Time for the Winter Olympics! (Beijing 2022)

It is that time again! Our Olympic clocks were off since Tokyo was delayed because of covid. Here we are, fourteen years after the Beijing Summer olympics, for a much colder lineup of events. The Superbowl doesn’t excite us much, but the Olympics and World Cup are a different story. Chris pulls out his Olympic wardrobe, we bought Peacock for maximum coverage, and celebrated the opening ceremony. How? By enjoying the host nation’s food of course!

Feb042022

Impossible Burger, but Taco Tuesday!

There isn’t too much to be said here. Ground meat, or ground fake meat in this case, is one of the most versatile ingredients in the kitchen. In the UK, they call it mince and it is the base for so many delicious recipes. It seems counter-productive to make mince out of already formed patties, but it works! It is far from Impossible!

Apr292017

Disneynature: Born in China

Happy Earth Day 2017! (I know, we’re a week late on this one.) Our Earth Day tradition, every year that we’re on the same page as Disneynature, is to see their theatrical release. We’ve seen African Cats, Bears, Monkey Kingdom, and now Born in China, all in theater. They’re truly a spectacle, in that they capture nature in the most majestic way, but what did we think of this year’s release?

Feb262014

P.F. Chang’s is Going Light!

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of P.F. Chang’s. All opinions are 100% mine.

For this Winter Seasonal Menu, P.F. Chang’s is serving up a light and scrumptious menu. Most places put heavy items on their menu during the winter menu. I have beef with that because I don’t need more of a reason not move! I know you guys feel me there. So I was glad to find a restaurant that really suited my needs in the Winter time. Here are some new items on their menu:

Orange Ginger Beet Salad—Sliced red and gold beets mixed with fresh oranges and tossed with honey-ginger dressing, finished with crumbled goat cheese, candied walnuts and daikon sprouts. (Wine Pairing: Frog’s Leap Sauvignon Blanc)
Shanghai Waldorf Salad—Fresh chopped kale, endive, radicchio, crisp apples, grapes, celery, grape tomatoes and candied walnuts tossed in a light miso-lime vinaigrette. (Wine Pairing: Estancia Pinot Grigio)
Chili Shrimp Bao—Asian-inspired “sliders.” Warm, pillowy bao buns filled with Bibb lettuce, chili-marinated shrimp, pickled daikon, carrots and cucumber topped with tamarind-chili sauce. (Wine Pairing: Mer Soleil “Silver” Chardonnay)
Firecracker Chicken—Savory and spicy hoisin-glazed chicken breast, wok-fired with pineapple, Chinese broccoli, Asian mushrooms, Fresno peppers and dried chilies. (Wine Pairing: S.A. Prum “Essence” Riesling)
Red Wine and Pepper Braised Beef—Red wine and black pepper sauce wok-tossed with marinated flank steak, sliced potatoes, broccolini, Napa cabbage, grape tomatoes and Fresno peppers. (Wine Pairing: Alamos Malbec)
Miso Glazed Salmon—Broiled and served with grilled baby bok choy and cool julienne daikon radish in a warm savory broth. (Wine Pairing: Tozai “Living Jewel” Junmai Sake)

The restaurant is also introducing two new desserts and beverages (two categories I can’t get enough of):

Chocolate Raspberry Wontons—Handmade, crispy wontons with a creamy chocolate-raspberry filling, dusted with powdered sugar, served with chocolate and raspberry sauces, fresh raspberries and mint.
Sweet Vanilla Cream Wontons—Handmade, warm and crispy wontons filled with vanilla cream cheese, dusted with powdered sugar, served with vanilla and raspberry sauces and fresh mint.
Crimson Spritzer—Plymouth Gin and Luxardo Cherry Liqueur with marasca cherries, fresh lime juice and muddled kaffir lime leaves, topped with Mumm Napa Brut.
Red Goose Martini—Grey Goose Vodka shaken with POM Wonderful pomegranate juice, Thai basil leaves, fresh ginger and lime juice.

I am thrilled with this new menu. P.F. Chang’s always reminds me of getting together with other families when I was younger and sharing all the dishes. It was so fun for me as a child (and now an adult!) to try all these new foods. Gotta love family style. With this new Winter menu, if you want to stay on the lighter side, there are plenty of options. For me, the two highlights of this menu has to be the Orange Ginger Beet Salad and the Shanghai Waldorf Salad. I know, I know, they are both salads, but just listen to what’s in them! Beets mixed with goat cheese?! That combination can never fail. And I simply will always love Waldorf salads (Fawlty Towers, anyone?) and the miso dressing is going to be mouth-watering.

At P.F. Chang’s, they enjoy toasting to the New Year. I think there is always something to celebrate. Our toast is to health and happiness (and puppies)! May 2014 be the year we all achieve our goals!

So get your tushie over to P.F. Chang’s today and enjoy their light menu for this Winter season before it ends! Also, for a limited time, visit pfchangs.com/winter to receive an offer of $10 off a $40 purchase. Gotta love them discounts. Enjoy P.F. Chang’s new menu to stay hungry and fit! Follow @pfchangs and Follow P.F. Chang’s on Pinterest.

*Question of the Day: Which new dish are you most excited to try?

Aug162013

Recipe FAIL and a Pick-Me-Up

We’ve had this cauliflower in the fridge for some time now, and we’ve just been so busy moving, house-sitting, being sick, and getting our stuff together that we haven’t done as much at-home cooking as I would like. Sure we’ve done easy peasy meals here and there like quesadillas, muffins, and ramen, but not new recipes I’ve wanted to try. Well this was about to change (or so I was hoping)! I was so successful with my other no-yeast whole-wheat pizza recipe, I was like SURE I can do this cauliflower pizza recipe from here. WRONG. It called for a food processor, but I don’t have one really. So I just chopped into lots of bits. Anyhow, as you will see below, IT DIDN’T WORK OUT. I made the crust too thin and didn’t balance the cheese ratio me thinks.

YIKES-and a blurry pic to boot, nice, Alana

I kind of knew it went wrong after 5 minutes in the oven, but went through some self-denial until after, 25 minutes it was a burnt mess. Determination squashed, I told Chris that my dinner attempt was done and that it was his turn. He debated making a gourmet mac and cheese, but as we are both sick (who gets a cold in summer?!), we didn’t need more congestion, ESPECIALLY since Warrior Dash is this weekend. So eventually, he decided (I wouldn’t give him any input like a brat) on his favorite Chinese place in town, China Gourmet (I can’t believe we haven’t done a post about that place).

I got a delicious Pad Thai and he got Chicken and Broccoli

We enjoyed a nice sunset and spent some good time together sitting down and eating food we didn’t have to prepare. The motto of this story isn’t to get Chinese food after a recipe fail, but I wouldn’t be mad if that’s what you got out of it. What I want you to get out of it is to not be hard on yourself for everything and accept that you’re not perfect and you can’t be good at every little thing you do. I screwed up a recipe–who cares, we made a solution and are happy for it. So next time you burn that batch of cookies, either cook up something easy that you love, make your partner cook for you, or go out for a cheap meal! I promise you will forgive yourself. Use this advice to stay hungry and fit!