Archive for March, 2009

While I continue my rigorous hunt for a job it hasn’t stopped me from having fun in the kitchen.  Ill give you a few meals (maybe not all in the same post) we have eaten at home lately to maybe give you a few ideas…

Last night my wife and I had a green curry with jasmine rice and pan seared sole.  Couple of thoughts on that:

• Sole is a great fresh fish fillet, although I only recommend thin filets and pan FRYING or deep FRYING it if your like me, because if your like me sole can taste mushy in the mouth.  Without giving it that crisp crunchy texture on the outside its not so palatable to me. (feel free to disagree)
• A lot of time a green curry (with coconut milk, lemon grass, ginger, stuff of that nature…) or a massaman style has potatoes in it.  Bit I found some acorn squash.  SO I split and seeded them, and cooked them in the oven for about an hour at 350.  Later after letting them cool, I peeled and cubed them, then sauteed them in a pan(in an attempt to ’seal’ them to a form before mushing into nothing).  Then added them to the curry, later it was delicious to eat the curry and rice with the heat steadily building in my mouth only to hit a junk of sweet roasted acorn squash to counter the heat.
• The acorn squash also helped to thicken the sauce as it cooked(because of course some of it did break down into the sauce).  I say the taste was great, DO IT!

I have not had the pleasure of experiencing the 99 Ranch Market or Ranch Market till moving to California.  Love it!  Its about a five minute walk from where I live and I am one of the only caucasians I ever see in there…but HECK, that place is loaded with all the stuff I always wish I had to do food right, but couldn’t find in a regular grocery store.  Mostly considered Asian products with far reaching ‘hands’ into India, West Africa, some Spain, Caribbean…probably a few more cross culturally crossing over each other!  And the produce, meat, rice, noodles & condiment sections put the other grocers to shame!

The Sole my wife had in Thinkers Village, Liberia (in West Africa) will always be the ‘unforgettable’ fish dinner to my wife Stephanie who had it on our Anniversary last year (possibly with the many fresh fish and sashimi meals we had in Cancun on honeymoon too!).  Delicious!

That’s right, time for me to get back in the swing of blogging what I like most…food and fun times with my wife (no its not necessarily in that order, calm down Stephanie).

So out here in Cali there is like a gazillion places to walk or hike (or swim,  or bike, or yada yada – you get the picture).  But Tuesday we went to Palo Alto CA where Stanford University really takes up most of the town/city and we went to The Dish, aptly named for several large satellite dishes.  There is a course up there that is about 3.7 miles in a loop with hills and valleys.  If you come park on the Alpine Road side (Pier Lane) its and additional 1.3 miles of walking, so you get a full 5 mile walk…which wore us out!  But it was a nice area in the hills with local ‘wildlife’ like students, cows, and ground squirrels(that was meant to be funny).  And the animals couldn’t be bothered by you, so you don’t see them moving along when you come by!

Later we went downtown to one of Stephanie’s favorite places that I have never been to called Zao Noodle Bar and I loved it!  Great pick Stephanie!

Stephanie had:

KUNG PAO CHICKEN: Crispy chicken breast, red bell pepper, green onions and peanuts in a sweet tart kung pao sauce with a spicy kick! Served with jasmine rice.

I had:

THAI GREEN CURRY CHICKEN: Chicken, bamboo shoots, green peas, galanga, kaffir lime leaf, ginger-garlic-lemongrass and green curry sauce with jasmine rice.

Then we headed on over to Peets Coffee & Tea for a Caramel Freddo (Frappuccino)…yeah baby!

Later that evening I kicked out a little supper.  I had some olive bread (baguette style) – I made out of Italian herbs, marinated green Spanish olives, and black kalamata olives – that I used to make pizza.  Cut the bread in half, flipped it over, used some sun-dried tomatoes, artichokes, pepperoni, shallots, garlic…broiled it off in the oven till the mozzarella cheese, cheddar, and jalapeno jack mix was bubbling like hot lava on top.  Stephanie was leaving to meet up with her friends but since I stayed home and was not driving, I had a glass of red wine with mine.  Delicious!

It was a good day, heck it was a wonderful day!  Thanks Stephanie for coming up with the plans!  (one of the many reasons I love my wife)

Enjoy a few pictures, although I don’t have any of our food we had at home…shucks, I will have to start remembering that!

(click on picture for album)

When we left the Africa Mercy (Mercy Ships) ship when it was in Tenerife, Canary Islands I (tyrone) had never used any of my vacation/leave/holiday days from the 18 months working at the base nor the 12 months on board the ship.

So that allowed Stephanie and I to continue to travel and meet up with old friends in Europe in January and February before having to go back to work in March.

Some days we took good pictures, some days we couldn’t be bothered.  I didn’t take a great amount of pictures of food because I needed both hands to eat and wipe my mouth without soiling or greasing up the camera…but what pictures we did take I will share below.  Then of course Stephanie had to edit what pictures would make the cut, since I am not as demanding.  There are a few blurry pics of restaurant or food places, but I thought they should still be seen in case you may one day be there and recognize that I loved the food at that restaurant.

A lot is going on with us right now as we settle back into living the life of a U.S. citizen so more stories and eats may be blogged about later as I recall fond memories of our travels.

As you will see just a few pics in England, it was cold & snowy.  We also spent time in Belgium too (Brussels) but then again, we just felt to cold and wet to be bothered.  But those places were just as great!  (you can also go to my Photolicious Album -click on right- and search for these countries and find other pics from earlier travels).

Click on a picture to go to the album.  I used fairly simple picture albums so If you have a slow connection it should still be less painful than usual to see them.

Spain - (Madrid)

Italy - (Rome)

Holland - (Rotterdam-Amsterdam)

England - (Various)

Scotland (Kirkcudbright - Edinburgh)

Ireland - (Dublin)

I have enjoyed most of these things again now that I am integrating back into US society.  Please feel free to add your comment as I am sure I have not covered everything…just the first ten that come to mind.

*These are in no particular order

1. Showers that last longer than 2 minutes
2. Drinking water straight from the tap.
3. Baths
4. Candles (I am not ‘per se’ a candle guy, but heck, I love to buy some nice smelling candles to burn, they enhance the ambiance too…)
5. Doing my laundry when I want to, no sign up sheet.
6. Shopping for fresh products and cooking for my wife and I.
7. Oceans and beaches that are safe (to swim or hang-out)
8. Variety (in almost everything, food, TV channels, movie theaters, shopping stores…)
9. Consistent preaching, teaching, and worship at church every week. (although we are looking for a new church since we have moved)
10. Diet Cola and Cheetos are always available here. (oh, and frosted mini-wheats too!)

Again, there are probably many other obvious ones I have missed, but these came to me right away when I sat down to write this post…please add your own in the comments.