Exploring the Galaxy (Cafe)

Austin has too much good food. How a city with so many in shape and fit people (who don’t look like they eat all that much) can financially support so many delicious restaurants is beyond me.

One place I really liked, is called Galaxy Cafe. Everything here is good. I really can’t say more. Also, I’m on some weird salad kick. I’m eating salads everywhere. Who does that?!

Also, I have so many backed up food posts to do, it’s insane. If I was a religious woman I might ask the Lord to give me strength, but I guess I’ll just have to rely on Jean Luc Picard to motivate me.

K – Town shenanigans

So when Tara came to visit me the second time around we decided to go eat in K-Town! Korea town is basically just one measly block and right off Harold Square, but they do have some GOOD eats!

Here’s Tara looking silly and hungry and Peter looking irritated while we waited for Peter’s friend Adam outside.

The Restaurant is that window on the left, I was trying to take a picture of this guy, who is actually behind the guy walking by. The guy I wanted a picture of was on his phone talking loudly about sleeping with some girl and how everyone found out except her boyfriend and this girl named Josie and how it was really incredible because she was going on this trip to Cancun with her cousin who is also the girlfriend of this guy he went to school with! OMG, I know. It was all very fascinating. In the end though I didn’t get his picture, OR, a good picture of the front of the restaurant, but if you ever wanted to know what the door to the right of the restaurant looks like, this is a perfect shot.

The restaurant is called Kunjip and it’s always super packed, so they had us waiting for a table at the back and even took our order while we were still waiting. They are really pushy and probably would be even meaner if we didn’t have an actual Korean with us.

This is by far the best Korean food I’ve ever had, in a Restaurant I guess. Peter doesn’t know the phonetic spelling of the dishes but the one in the middle is this kimchi pork stuff served with tofu, and the one on the far left is kinda like pot roast type stuff only a thousand times better and Korean-y. Plus at Korean restaurants they give you all these little side dishes things and some of them are really nasty, like the pickled cuttlefish, but some are really amazing, like the seaweed and foamy egg soup thingy.

OK, this is already a really long post so, IN CONCLUSION: The Korean food at this place is AMAZING, but they’re really rude and kinda ignore you and kick you out as soon as you’re done. Bringing a big, rude, Korean speaking escort is sort of a must. Afterwards we walked to a bar/eat place called the Blind Pig. Pretty good. Although Peter was disappointed they didn’t have any Root Beer and I got pretty much soused off two glasses of Pinot Grigio.

The End.

Red Lentil Curry

These last few weeks I’ve probably made this lentil curry stuff around two or three times a week. It’s so easy and delicious and is a good source of fiber (among other things I don’t know about). Plus this whole meal probably costs less than $3.00. I know mama makes something similar, but I needed a little guidance because cooking with things like turmeric and cumin can get a little out of control fairly easily.

So, to get started, rinse the red lentils and cover with water and cook until tender. Basically they get mushy and turn into something that looks like puke, which is normal.

While that’s happening, I make the curry flavoring sauce stuff. One chopped up onion, a few cloves of garlic, some chopped up ginger (I like a lot of ginger), some oil, and sauté until you get tired of waiting for it to brown or whatever is supposed to happen.

Then you add the spices! This is the only part I would use actual measurements for, because one time I didn’t, and it turned out weird.

2 tbsp of curry paste (I just use curry powder)

1 tsp turmeric

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp chili powder

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

1 can tomato sauce

Mix that all up, let it cook for a bit, then mix it into your fully cooked lentils! It ends up looking even more like puke, but it’s really yummy!

Peter likes his as is, with just a little cilantro.

I like mine with a lot of cilantro, lots of lime, and with some steamed rice.

And there you have it folks! The whole thing takes maybe a half hour, but probably more like 15 minutes if your not intermittently playing battlefield.

Mmmmhmmm! Now that’s some good eats!

Put 'em on the glass, part 2

Thought of all the peep addicts out there when I saw this:


Sacred heart of Jesus made out of Peeps. Click on that image too see it close up, and get more details here:
Bad Art Museum

Paris and Felicia’s little tortilla pockets

When Felicia was visiting me, we made chiles rellenos with homemade tortillas for dinner one night. The next day we found that we had leftover everything. So for breakfast we invented these little pockets. We were quite proud of ourselves, only to find out there is a real thing very much like these. Oh well.

We started with:
Grilled Poblano Peppers
Cheese (In this photo I used Mexican cheese)
Tortilla dough (see my last post)
Some Chorizo (already cooked)
and Cilantro (AKA Coriander).

I chopped the cilantro and cut the pepper into strips (peel off the skin first). Then we flattened out some tortillas, just like normal (see making corn tortillas). The I would takes some chorizo, a slice of the pepper, a sprig of cilantro, and some cheese and place it in the middle and seal it up like a ravioli or Chinese dumpling.

I try to get it as flat as possible, so that it can cook evenly on the comal. You cook it just as you would a tortilla, but you might need to press down on the edges to make sure they cook, as it is not completely flat.

They are done when the outside looks just like a cooked tortilla. Later, at the suggestion of my friend Dominick, I tried frying them, which turned out really well!

I like to make a few of both kinds, and sit down to watch a movie with these as snacks.

When you bite into one and get melted cheese, chorizo, poblano and fresh cilantro flavors, it makes you so happy. A caveat though, the raw forms so not store in the refrigerator well. I would cook it slightly. then store it.

Oh yeah...

Massive tuna sandwich for lunch. I was full for three days...

Put 'em on the glass

If I could, I would snort lines of peeps off a mirror.

Flour Tortillas and Plastic Plates

I found this flour tortilla recipe awhile ago and the last couple of times I made it I really liked it. The tortillas always end up pretty thick and chewy. Plus, they are super simple and easy to make. So, without further ado, here it is.

Ingredients:
2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 tsp vegetable oil
3/4 cup water or milk

Or, you can see the picture below if you are illiterate.

*not pictured, water and/or milk. Good luck figuring that out to those unable to read.

Now for the directions:

1. Mix ingredients together in bowl! I use my hands, less dishes that way. It should be somewhat sticky. Kneed the dough until the stickiness goes away. About 2 minutes.

2. Cover and let the dough sit for 15 min. Then divide up the dough into as many balls as you like depending on what size you want your tortillas. Then cover and let them sit for 20 min. (I'm not sure why it needs to sit since it doesn't rise, but it really does make it better)

3. 4. Roll out the dough pretty much as thin as you can get it. When you roll it out it's very stretchy and resilient so you don't have to be very gentle. They fluff up ablot when they cook too so no matter what you do they will end up being thick and chewy.

5. 6. Finally, set it in a pan on lowish heat with no oil or anything. Once you see it start to bubble you can flip it. Set the hot tortillas in a folded towel or whatever you like.

* Instruction pictures are numbered in wingdings font.

And finally, you can eat them! they stay pretty good wrapped up in the fridge too. Just warm them up again.

Here is the final project, pictured with paris's salsa! Notice that the tortilla is partially eaten because I couldn't wait. Oh yeeeaaassss.

* plate is a plastic miffy childrens plate with seperate sections to keep your food from mixing together. Like this one! Moni and Rachel gave it to me for christmas since I like using baby utensils.

And the verdict is in!

Glass bottled PEPSI is better!
than what?
figure it out!

here are some blurry pictures from the deliberating process. They are a little blurry because SOMEONE (I'm not saying who, but they may or may not be pictured below), doesn't like to be photographed and I had to take these pictures before they noticed what was going on.

Is there pee in my soup?!

Not PEE soup! it's Pea Soup! Split Pea Soup to be specific!

Soooooo, I made my first attempt at split pea soup since it's cold and peter wanted something with ham... so I put some split peas, carrots, potatoes, dill, parsley, garlic, onions, salt salt salt, and pepper pepper pepper.

so all was going well.. at the beginning as seen here...
And here you can see how pretty the peas look when wet... ooooohhh... ahhhh.....

and here is the finished product (pictured with ham)... I prefer my portion without ham...

I did have a problem with my potatoes, however. They sort of kind of dissolved and turned my soup into a starchy mass. Not unlike mashed potatoes. It was only much later that Paris told me I was supposed to add the potatoes at the very end, so that they don't dissolved and turn your soup into starch. THANKS PARIS! (and in case you couldn't tell I was being sarcastic!)

dinner

Arroz y Frijoles a la felicia

Spice babies

I bought three little plants today at the market in union square. they were only $6 all together! what a steal huh? I got a basil, Rosemary, and Oregano. Now I just need to sit back and wait for them to grow so that I can put them in my tummy... yeeeaasss....

soda and disasters

I've been sick, it's been cold, so the obvious choice is chicken soup! I put chicken, carrots, celery, pasilla pepers, onions, garlic, and rice. I made two tiny mistakes.

1st mistake: I always put too much rice. The rice expands so much my soup ends up being more of a porridge and less of a soup.

The 2nd mistake was when I accidentally grabbed the cloves instead of the black pepper (they are both in square tins). Needless to say, cloves are perhaps the one spice that doesn't go well in chicken soup. It was edible and now that I've watered it down it's not as noticable, but peter has to keep tellling me next time I should try nutmeg. He's a modern day Billy Crystal that one.

Well that highlight of the meal ended up being the glass bottle of coke peter bought to see if it tasted better than canned coke. And indeed it did! It was crisper, less sickenly sweet, and came in a cool bottle!! what a day it was. Stay tuned to see if glass bottled pepsi is better than canned pepsi... riveting...

pizza!

So I've been craving some homemade pizza lately, and tonight I finally got around to making it. I tried out this really good dough recipe which probably would have risen better if my pizza didn't have so many toppings. oops...

Plus, I always put alot of sauce on my pizzas. The sauce I made was basically onions, garlic, and bell peppers sauteed, then tomato sauce is added and spices until it tastes good. Very scientific indeed...

On my pizza, I put spinich, mushrooms, olives and fresh basil, diced tomatoes, and feta cheese after it was baked. On Peter's pizza it was pepperoni, salami, mozzarella, mushrooms, olives and parmesan cheese. Peter needs around 3 million calories a day when he's weight lifting so I basically add meat and cheese to his portion of anything I cook.

Here is my pizza before the oven!

And here is Peter's pizza after the oven!


All in all, it was delicious beyond my wildest imagination! Here is the pizza dough recipe I used.


Pizza Dough


INGREDIENTS
1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
1 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
2 cups bread flour
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons white sugar


Basically you dissolve the yeast in the warm water and let it stand for 10-20 min. Then mix everything together and let it rise to double in size. Then you roll out, put on your toppings and throw it in the oven! The recipe I saw said to let the pizza bake for 20 min, but I just left it in there until the crust looked good.