Apricot Clafouti

All week I've been trying to make this Apricot Clafouti. I got the apricots last Saturday at the Farmers' Market and I was hoping they wouldn't get too overripe by the time I got to use them. This is my only complaint about using the Farmers' Market: sometimes I end up over-buying. I have such noble ideas for what I want to make for the week's meals--I plan my meals ahead of time and make a shopping list that I am good at sticking to, but it seems something always comes up--like staying late at work and then I end up blowing off the meal plans and making a frozen pizza. As tempting as it is to sign up for a CSA box--I could never make that kind of a commitment right now. I would sure hate to have to throw stuff away. I wish there was some kind of a way to have the market every day!

Thankfully, the apricots hung in there and I made this yesterday. Clafouti is usually made with cherries, but really, any fruit would be good. I have made it with pears too. This particular recipe is purportedly on the "healthy" side as it does not use the usual dose of melted butter and skimps on the eggs. But I think the healthy tag comes from the fact that this recipe was to serve 12. WHAT?!?! Who are they trying to kid? Dale and I ate half for our dessert and I'll probably polish off the rest tonight.

First Grill-Out of the Season

The grill saw a lot of action last weekend. First of which was a long-overdue wash job. (Anybody know where to get some "Simpsons Yellow" touch-up paint?) After that it was just the difficult job to decide what to cook.

Saturday, I started off the 2009 grilling season with Johnsonville Hot Italians and some grill-wokked asparagus. What? You've never had grilled asparagus? One of the best foods ever.  It is really easy in one of these grill woks--just toss the asparagus with olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper and toss it in the wok. Move it around to cook and in 5 minutes or so, it is done.

Sunday, it was the grill-wok again. This time with shrimp that eventually ended up in my Southwest Salad. The corn also gets a little time on the grill, then gets cut off the cob.

Monday I did double time on the grill. Chicken was on sale this week so I made a ton of Jujeh Kabob that we ate for dinner and that I used during the week in my lunches.

Beverages Du Jour

Here's what we're drinking today--

Mojitos are always nice! I was talking to my sis yesterday--she mentioned she was planting mint to use in mojitos. That got me in the mood. 

I use the Minty Lime Cooler recipe from Border Grill and add rum. This is totally great with no rum!

Nothing better than vanilla and strawberries--so why not make 'em into a drink? A great way to use up the 1/2 flat of berries I got yesterday. I also got to use some of the Meyer lemons from my tree.

What's To Eat?

This is my haul from this morning's trip to the Torrance Farmers' Market. Everything looked so good I went a little crazy. I haven't been cooking very much due to my work schedule and I thought with an extra day this weekend I would have time to cook AND relax, not to mention get some of the chores out of the way.

On the menu this week at Fartwood Manor: Apricot Clafoutis, Nicoise Salad, Panzanella, Strawberry Lemonade, Corn & Shrimp salad. I'm even going to try to make daikon pickles and cucumber kimchi. 

Not A Crime.......

to stay up waaaay past my bedtime and drive an hour each way to go see the awesome Gogol Bordello! And that's just what I did last night. Great show....more later!

Relax.....

.......it was only a 4.7. But it sure felt stronger! Dale and I were settled down watching the season (and possibly series--does anyone know?) finale of King of the Hill and things started to rock and roll. We jumped up and ran to the patio door, clinging to each other. It was actually sort of hard to stand up, the movement was so strong. The shaking seemed to last pretty long. All I could think of was that the ceiling was going to collapse on top of us.

Finally the movement stopped and we began to access the damage. I had heard a lot of crashing and was hoping it wasn't any of the computers, and thankfully it was only a box of cassette tapes that fell off a shelf. Dale checked the gas line and then we went and checked on the neighbors. When we went to bed, Dale made sure the flashlights, scanner and our shoes were right next to the bed.

In the post-event assessment, I give us a bad score for not doing the "duck and cover" like we should have, although Dale did have the genius reaction to hit record on the DVR. I think I gave myself whiplash jumping up from the chair--my neck was killing me. Dale said he twisted his knee.

J'Ville In Da 'Hood

The world's second-finest brats are getting a little exposure here on the corner of Crip and Blood. Ok, so it's really Torrance Boulevard and Western Avenue. I say...."put down those guns and grab a brat!" Maybe the world would be a kinder, gentler place if people ate more brats.

The irony of this is that we were here because we were picking up some carne asada meat from our local favorite Mexican restaurant/carneceria for the evening's grill-out.

I wasn't in too much of a bratwurst mood....I had my "fix" of the world's finest brats while I was visiting Austin.

Note---sorry for the lack of posts lately. Work pretty much exploded (yay!!..I'm not complaining) and it is really hard to sit and formulate coherent posts when I get home. I promise to do better soon!

Waiting For Taco

Finally, the famous Kogi taco truck comes to Torrance! Actually, I think it might have been here before, but this was my first time to check it out. I'd been hearing about the truck--which serves tacos with a Korean twist--on local food blogs and other places for a while and I was anxious to see for myself what the buzz was all about. Dale signed up a while back for their Twitter feed, so he was alerted that they would be making a stop in Torrance from 6-9pm.
We headed over to the location--next to the Toyota plant--at 5:30. We were about 10th in line. After a bit, someone got an alert that said they would be there by 6:45. People just kept coming and coming. The location is sort of in an industrial park, not on a busy street--so you'd have to know it was there. By the time the truck arrived, there were easily one hundred people in line.
After waiting for an hour.....the truck est arrive!

Once the truck stopped, it was another 20 minutes or so until the doors opened.
A simple menu with good taco choices.

After you pay, you get to wait some more. Everybody was cool and in a good mood.
We were soooooo hungry! We got Korean BBQ rib (on the right), chicken and pork (on the left).

The rib and chicken meat was a typical Korean BBQ-style, the pork more of a Mexican style. All were topped with a salsa of sorts made from napa cabbage, sesame oil, green onions, cilantro. 

Each one was really good and for two bucks apiece...worth it.

On the way home, we stopped at Foster's Freeze for a Twister and ran into one of the people that had been waiting in line with us.

Fire Season Already?!

Wisps of smoky clouds in tonight's sunset from the fire in Santa Barbara, which is about 100 miles north.