frying games

Looky what I got as the latest addition to my kitchen gadgets!



I was so excited to try it out, the first thing I made were eggrolls (my recipe here). So here is my leaning tower of eggrolls waiting to take a plunge in the deep fryer.




I was actually able to stick in about a dozen eggrolls in one basket for frying.



Deliciousness!


That was such a good dinner! I'll have to make it again soon.


The one thing I learned from this first deep frying experience is to buy a gallon size bottle of oil. Why? Because I grossly underestimated how much oil was needed for the MINIMUM fill line, and I had to run out and buy more oil. I probably would know how much oil is needed if I had read the instructions that came along with the deep fryer but who has time to read the user's manual when there are goodies to be deep fried?!

Also, after the deep frying goodness, I left the oil to cool down overnight. In the morning, when I went to pour the oil back into the bottles for disposal, the oil was still very clear and actually looked good for reusing because all the fried sediments were at the bottom of the pan. I wasn't sure if you could actually reuse the oil, so I googled it. And guess what? You can reuse frying oil - see here. So at least that saves you from buying a gallon of oil every time you want to deep fry something.

And I think every food enthusiast should have a deep fryer in their kitchen. =)

crab feed

L & G, my west coast parents, have always raved about the crab feeds they go to every year. They know I love to eat crabs but every time the go to a crab feed, I've always been away at school. So now that I'm all done and gradumacated, I told them to sign me up for the next crab feed. And they did not disappoint. The actual crab feed, however, is another matter...

The crab feed we went to was sponsored by the Harley Davidson chapter of Vacaville, California. Hee-haw...oh wait, wrong group...um, what do bikers say? Anyways, I was the YOUNGEST person there and everyone else could have easily been my parents or even grandparents. It was a fun bunch of people though. L & G were so proud to introduce me as a brand new attorney and I just kept getting redder and redder.

Well, here's the set-up of the table:

As you can see, there's a nice big bucket for the crab shell disposal. And a lot of people brought their own butter warmer contraptions. I like my crab meat au natural.

The dinner started with some salad, followed by spaghetti. I guess they wanted us to fill up on carbs to ensure that everyone would have enough crab to eat. They didn't fool. I passed up the salad and the spaghetti, waiting for the never ending crab that was promised to me.


Does this bowl of crab look so good? A bowl all to myself! Well, ok, not really...there was one bowl per table and we had to pass it around, but with the amount I ate, I probably did eat about an entire bowl's worth.


There was just one problem with this crab feed - the crab were cold. I mean, it was cooked and all, but then the crab was on ice until serving. I seem to be the only person at the table - the whole dining hall - to be disappointed that the crab was cold. Seriously, I don't think I ever ate cold crab meat (well, unless I took my sweet ass time picking the crab meat). The art of eating crab right from the shell is just a lot better when the crabs are steaming hot right from the pot. Or at least warm. I'll take warm. But cold? These people obviously don't know how much better a crab feed would have been if the crabs had come out hot.

With that said, I wasn't going to sit and not eat any crab, even if it was cold crab meat. So I sat and ate. I was the last person still cracking and picking at crab meat. I only had to stop because our server said there was no more crab left. And L didn't believe that I could eat that much crab - she thought I was going to be full before they ran out. I wasn't full. I was just satisfied. And that was fine by me.

There was also a raffle at the crab feed. G and I had bought $20 worth of raffle tickets (that's 20 tickets for the prize raffle and 20 tickets for the money raffle). We had three winning tickets for the prize raffle - winning three different bottles of wine from Napa and a bag of candles. We did not win the money raffle. All in all, it was fun, even if I did spend the evening with a room full of old people - who were all young at heart. =)

chai shai

My last meal during my KC visit was at Chai Shai, a cute little Pakastani place near the law school and the neighborhood where I used to live. This is my first time having Pakastani fare, so I was being a bit adventurous. And my first experience was pretty good. It's a little like Indian food, but not as intense and I didn't end up smelling like Indian food for the rest of the night.

This was their chickpea special of the night.

I had the chicken boti dinner, which was basically grilled chicken in some delicious spicy sauce.

If you're in the KCMO area, I would recommend this place, especially if you're looking for some non-BBQ food.

bass pro shop

During my visit to KCMO, D and I went to Bass Pro Shop, the Wal-Mart for outdoorsmen.

No, we didn't need to buy any hunting gear. Our intention was to go there for lunch, and then I could be the city girl who goes "ohmygosh - there's a stuffed bear!!" which I did for all of 15 minutes before the awe of taxidermy lost its appeal.

See, lots of pictures of stuffed animals!

Moosehead

Life size bear

Even little critters

Taxidermy in action

Not all things in this store were stuffed. There was a tank of live fish too.

And that fuzzy thing in the bottom right corner is the 103 lb Bessie.

After D finished leading me through the aisles of dead animals, we made it to our lunch spot, Fish Company Restaurant, where there were also fishies hanging from the ceiling, but they looked more plastic than stuffed.

Lunch was pretty good, but then fried food is always good.

Fresh bread from the oven with cinnamon sugar on top - OHHHH SOOOO GOOOD

Fish and chips - the fish was sweet and flaky, and did not taste a bit fishy.

Popcorn shrimp

Now I can say that I experienced all things country.

new year eats

My dear friend and law school classmate got married on New Year's Day (1.1.11). It was a touching ceremony and a beautiful reception, very simple but elegant. I didn't get a picture of the bride and groom, but I got plenty of pictures of the food!

The food was set up as a buffet style but instead of a long line of food, there were different stations with different food. So people easily got their food without having to wait too long in line at any one station.

The first was the appetizer table of cheese, crackers and artichoke dip. Me likes the artichoke dip.

This is a GREAT idea - the veggie tree:

It was a bit difficult to actually take the veggies off of the tree, but the presentation is so creative, so what if you can't eat it?

Salad martini glasses and puff pastry with beef (beef wellington?). The salad martini glasses is another creative way of serving salad!

The dessert bar - a chocolate fondue fountain with strawberries, pineapple bits, banana slices, rice crispy treats, and cream puffs for the dipping!

Isn't the groom's cake so adorable?

There was no wedding cake but lots of yummy vanilla and chocolate cupcakes, which sadly, I don't have a picture of. You can kinda see the chocolate cupcake in this photo. They look like Hostess cupcakes but the swigglies are in fact the letters C and V.

Oh wait, here's a pic of the lovely couple sharing their wedding cupcake!

Congratulations you two lovebirds!

gingerbread cookies

About a week before Christmas, I attempted to make gingerbread cookies from scratch. I found this recipe, which I thought looked pretty simple, from a Betty Crocker magazine. I got all the ingredients, mixed it together as instructed, and then put it in a ziplock bag to chill in the fridge before rolling the dough for cookie cutters. I noticed that the dough was really runny, which I thought was really odd.

So, as that gingerbread dough was cooling in the fridge, I started on mixing another batch of cookie dough for andes mint chocolate cookies (I was preparing cookie dough to bake an assortment of Christmas cookies for the office). When it came time to add flour to the mix, I realized I was holding in my hand a 1/2 cup measuring cup, and NOT 1 cup measuring cup. Then it clicked and I realized why the gingerbread dough was so runny - I had added only half the required amount of flour as I thought I was using the 1 cup measuring cup when in actuality, I was holding the 1/2 cup measuring cup in my hand. Oh well, so that gingerbread mix went in the trash.

I didn't attempt the gingerbread again. Instead, I was at Williams Sonoma and found this:

Gingerbread cookie mix! Just add eggs and butter - who can screw that up, right? I found the pair of gingerbread girl and boy cookie cutters at Crate and Barrel.

As an impromptu purchase, I also bought this fancier cookie cutter set from Williams Sonoma:



So, on Christmas Eve, all by lonesome in my apartment with the Christmas lights on and the TV blaring "A Christmas Story", I made me some gingerbread cookies.

After the cookies cooled down, I started putting on some expressions on these cute little guys.

And looky at my gingerbread family! =)

I picked out all the pretty ones to bring to Christmas Dinner with my roommate's family.

These gingerbread cookies and this apple pie below were a great hit at dinner.

And I still have a bag of the "ugly" gingerbread kids (wherein my frosting work wasn't the greatest) sitting on the counter. I can't believe I'm saying this, but no more cookies for me. Well, at least until next year. =)

$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...