Epic (Spam) Breakfast of the Week

Spam gets a bad rep. It seems to be thought of as an unidentifiable mystery meat in a can, but as someone who grew up eating the stuff, I will proudly say I love it! When I moved out of my parents house, one of the very simple joys I missed about that place (aside from my rabbit) is just having Spam and rice for breakfast.

Today Robert and I made Spam Musubi for breakfast, basically a Spam sushi of sorts.

Short grain rice, nori, spam, and teriyaki sauce

Carmelizing the meat

Our epic breakfast awaits. We didn’t have a plastic musubi mold so Robert came up with a makeshift one out of plastic wrap and as you can see, it worked perfectly! Although Spam musubi is a fairly simple food, it has never failed to satisfy my hunger, and leave me a happy tummy (:

Something Borrowed, Something Blue

While browsing the internet looking at dresses (okay, okay, I was looking at wedding dresses. So shoot me!) I decided to look up some of the dresses I’ve seen on Taylor Swift; she never fails to have impeccable taste and a very girly, flirty style that I have always liked. So when I came across this dress:

I immediately fell in love with the fact that it’s cute, sexy, and flirty all in one, without being overly revealing. Well as it turns out, the woman has expensive taste. $381USD?! Definitely not within my budget for any item of clothing. I decided that it’s time to take up sewing again!

After I moved out of my parent’s house, I couldn’t take my sewing machine with me, so I borrowed my cousin’s machine and got to work!

After a long break from sewing, I think I made a pretty good replica, despite the fact that I pretty much just winged the whole thing. I won’t lie though; I wrecked the zipper. I basically forgot how to sew one in! I also realized it would probably be helpful if I owned an iron and ironing board. This dress made for some good practice though, and here’s hoping for more practice in the future. Happy sewing!

Epic Meal and a Trip to the Beach

I’ve really only ever bought one thing from Williams-Sonoma, but for at least a year now they’ve continued to send me catalogs. Usually I would quickly flip through the magazine, sigh, and look at things I wish I could afford. This time though, they didn’t skimp on the recipes, so I decided to try one out and see how it went. Today Robert and I made Pasta alla Carbonara, which turned out to be simple but very flavorful.

The ingredients: Pecorino Romano, pancetta, eggs, spaghetti, and olive oil.

Frying the pancetta until golden brown

The results. Did not skimp on the extra pecorino and red pepper flakes! This was a really good recipe, and even though it had eggs, pork, and pasta, did not feel heavy at all, which I definitely liked.

After eating, we spent the rest of the day at the beach, admiring the (surprisingly!) good weather.

One good thing about living in Orange County is that you’re always minutes from the ocean.

After a long work week, a trip to the water is just what we needed (:

Macadamia Mini Crunch Bar

Just Kidding! So I know I said I wouldn’t have a post for today but it turns out I actually did have time to make something really quick, and we might just have some more posts later this week!

Today I made some petit macadamia crunch bars. The recipe I used has only 6 ingredients, which made it super easy (although I will admit it uses some pricy ingredients).

It actually has 3 different nuts in it, macadamia, hazelnut, and pistachio.

I topped it with some pistachio powder, just to add some color and more texture. (And if you noticed, you’ll see I still have some fleur de sel caramels leftover from a previous post!)

Overall, this recipe was one of the few very simple ones that I’ve been satisfied with, and I would gladly make it again if someone buys the ingredients for me (just a suggestion!).

Epic Breakfast, Chocolate Moelleux, and a Long Week

This week I was scheduled to work 8 days straight at the resort, so unfortunately future posts this week will probably come around Thursday or Friday instead of the usual Monday/Tuesday. This week is also Newport Beach Restaurant Week, which means more work at the restaurant! But aside from all that unpleasantness, I am definitely looking forward to some overtime pay.

Robert wanted to take care of today’s epic breakfast, and I gladly let him. One thing he is really good at is making omelets, and today it was a chili cheese omelet.

Cheesy deliciousness.

Soo bad for your body but so good for your soul!

Next we have a chocolate moelleux with vanilla bean pomegranate sauce and blueberries. The batter for this cake is something we always keep on hand at work, where they bake it in really petite molds, top it with a raspberry, pistachios, and glaze. Unlike a typical moelleux batter, they also use a large amount of almond paste in the batter, which gives it a dense consistency not unlike that of a brownie.

The sauce turned out a lot better than I thought, and I definitely like that pale pink tone.

I like to tell myself that that this dessert is healthier because the almonds, blueberries, and pomegranate pack it with antioxidants. It’s good for me, I say!

Marble Cake Mishaps and Family Time

This week I spent both my days off visiting family and just catching up on everyone’s lives. Working two jobs doesn’t give you much time for family, so I definitely enjoyed it, plus I got to see my bunny again, which always makes me happy. Yesterday my cousin and I wanted to make marble cake, so we used the recipe from Buttered Up and just went for it. Neither of us has made it before, but the recipe didn’t seem too intimidating.

The marbling actually looks a lot better than I expected it to; you can’t really predict what you get since you basically just stick a knife in there and swirl it around in random directions

Creaming the butter and sugar (actually it was margarine, which explains the ungodly yellow color, but that was all they had!)

Me looking dissatisfied with my aunt’s new Sunbeam mixer. KitchenAid all the way, people!

Buttering the pans

Filling up the pans waaay too high

The aftermath. Oops…

Still good! And no one has to see the little mess we made as long as we clean it up…

Epic Breakfast of the Week and Using Leftovers

If there is anything I’ve learned from working the food industry, it’s that nothing should go to waste (although we all make mistakes sometimes…). After much thought about what we had and how we should start eating somewhat healthier, for breakfast this morning Robert and I decided to make mini bruschettas that we topped with scrambled eggs, sausage, green onion, tomato, basil, and shaved provolone.

Crunchy goodness….

Unfortunately eating healthier includes eating less cheese, which makes me ridiculously sad but these were definitely delicious and filling regardless of a lack of cheese.

Yesterday I also had some leftover pistachio batter so I decided to get a little fancy since I’ve been having a little trouble with the pastries at work and a certain celebrity chef (those of you who know me know what I’m talking about).

Pistachio sponge cake with passion fruit caramel, raspberries, apricot glaze, and edible gold pearls.

Sooo good. The contrast between the sour sweet passion fruit and raspberry and the bitterness of the pistachio worked amazingly well together. I wanted to add some chocolate in there but I think it worked perfectly just as is, tart, tender, and not overly sweet.

Chocolate Sable Sammies Another Quick Post

Today I made chocolate sables, mini cookies that are similar to shortbread. I used the recipe from another new book I got, Miette. Overall, it’s a really cute book, although I was wary that there were a couple reviews online about the book having typos or mistakes here and there. Knowing this, I decided to pick a simple recipe to try out first, and I’d say it went pretty well.

I took the cookies and sandwiched them with some leftover raspberry mousse I had from another project

Assembling the ingredients. I liked this recipe because it was pretty simple and I didn’t have to go out of my way (or out of my budget) to buy any specialty items.

Rolling out the dough. With this recipe (or with any rolled cookie recipe) it’s probably a good idea to let the dough rest before rolling it out so that it’s not so dry or soft.

Sprinkling them with some sugar before popping it in the oven

The yummy results! I wanted to use up that leftover raspberry mousse, but these cookies are good enough on their own. They came out super tender and not overly sweet, and the addition of dark chocolate really brought out the flavor as opposed to using cocoa powder alone. I had to add an extra tablespoon or so of butter just to help bring the dough all together, but overall I’m still pretty satisfied with this recipe. Plus, they’re so cute!

Epic Breakfast of the Week

For breakfast this morning Robert wanted to make a prosciutto and goat cheese egg bake, and it did not disappoint! We layered english muffins, prosciutto, goat cheese, dry provolone, basil, and  scallions, then soaked it in a milk and egg custard overnight and baked it off in the morning. Here are our glorious results:

In the making….

Poppin’ it in the oven after resting it overnight

Our delicious end product!

If there are any rules in this kitchen, it’s that pork+cheese+bread= awesomeness in my tummy. Or anyone else’s tummy (if I decide to share…).

A Trip to LA

I love downtown Los Angeles. There are just so many memories I’ve had there from the Fashion District to Grand Central and just thinking about it never fails to make me smile. It’s my home away from home.

As things have been quite hectic for me lately with work and with the holidays just ending, it felt like the perfect time to go back down memory lane and just relax. Today Robert and I started our day by indulging ourselves at Grand Central Market, then walked through Angel’s Flight, MOCA, and back to Grand Central for a quick treat before heading back home.

The side of the Grand Central building

Tacos al Pastor. Admittedly one of my favorite foods of all time

Woman making pupusas like nobody’s business

Garlic and cheese pupusa with spicy cabbage!

At the top of Angel’s Flight

Heading back down

MOCA

Tacos de lengua de res.

I’m not gonna lie. We didn’t stop eating there, I just didn’t catch a photo of everything we got. Which is fine with me; it was gobbled up in seconds. When I was younger I always told myself that I could never live in a place like LA because it was just too busy, but I realize that is part of what I miss about it. While I do like living in Orange County, there just isn’t anything quite like LA in these parts. Hopefully I’ll be back soon 🙂