i like to eat.

Gap's doing these Nacho Fridays too often. They're not as special anymore. :(

Imagine Quizno's, but better. Less franchise-y and more about a local sandwich shop that uses only fresh ingredients.

I first heard about Toaster Oven while I was a student at Academy of Art. I was taking an advertising concepting class and Toaster Oven was one of our clients. The sandwich shop was brand new and the owner turned to us to think of new ideas to market his restaurant.

My class and I concepted many ideas and unfortunately, they never made into production. But, during our research, we got to enjoy plenty of sandwiches from Toaster Oven. It's not hard to research when you're enjoying something so good. :)

Every sandwich is toasted on a conveyor belt for consistent heating and the bread is soft and crispy. All the ingredients are fresh and I love the pickled peppers they include in your sandwich.

I usually get the Kitchen Sink (roast beef, turkey, salami, ham and provolone cheese), but it seemed a little much, so I got my second favorite, Italiano. A delicious sandwich of mushroom, mortadella, capicola, salami, pepperoni and provolone cheese.

You must try this place if you're into toasted sandwiches. A word of advice, be sure to eat your sandwich as soon as possible. It's much better eaten warm. And who likes soggy sandwiches? ;)

Oh my. I made it. I seriously made it.

I managed to follow a week of dinners without any glitches or spontaneous weeknight dinners with friends. Well, actually, a friend did invite us to dinner and we had to decline. I was committed to finish this personal challenge!

The last meal, on Friday night was spaghetti with sweet potatoes and ricotta.

This was my least favorite dish out of the entire week. Kind of disappointing, since I wanted to leave with a bang.

The pasta was dry, even though I added extra butter and oil into the dish. I was hoping the ricotta would melt more and create some sort of sauce, but nope, it didn't. The flavors of the sweet potato, ricotta and spaghetti were fine, but I personally like more sauce on my pasta dishes.

This week, I was able to broaden my (non-existent) culinary skills and try new flavors. I'm quite happy with all the dishes. Out of all the meals, I liked Monday night's the best. It's something I'd usually cook and maybe that's why I liked it the most.

The article in Real Simple was actually for a month's worth of easy dinners, so technically, I have three more weeks of this, if I really want to step it up. haha. I'll take it one week at a time, for now. :)

A sweet colleague brought a box full of Dynamo sticky buns for a morning treat. I haven't had sticky buns in a long time and these sure were sticky - almost like taffy. Sticky and good, perfect with my morning latte.

Thanks Nina!

   

Click here to download:

Sticky_Bunz_tag_breakfast_dyna.zip (490 KB)

My second to last day of this week long dinner challenge! Yay!

For Thursday night, I made spicy orange-glazed drumsticks with green beans.

The recipe called for corn bread muffins. I thought I had a box of Jiffy in my pantry. Whoops, nope. A quick replacement was some left over rice from Tuesday night.

I usually hate eating off the bone (too much work), but these drumsticks were tender and the meat easily fell off. I didn't taste too much of the orange flavor and I think it's because the chili sauce I used was pretty spicy. Next time, I'll use less hot sauce to bring out the orange flavor more.

And the perfect cold drink to compliment this meal?

Tripel Karmeliet, my favorite Belgium beer.

   

Click here to download:

Weeknight_Dinner_Part_4_tag_fo.zip (470 KB)

My lunches at Gap have been unexciting, so that's why you haven't heard much.

This particular day was a pretty good lunch though. I had a vegetarian sandwich with tomato, cucumber, lettuce, roasted peppers and avocado on wheat. Sounds kind of boring, but the avocado sealed the deal and made it interesting.

I sometimes wonder if I could be a vegetarian...

Hmm, probably not. A juicy steak and glass of red wine easily makes me drool.

I'm half way there! Yay. Wednesday night - roasted pork with Brussels sprouts and apricots.

I like Brussels sprouts. The first time I ever had them was at Houston's in San Francisco. They were so good. I couldn't believe all these years, I was missing out on a yummy vegetable. I tried to cook Brussels sprouts once and it was a disaster. I couldn't even finish it and had to throw it out. The main culprit could have been because I didn't use fresh sprouts. I was crossing my fingers that this dish would turn out good.

I've never cooked pork tenderloin before, so I was excited to cook something new. It took my oven slightly longer (an extra 10 minutes) to cook. I wasn't sure if the pork was thoroughly cooked or not, so I was paranoid that I was going to poison my boyfriend and I. But, I kept checking the meat and it was finally cooked all the way. The pork was extremely tender and moist, no dry meat here! I was pretty proud that I nailed it my first time.

The Brussels sprouts and apricots were a nice compliment to the pork. This time, the sprouts were fresh and delicious.

I wouldn't mind cooking this dish again. Maybe I'll make some sort of apricot sauce for the pork next time.

Related: Weeknight Dinner, Part 1, 2

Tuesday night was beef and boy choy stir-fry, as part of my challenge to cook every day of the week and to follow a menu in Real Simple magazine.

Another easy recipe to follow, although I accidentally over cooked the bok choy. I was doing too many things at once, there's a reason why most chefs have a mise en place (everything prepped before hand and reachable)!

The flavor of the flank steak was actually pretty good. It was marinated in rice vinegar, soy sauce, ginger and brown sugar. I'd use this marinade again and next time, I won't over cook the veggies! :)

   

Click here to download:

Weeknight_Dinner_Part_2_tag_fo.zip (417 KB)

Related: Weeknight Dinner, Part 1

I was reading "A Month of Easy Dinners" in the October issue of Real Simple magazine a few weeks ago. I never follow these types of planned out dinners or menus because my week's pretty spontaneous and I can rarely commit to cooking for an entire week. Plus, I usually pick out just one dish in a menu that looks interesting to try out.

I was watching Check, Please!, a TV program that reviews restaurants by local residents. This particular episode featured Udupi Palace, a Southern Indian restaurant in Berkeley. Wanting to try a new restaurant and cuisine, this place seemed like the perfect choice.

The menu was hard to decipher. I had no idea what most of the items were and the descriptions were vague. Luckily, I remembered a few dishes that were mentioned in the TV show.

I ordered a sampler type of dish called thali. Not 100% sure what all the dishes were (would have helped if waiter explained). There was some sort of soup, rice, masalas, sweet chickpeas and lentils - all very different textures and flavors. What the most interesting thing was you'd eat all these dishes with a fried "puffy bread (real description)" called batura. It was huge and quickly deflated once I broke a piece off. The taste was mild and served as a utensil to scoop the different dishes.

Jason ordered a dosa, Indian crepe, with spinach and spicy potatoes. The dish came with a cute little vada or lentil donut. It was quite large and filling, enough to feed the both of us.

Udupi was affordable. It only cost us a little less than $20 for the both of us. The food was good and interesting, but my stomach disagreed soon after leaving the restaurant. I think my stomach wasn't used to all the different flavors and spices. :(

     

Click here to download:

Something_New_tag_food_indian_.zip (741 KB)