Pork-Eggplant-Tangerine Stir Fry

Last night, I felt in the mood for some asian flavors. I made a slight adaptation of this recipe and it turned out perfectly. Seriously, the flavors were so good, the pork was insanely tender and tasty, I will definitely be making it again.

One difficulty for beginning cooks is not having a stocked pantry. While I do not possess that many asian ingredients, at this point I have most of the basics.

Which is good, because this recipe used most of them. I started out by slicing 1/2 lb. of pork tenderloin into strips. I also cut up approximately 1/2 of an eggplant into similar sized stripes. I coated all of these in salt, pepper and cornstarch. In the meantime I threw in about a tablespoon of ginger into one tablespoon of sesame oil and one tablespoon of peanut oil which were heating on the stove. I cooked the pork and eggplant for about 5 minutes until the pork was brown on both sides and the eggplant was soft. I then tossed in slices from one tangerine.

The only real issue I had with this recipe was the tangerines. The recipe instructs to leave the skin on and that because it is thinner than an orange peel it will cook nicely and taste delicious. It did not. It tasted kind of bitter and rind-y, as expected. When I make this recipe again (and I definitely will), I will just squeeze fresh tangerine juice into the sauce. After you add the tangerines, cook for about a minute and then add the sauce. I used about 2 tablespoons soy, 1 tablespoon hoisin, and 1 tablespoon sweet chili sauce. However, I believe this is all according to your tastes - go crazy. Get the whole dish nice and hot and then throw in some baby bok choy and green onions.

Cook for another couple of minutes until the bok choy is wilted and then you have some delicious stir fry. Put on some rice and enjoy.

I know I did.

While eating this Ula and I watched Pedro Almodovar's "Laws of Desire" which I had not seen in about 12 years.

It was the first movie I'd seen in awhile that had an NC-17 rating and it was well earned. The first scene shows a very attractive guy being instructed by a male voice off camera to strip to his underwear, make out with himself in the mirror while rubbing his cock against it. Then the underwear comes off and the fingering begins! This is before we see a young Antonio Banderas naked on his back with his legs up around his head. Hello! While this film is a delightfully enjoyable Almodovarian fucked up love/death/sex/obsession story, it is definitely for the kids.

Fear of the Feminine

As you may be aware I have recently developed an obsession with all things Men's Figure Skating related. This includes Plushenko's hilarious "dramatic" faces and mullet. I also love the way gold-medal winner Evan Lysacek fist pumps at the end of each routine resembling DJ Paulie D's long-lost cousin. Obviously my favorite thing about ice skating is American treasure Johnny Weir. Due to my new obsession I watched all of the olympic coverage of this event as well as reading several articles, watching some youtube videos, etc.

One thing I have learned from all of this is that figure skating is as homophobic as any other sport. Below is a video of Johnny's famous Poker Face routine. Of note is the giggling by the announcers at the end and comments about how outrageous he is (or you know, gay). He clearly makes them so uncomfortable.


I honestly do not understand. Why are people so scared of effeminate men? I find the coverage of Johnny Weir offensive on a number of levels. As a woman, what am I to take from the fact that somehow being feminine is the worst possible thing in the world? Why is it awesome if a woman is into drinking whiskey and watching football but a man who watches figure skating and enjoys an appletini is the object of ridicule? I don't understand why in 2010 we are still so reverent about all things masculine. Below is a video which does a much better job than I could do explaining the offensive and ridiculous way that Johnny Weir has been covered by the press.



Anyway, now I'm off to watch some movies on Lifetime, drink pink cocktails and paint my nails.

Triumph!

It is no secret that recently our trivia team has been torn apart by lies, betrayals, sexual tension, backstabbing and the fact that Suji likes to do trivia at 6 and I like to do it at 8. However we reunited last night at the Thirsty Lion after a YLS event, and glory was (almost) ours. It is no surprise that the local press followed our inspirational reunion. We basically dominated the entire night, however the trivia there is a little wonky and ends with a jeopardy style final question. We got the question correct, but were a little over-cautious with our betting.

Here is Suji counting our second place winnings in the glow of the bottle of champagne we won in a bonus round.

And in a personal triumph I just came back from the gym where I ran 2 1/4 miles and walked 3/4 of a mile. That's right, an entire 5k bitches. Now I just need to be able to run the entire way without passing out on the treadmill.

Shit that bugs me

So I am feeling generally annoyed and bitchy today. In that spirit, here is a list of things that I hate: The use of the word "cougar" (and this extends to any animal word to explain female sexuality), bi-partisanship, vegans, Taylor Swift, Republicans (yes, all of them), the acceptability of misogyny in pop music, romantic comedies, action movies, commercials which imply women have romantic relationships with their mops and brooms, Democrats who act like pussies, The Black Eyed Peas (the group, not the food) the argument that winter means that global warming doesn't exist and Mitch McCnonell's face.

In order to balance this out, here are photographs of things that please me:

As Tyra is my witness (and Muffins)

One day I was watching the Tyra show (don't judge, i like to educate myself) and she had a panel of guests who had OCD. After watching the show I diagnosed myself with mild-OCD (why go to the doctor when you can just learn from former super models on your TV).

The reason for my diagnosis? I feel like I have more daily rituals than most people. I drink 3 cups of coffee everyday, 2 in the morning and 1 around 4 p.m. This doesn't ever change despite my schedule, illness or any other factor. I eat dinner at 8 o'clock everyday, again regardless of my schedule or even hunger level. Even if I'm starving at 7, I wait until 8, because that is when dinner is.
I basically try to avoid any happy hours or social events which takes place before 8 o'clock because it messes with the above schedule and therefore I dislike it (obviously cocktail hour starts at the same time as dinner hour - only prostitutes drink before 8). I go to the bathroom when I get to the gym before I work out regardless of whether or not I have to pee, just because it will be on my mind that maybe I should and I won't be able to work out if I don't. I cannot go to sleep if there is anyone else still up in the house. I have to be the last person up, regardless of how tired I am or when I have to get up in the morning. Anyway, these are some of my weird tics - I wonder if other people have these or do I have mild OCD?

Last night for dinner (at 8 p.m., obvs) I made potato pancakes and a chicken apple sausage from New Seasons.

In looking at this meal I probably will not be using it in my portfolio as a food stylist. It just isn't very pretty. However it was tasty in a bland comforting sort of way.

I also did some baking with Ula (such is the tough life of the unemployeds) today. We decided to make a more challenging looking muffin and settled on these ricotta filled muffins from smitten kitchen. I followed the recipe pretty faithfully (minus the fancy cooking tools that she uses and I don't possess). Overall they turned out really well and the texture is perfect.


But if you read the recipe you'll notice that all of the ingredients are pretty mild and this resulted in a tasty but unremarkable muffin. But I really liked the combination of the crispy/nutty top and the ricotta/sour cream in the middle so I'm going to try to make them again with a little tweaking. I'm thinking some orange zest in the filling and some fresh vanilla along with some clove and cinnamon in the batter could make them absolutely delightful. Luckily I have some time in my busy schedule to make them again tomorrow (after I run another 2 miles!).

Weekend

I went to Beaker and Flask for dinner last weekend and I highly recommend it. The food and cocktails were awesome. The first cocktail I had was the Giant Steps (Cachaca, Lemon, Pineapple, Egg White*, Orange Flower Water). It had a delightful foam on top with two pink hearts on it (adorable) and tasted like a sweet tart, in a classy way. I also had Sal's Minion (as did several other people, because it rocked) which is aged rum, pineapple and coconut water ice cubes. It was boozy and kind of sweet and amazing, and I don't even like rum (and Rose says this sentence has too many "ands" in it).

So we could try more of the menu, Ula and I decided to split two dishes.


This is the gnudi (a ricotta/flour gnocchi) in a delicious tomato sauce with a perfectly poached egg on top (egg on pasta again! I can't get enough!).


The other dish we got was mussels and sweatbreads in a cream/shallot/herb/grilled lemon sauce. It was amaaaaaaaaazing. I am tempted to go back this week just to order this dish again. I had to sop up the extra sauce with bread because I couldn't stop eating it. Also, it was super hearty and only $10. Who's with me?

I also went with Ula to take Maude to the dog park on Sunday. It was hilarious. There were tons of cute dogs running all over the place and Maude wanted none of it. She hates other dogs and looked miserable the entire time, but it amused me.

Here is Maude not playing with other dogs. Interestingly, as her fear level increases, so does her slobber. She totally slimed me when she jumped on me, pleading to escape.

This is a heavenly little pug named Greta, who Maude also did not enjoy playing with, but I thought she was adorable.

And in other animal news, here is a photograph of a traffic jam which occurred on my couch this weekend.


Also I think I need something else to watch on TV. While I spent a lot of time last week watching the Olympics, I believe my interest is now waning. Without Men's Figure Skating, what is there really to look forward to? Oh that's right, the 2010 World Figure Skating Championships in March. I am so there.

Video Friday - Animals Gone Wild

First up, we have some brothers making out.

Next we have a video of Joe loudly sucking on his own tail. He does this frequently, with his eyes closed, while making biscuits and purring loudly.

I was going to upload a delightful video of dolphins in jamaica but blogger refused to let me. Trust me, it was adorable.

As you know, I love me some Johnny Weir and was very disappointed that he was robbed of his deserved bronze medal last night. However, the internet wanted to make me feel better so it provided me an amazingly adorable youtube video (thanks internet!). Here is Johnny and hot swiss skater Stephane Lambiel practicing the pairs routine of my dreams. Oh Festa 2009 in Korea, why wasn't I there?

Leftovers

Today I ran outside for the first time since I have started this whole couch to 5K thing. Wow. It is so much harder than running in the gym. The sweatshirt I had initially been wearing slipped off my waist repeatedly despite about 25 attempts to tie it on. Additionally my earplugs kept falling out and I had to run without music, which is nearly impossible. I guess I am much bouncier on pavement than on a treadmill. However, it was beautiful today and the air felt amazing. Typically I am a very very very very (times 100) sweaty person when I exercise, however the cool breeze made me much less disgusting. I like. I was concerned because I don't have an arm band for my ipod, but it was perfectly comfortable nestled between my breasts, so that's a money saver for me.

Last night I was not feeling overly inspired in general and didn't want to go to the store so I decided to put together dinner from a few leftovers. As I mentioned in my last post I was not overly fond of the spaghetti and parm recipe I got from smitten kitchen as it had had cheese, oil and butter in it and just felt too greasy. I decided to make something using similar ingredients but a bit healthier. So I made pasta with a fresh tomato sauce and an egg (I am obsessed with eggs, I love to break open a nice warm, runny yolk and use it as pasta sauce) and fresh parm on top. It was delicious (and imho better than yesterday's recipe).

For the sauce I heated up a little olive oil and threw in half a teaspoon of red pepper flakes. Than I tossed in about 15 grape tomatoes, sliced in half. To that I added about two tablespoons of red wine and a little salt and pepper. Cook it down for about 15 minutes.

I tossed that with some spaghetti, threw a fried egg on top, some fresh parm and a little more salt and pepper. It was delicious. I will definitely have it again.


In the theme of leftovers I will throw in a classic cat photo (I have no idea what they are doing). In looking through my old photos I found a couple of old (NSFW) cat videos which I will post shortly.

As we all know the men's final ice skating is this evening. I will be rooting on the adorable Johnny Weir while wearing gold glitter eye shadow, listening to Lady Gage and drinking cosmos in his honor.

He Rocked the Tassel

Yesterday I made some progress in my quest for someone to pay me money. Sometime. To do something. I took an exam to be a census taker. The exam consisted of math, reading comprehension, ability to alphabetize, putting things in the correct numerical order and counting houses on the map. It was like taking the bar all over again. Although the test was easy, there was one question that baffled me. It was a multiplication question with big numbers and no calculators. WTF? That part of my brain has already shriveled and died. I spent the last 10 minutes of the exam changing my answer on that one question. Oh well, I totally rocked the which sequence of numbers correctly goes from lowest to highest question.

For dinner last night I made the spaghetti with cheese recipe featured on smitten kitchen.

The meal was tasty and easy to make but slightly underwhelming. The author of smitten kitchen waxed rhapsodic about it, but mine seemed just ok.




The good news is that you need fairly few ingredients and very little cooking time.

The best part of the meal was that I ate it while watching one of my favorite sporting events, men's figure skating. Last night's was pretty awesome. It started out with Plushenko (the russian with the proud mullet who won the gold last time and is favored this time as well) who did very well, but I did not like him. He seems very angry and Ula is rightly concerned he is constantly 5 seconds away from punching someone in the face. I had to wait until the 25th skater until my boy, the delightful Johnny Weir took to the ice.


This is a photo of Johnny skating last night. You can see a hint of a pink tassel dangling below his right arm. He skated beautifully and at the end of the evening was in 6th place (perhaps the judges penalized him for lack of mullet?). After his performance one of the announcer's said "He rocked the tassel." And I cannot disagree. The long program is on Thursday, so send him your sparkly prayers. I will leave you with a video of his 2006 short program because I cannot find last night's on the youtubes. I was going to embed the video, but I can't figure it out. I'm not a magician.

Tipper Gore

I was listening to the radio (Portland's 107.5) on the way home from the gym today. In the first song (artist unknown - but feel free to fill me in if you're familiar with the song) a guy asked the woman he was interested in if he could "visit her at work" so he could see her "slide up the pole with no panties and no shirt." The song immediately following that was the Akon song where he compares the girl he likes (hmm..."likes" may be too strong, perhaps is interested in fucking is better) to "your neighborhood whore." Listening to these songs I despaired at the implied message, come on girls - boys will totally be interested in you as long as fall somewhere in the spectrum between stripper and whore. Dream big!

Earlier this weekend I was accused of disliking songs with misogynistic lyrics (fine Suji, I'm guilty!). I'm not sure if I should feel gloriously self-righteous and or like a sad old conservative person. But perhaps for the next couple of days I will stick with my ipod and NPR.

The good news is that I heard Lady Gaga talking about her new tour. If she comes to Portland I totally want to go. Who's with me?

NightCock

My unemployment schedule has not been ideal. I will not share the details because it is shameful. This is me during the 3 hours a day I'm actually awake:


In an effort to change, I am going to try to keep to a new schedule. Here it is:

8-8:30 Snooze
8:30-9:30 Caffeinate
9:30-11 Gym
11-12 Snack and shower
12-6 Contract work, editing, apply for jobs
6-midnight Errands/cook/booze/socialize/trivia/watch hours of reality tv

Feel free to harass me about whether or not I'm sticking to this schedule, otherwise I might revert to sleeping 18 hours a day waking only to eat dinner and watch The Bachelor and RuPaul's Drag Race.

Sunday night roast chicken

Last night Michelle came over, and she, Ula and I watched some Buffy (season 3, episodes 1&2 - i like to be about 15 years behind any trend). I made a delightful roast chicken. It was extremely simple and delicious. I stuffed the little bird with lemon, ginger and a shit load of garlic. It only needed about an hour and ten minutes total. The skin was crispy and delicious and the meat was very moist. Success.







I served it with some couscous and sauteed spinach. Ula made some crepes for dessert.


Michelle and I put Nutella in ours and Ula put applesauce in hers (don't judge her, she's a pollack). Michelle made some tasty cocktails featuring bourbon and apple jack whiskey, which was apparently discovered by our first president George Washington. Happy President's Day.

P.S. Just read through this post and it is very very dull. Sorry. Maybe I'll be clever next time.

As an American

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Blogging on Blogging

The fans of this blog have asked me to update more often (I said fans, because 2 people mentioned it. My fan base is overwhelming). The combination of unemployment and frequently being ill these past few weeks (I may be the Pacific Northwest's number one snot producer) means that I don't have much to talk about. But I do have goals, including posting more often. I also have pictures, oh do I have pictures. These pictures are of my two hobbies - cooking and loving my animals. So I am going to dump a bunch of photos here for your enjoyment. In the future I hope to include recipes with my food pics.

Please allow hungry Maude to welcome you in....

WATCH OUT TORQUE!!!!!

First up, animal photos!

Animals on a bed.

2 cats, 1 closet shelf.

Joe, looking seductive.

Torque, kleenex receptacle.

Bonus Joe (he's my favorite!)

And now on to the food pictures...

Pasta with chorizo in a red wine, tomato, basil sauce

Baked halibut with a side off lemon, tomato, feta orzo

The beginning of what would become a spicy roasted tomato soup

Thank you for slogging through those photos. Now only 786, cat photos left to post...