First Fourth in the District

It's my first time actually being in DC for the 4th of July.  Growing up on the edge of the suburbs, we still had that mindset of avoid the tourists, which means you don't even head north on 95 if you can help it.

It was pretty tranquil for the most part, mainly because I didn't attempt to go anywhere today.  Saturday, I went with the Roomie and some of her friends to a bbq and made some deviled eggs, which went pretty quickly.
 
One of my roomie's friends works at a local bakery and made an out-of-this-world strawberry rhubarb pie.  I was actually a little sad when we left and there was still about half the pie left: sooooooo very very good!

 

Our hosts also had the cutest puppy we all kept picking up and passing around.

 

And then we actually got to roast marshmallows for S'MORES!!!!!!  This is a little bit of an obsession of mine, or at least marshmallows are.  I just love marshmallows in general.  I don't eat Peeps, but love making them grow in the microwave.  I recently taught one of my house managers this trick. =]

Also, it seems like every time we've thrown a party or had more than four people over, I buy s'mores makings because we have a fire pit out back and telescoping toasting forks (yeah, I totally went all out and splurged when I saw them in the dollar bin at Target.)  And yet, we have never toasted marshmallows in the backyard.  But we got to do it this weekend in someone else's back yard (hooray for not having to clean up the fire!)  Plus, as with the grilled margarita shrimp from last night, everything automatically tastes better when cooked on a stick over an open flame! =]

So for tonight, I decided what could be more American than steak and and potatoes?  Yesterday, I made a blackberry-basil sauce to go over the lemon sorbet I made (that's a whole other post unto itself.)  So I took some of the sauce, added it to some fresh-squeezed lime juice, and added more basil, and then let two chuck steaks I got for cheap marinate.  Meanwhile, Roomie popped some potatoes in the toaster oven.  

Earlier in the day, I also attempted to make pitas using the bread machine and found a recipe that I thought would use up the rest of my whole wheat flour.  It would have helped if I actually still had some whole wheat flour.=P  So I just substituted in some more all-purpose, figuring it would be better than the rye.  The dough was still really loose when I took it out of the bread machine for shaping and baking, so I rolled it out with more flour before I divided it up and let it rest on the baking sheets.  Yeah, it didn't really make pitas, but they were lovely little bread rounds and still great for breaking up and dipping into the fried hummus I made yesterday.

 

It was a fantastic little appetizer to munch on while I grilled up the steaks and the home fries, the earlier baked potatoes with vidalia onion (which I was able to cut up without so much as a tear, much less my eyes swelling shut par usual), a little bit of garlic and some olive oil.  

Our friend who joined us for dinner brought over a lovely fresh salad with chunks of beautiful ripe tomato, cucumber, red onion and avocado in a little bit of Italian salad dressing. 

It was such a good meal, a pretty meal, especially with the salad our friend made:

After, the three of us took the dogs up to Lincoln Park to watch the fireworks they do there and the ones on the Mall.  As we walked up, the sky filled in all directions with fireworks, absolutely amazing!!!!  And we could see the ones from the Mall, just on the edge of the tree line, which was great while also watching the fireworks above us.  However, quickly learned that the dogs were not the biggest fans of all the noise.  But I think next year will be a picnic in the park for the fireworks since we saw at least five different shows going on.  Fireworks, a bottle of wine, some cheese, fried hummus, fresh bread, some fruit and veggies, and, oh yeah, some bug spray (may have forgotten that tonight; anyone know if taking a benadryl would help with the itching?)

So now I'm laying in my air conditioned bed typing and watching the neighbors set off some fountains in the back alley, along with some other fireworks still going, especially since they're now breaking out my favorites, the waterfalls!

So here's some videos we took of tonight:

Hope everyone had a great, and safe, Fourth!

My favorite thing about summer is the abundance of fresh food, especially the citrus.  I took full advantage of it for tonight's dinner.  I made margarita shrimp with sauteed spinach and pico de gallo. 
I started with the pico de gallo.  A while ago I was in a grocery store looking for ingredients for pico de gallo and asked the attendant for help.  He then asked me what I thought went into pico de gallo, and like pretty much every other American, I said it's like a fresh salsa.  The attendant admonished me, "Think about what you just said.  You called it a salsa; and that's just what it is, salsa.  Not pico de gallo."  He then told me that a real pico de gallo is jicama with oranges, red onion and serano pepper that has been thinly sliced with a vegetable peeler.  So that's what I made tonight:

So simple, so fresh, so delicious!

I then sauteed the spinach with red onion and hazelnuts in balsalmic vinegar while I marinated the shrimp in lime juice with triple sec and tequila.

Roomie cooked wild rice with some lime juice while I skewered the shirmp and grilled them up.

The end result was soooooooo good!

Finished the meal off with a nice chardonnay, and a post on dessert will soon be to follow!

Backtracking a bit

So up until now, I've been mainly just posting pictures on my Facebook page of the things I make.  But I figure this is a good place to go ahead and put them where I can reference them quickly.

The roomie and I decided to steak out one night, and by steak out, we meant all out.  I marinated the chuck steaks in lime juice with salt and pepper and then grilled them on a grill pan on the stove.  

We're trying to be healthy, mainly because we have a tendency to work insane hours which leads to eating from vending machines and other bad behaviours, so we baked the french fries and fried okra (yes, both store bought because that's how we roll.)  Roomie sprayed them down with a little bit of oil so they would get crispy in the oven.  Yeah, best intentions don't always make the greatest results: they weren't crispy, but they still tasted good! 

I while the steaks were grilling and the fried stuff baking, I threw together a spinach salad with blueberries, peaches and almonds, and did a lime vinagerette with some red pepper flake.  

It was a monster plate of food, and we didn't finish our steaks that night because there was so much food, but it was a great decision on our parts!

I recently switched jobs, which means I'm not quite working the same insane hours I used to, and also means, of course, there is more time for cooking!

This is what I make for dinner when I actually have time:

I just threw together some fresh tomato, zucchini, basil and onion with some spaghetti and a few shrimp and squeezed some lime juice with a little bit of garlic olive oil over it.  Deeeeelicious!

And then there's our game nights.  Because we live in a pretty good location, I love to cook, and it used to be that the Roomie and I both had off Fridays, we decided to start hosting Friday Game Nights with Potluck Pizza.  I have a bread machine, which makes making the pizza dough incredibly easy.  And once everyone arrives with toppings in hand, I roll out the dough, we pop a pie into the oven, and let bedlam ensue depending on what game we're playing that week.  So here's the pics from the various game nights:

My dough runneth over!

The dough

The toppings

Pre-baking

 The Results:

Hawaiian Style, with everything underneath the cheese

Seafood pizza with a white sauce, shrimp, fish, black olives and chickpeas

Meat pizza, with, what else but meat!

And the desserts:

S'mores, pre-baking

S'mores, post-baking, and there's Reese's hidden in there somewhere

Roomie made cookies, YUM YUM!

Bored

I'm a little bit of a workaholic, and it's a three day weekend, which means I kind of don't know what to do with myself and am going a bit stir-crazy.  So what else is there to do but cook!

So I made hummus, which my roommate LOVES!  However, I'm always looking to try a new twist on things. So this time around, I decided to fry up the chickpeas.

I poured some olive oil into a fry pan, added some spices like garlic, chili powder and smoke paprika, then added the drained and rinsed chickpeas and put them over medium high heat.  And then learned that chickpeas pop out of the pan when you fry them, just like popcorn, which was fortunate for the dogs just waiting to get a taste.

Once they were all fried, I poured them into the food processor, added some more olive oil and some minced roasted garlic and squeezed half a lemon over it and just let the food processor do it's thing. 

It didn't come out quite as creamy looking as my hummus normally does, but it tastes soooooooo good, and feels creamy in your mouth.

Now I'm debating whether or not to make pitas to then bake into pita chips to go with it . . . . or just dip my finger in. =]

Introduction

Anyone who's known me for longer than five minutes knows I have an obsession with food.  I love to create it, eat it and talk about it.
A couple years ago, my mom took us on a family vacation to Hawaii.  Arriving back at school, my roommate asked me how was it.  About an hour later, she says, "You are the only person I know who goes to paradise and comes back talking about food." 
I also have this incredible knack for making people hungry, even if they just ate.  It's a magical gift, especially with the way I describe it.

So here is where I give way to my indulgences and fully delve into my obsessions.