Cotton soft Japanese cheesecake

Two years ago I tried a recipe I found on Japanese cotton soft cheesecake and well, it was a disaster. It was like an eggier version of an omelet only sweet. Yes, that bad. I eluded the idea of making it, I was convinced that Asian desserts are just not my thing. No, seriously, I don't think I'm very good with them. There are a few I can proudly say I'm great at, but for the most part, well, I suck at them. I can conquer a good number of European and American desserts easy, but not Asian. I would say it's probably the measurement. Grams to ounces to the laziness of just buying a dang scale all equate to that.

Tonight though, while perusing around my kitchen trying to decide whether to make donuts or brioche, I discovered in my refrigerator what appeared to be a box of cream cheese slightly opened. It was probably my dad that was over for the weekend. I love him to death, but he ignored my spreadable cream cheese and went for the what's meant for pumpkin cheesecake cream cheese. I needed to use it, one, because I'd hate to procrastinate on that cheesecake plan, two, I can't stand looking at that box. I was all pumpkined out from Thanksgiving so I made cotton soft cheesecake. I'm not particularly a huge cheesecake fan anyway, unless it's blueberry, or mango, or blueberry mango.

I used a cake pan for this seeing as I'm still traumatized by the last experience, but I only filled it halfway. Last time I used a spring form pan which was not properly sealed. Duh, it's not a regular cake, I should have filled it all the way. I ended up using 2 pans but it's ok. I had a chance to brutalize the other one by using pastry cutters and stencils on it.

Now I'm not yet going to publish the recipe for this because I wasn't too happy. I looked at a few recipes and none of them were sweet enough. Nothing like the ones I've had from the Asian markets. It's good, but needs more sugar. I'm glad though I added vanilla this time around unlike last time. I was afraid to add more sugar though because I didn't want the batter to fall. Seeing as it's a bit of a forgiving mix, I'll sweeten it up a bit next time.

I love it though, it wasn't eggy like my first attempt. I'm going to give it another go sometime this week or next. I have matcha green tea coming and maybe I'll make a green tea version of it. 

For now, I'll enjoy this. I'm actually sort of glad I put my batter in 2 pans because I know no one else would share a Hello Kitty stenciled cheesecake with me in this house. 

Consumed by Thanksgiving week

I've been super busy as the rest of America this week. I started Thanksgiving week with a lumpia contest where I lost. Whomp, whomp. Oh well, maybe next year I'll try again. It was super cool to be in a TV Station though. I've never been on TV (well, not a TV studio. I've been on the news before. No, not because I committed a crime! My opinions apparently needed to be heard by the bay area).

I'm going to blame my loss on the fact that Walmart didn't carry any cilantro the day before and I had to use dried cilantro. I never use dried herbs unless it's bay leaves or oregano. Oh, also, I didn't bring sauce since they said no sauce necessary, I'll bring sauce next time. Lesson learned. Thank you again though to all the people that supported me. You guys are the best group of friends a girl can have.

Well, these were the lumpias I used for the competition. I entered a bit too cocky for my own good, but this has been a faithful recipe for me. We'll try again and hopefully reap better results next time.

For now, I'm doing my favorite winter activity which is knitting and crocheting. I've created some ear warmers as a Christmas gift for a friend's daughters and I'm making a cowl neck scarf inspired by a $60 Gap scarf. There was no way anyone can make me pay for that much money for $6 worth of yarn. 

Cooking will be put on hold for now as I have a ton of Thanksgiving leftovers to go through. Also, it's that time of the year that we will be eating out of the pantry. I have apparently been TOO prepared for winter time. I am of course in a baking kick. I've got some ideas and hoping to get great treats. I'm going to have to run again after this bake-a-thon.

Persimmon cookies

Persimmons are one of those fruits that I would tolerate if present, but not exactly crave it. I mean, don't get me wrong, I will eat them. I usually get them from my parents that get the Costco boxes of them, but I'm never one to just grab a few of them on my own. My friend gave me some and I've been wanting to try out persimmon cookies. I heard they make a pumpkin like type of cookie. I researched several recipes, couldn't really find one I fancy too much so I made these. They didn't come out as flat as I wanted them to be, but they came out very cake like. It might be because my persimmons weren't super ripe yet. I'm going to try this same recipe when my persimmons fully ripen. Try it out and let me know what you think.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 cup persimmon puree (I just pulsed the persimmons in the food processor. It took 2 persimmons to achieve the measurement)
2 cups of flour
1 tsp cloves
1 tsp nutmeg
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup pecans or walnuts
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup zante currants*

*I like currants a lot, but if you only have raisins, it's ok too.

Preheat the over 350F

Cream the sugar and butter together in the mixer, add the egg and once combined, add the persimmon puree and vanilla. put in all the dry ingredients except for the nuts and raisins (and currants if you want). Just mix until the flour is combined with the wet ingredients, but stopping midway to scrape the bottom. Once the dough is mixed, put the rest of the ingredients and mix again till all the nuts and fruit are incorporated.

On a lightly greased cookie sheet, spoon the dough in rounds and bake for 15 minutes. Remove from pan and cool on a cooling rack.

I survived my first 5k

Back in the summer I decided I was going to start running. I was never a good runner before, but I needed to do something about my post-pregnancy body.  The most I've done since picking up the routine is run for 31 minutes straight but I've only reached about 2.2-2.4 miles with that time. I average about a 14 minute mile, not bad, but not great either. I ran last Monday and for 38 minutes, I only did 2.8 miles. I had this 5k run today and well, 5k is 3.1 miles so I was trying to figure out how in the world I was going to make it under my 40 minute goal. My plan was to run about two-thirds of it then run/walk/run the rest of it. Basically, by the time I reach my usual 25-30 minute straight run, I'll take it a little easy. I didn't plan for this weather though.

Yes, it was raining and it was 46 degrees out.

 My wonderful friend Lisa tried her best to get me to run the whole time, but the rain, was weighing my poor choice of an outfit down and I can feel my lungs piercing in pain. She was such a trooper and have been my partner with running. I really do wish I ran the whole thing with her. When I reached the end all I heard was 53! 53 minutes? Seriously? I just about felt like a failure until the girl that was smart enough to bring a watch with her told me it was 37.50. So 37.50 for my 5k meant I just shaved off a minute and added .3 miles on my run.

There were things I learned in my first 5k:

-I need to invest in those spandex running outfits.
-The windbreaker pants and fleece jacket are a bad idea for a run that's going to be in the rain. Well, probably any run.
-I need a reliable watch.
-There has to be a way I can figure out how to breathe better while running so I don't cramp faster.
-I want to be the girl in the hot pink spandex outfit running pretty next time.

The gobble wobbles did great, we all finished  between 32-38 minutes (I was last, ha!). I want to do another one and hopefully, by that time I can run all 5k. I can walk away from this knowing I finished under my goal and sticking to my plan actually worked.

3/4 of our Gobble Wobbles team. 

I'm semi-capable of using photoshop! yay!

I had to finish a photo session I had with my friend today. I needed to take birthday pictures to put in the invitation and thank you cards. I took this as an opportunity to finally learn how to use photo shop. I have a confession to make; even though I've had ps 7.0 installed in my computer since I've had my camera, I have barely grazed over it. I feel like my brain just doesn't connect with it. I've been post-processing my photos via picasa. *covers face in shame*

Today though I finally figured out how to use some actions, apply some things I do know and I think I did pretty ok for what I knew and for how much time I wasted unzipping files. Yes, I'm also zip file challenged. Darn computers are getting too complicated nowadays.

One of Derick's photos for his portraits.

Mr. Bert- taken back in March. I took the photo to use as an entry for a photo contest. I re-enhanced it and gave it a little bit of a retro feel. It makes him look like he's gentle. Don't be fooled, please. 

My Elliott, The love of my life. This photo was also posted on another entry the other day. It felt like it needed something else, although, I'll gloat and say that my son's smile is just to die for. I melt. 

I know, Thanksgiving hasn't even come yet

It's actually pretty late for me to wait till November to put up a Christmas tree. Back when I was a kid, we always put up the tree once October starts. That's when the Christmas season starts in the Philippines. We LOVE Christmas there. Part of the reason too was because we don't have Thanksgiving. People that do procrastinate wait till after all soul's day, November 2nd, to put up their tree. This is a sort of compromise for me to put up the tree one week before Thanksgiving.

We wanted to do a real tree this year, but our male cat, Bert, is a sort of knucklehead. He can't help but attack any kind of topiary or potted plant. I had envisioned a cat stuck in the middle of the tree hanging on to dear life. We pulled out our pre-lit tree instead and set it up. It's for the cat's sake.

I try to do a different color scheme every year, but we have our traditional ornaments too. I can't decorate a tree to save my life, but I try. I kind of just slapped them all there. I bought a new star to top the tree this year. I got  a capiz shell star at Target for $20. That was my biggest splurge. I reused my crystal snowflakes my Mom and I have accumulated over the years. We go to Macy's after Christmas and buy whatever they have left at a super discounted price. The only other addition I had was the garland, that's obviously not ample enough for $6.99, and the round plastic ornaments for a pack of 50 for $15.99, both also from Target. I might go back to the store again to get another one of those garlands to add some more oomph to my tree. 

This year, I've been seasonally changing my mantle in the living room. I don't overdo it and I use very inexpensive fixes to do it. I probably only use about $20 or under to make them over. This is what it looked like for Halloween.

And now like this for the Holidays. The only addition I added to this was the "Merry Christmas" sign from that cost $3 and the bow, $1, both from Target (are you sensing a pattern here?). I reused everything else. It was just a matter of looking around the house. See, that wasn't even $20. That was a splurge of $4 for my winter mantle.

The wreath was easy to make. Just a book that's been weathered enough, any type of sturdy and plain wreath, and hot glue to put the whole thing together. I've seen several styles, I've been obsessing on designs @ The Inspired Room.

The books were antique finds of mine from an Antique mall, along with the chiropodist sign. Yeah, chiropody is the last thing you think about when someone says Christmas, but it matched, and well, the sign is funny. Everything else was what I dug out of my Christmas bin.

I bought those apothecary jars when we first bought our house. They were empty before, then I placed those pumpkins and Indian corn in them. I like seeing them filled now. I think I might have bought them at Marshall's. I just filled them with ornaments that I didn't feel like putting up or some of the plastic ornaments we just bought weren't pierced well enough for an ornament hook so I just tossed them in there. The Noel sign is a hand me down from my mom. It's the oddest thing ever, it's bristles with pearls. If you look at my tree close enough, I have snowflake ornaments made out of the same material.

So now I blog here, enjoying the warmth of the house and the glimmer of the tree. It's Christmas in my house already and I love it. It makes life easier and happier and I feel like there's nothing that can weigh me down. I probably have a couple more projects to do. See, isn't it great to decorate early? There's room for a lot of projects. 

What's so bad about SPAM anyway?

It's old news, I know, but I was irked how carnival cruise lines denied the fact that their passengers were served SPAM. I get how it can be gross out of the can, but why deny it? I'm in love with spam, but it's probably mostly because I'm Filipino and I grew up on this stuff. Let's just put it this way, SPAM is as common a site to Asians as pickles are to hamburgers for Americans. We love this stuff, and we know the majority of mainland America is boggled by it. Hawaii loves it. I'm still boggled by jars and jars of gigantic pickled cucumber, so I understand why it's so freaky.

Spam is so versatile though, there's spamburgers, grilled cheese and spam, and the classic fried rice, eggs and spam. I'm usually a particularly healthy shopper going with mostly organic, but I do cave. I cave for 3 things, longganisa (which are Filipino breakfast sausages), red hotdogs (again, an oddity of Filipino grocery items) and SPAM.

Since part of me was offended by the Carnival Spamcation denial, I had to celebrate the deliciousness that shoulder pork ham is. Also, I had Chinese steam noodles (which highly resemble Japanese soba noodles, which could be the same) that needed to be used. I made Spam Saimin. It's also a quick lunch and I needed to feed the hungry boys. I was crocheting the whole day and lost track of time. Quickie lunches are the best.

If you've never tried Spam, you might want to give this a try. What's the worst that can happen? Ha, yeah, you just ate shoulder pork ham. It's good and you know it, don't even deny it. 

Spam Saimin

4 cups of chicken stock

2 cups of water

1 package Chinese steamed noodles or Japanese soba noodles

1 tsp grated ginger

2-3 tbsp soy sauce

2 tsp fish sauce

Salt and pepper to taste

1 romaine lettuce chopped into small pieces

3 spring onions, bias-sliced

1 can of spam lite (I like it better because it's not as overpowering as regular spam, unless you like all the sodium goodness. I like to believe I'm bettering myself), chopped into 1/2 inch cubes

*other additions can be scrambled eggs, tofu, chicken, mushrooms, peas (it's really a find what's in the pantry meal)

In a pot, combine stock, water, noodles, ginger, soy sauce, fish sauce, pepper and lettuce. Bring pot to boiling stage or just until the noodles are tender. Taste to see if it's salty enough, either add more soy sauce, fish sauce or salt. Don't make it too salty though because remember, Spam is salty on its own.

In another pan, preferably a non-stick pan, brown the spam. You'll see a golden brown glisten to it. That's when you know it's done.

To assemble, place noodles and broth in a bowl. Top it with fried spam and spring onions. Then you'll realize you just fell in-love with Spam. You'll either love me or hate me for this.

*I dedicate this entry to my friend Lisa, whom I have both disturbed and amazed by the foreign substance, Spam.

When weekends are weekdays

My days are over the place. I have to constantly check my celphone to see what day it is. I'm glad this guy is around to keep me company whenever we're having one of those stagnant days.

It was a really beautiful fall day in California yesterday.

We have no cloud in sight, but the winds are all over the place. My house would fly away if I extended my awning right now.

So, what day is it today? I know what kind though; hot, humid and windy. 

Pulido Family Photos

I took one of my friend's family portraits today. I of course wish I could have done better. For the time we had, and with the allergies their cutie son had for the day, I ended up with 18 gorgeous photos. Their son is also one of my son's best friends, so this family is like family to us too.

 I'm beefing up my portfolio that's why I've been taking photos of my friends' families. This is my second one in the past 2 months and I'm learning techniques I like and mistakes I want to avoid. I'm still debating if the photography thing is something I want to do professionally. It's definitely something I like as a hobby. My cheap canon xs works great for me and this hobby and I'm glad I have friends that let me take their pictures. Here are some of my favorites from this set.

Bistek (thin sliced beef steak)

I finally got my Coq Au Riesling marinating. That will be fore tomorrow though. Tonight, I only had time to make bistek for husband's lunch. I don't make it often, mostly because I think my mom does it way better than I do. I bought a bottle of soy sauce with kalamansi (a type of citrus) mixed in it already. I wish I only used half of the amount I did and used mostly regular soy sauce. 

Now I have my rules with soy sauce. I do buy the kikkoman, or lately, I've been getting the Tamari brand. I only use those for my other Asian cuisines. For Filipino cooking, I stick to the the Datu Puti or Silver Swan brands. They're easy to find, I've seen them in commissaries and even regular grocery stores. It's essential to Filipino food, the soy sauce just tastes a lot different than the wider brands. 

This is a dish best served with rice. The soy makes it particularly very salty, but then you'll only need bits of meat to make the rice super delicious. I used thinly sliced chuck beef. I bought it pre-sliced, but it's not hard to slice it thin either on your own. 

Ingredients:

1/2 cup water

2/3 cup soy sauce (datu puti or silver swan brand)

juice of half a lemon

zest of half a lemon

1 tbsp sugar

2 tsp pepper

2 cloves of garlic, smashed

1 large red onion, sliced in half, then sliced thinly

1 tbsp basil, chopped

1/2 lb to 1 lb chuck steak, sliced thinly

Combine all ingredients, except for the onion and basil, in a container. I used a ziploc bag. Marinate the meat in the marinade for 4 hours or overnight. Once ready to cook, put about 1 tbsp vegetable oil in a pan. Drain the marinade from the meat, reserving the liquid. On medium high heat, toss the meat and half of the onions in the pan.

Saute the meat and onions. When the meat is getting browner and the onions are tender, pour half of the marinade in. Let the liquid reduce to half, then place the rest of the marinade. Let it reduce almost halt the original amount again. Tadah! Bistek is done. Place it in your ideal serving dish.

I have a basil plant I planted from a bunch I bought at a farmer's market. It's now a happy plant in my kitchen. I added some of it. It's not a traditional Filipino cuisine ingredient but the soy sauce color drives me crazy. It's so bland and brown. Plus, I like adding herbs to everything. They do make food fresher, plus, my basil needed a little trimming.

I finely chopped the basil and I sliced the rest of that onion paper thin.



Top the bistek with the basil and sliced onions.

Serve it with rice. Please serve it with rice! It's not the same without it.

Now this is a bit of a salty dish. A little bit goes a long way, but MMM, white rice is very happy to know bistek as a friend. It's a friendship you don't want to miss out on.

March, march.

August 2009 was when we found out that my husband was finally getting promoted to Staff Sergeant. He found out while he was on a week long duty in Georgia. When he came back, he needed to do some formality and Airman Leadership School was one of them. One of the things they had to do was march for the
Veteran's day parade. It went so successfully, he decided to volunteer again this year.

I woke-up really early this year though. Part of it was anxiousness, part of it was because I was home alone. This year was different. I started with some tribute videos for service members and it was a sure fire way to just start with the water works. My son also picked out his outfit and he was so excited about the fact that he gets to wear his Air Force kid shirt. He's been so giddy and so proud about the fact that Daddy is in the Air Force. It warms my heart and breaks it at the same time because I know just how much of a whiplash military kids get. My kid is particularly one of the luckiest because he sees his dad daily. He was looking for him tonight after we came home from a friend's house, and I just explained how he'll see him tomorrow morning. That's a dream for a lot of kids out there of course.

Yesterday, Brian went to work Wednesday, came home Thursday then just ate breakfast, put on his unform again, then hopped in the car to drive downtown. The crowd was wonderful and brought tears to my eyes the moment they clapped loudly as the airmen, one of which was my husband, marched perfectly in sync down the street. My son waved his flag proudly and my friend's niece exclaimed "I love how their feet march all at the same time!"

Three and a half hours after he came home from work, drove to go on formation, marched at the parade, it was time to go home again. He was welcomed by a broken closet door in my son's room and by the time he was done, he's been up 22 hours straight. Even though Air Force duty was done, dad duty couldn't wait. He was running on fumes and a can of energy drink. He was up for that long because he needed to do a job for his country, provide for his family so we can eat, and seriously, the warmth from the community was a great enough thank you to him and to us as well because it makes all this worth it.

We survive this lifestyle with ample support from family, friends and one another, and without it we'd be a wreck. We would crack more often than not. Having a positive yet realistic outlook also helps. There is no perfect schedule, no perfect base, no perfect command, not even assignment. It's just making the best of what's given to you. It's all the key to survival to this military life. My husband has been gone for months, he's been gone for hours, sometimes just days. It's not miserable, but it's hard, but looking at it as some sort of punishment will just make the hours and months longer and less tolerable. If I complained about anything and everything that came my way, I wouldn't get anything out of it. Seriously, I get enough gray hair from stressing over my own schedule. I'm due to dye my hair again.

Being in the military is like buying a house for a family. There will be that wishlist of all the needs that house has to have, but maybe only 70% of the dream is actual reality. That reality needs to be embraced instead of mulling over the 30% and figuring out how much worse it can be. A lot of families have it a lot worse than others, but it takes everyone's effort to make the system a functioning one, whether it be in front of a computer, or behind weapons in the middle of the desert in Afghanistan.

There's an upside to everything, even this crazy pick-up and go way of life. Some people might not like this idea of life, and we have gotten our share of words and looks, mostly because of political opinions. The bright side of all this though is that my kid has his own personal superhero. Nothing can beat that.

Crocheted hats courtesy of youtube

Sooo I think it's safe for me to say that I HATE the $2 regular red heart yarn. It's not my friend when it comes to crocheting. I used it to start my first bear hat, a grizzly bear hart for my two year old, and well, I started eight times before I chucked the dang thing in my yarn cubby. I of course had back-up, red heart soft yarn, I only started it 4 times, 5 you tube videos on "How to crochet a hat" and voila, a grizzly bear hat!

Now it occurred to me that I made it a little too big. I made it so big it can last him for many winter years to come. I'm starting another one and forcefully putting this hat on my child for now while I pull a "Don't you love your mother?" face whenever he thinks it's ridiculous I'm giving him a hat 2 sizes too big.

Well, maybe 3 sizes too big.

Dinner tonight was fall-back option dinner night because I wanted tuna casserole. My husband isn't too big on tuna casserole. Bless his heart, he'll eat it though, even though fish isn't exactly his favorite protein. Let's put it this way, he'd rather eat tofu than anything with a gill, fin or claw, but out of love, he'll eat fish (as long as of course, it's made deliciously). It's not in his top food request. I compromised, because I really wanted tuna. I made a meal that I used to make when we were stationed in Monterey. It was quick, easy, and lemony, and he usually would gobble up the whole plate. The acid from the lemon cuts down a lot of the fishiness of canned tuna. 

Warning, do not make this meal if you're not into citrus, It's very tart that it makes you pucker up a bit when you're eating it. It's a great dose of vitamin C.

Tuna with lemon vinaigrette spaghetti

1 box thick spaghetti, cooked to box's instructions until al dente

Juice of 2 lemons (or just 1 if you don't want it too tangy)

Zest of 1 lemon

1/4 cup olive oil

Salt and Pepper to taste

1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes, or more, depending how spicy you want it

2 tbsp parsley, chopped finely

shaved parmigiano reggiano to top

2 small cans of tuna, in water, drained

Combine the juice, zest, oil, salt and pepper, red pepper flakes and parsley in a bowl. Whisk the vinaigrette until it thickens up a bit, then stir in the tuna. Toss in the pasta until thoroughly mixed, top with parmigiano.

Please DON'T use the stuff in the green container. Grana padano works, but no icky fake parmesan stuff. A little effort is worth it especially since this is a no cook sauce pasta. 

I use this vinaigrette base for salads too, but with a bit of variation. It's really easy to vary up vinaigrette and it really will go a long way.

Just remember that there's a 2:3 ratio, 2 portions of acid to 3 portions of oil. It can be any oil or acid you'd like. An emulsifier helps, I like using honey and/or mustard. This time of the year, cranberries are of course aplenty so go ahead and use a sweeter vinaigrette for your salad. 

This was last night's dinner, it was just a chicken salad I tossed with a honey mustard vinaigrette (uh, courtesy of whole food though, I was REALLY lazy) but I just grilled the chicken and tossed it with chiffonade lettuce, craisins, candied pecans and feta. 

I'm going to go back to finishing that crocheted hat, part two. I'm hoping I measured it more properly this time , the weather is getting pretty nippy and warm hats are in order.

I'm having one of THOSE days

I actually went to bed early last night despite the fact that it was going to be daily savings time the next day. That was the smartest decision I made because it's 7:00pm and I should have passed out hours ago based on my day's events. I woke up at 1:00am because my husband's alarm clock went off. He was on his way to protect America and I wasn't able to completely go back to bed until 2:00am. It's cool yo, you know why? Because I've had 6 hours of sleep, a relatively hefty amount of sleep for me, but still, it was early. I fell asleep again and was awoken up at 4:15am by thudding and the sound of waves crashing. I rushed to my living room to see that it's storming so bad even Noah would have gone "woah, dude." He would add the dude part because he was a drunk, and I felt like a drunk stumbling down the street based on the site I just reckoned. My brand spanking new retractable awning has collapsed. Water was everywhere and the side of my master bedroom window has been chipped. I went out there in the cold and rain in my victoria's secret sweats and my husband's SF giants flippy-floppies to attempt to fix it. Needles to say, I was a MESS till he got home. I felt like I needed to chew $2000 in pennies, it seemed like the wisest way to rid of the numbness. My city man that has never in his life had to do any type of home repair fixed our awning before the rest of the storm came. I think he did pretty good for his first major home repair DIY even though it took most of the day.

The rest of my day was consumed by trying to figure out how to crochet a hat. Pretty uneventful except for the fact that maybe my first successful hat was out of mere luck. After restarting my current project four times which even included one round of untangling yarn, the future grizzly bear hat for Elliott is looking like it's headed on the right way, although I'm sure it's using a GPS barking in German. The crocheting and the awning took over my day and my original plan of Coq au Riesling for dinner is set for another day. Manicotti was the second option, that also was shoved to the side especially since this was one of the sights I encountered today.

He said he was flying.

The time for dinner was looming over me and I had no clue on what to serve the boys for dinner. One thing I really wanted though was tomato soup, the Campbell's kind. With all it's MSG and high fructose corn syrup, I wanted it in and around my mouth, but alas, this whole limit processed food deal has left my pantry without it. I remember in high school, this one girl shared a recipe her mom would make for her as comfort food and it was just canned tomato soup, pasta, sour cream and cheddar cheese. I wanted that tonight, I needed to get it. No way in hell though I'd go out there just for tomato soup. I looked in my fridge and it's like it yelled at me. Oh lookie loo, there's canned diced tomatoes from 2 days ago that's in desperate need of attention. I decided to indulge it and make what I desperately wanted: tomato soup with noodles. Really, and I'm serious, my goal here was to make tomato soup so good, it'll warm the tummy like it was Campbell's. Gratuitous Campbell's quote, enter stage right: Mmm, mmm, good. 

It had to be served with grilled cheese. Isn't that how it looks like in commercials? I want an all-American advertisement type of dinner. I'm all for it. God bless this country. I want to feel like one of those suburban kids in the Campbell's commercials from the 50's. Everyone needs to have a goal in life.

Now, I only had fiori pasta. I bought this because it was the only way I can have anything overly floral in my house that the boys wouldn't care about. Flower pasta, aren't they cute?

The tomato soup was a success and it made this rainy and horrid day end on a good note. My awning is fixed, I have no desire to consume mass amounts of copper plated coins and my son's room is still a disaster. I feel so good tonight, I'm going to end this post with the recipe. I hope you try it, it's one step closer to making the good people of Campbell's shed a tear and it's like kicking them in the groin. Everyone wants to kick someone in the groin. Right? No? Oh well. 

Tomato Soup

1 tbsp olive oil

1 large can of petite diced tomatoes

1 carrot, finely diced

1 celery stalk, finely diced

1/2 cup yellow onion, finely diced

2 tsp garlic, minced

2 tbsp chopped basil

2 1/2 cups chicken stock

2 tbsp tomato paste

1 tsp dried oregano

1/4 cup (or more based on how tangy you want it) ketchup

2-4 tbsp of sugar (again, based on how sweet you want it)

Salt and pepper to taste (I used approximately 2 1/2 tsp salt and 2 tsp pepper, but I'm a pepper monkey)

Toppings

Cheddar cheese or Monterey jack, shredded

Cilantro

Flat Leaf Parsley

Sour cream

Heat a large pot in medium high heat, add olive oil, carrots and celery. Saute until onion is a bit translucent, add garlic and basil. Once onion is fully translucent, add tomatoes, chicken stock, tomato paste, oregano and ketchup. Simmer until carrots are soft. Using an immersion blender, puree the soup, or just use a blender, food processor or food mill. Whatever you have handy to liquefy the soup works. Return to the pot, add the sugar, salt and pepper. The goal is to get that tangy and sweet tomato soup taste.

Ladle it on top of cooked pasta noodles, it can be anything you like, as you see, I used fiori here. Then top with cheese, herbs and cream. Feel free to add or omit any toppings. My little man is happy with just cheese and parsley on it. 

Taking too big of a bite off the hobby part of life

As a stay at home mom and housewife, life can have its moments of daunting tasks and busy days and weeks where it doesn't seem like there's any end in sight, nor does it feel like there's a light at the end of the tunnel. I'm sure I have a lot of friends that would empathize with that. Then there would be days that it would feel like every second of the day feels twice longer than normal. I've had a lot of those days, that's why I decided to take on hobbies or discover if I have any hidden talent or possible potential. I've also had too many of those days which have then resulted to too many hobbies.

I've always been a bit cocky about it, I'd remark to my husband "well, my goal in life is not to be great at one thing but to be OK at A LOT of things." Since I was a kid, I've dabbled on things left and right, from fashion designing, to cross stitching and painting. I'm OK at all of those.

The other day, while attempting to wring the living daylight out of the poor paypal (lack of) customer service rep, my toddler decided it would be cool to hang out with me in the office. He picked a specific spot between a huge box of Daddy's guitar pedals and Mommy's bass guitar.

This is my girl Ginger, she's a Fender Mustang bass that husband got for me as a gift for Valentine's day in 2007 right after the first show I played with him in Berkeley. Elliott accidentally knocked her over while I was busy fiddling with the computer and my heart dropped. My heart dropped for two reasons, one, because he hit the little TV we have in the room, two, my bass could have been damaged. Then guilt sets in and realization that she's just one of the many hobbies I've tackled on to fill my time then ultimately put on hold so life can have time. I just haven't made space for her in my life lately and that kills because I have things I need to do, and she becomes categorized under the "can wait" section of life. These hobbies then get placed in the back burner. She's currently being kept company by my current lack of interest in reading.

This is one of those hobbies though that I can't just set aside like I did with knitting (which is currently replaced by crocheting. I'm much faster at it so I like it better). For some reason, this one hits home and hurts whenever I see her sitting in the corner collecting dust. I put in a lot of emotion into learning how to play bass, it was a sort of rebellion against my childhood classical piano lessons that I loathed like no other. I do hope to pick her up again one day, just to dabble (along with my fantasies of becoming a rock star. ha!). Some hobbies are easier to let go or set aside than others, and this is the dilemma of adulthood, life gets in the way. Some hobbies become a part of one's self, then it just becomes this fight where there's just a continuous need to make sure that the uniqueness doesn't get drowned in life. 

For now, Fall 2010, I'm consumed with running, crocheting, photography and the usual cooking and baking. 

I'm planning to maybe finally do that whole culinary school deal, we'll see. That's another story for another day, kids. It's just another thing I need to insert along with being a wife and a mom. On the bright side, taking on all these activities is keeping me busy especially since the Air Force needs my husband a lot more than usual lately. I just hope I don't forget things all the time, like today, I forgot my SD card for my camera. That was an unplanned halt for a hobby but was a surefire to do it.

Run and you don't stop

I'm obviously not very good in this whole updating blog thing. I'm going to be more earnest about it from now on though because I feel like I've been splurging and divulging way too much information about me on a certain social networking site (ahem... facebook) and the whole tweeting thing just isn't cutting it for me.

This was once a culinary only blog, but seeing as I have issues letting go of recipes due to the youngest child syndrome, I've decided to combine all of it in one big pile and make a mess. It's more fun that way. Plus, the reason being why the whole culinary blog thing hasn't been working out lately is because of the myriads of vacation my family and I have decided to partake on. Also, being a big SF Giants fans, our lives were consumed for the duration of late summer to yesterday. Oh, and I took on running. I now have runner's guilt to food. I still stock up on butter and heavy cream heavily. I doubt that will change. It's an inner battle I plan to continue to fight.

Supposedly, the weather is going to change to cold, but that's not happening anytime soon. I definitely freaked out today when it's 80 degrees out and trees are orange and red. It didn't stop me though from taking our summer bedding off and revamping it to winter appropriate bedding. I'm a creature of habit and have trouble letting go of the color blue, so I stuck to it again. It's not very wintery but I guess I'm hitting that country feel vibe I've been longing for. I went to wally world to purchase a cheapo but sufficient comforter and I kept my organic sheet set. I also moved that ottoman that can't find a spot in this world to the front of the bed. I hate it there. I swear, one day, I'm just going to kick it to the curb--- literally. I will roll it down my driveway due to hatred. I'm not one of the people that abuse the word literally, so if I ever do say it, I mean it. Otherwise, I will substitute it with the word figuratively.

I think I'm pretty satisfied with it. I spent $30 on the comforter and $20 on the cream colored blanket, $10 for the pillow covers. All purchased from walmart. One day I will paint these walls, once I stick to a pallette scheme, and seriously, it is looking a lot like gray to just match with the blue.

I'll post a cooking story here again at some point, I'm too devastated today. What I thought was a can of matcha green tea powder turned out to be a can of bagged matcha green tea and green tea leaves. I'll get it over it, maybe. Maybe a Coq Au Riesling recipe will come in the near future, but don't tell Julia Child's soul I forgot to buy lardons. She'd punish me.