Category / friends

by princesshotflash

Be careful what you ask for

Haha! I wrote I that I wanted to make mango jam and banana bread but I either missed the season or all my frozen bananas were all gone. Now I have a bunch of mangos and bananas waiting for me to do some thing with.

My girlfriend read my post and asked her friend that has a mango farm is she had any more mangoes left and look what I got. There were two people in my house that were so happy to see these. They couldn’t wait to eat one.

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Mangoes to eat

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A boxes of mangoes to jam

And maybe some mango sweet with the rest of the mangoes.

Then a family friend came by to share some bananas that she got.

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Bag of Williams Banana waiting to be made into something

May try batch of monkey butter with the bananas.

Well, I’ll be busy in this coming week. Pray to the weather gods for cool dry weather for jamming and baking.

by princesshotflash

​onelastshindig

onlastshidig, the last party I would have at the house. A casual affair, people coming and go from 1–9pm. Food that I made from the ingredients I have left in my cabinets or recipes I just wanted to try. My last foodie experience at my Edgebrook home.

The Menu

Lots of prep goes into throwing a party. And I needed to be creative with my menu because I tried to use up as much of my supplies as I could.

lentil fritters
roasted tomato salsa
Oat’s Chicken marinating

Left to right: lentil fritter ready to be fried, salsa ready to served, Oat BBQ chicken marinating.

The morning of the party I had a late start because I had to wait for the Chimney guy to show up. Got stood up and I was behind schedule by 2 hours. And the menu shows it.

  • Gyoza–forgot to make
  • Hawaii Mac Salad–no time to mix up, a giant bowl of macaroni, potatoes, and hard-boiled egg sat in my refrigerator for the party
  • Lentil Fritters–like the Mac Salad, it sat in my freezer waiting to be fried up
  • Beef Salad
  • Asian Chopped Salad
  • Kale Salad–add the Asian dressing, no time to make the sunflower seed dressing
  • Carrot Harissa and Feta–forgot to add the feta
  • Kalua Pork–forgot to serve up
  • Oat’s Chicken
  • Assorted Burgers–veggie and fish
  • Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
  • Lilikoi Coconut Pie
  • Thai Tea Cupcakes–too hot to make up

 

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from top to bottom: Carrot Harissa Salad, Kale Salad with roast carrots and pasta, Asian Chopped Salad

 

I felt that there wasn’t enough food but I didn’t remember the other items. It was the heat and the humidity [stupid AC] plus lack of sleep. I wish I could have made more.

Party Rules

I created party rules, mostly because I wanted help with help with cleaning out my house.

  1. Bring nothing
  2. If you must bring something, bring your favorite drink
  3. You must take one thing home with you
  4. bring a folding or lawn chairs if you have it available

Most people followed was #4. We had more than enough chairs. The rule that most people broke was to take one home with them. At least a few people took things and that all I can ask for. One thing I learned in this past year is to be thankful for what you have and not to expect anything more.

The Event

It was a hot and humid day only made worst that my AC didn’t work. But all my friends were troopers and stuck it out with me and had a nice time.

My large yard came in handy for kids at my party. Running around, chasing each other, kicking and throwing a ball. It was so nice to see it being used for what it was made for.

Most of the food went. Had a lot of beer and wine left, which my neighbors were happy to take off my hands. I think my foodie experience was a success with many requests for recipes. I added links to the menu above for all the request recipes.

I wanted to make up takeaways for people but once again I ran out of time and gave into the heat and humidity. I made up one batch of harissa, sugar plum jam, and Princess Hot Flash Healthier Banana Bread. Not enough for everyone but a few people got some. Here’s the recipe for the Banana Bread. I adjusted a recipe from my old blog. It most definitely is better than before.

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Princess Hot Flash Healthier Banana Bread

Bake: 350º
Time: 1 hour 15 minutes or tester comes out clean
Pan: 9 x 5 x 3 loaf pan [5 mini loaves adjust bake time]

3/4 c butter, soften
1 1/2 c sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 c non-fat greek yogurt, plain (I use full-fat vanilla greek yogurt for the bread at the party)

Dry Ingredients
2 c flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 c grounded coconut, unsweetened
1/4 c grounded golden flax seeds

1 cup ripe bananas, mashed [I throw my ripe bananas in my freezer, I used 3 medium size ones]
1/3 cup golden raisins *

Grease pan with oil and flour, set on the side. Sift together in a separate bowl dry ingredients and set on the side. Cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a ​time, mix in well then add vanilla. Mix in dry ingredients alternating with yogurt in 3 addition, starting with flour, don’t over mix. Fold in bananas and raisins.

Watch your bread as it got really dark at the end. I tented it with foil for the last 1/2 hour so it wouldn’t burn. I tested it with a bamboo skewer to see if it was done.

*I threw the raisins into the flour mixture so they were coated with the flour so they didn’t sink to the bottom.

 

by princesshotflash

The elephant has left the room

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My living room to be exact. The exodus has started and things are leaving. My rooms are starting to empty and walls looking bare.

The elephant chair will continue to live with a Thai family. And I’m sure it will be well used and loved. My two mirrors and 3 paintings also found a home with them. If you don’t know the story of the elephant chair, here’s the link from my old blog with the story.

 

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Elephant chair got some new pillows–elephant one, too.

Hopefully, I’ll get more takers. I would like to sell things but I got two creepy replies from craigslist posts that I’m not sure if I want to continue with the selling route. Maybe it just my destiny to donate and give away to friends my stuff.

 

 

by princesshotflash

Exhausted!

I’m finally done with my house but I’m helping my girlfriend (who is also moving to Hawaii after 34 years and 11 months) place ready to be put on the market. So it was 2 days of cleaning and painting.

Hopefully no more paint on me for a while. All I need to do is keep it clean (lots of take out) and if all the stars are lined up, someone else will fall in love with my house as Oat and I did.

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My hands are tired and sore from all the work I’ve done the past 2 weeks to get it ready.

But this weekend will be different. Visiting a friend I have seen in a while for hiking and a lot of catching up.

 

by princesshotflash

Recipe Testing: Quiche for Kate

Kate came over to the house to help me paint in my quest to get my house ready for sale. In return, I made her lunch of caramelized onion and broccoli quiche.

This was a fast and dirty quiche. Started late (as usually). Frozen crust, shredded swiss and gruyere from Trader Joe’s, little bit shredded havarti, broccoli caramelized onions and shallots, . I blended my two favorite quiche recipes to come up with Kate’s quiche.

Add the caramelized onions/shallots to the par-baked crust, broccoli on top, then cheese. Finally add the custard to the filling. Custard has milk with dash of heavy cream, eggs, pepper and masala wine. Then finally top with some grated parmesan. Baked for a 1/2 hour @ 375° or till crust golden brown and slightly brown on top. I think it could have use a little more time. Just a little loose but the taste was good. Maybe it was the havarti, hmmm. Love caramelized onion, you can add more for a more onion-y flavor. It makes everything taste yummy. And the broccoli had a slight bit to it not too mushy.

Quiche for Kate

I combined my two favorite quiche recipes to make this one–Smitten Kitchen’s Leek and Mushroom Quiche and One Perfect Bite’s Zucchini and Caramelized Onion Tart. Both great recipes but as usual, I didn’t have all the ingredients.

INGREDIENTS

Frozen pie crust (I used TJ’s)

Preheat your oven to 400º Place your crust in your pie pan and crimp edges (if needed). Put it back into the refrigerator to rest.  Let it rest for at least 20 minutes. Take out the crust, prick the the crust with a fork. Add parchment paper and pie weights (I use a lentils) to the pie. Put the crust in for 15–20 minutes. Edges looks slightly brown. Take the parchment paper and pie weights off and put the pie back in the oven for 2–3 minutes. Cool slightly. Turn down the oven to 375º.

Caramelized onions
2 t olive oil
1 small onion and 1 shallot, sliced thin
salt

Add olive oil to hot pan on medium low.  Add the onions/shallots and salt to taste to the pan. Stir the onion/shallots every once in while (keep an eye out that it doesn’t burn). Slowly onions/shallots will soften and turn brown. Take it out of the pan and cool slightly
1 1/2 c of chopped broccoli, chopped small to fit in pie crust
1/2 c shredded cheese (I used Swiss/Gruyere mix from TJ and some havarti that I had)
1 1/4 c whole milk
1/4 c of heavy cream
3 eggs
splash of masala wine
pepper
grated Parmesan cheese

 

Mix together milk, heavy cream, eggs, masala wine, and pepper (to taste). Layer the onions to the crust, starting with onions, then broccoli ending with cheese. Pour in the milk/egg mixture to the crust. Add grated Parmesan (to taste) to the top. Bake quiche for 25–30 minutes or till top is browned and doesn’t jiggle.

Hope you like it. Enjoy!