Currently on Break...

...from food blogging

I'm getting married!!! So I've been busy with wedding planning. I thought I would be able to do both but this wedding planning is taking a lot longer than I expected. First we had to find a venue. We looked into places in San Diego and then places in Denver. After having a little panic attack because the thought of hosting a wedding for 500-800 guests almost threw me over the edge, we decided on a much smaller wedding (200 guests) in Las Vegas.

So far I'm ahead of schedule with a lot of the planning. I have two dresses hanging in my closet, three pairs of shoes, jewelry, veil, the venue, photographer, dj, cake designer, officiant...the save the dates came in today. I'm knee deep in invitation samples. I still have a lot to do but I feel really good about my progress.

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Yunnanese Khao Soi

This is not the more popular Chiang Mai style khao soi noodles – egg noodles in a curry sauce. This is the khao soi version that I grew up eating. Chiang Mai khao soi is said to have originated from versions from the Shan region of Burma and the Yunnan region of China. Learn more about the Khao Soi here.

Since my family is from Yunnan, I grew up eating this version. Unfortunately, I do not have a recipe. I’ve been meaning to learn from my aunt or grandma but haven’t gotten around to it.

The meat sauce is the base for the soup. It can last for months in the refrigerator or freezer. I'm not sure why the sauce doesn't go bad. Maybe because the liquid is completely removed during the cooking process or because the meat is suspended in oil or because of the special preservation properties of the fermented soy beans.

Khao Soi is a quick and delicious weeknight meal. I combine boiled rice noodles, boiling water, shredded cabbage, green onions, coriander leaves, soy sauce, fish sauce and a heaping spoonful of the meat sauce.

The sauce is usually made with pork but because I decided to stop eating red meat, my brother decided to stop eating pork and my sister decided to stop eating meat entirely, my grandmother made a ground chicken version of the sauce and even made a vegetarian version using chopped up mushrooms.

The sauce is made with ground pork, tomatoes, fermented soy beans, dried red chilies and a lot of oil. I think the key is to have really good fermented soy beans. Fermented soy beans is a real project that I have never attempted. I get jars of it from my grandmother or aunt.

This is the meat sauce. It is packed with tons of flavor.

You put all the ingredients in the bowl and then add the boiling water. I usually use green cabbage but the store was out so I bought the red cabbage instead.

I usually do my blog cooking during the weekends but this weekend was a bit hectic. On Saturday we went to Rockies Fest. The bf happened to score some tickets to this event. The event was awesome. I've seen a lot of Coors Field but with these tickets, we had access to rooms that even the media are not allowed to enter. I got tons of autographs. I even got Clint Barmes to autograph my baseball in red ink. (I was coached on the importance of color and placement of autographs.)

The diamond is covered in snow.

Todd Helton's stuff in the Rockies' Club House.

Tulo's stuff.

Ryan Spilborghs, answering a question during the interview session. One of my coworkers (who was part of the 2004 Olympic team) went to school with him at UC Santa Barbara. I really love the Rockies club. The guys are all very down to earth and they all seem to get along. I think my new favorite player is Dexter Fowler.

I took more pictures of more players, the batting cage, the umpire's area, the museum, the massage room and even the urinals in the visiting team's club house. Those pictures will be uploaded on my picasa page.

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Last Minute Christmas Shopping and My New Camera Bag

I am so excited! I just received, in the mail, my new *emera camera tote. I ordered it last Thursday and it was shipped the same day. I can’t believe how quickly Nathiya was able to process the orders. She must be superhuman.

I would post a picture of the bag and how I plan on arranging my “equipment” but I am exhausted. I did speed shopping after work today. I work two blocks from Cherry Creek mall (I can see Macy’s and Sak’s from my office) but I still managed to procrastinate on the holiday shopping. Every single time I thought about shopping, I would get a panic attack and as a result of the panic attack, I would order something for myself.

Today, I forced myself to go to the mall (my intention was to go during the day but that didn’t happen) after work and buy for everyone on my list. I did it in less than two hours. I did wimp out and buy a few gift cards but a majority of the gifts were real gifts. I was a little frustrated because I wanted cute stuff for my friends' babies but most of the stores I went to either had no children’s section or a pathetic selection. I didn’t get the first or second choice items for the little ones but I still managed to get some cute stuff.

I’ll post more about my bag when I get a chance.


***Edit***

I finally took a picture of the bag and how I pack everything for traveling. I used the bag on my latest trip to San Diego and will likely use it on the snowboarding/skiing trip later this month and on the trip back to San Diego the following week for my friend's babyshower.

The camera goes in the compartment on the right. The middle compartments holds a wallet and a lens (in the round red bag). The compartments on the left holds cords, cards, adapters and a pack of Kleenex. The zipper holds an iphone and/or ipod.

There was still plenty of room so I tossed a small purse on top of everything.
The red satin bags are from last season's MAC holiday makeup brush kits. I bought two sets and never used the bags. Each set came with the small flat zipper pouch and a cylindrical zipper pouch. I use the flat ones for carrying small flat camera accessories such as SD cards and Memory Stick Duos. I use the cylindrical pouches for lenses.

Why do I love pretty bags so much? The bag is almost perfect. If I could ask for a design change, I would ask for a small pocket on the back to slip a small-ish laptop in. I love my current laptop bag but it is a bit much to carry both the camera tote and the laptop bag on an airplane. Below is the laptop bag that I always get compliments on when I travel. It is a Chinese silk brocade bag from Abbi New York. Everyone thinks it is a special designer bag. I got it on sale at TJMaxx. (Shh...it is my secret.) I didn't do a very good job taking pictures of it. Go to this site for better pictures and a nice review.

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Cream Drop Biscuits

Not food related but I had to post a few pictures from today's game. I took the day off and went to the last regular season home game. We were at the game on Tuesday night and after the Braves lost and the Rockies won, we thought about the possibility of the Rockies clinching a playoff spot at home. We considered going to the game yesterday but we decided to watch it on tv instead. When the Braves lost again and the Rockies won, the Rockies magic number dropped to 1 (meaning Rockies either win 1 game or Braves lose 1 game and the Rockies are in).

Today's win was HUGE. I mean how awesome is it to clinch and celebrate at home instead of on the road? If they had lost today it wouldn't have been over but they were leaving for the last three games in LA, against the Dodgers.

I was getting a little worried especially with the Braves and their recent winning streak. Back in August, the team we were worried about was the Giants but well...they choked. The Rockies had a comfortable lead and we all starting crunching numbers to see how many games the Rockies MUST win in order to make it to the postseason. We compared both teams' schedules and the Braves were definitely facing "easy" to beat teams. We can use all our stats skills and we still could not guarantee the Rockies in the postseason. We knew all too well what happened in 2007. The Rockies were out of the race until they had the ridiculous winning streak in September and won 21 out of 22 games. We were playing the Diamondbacks, we won and for us to tie for the Wildcard, the Padres had to lose. We kept checking the scores and Tony Gwyn Jr (while playing for the Brewers) hit the ball and the Padres ended up losing.

We were back at Coors Field the very next day on October 1, 2007 to watch the NL Wildcard Tie Breaker. I have to say that the Tie Breaker was the best game ever. (I know people still doubt Holliday touching the plate. I honestly don't know. Although we were right off the first base, we were in the suite and too high up to see and they don't replay controversial plays.) That season we were at over 30 games. In the weeks leading up to the postseason, we were at most of the games. I remember Helton's walk-off homerun against the Dodgers. I remember jumping up and hugging a stranger who shared the suite with us. I was so excited.

Rocktober!

Holliday was my favorite player but now he is with the Cardinals. My new favorite player is Tulowitzki. I remember when the 2007 playoff games were televised and the viewers heard the Tulo chant, everyone asked, "what the hell are they chanting at Coors Field?" It is series of hand claps followed by "Tulo."
9th inning and Morales (not Street) is closing. Coors Field was really packed but the top decks were mainly empty because most people on the top deck came down to stand on the concourse.

I know many people wonder why I am a Rockies fan when I am originally from San Diego. The Rockies play the Padres a lot and I root for the Rockies. The bf is from Illinois so he is a long time Cubs fan. He is also a Rockies fan so when they play each other (not too often) he intentionally does not wear any Rockies or Cubs gear.Dinger, our mascot is waving the flag.

Okay now a recipe.

The biscuits are so simple, the person who gave me the recipe said, “they are embarrassingly easy.” I love easy. I love not having to roll or pat any dough into some shape and not having to cut anything out.

After getting home from the game, I wanted to make something really easy but comforting. I’ve been craving a lot of comfort foods lately. The bf said I was making a different version of chicken potpie. (I made chicken potpies on Sunday and still haven’t had a chance to post about it.)

I took the liberty to change my friend’s recipe a bit. Mainly because I wanted to use up three cups of heavy cream but I also wanted a few extra biscuits. I ended up only using 2 cups of heaving cream even though I increased the other ingredients by 1.5 times. That is the thing with flour. Sometimes it absorbs more liquid and other times it absorbs less. I slowly stirred in the cream and after two cups it formed the lumpy dough. An extra cup and I probably would be making calorie-laden pancakes.

Lindsay's Cream Drop Biscuits

2 ½ cups cake flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
2 cups chilled heavy cream

Preheat oven to 400. Sift dry ingredients into a large bowl. Slowly pour in cream and stir until a lumpy dough just forms. Spoon about ¼ cup dough per biscuit onto greased cookie sheet. Bake 12-18 minutes, until tops are just golden brown.

I used:
3 ¼ cups cake flour
1 ½ tablespoons baking powder
1 ½ teaspoon salt
1 ½ tablespoon sugar
2 to 3 cups heavy cream (I used two but it may take up to 3 cups depending on your flour)

¼ cup unsalted butter
2 tablespoons honey

I preheated oven to 400 degrees. I put all the dry ingredients into a bowl but didn't bother sifting. I don't sift. I am an anti-sifter. I slowly pour in heavy cream and stirred. I spooned the dough onto a silicon lined baking sheet and baked until slighly golden.

Not from Lindsay's recipe but I decided to brush them with melted butter and honey. Melt 1/4 cup of butter with 2 tablespoons honey. I use local honey because it is supposed to help with my allergies.

Not the best picture but definitely better than the previous ones. I kept the biscuit and took a picture during the day. I also used my new camera (that I am still learning how to use).

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Great Deal on Le Creuset 5.5 Quart French Oven $119.99

Maybe it is a glitch in their system but if you click the link below you will find the 5.5 quart Le Creuset round dutch oven in red for $119.99 from Williams-Sonoma. At first I thought that perhaps Le Creuset was discontinuing this shade of red so I went to Williams-Sonoma to look. The pot is still on display at the regular price. If you navigate to the page from the Williams-Sonoma home page, the dutch oven is shown at the regular $220.00 price.

This is a pretty awesome deal. Yes you can probably find it at the same price or even cheaper at the outlet or a discount store such as TJ Maxx but you are buying factory seconds. I'm not sure if Le Creuset has the same 99-year warranty on factory seconds.

http://www.williams-sonoma.com/pr...ectURL=Yes

I wasn't sure if Williams-Sonoma would actually honor the purchase. I went all the way through and placed my order but I didn't get an immediate email confirmation. I checked my account and I was charged for the purchase. Today I received the confirmation email with a status that the item was available for immediate shipping.

ITEM DESCRIPTION		STATUS	QTY	PRICE
Lc 5.5qt Round Oven Red Item # 95-1213081		Available for immediate shipping	1	$119.99

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My New Dining Table

Okay not completely new but new to me. I found a great deal on this dining table set and china cabinet. Both came out of a model home. I saved at least $1,500, not including savings from tax and delivery. I love it when I find great deals. The bf knows that I love to spend money but I always spend wisely. Gone are the days where I will stroll into a Neimans and pay full price for jeans. I love finding great deals. It makes me really happy.

I realize this post is another non-food post. But I think is slightly food related. After all I will likely be doing a lot of entertaining with this table. I currently have six chairs. I am considering ordering two additional chairs.

The pictures are from the model home. The set is currently in the new place and it is not completely assembled yet but will be in a few days. I plan on using the same color scheme. I love red and the contrast of red and dark espresso brown is perfect. I initially wanted a square bar height table with seating for eight but unfortunately the dining area in the place is rectangular rather than square.

I want new stuff but it will have to wait. I still have many pieces from my downtown highrise condo. The building was modeled after many NYC buildings and included a door man. The furniture I purchased for the place was a little more on the modern style. I bought a lot of chrome. My couch was beautiful red with chrome feet. I loved that couch. My dinette, coffee tables and end table were all chrome and glass. My bed is even chrome and pleather. I sold many of the pieces as I moved throughout this city but I still have some of them. I'll have to make the old stuff work with the new. I'm reading a lot of apartment therapy right now to see how I can make it not look so eclectic.

We are approximately 75% moved. I have a few little items and all the large furniture items left to move. The bf has a wonderful friend who does contract work moving furniture out of foreclosed homes. He is moving all of our furniture.

The bf's idea of moving is not exactly my idea of moving. I usually pack my moving boxes (I am very picky about using actual moving boxes), tape, and label them and then wait for the movers to come. Yesterday the bf stuffed my car and his car full with my stuff and moved it all over to the new place. It took several trips. He said it was easier this way. My legs were very sore and I was not a happy camper. I broke a nail.

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iPhone and Gmail Unlock Captcha

This is totally not related to food but I just discovered a solution to a problem that quite a few iPhone and gmail users may be experiencing. It has something to do with gmail's captcha feature. What the hell is a captcha? It stands for: Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. You know those distorted word verification boxes with strange phrases that you have to retype? It is designed to test if you are human.

I suppose that when you access your email through iPhone and AT&T G3 network you somehow trigger gmail's security feature designed to block automated spamming. Once you trigger gmail's system, you have to log in and unlock your POP3 or IMAP access. You have to log in, sucessfully complete the captcha puzzle and essentially prove that you are human and not a malicious computer spammer. I notice that this only happens when I check my email using the AT&T network and the IMAP feature. I have no problem if I am connected using wifi or navigate to the gmail page on Safari.

Below is the link to the page you have to go to to prove that you are human:
https://www.google.com/accounts/DisplayUnlockCaptcha

So if you get this wonderful message: "The connection to the server imap.gmail.com failed" after having successfully accessed gmail on the iPhone mail client in the past, it probably means you have to go and prove that you are human and not computer.

It is likely that you will have to prove yourself human many many times because by accessing gmail through your iPhone on a regular basis you will trigger the block over and over. I read that you have three options. 1. Stop accessing your gmail too often (I don't know what gmail considers too often.) 2. Change your password to a stronger password. (I have enough passwords to remember that I cannot create yet another one that is 9 characters long using both numbers and letters plus one symbol.) or 3. Stop using the iphone mail client for gmail. Instead have your gmail forwarded to your outlook, yahoo or other mail client and access it through the other email. What a drag. I love my gmail and have since let go of other email addresses through other email services. I use gmail for personal and outlook for work emails. I don't even have my mac mail set up because I don't want to manage another mail account or calendar. My outlook calendar is synced with my outlook calendar and every is synced with my phone.

I'm not a computer whiz so I cannot explain it in computer whiz terms. I am just a master googler who believes that the answer is somewhere out there on the world wide web.

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Homemade Hand Sanitizer (Antibacterial Hand Gel)

I was planning on blogging other recipes but in light of recent events, I decided this recipe was more suitable for the moment. Last Friday I decided to step up our office’s cleaning and disinfecting supplies. I volunteer to make occasional runs to the store to purchase cleaning supplies because our office supply company has a very high mark up on their cleaning supplies and I am much too frugal to pay the mark up. Lately I have been purchasing earth-friendly items such as Method, Seventh Generation and Mrs. Meyers but with the impending pandemic, we had requests for the good old Lysol and Clorox. I also had requests for hand sanitizers for each of our meeting rooms and lobby.

I went to Target. They were out. I went to Walgreen’s. They were out but the stock guy directed me to these clearance bottles of purifying anti-bacterial hand gel made by one of those drugstore brands of bath and body products. I grabbed a few bottles. I headed to Walmart. They were out. I went to Costco. I didn’t see any. I then came home and thought, “I can probably make my own. It can’t be too difficult.”

I did my research and found a recipe. The recipe lists 1 cup aloe vera gel, two teaspoons alcohol and 2 teaspoons of glycerin…interesting but 2 teaspoons of alcohol doesn’t seem like much. After more research I discovered that many people agreed. You need at least 60% alcohol (ethyl alcohol is better than isopropyl but I couldn’t find denatured ethyl alcohol and Everclear, because it is sold as an alcoholic beverage, is too expensive.) I found 91% isopropyl.
My pharmacist had a little bottle of glycerin. I love my pharmacist. He is so friendly and helpful. He suggested Walgreens. I went to the Walgreens near my house and found bottles of glycerin. They also had one large bottle of Germ-X for $4. Yay! I grabbed it.

I couldn’t find clear aloe vera gel at the store but I have a huge bottle of it for treating my burns after I over-indulge in the tanning bed.

I went to the trouble of gathering all these ingredients but I don’t actually like using hand sanitizer. The only time I ever used it was during my younger days of raving and because I couldn’t stand the smell of Purell, I bought bottles from Bath and Body Works.

Many essential oils are antibacterial. Tea tree oil is best for its antimicrobial, antiseptic and antiviral properties. Lavender is second best but is a good all-purpose oil. I don’t have any tea tree oil and didn’t feel like going to a store that sold essential oils. I have a whole collection of lavender oil for when I was “searching” for my favorite lavender scent. (Aveda’s lavender oil makes me gag.)

The below formula yields just under 64% alcohol. It is 2:1:7 (glycerin, aloe, alcohol). You can also do a 1:1:5 ratio of aloe to glycerin to alcohol to get a 65% alcohol content.

Homemade Hand Sanitizer
yields 1 liter

1 cup glycerin
½ cup aloe vera gel
3 ½ cups 91% isopropyl alcohol (isopropyl is easier to find than ethyl)
10 - 20 drops of essential oil such as tea tree, lavender, oregano or lemon

Mix together and use a whisk or hand blender on high to aerate. The resulting liquid is not as thick as Purell or Germ-X. Both products use thickening agents called carbomer. The glycerin and aloe vera gel provides some thickening needed to slow down the evaporation of the alcohol on your hands.

I doubled the recipe and made 2 liters and filled up two empty conditioner bottles.

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