posting photos is difficult...

...especially when I make such a half hearted attempt. So, this is a practice post. All I'm gonna post are photos and my comments. Then I'll see how it all works and perhaps future posts with photos won't have giant gaps at the bottom or comments sitting a mile above the photo or other such ickiness(such as in my derby post).

Hello Kitty toast display in the window of my favorite Hardware store.

Super onigiri - he will save the world! Well maybe just save Matthew from hunger.

This is the Mitsuba that I planted when the herbs I bought at the store started to take root. They sat in my fridge for too long and started to get brown but I didn't want to throw it away so I planted it anyway and now it is all green and happy.



This is the tarragon that came back to life this spring. I thought it died last fall but watered it anyway and it is so green and pretty now.

Outrageous hats

Such fun we had at the Kentucky Derby party, with our over-the-top hats and Matthew in his sport coat. When I realized that an outrageous hat was in order for the Derby, Anesha and I spent a whole afternoon shopping for hat ingredients. It took a couple of evenings to construct them, but really it was worth the effort because they were darling, and not like any hat the other guests wore. Always striving to be different, I am!

Serious Matthew and smiling me in a silly pose.










I'm a saucy little thing!


























A cutie couple

In which the little computers meet

I finally remembered to process the photos from my computer transition. I took photos of the two computers meeting and getting to know each other. I thought I'd post a few of them =)

Ack! you can see how messy my apartment is!

Farmer's Market deliciousness

Here are the yummy strawberries that we found at the farmer's market this past sunday. It was a strawberry day. I wore my little strawberry shortcake shirt(a gift from matthew, many years ago) and ate delicious strawberry pancakes for breakfast and then bought quite the bundle of strawberries for munching purposes. Actually, I plopped them in the fridge until monday and then made my most favorite salad(and matthew's least favorite salad) of all times, a strawberry and spinach salad. Matthew's aunt Kathy is the origin of this recipe which is basically just ripe strawberries, spinach and toasted almonds dressed with a poppy seed dressing.*

We'll also have to eat the obligatory strawberry shortcake for dessert tonight. Really, I think strawberry shortcake is my all time favorite dessert. But, I never like the fancy kind. Just a rustic biscuit style shortcake and lots of whipped cream is best. The horrible little layered things and the angel food cake are not even worth wasting the strawberries and whipped cream(two of the world's best ingredients, particularly when eaten together) on.

* Poppy seed dressing(I've never made a full recipe but I do love the leftover dressing)
1 cup canola oil
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp. poppy seeds
1 teas. salt
2 teas. dry mustard
whip with a whisk
Yum!

A little note on the photos in this post. They are of the strawberries that I didn't cut up for either shortcake or salad. They look so pretty because I saved the loveliest ones for just plain old munching. The wee strawberry is my pet strawberry. I think he is so cute and lovely so I had to give him a special spot on the blog. So cute So cute. Matthew was actually quite concerned that someone would think that I didn't take these photos. They were just taken in the lovely sun on the balcony outside my apartment. It is a nice spot for photos.

Busy month

My favorite but the most exhausting activity was having my mother and brother visit so that we could all attend my cousin Aaron's wedding. This was exhausting because I spent a good couple of days driving through LA County. For the old granny driver in me, this was a harrowing experience, but provided a nice chance to see my sweet and crazy little relatives.

I bought a really odd dress for the wedding, it is essentially a daffodil yellow toga. Too bad the weather was way to cold for me to ever take off my jacket. Anyway, that was fun to wear something out of the norm and slightly cheesy.

I'm training a new girl at work. She is very small, shorter than me, and cute. I'm not very good at teaching people the things that I understand very well. Maybe this is good practice.

Over all a fun month because it has been full of new and mostly fun experiences.

Easter

Easter was fun and relaxing; I didn't go to church this year. Church is always odd on easter, never like a normal service so we just sat around at home and ate a yummy lunch/dinner and drank champagne with rose syrup.

Bunnies in a little pool of water.

Bunny altar.

Easter Tulips

the best fake german dinner ever

Okay, so Matthew and I love German food. I have a great and very authentic german food cookbook but the recipes are often time consuming, although scrumptious. Last monday, I made a random cauliflower casserole with ham and swiss cheese but i didn't bake it until wednesday or thursday. Anyway, I thought it needed a bit more to go with it so I made a delicious pork roll with paprika and parsley. After I had that in the oven, I realized that the pork would taste delicious with some red cabbage, so for this I took an actual, authentic recipe from my german food cookbook. Anyway, by the end of it all, I had a delicious, but not not very authentic german meal and a very late dinner. Probably it tasted so good because we were starving.

Cauliflower casserole
1 head cauliflower cut into bit size pieces
1-2 cups chopped ham
a cup of swiss cheese, grated
2 cups white sauce*
a few tablespoons thyme leaves(a total pain, but well worth it)
a couple tablespoons ground nuts(I'm not sure what I had in the freezer, almonds or hazelnuts, I think)
salt and pepper to taste

Layer half of the ingredients into a dish, in this order:
cauliflower, salt and pepper, ham, cheese, thyme, white sauce, nuts. Then repeat. you can save a little extra cheese for the top if you want. I ended up cooking mine for way too long and I forgot to take the lid off during cooking. But it was still incredibly delicious. Anyway, cook at about 350 or 375 for 40-50 min. You can cook it longer if the cauliflower doesn't feel done. And you can take the lid off, or not depending on if you want it soupier or not. Mine was a total soup but so so good.

Pork roll
cut a pork loin into a nice sheet of meat. Then, salt and pepper it and sprinkle tons of paprika on it(probably use a tablespoon or more), then sprinkle freshly chopped parsley over it and finally lay thin slices or garlic all over the top with about 1/2-1 inch between each slice of garlic. Then roll tightly and tie with string.
brown roll on all sides in an oven proof pan and bake along with the casserole.

Just use any jarred red cabbage or find a sweet and sour cabbage recipe.

* Okay, so my white sauce is always just thrown together on the fly. I don't have exact recipes for all the different amounts you might need, like my grandmother has. Also, I don't buy milk so I always end up using almond breeze or buttermilk.
So, my rough recipe for white sauce
Melt about 2 tablespoons of butter in a sauce pan. whisk in a sprinkle of flour and keep sprinkling and whisking it in until it makes a bubbly paste. Pour in milk or almond breeze(usually about two cups) until it looks right, which is to say, until it looks thicker than regular milk. I don't know, just spend years watching your grandmother make white sauce and you'll know how it should look. Then cook the sauce over medium-low heat, all the while whisking it until it thickens. You can salt and pepper the sauce if you want.