Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Cast Free, but Not Fixed Yet

I went to the doctor's office to have my cast removed.
They also X-ray'd my foot to make sure everything was okay.

So now I'm cast-free.
But for the next week or two, I'm only supposed to walk in 10-15 min intervals. So much for getting my daily exercise. Boo!

After the doc appointment, we went to Target to buy Koge's food. So I walked around the store for 30 mins... then we went to eat dinner w/ じゅるる's co-worker & stayed at the restaurant for 3 hours.

By then, my left foot was really swollen.


The foot is actually darker in real life, so my foot looks like an elephant's foot.

The swelling is supposed to continue for the next several weeks.
I don't think I can wear regular shoes for a while... Thank goodness for Crocs.

Monday, December 28, 2009

Shiz Can't Cook Series: Pear Tart, part 2

Since I had 1/2 pint of heavy cream left over from my last attempt at the pear tart, I decided to make another one.

This time using peaches too.

So I bought another crust... and noticed there were crumbs on the bottom, so I tried to brush them off.

One thing you're not supposed to do w/ crusts... Flip them over on it's side.
Cuz half the crust fell into the sink!
Eeeeep!

Sobbing, I picked up the pieces and tried to recreate the crust.


Well... the custard will hold the broken crust pieces together, right?

I poured the custard liquid into the crust.
Then added 1/3 pear, 1/3 peach and 1/3 pineapple. Not mixed all together, but in sections.

Baked for 50 mins, and voila!


Eh, you can't tell the crust is broken... it just looks like a crummy crust, that's all.

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Yakiniku w/ Dee

Dee came over to Koge Haus today to drop off Xmas gifts.
Plus we wanted him to come over to eat up all the spicy tuna Ichigo brought home.

We had Dee buy tongue and enoki at a Korean supermarket, so we could do yakiniku. Cuz Ichigo also gave us steak meat and veggies leftover from tempura (sweet potato, green beans, zucchini, bell peppers). And we got a ton of lemons from the in-laws.

So we ate plenty... and watched Sat & Dee play L4D -__-
Ate my custard pear pie... and opened presents.

Dee got me a bunch of yarn, so I can make animals that aren't gray. I can make pink & light blue bunnies now. Yay!

And we got lots of cookies too. Yum.

Friday, December 25, 2009

Xmas 2009

Now that I have in-laws, we drove out to OC to visit them.
We haven't been since August... Terrible DIL? Maybe.

We had a light snack, chatted little, opened presents and left... not before stealing raw steak & croquette they had prepped for dinner. Whoops, we were supposed to eat dinner w/ them?

Well, we left early b/c we had planned on going to eat hot pot.
But we get to the hot pot place and it's really crowded. Prolly a 30-min wait, but certain people are too impatient to wait for food. So we drove to two other restaurants (shabu-shabu place, Korean tofu place), before finally agreeing to go to the cut-noodle place Sat always goes to.

Having a massive heartburn, I wasn't sure what I could eat... so I went w/ fried rice. And it was really good! じゅるる got fried noodles, and that was good too. The cut noodles are so mochi-mochi. Ichigo wanted soup & ordered hot and sour soup... like I was gonna be able to have that w/ my heartburn.

I was super sleepy when I got home and retired to go to bed... only to watch 4 hours of West Wing (4th season).

Monday, December 21, 2009

Shiz Can't Cook Series: Pear Tart

I found a really simple pear tart recipe online, so I asked じゅるる to buy the ingredients so I can make it for post-dinner dessert.

How simple?
Five minutes to prep, 60 mins to bake.

Soooo easy, even can't-cook Shiz can make it.

Ta-dah:


I already cut into the tart before I took a photo... thus the cut lines *laugh*

It was yummy too.
It's basically a custard pie w/ pieces of pears (canned) floating in it.

I go share 1/4 of the pie w/ Sat later this week...

Next goal:
To make the pie look prettier. I think I'll cut fresh pear pieces and lay them on top after the pie bakes for 45 mins or so... That way there will be some decoration on top & you can tell it's a pear tart. Not something else floating in the pie... like nata de coco.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

A Simple Holiday Party: the Recap

Since there were a few people who couldn't make it to the annual holiday party, here's the recap.

(no photos, cuz my d-cam is broken)

Sometime around 12pm - 5pm:
Ards arrives at Steph's house to help w/ clean-up and to start cooking the big turkey. Also her signature dish -- bread pudding!

Wuken also arrives in the afternoon to drop off a red velvet cake (very pretty!).

6:00pm:
Shiz & じゅるる arrive w/ a partially heated half-ham and mini Bisquick biscuits. We ponder about helping w/ cooking, but the big turkey is taking up all the room in the oven *laugh* じゅるる does run to the supermarket to grab veggies to add to the stuffing.

7:30pm:
Bung and V arrive w/ drinks & chips. They even brought alcohol.
Somewhere around this time, Wuken leaves to pick up his +2, who are going to see Avatar later in the evening.

Turkey is ready.

8:00pm:
Den arrives w/ chicken from Pioneer Chicken. Ards didn't know that it's the boys' favorite fried chicken place. I personally like their fried gizzards. Den didn't bring any of those, though. BTW, the fried chicken was the first food item to sell out at the potluck!

Panda arrives w/ brownies. It's her first attempt making them, she says.

I think the rest of the boys start arriving at this time too.
Dee brings ingredients for a Caesar salad & gets working in the kitchen. Ards made stuffing w/ no problem, but w/o the veggies. じゅるる cuts & cooks down the veggies to dump into the stuffing, so we can bake in the oven. Ards then attempts to make gravy, but burns the first batch of roux. Then there's a bit of a panic about the turkey juices spilling on the floor & Shiz kicks everyone not cooking out of the kitchen.

Since Dee & じゅるる are busy doing other work, we have no one to carve the turkey. Ards ends up doing it, but gets very tired in the process. Well, she was standing all day cooking & cleaning...

Chris arrives w/ Porto's cheese rolls and other pastries. Allen, Jon & Vu arrive w/ Jon's pasta salad, drinks & chips. Jon made two types of pasta salad, one w/ deli meat spread out on top so it looked like a big meat platter. The other one was a veggie one w/ colorful veggies (bell peppers & cucumber?) on top. The meat one went very quickly.

We tell everyone to start eating.

Later, around 8:30pm(?):
Ben & Sofie arrive w/ drinks.

Half the group is sitting around the TV watching Food Network.
I think the boys were in the kitchen for a while talking about who knows what, even though they see each other like twice a week. They can't get enough of each other...

All the cheese rolls disappear, even though Chris bought a dozen of them.

Later, around 9:00pm(?):
Mike and g/f A show up w/ mashed potatoes and cake.
Ards in the kitchen washing gazillion dishes.

Even later, around 10:00pm:
Steebu shows up. and at the same time, a bunch of people leave (Bung, V, Ben, Sofie, Panda, Ards).

A lot later, around 11:00pm:
Sasami, sister & bro-in-law show up w/ Sasami's cookies. No XBox controller ones for us. But we got gingerbread man and mint-choco chip cookies. Very yum.

12:00am:
I think Steph falls asleep around this time.
And the boys start watching Starship Troopers.
Allen & Vu go home around this time.

Meanwhile Shiz starts packing up food for everyone to take home.

2:30am:
Movie finally ends.
Shiz sends everyone home w/ packed up food.
Dee & じゅるる do the rest of clean up, and we left around 3:00am.

The end.

Gift exchange?
We didn't do that this year. We were adults and had lovely conversation!

PS. Let me know if I forgot anything...

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Now, Arm Problem

I had to make lots of use of the crutches yesterday, cuz the X-ray machine is located on a different floor from the doctor's office.

And during that time, I must have strained my left arm... cuz it's been in a lot of pain since last night.

It hurts from my thumb all the way to my elbow.
Only on the thumb-side of the arm, though.

The pain comes and goes, but there's an overall uncomfortable-ness the whole time. Hafu~

I guess my arms aren't strong enough to carry my weight.
Lose weight & strengthen body... my goals for next year.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Foot Recovering Nicely

I went to the doctor's to get an X-ray of my broken foot at the three-week mark.

But before the X-ray... they took off the cast.
And let me wash my feet, cuz it's been THREE WEEKS!

Lots of dead skin build up in three weeks. The water in the basin had all these floaty things, and the water was soooooo gross. After soaking in water, my foot felt like there was a film of goo caked on the bottom. Ick ick.

The doc looked at the X-ray and pushed around my ankle.
It hurt in some places, but not so much.

I guess all the milk and vitamins I've been taking are doing their work, and the bone seems to be healing faster than expected. Yay!

So instead of being in a cast for three more weeks, it's only gonna be two weeks. Yay!

Oh, but my foot was still swollen, especially around the broken bone.
And the blood wasn't just only gathering by my toes... some gathering above my heel.

Photos to be uploaded to Flickr soon.

Monday, December 14, 2009

Holiday Cookies

Since it's nearing the holidays, I keep seeing holiday cookies all over on TV and blogs and whatnot.

They're so pretty!
And look delicious!

Back in the company B days, Gema-Gema used to bring her mom's cookies over during the holidays. Gosh, they were so yum.

And Dee would bring his mom's cookies too. Also very yum.

Right now Sasami's making cookies, but I've been having a cookie making itch. But I haven't made cookies in years (except the break-and-bake type), so I don't know how to start baking cookies...

But they have things called cookie baking parties, right?
It doesn't have to be during the holidays, right?

I think it would be wonderful if Sasami's birthday party is a cookie baking/decorating party (hint hint).

Ooooh, cookies...

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Shopping for the Holiday Party

We went to Vons b/c they were having a sale on ham.

Though the $1.29/lbs spiral ham was all sold out... grrr. So we settled for the $1.99/lbs spiral ham. If we had an electric meat carving knife, we could have gotten the $0.77/lbs half-ham...

We also bought a bunch of veggies to grill.
Cuz our parties always seem to be lacking veggies...

It was either grilled veggies, or deep fried assortment.
Like veggie egg rolls, bite-sized tonkatsu and seafood-katsu.
We opted for the healthier selection.

A lot of people haven't responded to the Evite... should we send out a reminder?

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Crochet Time: Mouse, Attempt 1

Since I still had a lot of gray yarn leftover from making the elephant amigurumi, I decided to make a mouse. They're gray too, right?



I followed instructions on a Japanese website... but the head seems waaaaay too big compared to the body. Altho the body was supposed to be tiny.

I couldn't make a good sphere for the head, so it's a bit lopsided. It's more obvious on the back side, and the body isn't attached in the center of the bottom of the head... because the head is lopsided. *sigh*

The right ear is smaller than the left ear too.

I will add eyes, nose & mouth as soon as I buy black yarn.

Monday, December 7, 2009

Holiday Party, Once Again?

I just got a message from Steph on Facebook.

She's willing to host the holiday party.
And I'm willing to plan it.

Altho I don't want to bother w/ the gift exchange, so someone will have to volunteer to organize it... or we'll just draw names or something.

And there aren't a lot of dates to choose from.
Dec 19 (Sat), Dec 20 (Sun), Dec 26 (Sat), Dec 27 (Sun), Jan 2 (Sat), Jan 3 (Sun)...

I heard Ards has 3 frozen turkeys in their freezer.
At least we don't have to worry about food *laugh*

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Feet Turning Purple

I guess there was plenty of internal bleeding when I broke my foot... and all the blood is draining down to my feet.

So my foot is purple.

See exhibit A:


I sure hope this is normal... cuz my next doctor's appointment isn't until next week.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Crochet Time: Elephant, Attempt 1

I attempted making an elephant amigurumi.

Here is the final look (without beady eyes):


The head didn't come out as round as it's supposed to.

And I wasn't paying attention to how tight/loose I was crocheting the legs, so all of the legs are different sizes. I put the bigger ones in front & smaller ones in back, so the elephant would lean back.

This is my first attempt, so I'll work on tightening stitches where I need to... and loosen where I need to (altho it's probably best to make them all even).

I thought sewing the pieces together would be hard, but I somehow managed... I have a semi-made purse that I haven't figured out how to attach the straps, so I'll try that tomorrow.