Cooking: Szechwan Style Steamed Beef

With Christmas over, I'm finally able to cook more often again.

One of Justyn's favorite dishes to order at South Legend (our favorite Szechwan restaurant) is steamed beef. I was only able to find a couple recipes online but one seemed like the closest to what we had at the restaurant.

Link: http://sunflower-recipes.blogspot.com/2010/01/steamed-beef-with-roasted-rice.html

Since I had the day off I took care of a bunch of errands and made this dish for dinner. It turned out very strongly flavored as it should be but I think I may have overdone it with the peppercorns. My mouth is totally numb right now but it's worth it overlooking. I can't wait for Justyn to come home and try it :)

Christmas Vacation

Since Justyn was taking some time off this week I decided to do the same. We didn't have a trip planned or anything so it was really great opportunity to relax a bit and hang out with friends.

I think this was on Tuesday but Kris, Karen and I met up at Dave & Busters for some video games and dinner. We also met up with Alex & Kate but they were pretty beat from work earlier so they only had dinner with us. I ordered the sliders, wings & fries platter. Total indulgence but hey.. I'm on vacation!

The next day I started to catch a cold but decided to go out to lunch anyway with Alex, Kris, Karen, Reid and Justyn. We went to BCC Enterprises aka Jojo's BBQ aka Ghetto Q. They make the best ribs, chicken & sausages. I wasn't very hungry so I ended up getting a polish sausage with some beans and potato salad. That may already seem like a bunch of food but a normal combo order comes with two choice of meats, bread, potato salad & beans. It's super delish and although I didn't get a picture of the food, I did snap a picture of who I think is one of the owners outside tending to the meats.

After lunch, Justyn went out while I wrapped his presents.

The next evening, Justyn and I went to Santana Row to walk around and grab dinner. We went to a new place called The Counter which is a burger joint. You get to customize your burger out of all of the different ingrediant combinations which is a fun idea. I ordered a chicken burger with Russian dressing, herbed goat cheese, organic mixed greens, grilled onions and bacon. Justyn ordered a regular burger with his own toppings and we shared some sweet potato fries & onion strings. They also allow customized drink combinations but our waiter came by super fast so I just ordered a vodka tonic and Justyn had some beer. Suprisingly they had Devil's Canyon beer there so he got their Scotch Ale.

For Christmas Eve we had a few people over for drinks and appetizers. I had my sister and Justyn open up a gift. I got my sister a Henkels knife set and Justyn got a Citizen Eco watch that he had been eyeing. Karen got me a huuuge booze shaker which I used to make some dirty martinis. For dinner we went to Jubba's which is a Somalian restaurant. They make a fantastic chicken suquaar which is what Janice, Dave and I ordered. After that we went back to our house to hang out a bit more before everyone headed home.

The next day was CHRISTMAS!! My favorite holiday of the year. Justyn had woken up super early because he was on call so a few hours later he came in and woke me up. I was super excited and couldn't go back to sleep so we started unwrapping gifts. In addition to the watch, I got Justyn a taxidermied squirrel and the Mark Twain autobiography which he mentioned wanting a while ago. He was super stoked with his gifts which made me happy :) Justyn got me a leather jacket and a mattress pad warmer which we're trying out tonight. My sister got me a necklace from my Amazon wishlist.

I also made tomato and feta baked eggs for brunch from a recipe I found on closetcooking.blogspot.com. I overcooked the eggs a little bit but it still tasted fantastic.

For dinner we went to my mom & dad's house. My mom made some t-bone steaks, salad, a potato dish and dessert based from Holland. We also celebrated Oscar's 3rd birthday. All in all it was a really nice day. I'm rounding it out by watching Elf :D

Weekend Update

On Friday we went to Devil's Canyon brewery. We tried a few of their beers before heading over to a taqueria across the street for dinner. After that we went to Old World spirits. I'm not a big gin fan so I let Justyn do the tasting. I had a couple tiny sips but didn't like their gin but their absinthe was amazing.

On Saturday, Karen had planned a surprise birthday dinner for Kris. He probably assumed that dinner would be just Karen and him but she invited Jen, Stefano, Reid, Chloe, Justyn and I. We arrived there about an hour early so we went to a nearby dive bar called Hi Dive. There I had the best dirty martini. It wasn't overly salty and strong like I've had in the past. At around 7:30 we walked to Palomino's and met up with Reid, Chloe, Jen & Stefano. Around 8:00, Kris and Karen arrived and he definitely had a surprised look on his face when he saw us. Four bottles of wine, dinner and dessert later we found ourselves back to Hi Dive for a night cap before heading back home. It was an awesome night filled with great conversation and good times.

Today we caught up on some much needed sleep before going to Cafe San Jose for brunch. I had the breakfast sandwich with country potatoes which were delish! I’m normally not a breakfast person so for me to say it was good, actually says a lot. Justyn ordered the pancake sandwich which came with eggs and bacon. After brunch we went to see Tron which was a really great movie. It was definitely a lot better than the original filled with tons of action and breath taking CGI.

We’re probably going to take it easy for the rest of the evening, eat leftovers for dinner before going to bed early for work tomorrow. *sigh* One more day until vacation!