Hope y’all are keeping healthy this autumn/winter. Two members of my family are already sick and I think I might coming down with a cold myself. I do wish it was cold outside because I feel like that would somehow warrant my sickness; it’s hot and humid outside!
This was certainly a week of good food.
First off, we tapped into the Cat’s heritage and had some Italian food. We had mozzarella sandwiches: fresh mozzarella, Roma tomatoes, basil, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. A real treat if you haven’t tried it. It’s tangy, fresh, and savory in all the right ways. Picture on the right is the Cat holding up his sandwich for a photo of the side profile.
Next up we made rotini aglio e olio with chicken. Basically it’s pasta with a garlic and olive oil sauce topped with chicken and parmesan and romano. Tasty, subtle, and surprisingly light. The Cat makes a garlic-infused olive oil sauce similar to this for dipping bread in and it’s addictive.
We went with my heritage and made thit kho soft tacos using a small pork shoulder but I forgot to take pictures. The pork was cubed and braised in a caramelized sugar sauce with a spoonful of fish sauce for umami. Then the Cat sliced the cubes up to be appropriate for taco filling. We topped the tacos with pickled carrots, cilantro, and sour cream. Since I didn’t get a picture of the tacos, this is a picture of out dessert: hot cocoa with almond milk whipped cream and rainbow jimmies, and a chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream cone covered in rainbow jimmies. I’ve never owned jimmies or had whipped cream I could eat before so both were a new treat!
A quick snack of matcha green tea flavored Pocky my parents got me from Singapore. Only a few Pocky made the trip and remained whole but the little broken bits were still tasty.
This last one is one of my favorites while I was growing up. It’s a chicken pasta recipe passed down to me from my father. Fettuccine with Roma tomatoes, yellow onion, spicy peppers, (mushrooms but we didn’t have any), sour cream, and roast chicken breast. I hadn’t made it in a long time because the original recipe used cream cheese and I can’t eat cream cheese anymore, but the Cat said we could use sour cream instead. It turned out a bit dry but the flavor was spot on! My Dad might’ve been Vietnamese but he definitely made a mean pink pasta sauce.
Crochet
It’s that time of year again that I start working on Christmas gifts. I know it seems a bit early but it gives me plenty of wiggle room to change what I have planned for people’s gifts.
I frogged a bobble stitch red pillow that was in the works (Ravelry). After working on it off and on for a while, it just wasn’t as bobble-y as I had hoped. I’m a bit glad that I frogged it because it also means I don’t have to buy more red yarn yet. Quality on these pictures went down a great deal when I uploaded them.
I have a few gifts lined up already: one for my Mom, one for my Dad, and a care package for my sister. I do need to figure out what to get for my sister’s birthday though. Maybe something green. Or frog-related. Or dinosaur-related. Or maybe dog-related now that she has an adorable dog.
A sneak peak at something I’m working on:
What kind of gifts are you giving this season?
Sniffly but cheerfully,
-Corgi
Corgipup Designs 