Category: Uncategorized

Sweet and Sour… Everything

My beginner’s luck had to run out sometime, and the second half of my eggplant was not destined to be as successful as the first. The overall outcome of this meal was just “okay.”

Correction: the eggplant turned out okay, but the general disposition of the dish as a whole was not as expected. Anyway, I made sweet and sour eggplant! and chicken. It was looking a little weak so I added chicken. And half a can of pineapple. Which was the best addition in my opinion.

eggplant, bell pepper, chicken, and pineapple
eggplant, bell pepper, chicken, and pineapple

I think the sauce is where I went wrong. I would be willing to try again and add MUCH more sugar to the sauce. I was following a recipe though, and since I’d never tried making such a concoction before I didn’t deviate from it. My old roommate said something once about using ketchup to make a sweet and sour sauce? Maybe  I’ll give that a try next time!

Also someday I hope to own a rice cooker. A real one. A Japanese brand.

Ready for my Closeup

Today I was but an accessory in my friend’s photography project: the first in her series of “modern classics,” in which she finds inspiration from classic stories and paintings (she is an Art History major) and changes them up in a way that would be appropriate for today. Today we tackled the Judgment of Paris, and did our own version of something like this (focus on the figures to the right):

No, we were not nude.
Kind of wish we got to wear these 1600s dresses.

I got to play modern Athena, complete with fake assault rifle (that’s what you get for being goddess of war I guess). She’s working on photoshopping the pics as I type this and I should have my mitts on one to show you all in the next few days.

I was happy to be photographed (I’m so vain, I certainly think this song is about me–catch the Carly Simon reference?) and happy to do this favor for my friend. I had a great time with the other models too!

Last Saturday

Last Saturday I headed on over to the Temecula Farmer’s Market that I had heard so much about during, oh, the past ten years I’ve lived here. I can’t believe I had never made it down there before. But the rest of the family was in Azusa taking my little baby sister to school and I had the whole day to myself. The world was, indeed, my oyster. So I went down to old town armed with about $20 cash and determined to get some delicious vegetables for that afternoon’s lunch (my friend was coming over).

I came away from the farmer's market with these items
I came away from the farmer's market with these items

I got an eggplant, bell peppers, tomatoes, garlic, nothing too exciting and daunting, although I had never cooked with eggplant before I was confident that I could use it no problem.

For my first foray into farmer’s market cooking I did something safe, but delicious!

Stuffed bell peppers (side of potato salad)
Stuffed bell peppers (side of potato salad)

I made bell peppers stuffed with tuna salad (tuna, mayo, tomatoes, spices) and… that tihng there is a side of potato salad from Stater Brother’s just to fill space.

I also got white peaches which turned out to be kind of a bust because they were pretty much gone bad on the inside. Does anyone reading this have experience with farmer’s markets? Are vegetables generally a safer bet than fruit?