Pad Thai

Ever since my last trip to Chili duck, I've been wanting to try to make Pad Thai myself - I mean it cant be too hard, its just a form of pasta with veggies and chicken. So finally, last night I decided to make Pad Thai for J and I.

Ingredients:
Rice noodles
Peanut Thai Sauce
Unsalted peanuts
sugar snap peas
brocolli
Lime
Bean sprouts
Chicken
Oil

Chop up all the veggies and peanuts:



Cut up the chicken and heat with a little bit of oil on Medium heat:



Pour out any excessive oil, and add half of the Peanut Sauce to the chicken. Add veggies:



Then the rice noodles are next. Add 12 oz of rice noodles to boiling water. Allow them to cook for 3-4 minutes:



Add noodles and the rest of the peanut sauce to the chicken and veggies. Add bean sprouts and mix in over low heat for about one minute. Take half of the lime and squeeze juice over the pasta. Plate the pasta and sprinkle chopped peanuts on top. Serve with a slice of lime.

Can you count?

I love the new trend of putting numbers on different items. The look of simplicity is so chic and sophisticated...

Eggs Benedict

N decided to make eggs Benedict and fruit bruschetta which turned out amazing!

Take a look!

First she made the hollandaise sauce and kept it warm in a thermos. After learning from last time, if you re-heat hollandaise, it is completely ruined. Then she moved on to make the poached eggs and spinach. For the eggs she allowed the water to come to a boil, then added the white vinegar (allows the eggs to stay separated). While keeping a close eye on the eggs, she heated up a skillet with melted butter, and garlic for the spinach. In addition to watching both the spinach and eggs, she was toasting English muffins. N said the only hard part aside from the poached eggs is getting the timing right, everything only take a few minutes so you really had to watch everything to make sure nothing was overcooked.






On the side she cut up strawberries and mixed in some blueberries for the fruit bruschetta. Then she toasted Challah bread, and spread butter and cinnamon on top. Once that was finished, she added the fruit and plain vanilla yogurt.



Delicious!

Breakfast for dinner?!

Someday I would like all these beautiful things for me to cook with!









Can you guess? It's supper club tonight :-)

Brookline

This past weekend was pretty low key and uneventful. J and I just watched a few movies and made dinner.

Movies consisted of The Proposal (meh...it was 'okay')



Law abiding citizen which was actually pretty cool - I <3 Gerald Butler though...



and lastly The invention of Lying which I fell asleep to however J and his roommate seemed to enjoy it




Then on Sunday N and I ventured to Coolidge corner, which is this adorable neighborhood right off the green line in Brookline Mass.I have never been there before, but after visiting, I can definitely see myself living there in the future - that is if I get sick enough of my itsy bitsy apartment in back bay...


(google image)

It has all these cute little shops and boutiques, great restaurants like a local taqueria, book shops, and most importantly - A Trader Joes that sells alcohol for $2.99! We ended up going into Gap just for fun and actually found a few good deals - I snagged this cute top:



I hope everyone had a good weekend!

Wish List...

Anthropologie...



Jcrew...



Ann Taylor Loft...

God I love jcrew..

I just saw that jcrew makes 'rainy day flats'- I MUST BUY A PAIR!!! Forget ruining nice sandals in the summertime, these bad boys are perfect!

Happy Birthday Dunks!

Since today is Dunkin Donuts' birthday, they had a little celebration in Copley Square, where they were handing out free $2 gift cards, so I got two! haha. And couldn't resist making N stand by the big Donut guy and taking a pic!



Happy Thursday Everyone!

Olympics 2010

I absolutely love watching the Olympics - especially snowboarding and ice skating (two things that I have tried but have failed miserably).

New Hero, Shaun White:



He is insane! Making up new tricks for the sport, winning by a landslide and doing a victory lap aka double Mctwist 1260 all to win the gold medal, seriously what more can he do?!

Also proud of Lindsey Vonn! After watching six different skiers wipe out while going down the hill, you have to think she is amazing for staying on her own two feet! But seriously, if I were one of the girls that fell, I would be really upset. Not only did they not have a chance to go 100% down the hill, but the conditions made it nearly impossible. If six Olympian athletes are all falling down (aka flying 200 feet into the air then sliding into a ditch only to be air lifted out of the course for a severe knee injury)- MAKE SOME CHANGES ON THE COURSE ! Apparently now they will be changing the hills so that they aren't 'as steep' and not 'as long', so we'll have to see.

Way to go USA!

Why cant it be spring time yet?

Jcrew and I have been on a break recently, but I think we might just need to make up again:

Supper Club - THE Best Cheeseburger...

It was M's turn to make dinner for supper club. She decided to make these incredible cheeseburgers - melt in your mouth delicious! I absolutely cannot wait to make these myself - I just need a grill pan... ;-)

Ingredients:
12 ritzs crackers
8 sprigs of parsley
2 tablespoons of Dijon mustard
1 pound of ground beef
1 large egg
Sea salt and ground pepper
Olive oil (just a little for the top and bottom so they dont stick to the pan)

The fixen's:
Lettuce
Tomatoes
Red onions
Pickles
Buns
Cheese





As a side M had homemade french fries and ceaser salad;

For the fries:
Cut up large potatoes, boil them until they are about half way done.
Cover them with olive olive, salt and pepper. Stick them into the oven for about 25 min on 400 degrees.



Everything together:



After eating such great food, I have come to the conclusion that I just need to break down and buy the dang recipe book!

My Trip to the Bahamas

Sorry I haven't posted in the past week. J and I were took a cruise to the Bahamas! It was so much fun, even though I did come back a bit more deep fried than I would have liked, it was an awesome trip.

We flew down to Miami where we hopped onto the boat for our 4 day tour to three different islands in the Bahamas; Freeport, Nassau, and Norwegian's own island. It was a bit windy during our trip and the weather wasn't exactly up to my standards (90s and sunny the entire time) but I was still able to lay on the beach and boat all day long!

Freeport was basically us just laying on the beach all day then heading back to the ship. (We cruised at night, and were at a port during the day). Nassau was really cool, since we had seriously burned ourselves from the day before, we decided to tour the little city and find our way around the island. Getting off the ship, each and every time I would walk by a local lady she would basically harass me by continuously asking me if I wanted my hair braided - shocking to see how many grown women actually fell for it when walking around the boat later that evening! After wondering the city, we walked back toward the beach. Since we weren't technically staying at the Atlantis, we decided to walk along the beach and sneak into their paradise island (where all the wicked cool slides and coves with sharks are located) to have a look around - absolutely amazing, I would fly down just to stay there for a few days or FOREVER!

After sight seeing Nassau, we headed back to the ship where we got dinner and tried gambling. I am terribly nervous about gambling so I just watched J play black jack for a while. Its not as nerve racking watching someone else lose all their money ;-) But then I decided - when in Rome, seriously I need to suck it up! - so I went for roulette. I played with only $20 - I know big spender haha - and played a few, won some, lost some. But then I decided to put one dollar on '0' and actually won! I know, that's $35! woooohoooo! So after I broke even, I gave the rest to J to play in black jack. It was amazing seeing how many people were just throwing around $100 bills on single hands of black jack! That will NEVER be me!

I will post pictures soon!!!

Happy Birthday N!!!!!!

Today is N's 23rd birthday!! Today I'm going to meet up with her at lunch time and go to Steve's on Newbury for some Greek food.



Then tonight we are all going out to the Liberty Hotel for some great apps and drinks!

THE Hen House

Last night marks the first time going to the Hen House. Located in Roxbury Massachusetts, this fine establishment was a true diamond in the rough. From their many dipping sauces, canned colt 45, to the wide selection of butter and syrup for the waffles, it was hands down best chicken and waffles joint I have ever been to.





Although we went right after work and it was pretty deserted, the place definitely picked up by the time we left.



I would recommend this place for sure if you are in the mood for southern comfort food or looking for a late night snack (open until 4 am)!

Pork and Cheesecake

Last night it was my turn to make dinner for Supper Club. I decided (with the help from some work friends, thank you J!) to make pork stuffed with feta and pesto. I also added a side of rice. I have to say, everything turned out so well! I have recently become a vegetarian by default because I have never really ventured into making meat, so I was a little nervous going into the meal, but I'm happy to say it was delicious!

To start out, mix the pesto and feta together (half way through I remembered to take a photo so it looks a little skimpy but most of it was already into the pork).



Then after you have cleaned off the pork and gotten rid of all the fat, cut a pocket into the pork for the pesto and feta.



Time to make the rub. Combine:
2 tsps of pepper
1/4 tsp of crushed red pepper
1/4 tsp of thyme
1 tsp of oregano
2 cloves of minced garlic



Then put it into the oven at 375 for 35-40 minutes. Then take it out, brush both sides of the pork with balsamic vinegar, pop it back into the oven for 5 minutes and you will be good to go!



It was so good! The cheese actually melted with the pesto which really added to the taste of the pork. I will definitely be making this again!

Time for dessert. After I took the chilled cheesecake out of the frig, I made the raspberry topping. I just took 2 cups of raspberries and squished them up with a cup of sugar and poured of over top.



It was actually really good. And with the raspberry topping you could barely taste the hunks of orange, but if you did, it was actually a refreshing taste, very light and zesty. N pointed out that its a little taste of summer!

Stay tuned for tomorrows post, my work group and I are going to the Hen House - its located in Roxbury - a 'sketchy' part of town, but how can you say no to chicken and waffles with endless amounts of dipping sauces?!

My Cheesecake Adventure

Since this week is my week for Supper Club, I decided to make a dessert ahead of time for tonight's dinner. So last night I picked up all of the ingredients for the cheesecake:

3 - 8 ounce cream cheese
lemon
orange
sugar
1 tsp of vanilla extract
graham crackers
2 cups oatmeal
13 tablespoons of butter
heavy whipping cream

And set out to make my first cheesecake! I started with the crust; heating the two cups of oatmeal until it turned a darker brown. Then I added all of the butter, and 1 cup of sugar. Once that was all mixed I spread it out on the bottom of the pan:



Then I put the pan (and little baby cup - for tasting later) in the frig to cool. After, I started the filling. I combined the cream cheese, lemon zest, lemon juice, orange zest, and sugar into one mixing bowl:



As you can see in the picture, there are huge orange specks- I have learned that I need to invest in a grader because it was nearly impossible to chop up the orange peels fine enough, and I got to the 'screw it' point - so basically there are large chunks of orange peel in the cheesecake - ugh fantastic. After I couldn't do anything about that, I moved on to the 'whipping part'. So I started whipping the cream which as it turns out, not that easy! My arm was going to fall off after about 30 mins of doing this. I got to the 'screw it' part of this and put all of it into the cream cheese mixture. Also - need to invest in whisk, because I had to use a fork, which DID NOT work.



After I stirred it enough, and got it to the point where it wasn't 'as lumpy' as the picture showed, I poured it into the pan with crust:



What I learned:

1. CANNOT improvise certain kitchen tools
2. I hate whipping

Apple ipad

Since graduating college almost two years ago (Yikes!), my computer has been completely dead, there is absolutely no hope for that sucker - it got me through 4 years, but it has come to the point where I need to purchase a new one. I have been debating for awhile about what kind of computer I want to buy. Since I do have the iphone, I really want a Mac book, but because they are so pricey and I really only need it to blog, upload pics, store music, and do some work on the side, a little $250 laptop COULD work just as well. However, apple has saved the day, take a look at this guy!



Wow it looks so cool! The ipad is not that expensive, and it only weighs 1 1/2 pounds!

Marblehead weekend

This past weekend, N, M and I went to Marblehead for the weekend, it was really fun. We took it easy on Friday night with wine and cards. I tried to teach them how to play rummy, but that didn't really work out so well. Then on Saturday, we went to bagel world (THE best bagels ever), and just hung out. Then on Saturday night we planned to make dinner for M's friend K, and her brother, but it turned into a 12 person dinner! We planned to stretch the food (pasta and chicken) so that everyone could have something to eat, but it turned out to not be a problem at all. Take a look at the table setting:, since neither one of us actually has a dining room table, it was nice to put this together:



We also picked up our friend N from the train station, who came out with us. Overall it was a fun weekend, I am definitely going to plan to see N more often, she literally lives only a few blocks away but we never seem to hang out.

The weekend ended with a great meal at chili duck with N, it was hands down best Thai food I've had - okay that might be a little bias considering that is the only place I've had it, but still I havent been disappointed yet!