I won a raffle!

Something exciting happened to me last weekend. I went to that neighborhood potluck I mentioned, bringing with me this lovely quinoa salad, and I won a raffle! Everyone who came to the potluck was given a raffle ticket, and my housemate and I each got a ticket.... and with one of the tickets (I received both tickets while he went to sit down, so let's just say the winning ticket was mine, haha) I won a lovely casserole dish from Grocery Outlet full of goodies for an Italian meal.

I won... some dish towels, some organic pasta, some fancy pasta sauce, a bottle of chardonnay, some organic chocolate, some iced coffee (not already iced when I got it, but in a can meant to be iced at a later date), a bottle of olive oil, and the dish, which would be fantastic for a nice, big lasagna or some other hearty casserole. I had been eyeing the prize ever since I arrived, and it was my good fortune that my ticket was called. It was a really nice evening, I got to meet and talk to some of my neighbors and also talked to a local librarian about volunteering over the weekends. Busy, busy, busy.... that's me. Busy, but happy.

This weekend I just did a bunch of studying. I still have to catch up on some homework from last week. Just reading at this point, mostly, so that's a relief. I should probably head to bed soon so I don't start the week off totally tired already!

San Francisco and other things

Here's a more expanded look of my little San Francisco excursion.

Here are some boats from Pier 39, my friend took this picture. The view of the mountains from Pier 39 is so pretty, and it's so nice to just go and see the water.

Here's a picture from the Pride Festival, which was that weekend. People were dressed so colorfully and really had a lot of fun.

Look at that interesting outfit! People were taking pictures of this guy left and right.

I will post some other San Francisco pictures later. :)

Friend's mom sent me a cookbook from Baton Rouge! This was the highlight of my week. She got it from a restaurant over there that she visited. So thoughtful. :)

It's got recipes for stews, rice dishes, seafood dishes, vegetable dishes, even some dessert dishes. I immediately made the Shrimp Jambalaya.

Due to the interesting method of simmering some onion, garlic, celery, and bell pepper in oil for a while, and then simmering it a while longer (40 minutes!) with some tomato paste and water, the shrimp and rice mixed in (shrimp first to cook for 20 minutes, then the rice at the end) came out this deep, dark color, with some fresh green onion and parsley to give it a pop of brighter color. Somewhat reminiscent of "dirty rice," I would imagine. There are a lot of ways to make jambalaya and this was quite good, with some hot sauce mixed in.

My housemate and I went to this farm today called Emma Prusch Farm Park because he thought it was going to be a farmers market but it was just a farmstand with vegetables. Still kind of fun to go and visit, the park itself is lovely (not pictured) and they have all kinds of birds wandering around.

This is a mama bird of some sort and her little chick. :)

A little peek at the farm. 

A goose! Brings back memories of being chased around by geese at Waller Park back home.

Also lately I have been enjoying crepes. Deb's crepe recipe is easily adaptable to savory crepes with the omission of the honey. The other night I made crepes with roasted asparagus, spinach, and zuchinni from the garden. Tonight I made a simple crepe with turkey lunchmeat, some pieces of fuji apple, and a little monterey jack cheese. Protip: if you ever don't really feel like cooking a big meal but still want something light and satisfying and not frozen or "just-add-water," make some crepes! 

Chocolate & strawberry dessert crepe I made a long time ago. 

So, fun times... now back to studying... so I can try to get ahead before I go and visit Santa Maria in a week and a half. Hope you guys are ready to have a good week!

Normal times, but excitement coming up

Time for a new post! Not much really new around here... just work and school... the little time I have to prepare meals, I just make something I've made in the past that'll last me a week or so, like the Pioneer Woman's Pasta with Tomato Cream Sauce, which I've probably posted about in the past. It's really a great sauce. It tastes like it came from a restaurant, but you can make it right at home with some tomato sauce, heavy cream, olive oil, butter and garlic-- in approximately the opposite order of that list, haha.

Anyway, something exciting is coming up in a few weeks! You know how I love New Orleans, well, a city near me called Campbell is having a New Orleans style festival that takes place every year. There will be plenty of Cajun/Creole food, a brass band and other music, arts and crafts, and more.

Some of my coworkers and I are going to try to go together. It will be my very first festival ever in the bay area, I think. I did go to the anime convention in San Jose a couple times, but that's a little different from a festival.

So, you can definitely look forward to a post about that. :)

Halloween Fun and Upcoming Vacation

I had a fun Halloween. My mom and I made pumpkin stew, which is cooking a stew inside a pumpkin, and it was very good. The pumpkin flesh tasted just like spaghetti squash, with a very nice flavor.

You can see that the second pumpkin was the one we used for the stew. My dad felt like being a little silly and carving a face into it afterwards, haha.

It doesn't get much better than this-- warm, hearty stew on a chilly Halloween evening. We got some of the cutest trick-or-treaters, too-- some preschoolers who barely even knew how to say, "Halloween," but gave it a good effort. We also ordered pizza and watched classic scary movies.

So, now that we're done with the Halloween excitement, it's time for me to work a couple more weeks.... then, I get a week off, during which I will be going to New Orleans again, then Palm Springs for Thanksgiving. It will be so much fun. There is even going to be a festival on November 20th when I am in New Orleans, featuring one of the foods of which I have wanted to try more.

They will have all kinds of Po Boys there, and arts and crafts, and live jazz playing all day. Some other new things I plan on trying/visiting while in New Orleans: oysters, a mint julep, their famous bread pudding, bananas foster, Antoine's, Mahony's, Croissant D'or Patisserie, the antique shops on Royal Street, and more. Hopefully I'll have enough energy to see and do as much as possible!

Coming up....

I know you haven't heard from me for a long time... but, well, nothing really to report, except for what I am planning for Sunday. I'm having a little tea party and inviting four friends to have tea, little sandwiches, cheese cubes, crackers, and an assortment of fruit. It should be really fun to get all assembled and take pictures. I don't know what I will bake, though. Raspberry muffins? Maybe. Brownies? Maybe. I wonder if I am offering too many things. Better too much than too little, I guess. My party isn't really going to have a particular theme. I am inviting both guys and girls so it cannot be all girly like my birthday party this year was.

My birthday party was pretty nice. It was all girls and we had cake that I made, tarts, tea, and watched My Fair Lady and had a little fashion show where my sister and I showed off cute dresses we got from Forever 21 and hair accessories. We also listened to some Frederic Chopin and had girly discussions about various topics. It was pretty much the best birthday party I have had in my adult life.

This cake.... was amazing. I almost wish I was making it again for my party, but I already have enough stuff so I will probably make some other easier little dessert thing.

 I used my great grandmother's china set and it was just lovely. It felt so much like a real tea party because I used this set.

It was also fun making little floral arrangements from flowers in my garden. :)

So, yeah, that sort of stuff's not going to work with guys in attendance, haha.We are just going to have our snacks and play board games. Apples to Apples, Scrabble, maybe some cards. Maybe I will be able to find some more around my house, too.

I'll post pictures when the time comes. Meanwhile, hope everyone has a great weekend! :)

Good News!

I have officially been hired as an instructor for the recreation and parks department of my city to teach kids cooking classes. I am so excited about it, I get to design my own classes and the rec & parks dept. will even go out and buy me whatever food and materials I need for the class. Since I have two other jobs besides this, it'll just be weekends for the time being, but maybe in the summer I'll teach during the week too. It would be so fun to have a cupcake decorating class, that is definitely on my list.

It's really nice how all three of my jobs have cooking/ food preparation components. Snack for the kids at school, lunch/ dinner for my grandpa, and now snacks/ meal items for my own class I'm teaching. Planning this week the recipes I'll teach! :)