Category: food&drink

various recipes, and stories related to food & drink

tim goes all “manly”


(see all the photographs for this entry here and here.)

after having been forced to watch women’s figure skating short program the night before, tim had decided that he needed to do something manly, thus we went to manly bay.

the view off the ferry was AWESOMETASTIC as you can see in these photographs (courtesy d70).

upon arrival to the bay we walked around, and fussed with their 24 hour tourist center. in the photograph you can see the pad for operating on the screen on the left, and the screen is on the right, and in the middle is tim trying to make it tell us where we can find japanese food.

after more walking and stumbling around, we found an acceptable japanese place where we had an excellent all-around japanese meal (sashimi, sushi, tempoura prawns, teriyaki chicken, rice, edamame, miso soup, ice cream, all for 2 plus a bottle of nice wine at 26/person! like, wow.)

the ferry back was equally pretty, and the bus from the quay to unsw was eventful as it was *full* of crazy drunken frosh students who were singing out loud the entire time. it was like a school bus, not a city bus.

note: for some reason anything from www.olya.org isn’t loading now. i dunno why. it was working earlier and ftp is okay. i guess it will work later again?

OH MY GOD!! 3 done, 1 to go!

cooking tonight: spaghetti in tomato sauce with ground beef and parmesean
ingridients:
1/2 medium onions, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 stalk celery, finely chopped (cut length wise into 3 and chop into tiny bits)
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 cube of vegetable stock (homemade!)
1/2 cup of water
1/2 can tomato paste
pinch teaspoon salt, or to taste
2 splashes red wine
bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon herbes du provence

1/2 pound ground beef
spaghetti (for, err, 2 portions, dunno how really much)

heat onion, garlic until tranclucent in oil on medium low heat, add the stock and celery and the water, and heat for about 5 more minutes. add the tomato puree, herbs, bay leaf and heat (for as long as possible , up to an hour – i had only about 30 minutes). add wine about 10 minutes before done.

when the sauce is about ready (or you’re about starving), cook spaghetti (add another cube of vegetable stock to the water to make it the real good thing). brown the ground beef in olive oil, add it to the sauce, warm the whole thing for as long as it takes for spaghetti to cook, serve, eat.

yum.

i wish i had basil! argh.

drinking tonight: kindzamaruli red sweet wine

so, 3 exams are DONE DONE DONE!! datbases went SWEETLY, and psych was tough (3 hours of writing non stop, 2 essays, 5 terms in 3 booklets for 21 pages of writing).

the evening was spent watching csi and enjoying the food and wine. life is so good when you only have one exam ahead of you. and i can sleep in tomorrow. and then i study. but i don’t care, because i am free FREE FREE!

one down, 2 to go, one in an hour, but WHERE IS MY COFFEE

second cupsecond cup closed right under my nose just now. at 5:30. and i came there at 5:36. i’m so pissed off, i was craving coffee for a while but decided to review one more term first. there goes the support of MY studiousness!

and there is no coffee nearby, like, anywhere. i guess i could go to hart house, but its a big circle away from the exam building.

first exam went FAMOUSLY. i left 40 minutes early. only didn’t know one question, and even wrote a recursive SQL query. (that’s pretty sweet)

now i’m barely studying for psych, and i’m so TIRED.

tired tired tired tired tired.

TIRED.

i want coffeeeeeee.

large shrimp




large shrimp

Originally uploaded by MatthewA.

i’m addicted to food porn.

study sucks. my progress:

1 Sept 13 Introduction
2 Sept 20 The ER model , The relational model
3 Sept 27 Relational Algebra
4 Oct 4 Relational Calculus
5 Oct 11 SQL – 1
6 Oct 18 SQL – 2
7 Oct 25 SQL in an Application
8 Nov 1 Recursive Queries
9 Nov 8 Functional Dependencies
10 Nov 15 Normal Forms
11 Nov 22 From ER to Relational Model
12 Nov 29 XML, Xpath and XQuery

done @ 2:16am! taxi ordered for 8:30am, exam is @ 9-12. then, nap, snack until 2, and review until 7, write 3rd exam at that point. i’m feeling good! the autofail for this exam is 30%, so as long as i get above 30% (which i definitely can), i pass. at this point… thats all i care for.

1 down, 3 to go, 6 days left

so, in good news, first exam went like hot pancakes. totally sweet. i completely didn’t answer one question (4 marks out of 60), but i can afford to miss like 16 marks and still get 82% as final mark! i’m feeling good. my hand feels like it totally will die.

distractions: videos: don’t work so hard – totally applies, canon d on guitar – very inspiring music, and the guy looks so into it that its just sweet.

this is a wicked idea. next time i have a chance to paint a wall in my room (or two) with this paint, i’m so doing that. its paint that has metal in it, which makes your walls magnetic. *sweetest* *idea* *ever* (and no lead, totally safe).

cool website for cute semi useful stuff.

lovin’ right now

i present THE WEBSITE OF MY DREAMS: cuteoverload. pictures of cute stuff.

going to eat tonight: garlic mashed potatoes, and very awesome steak.
garlic mashed potatoes:
boil potatoes with some bayleaf and garlic until smooshy. throw away the water, and mush with minced garlic and cream and butter, to texture desired. cream makes them smooooth.

steak:
no clue yet. probably just steak with some spices – its really good meat, should taste awesome. :D

yay for all the fluffy snow outside!

coffee

coffee cup

one day i’ll have a machine that will allow me to make tasty coffee drinks like that.

//back to studying philosophy… in which i will get *80%* if i pull of a 75% on the exam!

update @ 12:01am
that’s it! i can’t do it anymore. the names are starting to mix up in my head. i guess i’ve been studying (with some breaks here and there but mostly studying) since 2pm. wow!
who i have read (book), revised (class notes), reedited (together with overheads) and thus reviewed:
Nagel, Goldman (I, VIII), Kant, Stein (II, V),
who i have done at most 2/3 of the above (and thus not totally reviewed yet):
Singer – done the second half of Kant’s critique, but totally didn’t get first half. e-mailed prof.
Mendus – reviewed but don’t feel confident – keep forgetting what she wrote about (all jokes aside, marriage faithfulness. but she’s arguing AGAINST it)
Hajdin (2) – nothing done except rereading class notes. no lecture notes, so i have to reread the whole thing
Rapaport (I, III, IV) – done all 3 but its all a huge mess in my head and on the paper so still have to totally do

that’s for the short answer part.

for the essay part i have 4 people:
Elliston – “Gay Marriage” (4-5)
Jordan (both arguments) – “Is it Wrong to Discriminate on the Basis of Homosexuality?”
Nussbaum (everything except section II) – “Objectification,” Specific examples from D.H. Lawrence and Playboy, seven ways of treating as an object, discussions of D.H. Lawrence and Playboy.
Primoratz (4-5) – “What’s Wrong with Prostitution?” – first and second feminist critiques

i’ve got a superficial overview of all of them, but for the essay part i need to be cracking these guys off in depth. i’ll probably sketch something out for nussbaum, as her paper is HUGE, one merged gay marriage argument(almost wrote gay prostitution – now THATS a philosophy paper topic), and definitely primoratz as he could appear in both short answer AND essay part.

anyway. time for a break..nnnnow.

update @ 12:22
fun links:
cute illustration of the website development proccess

an interesting japanese magician

pixel fonts

Time goes by so slowly

wow, madonna’s latest song somehow makes me feel good.
hung up

things that make me happy today:

  1. my loving, awesome boyfriend
  2. my loving, awesome boyfriend that withstands me talking on the phone to random people in russian a gazillion times at 10am after falling aslepe at 5am
  3. my loving, awesome boyfriend that let me steal his awesome red bag that makes me so happy
  4. my white jacket that is keeping me warm and cozy
  5. my headphones that still work despite tearing apart to the wire in 2 places (2!)
  6. hot dogs
  7. chai latte
  8. u of t laidlaw walk
  9. bahen ceilings
  10. studying in u of t
  11. last day of classes!
  12. having awesome profs (like the one who taught philosophy and was talking to me and a classmate for 20 minutes after the end of last tutorial and class!)
  13. people who i used to know who i randomly meet in subway who invite out to a beer
  14. my cousins who are cutest bunch ever
  15. my friends who bug me lovingly when i disappear off the face of the earth
  16. my parents
  17. (what else do i need to say, they’re my parents)
  18. my laptop, which is my trusty friend through thick and thin
  19. listening to christmas music through above headphones and feeling overjoyed at it being crispy outside
  20. dooce.com’s rants from 3 years ago
  21. every little thing that you say or do
  22. looking forward to all the awesome things that will hit me as exams will start ending
  23. the fact i’m not at all scared of exams
  24. the fact that one of my previous jobs asked me to come back for a project
  25. getting gifts for those whom i love that i’ll give for xmas
  26. the beauty in this world
  27. hart house coffee
  28. my dog’s brown eyes
  29. music
  30. watching csi downloaded on my desktop while i was out of the home through the wireless network at my house. how cool does technology GET! home networks never worked well for me, but this time, thanks to tim’s efforts, its all working.
  31. everything is working.
  32. my loving, awesome boyfriend.
  33. life.

this is entirely about STUFF

i love that couch and shelves and everything.
amazing design

totally hot dish design:
cups

all these clocks are from bed bath and beyond (ohmygosh so cool)
melting clock
THIS IS LIKE CANDY (i could so hang 1.. or 3 on our kitchen wall)
CANDY CLOCKS. *drool*
and this would go into the bathroom:
retro clocks

and one of these (or all 3) in the entrance way so that guests know they’re entering a screwed up place:
stretched clock hanging man clock another stretched clock

PS

and what did i eat today?

Kraft Dinner.

the one and only : kraft dinner

i love you tim, who eats it with me at 2am.

and i love you, kraft dinner, who makes me feel so happy with cheesy goodness.

sidecar

today tim insisted on trying the sidecar drink, and while i wasn’t too exstatic about it while biking down the cold spadina, i must admit it is something interesting.

we ended up getting the best cointreau (which is in turn the best type of triple sec), and the best brandy/cognac – vsop courvoisier, and used fresh lemons.

it is insanely strong, but smooth and definitely warms you up.

The Sidecar was developed during WWI, when a certain regular cusomer arrived at the Ritz on his motorcycle (replete with sidecar), and asked the bartender for a cocktail that would help take off the chill. The bartender was caught in a delema, a drink to remove a chill would appropriatly be brandy, but brandy was traditionally an after dinner drink, and his patron was wanting something before dinner. So he combined cognac, cointreau, and lemon juice to mix a cocktail whos focus was on the warming qualities of both the brandy, and the cointreau, while the lemon juice added enough of a tartness to make it appropriate as a pre-dinner cocktail. So a properly made sidecar should betray its roots as a drink that warms your palate if not your bones

fettuccine alfredo with shrimp

monday was such a stay-at-home-and-eat-comfort-food day, after the wicked party that tim had for his 25th.

so, today i cooked fettuccine alfredo – which came out fantastic. i wish i made more!

cook the fettuccine as usual: specifically, tagliatelle from this company. highly recommended. al dente, of course.

the sauce: fry up garlic in butter (i used oil and had to throw that batch out), just a tad bit of frying in lots of butter. its lots of everything, very unscientific. add shrimp (precooked, sorry superkev! thats the only kind we had at home). after a little bit, pour in milk (wish we had cream, so used lots of milk instead – like 1/2-3/4 of a cup on this pour alone), and stir. start shredding in parmesean (from a block), stirring constantly. then throw in preshredded parmesean, which added a little taste but a lot of pleasant cheesy texture. all of this is happening on medium heat. continue shredding in parmesean and stirring, and the sauce will thicken. i kept adding butter, milk and parmesaun as needed. final quantities were probably like:

3-5 tablespoons butter
1 – 1 1/1 glasses 2% milk
half a cup to a cup of preshredded parmesean
3 tablespoons of freshly grated parmesean

sauce thickened, pasta finished cooking, pour pasta water out as much as could, put the rest in (along with some of the left over water – like half a cup maybe – it added more of sauce to the sauce, if that makes any sense). stir, add more milk/butter/cheese. at some point above i salted something, but the cheese is salty on its own so it wasn’t lots. probably a good idea to salt the pasta water before it starts boiling.

so, yeah, mix in the pan, put on plates (it forms beautiful little white saucy heaps of pasta with shrimp in it – very pretty), and shred some more parmesean on top of that for good taste. i added a little dill (like not more than 2 dashes), but tim didn’t like it on his. i thought it was great.

this was definitely a success.

second part of the evening – fried potatoes, special style.
start cooking potatoes, whole. about 5-6 per 2 people should be enough, i had 7 and one was left over.
15 minutes for the potatoes (not fully done).
start frying up some onions and lots of vegetable oil. when potatoes are @13-15 minute mark, take them out and cut into cubes (use your own preference to size i think). then fry them in oil, for about 20 minutes, until they’re golden.
turned out delicious – greasy, fried, warm and soft inside and crunchy outside, and great as a tv-relaxation snack. not healthy, but helps with the hangovers for some of us (not me, of course, i didn’t have a hangover ;p)

morning after party i made some shell pasta with zucchini sauce. i’ll be trying that with more experimentation on wednesday – maybe i’ll do a variation on this recipe – my mom should have all of those things.