Yum Yum

My sis left me a surprise when I got back from the city last week.  

Yes, we always order the donkatsu every time we eat at Mitsuwa.  

Dollar off sushi after 6 PM on weekdays!  Shrimp tempura and spicy tuna rolls.  Chris picked out a half green tea half lemon tea drink. Yuck. I usually love tea but it tasted so artificial.  

A Swedish scientist came to work/visit us for two weeks.  We ate at Sushi Cruise for a farewell lunch on Friday. As usual, my boss treated us ^_^.  I got their lunch special which consists of two rolls, miso soup or salad for 10 dollars. 

Of course, I ordered the spicy salmon and spicy crab rolls. Their rolls are so good! 

Chris and I ate at Chipotle's. He suggested pho, but I need to watch my carb intake lol.  

We played D3 until 2am. 

Here's Timmy being playful :)

I'm reducing my carb intake and cutting out sugary drinks.  The goal is to lose 5 or more pounds before the cruise  :/  I eat healthy ..it's just that I drink tons of sugary drinks. I've noticed that my permanent food  baby is slowly shrinking ever since I stopped eating fried food. :) I wish I had time to go to the gym. I'm busy with tutoring, work, D3, kitties ,and eating. 

I also have to sit my ass down and study for the GREs.  My boss offered to write a recommendation letter and expects me to go back to school soon. It's so hard to get back into the studying groove. After work, I just want to relax and do nothing.  I hate being so lazy. 

Weekend with Chris

Chris had an empty house this weekend :)

We decided to make goi cuon (spring rolls).  Chris had most of the ingredients except for a few things which we picked up at the local super market.  I told Chris not to buy shrimp from Thailand anymore because the shrimp industry is destroying the fishing cat's habitat. So he bought over priced shrimp from the US gulf instead.Chris paid 28 in total which was way too much.  He was charged 16 for the shrimp! The label clearly said 10 dollars. We went back to complain about the price. The seafood department mislabeled the price and we ended up getting the shrimp for free!! 

 Spring rolls are customizable and easy to make! For our spring rolls you need:

shrimp

pork

mint leaves

avocado

chives

cucumbers

rice noodles/bean threads

rice paper

carrots

mango

lettuce 

Everything is optional! (except for the noodles, rice paper, and lettuce haha)  

Chris's grandmother grows plants and herbs in her back yard. We were able to grab a bunch of mint leaves and chives.  Chris reminded me of an ahjuma picking sesame leaveson a farm LOL.  

Lemon grass pork! Chris used this recipe . 

I had to slice the shrimps in half because they were huge!

Bean threads.  I prefer rice noodles but bean threads have less carbs and aren't as sticky.  

I love avocados in my spring rolls! Chris likes to add mango slices in his.  

 I sliced the carrots. I don't know what or how much he added.  I'm guessing you can use this recipe for pickled carrots.  

Peanut sauce for the rolls! So delicious.  

The big bowl in the middle is filled with warm water.  You have to wet the rice paper in order to roll it. 

Chris's final product.  My roll came out all deformed and broken.  

After dinner we played D3 for a little bit...I don't have a gaming laptop so we couldn't play ::(  After that we watched Game of Thrones until 5 in the morning. I'm disappointed that the directors changed Daenerys and Jaime's characters. Oh well...I'm hoping that next season they won't ruin her arc.  

On Sunday, Chris's sister had her birthday party at their beach house.  I didn't take that many pictures because I didn't want to bring my phone to the beach.  

So much food! 

Picture of a sea shell wreath.  

 

His uncle's dog.  She likes to frog like Pazuzu.  I tried so hard to take a picture of her frogging but whenever I got close to her, Chris's dog Gracie chased her off >:O!!! 

Korean Tacos

Chris and I made Korean tacos (thanks to this awesome recipe) for Cinco de Mayo.  Making them was so simple and easy only because we did not marinate the meat. We cheated.. bought pre-marinated meat from H-mart which is a lot cheaper.  Chris had most of  the ingredients and had to buy tomatoes, limes, sour cream, and jalapenos from the Indian super market, which he paid 5 dollars for everything! 

We probably spent almost 2 hours in H-mart looking around for samples! Some of the samples we tried were organic salmon (So good! We might make spicy salmon hand rolls soon), mochi ice cream, various fruits and vegetables, kimchi, bul go gi, dumplings, and drinks.  

I love this tea drink! I couldn't resist the sale and bought 2 for 5 dollars. 

Chris and I were looking at the fresh cream with fruit cake slice on top.   We decided not to, because it was 5 dollars per slice :(. 

Pico de gallo

Korilla sauce

1 lb of pre-marinated chicken thighs for 4 dollars. 

1 lb of bul go gi was 5 dollars.  Not as good as my mom's but it was a lot cheaper/easier :)

Grilled bell peppers! 

After dinner Chris realized that we forgot to add the kimchi!! I can't believe we forgot it!!! 

                                             

We bought strawberries to eat for dessert. They were HUGE and smelled so delicious! 

We dipped the strawberries in Greek yogurt, almonds, and honey :)

The meal was around 20 dollars and served 6 people.  The prep time took longer than expected because I did most of the grunt work -,-.   

Cooking with Chris Part 2

Chris was craving chicken and rice from the cart on 53rd and 6th. but we hate going into the city.  Even though I live so close, it's always a hassle traveling. Thankfully, we found this awesome recipe to help us settle our cravings.  

The white sauce came out so good! And it was so easy to make too.  

The rice coated with cumin and tumeric powder

I bought a weird basmati rice blend from Trader Joe's.  I think next time I'm gonna stick to plain rice.  

I pulled a noob mistake and added way too little broth and added too much rice.  I never make rice on the stove top!! I was able to fix the mistake by adding more water and broth. 

Chicken thighs

Looks so good! 

  

I bought whole wheat pita bread for us from Trader Joe's. It wasn't that great .  I tried to be healthy but I guess you can't be healthy when it comes to chicken and rice. We had to add more mayo to the white sauce to make it tasty.  

What a success! We had a few snags like under cooking the rice and not browning the chicken enough but the meal came out almost exactly like the chicken you would get from the city.  I think the meal costs us around 20 dollars? It was kinda pricey because we didn't plan that well and didn't buy lettuce and chicken on sale.Iceberg lettuce was 2.50! Also, Chris didn't have turmeric powder but that was only a dollar something at his local farmer's market. Oh! And don't get the harrisa hot sauce! YUCK.  It tasted bitter and sour.  We used good old Siracha sauce instead.  

Bought a strawberry cheesecake slice from Whole Foods :) I ate almost the whole thing by myself cause Chris was too busy playing League of Legends haha.  

Saturday Afternoon Lunch

I'm jealous that Chris lives close to a farmer's market. He bought four bundles of basil for one dollar each!  Basil is usually 3.99 at the local supermarket. I asked him to make me pesto.  We went to Whole Foods because he forgot to bring cheese and nuts.  I tried out a sample of fiddleheads.  They taste like asparagus.  I bought some to put in our pasta.  

Pesto made out of Whole Foods 3 cheese blend, cashews, oil, and ground black pepper

Fiddlehead

Tomatoes, fiddleheads, chicken breast, and spinach fusilli pasta

Whole Foods in Edgewater has the best cannolis! They fill the shell on the spot.  

Timmy was pissed because we didn't give him any chicken.