Magic Carpet

So I guess I've been to Magic Carpet more often than any other food truck, and now I've tried all the pita bread sandwiches that I've wanted to try. The one below is the Sloppy Jason (from Monday), which is basically a vegetarian chili with tofu. It isn't as good as the Magic Meatball sandwich, though.

 SP got a falafel and rice thing which came with one pita bread.

 Today I got a the falafel sandwich, and I think that it's the best thing to get here; the tahini sauce is great!! Other ones that I've tried include the seitan sandwich and the tofu salad one. Those weren't too special. I guess the sandwiches with the tomato-based sauces aren't as good as that tahini! I guess if I come here again, I'll only get the falafel sandwich. However, I really need to branch out and try the other food carts.

Leftovers Sandwich!!

I absolutely love sandwiches! I made a sandwich with (some leftover) stuff in my fridge:

1. super toasted bagel (leftover from work)

2. spicy tofu (ok, not leftover)

3. spinach in the process of wilting

4. spicy peppers (leftover from a meeting)

5. cheeeeeeese!! (not leftover)

6. sour cream and onion dip

So delicious!... and it only took about 5 minutes to assemble (but I ate it disassembled)! This was taken at about 4:30pm, when I had my lunch-dinner-snack. My meal timetable is quite skewed now. It used to be something like 7:15am, 10:10am, 5pm, and maybe 9 or 10pm. Now, because I get up every day at 9 and usually have class or Monell until 5 or so, my schedule goes something like 9am, 5pm. Actually, sometimes I have lunch at around 12 or 1, but other times, I just eat during class. For example, yesterday I had bagel at 9:40am, a banana muffin at 11am, and an apple at 12:50pm. I then went to Bio lab, came back to my dorm at around 4, had a sandwich, and took a 3 hour nap. As it was a Wednesday, study break provided some $80 worth of junky food, so I had a bowl and a half of cereal.

Today, my eating schedule was: peanut butter sandwich at 9:15am. Orange at noon. Sandwich and carrot and peanut-butter-dough at 5pm.

During certain exam periods, I eat even more hectically! Let's say I get back to my dorm at 11pm from the library (another problem with spending a lot of my time away from cooking is that I never get the chance to eat my multivitamin). Of course, that day I would've had breakfast at 9, and perhaps some carbs around 5pm. So, I cook some pasta, eat some fruit, and as I panic about all the information I've yet to learn, I start eating more food. The food isn't necessarily unhealthy -- peanuts, fruit, eggs, okay, and candy, but out of sheer stress, I just eat. And eat. And then it's 2am so I stop eating, and at 4am or so, I promptly go to sleep.

I'm also quite sure it's unhealthy to consume a (283g) bag of Candy Cane Hershey's Kisses in 4 days.

I acknowledge that my eating habits and desires are huge problems, and they contribute to a negative self-reflection and serious adipose tissue buildup. Therefore, I figured I should start using my other senses to enjoy the world. So, I went to Lush, got a bath bomb, and now I can enjoy the redolent scent of roses whenever I sit at my desk (provided the smell of food isn't in the air), and I can have honey-scented clothes.

House of Pita Hanan

Last Tuesday (I know! I have so many things to blog about and not enough time because I've been programming!), SP and I went to the House of Pita Hanan, which is a food truck. I think that I'm obligated to go to every food truck on/off campus (from 30th to Walnut, from Spruce to Market, I guess) since I

1. am a college student
2. have a food blog
but I'm busy all the time and enjoy eating peanut butter sandwiches with spinach. Either way, two trucks down (the other one being Magic Carpet, but I haven't posted about them yet since I didn't take a picture of my food last time...), many more to go, 5 semesters left (oh. wow.)

Going to the House of Pita and getting a falafel+hummus+lettuce+feta cheese sandwich really cheered me up though, from the organic chemistry exam that I completely shredded with failure...(got the results back today, but I'm not looking at my exam until 3pm tomorrow so that I can stay happy for another 25.5 hours). SP and I walked in the rain for 4 blocks, and when we arrived, my jeans were drenched, my sweater was soaked, the jacket under my sweater was getting moist, and my shoes and socks were saturated with rainwater. SP, on the other hand, was just lightly speckled with rain water. It was also really cold, and I huddled under the counter-that-juts-out-of-the-truck, out of the rain, next to the engine, for a minuscule bit of warmth. Apparently, the counter is taller than me, which is pretty sad. SP remarked "You should take a picture of yourself and send it to your friends in HK and tell that that everything in America is big".

Ha. Ha.

I would've brought my camera if it hadn't been pouring.

Anyway, I enjoyed the sandwich because it had crunchy bits of falafel (NOT dry) and a nice sauce. I kind of wish they put more falafel pieces in instead of having a lot of lettuce, though. That's the whole point of the falafel sandwich, right? However, it was overall a delicious sandwich. I can't really judge falafel sandwiches though, since I've only had two in my life.

SP got rice with chicken and falafel and a piece of pita bread. For some reason, the pita bread that he got wasn't as flexible as the pita bread in my sandwich, and it was less tasty. I know it's a bit strange to measure pita bread by flexibility, but it's the perfect adjective. I think like flexible, chewy, gluteny pita bread.

House of Pita Hanan
38th and Walnut St

Endive

Endive. A character from Chowder. I've always known it as some lettuce-y thing, perhaps deep green, with leaves like holly, except more spindly and elongated. Well, I was wrong. Endive is to spindly holly the way a stingray is to a blubbery blue whale. Endive looks like this:

and I never knew.

 So... what do I do with endive? Why would I try this? Well, it was homework, from my mentor at Monell. We're discussing bitter foods and why people eat them, and of course, genetics plays a large role. For example, I personally don't find broccoli bitter at all, but some people with a different haplotype think that it is bitter. My mentor thinks that endive is really bitter, but for me... it was pretty much lettuce. Watery, slightly lettuce-stem-y, ending with a slight bitter note. Bitter melon is definitely more bitter. Raw asparagus is more bitter. Heck, weak coffee is more bitter, in my opinion. See, I love Monell because I'm doing research, sort of, by exploring new foods and applying these scientific taste ideas into my life. Another perspective that I've never considered is this idea, which I've simplified here for lay understanding: 

In a sandwich, there's:

1. Sweet in onion

2. Umami in tomato

3. Bitter in watercress

4. Sweat odor in cheese

5. Boar taint in ham

Let's say I have the genotype +/+ for 1. and 2. Let's say SP has the +/+ genotype for 3. 4. and 5. This means that I'd enjoy the sandwich much more than SP would. 

(Reed, Danielle R., and Antti Knaapila. "Genetics of Taste and Smell: Poisons and Pleasures."Progress in Molecular Biology and Translational Science 94 (2010): 231. Print.

Reference: DOI: 10.1016/S1877-1173(10)94008-8)

I know it's an oversight, but I've never considered haplotypes in taste receptors as a reason why people would dislike the taste of a soup or a marinade. It just never occurred to me.

My mentor told me that they make the white endive by putting opaque bags over them so that there is no chlorophyll development (therefore, no green pigment). This reminds me of white asparagus. I guess I personally prefer there to be chlorophyll, because I like green. Also, chlorophyll has magnesium, which I would ingest, and I don't know enough plant biology to know whether white plants have magnesium stored elsewhere...

 So, what to do with endive? Cook it? I prefer to eat leafy vegetables raw, though. I just ripped it up and stuck it in some spaghetti with chili sauce and Chinese spiced bamboo shoots.

I also stuck some in a crunchy peanut butter sandwich with dried cranberries. This isn't weird for me because I love lettuce and peanut butter sandwiches. I also love cucumber and peanut butter sandwiches. Actually, I'm sure any vegetable goes well with peanut butter. Yes, even tomato (tomato in a peanut curry would probably be fantastic. I might try that one day).

MAGNI 2011 (Quiz Bowl) at GMU

Quiz bowl...logistics: at George Mason University, at 9 in the morning until 7:20 pm. The night before, I went to bed at around 11 and got up at 3:55am. AS and I took the train to DC, took the metro to Vienna/GMU, and SP's mum drove us and SP to GMU. We were the B team. the A team got to drive there (a.k.a they left around 6:30 am instead of 4).

AS and I were supposed to take the 7:20pm train back to Penn, but as we were sitting in the library-food-court-thing (AMAZING! LIBRARY AND FOOD COURT ALL IN ONE!!) at 7:21pm, that evidently did not happen. We ended up getting to the train station at 9:00, just in time to take a 9:20 pm train... except that there wasn't one! The next train was at 10pm (and the one after that was at 3:15 am). Unfortunately, the train didn't actually arrive until 10:40 pm and we finally got back to Penn around 12:50am. It was terrible.

However, I did have a nice time (initially) and my organic chem and bio knowledge definitely paid off (but now I should relearn all that APUS that I used to know!!).

In 11 rounds, I got 15 toss ups, apparently. I think that I could've gotten at least 22 (or even 25, actually) if I wasn't so scared to buzz in. I apparently -5 only two times, so this means that I should buzz in more often. Also, there was a question (am I allowed to talk about questions if the same tournament is being played next Saturday at Brown?...guess not?) that I disagree with...but nevertheless, a good time overall. I like sandwiches. I can live on sandwiches! I really like jalapeno cheese bread...I got this at "subconnection", which, according to JL, is a knock-off of Subway. A sub-connection of Subway (har. har.). The black market version. I mean, they sell 30 cm subs for $5, just like Subway! I've decided that raw mushrooms are alright, if doused in chipotle sauce. Actually, raw mushrooms are pretty good even without the sauce. They're really umami!!

So, Starbucks sucks. I am not a fan of Starbucks anymore. I don't understand why it's cool to spend $2.50 on a slice of pumpkin bread that is possibly made the afternoon before using a Starbucks-distributed-flour-mixture-which-includes-egg (i.e. not freshly cracked eggs: do you see eggshells at Starbucks?) when I can get a whole loaf of equally delicious homemade no-maltodextrin-added pumpkin bread from the farmer's market for $3. Tasty, though.

Kale

I don't think I've ever had kale before. I've heard of it before, but I never knew what it was until I was at the Clark Park Farmers' Market, and I decided to buy some kale from the high school kids garden...I'm not sure what the group is called, but it's basically high school kids growing vegetables. In short, I'd rather buy from them than buy from other vegetable vendors because I can relate more to high school kids. They sold chard, kale, spinach, and other vegetables, and I asked them which is kale, since I couldn't recognise it (embarrassing!). One of the high school kids let out a laugh and showed me what the kale was. I asked him how to cook it, and he said, "Oh you know, you can boil it, add some salt and pepper..."

Pretty nice; $2.50 for a fresh, leafy bunch.

I ended up checking whether I could eat kale raw, and it turns out that it tastes like broccoli. This is a good thing, because due to my single nucleotide polymorphisms on the TAS2R38 gene, I'm either a heterozygote, or homozygote for the haplotype that doesn't detect bitterness. I don't think that raw broccoli is bitter, although people homozygous for the other haplotype think that raw broccoli is extremely bitter. I'd say that raw kale is more bitter than raw broccoli, so those with the other SNP can probably only stomach cooked kale...

Anyway, raw kale is simply beautiful and delicious (even the stems are okay, although I'd prefer them cooked. Chard stems and leaves, on the other hand, MUST be cooked, in my opinion), and I think it's my new favourite raw leafy vegetable (because spinach, although delicious, has some sort of astringency after a while).

I ate four kale/roasted eggplant sandwiches today, with organic baguette-style-sliced bread from Slow Rise Bakery. My mum told me that she roasted eggplant using my method, and that "it was delicious, even when cold"!

Yay!

The kale on the left is raw kale, whereas the one on the right is kale that went through some heat processing (in a sandwich press). I had to use a sandwich press to make my toast because the toaster was broken... :(

Eggplant Sandwich!!!

In terms off eggplant, I am definitely not an egghead. Sure, I've helped my parents flip eggplant on the BBQ grill, and I often eat Chinese stir fries with eggplant. I've just never truly cooked eggplant before. Or baked it. Or boiled it. I'm not really sure how to cook eggplant without usurping it of its nutrients, or adding a lot of oil (like my mum does when we have stir fries).

I don't want to make eggplant stir fry mainly because the eggplant from Chinatown looks so darn fresh (though it's definitely not "organic" in any sense of the word! I can tell they sprayed it with ethylene gas, because the surfaces underneath the leaves are still white). I also don't have any oil. I know, this sounds really stupid; oil/butter/other fats are a staple in a kitchen, especially when cooking, but I'm someone going to survive these two months without them (I think). One week down.

These are "cylindrical" eggplants...not the "teardrop-shaped" ones.

Apparently, eggplant can be eaten raw, although it may be bitter. I tried a chunk before I baked these, and they weren't bitter at all; they were actually kind of sweet and spongy, with a bit of moisture. I prefer them cooked, though.

After doing some research and reading a recipe, I figured that I should just slice my eggplant, salt the slices (yeah, I have a lot of salt, pepper, garlic powder, and Italian Pizza Seasoning, but no oil.), rinse the slices, and stick them on a cookie sheet for 20 minutes at 375F... and just see what happens.

I learned a few things:

1. I feel very self-conscious when I prepare and cook food in front of strangers. I felt very shy cutting eggplant while another girl in the apartment was waiting for her mac and cheese to bake.

2. Eggplant should be sliced at an angle, not cut like cucumbers.

3. Salting and rinsing sounds easy, but actually is really annoying because you use a ton of paper towels. After using three segments for four slices of eggplant, I decided to just stick everything on the cookie sheet and just bake it and see what happens. I should've added some pepper, but oh well.

The methodology for neophytes like me is this:

1. Do not peel eggplants. Evenly slice eggplants at an angle. Unfortunately, my slices ranged from 1 cm to 3 cm.

2. Pour some salt/pepper on your hand/plate, dip both sides of the eggplant flesh into it, and place the slice of eggplant on the cookie sheet. You do not need aluminium foil.

3. Repeat.

4. Bake at 350F (the oven was preheated due to the mac and cheese) on the bottom rack for 10-20 minutes. Since there is no baking soda/powder in this recipe, you can open the oven a lot to prod the eggplants.

5. Poke eggplant with a fork to see if is squishy and gooey yet (If it still looks white, it's not really done, but it's edible).

6. Turn off oven and let sit for however long you want, if you want something more sludgy.

7. Stick in sandwiches!!

Notice that there is NO OIL INVOLVED.

So I made a spinach, cheese and eggplant with herbs sandwich, which I stuck on the sandwich grill/press that we have in the apartment. It's a really efficient non-stick grill. It's amazing!!!

Campus Food...What? Be a Scavenger...

A few weeks ago, there was this terribly organised event called "CampusFood Free for All". The theory was that there would be tons of restaurant food from catering services affiliated with CampusFood, and all this food would go to us frosh, along with nice glass mugs.

This failed in many many many aspects.

1. Squishing 1000s of people, including not frosh, into a small room (fire hazard=more than 200 people) evidently doesn't make sense.

2. Having people stand in line outside this room doesn't work, especially since nearly everyone cuts lines. This really irked me...but I suppose I should've expected it; after all, humans are greedy, jealous, and selfish. It's human nature. So, it was basically a blob of a line, and MA, who arrived maybe half an hour after me and TJ somehow ended up getting a mug an hour before we did.

3. Insomnia Cookies is on the floor below the room. Somehow, they only provided us with 3 boxes of cookies, which ended up going to people standing behind us.

4. Cream and Sugar didn't turn up.

5. Oh, you know what DID turn up? Pizza and sammiches. But it's not a Frosh Free for All! No no no, it's take-half-a-slice-of-pizza and a-small-chunk-of-a-cured-pig-flesh-sammich and don't-take-more! For some reason, they didn't expect this many frosh to turn up [hello? 2,500 frosh!! + all the other undergrads and grads...]

So it was a terrible waste of an hour although I did get a mug out of it. So then TJ and I went to Hill for actual dinner [At the "Free For All", we saw the first few people walking out with 3+ slices of pizza. We ended up each getting half a slice of pizza. So...]

At Hill, there was sushi! Although the rice tasted correctly seasoned with the vinegar, the rice was either overcooked [congee-texture], or undercooked [hard]. It was a nice change, although the server only gave everyone two pieces :(

There was also a cupcake with icky pink icing, no doubt because they want to use up all the leftover red food colouring from Commercialization Day. I've never seen Hill with cupcakes before, but I have to say that the cupcakes are bland, dry, and boring. Actually, I don't really think I tremendously like the baked goods at Penn Dining because the cookies are always hard and never moist/soft, and the cakes are as I have described. The pies are generally fantastic though and the mini doughnuts are quite nice because they have this flavour that reminds me of doughnuts that I used to eat in Australia and HK.

Late July Vanilla Bean and Green Tea Sandwich Cookies

I'm going to admit it; I was highly swayed by advertising. The phrase "Green Tea" caught my eye, and I believed that for once, I could buy a green tea flavoured cookie from a non-specialty store!

I was so upset when I realised that these sandwich cookies do not taste like green tea. Green tea is actually the last ingredient on the list. In fact, if it weren't for the placebo effect [after chewing on the cookie for simply ages and thinking, oh! Perhaps that bitter note was the green tea!], I would honestly just say that they are normal sandwich cookies.

Compared to Oreos, however, they are much more flavourful. The cookies are crunchier, more chocolately, and more crumbly textured [instead of the uniform texture of Oreos]. The vanilla filling isn't that waxy, actually tastes vanilla-ful, is less sweet, and really melts well in my mouth. It has dimension, unlike the Oreo cookie filling.

Of course, I may be swayed [yet again] by the fact that these are organic and reputedly made by one family [although how they get each cookie to look perfect with the indents and stuff is beyond a "one family operation", in my opinion, and as the website states that this is all cooked up by one mother, she should understand that other mothers/people in general don't like spending 2x the amount of money to buy something that is already unhealthy. Except for the mental-chillness of eating cookies, they are physically not really healthy, no matter what people say.

Victoria Sandwich Cake

I decided to tackle the Victoria sandwich cake again. This time was NOT going to be a half-baked attempt to recreate something that I knew worked 7 years ago. This time, however, I creamed the sugar and butter first, and I used bleached flour. The result? The second-best Victoria sandwich cake, ever! [The best one was the first one I made, because it was less burnt and more jammy].

Ingredients

150 g caster/granulated sugar

150 g unsalted butter

150 g self-raising white flour

1 tsp baking powder

3 eggs

JAM OF CHOICE!

Powdered sugar!

Method

1. Cream sugar and butter. This takes a long time, but it is extremely worth it. I suppose softened butter would be easier to cream, but I'm guessing the butter I used was around 18 degrees C.

2. Add 3 eggs and mix. You will get a lumpy mixture. The original recipe called for the use of an electric whisk, but I don't have one. I don't have many sleek kitchen utensils... so I just mix. Please, Victoria sandwich cakes were invented wayyyyy before electric whisks were [Victoria = Queen Victoria, right?]

Yes. Lumpy.

3. Add in flour one tablespoon at a time. By the last three tablespoons, you will have a really thick batter. The batter should ALMOST be cookie-dough-dense batter. The batter will have little lumps.

4. Separate batter into two pans. The whole point of the Victoria sandwich cake is its sandwich-ness. It is perfect for females to make for males, as it is a sandwich, but offers all the cakey goodness that men crave [ JUST KIDDING!].

5. Anyway, bake at 355 degrees F [or, 180 degrees C, as the original recipe says] for:

8 inch/20cm pans: 25 minutes [says the original recipe] on...the middle rack

9.5 inch pans [the pans I used]: no more than 20 minutes!! on the lowest rack

For me, I used the lowest rack and after I baked the cakes for 20 minutes, I let them sit in the oven for another 20 minutes. When I took them out, one was perfect and the other was a tad burnt. Ah well. Next time I'm putting them in for 15 minutes and letting them sit for 30 minutes.

6. Spread with jam. Warm jam is more easily spread, but cold jam is good too. Then, SANDWICH!

Victoria sandwich cakes are usually thicker, and the recipe I had was meant for 20 cm pans. So, my Victoria sandwich cake was rather thin. However, the taste, texture, and smell were not lost! It was rich, crumbly [big big big big big crumbs!], buttery, crusty on the circumference but spongy in the center, pure, fresh, and mouth-watering. It was not vanilla-y, small-spongy-holes, artificial, super-sweet, or like any of those yellow cake mixes at the store.

You will NOT find a cake like this in a box or frozen in a tin in a store in the U.S. You won't even find this in the bakery section! It doesn't taste moist like Boston cream pies-cakes, and it doesn't taste at all monotone like those *ahem* various "just add half a cup of oil and 3 eggs and mix and bake!" cake mixes. Victoria sandwich cakes are delicate, flavourful, and clean-tasting. One interesting aspect of it is that when you first bite into it, the cake doesn't feel that great; it's dry and crumbly [but not crunchy]. However, as you chew, you feel a bit of "juice" flow out of each thick crumb. Yes, this "juice" is sugary butter. How succulent.

The powdered sugar isn't necessary, but it adds a nice touch to the sandwich cake. Notice that the sandwich cake is not "yellow" or "white" or one uniform colour; it is composed of beautiful shades of caramel; it demonstrates elegance and hard work. Yes, I'm being dramatic, but this cake was definitely the most meaningful cake I've ever made [I'm... bad at making cakes...]

My sister started taking chunks out of it from 11am to 1pm. I told her to just take a slice already! She loved it.

SHE LOVED IT.

This is going to be her birthday cake! It's going to be better than last year's! It's going to be eight layers tall! [Maybe?]

Victoria sandwich cakes are also really photogenic in sunlight. Look at these pictures! No flash! Perfect!

172 Posts!

They said I couldn't do it... they said I'd get bored... they said I'd forget my password or my account would get hacked... but they were wrong! PIE-314 lives and reeks of nearly-year-old food! [The blog is only a year old on the 24th, because that's when I was done with midterm exams]

Unfortunately, there was no "they". My parents are unaware my this blog, my siblings are indifferent, and I have perhaps gained 2 frequent readers to this blog. To them: Thank you!

In 2010, I created 172 posts, and if you count the one on 1.1.11 [which is about the food in 2010, and included food I made in 2010], I had 173 posts. This means that I posted on about 47.4% [or 47.1%] of the year, with August having a post on every single day.

This year I suppose I should blog more, since I've realised that I never actually write about the economic/social/scientific aspects of food that much... Most of the time it's me making really stinky jokes and using dramatic imagery to make your salivary glands release an excess of amylase. I also ought to take better pictures and I really want to figure out how to make these uploaded pictures larger! 400x300 pixels is much too small nowadays, although you can click to get a 10.2mpx or 5.0mpx version.

Anyway, I haven't been blogging recently because I've been hanging out with BV and today I did the unforgivable act of prolonging the shelf-life of stereotypes.

I made a sandwich. For a male person.

Actually, it was a half-baked attempt, because it was only one slice of bread spread with peanut butter. Controversial or not... I'd gladly make him more sandwiches. He said he'd cook for me too, so that's cool :D.

So, here are some pictures of Chowder from Chowder. I love to watch Chowder!

Sammich!

Yes, I actually cooked today.

YES I ACTUALLY BAKED TODAY. [First time I stuck something in the oven since...lasagne in the summer?]

But what I'm baking is currently in the oven, and, besides, I want to wait it out because I'm going to make two more of them... so I'll make a cheesy [harhar!! punny hint!] blog post about them on...Sunday, most likely, because Saturday's post will be about JM's Christmas party.

Instead, I'm going to post about a meal I had about three Sundays ago, and it was quite cool because it was individually tailored!

I was at Commons, with the take-out box because I really needed to study so I couldn't eat in the cafeteria, and I decided to have a sandwich. Commons always has this really crust bread at the sandwich-making place, so I asked the dude whether I could have a sandwich made out of that kind of bread.

"This? It's been sitting here for a few weeks now... I don't really recommend it. But tell you what, let me check out the back to see whether we have any fresh bread like this."

So he goes to the back and comes back with a baguette.

AMAZING!

So, this is why Commons DOES NOT SUCK! This is evidence stating that Penn's food is not bad! This is in retaliation to people who call the dining hall servers annoying or anything negative! This dude was awesome! Instead of square wheat bread, he gave me a fresh half of a baguette!

As a side note, Commons recently decided to add a nacho bar to the dining hall, so we have a pizza place, a dessert place, a fruit bar, a salad bar, a grill, a comfort foods place, the hot and cold drinks...and a nacho bar. Sweet. Or should I say, zesty!

3 Dinners!

Somehow, my normal dinner at Commons ended up, in three hours, being a triple dinner. I went to a career info session, where there was food from Greek Lady. I then went to French House and my professor, who hadn't had dinner yet, decided to take us all to Tandoor India Restaurant for dinner. Whoot...

The Greek Lady sandwiches made me realise that I indeed haven't been eating many sandwiches lately, and that I indeed LOVE and miss sandwiches. So, for the past week [This was the 4th], I've been eating at least one sandwich per day. Sometimes, one sandwich per meal. It is delicious.

So, I was full by the time we went to Tandoor, so I just tried some stuff...dude, this was at least $10 and I felt bad for not eating a lot... but I was actually full. The naan bread was AMAZING though, as was the potato and vegetable samosa. The spinach with cheese was also great, but the cube of dessert [I'm not really sure what it is, and it's kinda hard to see due to the flash of the camera] was really gross. I think it's just that my taste buds don't like it...

We all then had some mango lassis, which I initially disliked because I could taste the grains of sugar. After a while, though, it got more tolerable, although I didn't feel hungry, which is perhaps why this review is quite negative. I just think that fresh mangoes, mango ice cream, or even mango pudding tastes better. I don't like having grainy pieces of sugar in my drinks... and this drink was supersaturated with sugar. For those who like sugary foods, this is for you :D!

Toasted Sandwich on Spruce Street. - 4th Sept

I finally met my peer advisor, and some of the other kids he advises. One actually lives on the dorm directly below mine, which is pretty cool considering that the dorms are randomly allocated [or are they?]. So, we went for lunch at this sandwich/salad store on Spruce Street, probably around 37th... Unfortunately, I have forgotten the name of the store at which talked about being freshmen in college. I do remember that I got a vegetarian sandwich [surprise surprise!] and the bread was toasted really well; it was extremely crispy, yet not burned. That's saying something! It was also this multigrain bread... I'm not sure whether its wheat flour is 100% whole grain, but I assume it is. There was tomato, eggplant, goat cheese, and spinach in the sandwich. Actually, I'm not positive it's goat cheese, but my intuition tells me it is. The sandwich was pretty light, which was nice since it made me feel all sophisticated [even though consuming the sandwich was really messy].

Berry Jam!

Basically, gooseberry jam...

...with strawberries, and raspberries, and kiwi, and tomatoes. Oh, and balsamic vinegar. This is the third summer in which I've made jam. The first summer, I made this blackcurrant jam that was wayyyy too dry. In other words, it congealed while the fire was still on, so by the time it had cooled, it had turned into a really-gummy-almost-dried-blackcurrant consistency. It was also really sour. Last year, I think I made three batches of jam [two currants, one gooseberry], which all turned out really lovely. This year, all our blackcurrants and red currants appear to have died, due to the climate characteristic of a summer on drugs. So, all we have now are raspberries and gooseberries. Actually, we're losing those too. Anyway, I salvaged about 4 cups of gooseberries, a few raspberries, and decided to make some jam, since my family isn't really in love with fresh gooseberries.

To make the jam:
4 cups of gooseberries [yay pectin!]
1 cup of sugar [which was way too much. Hence, I added all the other fruit too. Then again, I don't really like sickly-sweet jams, so maybe it's okay for other people]
0.5 cups of water
10 or so cherry tomatoes, cut in half
1 kiwi without seeds or white centre [my brother wanted to add this]
5 or so cut up strawberries.
4 tbsp balsamic vinegar [complements the strawberries very well, both taste-wise and SMELL-wise]1. Add gooseberries and sugar and balamic vinegar. The vinegar, I suppose, helps preserve the jam, meaning that we don't need to use lemon juice or another acid. In all honesty though, the sugar and gooseberry's acidity should preserve the jam well too. Stir mixture. Realise that there is wayyyyy too much sugar - see image above. All that goop is sugar. [A fine coating of sugar on each berry should be enough. A freakin' snowstorm is... too much for me].
2. Add water and other fruit.
3. Stick it on high on the stove until it starts to boil.
4. Add more fruit if it still looks/taste too sweet.

5. Start mashing the berries. Technically, the tomato is a berry. And, to astound you more, the kiwifruit is ALSO a berry! So, yes, I made berry jam today.
6. Turn down to the stove to low heat, and the mixture should be simmering. Stir every once in a while [this works best in a nonstick pot] for 45 minutes or so.

7. Check every once in a while by dropping a tad of it onto a dry plate and letting it sit there, and see whether it congeals. This is also a great time to taste the jammy syrup, because you want to know whether it's too sour/sweet.
Note the tomatoes - orangey.
8. Turn off heat. Let it sit for a while. Then, pour into jars. I got about...900g? Well, three chili-sauce jars full. Evidently, chili sauce has a different density than berry jam, so the yield is probably 1 kilo of jam.



We didn't have any bread so I spread some on man[2] tou[2] that my mum made a few days ago. You should put all remaining jam in the fridge. It keeps for at least a month. I don't know beyond that because we, as a family of 5 [well, temporarily 6] usually consume it all within that time.
Taste? Starts off soury-sweet, almost like candy. The gooseberry and strawberry flavour is initially very prevalent [NOT the store-bought strawberry jam taste, though!!], and ends in a slight tomato taste [think a tiny touch of tomato sauce]. There is no kiwi taste, even though my brother, who had insisted we stick in a kiwi, insists that there is a tang of kiwi. Texture-wuse, the skin from the berries and tomatoes and such are surprisingly a great addition. I find it amazing that the kiwi and strawberry chunks appear to have melted [even though they're just mushed]. ENJOY Jammmmmmin' EVERYONE!