this little life of mine

Rainy Sunday in the Kitchen

It has been raining steadily since about 8:00 a.m. today - a perfect day to do some cooking! I made a delicious turkey meatloaf with mashed red potatoes and steamed green beans (from a recipe out of my all-time favourite cookbook,  Eating for Life by Bill Phillips) for our Monday and Tuesday night dinners, and used the leftover ground turkey with a Hamburger Helper to have with a couple salads on Wednesday and Thursday nights, and finally I hard-cooked some eggs for my breakfasts this week.  It was exhausting work and I usually dread spending nearly a whole day in the kitchen, but it's so worth it when I come home in the evening after a long day of working at my job and working out at The Club, and have a delicious and healthy meal waiting for me! And the extra protein first thing in the morning keeps me from feeling hungry until nearly lunchtime. It's a win-win!

OMG, I cannot wait to dig into this meatloaf!

And, yes that is The Perfect Meatloaf Pan as seen on TV, and yes it's fabulous!

I do still have tonight's dinner to cook, but that won't be too bad - baked salmon with roasted cauliflower and leftover rice from last night. Super fast and easy. So, now, it's time for a nap! Cheers!

SLO County Cuisine: Crazy Sushi Fever!!

Thursday evening before doing our grocery shopping, mom and I stopped by Crazy Sushi Fever, a new sushi place in Atascadero.

 It's right by the Albertson's (where we rarely grocery shop becasue they're the most expensive store in town, but that's a rant for another time) where the Big Bubba's Bar-B-Que used to be. We never made it to BB'sBBQ which I regret, as I LOVE a good BBQ.

But anyway ...

So, yeah, sushi. Now I love sushi, but my mom has been hesitant to try it despite enjoying seafood in general. The idea of eating raw fish squicks her out. However, I assured her Crazy Sushi Fusion served cooked food and she wouldn't have to eat raw fish, and she finally agreed to try it.

We started with something safe: grilled asparagus. It was delicious!

I also ordered oysters on the half shell because I've been craving them hard since having some delcious oysters (as well as baked mussels) at Hog Island Oyster Co. in SF during Rehab last year. Most half-shell appetizers have 6 or 8 oysters minimum which is just way too much raw shellfish for me to consume by myself, but Crazy Sushi Fever serves just three. That I can handle!

Or so I thought before I saw the damn things:

 I really wish I'd had a ruler to show just how ginormous these things were. Maybe you can tell by the standard-sized slices of lemon at the top and bottom of the plate. In swear that one in the middle was at least 4 or 5 inches long! (insert dirty joke sniggering here. i am a ten-year-old boy sometimes) The top one I was able to down no problem. The bottom one I had to cut in half. The middle on I tried to cut in thirds to make it managable, but was only able to choke down one part of it before giving up. (shudders) I think my craving for raw oyters has been satisfied and perhaps damaged for quite some time.

Not that they were bad or anything, but they didn't taste as good as Hog Island's and when they're so big hyou have to chew them a LOT ... well, that's a bit more than I really expected.

Anyway, we both chose better for our entrees with my mom having the teriyaki salmon and I had the Mustang (cooked) roll which had soft-shell crab, avocado and eel.

 Mom said her salmon was very good and my roll was good, too, but it was not as good as the rolls I've had at Shin's Sushi, plus it was huge! We were both stuffed when we walked out of there.

In general, the food is good, the atmosphere is nice, and the people are really nice and attentive, but with two other sushi places in town (neither of which I've tried yet), I'm not sure I'd make another trip to Crazy Sushi Fever any time soon. Three-and-a-half stars out of five, I think.

F is for Food #allaboutme #lovekate

This week, F is for food. I love food - not just cooking it and eating it, but photographing it, too, as many of you have noticed over the years! My food pix are not fancy - although the food itself sometimes is! - they won't be appearing in Food and Wine or Sunset or even Eating Light or Clean Eating magazines. That's not the point. The point is that I enjoy sharing some of the delicious -and yes, beautiful - meals I've had.

I can't remember exactly when it started, but I do know one of my earliest food photos was at the 2002 San Francisco JournalCon. We were at a lovely Chinatown restaurant (the name of which I've forgotten) and were told regarding the following "eat it like a taco":

 

In 2005 I took a trip with my BFF Jewel to San Juan Capistrano where we had an amazingly delicious (and beautiful!) meal at The Tea House:

Then in 2007 we went to Niagara Falls and had this gorgeous lunch at The Table Rock Restaurant:

 

I've visited Green Bay, Wisconsin several times over the past few years, and the most fabulous meal has got to be the homemade chicken booyah and brats and candied pretzels with pineapple fluff made by the beautiful and fantastic June!

But it's not all just brats and beer in Green Bay. There are also some fabulous restaurants that serve vegetarian and vegan dishes as well. One of my favourite restaurants is The RAWstraunt, which specilizes in "raw" food (which means nothing is cooked over 104°). This raw cake was not only delicious, but beautiful as well:

I don't just photograph restaurant food, though. I also like to take snapshots of meals I've cooked. Lately I've been cooking several recipes from the Clean Eating magazine, such as this Smokey Pork Chop:

 Cheers, and bon appetit!

You Capture: Lemons

A delicious raspberry lemon drop martini at The Custom House in Avila Beach.

You Capture: Drinks

A lovely Cosmopolitain and a rum and Coke. At The Custom House in Avila Beach, CA.

See It Sunday: Sweet

 

A raspberry lemondrop martini with sugar rim - sweet!!

 

 

D is for Delightful #allaboutme #Lovekate

This weekend my mom and I took a well-deserved and much-needed "staycation" to Avila Beach and it was delightful! Avila Beach is one of my favourite places to go in SLO county, and we've stayed at just about every other coastal town except Avila Beach. We stayed at the Lighthouse Suites and got an oceanfront room with a great view:

 

We went wine tasting at a couple of the tasting rooms in Avila Beach. The first was Morovino where we decided to just have a glass of wine instead of a full tasting. We choose a delightful Pinot Grigio and settled in a comfy corner to just relax!

Later we stopped at was Woods Winery where we tasted five different wines including a delightful Tipsy Dog Pinot Noir!

We also took a walk along the pier. The weather this weekend was fantastic and there were TONS of people enjoying the sun and surf. There weren't many very big waves which was good for the kayakers, but there was a nice breeze which was good for the sailboats.

During the summer months, Avila Beach hosts the Fish and Farmer's Market along the promanade. We've been to it before and really enjoyed it. There's tons of delicious food to choose from (I struggled between a fish taco and a tri-tip sandwich before going with the tri-tip, and also had roasted corn - so delish!!), vendors selling everything from handmade lavendar soaps to yard made from the wool of local alpacas, delicious fresh fruits and veggies, and a live band. 

It was a blast! Afterwards we just sat on our deck and watched the sunset.

It was, in a word: delightful!!

 

C is for Coffee

All photos taken by me; collage created at picmonkey.com.

This week's All About Me Blog Challenge is the letter "C", and I have chosen to write about coffee - with much thanks to Kate for the prompt!

As you can see from the collage of coffee pictures I've taken over the years, I LOVE coffee! It started in childhood when I tried some of my grandmother's coffee with Coffeemate Creamer. Oooh, the creamy goodness! I wasn't allowed to drink much coffee as a child (it stunts your growth!), but started drinking quite a bit in high school. My friends and I would go have Cafe Mochas at either The Combine Mall in Pullman, WA or The Peppermill at the Moscow Mall (Moscow, ID). (I wish I'd thought to take pictures of those cups of coffee complete with the swirls of whipped cream and dark chocolate shavings on top, but I had no idea taking pictures of food and drink would become such a "thing"! ) 

In college (Central Washington University in Ellensburg, WA) my roomie and I had our own coffeepot and made and comsumed at least a pot of coffee a day. Just regular coffee like Folgers or something; nothing fancy or special. It was good, though, and really helped us study! On the weekends, I would walk downtown to The Village Cafe and treat myself to a Cafe Mocha and toasted cheddar bagel. I believe there was a little bookstore downtown that also made espressos, but I can't recall the name of it now.

Nowadays I'll get coffee at Starbucks, or Peets, or my current favourite coffeehouse, Bru in Atascadero, CA. At home I prefer Dunkin' Donuts regular coffee or flavoured coffees (I love vanilla!), but I'll buy pretty much whatever's on sale, and at work I use the Starbucks Via packets to make a cup of really yummy coffee. 

Clean Eating: Fresh Dill and Cucumber Salad

I recently received the newest issue of Clean Eating magazine, and found it chock full of some amazingly delicious-looking recipes! I particularly like that there's a whole section of side dishes. I often struggle to come up with some different way to prepare veggies - the past couple of months have been full of a lot of steamed broccoli, asparagus and green beans. Not that there's anyting wrong with that, but it gets a little old after a while and I really want to try something new. 

Well, here's something new: Fresh Dill and Cucumb er Salad! The magazine said it pairs well with beef, which is good becasue I cooked up a couple steaks for us tonight!

The cucumber salad was delicious and super quick and easy to make! I didn't have any fresh dill, so I substituted dry, but I don't think it made any difference. It was still yummy!

Atascadero Main Street Art and Wine Tour

Last night mom and I went to the Atascadero Main Street Association's Art and Wine Tour. There were several wineries and artists set up in various businesses in the downtown area (though I'm not sure how many artists were really out there as I only saw one guy set up outside of "Bling it On! Babe" The only other art I saw was at Envisions Gallery and Dexter Smith Gallery & Gifts). Most of the wineries were new to us. I'm always amazed at the number of new wineries that keep popping up around here. We started out with a glass of wine and a rather sad little cheese plate at Haven then headed out to taste some wine and see some art. 

We ended the evening at our favourite coffeeshop, Bru. They had a winery there, too, but by then we were vino-ed out, and just had lattes instead!

Cheers!