The Flying Quiche

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Hong Kong

My brother and I went to visit the parentals for the holidays in China. We spent a couple days in Hong Kong on our way to Hainan. Here is the first installment of our trip.

Side street markets

The view from our hotel

The Zoological and Botanical Gardens

The Lippo Center (aka The Koala Tree)

Noodle bowl

Getting Lost

Can you guess which one is my brother?

Lost again

45 degrees up the side of a mountain

The famous Peak Tram

It's a long way up

and the Peak Tower- aka The Tourist Trap

Victoria Harbor at night

The brother barely fits

In the Hong Kong subway

Overrated dim sum at Luk Yu Teahouse

Tristan tries some sweet soup

Man Mo Temple

Lots of incense

On the other side in Kowloon
Be sure to take the ferry ride back

Other things to do?

Visit the original Shanghai Tan
Take in some antiques and art galleries on Hollywood Road
Ride up the longest outdoor escalator in the world
Use the bathroom at the Peninsula
Take a walk through Pacific Place
Have your picture taken throughout the city in the quintessential Asian pose

Thursday, February 4, 2010

As someone pointed out- It's "Super Bowl" time again!

Just wanted to drop in to share my menu for the Super Bowl! Just in case you're still looking for inspiration. Let's get excited!!

The Pioneer Woman's Drip Beef

I sent the link to the BF yesterday and he pretty much freaked out and send it to all his friends. The recipe is super simple (place ingredients in pot- cook for 6 hours) and there are step by step picture instructions so there are no reasons you can't be enjoying this sandwhich right along with us on Sunday. Hello delicious!

Maple-Beer-Chili Chicken Wings

This recipe comes from a recent article on NPR and that's really all I have to say. I think the name speaks for itself. I will report back on whether they lived up to my mental hype.

Hot Sausage Dip

A repeat from last year. This time, with an actual can of Rotel (which I recently found out is pronouced "roh-tehl" and not "rottle"). Maybe I can get a more apetizing picture of it this time!

Other ways to prepare for the Super Bowl?

Review the Puppy Bowl starting lineup! My money is on Bandit .

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Gingerbread House

Hello Daring Bakers!! I can't believe I wasn't able to participate for these last few months and I had to set aside my only free weekend (the first one in December) to tackle this challenge! But I'm not here to complain because this was such a fun task- even if it did kill my hand mixer...

The December 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to you by Anna of Very Small Anna and Y of Lemonpi. They chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ everywhere to bake and assemble a gingerbread house from scratch. They chose recipes from Good Housekeeping and from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book as the challenge recipes.

Here's the short and sweet version:

Make your hand-mixer-killer-gingerbread dough recipe and chill. I got lucky and started this in advance and then realized this dough has to chill overnight.

Take your dough out of the fridge about an hour before you are ready to cut the pieces. Again, this dough is killer- just about killed my wrists just trying to roll it out! Make sure that your dough's thickness is nice and even. Cut out the pieces using your template- making sure that you cut down into the dough withouth dragging your knife (otherwise you'll end up with some ugly cuts that will then cook up ugly).

While your dough is cooking, assemble your candy- the cat is not essential for this stage.

And just look at those beautiful gingerbread walls and roof top! Let them cool completely.

Next, make your syrup which you will be using to assemble the gingerbread house. Try not to burn it.. I never knew you could get such a dark black without using food coloring!

The candy is ready and waiting. The candy buttons were probably my favorite to use as they are small and colorful. I had high hopes for the Necco wafers (adorble roof shingles maybe?) but the colors are so bland! I gave away the Leone candy boxes (and can I just say that although the Polar Strong box is adorable, the candy tastes HORRIBLE!). If this experience taught me anything is that candies are heavy and frosting can only hold so much weight.

Roof Attempt Number 2. You don't want to see Attempt Number 1. Trust me.

Looking a little sad... Can I just say that the Royal Icing recipe I used sucked? I can't remeber which one it was- oh wait, it was Martha! But it was far too liquidey and I ended up using 2 pounds of sugar to even things out- and look! It still dripped all over the place! We couldn't even pretend that the drips were icicles! (Can you tell my the exclamation points that this is a hot topic with me?)

TADA!

Gumball fence- coconut snow and snowman with a Mint Meltaway hat and Big League Chew scarf- Cut down Mint Meltaway wreaths- Necco Wafer walking path- Fruit Salad gummy bushes with Candy Button flowers.

In the end though I think we pulled it off. We settled on a simple roof and stopped fighting the heavy candy and just let them hang out at ground level. But next time, I'll be getting smaller candy and a different dough recipe (unless Santa brings me a mixer that can handle it!)

Saturday, November 28, 2009

The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

This year for Thanksgiving, the BF and I were pretty excited about being together, staying in NYC and having friends and family over. The big plan? To attend the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I'm not sure I've ever woken up early enough to even see the parade on TV (*shame*) but somehow waking up at 5:30am to actually see it in person became the mission. And I would say it was worth all the prep.