Monday, June 26, 2006

It's 60% time again...

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Hurry, offer ends 6/30/06.

Thursday, June 22, 2006

I hate being sick...

...and yet it can't be avoided. I was fighting what seemed like the onset of a sinus infection earlier this week. The irritation of my sinus made it hard for me to swallow and thus there went enjoying nice delicious food. I fought my sickeness with plain Chicken Broth and a can of tuna for lunch, chicken noodle and tomato soups for dinner and lots and lots of water and tea. Two days later - I am doing fine but not without having to take a sick day off of work. But it was well worth it. I spent all day over bowls of hot water with a towel over my head to inhale the steam. (call me crazy, but I read about some home treatments on the internet and they worked!)

Nothing makes you cherish food more than the times in your life that force you away from food. Once I'm completely better - I'm gonna have some of the stuff I was craving earlier. :)

Chocolate Lovers...Vote!

Lately - I've seen a trend happening...Dark Chocolate Lovers are starting to overtake the Milk Chocolate Lovers. Which one are you???

I used to be only Milk Chocolate but my taste buds are finding Dark very tasty lately!

Crock user...

Are you a crockpot user? Here's a very very simple recipe for a tasty chicken meal...

Crock Pot Chicken Long rice

1 package section of vermicelli (bean thread)
1 breast of chicken (can be frozen, see “from frozen” directions)
1 can of Chicken Broth
Shitake Mushrooms (whole/sliced) (add desired)
Green Onion (chopped)
¼ of a ginger finger…grated. (or add more/less to taste) [can use bottled minced ginger too]
A generous pinch Sea Salt (i.e. Aloha Salt)
Water to cover ingredients

Add to Crock pot all ingredients, use enough water to cover all ingredients in pot and cover.

For cooking chicken from frozen, cook on high for 3 hours. (or low for 6)

For cooking defrosted chicken, cook on low for 3 hours.

When done, take out chicken from Crock Pot and shred with two forks. If Whole Shitake Mushrooms were used, take those out and slice them into strips. Put shredded chicken and slice Shitake Mushrooms back in pot. If broth is too bland, use table salt to taste. Mix and serve with Rice.

This is a recipe for 1.5 servings (2 if you have light eaters). Feel free to double/triple, adding about 15-30 minutes to cooking time per chicken added (I’ve never tried more than 2 pieces, you may want to experiment with your cooker for bigger family size meals). Just make sure that you add enough water to cover all ingredients and you should be fine.

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

The Big Apple...

I love NYC...ofcourse, aside from the smell of the subways and the pollution. It's a culinary playground.

I will post the pics as they come in, but in the meantime - Check out Morimoto's. It's where we had a 10:15p reservation for dinner...yes, that's right, 10:15p. That's how popular this place is. Thanks to my uber friend who put this all together!

"What is Morimoto?" you ask. I would hope that you would know him already from reading this blog...but just in case...Morimoto is my favorite Iron Chef. Iron Chef Japanese. Here's a little more on the man himself.

At Morimoto's I had:
Dobin Mushi
Foie Gras Chawan Mushi
Seafood bouillabaisse

The Morimoto website points to the Philadelphia restaurant menu so you won't see some of the items I ordered on there - but man, if you like Foie Gras, you need to try the Chawan Mushi in NYC. It comes like a custard with a saucey layer on the top. Topping this delicate layer was a flavorful piece of duck. Mmm, looks like a flan dessert at first. I dipped the tiny little spoon into the Chawan Mushi and scooped up the silky foie gras. Yum-e! Then I had another spoonful with the piece of duck and nearly died. It was so good - the duck piece had so much flavor! My girlfriends laughed at me. It was the greatest thing I had that night actually.

After that, I had the lobster and seafood bouillabaisse in red miso sake broth. Oh wow - I was so full after eating this. There was a whole half lobster in this bowl. The bowl came steaming hot with a lid. The wait staff cautioned me to shield my face while they took off the lid. It was THAT hot. I had to let it cool for a second. Inside the broth there was whole shrimp, 1/2 lobster + additional lobster meat, clams, mussels and ABALONE. I soooo wanted rice with this dish but I knew it wasn't the way to enjoy it. Plus we had had appetizers already and were sharing so everyone was dangerously reaching "full" when the entrees came. I lapped the soup in the bowl stopping short of picking up the heavy stoneware and tilting it to get the rest of the soup. Since we were at a pretty trendy place - I decided to be civilized...though all civility probably went out the window when we started taking pictures of all of our food. ha!

I can't comment on the dessert because...well...we didn't have any. We were so full...but that really wasn't the reason why we didn't eat dessert. Shortly after eating dinner, we hopped a taxi to Serendipity to enjoy they're popular Frozen Hot Chocolate. We had a nice window side table for four and each enjoyed the frozen concoction. Actually, one of my girlfriends had a very sinful sundae instead. The sundae brought back visions of Farrel's and lots of good times.

Hoping that excercise might help make all the calories we just ate disappear, we walked back about 9 blocks to our hotel and crashed out until the next day.

I'd write more - but just writing about our Saturday night dinner and dessert is making me tired. :)

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Craving...

Alright, enough with the healthy food - haha...I am now craving:

Strawberries dipped in sour cream and rolled in brown sugar. Ah man...Y*U*M*E! Perfect for this hot weather.

Say it! I know you want to say it!

"hypocrite!"

...there...you feel better? :P

'al-mend' or 'A-mend'?

Eat Almonds! (but just about 22 of them...)

Got on this kick from my girlfriend at work whose trying to eat healthier and lose a little bit of weight. I've given up on the losing weight part - but am still interested in the healthy. "Hypocrite!" you cry! Well, no - not really. To eat all these yum-e foods on this blog, ya need to balance it out with some healthy eating...or I'll end up 5' and 300 lbs. I'm all for healthy if it doesn't completely kill my tastebuds in the process. Here's one way:

The healthy benefits of Almonds

yum-e!