Catching Up: Kristy's Birthday, Boston

Another month goes by... It's amazing how quickly time flies when you're working your butt off...

Last week, I was down in Boston to assist a Seminars for Success, a program that my company gives alongside with Google to teach businesses how to properly utilize tools like Google Analytics, AdWords and Website Optimizer. I flew out on Sunday afternoon and arrived in Boston around 6PM. The weather was beautiful, just like Ottawa when I left. The only difference was that the temperature was a bit cooler (in Ottawa it was 33 degrees with some humidity while in Boston it was ~20 with no humidity). That was the start of a week long of training, but it was enjoyable :)

Boston is a beautiful city, I wish I stayed longer to venture the city some more...

Some highlights from this trip:

• All the positive feedback from the attendees! Some of them event made a comment on the CP Facebook page and on Twitter. A lot of them just spoke up to me while the seminar was running. 
• Dinner at the Legal Sea Foods in the Prudential Mall! 
• Dinner at Wagamama! 
• Dinner at Myers & Chang with my co-worker, ordered Tofu Steak in Soba noodles, mmMM!
• Dinner at  Hamersley's Bistro and had Spring Rabbit with Persian Spiced Chickpeas, Preserved Lemon, Green Peas and Pistachios

It's funny, I look back and notice that most of the highlights were of food :) Yes... go to Boston to eat!

In the midst of my trip, I knew our 5 months was approaching. Pretending that I had forgotten (she claims I forget about everything… sometimes I do), the moment we got onto Skype I said "Happy 5 months!". We spoke for an hour before I crashed at midnight.

Kristy's Birthday Surprise

When I make a promise, I try my best to stick with it. On Vancouver trip, I made a promise to Kristy that I would bring dinner to her on her birthday. Realizing later on that it wasn't possible to hand make or deliver food to her dorm, I needed to think up another way to get food to her room. I will admit, I did some searching around for ideas and even asked a few friends, which in the end I pieced a few things together and came up with the card + pen + video + food delivery gift. 

I told her to not open the card until it was her birthday. But in the midst of her party, she went back to her room so I could sing happy birthday to her. At the moment, I told her to open her present. She knew what pen I gave her, and she smiled at the card, and cried watching my video. 

I made a boo boo in making the video, and she became upset because I had forgotten. Sorry. But I know your tears were of happiness ones, I hope :) 

The next day (her actual birthday), dinner was delivered to her and we had dinner together (it was 6:30PM her time, and 9:30PM my time). Dinner came from Candia Tavern, and she got Lamb Chops. She didn't even put a dent on the food by the end of it. Disappointing. 

Look, she's happy :) Happy birthday baby!

Until next time...

[Recipe] Normandy Fish Stew with Mussels

Mmmmmmm what is that!? Well... you'll find out...

Last night, I decided to cook a nice dish for Kristy for the first time. The plan was Normandy Fish Stew. It turned out that we ended up eating dinner fairly late, but nonetheless, we satisfied our stomachs with this delicious dish.

Facts about this dish: "This fish stew from northern France, sometimes called Marmite Dieppoise, is a great comfort food meal"

For those who want to make this "awesome dish" you can follow the recipe linked above, but if you cannot find all those ingredients, I will share with you how you could improvise and still get a good tasting dish that you can serve straight out from your own kitchen. Sound like plan? Ok... you'll need the following:

• 2lbs mussels , cleaned and debearded (discard any that don't close when tapped on the sink)
• 500ml white wine (Reisling)
• large knob of butter
• 2 leeks , cleaned and sliced (you can even go 3 because typically they come in bunches of 3)
• 227g sliced white mushrooms
• 150ml sour cream 14%
• 2 cod fillet
• small bunch flat-leaf parsley, chopped

Cook it the same way as instructed, and you will get the following results;

Serve it with some soft and heated bread @ 350F for 5 mins, and you're good to go! Pour a glass of red wine if you really want to go all out on this meal :)

Girlfriend surprises with a break in to my unit

It's been a busy week while the GF was back in town. Her visit came by a big surprise as I thought I wasn't going to see her until April in Vancouver =O The surprise was a pleasant one :)

When I came home last Friday night (feb 10), I nearly freaked out when I unlocked my door and realized that my unit was completely dark, and that my balcony door was opened. I scented that there was something cooking in the kitchen, but rather it was a sort of burnt smell. Then on goes the lights and she appears. My jaws dropped and asked 'what the hell' (in a happy way). It appears as thought she picked up my brother's pair of keys from Mike earlier that day, and that is how she broke in. Clever... didn't see any of it coming.

From Instagram: "Feb 10 - GF surprised me with a visit from Vancouver. She broke into my unit and nearly caused me to shit my pants (not really). Then she prepared a delicous meal :) Baked scallops in white wine sauce with organic wheat pasta. Roasted pears and Canadian cheese torta salad. Mm mm! Love you!"

I guess the fright was worth it, because the meal was delicious and I didn't have to make myself dinner :p thanks babe!

[Recipe] A Yummy Recipe: Sweet n' Sour Pork

Due to popular demand, I'm sharing my recipe on how to make Sweet n' Sour pork (not really mine). This dish is great for any occasion; anywhere, any time and served with anything! I made the sauce for this dish with ketchup in the past. But here, it works a little differently and I find the ingredients for the sauce here tastier! :) **there is a video at the end on how to make this - that's how I learnt. But given there is no written instructions, I thought I'd write one out for you to print and stick on your fridges :) I've also added a bonus ingredient if you wanted to add a bit of variety to your dish!

What you'll need:

• 1 lb pork loin
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup water
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup vinegar (apple cider is fine - that's the one I use)
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 tsp cornstarch
• fresh pineapple

Step 1: cut your pork loin into bite-size

Step 2: make the batter:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup water
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp salt

Stir and beat until batter smooths. You don't need to wait for it to sit for an hour (he said so in the video but you don't need to wait... at least I didn't!).

Step 3: in a large bowl, throw in your pork, pour the batter in and mix it with your hands.

Step 4: now it is time to fry the pork. Have a large enough pan and oil. Drop in each battered pork into the pan one at a time and let it fry! It will take around 12-15 minutes. Once you notice that it is golden brown, remove it from the pan and set it aside.

Step 5: making the Sweet n Sour *secret* Sauce:

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup vinegar (apple cider is fine - that's the one I use)
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 tsp cornstarch

Stir all the above in a pan until it dissolved. Have the pan over the stove on low-medium speed. All we want first is for everything to melt and dissolve. One that happens, you'll notice that the sauce is still quite liquidy. Turn the heat up until the sauce boils/bubbles. This will help thicken the sauce. Turn it off once you see it bubbling, it should be good by then.

Step 6: pour the sauce over the pork once it is ready.

Step 7: SERVE and EATTTT!!!

*BONUS* Step: this would come in BEFORE YOU POUR THE SAUCE... dice up some fresh pineapples and add it to the heated sauce. Pineapples are a nice addition to sweet n sour pork. Serve and eat! :)

Here is the video that I followed to make this dish. If you are a visual person like myself, then you'll probably follow this. The bonus step is not in there and I've outlined my process, not exactly how he does it in the video.

Please leave comments if you've tried making it and it was a success. If you have a different way of making it, I'd like to hear from you as well! :)

BON APPETITE!

Sundays are not 'lazy days'... as it turns out

I'd like call Sundays the 'lazy day' of the week, but it is soooo not true! If I'm not working, I always find I can preoccupy myself with something around the house. Today was a good day in that I managed to clean all the rooms around my unit, do laundry, buy groceries, cook and start on "Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson". Also, this was a good weekend because the weather permitted with warmth and lots of sun! :)

But of course, with all the good, there's also the bad. I've developed a bit of a pet peeve, and that is 'unresponsive texting'. Unresponsive texting happens when you're having a nice conversation over text message (at that very moment) with someone and all of a sudden, a single closed ended question leaves you in the dark waiting for a response. Sound familiar? It happened tonight after I asked (another) friend to come over for dinner. Not getting any answer as to whether or not she was going to come or not, made me waste consider amounts of time for whether I should cook then or later... It may be my fault that I didn't take it a step further to make the call, but it has happened one too many times that I can say it is a bit annoying. Still no response... Well... I'll just leave it at that.

I invited one of my close friends over for dinner and cooked him quite a 'big' meal. I went out to grab groceries today at Loblaws and bought everything I needed to make beef stew :) ... yes, one step close to making the boeuf bourguignon. Anyways... I tried a couple new things tonight and I'll share with you what I made here... maybe it will quench your taste buds and get you back into the pitching cooking something delicious for yourself :)

Dishes:

• Pork loin in steak sauce
• Garlic lemon tilapia fish
• Boiled broccoli, carrots and mushrooms
• Left over Romanian salad
• White rice

I marinated the pork last night in preparation for tonight's meal. I find the taste in an meat that need to be marinated will taste A LOT better if you give it 12+ hours in a ziplock bag in sauce before it hits the pan. I like to fry the meet until it is golden coloured and burnt a bit on the outside. If your meat is thick, consider sliding it onto a tray and into the oven for 5-10 minutes to make sure the meat is cooked through well. The pork will have enough flavour from the steak sauce... so I would say, eat the pork without BBQ sauce.

The garlic lemon tilapia fish I took out from the freezer this morning to thaw out. This dish is quite simple, and I've already cooked this dish 3 times already, so I think I've gotten quite 'good' at this dish ;) Give each one of the fish a good run under the tap, then pat it down with a paper towel to get rid of the excess water. Afterwards, place the fish on the pan that will go into the oven (make sure you cover the pan with tin foil and spray oil over it to prevent it from sticking). Squeeze some lemon juice onto the fish, add some melted butter over the fish, minced garlic, and finally touch it up with some parsley flakes. Your tilapias are now ready to go into the 375 pre-heated oven for 30 minutes.

The boiled vegetables were simple to make. Get about 2 inches of water and get it to boil before adding your vegetables in. Add a bit of canola oil to the water prior to putt your vegetables in. Sprinkle some salt into the water to give it a bit of flavour :)

Rice is self explanatory :) Bon appetite!

Julie & Julia - what's for dinner?

I spoke to a friend over Skype last night and our conversation ventured down a path about food. She suggested I watch Julie & Julia starring Amy Adams and Meryl Streep. The movie was based on TWO true stories. There were three takeaways from that movie; (1) if you hate your job, look for something you love and quitting your job a goal (2) accomplishing something requires perseverance and commitment and (3) Jackson needs to learn how to cook better!

I watched the movie in my room, on my computer, with a bowl of Ramen with egg and lettuce. Afterwards I had a Romanian salad a potato I baked. It was sad I know...

The famous dish in the movie was Boeuf Bourguignon. It was cooked maybe 3-4 times in the movie and everytime it looked amazingly delicious! I'll be ordering Julia Child's cook book just for that recipe... now it's a matter of figuring out which volume that recipe is in :p

Back to the cooking I did tonight (not much cooking really...)...

The potato turned out very good!

• One potato
• 80 minutes
• 350 degrees

The Romanian salad I kept simple:

• Romanian lettuce
• Dice tomatoes
• Carrots
• Balsamic dressing

Another friend suggested I try making Double baked potato, and that I only got part marks for making a regular potato... ok... next project! haha :)

Garlic Lemon Chicken Breast with no Garlic

More chicken... Decided to try something new tonight... I had two chicken breasts sitting in my fridge after thawing it 3 days ago and thought it would be a good time to cook it before it goes bad.

Ingredients:

• 2 chicken breasts
• salt, pepper, parsley, paprika
• lemon squeezed juice

Directions:

• 375 degrees Celsius
• 40 minutes

I also heated up the leftover pork and rice I had the other nice. Mixed in some fried mushrooms and scrabbled eggs :)

Chicken wings for halloween weekend

Decided to take Saturday lightly after club hopping on Friday night... Studio nightclub then to Tila. So we decided to bake chicken wings... were they ever good :p

It's not as complicated as it seems...

Ingredients:

• Wholesale pack at Costco of chicken wings - what you see here is only 40 wings, there is more in my freezer :)
• Diana Honey Garlic sauce
• BBQ Hot Wing sauce

Directions:

• 25 minutes @ 425 degrees Celsius

finally... SERVE!! :)

Got your own recipe? Share it with me in the comments below :)