Hummus = Whale?

Don't ask me why, but I used to think hummus was made out of whale.
"Would you like some hummus?"
"No thank you, I don't eat whale."
Not that I have a problem with people eating whale. (Gasp! You mean I don't care about Whale Wars? No, I don't.) I just thought it was like... blubber. Gross.

Anyway, sometime during/after my college years I discovered that hummus was, in fact, NOT whale. It's chick peas/garbanzo beans! And, it's delicious! This was an exciting discovery.

Anywho..... off the topic of my stupidity and on to the subject of making hummus. It's super easy to make as long as you have a food processor of some sort.

Ingredients:
1 can (15 oz) of Garbanzo beans
1-1.5 tbsp of Tahini
2-3 cloves of Garlic, minced
1/3 cup of Sundried Tomatoes, in oil
1.5 tbsp of Basil, julienned
1-1.5 tbsp lemon juice
Salt
Olive Oil

Pour the liquid from the can of garbanzo beans into a separate container. Process the beans, garlic, tahini, tomatoes, salt, and basil until smooth. If it's too thick, add some of the reserve liquid. Taste your hummus. Does it need more tomato taste? Add some more tomatoes, or some of the oil. Do you like more garlic? Add more!

The thing I love about this is that you can just add more or whatever to your liking and adjust to your own taste.  Oh, and if you just want plain hummus, take out the tomatoes and basil.

Pour the hummus into a shallow dish. Using the back of a spoon or something, make a shallow dip in the center of your hummus and pour in some olive oil. Top with paprika if you'd like.

Married Life

Every other day, Andrew comes home really late from either school or work. The other day I thought I'd have a little midnight meal waiting for him.

My mom used to make us omurice when we were kids. I could never get the rice out of the bowl perfectly. It always topples over. I suppose I could've tucked the edges of the egg underneath the rice but, as with most things, I didn't feel like it. ANYWAY...

Whenever you have some fried rice that you'd like to change up a bit, just beat an egg (I mixed mine with a little bit of milk to make it fluffy) and fry it on low heat until it's cooked through. Then pack a small bowl with your fried rice and upturn it onto a plate. Upturn. Upturn. Is that a word?  Cover the rice with the egg and voila! Omurice! :)

p.s. We finally got our silverware! So exciting. :) :) :)

p.p.s. I realize this post had nothing do with married life. HAHAHA... *insert crazy maniacal laugh here.*

A Dress

During the course of wedding planning I found it so easy to decide upon some things. For instance, the wedding colors: gray and yellow. I knew I wanted peonies. I knew we'd use craspedia. We never changed the flavor of our cake. Then there were those things that I could not decide upon.  This post will be about one of those things... the dress.

I had no clue what style of wedding dress I wanted. I just knew what I didn't want: beading. This turned out to be funny because the dress I ended up with had beading! But it also had a V-shaped back, a sweetheart neckline, and a belt that tied into a ribbon--all things that I loved.  I think in the end I realized that I just wanted to be comfortable and it wasn't so much THE dress but A dress. But it took like 1038403985 mind-changes to come to that realization.

So I decided to include all the dresses that I once loved in this blog post.

Here's dress 1. After trying on a bunch of princess-y over-the-top ball gown dresses that I specifically said I didn't want, I came across this one. I fell in love with the back (don't mind my tan) and with the vintage-y color. But then a few months later, I started hating the front.

So then I decided on dress #2. It had an old Hollywood type of feel to it. But then I kept staring at pictures of the back of it thinking, "Is my butt really that big??"

So then I went on to dress #3. It was so different from anything else I tried on. It had tulle! and little cut out leaves! It was so ethereal and fun... but then people began to question if it was too casual. So then I started to question if it was too casual.

Which brought me to dress #4. It was so ruffly and cake-y and girly! I was planning on changing the neckline to a sweetheart. I was all set. But then my sister mentioned it looked like a mummy... and then all I could think was mummy. Plus, the drop waist made my legs look super short.

So back to the drawing board. Then I came across this one. All tulle, sweetheart neckline, A-line to hide my short legs. I'm not sure what made me change my mind about this one. I think I was just really confused by this point. Also, I think the ladies at the store were THISCLOSE to banning me from wedding dresses for changing my mind every month. 

The dress I finally chose wasn't perfect. It didn't fit perfectly. I didn't love every detail about it... But, when the day came, I found that it really didn't matter. I was just happy to get married.

photography by Youkeun Oh Photography

 Here is our first look--my favorite moment of the day. Oh, and don't mind my abnormally obese, discolored arm and claw fingers in this picture.

Moral of the story? Not everything will be necessarily perfect when planning a wedding but, you'll find that what's most important overcomes all those other imperfections. 

untitled

I was cleaning and noticed my rag had a smiley face on it.

A and I laughed and laughed.

Just one of the many perks of having a best friend.

Oven Roasted Rosemary and Garlic Potatoes

Have I mentioned that I love carbs? This is probably the reason I looked 6 months pregnant in my wedding dress.

This dish was inspired by the fact that I live so far from the nearest California Chicken Cafe and I just really wanted to eat their potatoes.

All you need to make this is time because it takes about an hour.

Ingredients:

Potatoes

Rosemary Leaves, minced

Salt

Pepper

Olive Oil

Onion, chopped in slices

Garlic, minced

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Chop... cut? Slice? I never understand the terminology. Just... somehow take your knife and use it so your potatoes now look like wedges. This next step you can do in a separate bowl or in the vessel you are going to use in the oven. Basically, mix the potatoes, rosemary leaves, salt, pepper, onion, and garlic together with enough olive oil to coat everything.

Place in oven. In about 20-25 minutes, turn the potatoes over. If they looka a bit dry, add some more oil. Bake for another 30-35 minutes.

Enjoy!  We had some with roasted chicken and it was soooo good.

Yakisoba! (sort of...)

Don't mind this ugly picture. I promise you, it's tasty!

HELLO reader(s?)! This is my first post-wedding post! Perhaps I should call it my post post. And if I were mailing it, it'd be a post post post! And if I were sitting on a post, it'd be a post post post post!

ANYWAY, as soon as I have some pictures from the wedding, I'll write more details. But for now, I will share a recipe with you.

For some reason, before the wedding, I had been craving yakisoba. For those who don't know, yaki= japanese for "fried" so this dish is basically fried noodles! I don't know about you, but I LOVE noodles, pasta, carbs, fat, cholesterol, clogged arteries... oh wait, where was I?

This dish is relatively simple to make as long as you are willing to chop some vegetables! I've never had yakisoba with perilla leaves, but I was craving it so I added it in. And guess what? It was so good!

Just a note: In true Korean style, I have no measurements for you... and being that I'm at work right now, my directions may kind of suck. Haha. Sue me.

Ingredients:

1/4 of 1 Cabbage

Carrot: Julienned

1/2 Onion: sliced, diced, whatever you prefer

1-2 cloves of Garlic: minced

Ginger: about 1 inch, minced

Mushrooms: I used about 6-7 mushrooms

Shabu Shabu Beef: about 1/2 lb which is about 1/2 a package, cut into bite-sized pieces

Broccoli

2 Packages of uncooked Ramen (or you can use actual yakisoba noodles)

1 Bundle of Perilla Leaves (the Korean kind): chopped

Green onions

Sesame Oil

Soy Sauce

Olive oil

Sugar

Salt

Pepper

Start by marinating the beef, carrots, and onions in sesame oil, soy sauce, pepper, sugar, garlic, ginger,and olive oil. Basically as if you were making bulgogi. Don't put too much soy sauce because you can always adjust the saltiness later. Marinate for about 30-40 min.

Cook the ramen noodles (discarding the packets of sauce). Drain and set aside.

Next, in a large skillet, cook the marinated beef, carrots, and onions. Add the rest of the vegetables and stir fry. Next, add the cooked ramen and cook altogether on high heat. At this point, add more soy sauce and sesame oil, and pepper, to your liking.

Turn off the heat and add chopped perilla leaves and green onions. If you'd like, you can sprinkle some sesame seeds on top. Enjoy!

36

36 days left!

So many little things left to do. But it's nice to know that they are just little things.

Everyone says their wedding day is the biggest day of their life but I'm more excited to come home after the honeymoon and continue our lives together. 

Hopefully I'll have time this summer to keep updating this blog. School has been crazy town and I'm glad to have a few months to settle in to married life before it all begins again.

I'm not big on showing/telling people all the little details of our wedding. I mean, I feel most people couldn't care less what flowers you chose, what color the linens are... etc. 

But this is one thing I want to share. I love pink peonies. Though pink is not even one of our wedding colors, I just had to choose it. It was one of the first things I decided on when we started planning our wedding. :) Hope it's not super heavy!