Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

Christmas Eve dinner in the Chen household was done in true Asian fashion as we set up the table for a hot pot! There were two types of beef, two types of mushrooms, shrimp, lettuce, watercress, dumplings, meatballs, and noodles all dipped into a boiling pot of broth to be cooked to one's own preference. And each person made their own dipping sauce - mine was soy sauce, sesame oil, peanut butter and scallions. Delicious! Now I'm so full, sitting on the couch curled up in a warm blanket with my computer on my lap, watching National Treasure for the millionth time with the family. We know how to do Christmas Eve right.

Come On Eileen

Just chilling back at home after going to a pretty standard, non exciting Asian Christmas Party. It was the typical loud parents yelling and laughing in the living room, making plans for the next Asian Invasion summer trip to somewhere exotic and fun while the "kids" sat in the family room mostly bored out of their minds, chomping away at the plethora of food surrounding them. We paroosed YouTube, played cards, watched random TV shows, put up with parents' inquiries as to our studies and future plans, crowded around the one laptop someone smartly brought along, drank some (very) lightly alcoholic punch, and generally chit-chatted. Typical, boring, but filling. And thus begins the three day Asian Christmas Party delight. Somehow, Asians decided that Christmas is really about having large parties where it is much more fun for the parents than the kids and standard Chinese fare is served, but in festive snowman platters so it's holiday friendly. Sigh. In other news, I think I actually did fairly well this semester grades wise, so thank you Brandeis for that great Christmas present as grades are posted Christmas Eve.

Teenage Dream

Happy (belated) Thanksgiving!

Despite the huge biology report looming over my head, I've actually been able to thoroughly enjoy this holiday. And the two days left make me optimistic I can actually finish my report. Or at least most of it. Luckily, I crammed hardcore the week before and got most of the stuff done for next week, minus my physics lab exam which I have actually completely forgotten about until right now. Oops...anyways, here are some highlights:

- split, peel, peel, peel, BANANA! mad intense bananagrams
- beer pong with tiny solo cups filled with water which somehow got parental approval
- excluding people for have dated an asian, or never dated someone jewish
- chilling at Starbucks, refueling on coffee at 10pm
- mini dance parties in the back seat
- pookiepewptypie - I don't think I'll actually ever get over that
- catching up with old friends the old fashion way - sitting in a car late at night at a random place in Madison
- comparing black out stories
- pumpkin pie, pecan pie, cheese cake, apple pie
- actually good turkey and ham at an asian party - props
- Calcifer surviving his water change
- trying to start a dead car in the cold
- online Black Friday shopping - yay boots!
- lots of noodles and rice
- watching TV shows (namely House, Top Gear and Mad Men) to make my biology writing a little more interesting
- (semi) late night Skype sessions
- sleeping until 1pm on a regular basis

Straightjacket Feeling

The Unhealthiest 48 Hours of My Life:

Friday 2:00pm: veggie burger patty, rice, salmon and a salad (I really did try to be healthy this weekend...)

Friday 11:30pm: two rounds of fried dough with cinnamon and powdered sugar, two Jolly Ranchers, and a shit load of m&m's and reese's pieces

Saturday 2:00am: root beer float, waffle fries and a cinnamon bun

Saturday 3:00pm - 9:00pm: one small vanilla hazelnut coffee from Einstein's, a Jolly Rancher, a mint, and a toffee

Saturday 11:45pm: small oven roasted turkey and cheddar on italian herb, a bag of chips, small root beer

Sunday 1:30 pm: crab rangoon, scallion pancakes (SO MANY SCALLION PANCAKES), dumplings, chicken wings

Kryptonite

Today is the kind of day where I let nothing stand in my way. The recipe that I found for dinner - Chinese Lemon Chicken was no exception. Yes, so I may have almost burned down the house from decimating the frying oil and yes, I almost cooked my chicken in the microwave at a last ditch attempt to defrost it, and yes, I mistakenly drowned my Basmati brown rice in copious amounts of water, but in the end I had a super scrumptious dinner! Let's go through the highlights. The recipe calls for deep-frying the chicken cubes in corn oil. Since I had barely any corn oil left, I used canola oil and put the stove on high. Bad idea. After a couple of minutes heating the oil I decided to do a test piece, dredging the cube in some cornstarch before plopping in the pot. The chicken came out a nice crusty golden brown, so I plopped four more pieces into the pot and waited. Unfortunately, the oil kept getting hotter and hotter so soon I was burning the bejeezus off my poor unsuspecting chicken cubes. Smoke filling the kitchen quickly followed. I quickly opened every single window and fanned the smoke away from the....smoke detector? Oh wait, there wasn't one. Such a safe house, right? So then I said, well fuck it, and proceeded to stir fry my cubes of joy, making a nice pan sauce from the leftover oil. And it came out amazing. Granted the sauce is a bit funky, but I'm not complaining. So to every unwanted thought, difficult pain in the ass chemical reaction, sketchy unseen lunchmate, and early morning roof bangers today I say, fuck you. Not in a mean, go to hell kind of way, but in a hah you are not going to get the best of this girl, kind of way.

Strawberry Fields Forever

Today was quite a lazy Sunday. Woke up late, ate some leftover Thai food, and zoned out to some Super Smash Bros. 64. The highlight was definitely making some awesome strawberry oatmeal scones. I found the recipe online, and besides substituting buttermilk with skim milk (not a nutritional choice, just a budgetary one) spilling more than "just a pinch" of salt into the mixing bowl, and using some questionable flour found in the cabinet, the process went rather smoothly. I cut the butter into the dry ingredients (an intense arm workout, let me tell you) and added the eggs, milk and strawberries to make a sticky, sweet biscuit smelling dough that I shaped into a disc and cut into wedges. My beautiful creations made their way onto parchment paper lined cookie sheets and into a blazing hot oven where they puffed up to perfection. The recipe suggests letting them cool for 10 minutes before serving, but obviously I couldn't wait that long and snagged one off the sheet for a taste. They're not half bad. They're light and tender on the inside, though to me they tasted like biscuits with bits of strawberry in it. Too much salt. Sigh. But I do have to say, between baking these scones and my recent cookie baking bonanza (100+ cookies, 3 different types, 4 hours of baking) my baking skills have improved! Next on the list - blueberry and marscapone turnovers!