Shrimp Fried Rice

I just found out that fried rice is not only popular all over Asia and North America, but also in the west African countries of Ghana and Togo where it is a common street food. We used spinach instead of the usual eggs, and I highly recommend it. (Eggs make Kirk feel sick to his stomach.)

Kirk and I (Eva) made this dish while Kari was out of town. Kari is vegetarian, and Kirk is lactose intolerant, so most of our food ends up being vegan or close to it. But sometimes, Kirk and I will make something with meat or fish, and sometimes Kari and I will eat some fresh mozzarella or tzatziki sauce or something. My main dietary restriction is that I loathe strawberry flavored things ( esp. strawberry milk), but this doesn't seem to come up that often.
Oh, and I also hate wasting calories and appetite on bad food in general. White Castle, I'm sorry.

SAMOSAS

Greetings. It is I, Kari. Although I happen to be one of the "Bad Luck Jorgensens" (shout-out to Kris and Karl), I was lucky enough to receive this recipe for samosas from Crystal, Food Genius, PhD, along with a chutney recipe of her own creation.

We split up the duties like this: Kirk was in charge of the dough, I was in charge of the insides, and Eva was in charge of making the chutney in addition to the side dish that we fondly call Vegetable Thing (pictured above), which is a good thing that has many leeks and squashes and tomatoes in it.

Then, all together we assembled and fried the samosas. Everything tasted excellent, although we did have some cosmetic issues (the dough got kind of dry and was then difficult to work with, resulting in flat rather than pyramidal-shaped dumplings).

We also thought we were being so funny by talking in really bad British accents (Oliver style) saying things like, "Can I have some more, sir?" Get it? "Can I have sa mo, sa?"

Mexican Pizzas

There really isn't much good mexican food here. I know a lot of people love it, but I'm not sold on that huge chain Chipotle. I want it to be like Cafe Rio, and it's not. I'd even love it if we could just find a place like Beto's ( that's how desperate I am), but no such luck. So we've been making our own uneducated verisons of mexican food. This is a fried tortilla topped with beans and cheese and broccoli (weird, i know, but good!), melted under the broiler and then pulled out and topped with fresh tomatoes and homemade guacamole. Uno mas?

Birthday Cake for Eva

Happy Birthday Eva! Kari made this really good cake for Eva's b-day. It was a pumpkin spice cake with sauteed apples and nutmeg cream. It was eaten with pumpkin spice ice cream! (or whipped topping for me).
I ate so much cake that i felt sick! It was that good.

Do you know what a buckeye is?

We finally figured it out. This guy is THE buckeye. He makes great donuts.



Chocolate cake, apple spice, pumpkin spice, chocolate cream filled, and crumb.



None of these people were actually eating the delicious donuts. I have no idea why.



We got them for the drive to Cleveland to see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. (Which was great and totally worth it to see the Clash and the Beach Boys exhibits.)

Kari has a friend who once stayed in Buckeye Donuts for 24 hours straight and now they give him free donuts whenever he goes there.

Lost in the Supermarket

I don't usually buy candy and snacky things when I go to the grocery store...but when I make the trip out to the asian supermarket, i can't help myself! They are so tasty, and it doesn't hurt that their packaging is so much nicer than most of our american junk food wrappers.

By the way, did you know that dark chocolate pocky sticks are supposed to be for men only? (That's what it says on the box). Kirk only wishes I would follow that rule.

Dirt made my lunch

This is a pretty standard lunch for me. Bread: A good wholewheat/grainy bread from the local deli. Peanut butter: Organic, not too sweet. Sugary peanut butter is not so great. Jam: Rasberry jam. This is never enough food for me, but for some reason this is all i ever bring. There is a cafe on the first floor of my building, so sometimes i'll grab a bag of chips or something.