Beef Stew Night

I apologize, it's been awhile since I've posted a cooking post.  I've been forgetful or too tired to do a cook and blog, but that will change soon! I'm working the evening shift this week at work which means even though I can't enjoy dinner at home, I can still make dinner for the other girls with our handy dandy slow cooker! Last night, dinner was beef stew.  Not difficult at all, just a matter of chopping, peeling, searing, seasoning, and throwing into the pot!

Beef Stew in a Crock Pot
- 3 potatoes
- 4 carrots
- 1 onion in chunks
- 1lb of  cut up beef for stew
- flour for dredging of beef
- 1 can of stewed tomatoes
- beef stew seasoning packet
- beef broth (1 cup)
- a dash of worcestershire sauce
- salt and pepper to taste
- water

• Peel and cut into chunks potatoes, carrots, and onion.  Place on the side while you flour your beef and sear in pan.  Flouring allows the beef to thicken the stew while it is cooking in the slow cooker and searing gives the beef a nice crust.  
• Throw in all of your vegetables, the meat, beef broth, seasonings, worcestershire sauce, and extra water if there looks to not be enough liquid and stir so that everything is well mixed.
• Turn slow cooker on to high setting and let cook for 6-7 hours or until meat is tender. 

Everything ready to go!

Turn on the the cooker and let it go!

Yummy!

Easy enough to make and very filling.  You can adjust the amount of vegetables and meat you use, but then also adjust so that you have enough liquid in the slow cooker.  Burning can happen if there is not enough, but that should not be a problem with all the vegetables producing some amount of moisture as well.  The beef was tender and the carrots and potatoes as well.  I love how the slow cooker can make meld all the flavors of the seasonings together and create a delicious meal. More to come, bon appetit!

Ice cream frenzy

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!!!! Yesterday was a crazy day of moving into my new apartment with some of my favorite girls.  It was a long day of moving and cleaning, but finally we are settled into our new home.  It was around 11 pm when we finally sat down in our living room to relax and have some ice cream!

Our ice cream!

The cute mini cups!

Welcoming plant!

I'm excited to be living with my friends this next year.  I hope our home will be a place of fun, sharing, laughter and of course FOOD!

Dinner with the sisters.....

Tonight my sisters and I had dinner and a movie.  It was a real lazy evening and we started "making" dinner after 7 pm.  By making it, I mean throwing a pizza in the oven, placing some Trader Joe's sweet potato fries on a baking sheet to be placed in the oven, and oh opening up a bag of frozen Swedish meatballs from Ikea to be (hehe) put in the oven.  Pretty much everything went into the oven except the leftover rice which we heated up in the microwave and the Tillamok ice cream, YUM!

Pepperoni pizza with extra garlic and cheese!

Ikea Swedish meatballs!

Interesting, lets give it a try

Not much in a bag, but tasty!

Finale dessert, my favorite!

It was a fun night with the sisters. We had some good food and popped in a dvd as we ate and relaxed.  It's been awhile since we've all had time to hang out with work and school.  As summer saunters in, I hope that we'll be able to have more times like these!

Eastlake Bar & Grill

My one day off during the week and Seattle brought back its clouds after 2 days of sunshine. Why?? But the day must go on and my friend and I had already made plans for a nice lunch out by the water to enjoy the supposedly sunny day.  No sun, but the view along Lake Union was still nice.  I'd only been once to Eastlake Bar and Grill for dinner and found it to be a typical American type restaurant.  Lunch offered the usual burgers, fries, salads, and some entrees of chicken or salmon.  Nothing too exciting, but for a good chat and a nice view it was fine.

Garden Burger

(Garden patty with dill Havarti cheese, avocado, lettuce, tomato,

red onion & pesto mayo on a Ciabatta roll )

Marionberry Pie

The garden burger was not what I was expecting. I had the option of switching out the patty for a portobello mushroom, but our server said that the patty would be large and would taste better. Big wrong! The patty was tasteless and was covered with so much of the pesto mayo that it was unappetizing. Fries tasted like they came out of a bag and I barely touched them.  I wished I had gone for the half sandwich/salad combo that was offered.  Can't go wrong with a sandwich right? The marionberry pie was much better and redeemed the burger.  Not too sweet and had plenty of fruit filling with a nice crust and dust of powdered sugar on top.  

There were quite a few spectators all glued into the soccer matches that have been going on in the World Cup and I have to say that I was impressed with the many tv screens that were set up around the restaurant for game viewing.  I think for a casual get together or a place to watch some sports, Eastlake Bar and Grill is a good place to go.  Don't expect great food, but for what it's worth it's fine.  View is great and the servers are nice.

Eastlake Bar and Grill

2947 Eastlake Avenue East

Seattle, Washington 

206 957 7777

Yummies from last week

Last week has been busy with work and another graduation, my sister's this time.  The whole family was here for the event and sadly will be leaving tomorrow for Hawaii.  I wasn't able to get pictures of all that we ate, but mom's been cooking and us girls eating, but we also have been trying some cool places here in Seattle as well.  Definitely have been putting on a few pounds, well worth it though!

Cupcake Royale strikes again

(red velvet & lavender)

Red Bean Mochi

Kung Pao Chicken

Szechuan Beef

Home made egg rolls, bought Vietnamese spring rolls, 

noodle salad

Red Robin burger

Mom's Chicken and Shitake

Mom's Shrimp Curry

Char siu bao

More Chinese pastries, YUM!

I'm stuffed just looking at these pictures again. We ate a lot and yes now I will be on a short hiatus from food.  Life is good when you have family and good eats! 

I love my Fried Chicken

I love good fried chicken! Normally I'm not really into the oily fried foods, but give me a good crispy fried chicken and I'm all there.  Seattle has the perfect place to get some of that good chicken at a location called Ezell's.  They have several locations with the closest one to me being in Lake City.  So down I headed yesterday to grab some chicken for my family and I.  This is the second time I've had it and man oh man is it the best!

Get ready for some fried chicken!

Rows and rows of chicken

Crispy yumminess!

Sweet rolls are sooo GOOD!

Ezell's has both spicy and original versions of their chicken.  Go straight for the spicy.  I got a half and half order of my chicken and the spicy had the most flavor.  It is not spicy at all in terms of flavor, but had a great blend of spices. The skin was crispy and delicious with pieces of moist tender white meat.  I love the rolls as well.  They melted in my mouth and was unlike any roll I have ever tasted.  The rest of the family agreed Ezell's is a winner! Come try it out for yourselves and see!  

Ezell's Chicken

14330 Lake City Way NE
(between 143rd St & 145th St)
Seattle, WA 98125

(206) 363-1167

Bai Tong Graduation Dinner

Finally had some time to write about our graduation dinner from this past Saturday at Bai Tong.  If you remember, a couple of months ago I did a post on this Thai restaurant as my friend and I were deciding where we would like to have this dinner.  I'm so glad we chose to do it here.  The food tasted even better this past Saturday than it did when we visited the month before.  Dinner was fantastic as was the service and we got many shouts of approvals from our guests on the quality and taste of the food.  We had a total of 32 guests with two rows of tables set aside for us.  There was plenty of room and everyone had a good time which is exactly what we wanted!

Appetizer plate

(fishcake, fried wonton, spring roll)

Phad Sei-lew with beef & broccoli

Phad Thai with Chicken

Red Curry with Tofu

Crispy Garlic Chicken

Vegetable dish with prawn

Trophy Cupcakes for dessert!

(red velvet, lemon, chocolate, and vanilla)

I am thankful for all the friends and family that have supported me these past 7 years in school.  Now as I embark into the real world I am excited, scared, and curious to see what will be placed before me.  The adventure continues and it's never boring ......... especially if there is food involved! Bon appetit and congrats to all the other graduates from this past weekend!

Other places this week....

It is graduation week for me! I'm finally getting my diploma from the UW as a Doctorate of Pharmacy. I have been spending a lot of time this week with family and friends as they have been coming into town.  There are too many places to blog individually so I will do a compilation of it here today.  The previous post on Port Ludlow was also one of the highlights of this week, but it got its own post.  Without further ado.... FOOD!

Some of the places we visited, Palace Kitchen in downtown Seattle, another Tom Douglas restaurant. Delicious food, great service, good ambiance!

Steak from Palace Kitchen

Ricotta ravioli

 

Roasted chicken

Balsamic vinegar & olive oil

Passed by Cupcake Royale on Capital Hill another day and could not resist stopping in for a bite and peek!

Sprinkles galore!

Salted caramel cupcake 

Late lunch at Cafe Presse on Capital Hill.  It is a cute French themed restaurant with owners who also run Le Pichet in downtown Seattle! Their Croque Madame is the best!

 Croque Madame 

(Baked ham, gruyere and béchamel sandwich with a sunny side egg)

Dinner at Shun with the family.  Japanese restaurant that recently moved from its original location to their current location which is much larger.  It is located close to University Village and has some great food!

Ahi salad from Shun

Chicken Soba

Graduation dinner at BluWater Bistro overlooking Lake Union.  Delicious seafood with a great view of the water.  The service was great and I enjoyed every moment of it!

Manila clams in garlic, butter, and white wine

Dungeness Crab Stuffed Mahi

(oven roasted & drizzled with a macadamia nut buerre blanc & 

a mango sweet chili coulis. served with mashers & veggies)

Seared Ahi with Wasabi aioli

Grand Marnier Chocolate Fondue
served with lemon pound cake & fresh seasonal fruit 

 (chocolate fondue pot not shown but was delicious!)

It has been a wonderful week of experiencing new and old places! Today will be the huge graduation ceremony with a big get together at Bai Tong in South Seattle later tonight.  Pictures will be posted in a day or two.

Palace Kitchen

2030 5th Avenue
Seattle, WA 98121-2505
(206) 448-2001

Cupcake Royale

1111 East Pike Street

Seattle, WA 98122

Cafe Presse

1117 12th Avenue
Seattle, WA 98122-4415
(206) 709-7674

Shun

5101 25th Ave NE
(between Blakeley St & 54th St)
Seattle, WA 98105

BluWater Bistro

1001 Fairview N
Seattle WA 98109
(206) 447.0769 

Adventure to Port Ludlow

This past week I had the opportunity to visit Port Ludlow out on the Olympic Peninsula with a friend.  I have never been there before and the weather was on our side.  It was a beautiful day! We caught the Edmonds ferry bright and early at 7 am to Kingston and drove over to our friend's dad's house. He lives right on the coast in a quiet and picturesque neighborhood.  It was peaceful and relaxing. The best part of living there is that he is able to seed his own clams and geoducks for eating.  The tide goes in and out and when the water is high he is also able to take his kayaks or boats out on the ocean.

Low tide

We had a wonderful time eating, talking, and experiencing nature to its fullest.  The very first thing we did upon arriving was put on some tall boots and grab some clams for an early morning grilling session.  We also tried to dig out a geoduck, but the tide came up much faster than we expected and the lucky guy survived another day.  We enjoyed those clams though.  They were delicious with some homemade dipping sauce consisting of wasabi, ketchup, and horseradish.

Yum yum

So fresh!

After resting a bit we did some visiting of neighbors and then came back to the house for some fresh fresh dungeness crab and corn on the cob off the grill.  I have never had crab so fresh.  The meat was sweet and succulent and again a homemade sauce was provided made of sweet thai chili sauce, lime, and cilantro.  Can I say YUM!

Huge, sweet, delicious Dungeness crab

Kayaking was the next adventure and the tide had come up from the morning so it was perfect timing.  In our one man kayaks we paddled along the coast trying not to tip.  We were lucky to even see a seal surface close to our boats.  It was a peaceful, quiet day on the water, so very relaxing.

Kayaking time!

What do you think we did next? Yes, we cooked some more.  This time it was my friend and my turn  to cook.  We had brought over some fresh manila clams and scallops as well as udon noodles and made seafood udon soup from scratch.  It was fresh as can be and oh my were we stuffed when we were done eating.

Manila clams

Homemade udon soup

Port Ludlow is a wonderful place to visit for a quiet and relaxing time away from the city.  It has an abundance of seafood, open ocean, and good clean air.  I love it there and highly recommend taking a visit if you come to Seattle.  It is only a short ferry ride away to an oasis of peace!