Blizzard Weekeend Meals (2009.12.19)

Some of this was cooked Friday night. I knew I would be home all weekend with the blizzard coming so I began defrosting and planning my meals for the next couple of days. If I write the order of how I cooked everything it would take forever, so I'll just introduce the dishes.

Cabbage Shrimp

Bitter Squash with Shitake Mushroom Soup

Roasted Napa and Tofu with Chicken Innards

Baked Crispy Chicken Breasts

Roasted Chicken Thigh (no picture yet)

Did I mention I have alot of chicken in the fridge? Well, not anymore... =) Everything went very well with rice.

Corn Cake a la Jiffy (2009.12.16)

I wanted to eat corn cakes, bascially pancakes make out of corn stuff. I had 2 boxes of Jiffy corn meal and it magically had a corn cake recipe on the side.

Here's the batter:

And the stack of corn cakes. A tad sweet for me (that's the batter itself) but not as dry as corn muffin which I made about a month ago. I wish it weren't so sweet, next time I think I will add real corn to it. =)

SAIC Holiday Party (2009.12.12)

We seem to have the same thing each year we go. This is the 3rd year going to the Marriott for my sister's holiday party and possibly the 3rd year we've had the same menu. So boring. Salad is boring so there's no picture of it. And no picture of dessert, your regular holiday pastries, American-style.

The entree was a filet mignon, medium well, crab cake, raw rabbit carrots, steamed sting beans, mashed potatoes and roasted tomatoes. Filet mignon was excellet. The crab cake was way too salty, as was last year's. Raw carrots, were raw... Strings beans could've been cooked slightly longer, but tolerable. Mashed potatoes were of the norm and the roasted tomatoes were one of a kind. I'm not a fan of cooked tomatoes...

Longhorn's Steak House (2009.12.06)

Pictures are worth a thousand words. I was doing a mystery shopper thing for lunch. I'm supposed to get reimbursed for the meal, it just takes 3-4 weeks. I would never eat here on my own tab, it's too pricey and upscale for me. And the portions aren't the right size.

Flo's Filet wrapped with bacon and a side of mashed potatoes. Well I ordered it well done, but it was just plain burnt. It was like they were rushed and turned on the fire real high but didn't bother to realize the steak was burnt. The inside was perfect, the outside, different story. Mashed potatoes were good, except for that butter or whatever white thing that was on top. I think it was melted butter, not kosher with that...



The dessert was called Golden Nugget Fried Cheesecake. I got it togo so it looked a tad different from the advertisement. I don't like fried foods and that reminded of of that. It was the type of fried batter that was just too much and too greasy. The cheescake was good and so was the ice cream. The strawberry drizzle was all right and I'm glad I didn't eat it there, it would've tasted funky with everything all together the way it's supposed to be. I ate them separately, fried cheesecake dipped with strawberry and ice cream dipped in strawberry. It tasted better that way. I would've liked the cheesecake by itself, but one can't ask for all that...



Total Cost: After tax and tip $30.50 (all of above plus ice tea)

Silver Diner (2009.07.28)

Fried Calamari - too much batterCrabcake Sandiwich

Copeland's (2009.07.25)

...of New Orleans. Today was the closing ceremony for one of the summer programs AJ runs. It went really well, the presentations were really good and their projects were pretty successful. =) We grabbed lunch at Copeland's of New Orleans in Columbia after the ceremony. It's near the Columbia Mall which is pretty close to AJ's house and my work place. At first we were going to go to King's Contrivance but they don't open for lunch on Saturdays!! AJ wanted to get the salad she got last time. Cravings...lol!

Anyway, we ended up at Copeland's. The service was interesting. AJ's napkin was filled with crumbs. It wrapped the utensils and on the outside were some crumbs, but more when it was opened. Ew. Our server was no where to be found because she zoomed away as soon as she gave us the salad (AJ got a side salad, no pic of that) and we each got biscuits with our orders (no pic of those either).

The lunch entree I got was called Tomato Basil Chicken. Fresh grilled chicken breast served alongside angel hair pasta, tossed with plum tomatoes, fresh basil, olive oil, a touch of garlic butter and topped with Parmesan Cheese. I asked for no cheese of course. When the waitress brought it to us, she said "with extra cheese." Everyone likes to joke...so funny, haha. I've gotten it with cheese when I asked for none, so I wasn't surprised, just wasteful, that's all.


AJ got the Pasta Shrimp Copeland which was tender shrimp, sauteed garlic, mushrooms, and fresh herbs, served over angel hair pasta. I thought about getting it since it had "Copeland" in the name - ought to be pretty good, since it's named after the restaurant, but I'm not a big fan of mushrooms. After seeing AJ'd dish, I'm glad I didn't get it, lots of mushrooms. Though it looked pretty good, a bit smaller portion than the dish I had, at least it looked that way.


Before we ordered our entrees, AJ was already looking for the dessert menu. One didn't exist so after we finished the entree, we asked for one. Surprising that we both had some room in our stomachs!! I got the Original Cheesecake Napolean. I like cheesecake and I got Napolean-style before and was rather interesting to me. The concept anyway. Is' cheesecake stuffed between pudding cake with a dab of whipped cream. It was pretty good. Tpudding cake and cheesecake mix tasted really good. Sweet with with tinge of cheesecake to balance the flavor out.


AJ got the white chocolete bread pudding. I like chocolate. I told her the story of the PoBoy Bread Pudding from the NO trip. Anyway, it looked like pretty good bread pudding, AJ liked it. I'm not sure I can switch to normal bread pudding after having the PoBoy version of it though.


Total cost = 8.29 + 9.99 + 5.99 + 6.99 + 2 (side salad) + tax + tip = approx $40 total

/*This is the first entry where I linked to so many other posts!*/

Homecooked Dinner (2009.06.27)

Roasted bittersquash with beef. This is in response to TkN and the ways we eat bittersquash. I bought some bittersqaush from the grocery store yesterday. It was on sale for the first time this season at $.88 per pound! It wasn't super fresh, but I managed to find enough for one meal. I told mom it had to be cooked right away, so she decided to roast it with cubes of beef.


Cauliflower was also on sale yesterday at $.98 per head. Just throw some garlic and spring onions in oil and add water, salt and pepper and you have a light soup base. Put the cut up cauliflower and you have a very quick soup!


I've always had soup at the end of a meal. It seems odd to drink it in the beginning like in American restaurants. I remember when I lived by myself I actually had a soup bowl and a bowl for eating rice. Instead of drinking water or other liquids, I treated soup as my "water." At home we just have one bowl, so I just drink the soup last as a way to finish off the meal.

Chef Siri's (2009.06.14)

It seems I only go out to eat with AJ or E. At least according to my tags anyway...lol

Chef Siri's is a Thai and American Cuisine. Of course, 80% of the menu is Thai, the American stuff is for the "Americans." This is the fifth time eating there. I've tolerated everything I've ordered. I don't love it, but I like it more than other places I've been. I've tried something different each time and haven't disliked something too much.

We ordered an appetizer, two entrees and dessert. For the appetizer, we ordered the Thai Shrimp. It wasn't quite what I expected, but it tasted ok. It's not something that would turn me away from eating there again. Thai Shrimp consisted of baked shrimp stuffed with crab meat, cabbage and vermicelli. Thai sweet and sour sauce is drizzled over the Thai Shrimp. The shrimp was rather tiny and non-existent really. I'm not sure if there was actual crab meat, though it did have a seafood taste. The sweet and sour sauce wasn't too bad. They didn't mix it together, so you weren't stuck with Thai Shrimp dunked in sweet and sour sauce.


One of the entrees was Siam Duck. The menu capitalizes all the letters to "SIAM DUCK." Well, at first glance, it can look like "Slam Duck," which E found super amusing and was the main reason she wanted to order it. lol. Siam Duck is fried crispy pieces of duck with scallions, broccoli, carrots (lots of big chunks) and onions sautéed in chef’s special sauce. The special sauce was a mix of soy sauce, garlic, basil and curry. Not quite what I expected... The fried crispy duck was mostly batter with duck. I think I had more batter than duck, a bit disappointed with it.


The other dish was Thai Basil with sliced beef sautéed with fresh basil leaves, carrots, onions, carrots (lots o big chunks), chili & garlic in a brown sauce. It was pretty good, the overall flavor was decent. The beef could've used a bit of corn starch to soften it up, was a bit tough. I like the taste basil leaves give, but I'm not a fan of eating it. It's like my philosophy with ginger and garlic. I love the flavors it gives food, but I need it chopped up finely so I don't pick it out!!


Oh, and can you tell we weren't fans of big chunks of carrots? I like my above philosophy applied to carrots. That or at least shredded or sliced, no chunks though.

For dessert we ordered Thai Sticky Rice with Mango. The sticky rice was not the kind I was used to. It's long and thin. The rice was warm and had coconut drizzled over it. Slices of mango accompanied the rice with dabs of whipped cream and basil leaves as decorations. On it's own the, rice and mango were all right. However, when you eat the rice with the mango, it's pretty good. I wouldn't mind trying it again. The coconut gave it a stronger taste since mango or rice on its own doesn't taste like much.


Total price: $6.95 + $14.95 + $9.95 + $4.50 + tax + tip = $23/person

Note: Pictures are courtesy of E's camera...

Homecooked Roasted Pig Feet (2009.05.11)

The Taiwanese have a tradition of eating roasted pig feet with noodles on their birthday. We didn't have it with noodles, but with white rice. I don't like pig feet very much because it can be rather sticky and it's all fat so it's not really that good for you. When you mix the sauce with noodles, it because really tasty though.

This picture is missing some green or red. LOL.

Lunch Box from JiaLeFu (2009.05.10)

After the movie there were lunch boxes from JaiLeFu in Annandale, VA. The owners are Hakka and cooked some Hakka dishes for us. Going clockwise. Roasted pork with pickled veggie (梅菜扣肉). The pork must be the part with a layer of fat, it tastes better than the pork itself. Unfortunately they did not roast this long enough for the flavor to go into the meat and was lacking some garlic to give it a kick. Sauteed bamboo shoots (did I mention this is bamboo season?) Pandas like raw bamboo, humans don't. Need I say more? Seasoned chicken that was a bit tasty, just a bit. I think it was supposed to be drunk chicken, but it wasn't drunk, just had a bit of salt...

Dinner Box from Bob's 66 (2009.05.09)

I think I complain too much about food that isn't homecooked. Well, here's another series. The dinner box was given to us so we didn't have to go out and figure out what to do for dinner before the concert. Everyone got the same thing, a mix of too many strange things, all bland but the bitter squash, which was bitter, so natural.

Going clockwise. Some kind of fish that was sauteed with bamboo and snow peas. Very bland and too fishy. Yellow pickle. Not my favorite food. Ground pork with lots of five spice over rice. Too much five spicy. Pickled green mustard. Tasted ok. Bitter squash with anchovies. It wasn't cooked long enough so it was a bit on the raw side, but the bitter squash was very bitter, excellent. Roasted Egg. Bland...I actually looked forward to eating the roasted egg we still have at home!! Finally bamboo tips with pork. Bland, once again. The bamboo itself was very soft and tasty. It is bamboo season!

I don't eat salty foods, so if I think it's bland, then it really has no flavor!!!

Homecooked Butter Fish and Lettuce (2009.05.08)

Who says you can't cook lettuce? One platter of sauteed lettuce, coming right up! Just add garlic, oil and salt to season. =)


Crispy butterfish where you can eat the whole thing but the spinal bones. It's rather tasty and only needs salt and pepper for seasoning. No batter is needed, just some oil and ginger! Piece of cake, right?

Homecooked Roasted Egg (2009.05.07)

Roasted egg isn't the most exciting picture in the world. However, this isn't your normal roasted egg. This is a star-imprinted roasted egg half-hidden in a bed of white rice. LOL. This was part of my lunch and the plastic lid has a star imprint. It created a star on the egg, making it picture-worthy. =P

Homecooked Dinner (2009.05.07)

Crunchy anchovies with sesame sweet, lightly sweetened. Goes very nicely with rice. I usually don't eat stir-fried anchovies, however this time it was very crunchy, not hard like usual. it was very tasty, for once.


The matching soup for the anchovies was this "Korean-style" Spicy Seafood Soup. A seafood mix of squi, clams, shrimp and oysters. The veggies include tofu, onions, lettuce and seaweed. It's a seafood potluck. We use the spicy red paste seen in Korean stores. We bought a tub of it once when it was on sale and use it to make soups like this. The paste doesn't require other flavoring to be added to the soup because it contains everything you need for the soup base. The veggies and seafood adds to the taste of the soup.

Victoria's Gastro Pub (2009.05.06)

This place was highly recommended by my co-workers as we were driving to a Thai place for lunch. Well, they made it sound SOOOO good, that I asked "Are you guys sure you want Thai food?" And they said, let's turn around and you can try this place out. Ok, well there goes Thai food. Next time.

Located at 8201 Snowden River Parkway, Columbia, MD 21045, Victoria's Gastro Pub doesn't have the most appetizing name. That aside, the dish below is the American Dip with a small poutine. The American Dip is Slow Roasted Van de Rose Farms Hereford Rib Eye with Horseradish Sauce and Anchor Porter Beef Jus. The thing of black juice is the "Beef Jus." Go Figure. The horseradish was rather bland so I relied on the Beef Juice for flavor. This was the marinated juice from roasting the Rib Eye. It wasn't too bad. The original sandwich came with Vermont Cheese, but I got mine without it.

On the side, instead of the normal selection of sides, my co-workers recommended getting a side of Poutine. A Poutine consists of Duck Fat Fries, Duck Confit, Gruyere Cheese and Duck Gravy. It's very duck-oriented. The history of the Poutine is rather interesting.

Duck Fat Fries are fries that were fried in duck fat.
Duck Confit are pieces of duck.
Gruyere Cheese is some kind of cheese.
Duck Gravy is duck made from gravy...er...gravy made from duck...

It was ok, I'm not sure what the rave was about... LOL



Sidenote: I had this lunch with 5 co-workers who were all guys. I think had it been any other female, she probably wouldn't haven't gotten what I ordered. LOL.

Total Cost: 16 + 2.50 + tax + tip = $23

Homecooked Squid and Celery (2009.04.29)

What do you do when you buy a stalk of celery? You can eat them as a healthy snack. Put them in a tuna salad. Add some in chicken noodle soup. But there's always tons left over! This is how one way of getting rid of celery. It's a very simple dish that doesn't require a lot of prep since celery and carrots are very easy to prepare and only take a few minutes. Throw some garlic in the mix, salt, pepper and oil and you get a very healthy dish!

Homecooked 肉羹 - Thick Soup with Pork (2009.04.28)

This is a Taiwanese dish that my mom cooks fairly often. It's a soup that is thicken using tapioca instead of the standard corn starch in most soups. The pork is breaded with ground shrimp. The veggies include napa cabbage, tree mushroom, carrots, bamboo and an assortment of other things my mom didn't have. The soup's base is flavored with black vinegar. It's not as strong as white vinegar in taste, but has a different fragrant flavor white vinegar doesn't have. The soup goes very well with any type of noodles or rice.

The mandarin pronunciation sounds strange, but in Taiwanese it it pronounced "Bah Gee."

Homecooked Sauteed Bitter Squash (2009.04.26)

Bitter squash is a type of squash that tastes bitter. It looks kind of funky. It has grooves in it, unlike the smooth skin of American squash. Bitter squash is typically a light green color, about 8-12 inches long, 3-4 inch diameter. This is the 'brown sauce' version where the bitter squash is cooked with ginger, black beans and anchovies. Bitter squash is like any squash and takes some time to cook before it is completely cooked. It also takes time for the flavor to be cooked into the squash. The flavor is a mixture of bitter and salt. Good stuff and very healthy.

Homecooked Dinner (2009.04.14)

Ham sauteed with green peppers and onion (spicy). This isn't the most exciting dish, rather plain and ordinary but it has a nice assortment of colors.


This is napa soup cooked in ham broth (as evident by the big ham bone). There are also carrots and straw mushrooms in the soup. It's rather light and yummy.

Cuisine of China - Lava Shrimp (2009.04.11)

Lava Shrimp can only be found at Cuisine of China. It's a simple dish. The concept behind it is simple as well. The idea of 'Lava' is that the food is piled over rice. Lava shrimp consists of a generous amount of baby shrimp in a brown sauce over a bowl of white rice. It's simple and yummy.


Total cost: 5.95 + tax

McDonald's - Fish-O-Filet (2009.03.28)

"The Filet-O-Fish contains a battered fish patty made mostly from Pollock and/or hoki, half a slice of processed cheese and one ounce of tartar sauce made with dill relish, and seasoning on a steamed bun." (from Wiki) French fries provide a nice decor for the boring looking sandwich. Obviously this was from McDonald's.


Total cost: 1.19 + tax (this was a promotion that has already ended)

Popeyes (2009.04.04)

Um, because I really didn't eat much of a dinner at SLICE, I walked around looking for food. I decided to get Popeye since I could get biscuits and eat them for breakfast the next morning. Well, I really wanted mashed potatoes with the biscuits, I think I got ripped off with the half a scoop they gave me. I ordered 6 biscuits and started eating one before I took the picture. I ordered fries because E said she wanted some earlier. Good cajun fries, a bit cold by the time I to them though. I like my food hot, it tastes much better!

Total cost = 1.49 + 1.49 + 3.54 + tax = $7.

SLICE Pizzeria (2009.04.04)

Day three's dinner was at SLICE Pizzeria located on 1513 St. Charles Ave, a block behind the B&B. E ordered spaghetti and meatballs, it doesn't get simpler than that. Those are some huge meatballs! There was a choice of linguine, angel hair or something else. This is angel hair. Actually just looks like thin spaghetti to me. Right.


So apparently Shrimp and Andouille pizza looks like below. If you notice there are ham/sausage like objects. Um, didn't know that's what Andouille was. It never occured to me to ask the waitress either... It was topped with carmelized onions, yellow corn, tomatoes and green onions. This was actually a cheese pizza with those toppings reheated so it "stuck" on the pizza. It was all right...


This was a cheese calzone with red onions, mushrooms and peppers. Well, it was a tad raw where the inner circle was. Um, I asked for it to be re-cooked. When it came back I was still a bit iffy about it. It became really soggy because of the veggies... I ate the middle and left the outer crust. The marinara sauce was ok, I've had better marinara sauce, like at Sbarro's. Ah, I miss their Strombolis!


Total cost = 5.50 + 5.95 + 2.55 + tax + tip = $13

Praline Connection (2009.04.04)

Day three lunch at NO was at the Praline Connection located somewhere. It was highly recommended by the locals. Many of us hadn't had real LA food so it was decided to get a large appetizer platter rather than separate entrees. This was called the Connection Platter. It consisted of Fried Alligator Sausage, Spicy Chicken Wings, Fried Okra, Fried Pickles and Bite Size Catfish. As you can see the catfish were a bit short of "bitsize." Everything was pretty good (your regular fried stuff), except for the chicken which I didn't eat. E said it tasted like spicy chicken so I decided I wasn't missing out. There was 4 different sauces to dip in: Barbeque sauce (not like the one from Oceana Grille, but the normal kind!), tartar sauce, a tomato based sauce and a tartar-like sauce without the pickles.


E and I split another appetizer, BBQ Oysters with garlic toast. The oysters were very fresh, plump and tender. The sauce was, well, BBQ sauce. I'm not a fan of BBQ sauce, so it was all right.


Someone else's meal came with cornbread and I decided I wanted some too. It was your regular cornbread, nothing too special. I think I still liked the one at Vidalia's more. Ha.


Total Cost: $25 split amongst 6 people = $4 + $5 +tax + tip = $12.50

Ye Old College Inn (2009.04.03)

Day two dinner was a team outing at Ye Old College Inn at some location in New Orleans (I don't have the address). No appetizer today, just plain old entrees.

E ordered the Grilled Mahi Mahi atop a bed of sauteed spinach with a lobster beurre blanc and garnished with mashed potatoes, tortilla sticks and shrimp. I only tried the mashed potatoes, they were a bit cold. Bleh. The dish looked good though and E seemed to enjoy it.

I decided I needed to turn on the flash. I ordered the Fresh Fish (Redfin) Meuniere, grilled and topped with a creole meuniere sauce over a sauteed medley of fresh asparagus, baby spinach and chopped tomatoes. It was tangy and good. I don't really like tomatoes with my food, but it tasted pretty good in this dish. I enjoyed this dish but it wasn't alot, a bit more like the upscale dining in MD and not the big platters of LA.

This is why I wanted to order dessert. I don't remember the actual name since I didn't take a picture of the menu. However, it's something like "Fried Bread Pudding PoBoy". Everything in LA is "poboy" style, aka fried. Well, we kept thinking they meant poboy to mean in a sandwich, as all poboys are, but our server, Jimmy, cleared it up for us. They take the bread pudding, cuts half of it and deep frys it. Then they put it back on the original bread pudding and puts rum sauce over it with confectionate sugar on top. It was good. It looked better than the regular bread pudding a couple other people got. The funny thing was AJ mentioned bread pudding on Wednesday when I saw her. And I told her then I never had it before and asked if it was like rice pudding, she gave me a funny face and told me she couldn't describe it. Now I know. It's not that hard to describe!! LOL


Total cost = 17.95 + 4.50 + tax + tip = $30

Oceana Grille (2009.04.02)

Day one in New Orleans. As soon as we got to the B&B we went out in search for Lunch/Dinner. We had a gift certificate for Oceana Grille (739 Conti St). The GC was worth $25 but we purchased it for $2. The stipulation? Had to eat over $50 for two people, excluded alcohol, not that we ordered any.

So we ordered two appetizers and two entrees. Yes, lots of food for two people, but we managed. This first one is Louisiana Crab Cakes in a crawfish cream sauce. E and I each ate one. It had a lot of breading and really wasn't that special. The sauce was very creamy and had a remoulade hint to it. I still like the crabcake at King's Contrivance or G&M's.


The other appetizer was Cajun Alligator Sausage "Atchafalaya." I never had alligator before, and no, I don't consider it "meat." It wasn't very special, acceptable. It tasted like a cross between pork and beef, texture-wise.


Next came the entrees, E ordered Redfish"Amer" which was sauteed redfish topped with crawfish and mushroom cream sauce, served with potatoes and vegetables. It wasn't really "sauteed" - there was breading on it and it seemed fried or grilled. I tried some, it was ok...


I ordered Barbequed Shrimp - New Orleans Style. The menu states that it is barbequed in a buttery pepper sauce cooked in their shells with cafun french bread for dipping. Well, no shells (and I assumed it to be large shrimps) and that yellow-orange stuff if grease...yuck... The tiny gritty stuff was probably garlic, but it tasted funny. I didn't like it. I ended up putting all my shrimp around the plate so the grease would drip off and picked the garlic off. My plate looked pretty funny as I was eating. No, not as tasteful as I wanted it to be.


Total Cost = 12.50 + 8 + 18 + 18 = 56.50 - 25GC = 31.50 + tax + tip (based on 56.50) = $45
LA tax is 9%, what fun...
With the GC it wasn't a bad deal for two people. Though, the taste, was... =/

Oh, and though it was 'alot of food' - I manged to finish off all the shrimps, the 3 alligators, 1 crab cake and 1/4 of the red fish and some potatoes. No, I wasn't really stuffed either! =P