Brunch at Cafe Nola - Bainbridge Island, Washington

Hello my friends! Are you still there? Is this thing on ((taps microphone))? It's been entirely too long! Three months, you say? I am truly sorry. 

Things are going well although I have been quite busy. My career has kept me jammin'. Our house has undergone some serious remodeling, resulting in our using the small, dishwasher-less kitchen in our downstairs mother-in-law suite. I've completed 2 Italian language courses and have planned an adventure to Italia for next month. Excuses, excuses, right?

Not quite. Life has been hectic and crazy and AWESOME. I've considered quitting blogging. I've wanted to start a new blog altogether. I've oscillated between the two! Have I made a decision? No. Am I sure that I will keep eating, cooking, and writing in the future? Yes.

My goal is to make things a little more simple around here - write (more often) about delicious foods, post photos that make me happy, and keep myself laughing. Won't you check back again soon? For now, a sweet little post about brunching with babes...

From Seattle you can hop on a ferry boat and escape the city hustle and bustle for a more laid back lifestyle on any of the nearby stops or islands. We took the ferry on a grey Sunday morning over to Bainbridge Island to meet up with our friends for breakfast. 

Traditional Irish Breakfast

Last year we were able to visit Ireland. We spent the most of our time in the large city of Dublin, although we also adventured to the smaller towns of Bunratty, Doolin, and Galway. In the spirit of St. Patrick's Day please allow me to share with you my most favorite meal of the trip.

Sfogliatelle

While in Rome we made a friend who is from Naples. He kindly made us a list of all of the places to see and foods to eat while visiting his hometown. He'd told us specifically about a pastry that was a breakfast favorite. We weren't checked into our Naples hotel for ten minutes before Bryce walked into our room holding one. I had my lens on it in seconds and my crumby fingers on it a moment later! They're called sfogliatelle and they're the most memorable thing I'd eaten throughout our entire trip.  

Great Pumpkin Muffins [with Cream Cheese and Chocolate Chips]

This photo pretty much sums up fall for me - leggings, pumpkins, glitter Toms. If Toms and/or Uggs aren't acceptable anymore please mark me on the list of people who just don't care!

Lemon and Orange Chia Seed Muffins

Muffins! They're cake that you can eat for breakfast, what's not to like?

The best part of any food (song, smell, person, or place for that matter) is when you're hit over the head with a very specific memory of a happy place and time in your past causing a big, goofy grin to spread across your face. Lemon poppy seed muffins rock my socks and immediately transport me back to the vacations of my childhood in Florida. Our favorite breakfast spot was the Broken Egg on Siesta Key and their lemon poppy seed muffins were always a tasty treat to start my day.

All that being said, I can't remember the last time I had a lemony breakfast cake speckled with tiny seeds of happiness and I'm sure that I've never made them. These muffins are a collaboration brought to you by two friends of mine - Bob and Sally. 

Seattle's Sweetest - Trophy Cupcakes and Top Pot Doughnuts

We've been living in Seattle for 4 months now. Just hours after touching down for our first visit we embarked on a food tour of the infamous Pike Place Market, with no less than 9 stops. 

Naturally the speed at which we're checking must-eat-foods off of the list has slowed down a bit as we're getting settled in. In the past couple of weeks I've been lucky to try two of Seattle's sweetest and most well known bakeries! 

First were Trophy Cupcakes! 

Banana Chocolate Chip Waffles

Ladies and Gentlemen: Let's get ready to wwwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaffffffffffffffffffffffffffllllllllllllllleeeeeeeeeeeeee!

You may remember rounds 1 and 2 of my match with waffles from a few years ago that resulted in a tie. Most recently the round with chocolate waffles ended in my favor.

I'm more than happy to report that we now have a winner by KNOCK OUT... and it's me. 

Last Sunday Bryce and I enjoyed a wonderful morning and breakfast together before I headed to work. I'd been planning on making waffles but failed to remember that we were out of eggs! When Bryce returned from his run to the store for eggs he also brought bacon and juice in tow.

Girls Day at Waioli Tea Room

Today's overdue BWB outing was in celebration of girls day! 

In related news also in the overdue category, I'm finally sitting still to write a blog post after an extremely busy month during which I spent 1 week out of commission due to what my doctor said was "just a cold!" My diet consisted of H2O, tea with honey, homemade chicken noodle soup, and acai bowls for 5 days straight and I couldn't even think about real, chew-requiring food, much less blog about it.

The ladies and I met today in the historic and charming Manoa Valley at the Waioli Tea Room.

It's located in a huge, old house that couldn't be more adorable if it were wrapped in a polka dot bow from Target.

New Year's Day Chocolate Waffles

Happy 2013!

Because I'm an Event Manager, I was working on New Year's Eve instead of sleeping on my couch while fireworks went off around me. My night at work was spent being fully entertained by live bands, musical theatre acts, a stilt walker, human bird puppets, a vintage plane fly over, and so on. There's no way I could have paid for or attended a more exciting evening elsewhere!

Regardless, I woke up on January 1 feeling hung over after just 5 hours of sleep. My feet were sore from walking around the event/premises and all of my muscles hurt from a "free" 1 hour consultation with a personal trainer at our new gym. Please don't worry, I'll never go fitness crazy and try to be on a real diet! My body was in rough shape and I was wide awake, despite being exhausted. That called for a filling, fun, and indulgent breakfast: chocolate waffles!

A hot cup of coffee, recipe displayed on the iPad while music played simultaneously, and gadgets and ingredients galore. That's my happy place :)

Egg-cellent Brunch at Longhi's

Getting the group together for Bitches Who Brunch is not an easy task, to say the least. Our Facebook conversation began on September 21 and just this past Saturday, 7 weeks later, our day finally came. These are some busy bees! We had a great turnout, although there are many who couldn't make it!

Our Saturday morning brought us back to Longhi's - the site of our second official BWB outing early last summer.

Lindsay, Lisa, Danielle, Katie, Malia, Jaclyn, Lisette, and Me

Baked Eggs with Bacon and Gruyere

Breakfast for dinner is one of life's great pleasures. I'm not sure why the traditional morning meal becomes much more fun and a novelty at dinnertime, but it can't be denied. Usually we end up having breakfast for dinner when all that's left in the fridge are eggs and bread, although that was not the case this week when Baked Eggs with Bacon and Gruyere were on the menu!

My recipe is adapted from the May 2012 issue of Everyday Food (issue 92). Originally called Emeril's Breakfast-In-Bed Baked Eggs and positioned as a Mother's Day recipe, mine were changed quite a bit due to ingredient preferences and a few mistakes!

Baked Eggs with Bacon and Gruyere

Print this recipe

Doughnut Hole and Fruit Kabobs

I'm Ang. Remember me? Let's hope so.

As we do every 6 months to 1 year, Bryce and I moved apartments. We don't enjoy this process at all but for whatever reason we're always forced to find a new home. Psychotic, radio playing, undies-wearing, joint-smoking in the shower neighbors or friend/landlord needing to move back home to retain the several thousand dollar tax credit - we're forced to move often. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. Our most recent move was on June 1 and for several weeks we were happily "borrowing" internet services from a kind and generous neighbor. (Not to be confused with the previously mentioned type of neighbor!) That all came to an end a few weeks back and, therefore, so did the blogging. A tardy but handsome man (Bryce are you reading this??) came to hook up our internet on Saturday and we are back in business.

Moving is hard. It's on my top 10 list of things that I hate to do, which also includes washing silverware and smelling peppers. That all being said, this recipe is very simple. After all the moving/internet drama, simplicity is welcome 'round these parts!

This lovely and portable breakfast barely deserves the title of "recipe." 

Doughnut Hole and Fruit Kabobs

Inspired by Val So Cal and discovered on Pinterest

Pintresting Food

When something is super trendy, I try to ignore it. 

Sometimes it works - I've only seen half of an episode of the Kardashians and have never watched Anchorman. 

Other Most times I resist the urge to jump on the trendy band wagon - only to hop on late, become totally obsessed, and LOVE the trend far past its trendy expiration date. A few examples: I still quote Mean Girls on a daily basis, wear a "poof" in my hair regularly, and just recently joined Pinterest.

I really didn't know what the heck it was at first, but everyone said it was addicting. Yes, that's right - I had 100 pins in 2 days and many of them were food related! Pinterest is basically a smorgasbord of ideas, crafts, home projects, fashion, quotes, and inspiration. You "pin" things you like and put them into categories.  It was equally shocking and exciting to find that it would benefit my cooking adventures. Prying yourself away from Pinterest's page is the hard part. I narrowly escaped the computer chair and took the first great idea I'd found into the kitchen. 

Pinteresting Food #1: hash browns in the waffle iron!

Hash Browns in the Waffle Iron

Ingredients

4 medium to large potatoes

Cooking spray

Salt & pepper

Gadgets:

Waffle iron

Box grater

Grate the taters using a box grater. Squeeze the water out of the grated potatoes using your hands, either over the sink or the trash can. Season them with pepper and mix to combine.

Plug in your waffle iron and set it to medium. We put ours on level 3 (of 5). Spray the top and bottom with cooking spray.

Add about 1 cup of potatoes to the iron and sprinkle salt on the top before closing the lid. The hash browns were perfectly cooked about 10 - 11 minutes later. Feel free to ignore the little light on your waffle iron - green, red, green, red! When they were finished they easily came off the iron in one piece. You need not spray the iron after each one. 4 potatoes made 4 hash browns.

Before & after

  

My fear was that they'd fall apart, but they were crispy and intact when they were finished.

We had an impromptu breakfast-for-dinner of these hash browns, scrambled eggs, fruit cups, and milk! This photo was taken before I assaulted the hash browns and eggs with loads of ketchup.

They were so easy and quick to make and tasted delicious - thank you Pinterest! I love that I can get more use out of the waffle iron, too. Next time I'll add some onions for a more authentic hash brown taste.

Pinteresting Food #2: Tooth Cupcakes

Brennan, a good friend of ours, has been applying and interviewing to get into dental school. His girlfriend Molly was planning to throw him a party upon his acceptance. I saw these tooth cupcakes and had to send them to her right away. Brennan got accepted and Molly made the cupcakes perfectly - congratulations Brennan and great job Molly!

 

Brennan with his cupcakes, sister Taea, and girlfriend Molly. 

Pinteresting food #3: Watermelon Jell-O Shots

Molly's birthday was this weekend and she made these adorable watermelon Jell-O shots, complete with chocolate chip "seeds"! She found them on the same website as the cupcakes. So.Much.Fun.

Happy Birthday Molly, and great job with the Pinteresting food!

Melissa's Baby BASHower

Originally, 2011 was the year of weddings. Bryce and I were invited to 8 just this year! Little did we know it would also become the year of babies. My best friend Jamie and her husband Nick (who have been together since we were sophomores in high school!) had Brody in June, and now I have 4 other friends who are expecting! So technically 2012 will be the year they're all born but whatever...

I'm completely overjoyed by all of the giant life changes and extreme happiness that our friends are encountering this year, and enjoying being a part of it all... and the food! Plus, by the time I'm married and ready to create an offspring, said baby will have so many friends and I'll have so many experienced parent-friends!

Just a few weeks ago I threw a baby shower for Christine, and as soon as that was over I got this adorable invitation for a shower for another friend - Melissa! She and 2 of her friends started an event planning company called BASH events and this shower was as fabulous and over-the-top as one would expect from a group of event planners.

I'd only been to Morimoto once before with the Bitches Who Brunch, and Melissa was with me! When we arrived on Sunday morning we basically had the whole (gorgeous) restaurant to ourselves.

Potato and Egg Casserole

Happy Sunday! 

This morning I woke up early and, since the Steelers have a bye-week, was delighted to stay home and make breakfast. We're going away (to California for Thanksgiving) on Wednesday so using up the food in the house was a must. We had plenty of potatoes and eggs but no bacon or sausage.

Bitches Who Brunch - Longhi's

Today, June 11, 2011, marks the second installment of Bitches Who Brunch!  (If you have no clue what I'm talking about, please check out the original Bitches Who Brunch post.)  This morning we gathered at Longhi's Restaurant in Ala Moana, where I had the best breakfast of my life.

Longhi's is on the 4th floor of the mall and has a fantastic view of the Pacific Ocean.  Today we even had a nose-bleed-section view of the King Kamehemeha parade!  (The same parade caused us to cancel our previous reservation at a restaurant in the path of the whole ordeal and reschedule for Longhi's last minute.)  At times we could actually see Mother Nature raining on the parade, sad!

Longhi's is very open and airy and has a great, charming atmosphere.  They put us girls in the far corner of the restaurant next to another loud bunch, which was perfect!  I especially love the curved booths in the nooks on the right and the black and white floor!  

We spent far too long blabbering, gossiping, chit-chatting, and enjoying each other's company right out of the gate and forgot to place our orders!  Many Bloody Marys, mimosas, fancy house drinks, and cups of coffee were consumed before we did any real caloric damage.  In my book, drinks don't have calories!  Like my theory?  (Yes, it's totally incorrect and I'm fine with that!)

The BWB favorite dish was the Crab Cake Benadict.  This was ordered by 3 bitches!

Of course the brides-to-be, Allison & Marichris, were a little more strict with their indulgences and opted for egg white omelets.  Please note the size of the toast.  These huge and delicious slices of toasted baguette were the base for the benedict dishes.  I didn't take note if the engaged ladies actually consumed these delicious carbs or not!

Here's another omlet, these one kept its yolks and was joined by a side of bacon!  Please note: this meal did not belong to an engaged woman!

Finally, I share with you the best breakfast I've ever had: Maine Lobster Benedict.  As you can see the pieces of lobster were quite large and the toast was huge.  The eggs were perfectly poached and the yolks, when poked with a fork, spread their delicious goodness all around!  The hollandaise sauce was amazing.  I was obsessed and didn't offer a single bite to anyone.  About 95% of the dish was gone before I realized how full I was and returned the fork to the plate for good!

Today's brunch included 7 beautiful bitches: (Left to Right) Malia, Allison, Lisette, Felicia, Me, Marichris, and Lisa.  It was almost 3 hours later by the time we finally left.  We tried to set a date for the next brunch but as it turns out our next outing may be Bitches Who Bachelorette!

Thanks for another great brunch, bitches!

Winning vs. Waffles

The contenders: 

Ang - 25 year old, female human with little patience for baking

Ciusinart Classic Waffle Maker - Brand new from Macy's with a buring desire to create delicious waffles

Round 1:

The waffle maker was requested by Bryce, as a birthday gift.  I was glad to oblige and for our household to have another cooking gadget/appliance, of course.  The day after his birthday we had planned to go out for a nice dinner.  He ended up getting sick so we decided to stay home and have breakfast for dinner a la the new waffle maker.

(DING DING)

Ang started strong, prepping the waffle batter from scratch using the Better Homes & Gardens recipe.  The usually trusty book directed her to pour 1 cup of batter onto the iron, leading her to failure.  The Waffle Maker's instructions clearly state use 1/2 of a cup for a waffle.  So, 1 entire cup's worth of batter overflowed out of the Waffle Maker and all over the kitchen counter resulting in THE WAFFLE MAKER'S FIRST VICTORY!

Ka Lei - Fresh Island Eggs

Months ago someone brought it to my attention that the eggs sold in the grocery store are old.

The mama hen done hatched them a longgggg time ago!

Even more so here in Hawaii, on an Island, where most of the eggs take a nice, long trip from the mainland.  They asked me if I've ever had "Fresh Island Eggs", and the answer is no.

I decided I was going to stop by Ka Lei Marketplace for some fresh eggs and see what it was all about.  It's a tiny store front in a strip of stores and restaurants in a cute little neighborhood.  The problem is, they're only open during the week from 9 am - 5 pm, and on Saturdays until 12 noon.  I've tried 3 times to go there and this weekend, I FINALLY MADE IT IN!

There's not much to see inside, just lots of eggs and a few random items for sale (sauces, glass eggs, doormats made of recycled flip-flops, and other unique items).   People line up, most with their empty egg cartons in hand, and wait quietly for their turn.

Here's the egg selection board.  We went with the Medium Brown Grade A eggs for $5.90.  That's 2.5 dozen, or 30 eggs for less than six dollars!  That's insanely cheap for eggs in Hawaii.

There are so many eggs, and this was 30 minutes before they closed!  Notice the cooler is decorated with Easter egg window clings - funny!

Ka Lei's eggs are inexpensive and they taste so good.  My sources were right, fresh eggs make a major difference!  I can't describe how the taste is different, they're just better.  I spent the weekend eating eggs!  I made breakfast for lunch on Saturday as soon as we got home and got creative with my breakfast on Sunday and tried to make dippy (aka sunny side up in Yinzer) eggs inside of onions! 

Even if you don't live on an Island, I recommend you go get some fresh eggs!  Owning my own chickens is on my bucket list, but until then I'll be eating these.

Wordless Wednesday: Birthday Breakfast at Cinnamon's

The Great Pancake Fiasco

Saturday morning is one of the greatest parts of the week, if you ask me.  Waking up without an alarm and sleeping in, even if it's just a few minutes past your regular wake-up-time, is such a great feeling and a perfect way to begin a lovely Saturday.  If only I could always be so optimistic!

One Saturday morning back in December I decided I was going to take on a new food conquest - homemade pancakes!

Prior to that day I'd made pancakes only twice.  Once in Palolo, John was kind enough to show me how to master the art of Bisquick, the perfect powder to water ratio, and how to wait for the little bubbles.  A few months ago I was babysitting some very smart 5 and 7 year old girls who wanted pancakes and they "knew how to make them", which isn't usually true when it comes out of a child's mouth, let's be serious!  These girls were telling the truth and together we made some delicious and creatively shaped breakfast food.

So, here's how the Great Pancake Fiasco came to be...  I used my trusty Better Homes & Gardens cook book although, I didn't have buttermilk and opted for one of the smaller, less prominently advertised recipes on the pancake page.  It turns out I couldn't keep my eyes off of the buttermilk recipe and I measured one of the ingredients correctly for the b-milk recipe and incorrectly for the recipe I was using plus I added an ingredient that I shouldn't have!  I was thinking it might be ok, since they were both pancake recipes, right?  No.

I'll keep the rest simple, since it was so painful the first time around...

It started out honest enough - milk, flour, eggs, etc.

Giving the first pancake a try...

It looks like I burned the bottom and unsuccessfully flipped it, too!

Trying again, that one is U-G-L-Y

But it seemed to be much better once I flipped it over!

Here's my temporary success!  I thought this was the winner, plated it up and slathered it with syrup.

Took two bites and realized it wasn't cooked through!  EW.  I threw it away and went back to the stove...

And tried again...

Burn = fail.

To make things much worse, please see what the photo on my Comfort Food calendar was that month staring me in the face from the other side of the kitchen!  "Ang, you can't make one edible pancake and look at us, we're so pretty and yummy!"

 

So, in the battle pancakes vs. Ang - Pancakes WIN!  Ang has coffee and leftovers for her Saturday morning meal, aka NOT the breakfast of Champions.

Have I mentioned that I hate baking?

And here's the trash, full of pancakes.