Tuesday, April 26, 2011

inked!

In honor of my amazing mother and her courageous fight against breast cancer (she kicked it's BUTT), my sister and I joined her this past weekend in getting tattoos. She wanted to cover up her scars with something, so we told her we'd get pink ribbon tattoos at the same time as a way to support her.

So when mom healed enough, she picked out a tattoo artist in Corvallis and made us appointments. For this reason, the majority of my Easter Sunday was spent in a tattoo parlor. Mom and I went right there after church and she got started a while later, after our lovely tattoo artist, Denise, drew up a beautiful stencil. Mom has been saying how the scars are numb so she didn't think she'd be able to feel anything. I thought she would still be able to feel something, but after TWO HOURS of work, she was done and didn't feel a thing! This actually made me more nervous for mine because I had no idea what to expect since she had no reaction!

Megan came by after putting Sierra down for a nap, and got there as mom was finishing up. She decided to get a tattoo on her foot and got started next. Denise again drew up a lovely stencil and got started. Megan definitely was wincing and reacting to the pain, which somehow was comforting knowing she wasn't crying or screaming out in agony. But then it was my turn....

I had been going back and forth on what exactly to get and where to get it. I had originally wanted a small pink ribbon on my ribcage kind of over my heart. But then I thought maybe I'd want it on my ankle. Then I thought maybe I'd want to incorporate something else into the tattoo...a bible verse, other images, etc. Well, right before I was set to be inked, I finally decided I'd just go with my original idea. She drew up a simple pink ribbon for me and before I knew it I was lying on the table waiting nervously to get started. She put the ink stencil on me and it looked like the size and positioning were good. So she started.

I knew it was going to hurt. She said the ribcage area is one of the most painful areas to get worked on. Basically it felt like she was taking a knife and just cutting repeatedly into my skin. Not something that is pleasant. At one point I looked down to see how far she had gotten. Bad idea. She still had a good amount of shading to do (more painful than the initial border!). I gritted my teeth, closed my eyes and focused on breathing until she was done. All in all, it took less than a half hour. I put my shirt back on and my sister and I hobbled out of the parlor to go have Easter dinner!

My mom was on the table for 2 hours. There is no way she could have had that all done in one sitting if she could have felt it! Actually, she probably would have been fine. She is hands down the toughest most amazing woman I know! Hers looks beautiful and it is just so perfect for her! Denise at High Preistess Piercing is wonderful!

My tattoo is very simple, and actually a little bigger than I was thinking it was (it looked smaller on the paper-but I'm not very big so it takes up more space than I realized!). But it is really cute and I like it! I will maybe go back in and get it spruced up a little at some point when I forget the pain :) Maybe a little heart or some words or something-something very small but just a little extra detail. Maybe I'll have her write "mom" on it ;)

It is so weird to realize I have a tattoo! I keep looking at it when I go by a mirror and its just so crazy! A good reminder of my lovely mom (and grandma, who is also a survivor!) and of the strength she has and of her faith in God to work all things together for the good of those who love Him. I would put more pictures on here, but I was in my bra so that wouldn't really be appropriate...



Sister's tattoo, so cute!

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Lamb. Its what's for dinner.

When my roommate Megan said that she wanted to celebrate Passover, I immediately began looking for Passover-approved recipes. She invited some friends over and we settled on a semi-Kosher menu for the evening, which included lamb as the main course, of course.

I'm not really a big fan of lamb. I've had it a couple times and just didn't really enjoy it. But you can't have a Passover seder and not have lamb. I found a recipe for lamb kebabs with tzatziki that looked pretty good so we decided to go with that. But the first step was to buy some lamb. We started at Winco, where we didn't find any. Then we went to Trader Joe's. Then to a Halal market across from Joe's, where we walked in to hear the sounds of meat being hacked into edible portions. The guy said, "uh...can I help you?" When we told him what we were looking for, he told us to come back the next day. Well, we didn't want to have to make another trip so we went to Safeway as a last resort. We finally found some lamb, but not the cut we were looking for. We got it anyway and decided it would just have to do.



The recipe called to marinate the cubed lamb overnight, so we got to work preparing it. The cut we bought was basically like a boneless leg of lamb. With plenty of fat and gross things still attached. So Megan and I had to figure out how to cut it into cubes. This was nearly impossible, but we eventually got enough semi-cube meat shapes out of the hunk of meat that we bought. I thought I was going to have to make Megan do this all by herself as it kind of seemed gross. But I did it just fine, in fact had to do most of it after Megan left for a soccer game (which her team won). Although I had to wash my hands about 50 times and went afterwards to the Plaid Pantry to buy bleach to sanitize every surface, the job was done.



Because of the mess we made of the meat, I was afraid it was going to not only taste gross (as I thought all lamb did), but that it would also be tough. I started cooking it with little hope of it turning out well. After making sure it was thoroughly cooked, I tried a tiny bite. It was tender. And it tasted GOOD! Since we have no barbeque or kebab skewers, we just cooked it in a pan. And cooked some potatoes and peppers as well so it would still kind of resemble a kebab. We also made the tzatziki, a traditional Passover fruit-ish salad and some brownies...extra-Kosher brownies.





It was a pretty fun night! There were six of us girls here and Rabbi Megan led us in the seder, reading the script-type thing she got from a friend of hers. It was geared towards families, so that made it kind of funny since there were no children in our group! But we went through the ceremony, prayed and ate the meal! Everything turned out really well, I was happy!



AND no one got food poisoning. Success!

Thursday, April 7, 2011

sorry, more food....

I apologize for my food obsession. But I just love it so, so here is another food post!

Here are some delicious things I have made recently:

Chicken Pineapple Quesadillas. This combination, and how easy it was to make, made my roommate Megan and I decide we need to open a Quesadilla Food Cart in Portland. It would be amazing.

We had a giant box of Oreos leftover from an event my roommate went to. I wanted to use them to make something since they weren't getting eaten. These Cookies and Cream Cupcakes are amaaaaazing (frosting recipe here). I just need to get a muffin tin that will cook more than 6 at a time...

White Chicken Enchiladas. I'm not a huge fan of normal red enchilada sauce. But this was soooo good and cheesy and amazing. So amazing that I made them twice in the span of a week and shared them with about 10 people.

White Chili. A long cooking process (2 hours + to cook the dry chili beans), but sooo worth the time. The process involved boiling a whole cut-up chicken, which was quite interesting (and gross-looking), but ended up producing some homemade chicken stock! And the chicken was nice and easy to shred after boiling.


My roommates and I also made Mole recently. If you have never had Mole (which I hadn't tried until this fateful night), just imagine chocolate and peanut butter with chicken. I take that back, don't imagine that, it sounds disgusting. But those are crucial ingredients in Mole, and it is amaaaaazing. This is another dish that was made two times within a week. Shredded chicken, tomato, cocoa powder, peanut butter, green chiles...served over rice with corn tortillas and/or Juanita's chips (no other chips will do. ever.). So easy to make (although a bit messy), and sooooo good!





Michelle's (a dental student) practice skull ate dinner with us. He loved it too.


Aaaaand dessert: cupcakes (leftover from my after-school class) and Girl Scout cookies.


Besides cooking, I have been trying to try out some food carts lately. My roommate and I have been on a few food cart adventures, but I have only photographed one of them. Food carts are fantastic. Expect to pay from $5-8 on your meal, but it will be well worth it.

The first involved Peanut Butter and Jelly. I can't tell you how amazing this was. If I tell you what was on the sandwich (bacon, anyone?), you might be grossed out. But you just have to try it! PBJs Grilled, on NW 23rd-try the Good Morning or the Sun Up. Or anything else, I'm sure.

I also tried some Korean food one day as I was craving teriyaki chicken. Dosirak's (near PSU campus on SW 4th) lunchbox came with chicken, rice, salad and a spring roll. I ate alllll of it. And then almost died because I was so full. But oh so happy.

I also tried some Thai food near PSU. I love pad thai. One of my favorite all-time dishes. I had such high hopes from this food cart, as there was an adorable little Thai lady working all by herself making each order from scratch. I had to wait a while for my order, but didn't mind too much as she was fun to watch cooking and tasting the dishes occasionally. But then I got my pad thai. I am used to more Americanized versions I think, as this was too fish sauce-y for me. Quite disappointing. If you like fish sauce, you'd love this. But I like mine a little less authentic...

The other day, my roommate Megan and I were both home around lunchtime on a Friday (very unusual at our apartment), so we decided to food-cart it up. We went to the carts on Alder near 9th. We walked around for quite a while looking at the menus and figuring out what we wanted. We finally settled on Hawaiian and Southern BBQ. We each got one order, then shared our delicious meals. Besides being a beautiful day outside, the food was sooo amazing. From 808 Grinds, we got the Combo Plate, which included pork and Shoyu chicken. Along with rice and macaroni salad. The chicken was to die for. The pork was good too, but next time I'd definitely just get the chicken. We also got a pulled pork sandwich, which came with some sort of stew, from A Little Bit of Smoke. I love a good pulled pork sandwich and this one did not let me down. When I first looked at it, I told Megan, "It looks a little bit dry..." to which she responded, "just take a bite." And I did, and then I almost cried it was so good. No gloppy sauce was needed, just amazing smokey pork and some coleslaw. But then there was also the stew. Pork, potatoes, carrots, plus many other things, in a tomatoe-y sauce. It was sweet and tangy and smokey. Oh just amazing. This little meal came with a Moon Pie treat...banana flavored. We couldn't eat it. So instead we went to Ben & Jerry's for dessert.











Well all this made me hungry. So I'm going to go eat lunch, then go to work for a "mandatory" group exercise class (a new class the gym is launching). I need it after all this food...

But next time I go food carting, I'm going to have to try this Spanish Tapas cart!