food

Friday, September 29, 2006

my birthday gifts put to use

for my birthday a few weeks ago, i got a couple’a coolio gifts.


the first one i got on my birthday day from perry… it’s oh-so-much fun!!!!! =) one of my students texted me on tuesday “don’t forget to bring ur ds to school” and we battled out super mario on the wifi network.  isn’t that awesome?  it’s pretty neat =) so far i only own “the new super mario bros” and “brain age” but i hope to one day soon own “tetris”... and if you have any other games to suggest to me lemme know please =) i just beat the mario game so i’ll be looking for a few to buy.

thank you perry for my nintendo ds lite! =)

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a couple of days later i arrived at home and puttered around for a bit before i saw a package on the end table unopened.  i thought it was for rita and curious, i looked at where it was from.  that’s when i saw my name on the label.  SHOOT!  it was for me!!!  i was so excited, i had NO idea what it could be… perry was there and i asked him if he sent me something =) hahaha… then i opened it and found this really sweet knife compliments of kathy and susan. 

i wanted to test it out on a variety of vegetables, especially the dreaded tomato, which i love eating but has always proven difficult to cut.  so i started out making some ceviche.

here’s all the vegetables in their glory, laid out on the table, washed, and ready to be cut with the knife.


the vegetables, diced, and all piled up in a shallow bowl


the ceviche all made and ready to be marinated.  you can’t tell but this bowl is as deep as it is wide.  yeah… there’s 1.4 pounds of imitation crab in there, along with 8 tomatoes, 2-3 red onions, 6 green onions, 2 mexican green onions, one yellow bell pepper, one green bell pepper, half a bunch of cilantro, 3 jalapenos, and ton of lime/lemon juice.  and garlic salt.  man… it was SOOOO good.  there were 12 people total for dinner that night (me, perry, chad, ron, jason hinkle, laurie, rita, jason, marlene, marc rolle, jeff swanson, and rowell) and we totally killed the ceviche along with the 1.5 pounds of lentils that i made…


after cutting all the vegetables (and 3 more tomatoes to go in the ceviche and lentils), these are all that i had remaining.  those green tomato things are tomatillos that i bought to add bulk to the ceviche without having to buy tomatoes at $2.99 A POUND!!!! but then i didn’t end up using them.  other than that, i only had a little bit of cilantro left.

i absolutely loved using my new knife and i thought i would share the joy of ceviche with you since kat and susan shared the joy of wonderful kitchen utensils with me =) that knife was some good stuff… and i know everyone loved the ceviche. 

now i wanna go eat some more… =)

thank you kat and susan!!!

Posted by kgrp on 09/29 at 12:45 AM
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Friday, September 08, 2006

happy birthday to me!

on thursday night i got home around 10:30, tired, and ready to go to bed.  rita was just about to go to sleep too… but then she decided that if i was gonna turn 27 at midnight, then we’d better stay up for it!

so… hungry and tired, we camped out on the living room couches, called perry to bring us some food and ring in my birthday with us, and he came - with fish fillets, chicken nuggets, french fries, and apple pies.

at midnight, rita and perry somewhat sang to me =) well… sorta....

it was cool though, cuz then they decided to light a candle so i could blow it out and make my wish - and we realized the smallest candles we had in the house were tealights!  and then we didn’t really have anything to stick it in, so we put it right next to the apple pie.

and then we put ‘em next to the chicken nuggets…

and then i blew out the candle on top of the fish fillet!

and then we made a mountain of fries and lit the candle in that!

can you tell it was really late at night? =)

anyways, as ghetto as it may look, it still was a very creative way to bring in my birthday!

Posted by kgrp on 09/08 at 10:26 PM
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Thursday, July 20, 2006

what is there to eat here?

what’s really sad is that i live here in spain, i’ve visited france, and yet, i’m craving english food!

i must be really backwards…

in spain, other than the ubiquitous tortilla espanola, which is really just a potato egg omelette, and the paella, which is just pan fried rice, and now is full of seafood to entice tourists who want “coastal food”, i can’t think of any food that’s very spanish… and since i haven’t had the guts to order myself rice fried with lobster, mussels, shrimp, and the like, i’ve pretty much been eating potato-egg-omelette.  the sad thing is that if it’s not breakfast time they cut this up and put it between bread so you can have a sandwich - but with no sauce, no tomatoes, no onions, no nothing!  it’s just a dry piece of omelette in a dry piece of bread =/ i’ve gotta start carrying around packets of ketchup with me…

sadly enough, when i went to france, the food there wasn’t amazing either - i had picnic with this family and they had 3 dishes

  • canned green beans, onto which they cut boiled egg, and poured a good vinaigrette over it
  • “salad" which was tomatoes, onions, peas, and rice
  • salchicha, which they ate with bread

oh wait, and then you can’t forget the cheese course!  yeah… they had a block of cheese and just cut it up into big chunks and everyone grabbed a chunk and started eating… i thought that woulda been fun with crackers or with bread.

i have to admit that i enjoyed the meal i had while i was in france, just that it wasn’t a culinary masterpiece… but then again, neither am i gonna go trying some escargot, so it’s just as well i had something that i enjoyed!

but then england!  ENGLAND!!  land of bangers and mash!  fish and chips! (sans the mushy peas... ewww!!) hearty meals like shepherd’s pie which is basically meatloaf topped with mashed potatoes, and you bake it so the potatoes can get a bit crispy, and then you smother it in gravy before eating…

mmmmmm....

is it wrong to crave english food while in france?  maybe i AM a stupid american tourist…

Posted by kgrp on 07/20 at 11:51 AM
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Tuesday, March 21, 2006

i love food!!

so i was downloading pictures from my camera, and i saw this theme… it was always us gathered around food!  hahaha… yup… so here’s a few pics from the past few days, usually after we’re done eating, ready to enter into our post-eating food coma =)

on saturday night, rod and colleen showed up at maria’s, where they unexpectedly ran into…


shelia and chris, who had invited me out to dinner with them.  i was there with the two of them and ended up calling…


rita, who placed an order over the phone with me, and then showed up with jason and gavin.


on sunday, it was labuni family day at lotus garden, which is where…


auntie and uncle celebrated their 31st wedding anniversary.


today was tuesday night dinner and it was all girls night!  that’s an amazing feat =) plus all four roomies were back in the same room again!  yay!  and around food…

such is the theme of my life… =)

Posted by kgrp on 03/21 at 11:52 PM
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Wednesday, March 01, 2006

double double


back in the day, when i still taught at bloomington and i was going to ucr, i was always busy on mondays, and i wouldn’t get outta class till late.  this usually meant that i wanted to go out to eat after class, and i started the habit of going to in-n-out every monday!  i would make a round of phone calls on my way home from school and just say, “hey, it’s monday, wanna go?” and it’s not so much that i’m an in-n-out freak, but that when it’s 10 or 11 pm, and your choice is denny’s or in-n-out, well… then… you know exactly what i’m gonna pick!  plus, i’m a creature of habit, so it was easy to go back once a week at the same time every week.  wow, i -do- sound like a freak!!  hahahah…

anyways, it’s actually been awhile since i’ve been there, sitting with filipino boys, listening to them talk in tagalog and being slightly out-of-it.  i don’t think i’ve done that since this summer!  so when we went there last night after gym night, it was just like the good ol’ days =)


carlo wouldn’t smile normal for me! 

Posted by kgrp on 03/01 at 06:47 PM
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Tuesday, January 10, 2006

yummmm....

http://epicureandebauchery.blogspot.com

oh my gulay!  this lady loves food just as much as i do!  all of her posts are about food.... including pictures.  yehey!!!  makes me hungry… (i guess that’s not -that- hard to do!  hahahha)

isn’t her site yummy?

Posted by kgrp on 01/10 at 01:43 PM
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Sunday, November 20, 2005

mmmm... creme brulee...


so last wednesday, inspired by my brother’s success at baking pastries, i decided to try to make creme brulee.  i think i was most excited about the torch!  so i stopped by several stores looking for a torch, ramekins, and then the ingredients.  i got the extra cute star ramekins even though they were 3 times the price of the regular round ones, but i think they’re too deep to make a good brulee.  maybe they’ll be perfect for a chocolate souffle or something =)

anyways, i was real excited about my star shaped brulees and we had so much fun torching our own star.  the creme part wasn’t as done as i’d’ve liked it to be, but the brulee part was awesome!  i’ll just have to try the recipe again to see if i can do it right =) oh, and what fun i’ll have trying!

Posted by kgrp on 11/20 at 10:44 PM
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