{Newton's Fruit Crisps {Apple Cinnamon} - Snack Review}

I adore these as snacks. I always have a couple stashed away somewhere in my snack bag/backpack. The great thing is the crispy outer shell. I love the crunchiness {crunch crunch crunch} and the perfect amount of apple cinnamon filling that is not too sweet. I always found the nutrigrain bars to be waaay toooooo sweet. (obviously personal taste opinion). The other great thing about the snack is that its only 100 calories...

Now the caveat to this snack - not filling! I could eat a few packs in one sitting, hence eliminating the low calorie benefit. heehee.
Give it a try and let me know what ya think!

Tip: Buy it at Target! Cheaper than the sale price of grocery stores...at least in SoCal...

{Juicy Asian T Bone Steak}

I'm a steak and potato lover. I could eat a steak and potato meal at least once a week. Drooool. How I adore slicing into a large piece of steak that is juicy, tender and full of flavor... and then scooping into a hot and buttery salted baked potato. oooohhh....soooo good. I could eat one again right now.

This recipe is an Asian-flavored T bone steak, especially with the sweet soy sauce and green onion based sauce. I love how tender the steak is because of the time spent pounding out the meat with the tenderizer (got stress? this recipe is for YOU!). Now if you notice from the picture, the recipe is slightly modified. Instead of green onions, I used regular onions this time since I ran out of green onions. Also, I added to the sauce an aged balsamic vinegar (which I reduced). Not sure which I like better. The tangy sweetness from the balsamic vinegar is nice and more reminiscent of an American type steak than an Asian style steak. Whatever suits your fancy....But the recipe below is for the Asian-flavored steak sauce.

Steak
1. Pound out your stress on the T-bone steak with a meat tenderizer
2. Rinse the steak off with water and pat dry
3. Season with black pepper and salt
4. Mix 1/4 teaspoon baking soda and 1/4 cup water. Pour over the 4 steaks in a pan.
5. Fry the steaks in a pan with olive oil

Sauce (can use a separate pan if you would like or scrape off the yummy steak pan bits that you used earlier)
1. Chop green onions
2. Saute in olive oil
3. Add 2 T soy sauce
4. Add 1/4 cup water
6. Add 1 T sugar

After fry steak, let the steak rest before slicing it to allow the juices to be absorbed back into the meat. Drizzle the sauce over the steak when ready to serve

Anniversary

My husband and I just celebrated our 1 year anniversary. Yay! What a quick and wonderful year it has been for both of us! In celebration, we each separately planned parts of the day. For lunch, I planned a little pseudo-picnic on our patio. I layed out a beach blanket, topped it with some seat cushions, used some boxes and covered with it with some fabric, few candles, music...voila! Pseudo-picnic! Why did I have it on our patio? Well, because....food....is...important. I felt like the food would have been compromised if I packed it into a basket. Silly me! :) I ended up making lobster roll sandwhiches, roasted fig, gorgonzola, and arugula salad, and brie cheese with crackers. I didn't take any pictures...why oh why! I actually loved the roasted fig salad and will definitely make it again. The lobster roll was wonderfully reminiscent of Maine. After eating, we exchanged our gifts and read our mushy love notes to each other (ahhh...my readers must be rolling their eyes..haha). At night, my hubbie took me to a spanish tapas restaurant in Long Beach called Sevilla (review later with no pics since it was really dark in the restaurant) and then we rented a movie and snuggled on the couch. Being married to my husband is absolutely wonderful and am looking forward to many more years ahead!

Lobster Roll Sandwiches
- Asian white bread - toasted. Smear with a little bit of butter. Sprinkle with garlic powder. (this is what i thought would become compromised if I packed it. Bread would not be nice and toasty and warm!)
- Freshly steamed lobster, chopped into moderately sized pieces
- A tiny spoonful of mayo mixed into the lobster
- Fresh pepper

Roasted Fig, Gorgonzola, and Arugula Salad
- Organic Arugula from Trader Joe's
- Gorgonzola cheese from Trader Joe's
- Fresh black mission figs
- 18 year aged balsamic vinegar (My favorite is Oliver's brand from Sam Clemente)
- Dark Brown Sugar
- Olive oil

1. Chopped off tips of figs and sliced in half
2. Drizzled figs with olive oil, black pepper, balsamic vinegar
3. Sprinkled tops of figs with dark brown sugar
4. Roasted in oven at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes
5. Set out to cool
6. Lay figs on top of arugula salad and sprinkle with gorgonzola cheese
7. Dressing: Balsamic vinegar, Olive Oil, Salt, Pepper, A little mustard for binding the vinegar and olive oil

Marche Moderne Review - South Coast Plaza

I was wandering through South Coast one day and stumbled upon this cute restaurant located upstairs, near the Nordstrom Department store. I took a peek at the menu out of interest and the tasting menu caught my eye. $20 for 3 delicious sounding courses. So, when I arrived home, I performed an internet search to see what reviews existed about the restaurant. Generally, really great reviews and people felt that it was a well-valued meal.

I was meeting a friend who was pregnant to look for some maternity clothes (fun!) and decided to meet there for lunch. After much debate, we decided to pass on the tasting menu since it didn't sound as appealing that day (the tasting menu changes daily) and not to mention, its hard to justify in my mind to spend that much for just lunch. We decided on sharing the "Cured & Homemade Teriyaki Confit Pork Belly with Chinese long beans, demi-glace a l'orange, and star anise jus" off the "Unusual" category of the menu and the "Merguez Sausage and Shrimp Tart with Fennel and Caramelized onion jam, Mint, and Fennel greens with an Emulsion of Cumin-Harissa" under the "wood-burning oven tart" category.

The pork belly was...okay. It reminded me of something my mom cooks on occasion, except, not as tender and delicious. The pork belly was a little bit dry/firm around much of the edges with a few small areas of really tender meat. It was flavorful but nothing special, nothing amazing. I'd prefer mom's pork belly any day because its not as pricey! haha. Moving on...


The tart -- well lets call it what it was...it was a small pizza cooked in a wood-burning oven. The pizza had bold Mediterranean flavors. The sausage was likely lamb based so you'll have to like lamb with mediterranean spices. The shrimp in my mind, was a bit weird for a pizza topping, although it was well seasoned and tender and a good size. I know shrimp exists as a pizza topping and some people love it, but it just confirmed in my mind that its not my cup of tea....Although I was only sharing half of the small pizza with my friend, I could only eat about 2/3 of my piece before my palate was just overwhelmed and I could not swallow another bite. We both agreed that the dish was definitely not something we could finish off by ourselves because of the heavy flavors and were glad that we shared it.


To finish it off, I ordered 1 rose-flavored macaroon. I was still on my macaroon kick and it looked so cute in the jar from afar. i knew ahead of time that there was no way I could fall in love with this macaroon because flower-flavored food does not fit my idea of yummy, but, I felt like, why not give it a try despite my mild aversion. Why an aversion? Flower-flavored foods remind me of eating perfume/soaps...hehe. Anyways, thankfully it was lightly scented rose, so it was ok. The filling was nice. But I wouldn't order it again...(completely personal preference).

Bottom line-Would I eat there again? Maybe...I would try some other dishes (tasting menu). I'm willing to give it a second chance because its not that the food was bad...it just wasn't amazing for the price...but I am open to the fact that maybe we chose the wrong dishes.

Warning: Pork belly and Tart appear larger than actual size.

WHAHAHAHHA!

Carving Pumpkins!

Don't you just love the fall season? The pumpkins fill the fronts of stores, spiced cider bottles are on the grocers shelves, maple cookies, pumpkin pies....love it......This past weekend, the in-laws, my husband and I spent a crisp evening out on the patio carving pumpkins. I have to say, my hand was deformed like the claw-hand from Liar Liar with Jim Carrey for the rest of the evening, but well worth the final product. My brother-in law carved Jack, the Nightmare before Christmas, the hubster carved the boy in the bed, the sister-in law carved the little monster (the cutest!), and I carved the haunted house. Thank goodness for pumpkin carving tools. Pumpkin meat was flying all over the place with my carving style (i'm talking on the glasses, down the shirt, across the table), and hence, a good reason why I am not a surgeon. Heehee! After we carved our pumpkins, we sprinkled the insides generously with cinnamon, lit the candles, and ahhhhh.....it smelled like.....Pumpkin Pie........delightful....


The best part of it all, was that it was reminiscent of the second date I went on with my husband before we were married. He planned this wonderful date where we picked pumpkins from a pumpkin patch and then went to his place and carved pumpkins. Good times....

I think we'll have to maintain this as a yearly family tradition

Turkey Avocado Panini with a Spicy Lime Butter

Recipe a la Natalie C


One day, after a difficult morning, I called a colleague to see if she wanted to have lunch and commiserate. She was making lunch so she kindly invited me over. Well, needless to say, I was impressed! I loved the lunch so much, I figured I would make it again at home and blog about it! It is a quick and easy go-to lunch when you have nothing to eat. The best part of the panini is the spicy lime shallot butter, which is so easy to make and versatile since it can be used for many other things, such as fish (aka Dinner! yay!). So whip up some of that butter and store it in your fridge for other meals. Multi-tasking at its best!


All I did was visit my local favorite grocery store, Trader Joe's - Bought a bag of shallots (1.49), a bag of soft Hass avocados (around 3 dollars), Panini bread (3.29), roasted turkey breast (4.79), one lime (.29). With all of that, I could feed a few people, so its a much cheaper then heading over to Panera's where you're easily spending 10 dollars a person for lunch.

Once you smother on that butter over the panini bread and either toast it in your toaster oven or press it in the panini grill, you'll find that the bread develops this wonderful rich flavorful from the butter and has this lovely warm and toasty crunch when you bite into it. The avocado adds a wonderful additional layer of creaminess and depth, so be generous when you layer it on your panini (Natalie C added the avocado on both sides of the panini). Add a little side salad that is lightly dressed in a vinagrette (I'm currently loving the Ken's Steakhouse Lite Asian Sesame Ginger and Soy Dressing over Romaine lettuce and few diced green onions) . Voila. Perfect and easy lunch!!

Spicy Lime Shallot Butter
- 4 Tablespoons Room Temperature/Softened butter
- Few sprinkles of red pepper flakes
- Zest of one lime
- 1 tiny spoon of fresh lime juice
- 1/2 chopped shallot
- 1/4 teaspoon salt

Turkey Avocado Panini
1. Smear the Spicy Lime Shallot butter over the sliced panini bread
2. Toast in toaster oven until golden brown
3. While toasting, slice up the avocado
4. Once panini bread is done, layer on the turkey meat
5. Add sliced avocado
6. Eat away!!! *crunch crunch crunch*

If you plan to use a panini grill,i would toast the bread first, butter side up, even before you use the panini grill to toast up the butter side of the bread. Then add the turkey meat and press it on the grill. THEN add the avocado after you take the sandwhich off the grill...hope that makes sense....I was too lazy to take my panini grill out of the cabinet...hence, the toaster oven version. :)

Coconut Banana Bread with a Lime Glaze

This recipe/picture was 110% inspired by a wonderful foodblog that I discovered several days ago, called kissmyspatula. The recipe was for a Hurricane Ridge Banana Bread. Its made of a ripe bananas, toasted coconuts, toasted walnuts, and rum...drizzled in a lime syrup. It sounded so delightful that I had to give the recipe a whirl. Not to mention, the pictures of the bread was so beautiful that it inspired me to try and take better artsy food pictures for my blog. (what do you think? a little artsier? haha...ok i'm working on it...) So this entry is completely to her credit since why mess with perfection?!

As I was baking this bread, my beautiful American Eskie eagerly sat by the kitchen, waiting for it to come out of the oven. When I pulled it out of the oven, she looked at me wistfully, "please, just one bite", i could hear her thinking... She's a smart dog! She knows what smells delicious! Of course, I gave her a bite of the bread, which she scarfed down, but everyone else in the house loved it just as much, leaving me with only a total of two bites!


The only thing I did different from her recipe was that I baked them in these mini loafs, which I thought would be superfun and supercute to give as gifts. Because of that, I dropped the oven temperature to about 325 and baked it for only 25-30 minutes. In terms of my little tips from baking the bread -- watch carefully when you toast the coconut/walnuts...I burnt two batches...Second, i would add more coconut to the top of the bread to make it prettier. I'm not sure how hers came out such a lovely golden brown...mine looked more pale...but nonethess, tasted great. Following her recipe, made about 5 little mini loafs. If I was doing it again, I would double her recipe to make more!! And like she says in her post, don't even think about leaving out the lime drizzle....

For the recipe, I'll provide the link so you can see her website :)
Hurricane Ridge Banana Bread by KissMySpatula