Coconut Macaroons

Easy recipe alert!!  I cannot bake to save my life, so I love recipes where I can pretend like I can bake.  The recipe says to bake for 20 minutes, but I had to bake it for 22-25 minutes to get it golden brown.  Let it cool and dip in melted chocolate to make it extra yummy!

http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/coconut-macaroons

Yummy House Cafe

Tucked away in a quiet neighborhood, near Children's Hospital in Seattle, this place makes the best chinese comfort food.  The crispy noodles, salty fish fried rice, seafood hot pot, salt and pepper pork chops, etc, always tastes great and comes out piping hot.  It's a little house of a restaurant and the owners are also the chef and waitress.

Stews and such

When Joe's face lighted up at the mention of stew recently, I knew that I had to make it for dinner.  I love any recipe where I can throw everything in a pot and forget about it (yes, I grew up on Ronco infomercials - "set it and forget it").  Throw together meat, veggies, broth, maybe wine, and spices, and an hour or so later, you get a yummy pot of stew.  I followed the recipes loosely and substituted many recipe items with veggies/starches I had on hand (yams instead of potatoes, etc).  The possibilities are endless!  

Here are some stews that I've made in the last few weeks:

Beef Stew Recipe

Moroccan chicken stew recipe

White bean and chicken stew recipe

Classic beef stew where I used short ribs instead (I braised it separately)

Moroccan chicken stew

White bean and Chicken stew

Our eating motto

A friend summed it up best when she said - "we don't care what we eat, we just care how much.."  I couldn't agree more.  Yes, we have standards for how our food should be, but eating is really to get full, isn't it?  Here's my working girls lunch crew - it's been a tradition that has been going on for years - it was hard to fit in the schedule at times, but looking back, it was all worth it.  Our eating bond was developed instantly and friendship followed soon after.  I love that the group keeps growing as we keep eating.

Staying local

 

I've been taking more walks around the neighborhood recently and at first, had pretty low expectations of the scenery - I'm in the 'burbs after all.  These pictures were all taken at or near the house and I've realized that I'm surrounded by beauty, I just have to take the time to see it. 

I love watching the sunset from our guest room, which faces the backyard.  I'm reminded of one of my favorite quotes - "Your diamonds are not in far distant mountains or in yonder seas; they are in your own backyard, if you but dig for them."  The picture below is from an early evening walk, on a night when the moon shone brightly.

Ka Won

short rib

Disclaimer (and this is true for most authentic ethnic restaurants):  you are here only for the food.  Not for the service, not for the waitresses to understand you, and definitely not here for the drinks (cuz you ordered it about an hour ago and you are never going to see it.)  You are here for the food, and there is plenty of it.  Many thanks to the friends who introduced us to this restaurant, which is conveniently super close to our house.

Fish egg (fish roe) chige

seafood pancake

Nothing impresses me more when someone is willing to drive 30 minutes+ for their food.  And my friend's husband was in town from Asia so technically, he flew quite a long way for this meal!  Hopefully it was worth the trip - it was delicious food and we had a great time.

Cook, clean, repeat

It has taken me years and years to get the culinary concept of "Mise en place" - everything in it's place.  The only reason that I have taken to enjoy cooking recently is because I have started giving myself plenty of time to prepare/find the ingredients.  My past cooking was in the style of "shoot, it's time to add the soy sauce and I don't have any," so dishes rarely turned out the way they were supposed to. 

And as much as I would like to cook an endless array of dishes in my kitchen without stopping, I know that it can't be a smooth process if I don't do a set of a dishes after a bit of cooking.  I would soon run out of utensils, bowls, and plates.  It would be like a surgeon not having their tools in front of them during surgery.

While doing the dishes is my least favorite part of the process, it gives me a chance to think about how the recipe turned out and to think of ideas for my next dish.  Just like in life, there should always be down time, for one's mind to relax and to rejuvenate.  Such is the cycle of life.  You have to take the time to savor and catalog experiences, and to clean the utensils and to place it back in the right container.  I guess you really can't have too much of a good thing and I'm finally in a place where I'm okay with that.