Macaroni salad craving...

I went home Memorial Day weekend for my niece's 3rd birthday party. I ate sooooooooo much macaroni salad. I guess I still didn't have enough of it because I decided to make my own (to go with some BBQ pork sliders). It tasted very similar to the one my mom made and I served it to a few friends and they all really liked it. :)

Ingredients: elbow macaroni, chicken, carrots, celery, raisins, pineapple bits, red onion, light mayo, medium cheddar cheese, sugar, salt & pepper

Craving satisfied!

Gourmet Mac n' Cheese

About 2 years ago, I made some macaroni and cheese using Velveeta cheese. NASTIEST mac n' cheese I've EVER had in my life! Seriously, it was worse than the instant mac n' cheese that comes in a box.

This time around, I decided to splurge just a bit on cheese. I did a mix of aged white cheddar and Gruyere cheeses. The boyfriend said it was the BEST macaroni and cheese he's EVER had in his life. That was good enough of a compliment for me. :)

Baked to ooey gooey cheesy perfection!

makeup experiment

The other night, I took a study break and found myself playing around with makeup. I am a huge fan of deep purples, charcoal greys, and different shades of black when it comes to eye makeup. However, I found myself experimenting with some pink and pearly white colors. I don't remember the last time I've worn anything pink except for underwear.

So this is what I came up with

I think I'm starting to master putting on false eyelashes too. Yay!

Dumplings & Crinkles

So last night I made some pork dumplings for the first time ever, and I must say they turned out quite good. I even made the dough for the skin, but it was too much trouble rolling them out into thin circles so I ended up sending the boyfriend to get some pre-made dumpling wrappers. For the filling, I followed this recipe:

1 lb. ground pork (or beef)
6 tbsp. sesame oil
2 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1 cup cabbage (chopped)
1/2 cup green onions (chopped)

It was a very simple recipe to follow. I even enjoyed filling, folding, and sealing these little dumplings because I just sat in front of the TV watching "13 Going on 30."

The filling

Stuffing the wrapper

Uncooked dumplings

Frying after boiling (cooking spray!)

Finished... Yum!

I also attempted to make some chocolate crinkle cookies (recipe here: http://www.joyofbaking.com/ChocolateCrinkles.html).

They are supposed to look like this

But mine ended up looking like this

They were HUGE cookies! They were more like cake cookies (my boyfriend's roommate called them "cakies"). They look like cupcake or muffin tops, which is cool since that's my favorite part of a cupcake or muffin. I guess I made the dough balls too big. I should use less eggs next time if I want actual cookies. But I liked them, they weren't too sweet and the amount of confectioner's sugar was just right. I just want to bake! bake! bake! and get something right.

Sunken ship, bestfriend Ben, & wedding

The dream started out with this feeling that I had to wake up my niece. I went into her room and peeked in, but all of a sudden my sister comes up to me and she was carrying my niece. I was surprised and said, “Whoa! You’re holding Jackie, but she’s also sleeping in the room! How is that possible?” My sister then pointed out that the baby sleeping in the room was another baby who looked very much like Jackie and she was babysitting. I felt tired also, so I decided to sleep next to the baby in the room so my sister didn’t have to watch her too. It must have been 10 minutes or so and I woke up, and the baby was staring at me. We start to play but there is a huge earthquake. I know you’re supposed to run into a doorway, but in my dream, I grabbed some pillows to cover the baby and my head. Once the earthquake was over, everyone was going outside. That’s when I realized, that I was aboard a ship, much like the Titanic I would say. There were tons of people on the deck and we were looking out into the clear, calm water. We were all surprised to see that we were hundreds of feet above ground next to some very tall buildings. The earthquake had caused the water to rise that much. I was leaning over the railing when the ship began turning onto its side, but luckily I wasn’t on the side that tipped into the water first. As my side of the ship started sinking into the water, I remembered thinking in panic, “Oh my God, I don’t know how to swim!” Then I took one last big breathe of air and went under. Under the water, I found my boyfriend and he helped me swim to this window. We tried to break it in but realized the window above it was already open. We went inside and it was the kitchen. The reason we couldn’t open the first window was because that was the part where the dishwasher was and the storage under the sink was. When we got in, we saw Queen Latifah preparing sushi! There was, what I would call, a magical conveyor belt. Queen Latifah would wave her hand over the moving conveyor belt and chopsticks, wasabi, ginger, plates, and cups would magically appear. It was interesting because I felt sideways because the ship was sideways and even though we were under water, everything was perfectly alright. The windows were open, but no water rushed in.

I then found myself having lunch with some friends, two of them being Bang and Vanesa, old friends from high school. I have no idea if this is still aboard the ship or not. We stood up to leave when a man, resembling Elton Brown of the Food Network but not quite, also stood up from a nearby table accompanied by a woman, a brunette. He asked me if I wanted to have some lunch and I said, “No, thank you,” since I had just eaten lunch with my friends. He also asked if I could be his best friend. (HAHHAHA) I said, “Umm.. We’ll see!” and I strolled off with my friends to the bookstore. Mr. Elton Brown look-a-like and his lady friend followed. At the bookstore, I see my best friend, Ben Affleck. (another HAHAHHAAHA) I jumped on his back to surprised him and we ended up goofing around inside the bookstore, then outside. Elton Brown look-a-like looked very jealous because Ben Affleck was my best friend. His lady friend looked jealous that he was jealous. But what could I do? Ben Affleck >>> Elton Brown look-a-like.

That’s when I found myself at a royal party. I was a princess pretending to be a servant at this party. I was once with the prince, but I was thrown out of the castle because he thought I was not loyal to him. The prince, who looked a lot like James Marsden, received an anonymous note (from me) to meet in the elevator. He went by himself and I followed. To avoid the security camera, I face the back corner of the elevator. I said to the prince, “It’s me. Please take me back. I was never unfaithful to you.” This upset him and he got off the elevator. I went after him, but there were palace guards everywhere and I didn’t want to get caught, so I hid behind the grand staircase. Then I saw the queen. I ran to her crying and begging her to please tell the truth because I loved the prince and I wanted him back. She started crying, because she really liked me but was forced to get rid of me. The prince heard the commotion and came to the queen and me. I was crying hysterically and explained to him that I was forced to tell him that I was with another man because some very bad people were going to kill my family if I didn’t. The queen agreed that this was the truth and the prince and I reunited. We were to wed at once!

All of a sudden, I was me and the prince was my boyfriend. We gathered all our friends to help with the wedding. It was going to be a small intimate wedding. Judy was a bridesmaid, Andy was the photographer, Caleb was going to read a passage, and Chinh was the minister. I was wearing a white dress and we were all running across the street for some reason. We were running into this field where the grass was burnt orange instead of green. I looked down at my feet and I was wearing my zebra print house slippers. We got to this place that looked like a Stonehenge in ruins with an altar in the middle. It seemed like it had just rained because we were wiping everything down. Caleb was choosing a passage from what looked like a children’s Bible book and Andy was taking pictures. The dream ended with Andy looking down that the camera to see a photo he had taken of me and Cliff looking at each other.

Ok… So, with all the earthquakes happening lately, it’s no wonder I had a dream about one. Sushi. Explainable. I’ve been craving it lately. Ben Affleck as my bestfriend? Hahaha. No idea. Maybe because Ben Affleck >>> Elton Brown look-a-like means I love movies way more than food..? Now, the whole prince/princess/wedding thing. A little odd. I liked dreaming about my friends though.