mini-donuts

The SF Giants held a mini-carnival of sorts during the weekends in July. We decided to take a study/work break (The Boy was working overtime and I tagged along to use his conference room to study) and stopped by the carnival for a little bit. It was located at the AT&T parking lot behind the Giants' stadium so it didn't take us very long to make two rounds. The admission fee was $5 per person, and we stayed for half an hour, max.

There was this one donut stand that tooted Donut Sundaes. I wanted to see what it was, and a donut sundae consists of a dozen mini donuts covered in chocolate sauce, sprinkles, whip cream, etc. I dubbed it a sugar high in a cone. Unfortunately, I didn't buy a donut sundae because I knew I'd get a sugar high and then crash immediately thereafter, and I had to study after this...so no donut sundae for me.
We need see the making of a mini-donut in action. I want one of these contraptions now. Wouldn't it be cool if I could make mini-donuts for anyone who came over to visit?

The Boy also played the Ring-a-Bottle game and won me a stuffed animal -- Marvin the Manatee. Isn't it cute?
Here's Marvin, coming along with us for a ride on MUNI so that we could get to work/study.

red velvet cupcakes

One day out of the blue, The Boy made a very strange request -- he wanted me to make him some red velvet cupcakes. It's a strange request because: 1) he does not eat sweets; 2) he has never asked me to make any kind of dessert for him; and 3) he was very adamant about using this cupcake mix from Crate & Barrel.

I was glad he wanted me to use a cupcake mix instead of making it from scratch because I was studying for the bar and really didn't want to spend a whole day making red velvet cupcakes from scratch. With the prepackaged mix, I could just add eggs and water and mix away! The mix was Barefoot Contessa's recipe.

The recipe said it was for 10 cupcakes, but I managed to have a little extra for a mini-cupcake of sorts. However, I was not working with a familiar oven, as I was living in a sublet for the summer. So I kept wondering if it was odd that the cupcakes were OVERflowing too much over the top.

I had to use two types of frosting because The Boy does not like cream cheese frosting, so he wanted me to improvise with the frosting choices. The Barefoot Contessa's mix came with powdered sugar for the cream cheese frosting. I made it anyway because cream cheese frosting is what goes on red velvet cupcakes. I then bought one of those Sara Lee pre-made frosting, the sugar free whipped brand and chose the Whip Cream frosting flavor.
Since I knew he couldn't eat two cupcakes in one sitting, I made this one especially for The Boy, half with the cream cheese frosting and half with the whipped cream frosting. The verdict -- he liked the whipped cream frosting much better.

The Boy requested red velvet cupcakes and I delivered. However, he ended up eating only three or four cupcakes, and I had the rest. Not that I'm complaining or anything.

Now that I have more time on my hands, maybe I'll make some cupcakes tomorrow. Good idea!

back to real life

Hello World!!

I survived the California bar exam. There are some horror stories involved but I'll leave that for another day. I took it and I'm done. I'm pretty sure I bombed it but I really don't care anymore. The hard part is waiting for the results, which won't come out until November.

I had a great surprise the day after my exam. There was a nice big box waiting for me just inside the gate. I almost didn't even notice the box if it wasn't for Beau the puppy sniffing at it. Guess what was inside!

COOKIES!!


A very pretty bouquet of cookies, appropriately in the shape of margarita glasses. Thanks L!!
And also a dozen assorted cookies. I haven't touched the bouquet, and am working on the #3 of the 4 packages of cookies. All I can say is YUMMY!

Gotta run. Dinner's waiting.

cake art

These are cake entries at the Marin County Fair. Some are really good, like this picnic table below. The others are not Ace of Cakes material, but still better than anything I could do.

food art

I took a study break during the July 4th holiday and spent it at the Marin County Fair in California. There were a lot of interesting exhibits on display, and here are images of some of the food art. My favorite is the basket of lemons.

going on hiatus

Dear fellow blog followers (all three of you),

I'm putting the blog on hiatus because I just don't have time (or the energy to muster up creativity) to post about random things this summer. I am studying for the test of my life, and these bar study classes are just zapping the energy and brain power out of me. Plus, I haven't been eating anything all that exciting so there hasn't been much to post about. However, I do have one last story to share before the break:

It was date night tonight and I decided to take The Boy to his first Korean BBQ experience at this popular joint called Brothers Restaurant. This is one of the best places for Korean food and I often frequented this place when I used to live in SF. I never took The Boy here because he never liked the idea of having to cook your own food and paying for it (that's how I described Korean BBQ to him). Well, it was my choice for dinner tonight, so that's where we went.

And you know what? He loved it too! We ordered the galbi and jap chae and of course all the little side dishes was included. He really liked the galbi and was stuffed to the gills after we were done devouring dinner. The only thing he didn't like was the smell of Korean BBQ that lingered in our hair/clothing/skin for the rest of the night. He kept saying "we stink" throughout the rest of the evening (the entire time we were trying to watch a movie).

And with that ending, I bid you all adieu. I may post once in a while if I have anything interesting to share. But until the bar exam is over and done with, I shall return to regular posting sometime in August.

Sincerely yours,

Q-Pig

good old Mel's

A good old American diner is Mel's Drive-in, located in several neighborhood spots in San Francisco. I LOVE their curly fries (or as the management calls it "twisty fries"). At one point in time it must have been a real drive-in because it's really just a diner, especially since parking in SF is such a b#*&h.

On this particular Memorial Day evening, The Boy ordered the BLT with curly fries, and I ordered a "Rebel Rouser," a hot dog topped with chili, onion, and chedder cheese (minus the onions and add curly fries for me).


I didn't particularly like the bread that the hot dog came in, but the chili cheese dog was pretty yummy in the tummy. The Boy even managed to finish his portion, even all his curly fries, probably because he didn't want me venturing over on his plate to eat more curly fries.

Subliminal messaging here for you to go eat curly fries? =)

eggrolls, and wontons, oh my!

I've been temporarily staying at The Boy's apartment in the city until my summer sublet is ready, and so in exchange for being so nice and letting me stay here (his roomies, not just him), I decided to make an authentic Vietnamese dinner for his peeps. Since I had a lot of time on my hands (there were no BarBri classes that day and of course I didn't feel like studying), I got ambitious and decided to make some wontons to freeze for dinner on another night.



Ingredients for my version of Vietnamese Eggrolls:

1 pound ground pork
1/2 pound ground shrimp
1 can crab meet
1 package bean threads, soaked and revived
1 small package shredded, black fungus mushroom, soaked and revived
1 shredded carrot
2 egg
salt and pepper
1 package eggroll wrapper skins.

Cooking Instructions:
Mix all ingredients (minus 1 egg and wrapper skins) together in a big bowl. Add a dash of salt and pepper for taste. With the remaining egg, separate the yolk into a bowl and save the egg whites for later consumption. Separate the eggroll skins and start wrapping the eggrolls, using the egg yolk to seal the roll towards the end of your rolling process. If you need a visual demonstration, click here (not my demonstration though). In a deep pan or pot, heat up some vegetable oil (at least an inch high of oil in the pot) on medium-high heat. Drop the eggrolls in and let fry for 7-10 minutes until golden brown. Since I am a stickler for not eating pink any kind of meat, I like to do a taste test of one eggroll to make sure it's cooked before I removing that batch from the frying pan. Eat alone as an appetizer, or add vermiccilli and salad for a meal.


Ingredients for my wonton recipe:

1/2 pound pork
1/2 pound shrimp, cut into small pieces (not necessarily grounded, but you could if you wanted to)
some scallions
a piece of ginger
dash of soy sauce
wonton skins

Cooking instructions:
mix all the ingredients together, add some soy sauce to the mixture for taste. Separate the wonton skins and put about a spoonful of filling into each wonton. Use water to seal the wontons. If eating right away, you can cook the wontons by boiling it until the wontons float to the top of the water, or steam it until the meat is cooked (again, do the taste test of one wonton to ensure the batch is ready to eat). You can also fry the wonton in inch deep oil. If not eating right away, make sure the wontons, put the plate of wontons into the freezer. After an hour or two of freezing, you can separate the wontons and put in ziplock bag for easier storage.

little dog vs. big bone

Remember our favorite little puppy, Beau? He's still sleeping on beds, but I have to tell you another story about this adorable little mutt.

Beau likes to chew on EVERYTHING and he chews it to a pulp. Give him a tennis ball and an hour later, all the threads will be off and it will also probably be flat. Give him one of those rope thingys from the pet store and an hour later there will be remnants of it hanging from his mouth. Even when we go to the pet store and ask for an indestructible chew toy for a large dog, Beau will conquer the indestructibility after three hours or so.

Louise and I like to give Beau chew treats, something that he can chew on and be able to eat it without the fear that he's swallowing some non-digestible stuff (like nylon cords). Every so often, we'll get him some pig ears to chew on, or I get him one of these mighty bones, and it'll keep him busy for at least an hour.

Well, Louise decided to give him this giant hunker of a rawhide bone hoping that he'll spend the next month chewing on it instead of chewing on our socks.

I believe Beau has finally met his match. He was very intimidated by the size of the bone, and wasn't sure what to do with it. He kept carrying it from one end of the house to the other, all the while leaning to one side as he's walking because the bone was so damn big. It made for some funny entertainment watching him carry the giant bone.

I haven't seen him since last week, and The Boy and I are about to visit his mother for the weekend. So I'll have to report again and let you know if Beau has made any progress on this massive chew toy.

random food pics

These were from more "final farewell" dinners in KC.

This onion blossom was from Texas Roadhouse. Although I don't like onions, this was just pretty to look at. I still kinda wonder how they cut the onion, batter it and still keep the onion intact upon removing it from the deep fryer.

This image is what The Boy and I ordered for dinner from Buca di Beppo - yep, that's dinner for two, TWO, people. And yep, we had leftovers - lots of it. And I didn't even take a picture of the pitcher of sangria that the two of us downed in about 15 minutes. What can I say? We were celebrating my graduation!

korean food goodness

Sorry it's been a while, but I was busy finishing up law school and graduation and moving and all. So, yeah, been kinda busy.

Anyways, I just have a moment before The Boy comes back from moving the car. So here are some pictures of my last Korean meal in KC (from Choga Restaurant):





You're right, this cheesecake isn't Korean cuisine. We had to get some dessert afterwards at the Cheesecake Factory.

healthy exam food eating

It's exam time and I haven't been eating very well. Also, since I'm moving soon, I don't want to fill my fridge with any more food. So, let's just say I've been eating out a lot.

Today, however, I needed to get some milk, so that meant I needed to go to the grocery store. I also needed to get some more packing tape and some duct tape, so I needed to get to the store eventually anyway.

I saw this very pretty flowering bush as I was walking to the grocery store. Unfortunately I only had my camera phone with me so I couldn't take a really good picture. The picture might have been prettier if I had my digital and I was able to use the macro function.

As I got closer to the grocery store, I noticed more and more people walking towards that direction. Why is this odd? Because it's Kansas City and people usually are driving everywhere, not walking. Turns out there was the annual art fair and people were parking far away and had to walk to the art fair.

So, after I finished shopping for my duct tape/packing tape and milk, and some other things I picked up along the way, I stopped by the food stands at the art fair and bought myself an Italian sausage.
It was a GIANT sausage - it was literally an inch thick. But it was good to munch on while I was waiting for the bus to take me and my groceries home.

And now back to studying.

One more exam left, and just a 20 page paper to finish up. After that, I just need to finish packing up my life, and then I'm outta here!