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!