Monthly Review: February 2013

This past month has flown by for us, check out what photos I have captured on my iPhone!

Interested in what we’ve done in past months?
2012: May June July August November December
2013: January

The month of February started off with my birthday on Groundhog’s Day!  Sam made me a delicious Birthday Fruit Tart (just like last year!).  Do you have friend’s birthdays coming up?  Check out the Cherry-Chocolate Birthday Cake or this delicious steak meal!

With other Back on My Feet members I ran the Love the Run You’re with 5K, sponsored by Pacers!  Although it was a little cold, we had sunny weather that was perfect for a morning run.  In March, I’m running the Rock ‘n Roll Half Marathon in DC.  This Sausage, Egg & Cheese Breakfast Casserole is a perfect post-run breakfast!  What races did you run, or are planning on running?

Our friends Stephanie and Jack were out of town, so we got a chance to spend time with their dog Mia!  Isn’t she adorable?  Do any readers out there have dogs?

For my birthday lunch, my friend Jess took me to the new Matchbox on 14th.  The restaurant has an open feel, and very well lit- it was great to try some new things on their menu.  I know the sliders and pizzas are the most popular, but do any of you have any favorites?  I’d love to hear suggestions.

Jess and I also made these fun cookies for our husbands for Valentine’s Day!

If you’d like try a new cookie recipe, try the Sesame Seed & Dark Chocolate Chunk Cookies I made!

The most exciting news for us this month: we bought a new house!!!  Our 1 bedroom condo sold and we’ve moved to a bigger house!  Yay for extra space!  Still in DC, just a different neighborhood (which means, more adventures)!

With the move, we had to say good-bye to our fifth floor kitchen.  This is where the blog started, but don’t worry, we’ll be sticking to the original blog name.  The last food we made there were the Sesame Seed & Dark Chocolate Chunk Cookies.

As we’re slowly unpacking all of our boxes, we also got some new housewarming gifts!  Thanks Aunt Kate for these awesome OXO containers- a perfect gift for a new pantry!

We’ve already had some visitors this past week, our new kitchen and living room layout is perfect for entertaining.  Need some ideas for foods to make when you have visitors?  (Above is the Apple & Smoked Cheese Pizza.)

Appetizers: Apples, Blue Cheese & Honey; Fig & Arugula Flatbread; Fresh Corn Salsa; Roasted Mushrooms with Parsley; Spinach & Artichoke Dip;

Entrees: Beef & Rice Stuffed Zucchini; Vegetable Coq au Vin; Baingan Bharta; Bok Choy & Mushroom Bulgur; Lamb, Carrot & Turnip Stuffed Cabbage;

Brunch: Mushroom Shallot Frittata; Smokey Quiche; Zucchini Bread;

Dessert: Baklava; Blueberry-Rhubarb Crumble; Coconut Macaroons with Chocolate; Rum Raisin Ice Cream; Tart Cherry Pie;

I finished off the month by checking out a new restaurant in Chinatown- Daikaya (the new ramen spot).  The downstairs opened up on February 14th, and currently they are serving 4 different types of traditional ramen soup.

Over the last 5 years I have learned that DC is a small city.  Turns out my new friend Carol, who I met at Back on My Feet, knows a fellow DC blogger who has been participating in the Food Matters Project.  Also a runner, Meg has her own food blog, Fledgling Foodie.  It was wonderful to finally meet her, and it’s always nice to have more foodie friends!

Can’t wait for all new things in March!  Do any of you have any fun plans?

Hot Pot in NYC

This last weekend Sam and I traveled to New York City.  From Washington D.C. it’s just a couple of hours on the Amtrak.  We spent the weekend visiting friends and exploring the city.  It addition it was Veteran’s Day- so we enjoyed the longer weekend.

The weather was great- a perfect fall weekend.  With so many leaves on the streets, the air smelled of fall.  We enjoyed walking around the city, and even explored a bit of Brooklyn- which I loved!

One of our food adventures was trying out a hot pot place in Chinatown.  As far as I know, DC doesn’t have a hot pot place, so I was excited to try this out for the first time.  Since I wasn’t familiar with this until this past weekend, I though other would also like to know more about it:

What is it?  The easiest explanation is that it’s similar to fondue. Rather than using cheese and/or chocolate- there is broth inside the hot pot.  The pot is cooked on a portable gas or electric stove, at your table.

Ours looked like this!  Sam insisted that we try the spicy version, which is why ours is so red.  Yes, there were many chili peppers.

Other options include a plain broth, or a combination of plain and spicy.  If you have the combination broth, there is a divider in the middle of the bowl- each half holding the different liquids.

How do you cook in a hot pot?  When you go to a hot pot restaurant, you have a list of ingredients that you choose to cook in your pot.  Once your table decides which foods you’d like, the raw ingredients are brought out.  Add the veggies, noodles or meats into the pot, and wait until each of them cooks.  They can be added all at once, or divided and added one by one.  Each ingredient is kept in the hot pot until it is done cooking (the time may differ for each).

The cooking time depends on what ingredients you choose.  For example, one of our choices were green onions.  They cooked quickly, about 2 minutes.

What are some of the ingredients?  vegetables (bok choy, green beans, mushrooms); tofu; noodles (soba, rice, udon); meats (beef, pork, chicken); fish (scallops, fish balls, shrimp) and much more.

Our choices were: beef, scallops, green onions, bok choy, dumplings and Chinese mushrooms.  The last three were our favorites!

You use the strainer and spoon to scoop out the hot food from the pot.

And then enjoy the cooked ingredients!

If you’re in New York, this is the restaurant we checked out:

Grand Sichuan International
125 Canal Street
New York, NY

It was a fun experience, and now I’m wondering how we could replicate it at home.  The restaurant was fairly bare-bones (cash only).  Definitely something different than the usually Chinese take-out.