Food Recipe: Congee, again!

So I tried to be inventive and figure out how to make this dish on my own. Unfortunately, I should really stick with making traditional American/Italian comfort cuisine. Sometimes I can handle a taco, but you know anything else just throws me.

This picture is not what my congee looked like. It was much more gloppy and less overall appealing. I put 13 cups of water with one cup of rice vinegar into the 50s rice maker with two cups of medium grain rice. This was a bad idea. About four-fifths the way into the rice cooking, I realized I should've left the lid half off so the water could actually cook down.

The next bad idea was trying to recreate the century egg from Bay Leaf Cafe. I went ahead and steeped three bags of green tea into a pot of hot water for about 15 minutes. Then I boiled the eggs for about 20 minutes.

I successfully died the egg shells a funky brown color and made the eggs looked disease. This was clearly not enough tea time to actually have any effect on the egg.

In the end, I determined the congee was edible and served it up with some steak strips, onions, boiled egg and sweet red pepper. My thought was this would taste like a hearty breakfast dish perfect for dinner.

Ava was a good sport and ate some. She even said it was good for a first try. My roommates are amazing!

I think I'll try congee again. I just need to do some more research before I boil anything again.

Food Review: Get your vegan on

Joan, CBC and I went to Vertical Diner after an In n' Out Burger misadventure. Turns out vegetarian burgers are pretty delicious if you know what you're doing.

Vertical Diner is a misplaced vegetarian restaurant next to a meat packing plant just off 2100 South in Sugar House. They have a teensy parking lot with no lights so drive extra safe if you're there at night, but once you get inside you forget about the scary parking.

The diner was a little cold the night we were there. I'm talking cold for a restaurant people, not just me whining about winter again.

Our server Caleb was helpful and fun. He was definitely light-hearted and helped us feel better about the long drive to the long line at In n' Out.

I tried the vegetarian burger with french fries. Turns out everything on the menu is vegan friendly--and I didn't even notice. It was surprisingly good. I was so impressed by the tofu burger I ate most of it. My only complaint is that the bun was a little dry.

The fries were served with vegan fry sauce that has left me wondering how it is even possible to make vegan mayonnaise. They were pretty tasty and if I hadn't known the fry sauce was vegan I wouldn't have noticed.

Joan loves the avocado sandwich from Vertical Diner. And CBC tested out a pulled pork sandwich. In the end, I was pleasantly surprised by the vegan food of Vertical Diner. Joan says Vertical Diner is the best place for non-vegans to go with their vegan friends.

The cost was about the same for any other diner in town, which is to say a burger or sandwich will run you about $8.

Food Review: Finn's Cafe

Lovely Ava and I headed to the Salty City mainstay, Finn's Cafe for lunch one freezing winter afternoon.

Even though the world outside was gray and frigid, Finn's does a great job of being welcoming, bright and vibrant. The Cafe has been in operation since the 1940s and they have the memorabilia tastefully displayed to prove it.

Ava and I both had the cream of cauliflower soup. It was so good. I was not expecting the dish to be as delicious or pretty as it was. Finn's also serves onion rolls that were nice and crusty on the outside and all fluffy goodness on the inside.

I had the catch of the day for lunch. It turned out to be crab cakes and they were delicious. The sauce Finn's served with them was great! The whole dish was presented beautifully. Everything was so tasty I ate far more than I should've, which made this lunch a great intervention in an otherwise yucky day.

Ava had the weinerschintzel and she said it was good. It looked delicious! I'll have to try some of that soon. We both agreed the roasted potatoes and asparagus were good. The potatoes were cooked just right and seasoned well. Not surprisingly, the potatoes were my favorite part of the dish. Everything seemed to be cooked just right.

Our server was very helpful and did a great job of keeping an eye on us without hovering. The owner even stopped by to check everything tasted good. And it did! I have feeling you would be hard pressed to have a bad experience at Finn's. These people have been in business for over 60 years and it shows.

The only catch for me was the price. Lunch was a little more expensive for the two of us than I normally would like to spend, but the warm haven was well worth the price.

Food Review: Adventurous Chinese cuisine at a Southern cafe

When CBC and I went to Bay Leaf Cafe, I tried this incredible dish called "congee." It is a delicious rice porridge served with ginger and an egg hard boiled in tea. The server said congee is a traditional breakfast dish from China and at his recommendation I tried it out.

The rice was warm, soft and about the consistency of a risotto. Mmmm...just the memory makes me want to go back for more. The rice seemed to have some sort of vinegar in it as a seasoning at first it was a little off-putting, but then when I got some of the fresh ginger with the vinegary rice there was an awesome blend of savory, bitter and sweet going on.

The century egg was somehow boiled in a tea until it turned dark purple. The egg looked a little intimidating, but ended up being much better than any other hard boiled egg I've ever tried. So good! This is a dish that changed my life, people.

We also had fried pickles because CBC just had to taste how delicious this amazingly Southern dish is. Once again, Bay Leaf delivered and I have to tell everyone to try out fried pickles. They are amazing!

CBC had the catfish po'boy. It was pretty good, but it didn't win mad adventure points like the congee or fried pickles. The ingredients were all fresh. And the sandwich wasn't dry and it wasn't mushy--it was just right.

Our server was amazing! He's definitely my favorite at Bay Leaf. I just can't remember his name. Maybe, Michael? Or Caleb? Something Bible related. Anyway, man with red hair was fantastic.

Bay Leaf Cafe, I love you. Please prove the statistic wrong and stay in business. Salt Lake City needs you. I need you.

Now, excuse me I'm off for some congee experimentation.

Life: I'm taking a personal day

I finally have time to breathe!

This means I'm enjoying far too many cookies and too much coffee. Both make me happy.

It's been quite the semester this time around and I'm more than ready for break time. I can't wait to spend all day curled up on the couch with a good book and nothing to do, but read and pork out on holiday treats.

I learned a lot this semester as the president of film club and editor for the student newspaper. My friend Rikki wrote a fabulous post on what she learned as the Editor-in-Chief for the Daily Evergreen out at Washington State University. And I have to say I agree, sistah. This has been a semester for difficult life experiences that I still wouldn't trade if given a chance. (I'm lookin' at you, Walt.)

All in all, I spent way more time with the paper than I ever intended and this meant the film production started to slide. I'm not entirely sure how to prevent this from happening again next semester so any suggestions would be welcome.

Also school work pretty much became an in-my-spare-time occupation. So yeah, I may not have done very well in school. The low point here was realizing how much I don't care about school anymore. I just want my degree and I want to be done.

Finally in my wee bits of personal life time, where I wasn't trying to calm the craziness, keep the craziness going, or stop the craziness that is a student paper, I went and found a boy to keep me busy.

And it is good. So even though I survived the semester from hell, I'm actually pretty happy with my life. Because all I needed to discover how truly amazing the people in my life are, was a lot of craziness of drive me insane. So giant thank yous to all my friends and family. You people are made of pure awesome!