give thanks love & praise

My favorite holiday has come and gone. It was a long day with mishaps here and there, but overall, we all got tipsy, merry, and had to loosen our belt buckles after dinner. So, I’d say, all in all, a good year for turkey day.

There are so many things to be grateful for this year…. My family especially my parents and older sister who are always there for me no matter what. Family I actually want to spend time with. Family I actually miss when I’m away. I’m so incredibly lucky to have their support and love, and I couldn’t ever ask for a better family than the one I get to come home to.

My school friends and especially my roommates. They’re the reason why I actually like going back to my apartment at the end of the day. Everyone at stinking City Park always in an arm’s grasp, there to feed me, help me pass my accounting classes, and call up on a Friday night when I’m bored out of my mind.

Along with the people in my life, I’m so grateful for the opportunities God has given me, and also the little things in life that I’m blessed with that make me realize exactly how fortunate I am. I’m so incredibly lucky to be going to Hong Kong next semester, and I am so thankful for everything that I’ve been given in my life.

I’m sad that Thanksgiving break is over and I have to go back to school soon… But at least I just need to wait it out for two more weeks and then I have ultimate freedom! So excited for winter break to come. :] I just need to barrel through a couple presentations and two final exams, and I’m done. Wish time would pass by faster. I’ll make it pass with food. Not as many leftovers this year as in years past… Wonder why?? Food was DELISH!

Unfortunately, my camera ran out of batteries so I didn’t get to take too many pictures of the feast. Maybe I’ll post up the secret recipe to a juicy beautiful big roasted bird later. Maybe not. :]

drumsticks

table setting!

headache.

Romeo&Juliet, this joint USC and UCLA event, was last night, and I have the biggest headache ever. I hate drama. Period. I usually just avoid problems until they go away. I feel very… useless. It’s driving me nuts.

I could hardly sleep last night because I felt like a terrible person and then, a stupid car alarm woke me up at 7 am, and being the type of person who can’t fall asleep again after being woken up, I’ve been awake for the past seven hours cleaning, thinking, writing, sending out emails, preparing my visa for Hong Kong, and baking pumpkin bread.

loaf

Pumpkin makes everything better.
I bought pumpkin pie spice from Trader Joe’s so we’ll see how this turns out.
I also cut out an entire cup of sugar from the recipe so it wouldn’t be too sweet. I don’t know if that was a good call or not… I frosted the muffins because they definitely weren’t sweet enough. They’re like pumpkin muffin/cupcakes now.

cup-fins? muf-cakes?

Downeast Maine Pumpkin Bread
adapted from allrecipes.com
Yield: 1 9×5 loaf and 12 muffins

1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
4 eggs
3/4 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup water
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 3/4 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour three 7×3 inch loaf pans.

In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, water and sugar until well blended. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, and pumpkin pie spice. Stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended. Pour into the prepared pans.

Bake for about 50 minutes in the preheated oven for the loaf and 20 minutes for the muffins. Loaves are done when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

the holidays: chocolate crinkles

The holidays are upon us!
I don’t know if I like being bombarded by Christmas decorations and commercials when the weather’s still hot outside and people have just finished uploading their Halloween pictures on facebook.

And the resounding echo in our apartment of “BFADS! BFADS!” (That’s Black Friday Ads for you noobs who, like me, aren’t too big on the Black Friday bandwagon. Although this year is a different story. I’m going to buy a Digital SLR!!! Look forward to better quality pictures post-Thanksgiving.)

Mid-November already?
And, say what? THANKSGIVING?
October and September have barely settled, and it’s already November? Insane. In less than two weeks, it’s going to be December, and I’m going to be madly packing for Hong Kong. It’s so surreal…. Each day seems so long, but next thing you know, it’s week 10, 11, 12 for school!
And that’s right, my favorite BONNEVIVANTE holiday is next week!
I love Thanksgiving. It’s so obese. So American.

I get to cook turkey for sixteen people next Thursday! I’m debating if the pies should be homemade… I know that’s a ridiculous question because this is a baking blog and I should be ashamed of myself for not even wanting to bake them, but I think I’m going to be really burnt out and tired after my last midterm. I don’t know if I have it in me to bake 2 pies, prep the turkey, and also help out with getting the house ready for a raucous Kim-Suh family reunion. If you don’t know any Koreans, let me tell you, family gatherings are epic. Epically scary and loud and crazy and drunk and fat.

they look like little craggly mountain tops.

But anyway, I did a little baking today because… Just because. No reason whatsoever. Who needs a reason to bake? Especially when there’s chocolate involved. I guess as a celebration of the weather finally getting chillier! Bring it on! Sweating on my way to class and then having my teeth chatter when I stand in the shade is getting old really fast.

This recipe popped up in my googlereader a couple days ago. Aren’t they cute? They remind me of the powdered sugar covered brownie bites our school newspaper staff would buy for every end of the semester banquet but a lot prettier.

I halved the recipe thinking I wouldn’t need that many cookies. Terrible idea. These disappeared in a heartbeat (I’m not gonna lie. I ate most of them.) Probably because they’re fudgy and just melt away in your mouth….

chocolate. nomnom

Chocolate Crinkles
adapted from allrecipes.com
Yield: 20 cookies

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cups white sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar

In a medium bowl, mix together cocoa, white sugar, and vegetable oil. Beat in eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt; stir into the cocoa mixture. Cover dough, and chill for at least 4 hours or freeze for 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Roll dough into one inch balls. Generously coat each ball in confectioners’ sugar before placing onto prepared cookie sheets.

Bake in preheated oven for 10 to 12 minutes. For best results in terms of the cookies cracking, bake one cookie sheet at a time on the second to top rack. Let stand on the cookie sheet for a minute before transferring to wire racks to cool.

holiday chicken salad

I think only in California can you go to the beach in autumn/winter and have it still look like this:

seal beach

Gorgeous, isn’t it?
My small group leader is actually moving away to Michigan after having lived in SoCal her entire life because she found a reporting job in Lansing. I’m SO happy for her because I knew she was looking for a job, but I’m really bummed out that she’s going so far away….

I wonder where I’ll go after graduation. Right now, signs point to downtown LA, but who knows, right? Things could always change. Even if I take the internship offer, it doesn’t mean I’ll get a full-time offer at the end of next summer.
Maybe I could ask for a transfer somewhere else if I’m really sick of LA by the time I graduate….

I’ve lived in SoCal my entire life… Born and raised, so I’ve always wondered what it would be like to live somewhere else. I always wanted to go as far away from home as possible for college and I ended up going 20 minutes away from home. Then, I thought to myself, I want to work in the East Coast after graduation, and now I find myself signing on for an internship in the LA office. I guess this is how people find themselves in one place for years and years… It’s all the little steps that you make thinking, “This isn’t permanent.”

I think by the time I’m 25, if the only place I’ve ever lived is still only LA, I’m going to have to do some major restructuring to my life.

Where would you want to go if you could live anywhere else?

with pita bread

But back to the point of today’s post.
Leftover chicken, some random veggies, craisins from my “diet”….
Throw in some mayo, and there you go, you have lunch for your entire apartment.
This is a good, standard recipe. Nothing AMAZING, but for when you have leftovers and you want to throw something together quickly, it’s pretty damned easy.

I see this recipe being reused after Thanksgiving… I’m sure you can see the resemblance to certain ingredients that will be leftover after the BIG FAT OBESITY FEST that will be happening in the Kim household on November 26. Oh MAN OH MAN 16 days to Thanksgiving… I love Thanksgiving! Can’t wait….

Oh, and for serving the chicken salad, I like it especially inside of the pita pockets I bought at Trader Joe’s last night. I’m sure it would be good in lettuce wraps, too.

I LOVE Trader Joe’s… But that’s another story for another time.

P.S. I didn’t have paprika or pecans, so I just didn’t add them… Still good!

lunch today :)

Holiday Chicken Salad
adapted from allrecipes.com

2 cups cubed, cooked chicken meat
1/2 cup mayonnaise
3/4 cups dried cranberries
1/2 cup chopped celery
1 green onion, chopped
1/2 green bell pepper, diced
1/2 teaspoon seasoning salt
ground black pepper to taste

In a medium bowl, mix together mayonnaise with seasoned salt. Blend in dried cranberries, celery, bell pepper, and green onion. Add chopped chicken, and mix well. Season with black pepper to taste. Chill 1 hour.