Visit to Pumpkin Patch

This past Friday, hubby and I chaperoned Sophia's first class field trip to Butler's Orchard pumpkin patch. We are huge fans of Butler's (yum, blueberries). Only thing missing from Butler's was fresh apple cider donuts. It was Sophia's first time riding a schoolbus (which hubby didn't get any pictures of). I followed along in our car. No way was I going to ride on a bumpy schoolbus with only 4 weeks until my due date.

Sophia's preschool is actually a child development lab program at one of the local high schools. Basically, high school students are learning how to teach little kids. I'm very happy with the program, and Sophia loves it. Until the field trip, I hadn't been able to observe how the students interact with preschoolers.

Hubby & I pretty much just sat back and let Sophia and her high school student teacher do their thing. Watching this little teenager chase her around the pumpkin patch while carrying a huge pumpkin was hilarious! Of course Sophia picked the largest pumpkin out of all her classmates.

We also learned from the high school teacher (the one who teaches the high school students) that Sophia is very popular with the students. I am not totally surprised that she's the social butterfly. After all, on the third day of preschool, I had to talk to her about kissing all the boys in the class!

Hubby & Sophia carved her pumpkin the same afternoon while I napped. Actually she helped him gut the pumpkin. He did the rest of the work! We used a stencil that came with the pumpkin carving tools. Doesn't it look awesome?

I'm saving my pumpkin. I'm going to roast it and make some super yummy out of it! In the meantime, I glazed and toasted the pumpkin seeds from the first one. YUM!

My Trader Joe's Chocolate Feast

When the Trader Joe's opened less than a mile from me, I was ecstatic. I think I stop there at least once a week. Sometimes more.

I love dark chocolate, the darker the better! However, I was craving peanut butter cups. I used to like Reese's peanut butter cups, but I like my peanut butter smooth and creamy. Reese's isn't quite that creamy.

I picked up a small tub of Trader Joe's milk chocolate mini peanut butter cups. They are so cute! And a serving size is 27 mini cups. LOL. I maybe ate 10 of them. Sophia says they were the best dessert ever! I guess that means it passes the test. (See how tiny they are?) Their creamy centers just pop in your mouth. Fun to eat.

Since I'm pregnant, I have an excuse to buy more chocolate right? I also bought a bar of 73% cacao with almonds. After putting Sophia to bed, I treated myself to the chocolate and a glass of cold milk. (That's a Japanese mug I thrifted. There's 2 more in the set.)

What treasures will I find the next time I'm at Trader Joe's?

I'm just a fan of Trader Joe's. No one paid me or bought me chocolate for this post.

I'm Such a Foodie

Yesterday I realized that we were out of imitation bacon bits (my kid loves them), so we headed to our local health food store--not Whole Foods, but a local, religiously based store.

I went into this store on a whim last year. Once I navigated past all the Jesus Loves You books, and the highly-breakable-but-cute-and-Christian gifts, I discovered a mecca of bulk foods. Pretty good prices. I could now get my bacon bits in bulk (I only buy like 0.20 pounds at a time), as well as organic quinoa, lentils, beans, you name it! Heaven for a foodie like me.

Well, it's been several months since I stopped in the store. Especially since it's an Adventist store, they close at 3pm on Fridays and all day on Saturdays. And when is it that I remember I need to go there? Saturdays or Friday at 2:35pm.

They have totally redone their bulk foods section! For the better. Now there's a wall of spices. (Can I get a hallelujah?) Usually I hit our food co-op for their bulk spices, but this place is way closer. I didn't get to peruse the spices, as I'm not low on anything at the moment. Don't buy your spices without a list--I bought more chili powder than I can use in 5 years. Anyone need some?

However, I did see some dried tomato flakes! I had no idea they existed. Immediately, I thought of all the possibilities! A pre-packaged container was only about a buck, so I thought why not? My first thought is bake bread and add the tomato flakes to the dough. Then the flakes would infuse their yummy goodness into the dough as it rises and bakes.

Or how about dip? I have some dried chopped garlic. I can mix garlic, tomato flakes, and other herbs/spices into plain yogurt (with a dollop of mayo for creamy fatty goodness). Let it sit in the fridge for a couple hours so the flavors can meld. Voila! Perfect dip for chips or veggies. Yum!

I'm thinking they'll be good in soup too. Or if I decide to make a pre-made soup mix as a gift. You know, one of those add water and boil recipes. I'll let you know what I decide to do with them.

I had a fabulous time doing the photo shoot with my tomato flakes. What about you? Have you ever used them?

Making Sushi with the Spice Girls

I took Sophia to a kids sushi making class this afternoon at Whole Foods. Turns out there was an adult class later tonight. Thanks to DH rushing home from work to grab Sophia from me, I was able to take it!

Now I've made sushi rolls before, many a time. Before Sophia was born, I would hold sushi parties. Everyone brings a fish or condiment (pre-assigned before the party) and I would roll sushi. YUM! So much cheaper than eating sushi in a restaurant. I would also make fried rice or Vietnamese green papaya salad.

Gotta love the music in Whole Foods though. The Spice Girls' If You Wanna Be My Lover came on while we were rolling. That & Total Eclipse of the Heart. Talk about a trip down memory lane! (Speaking of memory lane, did you know that Seether remade WHAM!'s Careless Whisper? I mean, I love Seether, but a rock version of Careless Whisper? George Michael was so angst ridden in that song--the way it's meant to be. Plus Seether didn't hit the high note at the end)

I was totally taking the class for the sushi! I mean for $10 I got to make a ton of sushi. It was dinner for the whole family. Since this was impromptu, I didn't have my camera with me. Excuse the crappy cell phone pics. iPhone, I have not. Check it out:


Chef Egg, who teaches all the cooking classes at Whole Foods Silver Spring. I took Sophia to a kids Strawberry Shortcake class in May that she loved! I tried to pry what his real name was but he wouldn't tell me! (Pssst, that's the new dress I made from the old dress. Will try to remember to take better pics)

Chef Egg totally rocked the class! Everyone was all serious and nervous until he showed us the sushi rice spreading fingers (your thumb, forefinger, and middle finger). He used a Japanese term for it that I forget, but my favorite part was when he says, "What do those fingers say?" Then he made them move and roar. LOL! Imagine 15 adults doing that. I thought it was a riot. Chef Egg was tons of fun.


Dawt, who didn't want a pic taken but was nice enough to let me. She actually makes the sushi that you can buy fresh in the deli section. Reon was another sushi chef, but he disappeared for while and my battery on my phone was low.


Rolling towards California. A California roll, that is. I think this was one of the later ones that I made. There's some roasted sesame seeds on top. Did you know that Whole Foods offers an all-natural imitation crab? How cool is that?

We also learned to make inside out rolls. Chef Egg shared a cool trick. After you put the rice on the nori and flip it over, put a very very thin line of rice on the nori (seaweed) side so your insides don't slide out when you roll. How cool is that?

Rolling up the sushi. Pic is of person next to me. I never asked her name (bad blogger), but she was super nice! After we learned the basics, we were allowed to make as many more rolls as we wanted. I made 8 rolls all together!

We also got some edamame, seaweed salad and pickled ginger to take home too. It was very generous for $10. I mean, if you just bought sushi from their prepared section, you might get 3 rolls for $10! We also got to take home the bamboo rolling mat we used in class.

Plus we all got some Honest Tea to drink while we rolled sushi. It was good tea. Usually when I tried bottled teas they are waaaay to sweet for me. I'm a tea purist. I'd rather have good unsweetened tea (sorry Nestea). Besides Honest Tea is a local company, in Bethesda, MD.


Here's the bounty spread out on my dining table. Sophia dug right in! She loves sushi, but only eats the rice.

It was a ton of fun! Even though I've rolled sushi before, I did learn some cool tips about rolling sushi. Hubby thinks I should take some more cooking classes. I love to cook and learn new things. Sounds like a good idea, right?

How I spent my Saturday (img heavy)

With lots of great friends, great food, beer, and a beautiful day! It was our Louisiana Alumni Annual Crawfish Boil! You know it's a good crawfish boil when they run out of corn, sausage, jambalaya, AND beer! The beer line was unbelieveable long--but can't have spicy crawfish without some beer.

We also brought home about 20 pounds of leftover crawfish. I peeled half of it last night while we watched some action movies. They were so spicy, my fingers were swollen and burning last night. It'll be worth it when I make some yummy food out of those tails.

Without further ado, the rest of the pics!

The best of both words! One of my friends I've know since college.

Adam, who was twittering the crawfish boil and taking pictures of himself.

Look at that monster crawfish! Run for your life!

Don't mess with the hubster. He's tough! He's going to take down that monster crawfish. We're all safe.

And the aftermath. It was delicious!

The One Where Spike Takes Off His Shirt

Okay, so Top Chef'sSpike didn't take his shirt off, but he almost did. I had a fabulous time at Spike's restaurant tonight, The Good Stuff Eatery. Hung out with some fabulous DC bloggers. Ate some really good burgers! Thanks to Sarah & Devra for setting everything up! And thanks for Quaker for sponsoring it.

More detailed report later, but here's a couple of pics to tide you over. For more, head to my Flickr page.

Midnight Snacking

I thought I would eat better this year and hopefully lose some weight. However, in order to do that I need to stop my late night snacking. But it's just sooo good. LOL. I don't think it even matters what I snack on. Is this because I forget to eat breakfast?

Hubby and I have a date this Saturday! We're celebrating Valentine's Day a bit later, since I had to work last week. Thanks to DC Restaurant week. I'm a huge fan of Jose Andres so we're going to have lunch at Cafe Atlantico. Thanks to my sister for making it all possible. Not only did we receive a giftcard from her for his restaurants, she's even babysitting. Oh, check out her new blog and give her some comment love!

My food fantasy would be to eat at Minibar. I've seen so many videos on the cool things he does there. Of course it's incredibly expensive and hard to get reservations. There's only 2 seatings a night and only room for 6 people. You should see Anthony Bourdain's episode of No Reservations with Jose Andres. Check out the video. You'll drool too.

On the crafting point, my new Joann's sales flyer advertised the Yudu by Provo Craft. It looked just like a Gocco. So I had to look it up. Now I so totally want one. I want to see how it compares to the Gocco. Unfortunately I don't have $300 to experiment with it. The advantage of the Yudu it seems is that the screens are reuseable. So supplies might not be as expensive as you don't need to keep buying new screens and bulbs as with the Gocco. The gocco is also discontinued.

I also like that's bigger and specifically designed for fabric applications, mainly tshirts. Based on the video on HSN, it seems to take a bit longer to make a screen. However, you don't need a carbon based ink to make a screen like the Gocco. So far it sounds really good. I need to see one in person.

Anyone need me to review a Yudu? I'm available. :)

Don't forget about my contest! You still have time to enter.
(photo source)