Christmas Break Desserts and Dinner

It is no surprise that being on vacation from work, during the holidays will lead to different eating patterns.  We slept in some days, others we got up a little earlier.  We did some work, but we also played.  It was nice having Ryan home for the week (this was between Christmas and New Years).  But of course, the schedule was not the usual routine.  It was more of a leisurely pace, with a laid back attitude, and countless hours on the internet either doing things of real value, or just plain abusing Google.  For me, I had more time to play on my iPad, and with that I decided to try out StumbleUpon. 

Within minutes I hooked and finding all kinds of things, but interesting, and not so much.  One thing I can say is that I found a lot of fun blogs with very fun recipes on them.  One night I was playing around and found a blog post (from 2009, I think) that had what claimed to be the best, and yet very simple, brownie recipe.  I realized I had all the ingredients, and could very easily make them.  Well, I waited.  I didn't need brownies that badly, and we had plenty of other good munchies around because it was the holiday break.  Well, 24 hours later, I was still eyeing those brownies, and then Ryan put in the request, and well, I think we all know what happened next.

BROWNIES! 

Getting all the ingredients mixed together.

Nice and chocolatey.

But wait!  It needs more chocolate!

Phew!  Now we are good and ready to get in the oven.

Within minutes, we could smell them and they were ready to cool down.

The verdict? Excellent!  OK, not the best ever (could just be my baking skills, not the recipe's fault), but definitely up there.  I will definitely be making these again.  The tasted good, and they were so easy.

Well, you can see the brownie making set the tone for the rest of the week off from work.  When we went for sushi, we each tried one of these.  Normally we do not eat any of the desserts at the sushi place, but this looked like fun.  Yes, it actually looked like fun.  It is a pancake (don't let the word waffle fool you, this is a pancake!  Yeah, I know, in this picture you can't see the word waffle either, but trust me, it's there) filled with creme.  It was pretty good, but perhaps had been frozen at one point.  Not that it tasted like that, but the very middle actually seemed more like ice cream.

Beer for dessert?  Sure!  While out and about we found some of the local brewery beers for sale, so I picked up a few to try.  Definitely good, and I will definitely get these again.  Actually, I hope to make it to the brewery soon.

More dessert?  Of course!  This time we stopped at a French bakery, and this was only because we tried to get Chinese for lunch on Christmas, but the place just closed for lunch and would reopen in 2.5 hours for dinner, and we were hungry.  Yes, it made the most sense to stop at the bakery across the street and then go on a mini-road trip until we could come back for dinner.

So what did we buy for Christmas mid-afternoon dessert?  Apple tart!  It was listed as a tart, but it is close to a pie.  Who cares about the technicalities of the dessert definition?!?!?!  It was an apple something-or-other and it had a little Santa on it.  How cute!

It was good!  It was really good!  I know I have said this before, but I love that the Japanese do not do super sweet.  The pie was so much better without the excess sugar.  Plus, the slice was not super huge.  That's another thing I like about the Japanese.

What do we have here?  Macarons!  Really, there is no way Ryan and I could walk into a French bakery without getting some of these little goodies.  We actually wound up eating these on the road (not all of them of course!) and saved the pie for later.

Since we only had 1 macaron each and no lunch, we also stopped off at a convenience store while we were out exploring.  While convenience stores here offer the typical convenience foods, I have found them to be much better than many US places.  This is because the portions are still smaller in general in Japan, and less sugar in the typical convenience products.  Plus, you can get some healthier pre-made items, including sushi.  We only really stopped so I could use the bathroom and we could get a drink to wash down the macaron, but we were hungry, so we thought we would give these a try.

Did you figure out this is cheese?  Similar to Laughing cow, and actually pretty tasty.  These helped hold us over until we made it back to the Chinese place for dinner.

Now you can see that even in Japan we were able to do Chinese for Christmas.  Yes, this is the typical Jewish thing to do, and Ryan was down with it, so we stuck with the tradition.  Of course, being in Japan, lots of things were open, so we really could have had our pick.  But Chinese, is, and always will be, a good Christmas meal (especially when it is just the two of us and I don't eat meat).

I had the shrimp:

Ryan had the beef:

Plus he got soup and a salad.

 

Not bad at all!

Oh, and if you are wondering if all the desert and other eating resulted in packing on the pounds over the holidays (remember by post on this topic?), the answer is no.  Not even a pound.  Now, the nutritional quality, well that is a different story!  Calories in range, but perhaps could have used some more veggies and whole grains in there.  Of course, a few weeks into the new year with my diet back to normal, I think I probably suffered no real damage or long term consequences of malnutrition.

We also did some fun activities over the break, and I will have more on that coming up.

QUESTIONS:  What is your favorite kind of pie?  Do you have any unusual Christmas (or other holiday) traditions?  What's your favorite brownie recipe?

Hodge Podge of Home Cooked Goodies (Mostly)

Before I show off some of the goodies I made while Ryan was recovering, check out the sushi I picked up from the commissary.  I was really trying to keep the noise down in the living room and not run the microwave or cook things that smelled too much because he was really sensitive to all of that, so I thought sushi would be perfect.  Well it would have been, except he woke up right then and can into the living room and it was a tad too fishy smelling for him.  When you are sick, you are sick, and some smells just do not work.

As he was starting to feel better I started making more foods.  One that I was really eager to try was this Flatout bread that I picked up from FNCE.  I spotted the pizza picture on the front and thought this would be a really great idea.

So let's take a look at the facts.  One bread has 90 calories, low in fat, high in fiber and has quite a bit of protein.  Not sure about the 1 gram of sugar alcohol in here, but I will let that slide.  Overall I think this fits in to any diet well, but I wouldn't use it everyday.  I like that it is low in calories, but the sodium is a little high, and I personally like variety in my breads.  I actually think I like this better for pizza use than a sandwich.  As for the taste, not to bad, and I am picky, so I was impressed that it tasted better than I expected.

Here is what it looks like before I "decorated".

I added mushrooms to my pizza, and as usual, I added way too many, which I knew, but left them on, and it was a little too heavy for the pizza.

But it was good, and I ate all of it.

During his time home from work I also got out of the house a little bit just to make sure he had quiet and I could go and make some noise somewhere.  So where might I head to entertain myself?  The local grocery store.  After wandering and looking at packages of foods, I came home with some sushi for dinner...

...and some ice cream for dessert.

I really like the little cups of ice cream.  It is better than sitting around with a pint (although I could never eat that all in one sitting).

Towards the end of Ryan's time at home, he was starting to feel better and was eating a little more, so I was ready to get into the kitchen.  I had gotten a few Cooking Light magazines in the mail, which had been forwarded from the island, so they are a few months old.  I saw these salted caramel brownies and knew right away that I wanted, no needed, to make these.

Started with my dry ingredients.

Then I ran into a problem.  I did not have enough liquid to get everything wet, and I had quite a lot left over that was dry.

I decided to add just a teeny bit more of egg and that did the trick.

After my oven finally decided to cook my brownies (we have since had the oven replaced), I took them out, let them cool, and moved on to the caramel topping.

The topping included some butter, and then a bunch of sugar.  Not the healthiest, but if I am going to indulge in some brownies every once in awhile, I am certainly making them from scratch and using the "real" food.

Yummy caramel topping!

Then I coated my brownies.

Drizzled some chocolate.

Obviously sprinkled with too much salt in some places (as you can see here, oops!).  Then I enjoyed my brownies.  Yes, my slice is about 2 servings since the recipe makes 20 brownies and the pan was a 9x9 so I cut into 9 brownies, although we did cut some of those in half.  I really depended on our appetites at that time.

Next up is a yummy white bean soup.

I started with carrots, celery and onions

Cooked those in a little oil.

Then I added some veggie broth, a little water, and my beans, plus some black pepper and Mrs. Dash Italian seasoning.

When it was nice and hot we enjoyed a tasty soup.  This was a good one, and I plan to make it again sometime.

Last up is a sandwich, which I made using these flatbreads, which I picked up at FNCE too.  They were chipotle flavored, so I decided they would go nice with a breakfast sandwich.

I kept it basic and just added some scrambled eggs and cheese.

Folded it over, and had a yummy breakfast sandwich.

After all that, Ryan was feeling much better and headed back to work.  When he came home at the end of his first week he brought me these beautiful flowers.


I was very glad that I found the vase after only 10 minutes of looking.  I figured it may never turn up.  Yeah, it was sitting next to the sink for so long that I just forgot it was right out in the open, like it was a permanent fixture in the decor and just blended with the wall.  I felt silly after that one.




QUESTIONS:  Have you ever tried Flat Out bread or the Pan Plano bread?  How would you use them? What is your favorite kind of brownie?  When was the last time you got flowers?