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. 

Macarons, Macarons, Macarons!

I did it, I conquered both nut-free and almond version of macarons. It's addicting and easy to make once i got the hang of it. Ok, let me rephrase that--- I should have started on making the almond version first because this took me one try. One lousy stinking try that could have saved me tears and personal humiliation (not to mention, a whole lot less eggs cracked and separated). The nut-free ones I made for the previous post left me questioning myself on whether I should just stick to cupcakes and cakes. I had a pretty good record of success with those things and maybe macarons just couldn't be added to the mix.

One night though, I decided to just make the almond version at night while my allergic-to-tree-nuts son was in bed. My ever supportive husband got me a bag of slivered almonds, he's awesome like that. He knows that buying me ingredients is the way to win me over. I looked at several videos and recipes online and adapted a version for myself and my temperamental oven and one try, and almost half an hour later I got these babies.

Banana macarons with raspberry white chocolate mousse. I didn't pipe them all evenly but they have feet. I said the exact same thing while jumping up and down in my kitchen "they have feet, they have feet!" My husband looked at me like I was insane... again. It also didn't help I accompanied the squealing with dancing and probably way too much booty shaking.

The next day, while my son was pretend napping and I was supposed to be cleaning, I went for it again. I had a lot of raspberry mousse left, they had to be used. So I made coffee-mocha macarons. It just made sense, plus I was twitching to make a batch like a meth head looking for the next hit.

Did I really just compare my addiction to make macarons to a meth head's addiction to meth? My, someone has issues. Definitely has issues because the next day, I bought black sesame seeds, coconut flakes in bulk and then I made these nut-free versions.


Just what I wanted, flat on the top, little macaron feet. The ones on the right are just vanilla, which I believe baked a little too long so I then adjusted the temperature for the left ones which are pandan flavored macarons. They taste different than the almond ones, but in a way that they seem nuttier, definitely a good substitute. I wish I didn't fill them up with ganache though and instead made butter cream or put jam in them. My son was pretend napping again that day so I was rushing. All in all though, I was pretty happy about these. I can't wait till I have an excuse to make them again. That excuse just might come this weekend.

The horrible, yet delicious, habbit of deep-frying

I'm not too big into deep-frying for the obvious reasons. It's a heart attack ready to be served to you--- a warm and scrumptious delight of a heart attack. A few years ago, I received a deep-fryer as a gift for Christmas, it never found use because I was being smart with my cooking and several moves later up and down California, it's lost but now I slightly miss it. It's probably for the good that I don't have it, but nothing some vegetable oil and a hot pan can't fix, right? These are those times I wish i didn't know how to cook well, it's ok though, I have been running my ass off. Literally, since Sunday, the day I decided to deep fry a twinkie, mochi ice cream, snickers, marshmallows and an organic late july cream sandwich cookie, I've been clocking at least 20 minutes on the treadmill. I somehow have this facet that it will counter all the monstrous calories I'm consuming. Of course, it doesn't affect my husband one bit-- then again, when I looked at his treadmill, he was clocking in at 9.5 mph run and it all of a sudden made me feel like crap that I was only doing 5.0 mph. SO in revenge, I fed him this:

Deep fried, English style battered shrimp. I spared no expense on this baby. I battered and slathered and dipped this thing in hot splattering oil. I even got hit in the eye, no joke. As a result, this warm, buttery (and there wasn't even butter, gasp!) shrimp. I put in a little kick in there with some cayenne and paprika. I suggest with anything deep fried and battered, just put in 1/4 teaspoon each of cayenne and paprika. And parsley, because it's pretty and putting parsley in things is just like walking to me. Lately though, it's been cilantro, and I used to hate cilantro-- that's another story.

I was a bit sad I only had 15 pieces of shrimp left in freezer. What was I thinking not replenishing that? We happily divided this whole thing within our family of three (there was steak on the side, surf and turf night--- I need to do that more often). This whole working out mantra though is making me eat less because I would never dare just eat a salad for dinner. I'll probably end up putting pancetta and parmesan shavings on it.

This deep fried sea food feast is for sure healthier than this atrociousness though.

Why did I ever deep fry a twinkie and a marshmallow?

French macarons will be the death of me

I would guess that this recipe would go by easier and quicker if I can actually use almond powder/flour--- problem is, my son is deathly allergic to all nuts and tree nuts. I challenged myself thinking, eh, what's the big deal anyway, there are A MILLION flour substitutes out there. I also would have to bash my head on a wall for even daring to think that to begin with.

Yesterday, after months of dilly-dallying over the idea of French macarons, I jumped for it. I went to the local specialty store, grabbed a bag of coconut flour and coconut flakes. I tried a recipe I found online for nutless macarons and they were ABOMINABLE! I basically just had mounds of the American version--- but worse. They were dry, icky and not beautiful like they should be.

Attempt 2--- they looked like sugar cookies. At least i was on the right track, I was able to put it in a piping bag and i was able to squeeze it out.

Attempt 3-- a lot more successful. It was a bit chunky since the coconut flour tends to do that and I didn't tap the bottom of the pan out, but I got a very delicious result out of it. This was my end result:

See-- chunkier. Delicious though, oh man, I can stuff my mouth about a million of those. Today though, I wanted to solve the "chunk" issue so I ran again to the local specialty store and bought soy and coconut flour again, but a different brand.

OHHHH MYYY GODDDD! I'm pretty sure before I got my "good" result today, I ended up with several choux like macarons. I'm making freaking macarons here, not croquembouche (that is for a different day. It would be the "death of me par deux"). I'm just very grateful I have a wonderful husband that kept telling me that I can do it, I can make delicious and beautiful almond-less macarons. He's such a doll, without him, I would have pulled a Julie Powell type of tantrum and it wouldn't be cool because I complained many times about how horrible she was about the whining. I guess it's something about French cooking though, even worse, French pastry--- it tests you. This macaron recipe is the EASIEST recipe I've ever done, not many ingredients, easy to edit to a specific flavor, but it's technique. I have the technique but experimenting with the ingredients just fail me a lot, and this is the love of a mother talking here. I want my son to experience MACARONS!!

I went back, with my head up high, I can't remember how many eggs I've cracked and I got this:


My vision is so clouded I can't even tell if these are better or worse than the ones from yesterday. One thing is for sure though--- yep, I will try again. I have about 2 cups of coconut flour and 2 cups of powdered sugar left. I found a printable macaron template and I will go for it. I'll have a good cry tonight if I come out of this alive.

Lack of blogging

It's been a very busy, busy month. Just when I thought all of my weekend activities are done, now my weekday activities are filled. Even stay-at-home-moms have their share of activities and being a Mom is a full time job which then leads to lack of blogging but to a myriad of cooking.

Just like everyone else, my family and I are holding back on the expenses because we want to save up, so we cut down on eating out, which means we're probably not going to our favorite Japanese restaurant. I love teriyaki, never have made it at home because I always have Filipino soy sauce at home and it never tastes the same way as the kikkoman style soy sauce. Soy sauce is like hot sauce, it tastes different from every region. A few months ago, I was in my Korean food kick, I looked in my pantry and realized that I do have ALL ingredients required for teriyaki.

The greens are the most fabulous greens EVER. I love Chinese broccoli and broccolini better than I like regular broccoli, and last weekend at the farmer's market they had the most beautiful bunch of them. I had to have it! It's like seeing a purse that I needed to have, but it's broccoli. Is that weird?

Anyway, farmers market season is on so go ahead and go out there, get some produce! They're beautiful, better than looking at stack of Marc Jacobs purses! No? Well, it's good for the health and they are beautiful.