Day 5 USA - World Cup Eating Challenge

I love trying food from around the world and this challenge has been opening up a lot of possibilities for me. However, my boyfriend really likes good old American comfort food. Since I had some gluten free pasta and a big chunk of cheddar cheese, I thought I'd try my hand at making some macaroni and cheese. 

I am definitely one of those kids that grew up on Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and I'm pretty sure that's the first thing I ever learned how to cook (maybe second only to tacos). I'm surprised that making it from scratch wasn't much harder. I found a recipe on Pinterest that said to boil the pasta is the same number of cups of milk and then also add that many cups of cheese. I had about 3 cups of my quinoa based pasta so I used 3 cups of almond milk and 3 cups of cheese. 

I thought I'd also go for the extra step of baking the pasta. Since the idea was to avoid gluten, I tried making a topping of bacon, almonds, and walnuts instead. The bacon was a great idea but the nuts really ruined it for me. I also thought baking it really dried it out. Next time I would just add the bacon straight into the pot and call it a day. A little butter and seasoning probably wouldn't have hurt either. 

Keeping with the gluten free alternative theme here - we also enjoyed an American cider. Angry Orchard is a pretty common brand of cider but they came out with some more craft style ciders that Dan and I love. This one was called "The Muse" and the cider is made in the same style as champagne. It has a really rich flavor and it's not sweet which is something that bothers me in a lot of ciders. We found this at Costco. There is also a flavor called "Iceman" which is made like ice-wine as well as one called "Strawman" that we haven't been able to find. 

All in all, the pasta didn't turn out quite how I wanted it to, but Dan loved it so he's gotten to make a couple of meals out of it. Sadly, the cider didn't last quite as long.

World Cup Eating Challenge - Day 4: France

The second and third day of my challenge had me making some simpler dishes so I wanted to really ramp it up now that I'd had a few days to plan and looking at the schedule, the fourth day gave me a great opportunity - France.

I love French cuisine and watching a lot of cooking shows, I hear a lot of "French techinique" or mother sauces or being classically trained - however, when it came down to the challenge I was suddenly drawing a blank. I kept jumping to cop outs like French fries or French toast or French onion soup and even though I knew there were better options.

Finally I came up with two great options - roast duck or steak frites. I decided to see what was available at Costco and sure enough, they still had a few ducks left so I decided to go with that option. It's hard to believe that just a couple of months ago I'd never made duck and now here I was cooking up my third duck this year. Roasting duck is actually really easy. All you have to do is clean it, season it inside and out, and put it in the over for 30 minutes per pound. I also cut off the extra skin and render it for duck fat. Duck fat is pretty expensive but it's an amazing fat/oil to cook things in. The duck fat can also be used to confit a future duck.

As for sides - I used also used some of that duck fat to cook my carrot "fries" and then added some fresh parsley. The salad was lettuce, spinach, radish, and goat cheese with a olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

I paired the whole dish with a rosé that I got for my birthday from my aunt and uncle. The rosé is from Provence and is made by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. The wine is my ideal kind of rosé - very dry with lemon and citrus notes. It went wonderfully with our French meal. I've seen this wine a few times at Costco but it wasn't there last time I checked. It's been getting a lot of press so if you're interested in trying it, I suggest you track down a bottle as soon as possible.

I've been having a lot of fun looking up recipes for the countries I'm not as familiar with. Today I learned a lot about different African cuisines. I've also been trying to guess which teams will make it to the round of 16 because I'll get an extra chance to make their recipes. I'm really excited to keep cooking new things!

World Cup Eating Challenge - Day 2 and 3: Mexico and Greece

It's funny to only be a few days into my challenge and already think about how it's changing. I've decided to completely throw out the rule that I should try to focus on winners for two reasons. First, it will making planning almost impossible. Yes, I can assume that a handful of teams will easily win their groups, but I'd like to be able to plan out more than just meals from those countries. Which brings me to the second point - this might actually be a really fun way to try out dishes from countries I'm not familiar with at all. I have no idea what they eat in Camaroon or Cote d'Ivore, but wouldn't it be fun to find out? I think the group round might be a good chance to try and experiment with fun new dishes. Let's carry on with how the last few days have gone though.

Day 2 - Team Mexico

Mexcian food is probably my favorite. I could eat it everyday and know how to make a variety of things so when it came time to figure out what I'd make for Mexico's first game, I obviously drew a blank. Luckily, a friend let me know that Whole Foods was having a sale on avocados. That place really is amazing. Somehow 5 avocados for $5 ended up costing me $40, but I guess that's just the mystery of Whole Foods. I decided that the avocados would make an amazing guacamole. My secret to amazing guacamole - instead of hand cutting the tomatoes, onions, and cilantro myself... I buy pre made pico de gallo and mix it in. Some may call this lazy, but I call it outsourcing.

I served the guacamole with plantain chips. I like these as a healthier option over regular chips. I get a lot of crap from people about these kinds of healthy choices. However, every time a friend or myself has brought these to a party, they always disappear way before the normal chips. Healthy options can and generally do taste better than the unhealthy stuff.

The whole thing was topped off with a shot of tequila. My friend Carter Raff is a distiller and for my birthday he gave me bottle number 1 of his new tequila so I knew what would be a perfect pairing with my snack and it was amazing.

Day 3 - Team Greece

The third day of the Cup coincided with a friend's wedding. Obviously dinner was out of my control and generally getting all dolled up for a fancy party can make it hard to plan out lunch too so I knew I had to figure out something for a breakfast dish. I thought about my options for the day and I didn't want to start out with a heavy English breakfast so I decided to look up Greek options figuring that might be a little heavier. I quickly came up with a Greek yogurt fruit bowl with honey and nuts with a side of olives.

I don't eat a lot of dairy outside of cheese so I never jumped on the Greek yogurt train, however, I know it's really popular with a ton of health benefits, and I was excited to try it out. I wasn't expecting yogurt to be bitter but the honey and fruit really worked well with it and it was delicious. I was also surprised at how stuffed I was after. I didn't think a bowl of fruit and yogurt would be so filling.

The olives are castelvetrano olives. I used to hate green olives but these are much milder and are easy to snack on without too much of the astringency that I dislike in most olives.

The wedding was really fun as well and Dan and I made sure to make full use of the photo booth so there was plenty of proof of how fancy we were! Congrats to JP and Jaya - everything was beautiful!

All in all this challenge has been really fun so far. Day 4 is in the oven and I picked some supplies for a couple of other meals this week. I've also been scouting out recipes so if you know any good ones send them over. I'm pretty stumped for the African countries, Switzerland, Iran, Australia, or really any suggestions at all.

Eating Around the World... Cup Day 1

I know I've been gone from the blog writing for a while so first a quick little intro on that. Basically, I've been trying to figure out a way to re-brand and figure out what direction I want to go in. Do I write about wine or food or adventures? Is there a way to combine them and make it worthwhile? What about my other interests? It's hard to find a balance between what's interesting for me to write but also interesting for anyone that might find their way here. I'm still trying to answer a lot of questions on what direction I want to take but I know that I can't just focus on food or wine or my lifestyle. I need to hit on all of them somewhat. So the big picture of this blog is still under construction but a had an idea for some posts in the meantime....

A World Cup Eating Challenge!!!

I love food. Like a lot. I also love the World Cup. While I'm a true blue Brazil and USA fan (get it - because they both have blue as a color...), I thought it would be fun to celebrate the rest of the World as well.

So here are the rules:
- Eat something from any of the countries playing on any given day. E.g. today's options are Mexico, Spain, Australia, etc.
- There should be an effort to actually cook something. I have to make some exceptions here because I'd love to have sushi for Japan but I'm not sure I trust consuming raw fish from the super market.
- Bonus points for not repeating. This isn't a strict rule because I plan on showing some preference to Brazilian and American dishes.
- Have fun eating a variety of global dishes and trying to experiment a little bit in the kitchen!

Last night, to celebrate Brazil's victory in the first match, I decided to make two of my favorite Brazilian dishes: Pão de Queijo and Brigadeiros!

Pão de queijo (cheese bread) has always been one of my favorite Brazilian treats. I never knew what amazing mix of ingredients made it possible. What kind of cheese was in it? What kind of flour was used (I knew it wasn't regular flour)? I'd only ever made it from packages so when a friend sent me a recipe for these guys, I was excited to get answers to my questions.

Pão de queijo is gluten free and uses tapioca flour. This is what gives the middle that ooey gooey delicious center. This recipe uses Parmesan and cheddar cheese (which I put in a little extra of) and adding just the right amount of salt really makes the flavor pop. I also used almond milk instead of regular which doesn't seem to make any difference.

The only real difference between making them from scratch and the package seems to be the consistency before they are cooked. When they are from mix, I could roll them into balls. However, the scratch recipe requires ingredients to be blended together and the result is a very liquidy consistency. Therefore you need to use a mini muffin tin to get some shape to them. This didn't bug me though because the final product is delicious!

I had the opposite happen when I made brigadeiros (little dulce de leite based chocolate balls). Normally I made these from scratch using sweetened condensed milk and chocolate powder which are brought to a boil on the stove. However, I found a pre-made container at a corner store in the mission and decided to give that a shot.

There was no indication if it was pre-cooked or not but by the consistency, it seemed to be so I just rolled them into the little balls and coated them in sprinkles. After eating a couple, I'm still not sure if they needed to be cooked or not. The consistency seems off from either. They're still delicious but I prefer the old fashioned method better.


I think Day 1 of my food challenge was a success and I'm excited to continue celebrating soccer through food!

2014 New Year's Resolutions

Normally, I like to have this one ready to go out the door on New Year's Day, but I kind of dropped the ball this year (no pun intended). I think that's the problem when you dedicate a year to being selfish - you don't take enough time to think about what you want to improve next year. I also ended up with a really nice problem - I ended 2013 on a great note where I could honestly say that things were good. I feel great about my friendships and hobbies and my plans for the near future. It's a lot harder to think of what to fix when you're in a good place... but I know it took lots and lots of past resolutions to get here so let's keep going.

Use your words better - As someone who writes blog posts, you'd think I'd learn how to say things better. I haven't. At all. For some reason, I can think out blog posts and ponder over how to place words together to make something that makes sense and sounds nice. When I'm talking though, it's the opposite. More often than not, friends have to ask for clarification on what I'm trying to say. I really need to learn how to slow down and think before saying something so that I can get out what I mean and save everyone from a lot of frustration that comes from miscommunication.

Run a 5K - I know, you're thinking "but Nikki, haven't you run like 10 5ks?" Well... kind of. I mean I have signed up for, started, and finished a good number of 5ks... but I haven't run the whole thing. I usually stop to walk for part of it and frankly, with some work, I shouldn't have to do that at all. I'm more athletic now than I ever have been, I can do this. One of my best friends and I signed up for a Disney obstacle course 5k in May and I would love to be able to run it with her. She recently did a half marathon, I have no excuses.

Either learn a new language or get better at one you already know - A few months ago I found this amazing app called Duolingo. It's a really easy to use and free language app that teaches you a new language with fun little games and quizzes. I got a little ways into Portuguese to try to brush up on my skill and then time got away from me. I'd like to go back and either finish Portuguese or test out the French or Italian.

Finish a few Coursera classes - Coursera is another free education program where you can sign up for college classes online. They are super interesting and I sign up for a ton but I usually end up not making the time for it and dropping out of them.

I think that's good for 2014. Of course there's the usual: see new places, read more books, and work out regularly but I think I've gotten into a good rhythym of just doing those things anyways.

Happy New Year's everyone! I'm really looking forward to this one.

2013 Resolutions Revisted

About 5 years ago, I was going through a big change in my life and at a crossroads, I decided to make a list of some goals I had for myself. I'm the kind of person who, throughout the year, thinks of great Halloween costumes or New Years resolutions and then forgets them when the holidays get closer. I decided that year that I would keep track of my goals as I went along and on NYE, I posted a Facebook note with my resolutions for the next year. 

The result was amazing - having my resolutions in a public place made me feel accountable to them and I made sure to update throughout the year with my progress. All of my resolutions were completely realistic and while I didn't get 100%, I'd say it would be have been a B+ at least. The next year, I didn't do any such thing and I don't even know what my resolution was or if I even had one. The year after, in the midst of another change, I started my first blog and the resolution list became an annual post. Now that I write here, I thought I'd share that with you. 

The first resolution post is always a look back at my past year (and is actually something I slowly write during the course of the year because this is a journey not a finish line). My original 2013 resolution post is here. The big take away is that I realized after so many years of resolution lists - they started to look the same. There were so many that by nature were easy to try to do every year (travel somewhere new for example) that they were just tacked on there. I also realized that 2012 was my worst year for following my resolutions after traveling so much in 2011 . I decided to par it down and focus on one that I needed to do... be selfish.

I always felt like I needed to be in defense of this. It sounds terrible, right? Being selfish? For me, I just wanted to be better at saying no to things I didn't want to do, making time for myself, and not feeling so obligated to everything and everyone. As a single woman in my twenties, I shouldn't have felt like I was stretched so thin, but I did. I needed to fix this. Obviously, I would still try to be a good friend and be there for people or attend major events but I didn't want to feel as though I had to be at every single thing. I had people tell me it was a terrible idea and others who thought it was about time. 

A lot of the time, I forgot about saying no. Every now and then though, something would come up that I just did not want to do and the sense of obligation burned inside me... and I would remember my resolution and decide to do what I really preferred. There were some exceptions to this of course. I know some times being there for your close friends is more important and I made sure to do that when I needed to also. However, most of the time, just playing "if they were in my shoes" gave me more than enough reason to follow through on my selfish resolution. Every now and then I would stop and think "Did I alienate some people with my selfish maneuver?" The answer was almost always no. When it wasn't, a nice phone call or apology or clarification almost always cleared it up. 

Ironically, even without my big list of resolutions, I ended up doing a lot of the things that would have been on it: travel somewhere new (South Africa, Boston), do something adventurous (paragliding), read more books than the year before, pass an exam, figure out a workout schedule, eat better, take control of my romantic life (this is a more complicated thing in itself but I learned it was time to cut out people and situations that weren't good for me), be closer with family, be nicer, etc. The problem wasn't needing a list to get things done, it was needing the state of mind to put myself as a priority. To visit a country or city I'd been wanting to go to for years, to feel like I could do whatever I want without needing someone to hold my hand, realizing I wanted that anyways, not continuing to chase dead ends, letting go, and making decisions about my life that make me happy - because when it comes to that, no one else's opinions matter. 

This year led to me growing in ways I never thought possible. When I started this year, I said that I was in a better mindset then I ever had before but I still felt burnt out and like something didn't click. A year later, I have a much healthier career path, the best friends ever, a fantastic opportunity to combine my loves of writing and wine tasting, and amazing memories. 

What I Read Last Month (November & December 2013)

One thing about my writing is that I feel like I need to write an introduction to everything. I'm pretty sure if I just starting listing books and reviews, you guys would know what was going down. That's not how this is going to work though.

I've recently noticed that I have an interesting problem. Despite having an entire wall of my apartment be bookshelf, I seem to be running out of space for my books. This is an interesting problem because most of my books are on my Kindle. I have a lot of books, paper or digital. Of course, there are other things on the bookshelves (mostly wine) but still, quite a few books. I'm sure you'll probably ask why I don't just put things on those top right 3 shelves. Well, readers, I'm not very tall. I'm perfectly average height and it turns out those shelves are more than an arms reach above my head. "But Nikki, there are other books on the top shelf..." Yea, I'm probably not going to read those. I'll need to figure out my space management because I've recently discovered that as much as I like buying Kindle books, they're usually $10 and used books are like $2. I'm no Economist - oh wait, yes I am - but I know a deal when I see one. Anyways, I wrote some things about books!

I decided to merge November and December because I didn't quite get around to writing the November post so this is more of a "best of" list!

Ender's Game

This book has been on my peripheral ever since Freshman year of High School when the school showed us all how to use the library and recommended some books we all might like. My interests were a little different then and my first thought was "Ew, space" and decided to rent a book about a ballerina with anorexia. 

10+ something years later I saw the movie trailer and was like "Oh, that actually looks pretty good - well, better read the book first." Even though Boyfriend was saying for months that he wanted to see the movie when it came out, I started it on release day. 

I actually really liked this book! The battle room scenes were really cool and I was really looking forward to how they would portray them in the movie. Some of the descriptions were a little tough to understand so knowing that I would soon be able to visualize them was really exciting. 

The twist at the end was really interesting. It seems like the other Ender's books will be pretty different so I'm not sure if I'll read them or not. Boyfriend says I should at least read Ender's Shadow as it is the same story from a different perspective. I think I need a little break from serious books but this might be a good one to come back to when I'm done reading silly books.

Wild

When this book was pitched in book club, the selling point for me was that it was written by advice columnist "Dear Sugar." I remembered finding one of her quotes and falling in love with it. It went:

"Love is the feeling we have for those we care deeply about and hold in high regard. It can be light as the hug we give a friend or heavy as the sacrifices we make for our children. It can be romantic, platonic, familial, fleeting, everlasting, conditional, unconditional, imbued with sorrow, stoked by sex, sullied by abuse, amplified by kindness, twisted by betrayal, deepened by time, darkened by difficulty, leavened by generosity, nourished by humor and 'loaded with promises and commitments' that we may or may not want or keep. The best thing you can possibly do with your life is to tackle the motherfucking shit out of it."

I found that quote years ago when I was heartbroken and in a bit of a tough time. The ideas behind it really helped me and were a large part of the original foundation of this blog (doing a new thing each week). Even though the topic of the book didn't excite me, I had a feeling that someone who could touch me so much with a single quote would probably be able to write a damn good book... and I was really, really right.
Cheryl's story actually begins with the loss and heartache she feels when her mother unexpectedly dies of cancer. This loss shatters her life and causes her to make a plethora of bad decisions that lead to drug addiction and divorce. She knows she needs to do something to pick up the pieces and when she sees a guide book on the Pacific Crest Trail, she decides that she will hike a stretch of it through California and Oregon (the full trail goes from Mexico to Canada).
As an inexperienced backpacker, she faces many mishaps along the way, but her struggles and experiences along the way help build her into the person she is going to become, the kind of person that writes an advice column with quotes that help others move through their own struggles.

Batman: The Killing Joke

After I got over my "wow that was a lot of dark books" phase, I decided to read this comic in between a couple of full books. I knew it would be dark and touch on a lot of uncomfortable topics, but it was definitely more disturbing than I had thought it would. For some background - I knew going in that it would involve shooting someone in the spine leading to paralysis and hints of possible rape... and I found it more disturbing than I had imagined. Basically, don't take this one lightly if it's one you want to read. I was reading it on my phone on the train and I was worried someone would see my screen and think I had some serious issues. 

What I did really like about it though was that it gave a Joker origin story. Although he's had many before and frankly, the best Jokers have no background, it was still fun to read his via flashbacks. It was even more fun when he admitted that it was only a possible background and he likes to change them. 

Although the comic was dark and disturbing, as a big Batman fan, I'm glad I read this pivotal comic and I'm looking forward to reading some more of them. 


Other books I read:
Hyperbole and a Half
Good Omens
Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Book Store