WIAW: Eats and Octopus Fun

May 20, 2014 by Christine Skari

Hi friends! How is life going for you?

This quarter has been flying by for me (a good thing, the sooner this year is over, the better!) and it’s time for yet another rendition of WIAW. Eats lately have been decent, but a bit rushed and I haven’t had too much time for cooking.

Breakfast:

Brown sugar banana oats. Are you tired of seeing this picture and breakfast yet? Confession: I recycle pictures of my oats and other foods I eat regularly because I ALWAYS end up getting food on my camera. And because it’s hard to whip out a photoshoot when I have yummy oats sitting right there with melty brown sugar. And because my camera battery is hardly ever charged over .0052%.

After breakfast I biked over to our local gym to get in a quick workout. I didn’t mention it on AoME, but last week I got a pretty nasty cold and that, coupled with an ochem midterm I had on Monday, left me with zero motivation to work out. I did a quick 25 minuted of cardio before a leg workout and am definitely feeling it everywhere in my body haha. This girl will be sleeping well tonight!

I finished my workout and went to my physics lecture before grabbing some lunch in the 45 minute break I had. I was planning on going with a sandwich from Subway, but our university center was overflowing with visiting high schoolers and the lines were ridiculous. I opted for a build-your-own salad since the line there was much smaller.

Since salads never keep me full after a hard workout, I also got a double shot latte and a Fiber One bar to have along with it.

After lunch I had a section for my stats class, followed by an unsuccessful trip to the molecular biology counseling office to figure out some nitpicky things about my schedule next Fall. Then, it was home for a small break before I had to go to my lab.

Luckily, it was a fun one that involved playing with some sea critters and a squid dissection (interesting) and a worm dissection (not so interesting). The dissections weren’t too in-depth and went by smoothly since I had done other more tricky cat and pig dissections back in high school. The highlight was definitely holding an octopus, though. They feel SO bizarre and I couldn’t help but squeal the entire time, hence the scrunched up shoulders haha.

Wait… Let me take a selfie. Squid selfie?

After lab, Kyle and I picked up some Freebird’s nachos to split along with fresh strawberry lemonade to share. SO GOOD. SO MUCH FOOD.

And as of now, I’m snacking on some coffee and dark chocolate while doing some studying. Brain energy!

Question of the Day: What’s the best thing you’ve eaten this week?

Dark Chocolate Strawberry Shortbread Cookies

May 17, 2014 by Christine Skari

So THIS is my ideal Friday morning.

Wake up slow. Brew some coffee. Get some cookie dough going (most of which will never see the oven). Enjoy some blog reading while my cookies are baking away. Alternate sips with bites because coffee+a little sweetness = my personal heaven.

Sometimes it’s worth skipping your 8 a.m lecture for a lazy morning.

Can I marry my Tiffany Blue KitchenAid Mixer?

When I was younger, I used to go to the local ice skating rink with my mom and sister when the summer heat was in full blast. I remember always envying those cute little skating outfits that they had on sale and my 8 year old self seriously contemplated becoming a professional ice skater so I could twirl around in them. Unfortunately, my mom made a rule that my skating career had to last more than a year before I was allowed to get one, and that was just too big of a commitment. So anyways, we would skate for an hour or so before heading off of the ice to take a break and grab a snack. They had a couple of vending machines next to the wooden benches that were filled with your standard candy and chips, but my mind was always made up before I even put my coins in. I wanted cookies! And not just any cookies, those Knott’s Berry Farm Raspberry Shortbread Cookies. With a hot chocolate in hand, I would nibble my way around the outside edges till that last glorious bite remained.

Now that the weather has been reaching the mid-90s lately, I’ve been craving those cookies! My mind just can’t seem to get them out of my head, but I’ve checked my local grocery store and womp womp womp, I couldn’t find one package. I cried for a few hours, then realized that I’m a food blogger and I could probably make them myself. Hooray!

These are basically the grownup version of those tasty shortbread cookies. You get a buttery and perfectly sweet shortbread base that you then smother with strawberry jam and a dark chocolate drizzle. And guess what! You can cover the whole top with the good stuff, so no outside nibbling is required to get the perfect bite. I guess that’s what being a grownup means- no one can dictate how you eat your cookies!

I baked these in the morning before leaving for another lecture, and midday I got this text from my housemate, Kelty. When I got back, there were only 10 left out of the 25+ that I had made. I’ll take that as a success!

To cut the cookies, I used the smallest biscuit cutter from the Norpro Scallop Biscuit/Cookie Cutter pack I ordered a few weeks back. If you don’t have a cookie cutter, just roll the dough into a small ball before flattening it to the right size with your hand.

The base shortbread layer comes from the lovely Ina Garten!

Saturday Things & a Small Rant

May 11, 2014 by Christine Skari

Hi all!

I’m sorry my posts have been so infrequent. To be honest, I’m just completely overworked and it’s leading me to major burnout. I don’t want to sound like a broken record or be a redundant complainer, but this has been a really, really tough year for me and I just need a break. From my Kind giveaway, I learned that a lot of my readers are college students (hi, guys!), so I’m sure you all know what I mean. It’s the last few weeks of the school year and summer is thisclose.

I feel like blog life can be so glamorized, but in reality, I only show the highlights on Apple of My Eye for the most part. Yeah, I went out shopping and to brunch with my parents last weekend, but most days I’m up and running from 6 a.m till 12 at night. Yeah, it’s super cool to have a job that lets me cook and photograph recipes, but those recipes take up a ton of time- time that I need to take away from sleep or relaxing. Yeah, it’s omgcute that Kyle and I have library dates, but we have them around 4-5 days a week for hours at a time and it’s draining.

I’m at that point where I’m tired of having to depend on coffee to get me through the day. Two days ago, I had a small breakdown from exhaustion and overall frustration that stemmed from being too tired to retain information as quickly as I wanted. I feel like my mood is completely dependent on coffee since it’s either copious amounts of coffee to keep me energized or feeling drained. Having coffee and triple shot lattes four times a day just to keep running is neither healthy nor something I want to keep up for the rest of my college experience.

So rant over. Basically the summary is I’m tired and need for this year to be over (this year is the hell year for bio majors at my school) and for SUMMER! I can’t wait to channel all of my energy into relaxing, my health, cooking, blogging, traveling, spending times with friends, etc.

Anywhoville, this is what my marvelous Saturday looked like!

After staying till 11 at the library on Friday night (I know, I’m cool), I got to bed around 12 and slept in a bit till 8 in the morning. I made myself some coffee, then did an hour or so of studying for a bio exam I have on Wednesday before digging into some brown sugar banana oats!

Mid-morning, I headed off to watch Kyle play in a recreational doubles tennis tournament that the club team at our school puts on. The weather was perfect, and I enjoyed an hour and half of relaxing spectatorship that alternated watching him play with browsing Pinterest on my phone (shh, don’t tell him).

After I got back to my apartment, I worked on a recipe freelance project that involved lots of cheesy goodness. Amanda and I are both starting to work for a new recipe site, so I wanted to make sure it turned out tasty and that the photos were decent. One thing that I constantly struggle with is timing my cooking and baking so that they’re finished when the natural lighting from the sun is good for pictures. Shooting in good light is (in my opinion) the most important thing you can do to improve your photography, but getting everything set up and ready within the hours of 2-4 p.m can be challenging when you reach those sleepy midday hours. #foodphotographerproblemz.

Here’s a sneak peek! I’ll link to the recipe when it goes live on the site :).

After getting the pictures taken, I finished a physics assignment and did some reading for my organic chemistry class before taking a pie (!!!!) and Netflix break with Kyle. I’ve been complaining to him on a daily basis about the lack of pie in my life lately, so he picked up one from a Danish bakery on a whim.

This is snapshot of Kyle singing the Circle of Life song from The Lion King:

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwSKkKrUzUk]

Imagine him (trying to) belt out the lines “Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba, sithi uhm ingonyama” while raising that glorious pie in the air. Thats my boy!

You do you, Kyle.

And now, more pie pics.

Beautiful, just beautiful.

OH. And let’s talk tv series. Kyle and I just started watching House today, and it’s SO good. Our other favorites include Game of Thrones, the Walking Dead, The Following, Orange is the New Black (one that I like), and I also recently have watched a few episodes of The Bible. Do you guys have any favorites? I’m always on the lookout for great new series!

The rest of my night includes a bit more work and (hopefully) a little more relaxing before bed.

Hope your weekend is going swimmingly!

Cheesy Broccoli Cauliflower Bake

May 8, 2014 by Christine Skari

Say YES to veggies!

Especially if those veggies involve a creamy garlic cheese sauce that melts into them and makes them ooze goodness in every bite. And wait for it… a crispy and crunchy panko topping! This is what veggies were designed for. They were born to be smothered in white sauce.

It is their destiny.

The other day, I was thinking about the meals Kyle and I usually eat on repeat. We like to experiment, obviously, but we have a few safety dinners like chicken/sweet potato bakes, steak with mac and cheese, lemon shrimp orzo, and panko-crusted salmon. Where are the veggies? Usually in the form of a boring salad that is literally just that, salad leaves. Sometime we branch out and will bake some brussels sprouts, but for the most part, our veggie intake is pretty dull.

No more I say!

Not only is this recipe easy as pie (mhmm, pie), but it comes together relatively quickly and make the whole house smell delicious! While baking in the oven, the cauliflower melts into the cheese sauce and the broccoli collects it in its florets till it’s just saturated with deliciousness. Also, do I call them florets? Mini-tree leaves? Broccoli afro? I don’t know, man, all I know is that even your picky eaters will LOVE this!

More cheese, please.

Mini-Anniversary Date WIAW

May 6, 2014 by Christine Skari

Hello, all! This is just going to be a short, picture-saturated recap since I’m exhausted and have to get up early tomorrow morning. I finished my physics midterm today, so my brain is a bit fried and needs a few extra Zzzs.

After I got back from my bio lab, Kyle and I headed over to a new-to-us restaurant called Stella Mare’s to celebrate our mini-anniversary of dating for 3 1/2 years. Like I mentioned before, I know it doesn’t seem like a long time to most people, but we’re just wee babes and even a half year gives us a reason to celebrate with good food ;).

The restaurant focuses on comfort with a French twist and definitely wins the award for cutest atmosphere in my books!

After stuffing some warm and toasty baguette in my face, I ordered the Steak Bordelaise, which was served with shallots and a red wine sauce along with mashed potatoes. I also ordered grilled asparagus on the side to get in some extra veggies. Kyle went with the salmon and the best roasted potatoes ever. I don’t know how they cooked them exactly, but holy heck were they delicious! Perfectly seasoned and crispy. Mhm. I can’t even.

After dinner, we headed over to a Santa Barbara staple- Mcconnell’s ice cream. If you’re ever up in the area, go there. You won’t be sorry!

We ended up splitting a bowl of toasted coconut almond chip (<– our favorite) and english toffee crunch. Sososo good!

So there you have it! A night out of good eats. I’m currently about to pass out on my laptop, so that’s probably a sign that I should get to bed. I hope you have a great Wednesday!

Question of the Day: What’s the best thing you ate today?