Move over Marie!

Marie as in Marie Callender... Past weekend, I made a chicken pot pie for my honey because he loves them. I'm not much of a chicken pot pie person but I thought I'd give it a try for our anniversary. He's been resorting to the frozen kind, poor thing, or the next best thing at a restaurant. The recipe I used was not a simple one but my friend at work swears that this is THE recipe for it. If you know me about cooking, I'm inspired by recipes but I create my own versions, it's rare (almost never) that I follow recipes to the T. But I was determined to follow this one because it's a special one. :)

I studied the recipe and planned it all out. I got all the grocery shopping done including the white pearl onions. I've never seen them except the jarred ones. You see how much of a gourmet cook I am. I prepared the chicken the night before so it'll be ready to go the next day. I was mostly afraid of making the pie crust. Never made it before. Frankly, I'm quite afraid of making any kind of dough (except for cookies).

Next day, I started with the pie crust. And yes I made it by hand not resorting to an electric mixer or a food processor. I thought I'd really get down to the rustics of it. Right away, my honey saw that this was turning into labor of love. And boy was he right, I've never worked so hard for making one dish. Not to mention how much time it took. The recipe said I should cook all the vegetables separately. So I did. The bechamel sauce was simple but took patience to stir every minute and wait for it to reduce while multi-tasking chopping herbs that would go in afterwards.

Just as I was afraid, the dough didn't quite cooperate with me. It started to break apart when I rolled it out. But I managed to work it by kneading more and put it in the pie pan. Wheaww! Finally I got all the goodies in the pan, poured the sauce, and put the top crust over. It went in the oven for one hour.

Now I started preparing for the appetizer--iceberg lettuce salad. For this I didn't follow the recipe to the exact but I kept it pretty close I think. The salad was no labor compared to the pie. Quite tasty.

*Iceberg lettus salad with tomatoes, bacon, croutons, and blue cheese dressing*

By the time we were finished with the appetizer, ding! the pie was done. Smelled and looked good with slightly golden brown crust. When I cut into it though I could tell right away that the inside was too dry. Maybe I've reduced the sauce too much. I don't know. We ate it though. Tasted good minus the dryness. But the next day, I made extra bechamel sauce and it was million times better. Mmmm, now that was an excellent pie.



I would say that my first challenge of following a gourmet recipe was a success with room for improvement. Now I'm inspired to follow more recipes...maybe roasted chicken?

You Don't Have To Go Fast. You Just Have To Go.

My First Half Marathon...(for real this time)
Woohoo!!! The long awaited half marathon is finally complete. I have been training for the 33rd American’s Finest City Half Marathon in San Diego for 12 weeks. I think I stayed with the training schedule for a good part with an exception of a few lazy days and injured days. Prior to this I trained for the Pasadena Marathon in 2008 but the event was canceled. I was really disappointed then because I trained so well and was ready to go with gusto. I even specially ordered a race shirt that says "My First Half Marathon". After that my running was not as enthused and lulled to a point where I was enjoying food too much rather than burning it off. I figured I needed to set a goal in order to achieve what I set to do in the first place. Knowing very well of myself, setting a goal is much more motivating to keep going. And besides, running in a race is much more fun than trying to beat your own self. So with a hesitant agreement from my honey, we began our training for the AFC half. He said “why do we have to pay money so that we can run 13 miles when we can run on our own for free?” Sounds like a valid pondering but eventually he'd realize the fun of it. All in all, we trained pretty well and we headed to San Diego.

For our carb-loading dinner the night before, we went to an Italian restaurant in Hillcrest—Ristorante Arrivederci. Oh my, the food was just amazing! (And you thought I was just gonna talk about running. Oh no, I must include our culinary exploration, as always). We started with Melanzane Sorrentina (grilled eggplant, baked with mozzarella cheese and tomato sauce). This was just heaven. The eggplant was literally smothered in cheese and sauce. It was oh so yummy. We gobbled that dish in very short minutes. People next to us probably thought we haven’t eaten for days. For the main course I had the risotto with mushroom and truffle oil. Not to mention the huge portion, this was THE risotto! The texture was perfect, mushrooms were flavorful and the truffle oil was not overpowering but just right to add to the flavor. It was a simple risotto but powerful. Of course I finished the whole thing. Normally I wouldn’t but I gotta load up glycogen before the big day. My honey had one of the specials, gemelli with chicken in pesto sauce. Yummy also. Chicken was a bit tough but great sauce. He obviously liked my risotto better because he helped me finish it. Now we were ready to battle!



The race day began by waking up at 3:30am to arrive at the race site by 5:30am. Everything worked out great. The event people knew what they’re doing. Things were very organized. We caught the shuttle bus to take us to the starting line. While on the bus, I was quite nervous but ready to get this done! My calf injury was still acting up slightly so I diligently massaged it and stretched lots. After using the port-a-potty twice we began the race.

The first 8 miles were not too hard for me. Amazingly no pain and I felt great. Lots of cheers from the crowds. It was awesome to see people come out to cheer us on. What a spirit! And it’s so encouraging. After about 9 miles into it I started telling myself “I can do this. Only four miles to go. Easy!” The last mile and half was the killer I tell ya. It was all steep uphill. You know when you’re trying to run in a dream and you feel like you’re not going anywhere? That’s exactly how I felt going up the hill. This is when the phrase “You don’t have to go fast, you just have to go” on my cap needed to be repeated in my head. After it finally flatted out entering Balboa Park it felt like it was the longest stretch ever to the finish line. But alas we finished and received our medals. We came in at 2 hours, 18 minutes which was 12 minutes short of what we hoped for. Actually I was just hoping that I will finish within the time limit of 3 hours because the latter part of my training was challenging because of my calf pain. But this was a definite success and still no pain!

It was an exhilaration that I’ve been longing for since I’ve started running for a few years now. I am proud of myself and my honey for doing this. It’s even better that we did it together. He encouraged me and motivated me throughout the training and during the race which I am more than grateful for. I was unsure that this is what I can do but now I am certain that I can. Now we are even more inspired and we are aiming for the Triple Crown (three half marathons in San Diego area) next year…and maybe a marathon someday…maybe, we’ll see.

To All the Animal Lovers Out There!

My friend Michelle told me about her cousin's dog, Chanel, was mauled to death recently by a neighbor's dog. I was asked to show support by leaving a comment on their blog. I would like to spread the word to all the animal lovers and kindly ask that you do the same. Here is the blog site link: http://nicoleandchanel.blogspot.com/. If you are a pet owner, you know that we love and treat our pets as our own babies, and losing them by any means is devastating. I am sure that Nicole and Jared will appreciate your supportive words even though they don't know you.
Thanks!

A Happy Camper?

On our way to camping! Yay! We packed up a van-full of camping goodies and headed to San Simeon on Friday morning. Thanks to C & HS (our camping buddy couple), we ate our on-the-road lunch kimbop (Korean rolls, kinda California rolls but not quite). It's good finger food.

Day One

The drive to San Simeon was not bad. We stopped in Cambria and checked out the little town. I love this town. It's a small and quaint town 2 miles south of San Simeon. We first scoped out some little shops including bakeries of course. Also lucky us, it was their farmer's market day so we looked around a bit. We stopped at an Italian bakery (Allocco's) booth and got an apple poundcake. After that we made a stop at the grocery store and got some firewood.

We finally got to the campsite and checked in. It was a full campground for the weekend. We got site #7 which was right by the entrance but a quieter and smaller part of the campground. It was quite windy though...pretty much for the rest of our stay. Despite the wind, we managed to put up our tent trying not to fly away with it.

*Our tent*


Our first night dinner was salmon burger, beef burger, and salad. Sorry no pictures--we were too eager to tackle the food. There's nothing like eating outdoors. Everything tastes better outdoors. Yum! And I guess you're more hungry when you're outdoors... Since it was so windy and cold, we were craving for hot soup. So we made a pot of spicy noodle soup. Boy that hit the spot. Now we were ready to sit around the fire and roast some marshmallows.

*A perfectly roasted marshmallow...*


Day Two

We were determined not to disrupt our half marathon training during our trip. Aren't you proud of us? We ran 3.5 miles the first thing in the morning. We ran south along the coast and it was absolutely amazing. It was crisp cold with lots of fog but it was definitely refreshing from my usual run in the neighborhood. We found a nice trail to run on with several vista points. Love the central California coast. What a nice way to start my birthday!

When we got back, we had a good breakfast of hash, eggs and cereal with almond milk. Yummy. :) Again, no pictures because I was too hungry to think about taking pictures. The shower was not anything I looked forward to. It was lukewarm with terrible water pressure. Oh well, it's a camping package deal.

The main itinerary for the day was hiking. The first (and basically the only real) trail we went on was the Salmon Creek Trail. The complete trail is 6.5 miles with two waterfalls. The trail started with a quite of a climb arriving at the first waterfall very close from the train head. It was a nice big waterfall.






*Living dangerously...crossing the water*


The view along the trail was breathtaking. We situated ourselves overlooking the ocean and the green lush hills to have our picnic lunch of turkey avocado, PB & J sandwiches and apple poundcake for dessert. Awesome!



We decided not to finish the trail. We had good reasons...didn't see any more shades on the trail, plenty of other things we wanted to do, HS is expecting (yay!) so needed to take it easy, my honey and I were already tired from our morning run. Next we went to check out another waterfall at the Julie Pfeiffer Burns State Park in Big Sur. This waterfall is one of the most scenic places along the coast. It was truly stunning.





We headed back down south to the campsite. Along the way we stopped by a black sand beach. Boy, it was windy and cold. Just snapped a couple of pictures and I dashed back to the car.



Dinner for our second night was curry and couscous (and rice). HS also made Korean seaweed soup for my birthday which was really nice of them to think of it. It's a Korean custom to eat seaweed soup for birthday which I think signifies youthfulness and long life.

*Ready to attack curry!*


And I even got a present--wine glasses and bottle saver!


Day Three

I was dreading this day because it was our long run day. We ran 8 miles south to Cambria. It was not easy but it was a good day for me. It was fun running along the coast and in the streets of Cambria looking at the little shops. We passed by a coffee shop (Cambria Coffee Roasting Co.) and the aroma was irresistible! Sooooo wanted to sit down for a sip but kept on runnin'. We did go back the next day and had the coffee which was fabulous! Nice dark roast of Mountain High.

After the run, we weren't up for any rigorous activity so we headed to look at some elephant seals. It was their molting (shedding) season so not much was going on but always exciting to see big seals swimming and laying out on the beach, right?!?




Next on our agenda was lunch! We went to Ragged Point which has an inn, restaurant, and nice vista points. There's actually a very steep trail but it was closed for repairs. Wheewww, I was relieved! Didn't want to do a steep hike at this point. So we sat ourselves down to have some sandwiches overlooking the foggy, mystical looking coastline. Loved it! You don't get to do that everyday.

After lunch we went back down the coast and stopped at another small trail head that leads out to the beach. My honey and I were pretty much out of commission because of our run. So we just took a short walk up to the sand, took a picture, walked right back to the car and took a cat nap. While we were doing that, C & HS had a very memorable event. They were encountered with a few snakes which was completely unexpected. Yikes! Glad I didn't go.




We took a nice stroll on the San Simeon Beach Pier...

*Hearst Castle from the Pier*


Made an impromptu stop at the Hearst Castle Wine Tasting room at Sebastian Store. Their dessert zinfandel was quite tasty so got a bottle. :)While we were there we spotted this comical cow.
*Talk about grass is greener on the other side*


Another impromptu stop off the road. There they were...zebras! Never seen them out in the open!


*Nit Wit Ridge-a house for sale; all made from recycled materials!*


Our last night's dinner was chicken sausages & peppers, couscous, noodle soup and salad.
*My gourmet spinach salad with couscous and blueberries*


Day Four

Yay! Heading home!! But before we go, we had to make some stops at the bakeries in Cambria. We had breakfast at the French Corner Bakery. We splurged...apple danish, fruit danish, brioche, spinach/feta croissant, and a nice cup of coffee and cappuccino! Nope, we were not shy. Oh no, not done yet. We stopped at Allocco's Italian Bakery and picked up an apple poundcake, lemon poundcake, and another piece of pastry. I think we're good now. :)

Lunch off the road was at Thai Palace in San Luis Obispo. The food was okay, curry was kinda funky with humongous piece of chicken. And we fooled around at a candy store a bit.

*Like my bunny hat?*


It was a great fun trip overall except for the wind, cold nights and cold showers. For the most part, I was a happy camper. Of course I would do it again!

San Diego Weekend

Aaaahhhh...nice and sunny San Diego. We had a short family vacation over the Memorial Day weekend. My brother and his very pregnant wife (yes very pregnant, you’ll see in the picture later) with their second child wanted to visit the SD Zoo before the new family addition. I’m down to visit the zoo anytime. So much fun! The traffic down to SD from LA was horrendous but we finally made it in 5 ½ hours (which normally would take only about 2 hours). The first night was just settling in and going out to dinner. We went to a Japanese restaurant on Shelter Island (Point Loma), Umi Sushi. Food was good but nothing extraordinary except that the chef gave us a complimentary plate of sashimi which was very nice of them.

*Sashimi Combination*

*This is the complimentary sashimi plate*

*Rolls*

*Udon Noodles*

*Tempura*

*My nephew playing with his new car Elvis...he loves cars. Disney put a spell on him!*

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The second day was the zoo day! By the way, I was determined to stick to my half marathon training so I ran 4 miles in the morning. It was quite nice running by the harbor. Change of scenery is always good. So proud of myself, heehee.

*Hmmm...my nephew was a lot more interested in the animal statues rather than the live animals. Is that a 2 year old child thing?*

*My favorite at the zoo. The panda! This is Zhen Zhen (almost 3 year old female, sister of the new baby panda)*

*It's spring time! Ducklings! So cute.*

*The family*


After a long day at the zoo we were ready to chow down. We had a reservation at The Oceanaire Seafood Room. My honey and I have been there last year and we had a wonderful meal. Their lobster was fantastic! So I thought we’d give it another try. Also my brother and sis-in-law were celebrating their anniversary. The Oceanaire gives you a menu printed “Happy Anniversary” with the date on it. Yay! (doesn’t take much to excite me, does it)

*Cod*

*Snapper*

*Shark*

*Dark Chocolate Mousse*

*Blueberry Cheesecake*

*Baked Alaska-complimentary when you celebrate something*


As you can see we had lots to eat. A good thing I did my 4-mile run in the morning. It was an uneventful but nice dinner with my good-behaving nephew.

****************************************************************************
The next day, we checked out the pool and Jacuzzi after our breakfast. My nephew had so much fun in the pool. He’s so adorable. After the fun in the water we headed up to my brother’s friend’s place near Del Mar. It was a gorgeous day…sunny and breezy. We had late lunch at a restaurant called Poseidon located right on the beach. We sat out in the patio overlooking the beach. It was just perfect. Food was good. I enjoyed the fried calamari and my shrimp Caesar salad.

*Ready for my amber beer! Yum!*

*Happy? Would you say? It's the beers, hahaha*

*Calamari*

*Steamed Clams-the broth was delicious, I had to keep the waiters from taking the broth away...we were still enjoying dipping the bread in it!*

*Shrimp Caesar Salad-very yummy.*

*Fish Tacos*


After we finished our lunch, we could not resist taking a stroll on the beach because it was such a gorgeous day. Now this was fun. My nephew and I had a blast dipping our feet in the ocean and being chased by the waves. And oops, he got soaked when he fell (okay okay you can blame it on me for dunking him or whatever). Well…mommy was not expecting that but oh well mommies are always prepared, right?
*My nephew and my dearest sister-in-law*

*My nephew and me*

*My nephew and my honey*


Although it was short, I had a wonderful time seeing my brother, my sis-in-law, and my nephew…and spending time with mom, dad, and my honey. Next time I see my brother and sis-in-law I will have another nephew or a niece (they're not finding out what they're having, surprise!). I’m so excited to meet him/her.