Birthday dinner - Matt's in the Market

Ok ok, really this is the last time I will talk about Matt's this summer. :)

I am not much of a cake person so I wanted some bread pudding. Gathered a small group, my cousins, my coworkers, and my friend Pat, all whom have never been to Matt's before. I was pretty excited to share this experience with them.

By the way, found the pike place flag featuring the illustrated interpretation of me on our way there! I was pretty excited. Back story here.

I apologize in advance that I did not want to take the time to take nice photos of the food just because I wanted to enjoy myself, but here we go:

I ordered myself a fancy glass of wine (apparently it was worth $18). I wanted it because it had crushed rose petals in it. I can't even remember the name. How useless am I. Here is Pat being fancy and me laughing at him.
We started with the soft shell crab which was breaded and fried, served with fingerling potatoes. Whatever the sauce was, it definitely was amazing. It had a smokey spiciness to it.
I had the steak with bing cherries served on a grilled onion and fava beans. Medium rare of course. AMAZING.
Two of my cousins ordered the whole fish (Snapper), which was fried I think. And served with a seafood broth and mussels. It looks pretty intense.
Pat had the King Salmon, which just like the copper river salmon I had, was cooked to perfection. Pat did note that the Mint Jubilee he had was the best one he had ever had.

Of course then there was bread pudding. Which I did not take photos of because I've eaten it a million times now. We should note that there was Strawberry Shortcake on the dessert menu. Strawberry Shortcake is my absolute favorite, so I felt torn between that and the bread pudding. But Pat helped me out by ordering the Strawberry Shortcake so I could have Bread Pudding and we could share. Turns out the Strawberry Shortcake was not what we had envisioned at all and was a bit dissapointing. It tasted great, it was just not what we were expecting. We wanted light fluffy cake with fresh fruit. Instead it was a creative interpretation of Strawberry Shortcake. A biscuit with strawberry and lemon sorbet. Sprinkled with candied blackberries. Again, it tasted fine, it just wasn't what we wanted. But I was ok with that. Earlier today, my coworkers brought in strawberry shortcake for my birthday. :)

It was a good day. Thanks Matt's for treating us so well and for a very lovely birthday dinner.

Birthday Sailing + Dinner + The Noble Fir

Two very special people in my life, Kevin and Jamie, have done more for me than I could ever say. They have enriched my soul, life, and general well being with their friendship in my life. Two avid sailors, Jamie and I had talked about going sailing for my birthday. It would only be the second time in my life, the first time I actually got up and did stuff out in the Puget Sound. It was a windy afternoon, but perfect sailing conditions. Little did I know that Jamie and Kevin surprised me with dinner on the boat!
Jamie made cocktails and appetizers on the boat for us! Smoked salmon and cream cheese on crackers with parsley. YUM!

It was too windy to make dinner on the boat while we were out...I later learned Jamie was planning on boiling water to make ravioli. So after we took a trip out, and I got some sailing experience, we came back in and Jamie and Kevin made me a wonderful ravioli dinner with pesto and tomatoes and grilled veggies! Yeah you should be jealous. I have AMAZING friends.
The finished product of dinner.

As is that wasn't amazing enough, they saved a piece of their wedding cake (they had just gotten back from their honeymoon the week before) and turned it into a birthday for me and sang me happy birthday!!

After all that, we grabbed a beer at one of my favorite places, The Noble Fir. Located in the heart of Ballard on Ballard Avenue, I frequent this place with my friends to have some tasty beers and plan our next backpacking trip. The place has a mini travel library with maps and ptravel books to plan your next trip. The owners Rick and Ellen are SO nice. They know everyone by name and always look so happy. The Noble Fir specializes in deliciously crafted beers and fine wines and also serves some share able food plates. We were happy to be there. I am so glad I know these people.

Seriously, hands down one of the nicest/thoughtful outings I've ever been on, if not the best. I really can't express how incredibly humbling it was to be treated so well. I love you guys. Thank you so much.

Random Foods

Things that are not worth writing an entire entry solely dedicated to one item. First off:

What do you do when you go to a ballgame? Remember the 90's? Ahh..those were the days when I actually paid attention to the game. I love my Mariner's but lately ball games have been reduced to talking and eating food with my friends, and only paying attention if we're sitting in the foul zone. Normally my go-to items are Kettle Corn and Ivars clam chowder. But the other day, I discovered they have PULLED PORK NACHOS. MMMMMM...yeah it pretty much tastes as amazingly unhealthy as it looks. Pulled pork with BBQ sauce over chips with fake cheese sauce? Heck yes.

Next up: Bowl of Balls. Yup. That's what it said on the menu. This is a bowl of balls from Rory's in Edmonds. Located just off of Main Street a block up from the ferry terminal. Behold, meatballs in a creamy pesto with Parmesan. They were delish and I am definitely looking forward to recreating them. Maybe with some real meatballs. These ones kind of reminded me of the frozen ones from Costco.

This is what roasted duck looks like from Uwajimaya. I had a really bad craving for duck that day. That is all.













So my friend Ashley was house sitting for a couple with a rooftop deck in the Leschi neighborhood recently..if you're not familiar, it's basically ritzy. We decided we needed some catch up time so I made us a picnic dinner and we brought it to the house and ate on the roof watching the sun set looking out at Lake Washington. It was great. I wanted to note this event because I found this AMAZING picnic basket brand new at Goodwill for $10 a year ago and this was the first time I've ever used it. The silverware was still wrapped up in plastic! I have been waiting to take it out on some cute picnic date...That basically tells you how exciting my dating life is. My poor picnic basket went unused for a year! But I whipped up some bow tie pasta with a garlic basil rose sauce, veggies, and chicken. The wine in the house was old, so we kept with the sparking cider instead. Romantic indeed. :)

Holiday Fun - On my own and with my mom!

Well it's definitely that time of the year...I start to build my winter coat (somehow it came on early this year once I finished my half marathon and stopped major physical activity everyday).

I've been slacking in writing mostly because my camera has been out of commission so you'll have to forgive me for the not so great quality pictures in this post. But here we go!

I recently hosted my very first very own holiday party. This year has been particularly special to me, as I have moved out on my own for the very first time, and not dating anyone (which put a damper when I needed help with things like Christmas lights or carrying the 5 bags of groceries into my house). Most of my guy friends are either too far away now to hang out with me or unavailable for other reasons. My party was simple and small...although fitting 12 people into my 500 square foot apartment was interesting! But we all had a great time and even had a white elephant exchange.

Ironically, almost everyone ended up with a gift that related to their personality. I got an aphrodisiac cookbook called "Intercourses"....which will come in handy SOMEDAY when I have a boyfriend. :)


As far as the hor d'oeuvres, I decided to cheat a little. By using different pastry doughs, I created a few different dishes, just with different fillings. Above is smoked salmon wrapped with some whipped cream cheese, dill and thyme. I also made my signature shrimp bites on french bread. I also stuffed some crescent rolls with smoked salmon and cream cheese. There was also some stuffed crescent rolls with sauteed mushrooms, garlic, spinach, and onions. I also cut up some pastry sheets and rolled them with some feta and roasted walnuts. And of course there was a veggie platter with hummus and ranch. My friend made some chocolate cookies with peppermint kisses in the middle. I'm mad I didn't take a picture but I know one of my friends did...I'll upload it later when i get my hands on it. I baked some pastry shells and filled them with whip cream, and topped it with blueberries and raspberries and a mint to garnish for dessert as well. Over all these only took me a couple hours to make, and were relatively easy.

Everything but the pastry dough was homemade! Well and minus the hummus and veggies. :) I also made some mulled wine, (not pictured) and it turned out fantastic! I looked at a few recipies and decided to create my own. Some were pretty basic while others were pretty complex. Last year my roomate made the mulled wine so I have no idea what she put in it. But essentially my recipie was as follows:

Merry Mulled Wine (serves up to 10)
- 5 bottles of 2 Buck Chuck (Cabernet Sauvignon)
- A few sprigs of rosemary (3-4 stems about 4-5 inches long)
- 10-12 cloves
- 7 cinnamon sticks
- 4 oranges (freshly squeezed for juice)
- 3 medium apples sliced (anything but Fuji and Granny Smith works - I can't remember what I used)
- 1 cup of honey

And all I did was heat up the honey in a big pot so it became less viscous and started adding the wine and seasonings and fruit. I heated it up for about an hour and a half before i served it. It was pretty tasty! Orange zest would make a nice garnish but since I had too many things going on. I had to make sure everyone got their holiday mugs and party favors! :)

Overall I thought it was a success. And then I went home and that's where my mom showed me what real cookin' is all about. With my help of course.


My mom worked on the roast beef and I prepared scalloped potatoes with a bechamel sauce and raisins.



And 3 hours later....we were feasting!!

Rib eye Roast anyone?

The potatoe medley with rasins and a bechamel sauce.

This salmon dish is SOO delish. It combines the best sweet and tart levels...I'm not sure whats in it...we baked the salmon with some teriyaki sauce and then my mom sauteed some asian greens/chives of some sorts and a mushroom sauce and spritzed it with lime juice. I can't really describe the taste. Except that it is delish. Maybe I'll write about it sometime.

My mom was on a mushroom kick...here's another side dish with some friendly fungi with mini onions.

And of course some sauteed garlic green beans/snow peas and almonds.

The end result:


Merry Christmas everyone!