Trying new recipes

Monday and Tuesday I played around with some new recipes.  For lunch on Monday, I made ratatouille!  It was simple enough:

2 zucchini
1 eggplant
1 tomato
1 red pepper
2 onions
2 cloves of garlic

I chopped everything together and sauteed them in a large pot with olive oil, a little salt and lots of Italian herbs.  15 minutes later, I had a flavorful pot of goodness…

Dinner that night was another easy/new recipe.  Pan fried sole with lemon juice, garlic and olive oil.

We had the fish with sliced run-dried tomatoes, and the green beans I prepared

Lunch Tuesday was with Debora and Adriana!  We ordered way more Thai food than we could eat 🙂

Dinner Tuesday was supposed to be pizza.  We initially thought to make a cauliflower pizza crust, as seen on this blog…but we didn’t have mozzarella cheese, so we decided to use broccoli instead.  A swap that didn’t play out as well as we thought, but the flavors were great!

Topped with fresh spinach, tomatoes and feta cheese!

In other news, Friday I go for a new hair color!  Not completely new, just new highlights.  I had red done last month,

but now I think i’ll go for more blond 🙂

Weekend wrap-up

Friday night dinner with Debora and Diego!

We went to a new Korean restaurant that opened just a couple weeks ago.  Plus: it’s literally right across the street from our complex 🙂  We started with a bunch of small dishes: spicy radishes, spinach, kimchi, bean sprouts, seaweed, etc…

Chapchae!

Another favorite, Korean pancake.  This one was filled with kimchi…

This was bi bim bap, but we finished it before I could snap a photo.

Also, beer and soju!

Saturday I had grand plans to workout, run some errands, and generally be a productive member of society, but that didn’t happen.  Instead, I went to D&D’s place for lunch!  Ezra was finished coaching baseball for the morning, so he came directly home with Arthur.

Stroganoff!

Alex, who was insistent on flashing the fingers…

After lunch, Ezra and Arthur watched a movie on the couch, while Debora and I got started on making risolis!  I tried making these once before, but I wasn’t so great…this time around I was much better and the risolis were beautiful!  We started by heating the milk and butter, then added a big bag of flour.

Ta-da!

It had to sit and cool, so we wouldn’t scorch our hands kneading it.

Arthur got in on dough-rolling action…

BAM.

I was very excited to be making them 🙂

Since we had a late/big lunch, we didn’t eat Saturday night until about 7:30 or so.

We had risolis to start

and mojitos!  Ez found some great looking mint and limes at the market, and said he just couldn’t have passed up the opportunity…

Ez also found some fresh shrimp and squid!  First, he peeled and de-veined them, then mixed them with lots of garlic and butter.  We let them bake in the oven for a bit until they were just cooked, then enjoyed them with the grilled squid and some aiping that I boiled!

Sunday can be summed up with 2 pictures:

Done.

And done.

Hope you had a great weekend!

Going out with a bang

Happy 2013!  I’ll just share some photos from a dinner with friends this past weekend 🙂

Getting ready!

Ezra stealing my camera for photos…

We met up with Arthur, Peter and Echol for dinner at my favorite restaurant: Grissini!  It was nice to have a chance to catch up, since we haven’t seen them since our wedding!

We shared some pizza

and antipasto

Ezra had the beef tenderloin

and I had the angel hair pasta with garlic crab!

My cute husband.

ART.  Or Chris Noth, as he was called at our wedding 🙂

Peter and Echol!

Then we all got this brilliant idea to make chipmunk faces…

Right…

In other news: We’re watching Lucy for the week!  She’s been nothing but high-maintenance, as usual.  Just kidding, she’s been a lot better this time around.  I think she’s finally warming up to us.

For the last night of 2013, we were at Debora and Diego’s place, so we enjoyed some champagne before heading over.

We also brought Lucy with us to their house because they have a boy Schnauzer.  That didn’t play out as well as planned, since Lucy spent a lot of time barking at people that came in and out of the bathroom.  It’s close to the front door, so we think she thought the bathroom was actually the front door.  Needless to say, by the time we brought her back home, she was completely tuckered out!

We were totally full from all the amazing Debora and Diego prepared!

YUM.

Christmas in Dongguan

Santa was good to us!

We went to our friends’ house Christmas afternoon for some grub, and amazing desserts!

and watched some movies.

Including Home Alone 2!

OK, now onto 2013 events!!!