$0.99 sugar cookies

I was shopping at Trader Joe's and saw stacks of this sugar cookie mix set up in the corner by the free sample stand. Upon closer examination, there was a sign that boasted "Sugar Cookie Workshop - everything you need to make and decorate sugar cookies for 99 cents!"

I still didn't believe that this box - which contains three cookie cutters, sugar cookie mix, frosting AND sugar toppings - was selling for a buck a box. So I put a box in my cart and waited to see if it actually checked out for $0.99 (I didn't really care for the sugar cookie mix as I just wanted the cookie cutters). And guess what? It rang up $0.99 at the register! SCORE!

So the next day, I made Christmas sugar cookies with my nifty "Sugar Cookie Workshop" kit!

After mixing the dough and chilling it for at least an hour, it was time to roll out the dough and start using the cookie cutters.

I found rolling the dough on wax paper was a little tough as the wax paper was rolling along with the dough. I need to get one of these dough rolling mats. Then the cut-out cookie dough went on the pan and into the oven.

The cookies need to cool down A LOT before applying the frosting. So you can kill time by baking more cookies or sampling the ones you think are not in perfect shape (both of which I did).

Then you break out the frosting mix, warm it up in the palm of your hands and start squeezing it out. The colored sugar sprinkles were a little hard to get out of the bag because it seemed to be very moist. Fortunately, I had another jar of sugar sprinkles so I used my own instead of the one provided in the box.

It was also a bit difficult piping frosting out of a corner of the small rectangular bag that the frosting came in...

Then you have to let the frosting set, which takes at least two hours. Since I was baking really late into the night, I just left it on the dining table overnight and went to bed.

My cookie production line, all prepared by one production person - me.

I made all the cookies so I could bring them to the office. I laid out two full plates of cookies at 9am. By noon, they were all gone. I got no complaints so I guess the cookies were all tasty.

Happy Holidays!

Wishing everyone safe travels, warm hugs and good eats this holiday season!

Click here for a Christmas greeting card.

o christmas tree o christmas tree

I wanted to get a little tree for our apartment, but without a car, I wasn't sure how I'd get one home. I even thought about buying this Charlie Brown tree I saw at Walgreens. Fortunately, I happened to be at a Michaels and they had this cute 4 foot pre-lit tree on sale for $14.99. And it was packed up small enough that I could carry it home (on a train, nonetheless).

And here's my little tree.

I LOVE this little, fat penguin glass ornament.  He was the last one on the shelf too.  It was quite funny actually.  I saw the rows of snowman and santas in the same kind of design.  My friend told me to get the snowman and I said, "I only want it if it's a penguin," then voila!  I looked up and there was this lone, little penguin on the top shelf.  And he was 60% off too...score!

The picture is dark here, but it's also of a cute, little penguin.  Someone took a simple bell, and decorated it to make the bell look like a penguin with a santa hat.  So cute!  Someone had re-gifted this and gave it to me and these are the kind of re-gifts that I like!

All lit up!

It's so adorable and pretty. It's also quite calming. With the tree lights on and the rest of the house dark, I just sit in front of my pretty, little tree and relax.

Okay, maybe it's time I start going out more...

thanksgiving grub

Prayer for dinner:

Dear Lord, rub a dub dub, thanks for the grub. Amen.

Deviled Eggs - An hour to boil, peel, slice and mash these things, and it lasted about five seconds on the plate because everyone was grabbing one. I was lucky I got one for myself.

BBQ Weenies - So good and very addictive. I couldn't eat just one.

I made the cranberry sauce! hahaha well, I got it out of the can and put it nicely in a bowl...

Turkey #1 and Turkey #2 - both were yummy yummy in my tummy tummy.

Mr. Ham was lucky I didn't have any more stomach space for him.

Yams and Potatoes - I love yams.

Cornbread Stuffing - More yum.

Pasta Salad - a bit sweet, but still good to eat.

And here's the damage I did at Thanksgiving dinner:

I actually want some of this food right now. Some mashed potatoes and gravy, and another turkey leg would do well to get me in a food coma right about now.

achievement

For all of you readers who have been following me (all three of you), you may have noticed that I've complained about law school a lot and graduated from law school twice (once with a law degree and second with a masters). And then there was all this whining about this miserable right of passage called the California Bar Exam.

Well, people, I finally did it. After all that bitching and moaning, I passed the hardest bar exam in this country, got sworn in and took three oaths that I will use this newfound power for good not evil, and am now licensed to practice law in the state of California. Whoop dee do!

A big thank you to all my friends and family, who supported me through the years, especially this last month of tears and me threatening to jump off the bridge if I got another fail in addition to the heartache I've been miserable with.  I'm thankful to have such wonderful people who love me and are proud of me.

Now on to the next challenge - finding a real job where I can make use of this license to practice law.  I wonder if the Food Network needs an addition to their in-house counsel...

speaking of ramen

We started Day 2 of our shopping spree with a breakfast at Ajisen Noodle in Fremont.  Here's our spread:

Bean sprout salad with chili and seaweed sauce.  There was a bit too much mayo-like sauce on this dish for my liking.  Upon further digging, there were also some beef underneath all those bean sprouts.  The beef was tender and it was really good with the chili sauce that the whole salad was drenched in.  Due to my dislike for mayo, I probably won't give this dish another try.

The ramen noodle dishes!  We ordered two and shared.  The first was the handmade bbq pork noodles.  The noodles were handmade, and it was not bbq pork noodles.  The bbq pork was the meat in the noodles.  The bbq pork was very savory with just the right taste of that Chinese bbq pork flavor. 

The second bowl of ramen was the handmade tender ribs noodles.  Ohmygosh how tender these ribs were.  I don't recall any bones in the meat, but if there were, these ribs were fall off the bone tender.  And whatever marinade it was sleeping in was so flavorful. 

The broth of both ramen bowls were the same (well, the same to me anyway), and perhaps it's because of the meats, but the broth was "meaty" for lack of a better word.  I want to say the broth is juicy, but that doesn't make sense since broth is already liquid in itself.  I also loved the mushrooms in the dish.  I believe it was shitake mushrooms - oh how I have such expensive taste.  In any case, these ramen dishes were two thumbs up and I now need to find out where there is a ramen place in SF so I can get me some ramen ramen.

We also had the deep fried tofu.  You would think that all tofu tastes alike and what matters is how it's prepared.  So not true.  I don't know where this tofu came from but it was so delicious.  The texture of the tofu was very smooth when I bit into it and it was like a creamy feeling going down my throat.  It was like eating the dim sum dessert dish of tofu with ginger-sugar sauce over it, except that this fried tofu was savory and not sweet.  I'm craving this dish now that I'm writing about it.

Upon leaving the restaurant, we found this Domo doll on the ground near where we parked the car:

YW didn't want it to get run over, so she put it on the top of the car next to hers. I hope it found a home!

moving noodle bowl

After we were done chowing down on yummy dim sum, we headed for the mall. But before I could leave this one-stop-Asian-shop locale, I had to take a video of this giant bowl of ramen noodles that had chopsticks moving the ramen up and down. I found it hilarious because the sign said "Don't Touch" and yet all I wanted to do was touch it.



Without touching, and staring at it for a good two minutes, I figured out how they made it work. Pretty creative!

ABC Dim Sum

This is the first of a few "catch-up" posts as I have been a bit busy with worry about this thing and the Thanksgiving holiday.

So, sometime in early November, I went down to Fremont to do some shopping with YW.  What was supposed to be a day trip turned into a weekend shopping spree with YW and her mother.  It was fun and we got some pretty good deals with our purchases.

And with all that hard work shopping, you gotta feed the tummy!  Before starting our shopping bonanza, we stopped at ABC Seafood Restaurant for some dim sum.  YW is a frequent dining patron here, as she lives close to this place, and thus, this was my first time here.  

The dumplings consisted of shiu mai - a pork/shrimp combo:

xiao long bao - a Shanghainese dumpling where there is soup inside the dumpling, so you have to put the whole thing in your mouth or risk getting soup being squirted out when you bite:

ha gow - a shrimp dumpling.

Then we needed some veggies, well at least this one, which is cailan aka Chinese broccoli.

This is wu gok, or taro cake. It's a savory sweet dish that's also fried!

What I like to call the mini version of a BBQ pork bun, but this is not really a bun and it's not doughy. It's a pastry version of the classic pork bun.

We also had some beef rice porridge with fried dough pieces. I think I was quite full by this point.

But of course, I had to indulge in my guilty pleasure, the fung chao. I only eat this in the company of Asian friends because most of them non-Asian peeps are grossed out by this dish. More for me!

If I had a car, I'd definitely go back to ABC for more of their food. They're also located in a stripmall consisting of all things Asian, so it's like a one-stop shop for any kind of Asian fare as well as groceries, tapioca drinks, cleaners...

ads vs. reality

I came across an interesting article on SFGate today about whether the real food items match what is advertised by the food company.  For instance:

Here's a link to the full blog post with more comparisons.  I'm not that surprised that reality doesn't match the ads, but makes me wonder if there is anything out there that is true to its hype.

stone korean kitchen

Way back when (in January of this year), I purchased a couple of Groupons for Stone Korean Kitchen because I love Korean BBQ but a dinner for two usually became quite pricy.  Due to busy work/life schedule, I wasn't able to use the Groupon coupon until a couple of weeks ago, and Stone Korean did not disappoint.

A quartet of appetizers:



My dinner date and I wanted to try everything on the menu because the menu descriptions were just that appetizing. After some hemming and hawing, we finally decided on the "ssam for two" in which we could select two proteins and a kind of soup.



Our protein choices included Kalbi



and pork belly, which was so delicious and also deliciously fattening/artery blockade on a plate.



We chose the kim chi soup.



In addition to these selections we made, there were also two bowls of rice, a mushroom side dish, a plate of lettuce leaves for wrapping and a selection of sauces to top off on our lettuce wraps.  The kalbi was really nice and bbq'ed to just the right tenderness.  I usually like to go to Korean BBQ joints where you can grill the food yourself, but after a long day at work, having the meet already grilled was a good way to end the day.

I still have one more groupon for Stone Korean that I need to use by the end of the year.  But even without the groupon, I might be stopping by again for some happy hour eats.

got apples?

I was visiting L & G and they had a bag of apples picked from L's brother's backyard.  So what do we do with all these apples?  Make apple pie of course!

It was a last minute decision to make the pie and we didn't really have time to make the pie dough from scratch, so we cheated a little...

In addition, we didn't have a lot of time as I had to catch the Amtrak train back to SF later that evening, so I searched online for a simple apple pie recipe. I quickly decided on this Betty Crocker recipe because it looked simple and quick, and also it didn't require too many ingredients for the filling.

The most time consuming task was peeling and slicing the apples. Let me say I wish I had one of these things for peeling and also one of these things for quicker slicing (okay, it's just more cool gadgets I want in the kitchen).  Alas, I used good ole elbow grease to get 8 cups of apple slices.

Next, throw all the filling ingredients on top of the apples and mix until blended.

Then load all the apples into the pie-dough-lined pie dish.

Add butter.

Cover with pie-dough-top and then put it in the oven and await the cinnamon apple aroma to fill your kitchen.

It takes about an hour to bake, then you have to let it cool because I'm pretty sure you'd burn your tongue off if you ate a slice of apple pie right out of the oven. And trust you me, the pie was still quite warm after cooling for an hour. Ice-cream optional.

This pie was so deliciously "scrumptious," it lasted a day in the L & G household - we each had a slice for dinner that same night, then G had the rest as lunch and dinner the next day!

smoky sweet wings

We barbequed some chicken wings last night and I just have to share this marinade recipe.  I only had time to marinate it for a couple of hours instead of overnight, but even with just two hours, the marinade made these wings finger licking good.  I was too hungry and forgot to take pictures of the delicious wings - Sorry!

Serves 6 as appetizers, or double to make as worthy Sunday football chow.

Marinade:
-  3/4 cup brown sugar
-  1 teaspoon garlic powder
-  1 to 1/2 teaspoon cayenne powder
-  2 teaspoon paprika
-  1 teaspoon salt
-  2-3 twists of freshly ground black pepper

1.  Mix all ingredients of the dry rub in a large bowl, or in a large ziplock bag.  Add the wings and coat evenly.  Marinate at least one hour, or overnight for best results.

2.  On charcoal grill, cook the wings until the coating starts to caramelize, getting some black grill marks.  Flip the wings and repeat. Depending on the heat of your coals, it will probably take 20-30 minutes to cook.

3.  In oven, preheat oven to 400 degrees F.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or tin foil to save you some arm muscle in scrubbing later.  Lay a baking rack on top of the baking sheet and place the chicken wings on top of the rack.  Bake for 20 minutes, flip the wings and bake for another 15-20 minutes.