Thanksgiving 2015: Hello

Hello. It's me.
I was wondering if after all these years you'd like to meet.
To go over, everythinggg
-proceed to hum/belt out the remainder of the song to your desired length-

I was going to just keep posting lyrics, but my end point of Adele "Hello" humming tends to go on for a very very long time. But pop culture references have aligned with my blog coming semi-back to life, so hello hello hello again! I can't really say that this will be as grand of a return as hers, but there are more upcoming holidays with much baking and cooking to be done.



This sounds a bit masochistic, but there are few feelings of happiness that are greater than getting to return home and go on vacation with literally NO school to think about after getting your soul semi-crushed by school. Don't worry, I'm kinda joking on the soul crushing thing. I mean, its not like med school is supposed to be easy, but the problem (or good thing?) about med school is that no matter how much you might hate the 8 AM lectures, the hours of being in anatomy lab, the excessive amounts of time you spend on a powerpoint presentation that is essentially "google x disease and tell us what you found," or the ridiculous ways you remember words like "torus tubarius" by making up a story about a Taurus whose name is kinda like Tiberius, who plays the Tuba and is an asshole, you can never fully hate it. Because ultimately all of this knowledge and nonsense is stuff meant to help us do our best to help keep people healthy enough so that they can go to their thanksgivings, live their dreams, etc. Which is both energizing and just a downer when you're trying to just be grumpy about your life.



So while I'm being forced to not think about the body or the next thing I need to be studying, here's my list of things I'm happy for in my life. Thanksgiving, like a lot of holidays, isn't really super genuine at its origins (like thnx now lemme give you small pox anyone?), but I'll just on the bandwagon for blog purposes:
1) California dreaming
2) Friends, old and new, who teach me about new emojis, snapchat, feed me spaghetti squash, make sure I'm fully caffeinated, and just make sure I don't go too crazy.
3) Slowly turning into adult siblings
4) The ultimately intense privilege that has been my education and will be my education (and hopefully future job?) going forward.
5) Adele
6) Radio stations that have now started to play straight up holiday music 24/7
7) Fuzzy study blankets
8) And of course, premade pie crusts, because we all know how much of a struggle pie crusts are for me. But my first ever Pecan Pie was a raging success! Well, as raging as a Thanksgiving 70% sponsored by Costco could be.

Pecan Pie Recipe via Allrecipes.
Pumpkin Pie Recipe via Libby's (Allrecipes).

Roasted Brussels Sprouts: Oh look something green

that isn't food coloring on this blog.

To kick-off the slowly drawing out everything I made over thanksgiving posts, we'll do it the way my mother taught me--green things first. This method of eating is somewhat of a problem in the dining hall because by the time I finish the gosh darn salad, the rest of my food is cold. And let's face it, dining hall food wasn't that amazing warm to begin with.
Funnily enough though, it was in the dining hall sophomore year when I first dared to try brussels sprouts. AND I LIKED THEM.
Except then the next 10 times they made them, they tasted terrible. So I started not liking them again.

And then it was Thanksgiving 2013. And my sister said she liked the dining hall brussels sprouts. So literally the thought process was like: "fine, I'll make brussels sprouts for Thanksgiving since I need to learn how to cook real food anyways and maybe I'll actually like them."

And guess what? I LIKED THEM! They were charmingly easy to make. Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Shallots with Balsamic Vinegar recipe from my number favorite Serious Eats. A few modifications:

• no shallots, so just diced up some onions.
• I didn't quite scale the balsamic vinegar correctly, so they ended up being a little on the sour side, which was a loss for my mother. But I like the taste of balsamic vinegar anyways, so I was ok with it. 

And my cousin who was also visiting? HE LIKED THEM TOO.

(sorry, this was a weird post filled with lots of caps. its finals)

Thanksgivukaah 2013: The random pictures

Well, its been less than an hour since I finished eating Thanksgivukaah dinner (though it was more just straight up Thanksgiving for my family since we're not Jewish). Of course, the necessary thing is to now relive the entire cooking, baking, and eating experience through pictures. I've cooked and baked enough to have several blog posts to tide this poor blog over till my next baking (and maybe cooking) opportunity, so ya'll will get to relive each bit and piece of Thanksgiving throughout the merriest time of year--finals bwahahaha.
But first, since words are lame, here are some general Thanksgiving pictures. Aka the random ones that don't fit nicely in a future post.

 One of the few "in action" cooking shots since, lets face it, messing with your phone while your hands are wet, sticky, floury, etc is hard. Some roasted garlic for what would become mashed potatoes. 1PM. Back when I thought it was tots feasible to get everything done by 5PM.

 Like seriously, our house has TWO ovens so we were able to cook the turkey while baking all the other necessary yams, crescents, cookies, sprouts ect. Even then, we didn't finish till like 5:45PM, almost an hour after our ETA (estimated time of arrival) to the dining table. How do you single oven households do it?

 Of course, if you leave me in charge of dessert, you'll basically get a second dinner spread of just desserts. Individual posts and recipes to come!

To finish, here's a messy picture of pumpkin pie and some very very special ice cream. My cousin accidentally crushed the pie a little while serving, but pumpkin pie is picture perfect no matter what in my opinion.