Red Velvet Cupcake of Reston

I wonder how long this whole cupcake thing is going to last. Are cupcake stores the new coffee shop or is it just a quick trend? The thought of making a living selling little cake things for $3 seems kind of odd but I'm sure the thought of making a living selling $3 cups of coffee seemed odd at first.

Recently Michael and I were at Reston Town Center and noticed a little cupcake shop named Red Velvet tucked away by the parking garage. We were in the mood so we indulged. I got the red velvet:


and Michael got the coconut.


It was... meh, okay I guess. They claim that they only use the finest ingredients from Europe or something and yes, it did have a certain richness but it wasn't very fun and that's the whole point of cupcakes, right? If I'm going to pay $3 I want moistness, yummy-ness, a ball of cream center, and a giant mountain of ooey gooey cream frosting topped with a Ferreror Roche. I want something that's going to reaffirm my purchase decision as soon as I take the first bite. I want something from Sweetz! European butter is impressive and all but would using domestic butter have made that big of a difference? If you're going to go all fancy with the ingredients it should be because it makes a real difference in the product, not so that you can use it as a marketing tool.

If you happen to be walking by and you are craving a little something sweet, then sure yeah, stop by. Their cupcakes aren't bad they're just mediocre. Personally though, if I happened to be walking by and I was craving a little something sweet I would just take a few extra steps and go to Pitango.

Totoro!

I've never seen a Star Wars movie in its entirety. Michael thinks that's a damn shame because, to him, it is the greatest story ever told or something. I am a fan of Space Geek-ery but the Star War Universe never appealed to me. I like science fiction but I'm not really into science fantasy. Anyway, so when Michael's Star Wars lunch box came with a sandwich cutter that looked like this:


I had no idea what it was supposed to be.

It's the Millennium Falcon, duh!

Really, because I think it looks like Totoro.

Let's take another look now...

When you see this:


Do you see this?


Or do you see this?


Yeah, let's take a moment to see the Totoro song.



"Totoro, totoro! Totoro, totoro!" and that's about all I know because the rest is in Japanese.

I used the sandwich cutter to make a salmon cake sandwich.


One in the shape of the Millennium Falcon for Michael and one in the shape of Totoro for myself.

Faan Thai Redux

Recently we ate at Faang Thai in Landsdowne. We try to limit eating out to just once a month but I don't think Valentines Day should count. Last time we tried Faang was back during the summer when they first opened. The whole place smelled like laminates and Ikea furniture, the AC wasn't on, and someone near us was eating miso soup that smelled like feet. It wasn't the most pleasant atmosphere.

This time around no laminate or miso smell and the temperature was just fine. We started the dinner off with spring rolls.


Honestly a bit disappointing. The filling was very meh and I could taste the chicken but I couldn't see or feel the chicken... Kind of scary.

I am on a quest to find the best drunken noodle in NoVa but I did not have it this time around. I've tried theirs before and it's not bad but I didn't like it enough to order it again. Instead I had the...


I forget what it's called but I'm pretty sure it's named after an Asian city. It was very good and I would definitely order it again. The sauce had this nutty sesame oil taste and the beef was very tender and soft.

Michael ordered the sushi dinner.

It was okay but you know how they say you shouldn't order chicken at a steak house? Yeah, well, don't order sushi at a Thai restaurant.

What HOA?

Our HOA states "NO GARDEN GNOMES!!!!"

Well, what it really says is that we're not allowed to have any lawn decorations unless it's flush against the base of our house. Now, technically, this is not an outright ban on garden gnomes. I can, technically, line my house with an army of garden gnomes and as long as it's touching the house, it should be fine.

Tempting.

I've always, always, wanted garden gnomes and now that I have a lawn I shouldn't be deprived. A few months of living here has proved that our HOA do not really care about rules. If this was Ashburn our mailbox would have been flooded with notices for various violations. All I have to do is look out my window and I can see at least 5 neighbors with HOA violations. So, per my sister's suggestion, I went Joanne Fabric and bought:


I wonder if lawn flamingos would be pushing it. Hmmm...

Guacamole Omelet with Salsa

A few years ago Michael bought all the ingredients for Make Your Own Taco night and had it all prepared. On my way over we got into a HUGE fight and he ended up having Make Your Own Taco night himself. I don't recall what the fight was about (his fault, no doubt though) but he's always been very sad about the fact that we never had a Make Your Own Taco night together.

Recently he suggested it again and I said why not. Honestly, I'm not a fan of making my own tacos. They usually turn out like school lunch tacos with their dry meat and sad, tiny little yellow shells. But, because I know Make Your Own Taco night means more to him than sad little tacos I agreed. He went all out with the ingredients, going as far as making his own taco seasoning.

I wish I can say it was delicious... Well, it was, but it was also kind of painful. As part of the fixings he grilled up some veggies with jalapenos. I don't know where he found them but they were super spicy! I knew it was going to be bad when just the smell made my eyes and nose water.

So the next morning I'm staring at a fridge full of Tex-Mex ingredients and I remember this recipe for guacamole omelet with salsa.

It was good, fast, easy and super filling. It's not something I would run out and buy ingredients to make but I'll definitely make it again the morning after our next Make Your Own Taco night!

Drivers

Ever since I discovered them I've become mildly obsessed with Drivers. How did I go all these years without knowing of their existence?

Drivers are shoes without outsoles.


They can literally bend in half and they're are insanely comfortable. They originate from South America and are called drivers because they are driving shoes, as in you put them on to drive, hence the pebbled bottom and no outsole. Some will tell you that it's not a true driver on less it has a pure pebbled bottom:


Some will say that it's a driver as long as it has the pebbles on the back part of the heel. Others will say that it's a driver as long as it doesn't have an outsole.

They are probably the most decadent pair of shoes you can own. You're either buying them for their true purpose, in which case, how fancy of you to have a pair of shoes just for driving. Or, you're buying them as your casual shoes and as any driver owners can tell you, they wear out very fast and they cannot be refurbished. Every time you walk you're scraping the toe and heel of your shoes on the ground. They are the Vans and Converse of the fine footwear world; you buy them knowing they're going to get holey and beat up looking pretty fast. The difference, aside from the price, is that there are no cool points awarded for a beat up looking pair.

I got Michael a pair of nubuck venetian drivers because we don't wear shoes inside the house and I got tired of waiting for him to lace up his shoes.


He loved them so much I grew jealous and got myself a pair.


So comfy!

Chicken Piccata

When I heard that the ground hog predicted early spring, I didn't really believe it. There was still snow on the ground and it was cold and windy and spring seemed so very very far away. But, I guess that harry little bugger was right because the weather has been pretty nice recently. Deceptively nice. I can't help but feel that Mother Nature is intentionally making us put our guards down. I feel like as soon as I pack away the winter stuff BAM; we'll get struck with another blizzard or something.

Well, since the weather is so springy I decided to make some chicken piccata.


I liked this recipe because it doesn't use any capers. I have nothing against capers but I can take them or leave them. Since I only use them for piccata recipes so I'm happy to skip buying them if I can. I know capers always make the list of every one's Top Ten Pantry Staples list but I think they're overrated.

The picatta was very good, fast to make, very lemony, and one of the few dishes I made where Michael asked for seconds. Sadly there were no seconds to give. Well, I guess that's a good thing. Neither of us are fans of left over so extra food tend to go to waste.

Valentines Day Dinner Sticker Shock

For dinner Valentine's Day dinner Michael made reservations at Hooked in Sterling. We first ate there years ago, back when they were located in that tiny little place near Cascades/Great Falls. I had read a review by Tom Sietsema, the food critic for Washington Post, raving about the food, especially the crab cakes and their french fries. I was excited to try a well rated restaurant that was so close to where I lived. Most of the places Sietsema reviews are closer to the city. We haven't been to that place since they remodeled so I was excited to try it again.


When we walked in they handed us a menu and explained that for Valentines Day it was a pre-fixe menu. Oh... This can't be good...

The pre-fixe price was... higher than what we would normally pay for dinner, much higher. We knew this place would be a splurge but we didn't think we'd be forced into paying for appetizer and dessert, you know? How expensive was it, you ask? Expensive enough that Michael didn't order iced tea. He always gets an iced tea at restaurants. Oh well. It's Valentines Day! The great thing about only eating out once a month is that you can (almost) rationalize splurging every once in awhile.

So, for the appetizer Michael got the Long Distance Love Roll (Philly and California sushi roll, how clever!) and I decided to try something new and different so I got tempura oyster.


Which came with three sauces, red, white, and pink. How cute!


I don't know that I would really call it tempura, more like just battered and fried. It was also more batter than oyster, but the batter tasted good.

After our appetizer they brought out some orange sorbet with passion fruit sauce to cleanse our pallet.


Oooh, how fancy.

At this point I was still really hungry and I didn't trust the entree to tide me over. I didn't want to make Michael feel bad by complaining about being hungry after spending all that money on food so I assumed I would have to go home and try to sneak in a snack or two while he's not looking. I was wrong. The dinner was more than filling.

I had the jumbo crab cake.


When the review said no fillers they weren't kidding. I don't know what was holding those crab chunks together because all I could see and taste were crabs. Yummy, yummy crabs.

Michael had the sea bass with clams.


I am not at all adventurous when it comes to sea food so I've never had sea bass before. It was quite good. We asked for some extra bread to sop up the sauce and man was it tasty!

There was steak on the menu and it was tempting but I'm glad I didn't order the steak because, apparently, the restaurant does not have any steak knives. Michael said that when I went bathroom the table next to us caused quite the scene because the dude was very upset that he was forced to cut his steak with a butter knife. Now, I think it's wrong to cause a scene over something like that but the dude does have a point. If you're going to serve steak you should offer steak knives.

Despite my reservation about portions I was filling quite full after the entree but I still had room for dessert! I got the banana creme brulee.

Michael got the chocolate covered strawberries which were a huge rip off. Really Hooked? Three dinky strawberries? I tried to make him feel better by pointing out that Godiva charges $5 per strawberry, which is true, but their strawberries are huge where as the ones he got were just regular sized.

I'm kind of glad that it was a pre-fixe menu, otherwise I would have gone for whatever was the more affordable option on the menu and totally skipped out on the appetizer and dessert. I got to try new things which is always nice. Next year, however, I think we'll look into a more affordable dining option, like a heart shaped, home made pizza!

Oh, and since we agreed on a $20 gift cap I got this:


I really like it because it's so cheesy!

Michael had Valentines day off and when I came home the house was decorated with flowers and home made cards and balloons and such. So sweet! Feeling kind of guilty though since I didn't get him anything... Yet!

Life Is a Mystery

Life is full of mysteries and there are things going on in my house that I just do not understand.

1) Mysterious disappearance of Captain Kirk- We have (had?) a new neighbor, we call him Captain Kirk because Michael discovered that he has an unsecured wi-fi and the user name (or whatever you call it) is James TK, as in this guy:


I've never talked to the men but I have seen him, behind curtains, in shadows. He used to be in his basement all the time sitting in front of his computer, a desktop with those giant old school monitor like it's back in 1995 or something. The last time I saw him was right after the slush/snow debacle of 2011. That was like two weeks ago and not a site of him since. The house is completely dark all the time, every night.

2) There was this bone that just mysteriously showed up on my deck one day. It is now gone. Nope, no one threw it away, it's been moved. Now the bone is on our back yard. I know wind didn't blow it away so the only thing I can think of is that a bird decided to swoop in, pick it up, and drop it to the ground below. WHY?!?!? Why would a bird even be interested in a bone? Freaky!

3) Michael's workplace has a pretty strict dress code. He wears khaki pants and either a white button down or a black button down. I do the laundry so I have a very good idea of how many khakis and white/black shirt he owns. One day four of his pants are missing. He swears he doesn't know what happened to them. Recently most of his white button downs go missing. He, again, swears he doesn't know what happened to them. They don't slowly disappear like socks they go missing in chunks. It's like one week there's seven, next week there's two. Michael does have a habit of taking his clothes off in random parts of the house so it wouldn't surprise me if I found a button down behind a bookcase or something. But the fact that his clothes go missing all at once is kind of weird.

And the weirdest and creepiest mystery of all...

4) Dead stink bugs keep showing up around our house. Stink bugs in random places made sense in fall because Northern Virginia has a stinkbug problem. But it's winter and stinkbugs still show up in random places, only this time they are... dead! Don't get me wrong, I'll take a dead bug over a live one any day. But where are they coming from and what is in my house that's killing bugs? One day Michael and I were making dinner. I set the dish towel down and turned around. A few seconds later Michael exclaims "BUG!" I look and there's a dead stink bug on the dish towel that I just set down! WTF?!?!?!? I could see if it was alive but it was dead and it just popped up out of nowhere. There are no vents on our kitchen ceiling, it couldn't have fallen from any place. So bizarre.

C is for Cookies! COOKIES!!!!!

For Christmas Michael bought me a coffee grinder:


Coffee freshness is very important to him even though he never drinks coffee. It's not something I really needed but it has come in handy a few times because I discovered that it can be used as a mini food processor. It can take some oats:


and turn them into oat powder:


Which came in handy when I decided to make what was claimed to be The Best Cookies Ever. Really, the best cookies ever? I don't know about all that. I challenge you cookie recipe! Let's see if you really are the best!

The recipe is insane! One cup of butter is two sticks of butter. Now, I'm not one to shy away from butter, hell I'll throw it in just about anything, but two sticks of butter for a cookie recipe? Hmmm... 3/4 cup of brown sugar and 3/4 cup of granulated sugar? That's 1.5 cup of sugar! Three cups of chocolate chip?!?! WTF?!?!? There is such a thing as too much of a good thing and all this sugar and fat... I don't know about this... If it doesn't work out it's a lot of butter and chips wasted... Oh what the heck.

Now, are they the best cookies ever? Hmmm... I think the better question is are they the most addictive cookies ever and yes, yes they absolutely are. I was watching Harry's Law yesterday and they were talking about how the right combination of sugar and fat can trigger an addiction. These cookies get that combination just right. I know they're horrible. It's nothing but globs of butter, sugar, and chocolate just barely held together by a smidge of oats and flour. But, you know, I can't stop eating them, I really, really can't.

If you decide to give the recipe a go, take my word of advice and do not use 3 cups of chocolate chips. I only used a cup because that's all that I had I thought it was pretty good. Then again, I'm not a big fan of super chippy cookies. I think for most people 1.5 - 2cup of chips should be good. It's already so sweet I can't imagine what it would taste like with 3 cups of chips.

The recipe also fails to mention oven temperature. I went with 350 because... Well, why not. I used the convection feature. Look at that fan go!


I could literally see the cookies bake before my eyes. It was like watching one of those nature documentaries where they speed up the scene of a sunrise or a flower blooming or something.


It was an amazing and beautiful sight. Sniff.

Boys are So Silly

Check out my new ballet flats!!!


I loved them as soon as I saw them but held off on buying them because I already owned a perfectly good pair of leopard ballet flats from Target. For a pair of Target flats they held up pretty well and I didn't see them pooping out on me anytime soon. However, they went on sale and I could feel my will power quickly fading away. I called Jamie for some advice and she pointed out that muppet fur doesn't last forever.

Muppet fur. I've been wearing muppet fur.

That's cool. They served me well. If I had to figure out cost per wear on those muppet fur ballets it would probably come out to like 10 cents, maybe less. I think I can justify buying a pair of new leopard ballets... Even if they are overpriced... They weren't super expensive or anything but they were definitely more than what a fiscally responsible person should pay for ballets. While I wouldn't classify ballet flats as disposable shoes they're not exactly up their with boots and pumps, you know? I don't exactly have that "investment piece" argument going for me. Well, in my defense, it's leopard, and I was caught up in the euphoria of finding a brand that actually makes shoes that fit my feet. Besides, leopard ballets aren't a common site, got to grab them when you see them, right?

Right.

One night, for fun, I asked Michael what I thought was a pretty obvious question. "Which pair cost more?"


"Hmmm...", he thought for quite some time, "Well... I think... Hmmm... I'm going to go with the one on the... Right."

"Seriously?"

"Well yeah... It has a bow and things with bows usually cost more, right?"

Marinated Fish Nacho

I had a whole bunch of frozen tilapia in my freezer and was thrilled when I came across a recipe for marinated fish tacos. Since Michael was already planning on going to the grocery store I asked him to pick up a few things for this recipe, namely lime juice and tortillas.

"Now, when I say 'tortilla' I mean the kind you use for soft tacos, okay?"
"You got it!" he said.

So, fast forward to a couple of days, I'm getting ready to make fish tacos for dinner and the only tortillas I see in the kitchen are... Yup, you guessed it, tortilla chips! Oh well, nachos it is then! I just layered everything into an oven safe bowl and baked it until the cheese melted.


The marinated fish was really good. I'm not a big fan of sour cream so the next time around I'll skip the sauce. Jamie mentioned she made shrimp taco once, I'll definitely have to try that with the marinade next.

Sea Salt and Chocolate Shortbread

Let's play a game. What is this?


Dirt? I would've guessed dirt. If you said Sea Salt and Chocolate Shortbread, then, well, then you cheated.

I'm starting to think that this baking thing is not hard, at all. I used to think that baking was a delicate science where everything had to be just right but no, not at all. Case in point, I totally, totally messed up the recipe and it still turned out fine! How badly did I mess it up? Well, for starters I used melted butter instead of creamed (too long in the microwave) and it was just all down hill from there.


Okay, so in my version the dough was so dry that I couldn't roll it up to slice so I had to pack it in a pie pan. In my version the whole thing turned out super crumbly, like you almost had to eat it with a spoon crumbly. But, the most important thing is that it tasted fine. More than fine, it tasted amazing! I mean, it's salt and chocolate, sweet and salty!

So lesson learned: just try it! The dish might not turn out exactly as it should but as long as it taste good, that's all that matters.