St Paul Cathedral, MN

The cathedral in St. Paul is an amazing place for photography. It’s colorful, grand and serene. Today is a raining day, so I didn’t get any picture from the outside. Maybe I should come again. Maybe in a helicopter ^_^. Today is India’s Independent Day. There is the India Fest in the State Capitol plaza. Good dosa and mango lassi!!

Niagara Cave–Harmony, MN

It was great to hear that there is a cave in 2-hour driving distance from Mpls. Plus, the Niagara Cave is near the town with a large Swartzentruber Amish settlement. Tow new things to experience in one single trip. Isn’t it awesome??!! The only thing that I have to complain was the low light in the cave that my camera wont take any picture. But it was still a great practice. 

Easy Bread-Mediterranean Oliver Bread

I love the olives from Costco, but the quantity is just too large for me. It seems obvious that turing them to a delicious olive bread would be a wonderful idea. Thanks to food.com for this easy recipe, I just added all ingredients, kneaded and baked. The bread is great. As I have mentioned before I hate getting the dough under my fingernails. While making this bread I realized you can simply use a spatula to fold the dough, punch down and repeat. This is by far the cleanest prep and I highly recommend it if you have similar concerns as I do.

Yummy Financiers (three recipes)

As a Chinese grown up without the slightest idea of baking anything in a oven, actually haven’t seen an oven before I came to the US, I always felt pretty good about my baking skills. My confidence partially came from my instinct of cooking, and partially, lacking of knowledge of the “correct” taste of the baked stuff. And such pride was astonished/put to shame by the financiers my French friend made. At the moment I tasted her financier, I really wish I were a French, or to be more precise, the husband of a French woman.

Muffin Ideas–Zucchini and Sweet Potato

As I started to go swimming in the morning, but am required to be in the lab by 9, :'(, the idea of eating a “healthy”, fruit/nut filled muffin is very intriguing. Here is a link of 36 healthy muffin ideas and I want to start with the “Welcome Home muffin” (with modifications according to what I have in the fridge).

Sweet and Sour Pork Ribs

This is my no-deep-dry version of sweet and Sour Ribs. The same method can be used to make chicken wings or any type of meat. Ribs chopped to small pieces are easier to cook using this recipe, but so far I’ve only seen them in the Asian markets. 

Meat Balls (Chinese style)

No offense, but I was surprised on how bad the Ikea meat ball was when I tried it the first time. The taste was okay but I dislike the soft and mushy texture very much. Thanks to my parents who had helped me looking for meat ball recipes. And here I’m presenting two of them I tried today.  Apologize in advance I didn’t measure the exact amount of the ingredients, because I don’t usually follow the recipe my self, I follow my heart. ^_^. I will try to do it better next time for the Italian meat ball.

(I burnt my right foot with a piece of flying onion…. blister…)

Day 3 in New Orleans

Louisiana State Museum, the City Park today. Nothing much. We are still coughing and weak. The hot boiled shrimp at dinner (Samuel’s Blind Pelican) was yummy but definitely didn’t help our throats. Thanks Felix’s for the fabulous jambalaya and New Orleans bread pudding (which has a similar texture as my mom’s homemade fish ball when you cutting through with a spoon ^_^). 

Day 2–New Orleans (Swamp and Plantation Tours)

The swamp and plantation tours had been recommended by my friends multiple times, so we took our combination tour with the Cajun Pride. Thumbs up for all our seasoned guides. I should definitely have asked them their secrets in explain things so clearly and concisely. It was raining on and off, so sorry for the exposure of pictures. 

First Day in New Orleans

I still cannot believe there is no direct light from San Antonio to New Orleans and the air ticket is $800 +. This puts me, a poor postdoc, to the situation of taking the overnight bus with no choice. The ten-hour bus ride was even more miserable with the fever one day before and the sore throat coming after. It is under this condition I acquired my first impression of New Orleans. (Sorry for the quality of pictures, my brain is still frying from the heat.)