Papparadelle with Smashed Peas

I found a recipe for papparadelle with smashed pea. It looked so good in my "Real Simple" magazine but it didn't taste as good as I thought it would. Mr. Moc said "why did you have to smash up the peas?". I wonder if it would have tasted better if I used regular ricotta cheese instead of the fat-free version? --MM

this one is for jill...

Tonight my roommate made filipino spaghetti for dinner. It's pretty similar to your average American spaghetti, except it's sweet. It was tasty. There was mushroom, onion, garlic, meat and sauce. She said usually filipinos put hot dogs in it. hee hee. I also (helped taught Sai) made a caprese appetizer, you know tomato, mozzarella, basil.

Flying Fig

Last night, we went out to Flying Fig for Shaggy's birthday dinner. Mr. Moc and I had been to Flying Fig before and enjoyed it but it wasn't the same last night. Portions were tiny and the flavor just wasn't there. It's a shame but it seems as if a lot of the restaurants in Cleveland aren't consistent. In any case, I had the wild striped seabass with fingerling potatoes and a light cream sauce for dinner. Sorry, most of my pictures from last night turned out worse than this one! --MM

snickerdoodles

Last night I got a bit antsy from not doing anything (I decided not to work on my paper) so instead I decided to make cookies at 10:15pm. Strange thing was I had all the ingredients I needed, scary. Anyways, this is the Mrs Field's recipe. I usually make a recipe that requires cream of tartar. The Mrs Field's recipe is more cakey, the other recipe i usually use it more chewy. I think I like the non Mrs Fields better!

-RD

Roti

Much to my delight, a local japanese restaurant has added malaysian dishes to their menu. Apparently, this is the only restaurant in all of Ohio that serves Malaysian food. We finally tried it last night - it was pretty good. I've had Malaysian food in Malaysia, Singapore and Los Angeles and I'll have to say, this tastes pretty authentic!

This roti with curried chicken sauce was our appetizer. The curry sauce had a nice spicy kick to it. Yummy! --MM

goat cheese at work

For dinner today I made chicken stuffed with goat cheese, basil, and green onion. Actually, I didn't have enough goat cheese so I added some feta. I accompanied it with spinach with lemon and cous cous with roasted red bell pepper, kalamata olives and feta cheese. I had some leftover chocolate and some strawberries so I made chocolate covered strawberries. (The picture looks horrible)

Leftovers

I made a simple dinner last night with the leftovers from the roast chicken with linguine and brocoli rabe. The sauce was made from lemon juice & zest, chicken broth, pine nuts, parmesan cheese and a bit of proscuito. Even though no cream was added, the pasta had a creamy, comforting taste to it. --MM

Thai delivery

Tonight I pampered myself and had Thai food delivered to my house...even tho the Thai place is 2 blocks away. (I finished one of my classes today so i rewarded myself, plus i was tired and it was raining.. hee hee.) So I ended up waiting for them for 1 1/2 hours!! GRRRRRR...plus they didn't give me rice!

Anyways, I had pad thai and chicken tom ka. The pad thai was mmmm...okay. The tom ka, which is this spicy coconut milk soup. Here is a picture of the pad thai.

Dessert

So last night, Mr. Moc and I were really wanted to get some dessert...actually I was dying for some dessert but there was nowhere to go! We had to drive pretty far to get to the Cheesecake Factory since nothing else was open after 8PM! Mr. Moc got his usual dessert in the form of a cheesecake...tiramisu cheesecake and I got the chocolate chip cookie dough cheesecake.

From now on, I'll be posting in the morning instead of after dinner. So I'm saving the picture from tonight's dinner for tomorrrow morning's post. In the meantime, you'll have to look at this ugly picture from last night. --MM

Farmer's Market

Today I took a lot of pictures but I won't post all them. I will post the other ones for days I forget to take pictures. But I am posting pictures of what I had for dinner -- tamales and tquitos from the CC farmer's market. I got one chicken and chile tamale, one goat cheese, tomato, and basil tamale, and chicken taquitos. The chicken and chile tamale tastes just like the ones I get at Trader Joe's, so I think it might be the same company. The goat cheese one was good, it tasted like the bruschetta and goat cheese dip I make. The roomies actually have never had tamales before so I made them try some. And the chicken taquitos were ok, there were no alberto's thats for sure. I also got a tomato and goat cheese at the farmer's market.

Bawk Bawk

This was my first attempt at roasting a chicken. I don't know why I was so intimidated by roasting a chicken since I've roasted at least one turkey a year for the past 11 years or so! Roasting a chicken is so much easier than roasting a turkey! The chicken turned out pretty good - moist and fork tender - the meat just fell off the bone. No knife needed. Along with the roast chicken and vegetables, I made a quick salad of french green beans, tomatoes, sliced boccacini and a light vinaigrette. --MM

funny AIM conversations with my family

So here is a conversation between MR. Moc and I: *names have been changed to protect the identity of parties involved

RD: pigpen's not coming to my graduation =(
MrMoc: really?
MrMoc: how come?
RD: cuase he doesnt have time
RD:: so sad isnt coming
RD: so i guess its you two and the parental units
RD: and probably the cousins
RD: haha
MrMoc: yes, we will embark on our journey in some 17 rotations of the earth
RD: WTH?!
MrMoc: we will arrive and contact you via wireless comlink
MrMoc: you and the parental units
MrMoc: hahahaha
RD: 17 rotations around the earth?!
MrMoc: 17 days.....
MrMoc: comprende?
RD: ohhh
RD: ohhhhhhhhh
MrMoc: ohhhh, yaaahh!
RD: you should stop watching battleship galactaca
RD: or whatever that show is called.
MrMoc:you're the one who brought up the "parental units"
MrMoc: hahaha
RD: um
RD: but parentla units is a common term
RD: haha
MrMoc: didn't you ever watch the coneheads?
MrMoc: hahah
RD: yah when i wa slke 11
MrMoc: heh

And here is a conversation between my brother pigpen (PP) and I:

PP: so.....
PP: mom's been asking questions
RD: about?
PP: as you know she does so well
RD: haha
PP: do i have a girlfriend
RD: H A HA!
PP: what kind of girls i like
RD: FINALLY! your turn
PP: does grace have a boyfriend?
RD: shoulda been your turn first
PP: yada yada
RD: what the
PP: but at least i got a reprieve
PP: i told her i'm not looking in shanghai,
RD: geez
PP: and she said that's fine, you can wait til you go back to school :P
RD: what?!
PP: hee hee
PP: and then she said,
PP: grace needs to stop hanging out with her cousins,
PP: she can't date her cousins
PP: she shoul join more school associations
RD: OMG
PP: it's OK for her to date multiple guys
RD: WTH?!
PP: hahah,
PP: that was the funny part
RD: shes told me that before
RD: tell her is hould be focusing on school, not boys
RD: shes crazy
PP: she's funny

--RD

lox of lox

Today for lunch I had a lox and cream cheese bagel from Noah's. I only ate 1/2 of it so I had the other half for dinner. I also had some leftover pasta for dinner tonight with shell pasta instead of whole wheat penne.
--RD

Picadillo

Normally, I make picadillo with ground beef but I didn't have any ground beef today. I used ground turkey...in addition, the recipe calls for a green bell pepper and beef broth. I had neither so I substituted with chopped up green beans and chicken broth. The picadillo was still good but it was a lighter version of the original version. --MM

turkey spag

Tonight i defrosted some spaghetti sauce I made a while ago and had it for dinner. It's basically an imitation of Moc Moc's famous spaghetti sauce. I made it so long ago I don't remember what was in it -- ground turkey, carrots, onions, zuchinni, and olives. But I served it over whole wheat penne which you can't see in this picture. And of course I had a can of sparking water with lime =)--RD

Comfort Food

What's your comfort food? Mine is italian food - pastas and risotto. I usually make a plain and simple risotto but I tried a new recipe tonight and Mr. Moc and I loved it. I think this will be my "new" risotto - wild mushroom risotto with peas. --MM

All You Can Eat

So have you ever had all you can eat dim sum? Well Mr. Moc and I had it for the first time today with Social Butterfly. We checked out this place in "asia-town" called Tom's Seafood Restaurant - I've passed it before but never thought to go in. Well for $8/person, you can eat all you want. It's just like eating dim sum in any other chinese restaurant...you point to what you like when the chinese ladies push the carts past your table. However instead of stamping your "bill", the ladies give you whatever you want and move on tho the next table. Basically, for the flat rate of $8, you have all you can eat dim sum. The food wasn't bad but I think I prefer to eat "normal" dim sum because there's more selection and better quality for almost the same amount of money. --MM

uncle bill's pancake house

So this morning, or should I say afternoon I went down to Manhattan Beach and went to Uncle Bill's Pancake House. Mocmoc took me there last time she was in town so I wanted to spread the word and took my roomies and cousin Karne there. This is a picture of what I had..potatoes reigo.. which contatins potates, bacon, green peppers, onions, cheese and avocadoes, topped with sour cream (and i added tobasco, be proud! mocmoc). We also had a side of sausage links. Anyways, it was a great meal and I felt so queesy from the grease, but it was good. Too bad the weather wasn't that great. But afterwards we stopped by this cute little store called Udderly (something, can't remember the second word) and I bougtht a $5 make up bag with hawaiin designs on it. Since I don't need a make-up bag I'm using it as a clutch! =) I *heart* manhattan beach!

Guadalajara Special and Strawberry Soda

While running errands, we saw a Mexican restaurant and decided to give it a try. Considering where we live, it wasn't too bad - still not like the Mexican food we get in California - but tolerable every once in a while.

my lack of a picture

So i forgot to take a picture of what I ate today. I guess I was just so hungry I forgot. So, i'll just tell you what I had. For breakfast I had a bowl of stale kashi cereal. Then I had coffee. And for lunch we went out to celebrate a coworkers birthday so we went and had mexican food. I had a chicken and spinach enchillada with green sauce, rice and beans. In addition we also had chips and salsa and guacamole. Then later on in the day I stopped by Starbucks, on my way to school, and had a toffee nut latte. Yah I had two cups of coffee today. For a snack I had some cool ranch flavored doritos and a milano cookie (courtesy of my groupmate). When I came home I made myself a "breakfast burrito". Really it was just like scrambled eggs, spinach, cheese wrapped in a whole wheat tortilla with salsa. And then while I was eating it, I realized this was pretty much the same thing I had for lunch minus the rice and beans and instead of chicken I had its offspring -- egg.

Hopefully tomorrow I will remember!

Lobster Special

My cousin from the "909" came to visit tonight since he was in OH for a business trip. Mr. Moc and I took him to Little Italy since there isn't anything similar in LA. We ate at one of our favorite little Italian restaurants called Valerio's. The lobster with spaghetti was just one of their many dinner specials tonight. It was so yummy the last time I ate it that I just had to order it again tonight...Mr. Moc ordered it too! 909 ordered the penne with bolognese but I didn't get a picture of it. --MM

once again

Since I had some lettuce still in my fridge that I am trying to get eat up and some beets, I made greek chicken salad again. I just love it so much! especially the beets. =) --RD

Leftovers with a Side Salad

To change up last night's leftovers, I added a little side "salad" of snap peas with double cream brie cheese (no, that's not butter!). --MM

my snack

So today for a snack I had some Lay's potato chips... Wavy Ranch Lays to be specific. As you can see I'm running low, I need some more. I'm hungry......

Pasta!

Just wanted something easy to make for dinner so I grabbed whatever we had in the fridge and made some pasta. This turned out to be pretty tasty. Whole wheat spaghetti with eggplant, olives, tomatoes, mushrooms and apple chicken sausage seasoned with garlic, salt, fresh ground pepper, hot chili flakes, basil, and parsley and a sprinkling of reggiano parmigiano. --MM

Purple Cauliflower

I went to the farmer's market in Solon last weekend and saw this purple cauliflower. Even though I don't like cauliflower (of any color), I still brought it home...couldn't resist the pretty color. I found a recipe online for a cauliflower gratin - figured it wouldn't make a difference if the cauliflower wasn't a traditional white color. We had the purple cauliflower gratin with some steak for dinner last night. I still can't say that I really like cauliflower though. --MM

greek salad

This is what I had for lunch today. A homemade greek salad with lettuce, grilled chicken, tomatoes, beets, olives, goat cheese and shredded cheese (i ran out of feta, what i usually use) and greek dressing. It's a salad I was introduced to in Michigan (with the beets) --RD

New Purpose

Based on RocketDOG's last post about the book called "Everything I Ate", we're going to change the purpose of our blog. Starting tomorrow, we're posting pictures of what we eat everyday...even if the picture looks bad. Let us know what you think! --MM

everything i ate

There is this book out called Everything I ate: A year in the life of my mouth. This guy took a picture of everything he ate...for a year. And he made a book of it! There's pictures of what he ate when he had a flu - chicken soup, chicken soup, chicken soup and pictures of when he went to Italy. Well, i think moc moc and I need to do that since we do it anyway, pretty much. Anyways, check it out.

http://www.atomicbooks.com/products/-/10224.html

Did you know that trail mix was made by surfers?

(Can you tell I'm watching the FOod Network?)

Now they are showing this show on the secret life of cereal. The sad part is, I think Pigpen and I watched this together last summer.

--RD

STOP! Red Light!

There have been several times when Mr. Moc misses a red light or a stop light and looks like he's going to plow through the intersection. I'll start screaming, "STOP! Red light, red light! STOP!". So far, we've been lucky and Mr. Moc has been able to screech to a stop just in time.

Well, imagine my reaction while out clubbing in Sao Paulo (Brazil) when my Brazilian friend plows straight through a red light. "STOP! STOP! RED LIGHT, RED LIGHT!". Not only did he speed through the intersection but he also laughed at me! Apparently, in Sao Paulo (and possibly other Brazilian cities), it's common to NOT stop at red lights or else you'd just be asking for a car-jacking. Even the police will pardon the offense to protect the citizens from car-jackings and robbery. Upon learning this tidbit of information, at every intersection, I kept my eyes open and peeled for potential attackers! --MM