Canadian Crabs

Hello crabby!!

Sauteed with shallots, garlic, eggs, and a whole bunch of other stuff. It was amazing!!! I wish I could have some right now.

Let's go cherry picking!

I wish I could go cherry picking again. I'm ready for the summer. No more half-ass winters for me!

You know what's the best thing about cherry picking? You can eat while you pick!

Here are a couple pics of my nephews and nieces picking their own cherries.

Can't climb with the big kids.

Monkey arms come in handy for those high branches.

Thai

A little bit of Thai for the night.

Tom Yum soup. It's nice and sour. Not to mention, packed with heat. I love this.

Thai spring rolls with a sweet sauce. Not sure what type of sauce that is.

Tilapia and sweet potatoes with yellow curry sauce.

I had to post this. That straw is just too cool!

Babka (Part 2)

This took us over 6 hours to make. At least we finished before midnight. We now understand why bakers make bread so early in the morning.

First out of the oven are the pretzels.

Then come muffins...
Finally the loaves!

Now it's time for butter

And more butter
Somebody looks proud~
Admiring his work. The babka did turn out really well. We were really surprised. I expected the worst, but it was delicious and moist.

Live on babka! Live on!

If only your parents were here to see this babka palooza, Dan. They would be so proud.

Yup! That's a whole lotta bread. We have no idea what to do with all of that.

Babka (Part 1)

Dan's mission this weekend was to carry on a cherished Polish dish passed down by his great grandma Mima. Soo, I decided to help and made sure to take a lot of pictures!

Dan you look confused. Maybe a little overwhelmed by the fact we have no idea how to make any type of bread!?

First step- getting the yeast ready. Mix 2 packets with a teaspoon of water. Let it sit for ~10min.Preparing the flour mixture. Milk with a stick of melted butter is poured in bowl.

Flour, eggs, butter, milk, salt and yeast all mixed together.

Cover and let rise.
Flour the table. Time to get the hands dirty!!

Knead it for a good 8 min! (Raisins were added at this time.)

Put it in a bowl and cover with aluminum foil. Let it rise for ~1 and 1/2 hours.

We put it on the floor near the heater. A little heat will make it rise faster.
It should double in size by now. Take it out and knead. Try to get the air out. I have no idea how that works, but we just punched and folded the dough.

We can now split it up into loaves, muffin pans and maybe even into pretzels.


Dan and his pretzel making skills. How sexy!?

After you portion it off - you gotta let it rise again. Another 1 and 1/2 hours or so. Then you will glaze with egg yolk before you can finally bake the damn thing.

It's finally ready to be baked. Into the oven you go!!!

How did the Babka turn out? To be continued...

Best SQUASH ever!!

It's so simple to make too! All you need is a little salt and ground pepper for seasoning, a couple garlic cloves and some sundried tomatoes. You then sautee in olive oil until slightly golden/crisp. Voila! You now have a delicious, but yet very healthy dish. Who needs a steak now!? ** Special thanks to Chef House. You're pretty good at making squash.

Valentine's <3

Pretty, huh? It tasted even better than it looked. I got this yummy delight at Sole Mio, an Italian restaurant. My waiter informed me that the love banner on the cake wasn't edible. I thanked him for the heads up, even though I knew. It did make me wonder about the people that didn't know. Is the banner that tasty looking??

Trend Eaters

For the past few years pomegranate was the "it" fruit. They were everywhere! From POM juice to face cream (I spent $30 dollars on a 1oz. face sunblock infused with pomegranate). Talk about an over rated fruit. Now pomegranates are sooo last year and it's now all about the acai berries. I see acai everywhere. It's almost agitating.

I won't lie, I too am a trend eater. I love to try exotic fruits. But the eagerness to spend ridiculous amounts on fruit drinks and moistourizers must stop. Why are we soo ready to go out and infuse everything with acai just because Oprah said it's on her top ten superfood list. We musn't let this hype overshadow the original fruit, praised for it's overabundance of antioxidants - GRAPEFRUIT.

I had grapefruit everyday last week. It was so refreshing. Way better than acai!


*NOTE: The tone of urgency is not a dramatization.

Superbowl Sunday

While everyone else was gathering around their TV's watching the most testosterone packed event of the year, Dan and I watched a french chick flick and cooked. We made green and red stuffed peppers. It turned out extremely good! We used sundried tomatoes, ground beef, 2 big peppers (one red and one green), onion, garlic, salt and pepper. It was shocking how amazing that turned out. What would be more amazing is whether we can recreate this dish.