Potato Skins

Yay! Beer food. So last night we had an end-of-the-year party were I served up some yummy onion, bell pepper, mushroom burgers and potato skins. I'll post the recipe when I have a few minutes.

All you need is water

The bane of my kitchen existence was fried eggs and minute rice. I'm not really sure why they are just two foods I couldn't master. However, I have now conquered my nemesis the egg.

Erin showed me this awesome-o trick to fry eggs. It works so well and is so easy I have fried eggs successfully on two occasions without even breaking the yolk.

All I have to do is grease a small skillet, heat over a medium flame for a couple minutes, crack in two eggs and salt and pepper the eggies. Now here's the cool part-when the eggs are about halfway cooked, add about a teaspoon of water to the pan. It will hiss and fizz, but don't worry it's okay. Then cover the pan and wait just a couple minutes. Remove the lid and wa-la, two eggs over medium in five minutes. How easy is that?

Life skill accomplished. Now, on to that damn minute rice.

The Soup Kitchen

You already know I love The Soup Kitchen on 1100 East and 2100 South. How could I not? A cup of soup for $2.69, an order of onion rings for $1.49, plus free bread sticks--it's like I've gone to cheap lunch heaven.

The potato leek soup is my new favorite. The soup is a nice creamy texture with big pieces of potato, bacon and leek. And since a leek is a "gourmet onion" I loved it. This is a grown-up's potato soup with lots of flavor.

I also grabbed a couple of the free cheese bread sticks. I ended up eating just one because that's all I needed for a cup of soup. The bread sticks are made fresh each day. My favorite part of the bread stick is the fluffy texture of the bread. The flavor is a little bland for me, but since it goes in my soup it's not a big deal. I just don't eat the bread sticks plain.

Finally the onion rings--the amazing golden rings of beer-battered and deep-fried deliciousness. I probably don't have to tell you how much I love the Soup Kitchen's onion rings, but I will. They are so good! Everyone should try them. The batter is rich and flavorful with plenty of herbs, spice and beer. Then they are fried perfectly so the outside is crispy and the inside is soft.

Served with a side of fry sauce mixed at a nice ratio of real mayonnaise to ketchup, the onion rings really couldn't get any better. And like I said lunch for just under $5.

Utah's Best Breakfast

Erin, Laura, Ava and I went to the Blue Plate Diner for dinner. It was another brinner experience for me on the patio at 2100 South 2100 East. For the past ten years or so, this place has won City Weekly's Best Breakfast Award. The diner was also featured on Food Network's Diners, Drive-Ins and Drivers not too long ago.

Even though it was just a little too cool, we sat on the patio. Our waitress was helpful and friendly, plus she had a couple of awesome tattoos.

I tried their biscuits and country gravy. The only downside was having to ask for more gravy. Come on, I want to die of a grease and sodium induced heart attack people! Give me more gravy. The biscuits were big and fluffy--much better than my sad attempts. The gravy was yummy, too. It had nice big chunks of sausage and was thick and flavorful. The home fries were better this time than before. I think there was more onion and green pepper.

Ava had the turkey avocado sandwich. She liked it well enough to take the extras home. I tried some of her steak fries. They were pretty good, but as Ava says the fry sauce could be better.

Erin tried the corned beef and hash dish the Blue Plate is famous for. She said it was good. It looked and smelled so delicious I might just try corned beef next time I'm there.

Laura had the tuna melt sandwich. I suspect this is one of her favorite things from Blue Plate. She seemed to enjoy her dinner, too. She ordered the shoestring fries instead of the steak fries. They looked great and would probably be my choice from their fry options.

In the end, Erin was nice enough to pick up the check. So I'm not sure how much it was, but I know each of our meals cost under $10. It's definitely worth the price for the fun vibe and delicious diner food.

With love to my sister and future niece

The following is just because I think I'm funny. I sent this to my expecting sister and her husband today. Enjoy!

Hi Amber and Eli,

Okay, so I know you're probably not going to want to hear this, but I thought I'd give you an approved list of stripper names. Oh yeah, because you're one job as a parent as Chris Rock says is to keep your daughter off the pole. I thought I'd clear up any gray area you have by providing you with a list of Aunt-approved stripper names. Keeping her off the pole is your job.

Anastasia
Aieronna
Ivy
Erika
Amber
Trixie

Oh wait. Those are taken. Okay, here are some more you may consider:
Alexis
Brittany
Candy
Brandi
Lexi
Nikki
Krystal

If you're feeling in touch with your "green" soul, these are nice:
Daisy
Cherry
Jasmine
Ginger

And don't forget to consider the classics:
Lola
Barbie
Destiny
Roxanne
Mandy
Layla

But if you want to be ironic:
Chastity
Experience

Or if you'd like to conjure thoughts of exotic places you've always wanted to go, there's these names:
Asia
Cheyenne
Houston
Berlin
India

Good luck choosing a name!

Thanks,
Krista

Lambiness

This recipe took more work than I thought it would, but after some experimentation and Internet research here's a recipe for roast lamb. This makes a nice tender roast that really shows off lamb's flavor and richness.

Hardware:
knife
roast pan
aluminum foil
cutting board
meat thermometer

Software:
3 lb. Lamb leg roast, bone out
4 garlic cloves, sliced
2 Tbs. fresh rosemary, minced
1 Tbs. dried thyme
1 Tbs. kosher salt

Instructions:
Heat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Cover the bottom of your roast pan with aluminum foil use a generous piece so the sides of the pan are covered as well. The roast should be tied together with butcher's twine.

Slice the garlic cloves. Now, cut slits into the roast spacing the slits evenly. Gently put a slice of garlic in each slit in the roast. Now, mince the rosemary. In a small bowl, mix together the rosemary, thyme and kosher salt. Using your hands, rub the herb mixture all over the lamb leg. Place the lamb leg fatty side down in the pan.

Insert the meat thermometer into the thickest part of the lamb. Roast the lamb uncovered until the internal temperature reaches 130 degrees for medium rare. (Carry over heat will allow the lamb to reach 135 degrees.) It will take about an hour or approximately 20 minutes for every pound.

When the thermometer reaches 130 degrees, remove the roast from the oven. Allow the roast to cool for ten minutes. Slice thinly and enjoy.

This roast also makes great leftover sandwiches the next day.

Internship, s till no job

Hey all,

Remember how I was excited about the second job interview? Well, I went and I couldn't shake the feeling that the job wasn't a good idea. So as Ava says I gave the cliche break up line. Yep, I told them that where I was at in my life didn't fit with their company.

But the good news is I've been asked to interview for my old job in the President's Office at Westminster. I'm taking an internship with Sundance through the month of June. So I'll be blogging less, but learning tons. And I feel good about accepting this internship and hopefully I get my old job back.

Talk to you soon,
Krista

Easy on the tini, please

Oh no, you didn't.
*snaps fingers in a Z-formation*

J.D. from Scrubs has a love of appletini's "easy on the tini." When Erin, Tony, Tyler and I had Scrubs night we decided to honor J.D. by drinking his favorite alcoholic beverage. Of course, it helped that early in the night we realized plum brandy and gin are not very good.

To make our appletinis we mixed vodka, sour apple mix and soda water. I tried for a two to three ratio since according to a Google search on Tyler's iPhone that's what a martini is supposed to be. It came out very yummy. A nice bright green that tastes an awful lot like Jolly Ranchers.

The appletinis were prefaced by a couple of tacos from the taco stand on State Street in the Sears parking lot. Two tacos are $1.50 with a nice filling of lengua and salsa it's more than worth the low price. The lengua was tender and delicious. The taco shells were nice and fresh made than fried in grease. Yum!

Do you have a food or drink you associate with a TV show?

Millie's

Ava and I decided to enjoy a little bit of deep-fried goodness in the sunshine for lunch. We walked over to Millie's Burgers on 2100 South and about 1000 East. The servers were helpful and fast.

I ordered the Millie Cheeseburger, onion rings and a coke. The Millie Cheeseburger is apparently Millie's version of the McDonald's Big Mac. According to Ava this means it's a burger, cheese, special sauce, lettuce and pickle on a sesame seed bun. I'm pretty sure the special sauce at Millie's is fry sauce.

The burger reminded me a lot of being a kid and having summer barbecues. Mostly because, it was a little overdone and a little messy. The onion rings were the frozen than fried kind and you've probably figured out by now I'm not a big fan. Millie's does add some spice after frying them so I could handle. Plus, they always give you fry sauce.

As always, the food is good. Nothing spectacular, but for $6 and supporting my local economy totally worth it.

Boy, boy, boy

So my friend Walt and I have been having this discussion about gross food challenges. You know, like the Gallon Challenge where a person tries to drink an entire gallon of milk in an hour or the Onion Challenge where a person tries to eat an entire onion.

Well, Walt has never actually participated in these challenges, but he likes to bet his friends (a bunch of college boys) that they can't do things like eat four Big Macs in 20 minutes. Last time Walt did this he lost $45.

Have you seen boys eat? Of course, they can do eat vast amounts of food in no time. It's amazing! College boys chowing down is like watching a magician. Food. Just. Disappears.

So about two minutes ago I get a text from Walt, "Twenty-five chicken nuggets in ten minutes. You in?" Uhh...no. I might eat a lot, but I don't eat that much. Last time I checked the best way to pack it in is to eat nice and slow.

Heehee. Anyone else ever eat way more than they should for just a few bucks?

Update: Walt successfully ate 25 chicken nuggets in a half hour. Surprisingly, no one lost any money or their lunch. Amazing what a tummy can take!

Curry meet Oscar

My tummy is feeling much better. Lilian came to visit and she suggested I eat something and *poof* my tummy settled down. Just a few hours later we went to lunch at the Thai Garden at 4450 South 900 East.

The Thai Garden is inside a strip mall so it looks a little scary. Inside, the space has some cool and some weird decorations. My favorite decor is Oscar. Thai Garden has a fish tank where the most giant fish lives. His name's Oscar and he's 14 years old! The staff call him "Grandpa." Oscar is a monster fish. He's so big when he dived for some food his tail came out of the water.

Other nifty decorations include Christmas tinsel and a wall of photos of customers. There's a sort of quirky charm to the interior that made me love the atmosphere.

Our servers were very nice. Although, I was a little confused by the switch between two different women. Still, between the two of them we had everything we needed when we needed it.

I ordered a coconut curry soup and yellow curry with chicken for lunch from their combination menu for $8. The soup was delicious! It was sweet and mild. There were big chunks of mushroom, carrot and potato in the soup. All cooked perfectly!

The yellow curry was spicy and delicious. I was able to determine the right curry to rice ratio for me because the rice was served on the side so my mouth didn't burn. The chicken was tender and juicy. There was just enough cilantro to cool the curry down, but not so much you think you're eating grass.

Lilian ordered a sweet and sour soup and a sweet and sour chicken. She said the soup was really yummy. She also got the Thai Iced Tea. It was so good! I think it was coconut milk stirred with a chai tea, but I'm not sure. I do know it looked and tasted amazing. So when I go back to Thai Garden I'll be drinking their tea.

Lunch came to a rough total of $21. Thai Garden is a slow enough restaurant they will let you just hang out for a while. Plus they were totally cool with Lil and I messing with Oscar because really we're all 12 inside. If Thai Garden were closer to me, I would definitely go there more often. If you're ever by 4500 South and 900 East definitely check this place out.

Job search

Hey there,

Some of you might remember I've been looking for a job since January. Well, I finally got called back for a second interview! It's at Salt Lake Marketing Group as an administrative assistant. It's part-time, too. So it should fit with my school, work and writing schedule. By the way, I'm also doing freelance writing these days so if you know any publishers let me know.

Talk to you soon,
Krista

Questionable sushi

I'm sure we've all seen the sushi at Smith's. It's in the deli/bakery area and it always looks kind of questionable. Well, a friend said it wasn't too bad and worth trying. So I did. This was a mistake.

My first sign should've been the walk home. As I was coming home, I was followed by two LDS missionaries, which I thought was weird because I was carrying a case of Blue Moon. I had picked up the California Roll sushi because I figured with artificial crab how bad could it be?

The sushi was $6.19 and by far the cheapest sushi roll I've ever bought. I immediately went to the kitchen and broke into my sushi. After just a few pieces I was interrupted by the missionaries. They had been temporarily distracted by my neighbors and now it was my turn.

We talked for a few minutes. The blond was very persistent. I finally sent them on their way and went back to my sushi.

With a little wasabi and soy sauce, the sushi wasn't too bad. The roll had a fairly nice balance between rice, tobiko, crab, carrot and cucumber. Not great by any means, but palatable and for $6 it seemed worth the money.

Only now it's been more than 12 hours and I'm sitting on my couch feeling like I might puke. Smith's sushi is the most questionable food I ate yesterday. I blame the sushi. I so blame the sushi--and the missionaries.

Monday's pasta

Yesterday an old friend came to visit. Des is an amazing girl and if anyone out there is lucky enough to know her you know what I mean. We had a great time wandering around Sugar House and catching up.

For lunch, we decided to eat at Noodles and Company on 1100 East-ish and 2100 South. I love the Sugar House Noodles because Ava used to work there. So I know some people when I come in. This time the service was extra good: Val, Cheri and Blas were extra on-top of things.

I had a nice conversation with Val. She's this great woman whose son is coming to Westminster in the fall after spending a year in Germany.

I got the regular Penne Rosa with cavatapi noodles and a small soda. I love that they will let you make pretty much any substitution. And since cavatapi are so much more fun than penne, I almost always ask for the switch. It cost about $6.

The penne rosa was very good. It has spinach and mushrooms in a tomato sauce. My favorite part about the flavor of the rosa dish is the little bit of heat. It's a nice little kick that pairs nicely with the spinach. Even Des, who says she has a "weak tongue," says it's mild enough for her.

Des and I ate out on the patio in the beautiful heat and sunshine. I love summer. Afterwards, we wandered through Hidden Hollow. A great finish to a very nice lunch.

Back to the pond

After Erin and I had our adventure in a suburban/small town hell, we were relieved to be back in the city. It's just nice to know where things are and to see streets with different names.

Since we had missed out on lunch, we decided to head to Downtown for some dinner. Erin wanted to check out Saans since she missed their show on Friday. The photography there is incredible!

For dinner we went to the Atlantic Cafe on 325 South Main Street. It's a great little place with an amazing vibe and an awesome patio. Our server was the blond woman who I've had before. She's good, not great. But does a decent job of waiting tables.

We sat on the patio. I had a Newcastle, which is a great beer from the UK. It's dark, smooth and only half as bitter as you'd think. But for five dollars, I limited myself to just one. I ordered the salmon dinner. In order of yumminess the meal was crostini, salad, salmon and rice.

The crostini were incredible. These nearly bite size slices of bread were oven-grilled, slathered with butter and topped with Parmesan cheese. I couldn't help, but eat them all.

The salad was just as simple mix of greens with croutons, Parmesan cheese and balsamic vinaigrette. The balsamic was sweeter than what I'm used to and I was surprised to find myself eating the whole salad.

The salmon was grilled perfectly, but not quite as fresh as I would like. Plus with only one sliver of a lemon slice, I wanted more lemon and really I could've used a tartar sauce. It was served with a red sauce Atlantic puts on nearly every dish, but it just didn't quite go together.

Erin had the steak kebab and I'm pretty sure she loved it. She ate enough so she felt like she couldn't move after we finished. Not that I was going anywhere.

I ordered the chicken kebab to go for Ava. She stayed home because she wasn't feeling well. Once she had her chicken she seemed to like it. I'm pretty sure Ava's ordered this before and I think it's one of her favorite things from Atlantic's menu.

All in all, dinner came to just over $40. It was more than I expected, but I'm going to chalk that up to the additional cost of beer. Yay! Utah!

As always, Atlantic is worth the trip especially if you're every feeling nostalgic for Europe. My favorite is still the margherita pizza.

Eventually, we had cake

So that experiment of summer time flavors is not happening. Yesterday, I didn't go to a wedding.

Yes, you read that correctly. I didn't go to a wedding. Let me tell you what happened.

My friend Jen Soto invited me to her wedding. The ceremony was held at the Officer's Club at Camp Williams in Bluffdale. I don't know anyone who's been there before, but it was disastrous. And I had plenty of warning.

Erin and I went to the photo lab so she could develop film and I could do some writing. We left a little bit late. Then we took the wrong exit because there was some miscommunication about which direction Bluffdale was. I didn't bother with MapQuest because Jen's invite included directions. So we got on the freeway at about 1:45 p.m. The ceremony was scheduled to start at two.

We slowly made our way to Lehi Main Exit because there was traffic on a Saturday freakin' afternoon. Well, I decided we should take exit 282, which is not the Lehi Main exit. We ended up driving around Highland and Alpine for a long time.

These towns are insane! Everything looks the same. There are no distinguishing features on any of the buildings. We're in the middle of freaking suburbia and some guy is riding a horse in a hay field. It felt like the twilight zone to my small town turned city girl self.

I called one of our actors from the film I did during the semester because I knew he lived in Highland. At that point we had gotten directions from a very nice man at a gas station, so we were getting back on track.

We made it back to the freeway, found the right exit and discovered we needed to turn right not left. Oh and Redwood Road and Camp Williams Road are the same freakin' road, which is also called SR 98. Yes, the world hates me.

We got to Jen's reception at about 4 p.m. Remember, it started at two? Luckily, Jen is an amazing friend and a calm bride so everything went well. She looked amazing. Her family is super friendly and I ate some awesome cake. Oh and they had those baby cheesecakes so I was happy to finally be there.

Not surprisingly, exiting the twilight zone was no problem. Erin and I made it safely home without getting lost once.

Experiment II

So the awesome experiment of summer time flavors did not happen. Instead, I drank free coffee.

I went to a budget forum at my school. (For the complete story check out, www.westminsterforum.net.) In the the last issue of The Forum we published a story about our student government. The story showed that ASWC controls and gets paid more money than most students realize. The story also created some conflict between The Forum, the senate and ASWC.

Well, I'll be editor for The Forum next year so my staff writer Walt and I went to the budget meeting. I learned some interesting things about how money is given out, but sadly only five students counting myself and Walt were there.

Afterwards, we went to Gallery Stroll to go visit Erin at her gallery where she was rockin' the selling art internship. We saw some great local art at a few different shops. If you're in Downtown anytime in the next month, wander into Saans and Kayo they have amazing work on display this month.

Walt and I went to McDonald's with our coupons for a free iced mocha. You know what? It's not too bad. It's pretty much a latte with chocolate syrup and whipped cream. It was better than what I expected from Mickey D's. I probably won't pay for it.

I think I'll try rum cake and that combination of orange, lemon, coconut, pecan and ginger. It sounds delicious!

Experiment

Hey there,

Tonight I think I'll experiment with some lemon, ginger, coconut and pecans. I'll let you know how it goes. If anyone has any suggestions (I'm currently thinking dessert), please let me know!

Talk to you soon,
Krista

Coffee

Today, I must reflect on the meaninglessness of decaf. Really? Really?? What we're the inventors of decaffeinated coffee hoping to accomplish when they first extracted the caffeine from the coffee bean. What's the freakin' point?

This morning in my apartment we were out of regular coffee because we haven't been grocery shopping in a couple weeks. One day a few months back Miss Ava mistakenly bought some decaf grounds so that's all we had on hand. Erin made the coffee just the same as always, but it's not the same.

I apologize to all the decaf coffee drinkers in this world, but I must ask why? How does a cup of flavored, hot water wake you up in the morning. If I wanted decaf, I'd drink tea. This is why I must agree with the Sugar House Coffee slogan "Death to Decaf."

That's all.

It's a girl!!!

This has absolutely nothing to do with food, but keep reading.

Yay! My beautiful sister, Amber is having a baby in October. She found out today it's a girl! I'm super excited for her. My family is always outranked by the boys so we're finally breaking even. Congratulations, sis! I love you.

IHOP

Yep, yep breakfast for dinner is always a good plan. I rarely go to places like IHOP. Franchises and chains with faceless owners and depressed employees don't make me want to spend money. But last night I was outvoted by Erin and Harry.

So I made a brinner trip to IHOP. Our server had a cold, but she was really nice and she answered my usual questions about what's good on the menu. Turns out the waitress was a girl after my own heart her favorite dishes are the Split Decision Breakfast, the Appetizer Sample and the Cheeseburger with French Fries. It was a tough decision, but I went with the split decision breakfast.

So if breakfast were served as a sampler dish this would be it. I had scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, french toast and pancakes. Yeah, I was starving, but that is still way too much food for my tummy. I ate the eggs, sausage french toast and enough pancake to taste it. Yep, I was starving.

The coffee was mediocre. Like always if I added enough creamer and sugar, the hot caffeine was drinkable, but not anything worth talking about. Our server was stellar though and kept the water and coffee coming.

Here's the thing about IHOP, it's like Starbucks coffee nothing stands out in a good way or a bad way. It just is. So for the three of us to eat brinner at 9 p.m. it was $35. We enjoyed good service and had a nice time, but that's it. So I'll probably end up back at IHOP some other night, but it will never be the first place I think of when I want to go out to eat.

How do you feel about chain restaurants?

Hummus

I have no idea why I've never talked about hummus before. Actually, before I met Renee I may have tried hummus all of twice and both times I thought it was kind of a strange texture and lacking in flavor. Like I said my view of hummus changed when I met Renee.

Renne is a goddess! She moved to Salt Lake from North Carolina this past month to support her boyfriend. She's my film production mamma, a Southern women and a vegetarian, which is how I ended up with some delicious hummus.

I know, I know. I've never mentioned pre-packaged food before and I dislike fast food. But seriously good hummus comes in a little container from the store. My understanding and wikipedia agrees that hummus is usually made o fchickpeas, tahini, olive oil, lemon, salt and pepper. The awesomeness of this pre-packaged dip is in the olives.

I want to try and make my own version of this hummus, I'll post the recipe later. But the kalamata olives in the mix made a huge difference in taste. The texture still takes some getting used to for my American self. I ate this hummus on everything--toasted bread, flour tortillas, chips and pita bread.

Like a good guacomole, a good hummus is about the dip, not the chip.

The return

Hello everyone,

I just finished filming my first short film with a group of students from Westminster. It was exhausting and fun! So now I have time to post all the food stories I've been collecting during the craziness of filmmaking. I'll write more soon.

Krista

P.S. Summer is here to stay and I feel good about the possibilities of patio dining in the near future.