Put A Egg On It

Breakfast has to be my favorite meal of the day.  I love a good eggs benedict.  I'll pretty much eat any dish that has a poached egg and hollandaise sauce.  I can even eat the two alone.  I never have time to make breakfast on the weekdays so when the weekend comes, I pretty much look forward to eating a runny egg over whatever else I have.  Last weekend I tried out this tofu and veggie scramble recipe.  It seemed healthy enough with all the veggies in it.  I added ham just for a little extra something. 

New York Day 4

New York was over a month ago and looking at these pictures make me miss my girlfriends.  The Chelsea Market is a must visit.  It started off as just a market but they've now added small restaurants and stores. Next to it is the high line, which I thought was alright.  If you have time, sure why not, take a look.  But it's something you can skip.  We went back to the MET after to go into the museum and I personally like museums so I enjoyed it.  I'm glad I packed plenty of summer dresses and light weight tops because I was definitely breaking a sweat from the heat.

DC dress | F21 chambray vest | MJ purse

New York Day 3

On the third day in New York we probably did the most walking.  The weather was warmer and warm weather + a lot of walking + empty stomachs makes everyone tired and not happy.  We first walked to the MET and then walked to Central Park.  From Central Park we walked to Levain Bakery, back to the park, to the subway, and then finally arrived to the Meat Ball Shop to have our first meal of the day.  You can see why we were a bit grumpy.  After eating some really delicious meatball though, we were energized and ready to continue our day.  We were in soho and being the person who planned and mapped out our trip, one thing I did not know was that many stores in soho close at 7pm.  We didn't get to shop much but it was still nice to walk around the area.  We then had dinner at Babbo, chef Mario Batali's restaurant.  I had expected more from this place and was quite disappointed.  Just not the Italian food I was expecting.  Some dishes were quite bland.  Later that night we headed out to Hudson Terrace for some fun. 

New York Day 2

Day 2 in New York consisted of a lot of walking.  We went to lunch at Penelope's which was a cute little place.  We then walked along 5th avenue to do some shopping.  I finally got to play on the huge piano at FAO Schwarz!  After that was more walking to Rockefeller Center and Brooklyn Bridge.  We finally sat down for dinner at Ippudo, which was just as good as the first time.  New York is so full of life.  There's so much to do and see.  You definitely don't run out of things to do.  The lifestyle is so different compared to LA/OC that I wouldn't mind living there temporarily.  (I could never leave sunny california)

 F21 denim jacket | Express top | UO pants

It's So Magical!

New York with the bffs was so fun!  It's not often that the three of us girls get together so spending four days with them was nice.  It was also nice that our bfs came too.  It was a triple date trip in NYC!  I've been to New York before during Thanksgiving and being there this time when it's warm made the trip more enjoyable.  There's definitely a lot of walking and seeing in the city, which makes it hard to party at night and wake up early the next day with energy. New York is so different from LA that I wouldn't mind living in New York for a year to soak in everything the city has to offer. 

F21 kimono top | Nordstrom tank | COH denim | Sam Edelman sandals | Marc Jacobs purse and watch

More pictures to come.  Hopefully doesn't take me weeks to upload them.

Clear Skies and Vintage Finds

The Irvine flea market only comes around on the first Sunday of the month.  I've heard about it for a while and never had the chance to go until last Sunday.  They moved it right next to the Irvine farmer's market, which is even better!  It's a pretty small farmer's market compared to the one in LA but I'll take it since it's the closest one here.  I bought some gouda spread that the sellers named the George Clooney and it was delicious!  We headed over to the flea market after and there was so much vintage finds!  I saw so many things that I wanted to buy but I have no idea where I'd put it all.  I would need a place of my own before buying all this vintage home decor.  I did however, find something that I just couldn't pass up.  This coat hanger with a clock that still works!  It was priced at $60 but I bought it for $40 which made me even happier with my buy!  I love it and am really hoping I will have a place to hang it up by this fall.

Truffle Mac n Cheese

Recently, I've been obsessed with mac n cheese.  Before this though, I disliked it very much.  As a kid I've had the kraft mac n cheese and just always thought it was too cheesy.  Just too much for me.  However, recently when I've gone out to dinner, someone in the group will order mac n cheese if the restaurant has it and it taste so much better than the kraft kind.  Maybe because it's not just the usual cheddar that's used.  There's usually more than one type of cheese, breadcrumb, bacon or something else that gives it that extra kick.  I decided to try making it myself and followed this recipe.  I adjusted the recipe to my own liking by adding onions, pancetta, and blue cheese.  To top it off, I added truffle oil, which I love! 

 

Dinner is Served

During my last day back home, my sister and I decided to make dinner for our parents at her place.  She chose four recipes out of the Ad Hoc at Home cookbook by Thomas Keller.  I was really excited to try recipes out of this cookbook.  I've heard that many of the recipes are difficult and require ingredients that are hard to find, things that you wouldn't use on a regular bases, but the dishes we made were fairly simple.  I really want to try Thomas Keller's restaurant in Napa Valley but you have to make reservations way ahead of time.  I guess I got a taste of what his cooking is like.  We made beef braised short rib (took 3 hours to cook), crab cake with aioli, mash potatoes, and broccolini with burrata cheese.  Everything came out delicious!  Unfortunately I didn't capture a picture of the short ribs.  I wish I did though because it looked amazing in the pot with all the veggies and juice.

Crab Cakes

Over the holidays my mom asked if I wanted to make something for our Christmas party.  I came upon this crab cake recipe and it looked simple enough so I gave it a try.  I also made an aioli sauce to go with the crab cakes and to my surprise, it was a lot easier than I had expected.  I love aioli sauce and never knew it consisted mainly of mayo, garlic, lemon juice, salt and pepper.  Had I known it was that simple I would've made this sauce more often.  I didn't get a chance to take a picture of the sauce, but I'm sure you can imagine what it looks like. 

1/2 cup of red onion, diced
1/2 cup of celery, diced
1/2 cup of red pepper, minced
2 tablespoons of parsley, diced
1/4 teaspoon tabasco
1 teaspoon of crab boil spice (Old Bay)
1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
1 pound of lump crab meat (canned)
1/4 cup of mayo
1 egg
1 tablespoon of dijon
1 cup panko bread crumbs

Pizza Roll

Since I don't live at home (sometimes I wish I still did), I cook dinner almost every weeknight.  It gets boring though when you're cooking the same meals over and over.  I try to find new recipes but ones with a lot of ingredients or ingredients I've never heard of make me pass on it, even if it looks like a delicious dish.  I've had this pizza roll recipe bookmarked for a while, but always figured it was difficult to make.  To my surprise, it's probably one of the quickest and easiest dinner I've ever made.  I added my own touch by adding pizza sauce into the recipe.  Instead of making pizza dough from scratch, I bought some garlic and herb dough from the store.  I'm definitely going to make it with wheat dough next time though.  Just to be somewhat healthy. 

Ingredients
- pizza dough
- pizza sauce
- mozzarella cheese
- pepporonni
- canadian bacon
- basil

You roll out the dough and put all the ingredients on top.  After that you roll it into a log shape.  Make sure to seal the ends so nothing oozes out.  Put it in the oven at 350degrees for about 25-35 minutes and voila!  Cut, serve as you please, and enjoy!

 Tomato soup and pizza roll

The Little Door

This week is the last week of Dine LA so the bf made reservations for dinner the other night.  It was a surprise so I didn't know where we were going but I figured it out as we got close to the restaurant.  THE LITTLE DOOR! It's been on my list of LA restaurants to try and I love french food so he definitely made a good choice.  I absolutely loved the ambiance of this place!  You walk in through these small wooden doors that you wouldn't expect to be the entrance of a restaurant.  It's surrounded by trees and plants with leaves on the open rooftop and it's lit up by candles and lights hanging from the trees.  They also have a wine bar! What made me like this place even more was the excellent service.  Oh and of course the good food.  I would definitely try The Little Next Door (cafe/bakery), which is well.. right next door!  Isn't that cute? 

It was a hot day and by 7:30pm, it wasn't even chilly out so I went with this sheer and lightweight top.  These COH jeggings are my absolute favorite! They're so stretchy and comfortable.  I added the scarf last minute for some detail. 

 

Foreign Exchange shirt, COH jeans, Mango scarf, F21 bracelet & ring, Marc Jacobs watch, Marc Fisher booties

Katsuya

For my birthday dinner we went to Katsuya, which recently opened in Laguna Beach.  I've been to their Hollywood location three years ago and remembered liking the food, but I enjoyed it even more this time around.  We have a friend who works at Katsuya so everything she recommended was so delicious!  Their drinks were also good.  I normally don't like mojitos because of the minty flavor, but the watermelon cucumber mojito I ordered was fruity and refreshing.  If you're ever in the area, give this place a try.  Or the LA one if you want to run into a celebrity.  You'll definitely see paparazis outside.

 

Crispy Rice with Spicy Tuna

 

Miso Marinated Black Cod

 

Foie Gras

Cirque de Soleil

Not too long ago boyfriend and I went and spent a day in LA since we had tickets to the Cirque de Soleil Iris show at night.  We had lunch at Versailles, which I've always wanted to try when I was living in Culver City temporarily a few years ago.  I like Cuban food so this place definitely did not disappoint.  We had some time to kill before dinner so we walked around The Grove, which I haven't been to in maybe three years.  For dinner we went to doughboys, which has been on my list of LA restaurants to eat at.  My sister has told me that this is one of her favorite places to eat at when she comes down to LA.  It was good, but I wouldnt consider it a favorite.  Their red velvet cakes though was a very good size for $5 and was delicious!  There's something about LA that I just love.  Maybe it's the atmosphere, the busy city life, the numerous cafes and places to go and things to see.  Or maybe it's because I live 40 minutes away and don't go very often during the day so when I do, it feels like a fun treat to go.  Either way, I love going to LA.

 

Cirque de Soeil was at the Kodak Theatre, home of the Academy Awards