October and November Recent Eats/Updates

I feel guilty, it's been months since I last posted. This is probably the longest break I've taken since I started, but hopefully this won't happen again. I still take a ton of photos and have them organized by folders into pending posts, and at one point I started trying to figure out ways to condense multiple posts into just a few since there's been so much that's happened and so many delicious things consumed. I have a few more posts planned, and hopefully they'll be posted soon when I find the time.

Segment A: Life Events

I got my citizenship! And I changed my name legally to Helen.

We went apple picking. The orchard strangely also had Asian pears for picking, which was an unexpected finding for the middle of Ohio. 

We had the best group costume for Halloween! Our only shortcoming was that didn't recruit a sultan. Unfortunate :(

And we competed in a chili contest, although we didn't win any ribbons unfortunately. It's because the judges didn't award us cool points for our team name (chill.i.am), poster, costumes, or logo, all of which I'm pretty proud of. The chili recipe we used was pretty great too, hurumph.

(Chili contest logo)

I got to celebrate Friendsgiving with some of the best people.

We had not one, but two deep fried turkeys (although only one is pictured).

And Thanksgiving again for reals with my fam :)

And I got my first car! I bought a reindeer costume for her as soon as I got back to Columbus after Thanksgiving. Such a grown up I'm becoming.

Segment B: Delicious Things My BF Cooked For Me

Jamie Oliver's Pappardelle with Amazing Slow Cooked Meat, using lamb. He was trying to recreate a dish that he tried in Napa, and he said it wasn't quite the same. I thought it was amazing nonetheless.

Kombucha Japanese cheesecake, with my homemade green tea ice cream. He roasted the kombucha to make puree from scratch even.

Pan roast. He tried this dish at a restaurant in Vegas and tried to recreate it for me to try. We're stopping in Vegas over winter break, and hopefully I'll be able to compare how close his version is to the real thing. 

Segment C: My Fewds + Miscellaneous

White bean, chicken, and corn chowder. I love rich, pipping hot stews when it gets cold out so this was quite lovely. I was trying to be healthy, so I subbed in turkey bacon. I'm sure it'd taste even better if you used the real stuff. 

Pineapple fried rice and pineapple green tea boba. Fried rice tastes so much better when you eat it out of a pineapple. I have no idea why that is.

I took a free cooking class through school, and it was seafood themed so we made mussels and two types of fried fish. 'Twas all free -- sometimes being in school has its perks.

Wendy's BBQ fries. Cheese and bbq sounds weird and also tastes weird, but it grows on you after awhile. Also I've eaten too much fast food recently. Khoi and I actually stopped by KFC, Buckeye Fried Chicken, and Church's on the same day once. I get a strange satisfaction in telling people about this. 

Lastly, cat :D