Yes, the pie turned out really well. Tasted really awesome, though it was perhaps a little bit sweet. There’s no need to add extra sugar to the crust; the graham crackers are sweet enough. Also, there was no need to add green to the filling, but I felt like adding two drops just to tint it ever so slightly. I wouldn’t have topped it with meringue, but I had no intention of storing the egg whites.
Aunts from New York are coming on the weekend. I think lemon pie is appropriate.
So, like I said last night, I am deeming my dinner party to be a success. I chose to go the tougher route and cook/acquire most of the food on my own instead of relying on my guests. I am so happy that I took that route. Sure, some items could have used some improvement, but I don’t think I embarrassed myself at all.
For snacks prior to dinner, I set out three things. The first was just chips and salsa. I put out two types of chips with salsa to give a bit of interest. I liked the square angle dishes I used for it with the contrasting colours. The second was toasted pita chip triangles with hummus. I toasted them myself with olive oil and salt and pepper. To be honest, I don’t think this one was all that great. The pitas I used were sort of thick and didn’t lend themselves well to this application. I was hoping to serve this one freshly toasted, but I prepared it a bit too early. I ended up putting it in the warming drawer while waiting. I think that made them a bit tougher instead of crispy. Next time I can improve that one for sure. The third thing is the fruit platter. I figured that I needed something fresher to go with the starchy things.
In terms of main courses, there were two items. The first was a vegetable lasagna. I don’t think it was that bad, but it could have been a lot greater if I timed it better such that it came out of the oven closer to meal time. Plus, I think I could have put more cheese on top. The second item was prime rib pot roast. Now, this turned out better than I thought. I braised the meat in broth, onion soup mix, red wine, and some frozen Mediterranean veggie mix. I let it stew for about 3 hours. The resulting roast was really soft. I was totally pleased with the result. I really need to do this again on Saturday. It’s too bad that the only picture I got of it was blurry.
For dessert, I used a caramel crème brûlée recipe. Really, this is the type of thing that should be prepared the night before. Unfortunately, I only got it started at noon. It didn’t provide enough time for the custard to really cool down significantly. Also, without a blowtorch I had to use my oven’s broiler to get the caramelized top. That probably contributed to the custard being warmer than I wanted. Next time, I need to get this dessert started early, and I need to acquire a torch. In terms of taste, I thought it was great. Just needs some tweaks to kick this thing up to the next level.
All in all, I did a passable job. Combining all of this with salad, garlic bread, cookies, and 1.5 bottles of red wine (for me) and I ended up really stuffed. And that’s why I didn’t run this morning. Yes, I’m comfortable with that decision. Anyway, next time I’ll work even harder. Got to hone the skills!
It’s a very good lesson to learn. As you go through work and life in general you’ll end up building a multitude of valuable relationships. Even if you end up moving on, to some extent you should try to keep some ties alive. You never know when those links will become handy. Now, I’m not saying those links should be exploited plainly for fun and profit, but there are certainly times when your information network can come in handy.
Quick story. As I’ve mentioned, I’ve changed departments. As a result I’ve had to relocate to a different floor, away from the main kitchen area where my old desk was located. The other day I was out for some ice cream with our company’s receptionist. She informed me that desserts were being served today, Friday, at around 11 a.m. So, today, prior to 11 I pinged my old colleague and asked him to message me when everything was served. He did just that, and I was able to scramble downstairs with my eco-friendly plate and get to the food before anyone else had a chance. Minutes after I got back to my desk, the email went out and everyone ran.
See. Information networks rock. Priorities, you know.
You know, Kyleen is always telling me that I need to get out and do more fun stuff. I can see why people have to tell me to do so flat out. Some days I’m so busy worrying about responsible stuff like the mortgage, the condo, etc. that I sometimes forget that I’m only a 27-year-old man: I’ve got youth on my side. I need to get out more. So, when days like yesterday happen, I feel like I’m finally finding a bit of balance that’s so sorely needed in my life.
Well, I left work a few hours early yesterday to make it north of the city. I met Yuk Chen and Raien at a karaoke place. I think it took me a while to get into the groove of things but once I got into it I feel like I really let loose. Now, I’m not claiming to be the best singer out there, but I’m aware I’ve got some grasp of pitch, tone, and timing in my limited range. I feel like one of my saving graces is that I’m familiar with a good library of tunes in my mind. I found that last night the thing that gave me the most trouble was actually singing songs I was familiar with but were actually out of my range. I was stuck trying to figure out whether to go an octave higher or lower, and seeing if I could reach without losing control. Anyway, Raien knows a great deal of songs as well and it was fun dueting with her. Yuk Chen was there more to cheer us on, though I did get her to sing background on one or two songs. I felt fortunate to have Hui join in midway through the session, especially since he made the trek to Markham all the way from Mississauga. He too has a good library in his head which is a great tool. By the end of our 3 hour session, my voice was totally worn out. Despite that, I was kind of on a high. It’s not often I get the chance to rock out like that with friends. It’s awesome. 
From there we met with Jenelle and Henrick for hot pot. If you recall, last year when I was at hot pot I ended up with some GI issues. Knowing that, I had a couple of people watching out for me making sure that I wasn’t eating anything horribly undercoked. So, perhaps if you’ve been following along, you may or may not know that bringing all of these people together effectively meant bringing together two separate circles of friends. In that Venn diagram, I’m the overlap–I’m the crux. I’ll be honest and say that that made me a little bit nervous. I mean, there was the chance that the groups would have little in common and the whole night would be frosty. You can imagine my relief when everyone hit it off. You know what? It helped that for a good chunk of the night I was the target for a lot of the jokes. Well, sure, why not? The girls seemed to be having a field day at my expense. That’s OK. It was obvious that it wasn’t done with malice. This is why I say that I’m blessed to have great friends. I know that people care, you know what I mean? It was during hot pot that I was given the epithet of “sweaty dragon,” though I suppose “perspiring dragon” sounds more honourable.
Well, we stayed at the hot pot place for 3 hours. I went through one plate of meat and that was pretty good. As such I went back to the meats table and heaped on more. Unfortunately, I was greedy. I was really struggling with what I had on my plate. By the end I just dumped it all into the pot. At 10 p.m. they were basically trying to get rid of us. They gave us the bill and turned off the heat. Hah!
We all left and hung out at T&T for a while, checking out the Asian goods. Yuk Chen had to leave at this point. You know, among all of the weird goods I would have purchased a couple of snacks, but I was still too full to even consider food. The girls on the other hand were craving desserts. I was just amazed that they could even think about it. I joked that we could go to Kelsey’s if they wanted dessert. I didn’t think they’d actually want to go, but go we did. They kicked us out though because it was too late. Jenelle thought to check Boston Pizza if they’d still take us, at which point she ran to check. I’ve never seen someone run so fast (on a full stomach, no less) for the purposes of dessert. Turns out that yes, BP was able to take us. The girls were so keen on dessert that they insisted all 5 of us order one of those $6 desserts each. There was some balking at the though, and rightfully so. I mean, we were still stuffed with broth and meat. I think we overrode our good senses and proceeded with the plan. Oh GOD, why in the world did we do that? I ordered an apple crisp and felt gross after eating it. Sure, it was awesome, but holy crap. The girls who were so eager before seemed to struggle the most. In the end though everyone finished.
All of that was awesomely exhausting.
Anyway, here are some pics. At the restaurant, we were again joking about the “fresh off the boat” finger poses that Jenelle mentioned last time we all ate together. Hence the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 fingers. Yeah…we really need to stop doing that. 
Thanks go to Raien for sending me these photos. What a great way to end the year!
So, way back during Halloween we bought a pumpkin for the front porch. I got lazy though and didn’t bother carving it out like in previous years. Instead, we thought it’d be great to make a pie or something out of it. The intent was there, I mean, I bought a frozen pie shell and everything. However, November passed, and now we’re here in Mid-December. The other day, I walked by the pumpkin and saw that it was starting to turn black. Yes, so those plans have gone into the compost heap.
So, yesterday I raided the pantry and found a can of cherry pie filling. I took out a pie shell, opened the can, dumped in the filling and covered the top with a crumble topping I cobbled together using butter, sugar, flour, and cinnamon. The end result? Well, it was all right. Not the greatest, but OK. We’re partway through the pie. However, having middling pie around kind of made us crave for something better. Mom dug out an old recipe for apple pie and I set out to make it.
It’s been a while since I’ve made pie–probably 15 years. I was seriously surprised at just how easy it is to piece one together. The recipe for crust is on the box of shortening. The recipe for filling is basically apples coated with sugar, flour and spices. From all of the knowledge I’ve pieced together, I’ve learnt that when you’re putting together the crust, you have to make sure to keep the shortening from melting. It’s the chunks of shortening that make a crust flaky when baked. If the chunks melt before they make it to the oven, even by the heat of your hands, you just get a heavy layer for crust.
Anyway, here’s the result:
We’re not going to cut into it until we’re done the cherry pie. In the meantime, it’s going to be set aside. Looking forward to taking a bite.
Just firing off a quick post today. This evening I’m getting together with my running buddies for an end-of-year “wing ding.” It’s a potluck and I declared that I’d be bringing either brownies or lemon squares–both of which I’ve gotten pretty good at doing. Well, last night I was feeling a bit eager and decided to do both. I baked the lemon squares last night and the brownies a few hours ago. I swear, I’m glad most of these are coming with me to the potluck. They both turned out really well, and if they hung around I know I’d be cramming my gullet with these treats non-stop.
Anyway, here are the pictures of the finished products. Let me know what y’all think. I hope my running buddies will enjoy them.
I mentioned earlier in a tweet that I text messaged in from Loblaws that President’s Choice somehow has this power over me. Ah, but it’s not just me–the company has seduced a load of consumers. Seriously. Galen Weston either has this weird ju-ju thing where he hypnotizes people that see his commercials into buying these things.
For example, there’s this one commercial he’s in that talks about this dulce de leche cheesecake that PC has introduced. At the end of the commercial he jokes around about how viewers should go out to buy it that very instant. When I first saw it, I scoffed at how such a plea just wouldn’t work on the average consumer. And yet, today, there I was circling the pie and dessert area looking for a box of that cheesecake. Sadly, I couldn’t find it anywhere. I stepped aside momentarily and observed many other shoppers circling the area, probably looking for the same thing. Yes, as much as PC’s key lime pie (really good) and other cheesecakes are tasty, it’s that dulce de leche cheesecake that we were all looking for. I’m not kidding. In the span of just a few minutes I can think of five or six people hunting for cheesecake and walking away disappointed.
That’s some powerful advertising. Thing is, this brand in particular seems to have a good reputation for innovative products. So when something like these cheesecake gets airtime, people assume it’s going to be fantastic. I don’t really want to admit it, but that assumption is probably right; the reputation is there for a reason. I swear, I’ll get a hand on some of that dulce de leche cheesecake one day. Just you wait.
I’m finally getting around to posting pictures of that cake that Yuki and Raien gave me last weekend. Raien got the green tea mousse cake from Queen’s Patisserie up in Markham. The cake was really nice to look at and tasted great. I think next time I’m in need of a cake I’m going to head there to see what they have to offer. Online there seems to be some buzz over their chestnut cake. It sounds awesome.
Anyway, I just wanted to talk about the pictures a little bit. Earlier that night while Jenelle was hanging out we were joking about the two-finger peace pose that we characterized as being quite FOB. Having just come from China, Jenelle explained to me that there are other poses as well. Apparently, there are one-finger, three-finger, and four-finger variations. So, later that night when we were posing with the cake we jokingly tried to look as “fresh off the boat” as we could. It seems though the joke’s on us because the poses seem to work on us really well.
This night was when I asked the girls about my facial hair. I wanted their honest opinion. They basically told me that it looked way too messy. And now, looking at the pics, I would agree. See, over that last month I decided to let it just grow rampant. By that point it was just a bit too long. From that point on I was really itching to get home and shave, but before I could do that these pictures were taken. I suppose I don’t mind too much, but man, I wish I’d put some effort into grooming it properly.
When I got home, I just took a razor to it all and just cleaned it all up. God, I really felt better after that. A day or two later though, I really started missing the facial hair–I kind of felt a bit too bare without it. So, all right, I’m now letting it grow out again. This time though, I’m going to spend the effort cleaning it up and making it all look presentable. I’m only going to let the part under the chin get to stubble length and nothing more. The upper lip part will be trimmed now and then to prevent it from dipping below the corner of my mouth. I’m sure if I do it right I’ll look less like a douche and more like some variety of urban professional. At least, that’s the hope.
Caaaaaaaaake.
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