, eggrolls, pizza, and fancy wine (because that’s how our guy friends roll).

One of my favorite things about our Super Bowl party – every year, one of the guys brings fancy Japanese desserts from Chantilly. And every year I nab the black sesame cream puff, because, well, it’s a black sesame cream puff, need I say more? 😀

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The calendar says it’s hot chocolate season, but the mild temperatures in LA make iced coffee seem way more appropriate.

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Found some awesome chili. I still haven’t tried making chili, but I was craving it and needed a quick, easy meal for when I don’t have time to cook, so we tried this chili from Good Eggs. SO GOOD.

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Guys! I poached eggs for the first time ever!

This is a super big deal for me, because traditionally if I’m intimidated by a new recipe or technique, I will procrastinate the hell out of it. But this time, I just went for it, and it didn’t turn out half bad!

Going to poach allllll the eggs now.

The poached eggs were for a Lyonnaise salad, which was really freaking delicious. Recipe coming soon-ish, with much prettier pictures that Son took.

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My sister requested poke for her birthday this week, but I’ve been overloaded with work and stuff, so I didn’t think I’d have time to make it. But then I ended up having to be very close to Jus’ Poke on her birthday, so I picked up a couple of pounds of poke for her. And spam musubi for us. 😀

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Fun cactus flowers.

It rained! Sort of. More like sprinkled, but we’ll take what we can get in California.

While I ran laps in the rain, Son took pictures of flowers. And then told me to run more. 😛

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It’s a tradition in Son’s family to take pictures of the birthday person with their birthday cake. This week was Son’s dad’s birthday, but since we didn’t have Son’s camera with us, we had to improvise a bit. For the record, using a double-layer of paper towels to diffuse the flash actually worked really well.

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Guys, I think I’ve found my next band name – “Syntactic Sugar”. Son said that in a meeting with a client this week, and I had to mute myself so they wouldn’t hear me cracking up.

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Links I’ve loved lately:

I love scallion pancakes. I love quesadillas. So I’m pretty sure I’d love scallion pancake quesadillas. WHAT.

If I never make these banana muffins with toblerone chunks, it will only be because I know it would be waaaay too dangerous to have them anywhere near me.

Also, this chocolate chip banana cake. Merry-Jennifer’s writing makes me really want to take up knitting.

Dude. Cookie butter macarons. Come to think of it, I do have a bunch of egg whites just hanging out in the fridge…

Can we have a Super Bowl do-over? Because I just found out about these kalbi chunked tots with gochujang cheese sauce, and I really need an excuse to have them in my life.

Also, this Taiwanese popcorn chicken.

This spicy garlic eggplant with ground pork sounds like the best kind of comfort food.

I need to try this recipe for creamy scrambled eggs, because that first picture is exactly how I wish my scrambled eggs looked.

Four words: chicken pot pie burger.

I kind of want to make this, mostly because it sounds really neat: sous-vide egg yolk tacos.

<3

I just found out about the food blog Le Jus D’Orange, and I’m kind of obsessed. Case in point, this blood orange black sesame ice cream. Also, the scallion pancake quesadillas mentioned above.

Allll the garlic.

I want to make this lemon curd ice cream, but with the passionfruit curd I have in my pantry.

This article about motivation vs. discipline is exactly what I needed.

This cake. Now I need to go hunt down some Girl Scouts…

Friday Fridgg Favorites

{photo credit: Little Family Adventure}

a few of my favorite things on Fridgg this week:

these pulled pork sliders {Turnips2Tangerines}

always in the mood for doughnuts {Articook}

haven’t had pierogi in ages, but now i’m craving it {adventurefood}

son wants me to make these fried chicken livers {Lara Quinn}

mango + tiramisu = mangomisu {From My Lemony Kitchen}

pretty perfect (gluten-free) waffles {Nurture My Gut}

johan’s blog posts are always super informative {Johan Johansen}

pancakes to die for {Food By Mars}

always looking for new ways to eat my veggies {The Endless Meal}

these grits look so warm and comforting {MJ’s Kitchen}

son adores panna cotta, and he’d definitely love these lychee panna cottas {Oh My Dish}

intrigued by this miso cashew cream sauce {Create Mindfully}

salad dressing at japanese restaurants is the best, so i definitely want to try this {Otaku Food}

these indian-spiced yogurt chickpeas remind me of a dish i had in london last year {Blossom to Stem}

these caramel-swirl brownies, please {Alicat Bakes}

i want to have a party, just for an excuse to make these fried cheese balls {Articook}

pretty little cookies for valentine’s day {Kitchen Sanctuary}

chicken. fried. ribs. what. {Mantitlement}

the best. {SugarHero!}

this sauce. i need it in my life. {Girl Gone Gourmet}

now i’m craving peking duck {Dude For Food}

yum. {Shrinking Single}

this italian cream sauce sounds amazing {Cooking on a Budget}

spaghetti squash is fun {The Endless Meal}

i wouldn’t be able to stop at just one {Little Family Adventure}

love these carrots {Tastes So Fine}

snickerdoodle cookie dough. YES. {Sweep Tight}

heloooo, comfort food! {Hello Little Home}

the most perfect macarons {Southern Fatty}

these savory waffles {Sugar n’ Stuff}

DUDE. {SugarHero!}

homemade chicken feet! {From My Lemony 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!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I know I’ve been going on and on about my new toaster oven, and by now you’re probably thinking, “toast is great and all, but how much toasted bread can one girl eat?”

Well, I’m here to tell you the very, very best reason to pull your toaster oven out of storage.

Fresh.

Baked.

Cookies.

Make the cookie dough over the weekend, and if you have the time, roll the dough into balls, then stick them in the fridge. Then, during the week, any time you want a warm, gooey, fresh-baked cookie? Just place a ball of dough or two on a little parchment-lined baking sheet, stick it in your toaster oven, and 15-20 minutes later, fresh-baked cookies! The best.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Recipe from my Aunt Lydia

Ingredients

• 2 cups + 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) good European unsalted butter (I used Plugra), melted and slightly cooled
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 egg + 1 egg yolk
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips (we prefer TCHO dark chocolate baking drops

Cooking Directions

1. Heat oven to 325°F. Adjust oven racks to upper- and lower-middle positions. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. Mix flour, salt, and baking soda together in medium bowl; set aside.
3. Mix butter and sugars until thoroughly blended. Mix in egg, yolk, and vanilla. Add dry ingredients, mix until just combined. Stir in chocolate chips.
4. Refrigerate the dough for at least an hour, or up to two days.
5. Form 1/4 cup-sized balls of dough, and place on prepared baking sheets, leaving plenty of space between cookies.
6. Bake, switching the positions of the cookie sheets halfway through, until cookies are light golden brown and the outer edges start to harden but centers are still soft and puffy, about 15 to 22 minutes (every oven is different – my aunt bakes hers for 22 minutes, but mine, baked using the convection setting on my toaster oven, were done in about 15 minutes, so keep an eye on them).
7. Cool cookies on cookie sheets. Serve warm, or store in airtight container.
8. Enjoy!