VACATION!

So on Friday we went to Harrisburg, and helped Chris' sister and her boyfriend move into their new apartment. They've got a really nice place.We left on Sunday and headed for Baltimore!

My favorite fish at the aquarium was the perching fish. It really perched on the coral!After Baltimore we went to DC and stayed with my Grandma. Monday was the Holocaust museum, the Renwick gallery and lots of walking. We took a break on a bench and saw it as a good photo op..On Tuesday we stopped at Sticky Fingers bakery! Chris got a blueberry muffin.My Grandma got some sort of almond muffin..And I got a sausage and egg sandwich and a mocha latte. Mmmm..We went to the Hirschorn museum.. at Bazu's suggestion. It was probably even my favorite place.
And we had lunch at a little place called the Wellness Cafe. Chris and I split the "Totally Vegan" burrito.
And we got ABC cookies for dessert!
That day we also went to the National Museum of the American Indian and learned about my people! Haha. Oh and also the Air and Space museum. That night we met my aunt and uncle for dinner at Yuan Fu, a vegetarian restaurant in Rockville, MD. We got three appetizers. This is a taro root ball, and in the background is fried mushrooms.
And these were uhm.. curry dumplings. They tasted really curry-y.This was seaweed salad. Not too bad. Chewy..
My aunt and uncle shared the fish filet.I got the kung pao beef!
Chris got sesame chicken.
Grandma got chicken steak portabello.
And my cousin got something called jade rolls.

On Wednesday Chris and I came back to West Chester, went grocery shopping, and then made some cookies! From my recipe here. We filled them with vanilla Soy Delicious and had ice cream cookie sandwiches for dessert. He made me spaghetti for dinner :)

Tomorrow I will be 2-0! Chris is working all day, but my family is coming out to West Chester to hang for a little bit and have dinner.

Oh yes, and did I tell you all that my little bro Ben just moved into the dorms here at WCU last weekend?? He'll be a freshman music ed major here on trombone, but he's hoping to switch to music composition. I'm excited :-D

"Meat" and Potatoes

Well I work 9-5 every weekday, and Chris usually works nights. So lately when he happens to work 9-5 too he'll come over for dinner afterwards. And I usually just do a veggie stirfry or something. But the other day he told me vegetables don't fill him up! Well.. YAR! So last night I made a manly "meat" and potatoes meal! (Sorry about the crappy picture.)

It's the same chik'n type thing I made a little while ago, with roasted potatoes and a cucumber/tomato/onion side salad. I think he liked it OK :-)

Ooh and my next exciting news!! Chris is taking me on vacation for my birthday, yayyyy. Tonight we are leaving for Harrisburg to see his parents and help his sister move into her new apartment. I'll give her that quilt I made.. which I'll have to remember to photograph and show you guys. Then on Sunday we're going to spend the day in Baltimore, and then it is off to Washington DC for three days to see some museums (and of course check out the veg eats!) I'm totally going to Sticky Fingers hehe. So I should have a good post after that trip I hope.

Yayyy I turn 20 on August 25th. Ugh.. two days before SCHOOL starts again. Junior year, here I come. Well.. I'm at work so I better get to it. See you guys later!

My First Pie!

Woo I made my first pie! For my little brother's 18th birthday. It's just raspberries and blackberries. Here it is pre-baking:

And afterwards! It was good too :-D

Oh, and this is the apple "cheese" danish streudel-y thing I made for The Urban Vegan's dessert contest a while ago. I just made it again last night per request. It's all they ever want at work anymore. Here's the recipe.

Well.. back to work!

Tofu, Cake, Apartment!

On Thursday night, Chris came over and helped me make dinner. I had some tofu marinating overnight to make the jerk tofu from the PPK. We cooked it up and then just added broccoli, spinach and zucchini to the same pan. It was pretty awesome! I declare it was the best tofu dish I've made thus far! We both did think it was a bit too spicy though!

This morning I woke up at 5:30 for unknown reasons, so I made this for my sister's apartment-warming party tonight.. I know, she's been living there all summer, but they still hadn't had a party. And they just finished painting all the walls. I got this recipe from Susan.
I didn't use a cast iron skillet (I don't have one..) but I just used a 9-inch cake pan and it worked out fine! Woo.

Oh yeah! And I did this last night. Well see.. Chris and I just got done plastering over and sanding all the holes in my kitchen (yeah.. my landlord didn't do a thing..) so I didn't want to put a shelf in. I velcro'd my spices to the wall! I love it. I can just grab them.
Speaking of which.. I just bought a bunch of these spices the other night.. $35 worth! I almost cried.

Oh and today (since I was up so early) I also went and bought paint, and painted over the holes we covered. Almost can't tell! Heh.
Oh and ALSO I finished the quilt I've been working on for Chris' sister as a housewarming gift! We're helping to move her into her new apartment a week from today. It's not perfect.. it's my first quilt without the help of my Grandma haha, so.. yeah. I hope she likes it!

Updates

It's been a while.. I've been super busy! I'm finally living in my apartment in West Chester full time, and commuting to my job in Philly. I moved out of my sister's apartment last week.. I figured I should get settled in here before school starts. But backing up a bit, a while ago I received a care package from Pensarepink on the PPK. Here's what I got:

After that I finally made a curry that looks like other curries I've seen! I was happy.

Now on to vacation. Christine and I flew to Nebraska to visit my Grandma on the Winnebago reservation and go to pow-wow. Here's me and the reservation's herd of buffalo!

Dad is out in NE.
Then we got dressed for pow-wow and I ran with the buffalos.. well OK.. they're really far off in the distance, but still.
Finally got to pow-wow!
Two little indians.
And again!

Oh yeah, then on the way home our flight got canceled, rescheduled, canceled again, and the airline put us up in a hotel in Omaha!

And that was the end to a crazy trip. I hope to be cooking/baking tons in my apartment now.. so I should be posting again soon! :-D