Strawberry Muffins

Ingredients
1 2/3 cups fresh strawberries
2/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 1/2 all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions
1. Heat oven to 425F
2. Set up muffin pans with paper baking cups or grease just the bottoms of the muffin cups
3. Lightly mash strawberries in a large bowl
4. Stir in sugar, oil, and eggs until mixed
5. Stir in rest of ingredients
6. Spoon batter into muffin cups
7. Bake 15-18 minutes until light golden brown or toothpick poked in center comes out clean


These muffins are awesome!! However, they do NOT reheat well and taste best within the first couples of hours (4-5 hours).

I tend to put in more strawberries, but be careful because too many will make it too squishy.

Roasted Balsamic Vegetables

Ingredients
2/3 cup olive oil
1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup minced onion
1 tablespoon fresh basil
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt (I love sea salt, adds extra flavor)
1/4 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper

Use the tasty olive oil and vinegar, don't go cheap! I used cheap stuff one time and it just does not work. Same with pepper - freshly ground just has a flavor you lose when you buy the pre-made stuff.

Directions
1. Combine all the ingredients and mix well
2. Marinade vegetables for 3-4 hours
3. Grill vegetables. Continue basting vegetables while grilling

I make this inside the house with my cast iron grill skillet and it's one of my favorite winter things because it has a lovely toasty taste. I chop them up (while warm) and put them on top of a salad with lemon dressing. I recommend Annie's Naturals Lemon & Chive dressing.

Oh Life

So remember how I got a concussion? Maybe I didn't write about it, I don't remember. As a result of the three blizzards we had, snow had piled up, melted, and then re-froze on the rooftops of DC. Then in February as I was walking home and minding my own business, ice fell off a roof and hit me - resulting in a concussion and a week of delirium.

Well, since then I've been wary of summer. When I heard that record-breaking highs were coming our way, I had to brace myself. Well, I'm happy to report that thus far no extreme weather has caused havoc in my life. No, no. Instead, the AC broke. During the middle of the hottest week ever.

The AC repair people came on Sat (broke on Wed night), but had to come back again today. Finally all was fixed. I am proud to announce that the apartment temperature has dropped to a cool 78 degree F in the last 20 minutes, the lowest its been in a week. YEAH. 78 degrees is the lowest its been inside.

Of course, I had the benefit of being out of town for four days, but my poor roommate and her dog were stuck here the whole time. Ew. I'm a little cautious right now, because the repairman left our landlady with an enormously large bill, but the temperature has still not dropped below 78F. We'll see if things improve over the next few hours...

There's a Bat in the Bathroom II

So, animal control came and took the creature away. Turns out there's this little crack in between the wall and the sink. It's likely that the bat flew into the building from the top floor and made its way down through the wall and into our bathroom.

The lady said we were fine to keep using all the stuff in the bathroom since we hadn't touched the bat, and they called two days later to say the animal didn't have rabies. Really?! You waited two days to tell us that while we were using stuff touched by the bat?! (Actually, I didn't have anything it that cabinet...so really it was only my roommate who might have gotten some disease...)

We boarded the hole up with cardboard.

There's a Bat in the Bathroom

No, I'm not writing a new childrens' book. There IS an actual BAT in our BATHROOM. It had to have crawled through the wall space because our windows and doors are always closed - plus I think we would have noticed a bat flapping its way in with us.

I've stayed in semi-rural and rural areas, I've gone camping, I've done all sorts of things, but of course you never get that awesome connection with wildlife anywhere else like you do you in Virginia.

We called animal control and they're on their way, so I'll update when we know more.

Well. This is awkward.

I went to a baseball game a few weeks ago to mark the end of the year with my program. The second years had just graduated with their Master's, so the program paid for us all to celebrate at the game. It was really nice! We even got a "Congratulations on graduation!" announcement on the big screen.

At the end of the game, I ran to the bathroom before we started the trek back home. When I walked in, I saw a stall ahead of me that had feet in it, but they were extraordinarily large and facing the toilet seat. Just in case it really was a man, I went in a stall on the other side of the room. While I was relieving myself, this is what I hear,

high-pitched, girly: "Hahaha, oh my God, Becky. That's so funny."
Deep, tonal: "Um, you're in the wrong bathroom."
*pause*
other high-pitched voice: "No, YOU ARE."

Appethaizing. Or, it's a Thai!

I went to two Thai places in Georgetown fairly recently, Bangkok Joe's and Bangkok Bistro. Bangkok Bistro is the hip and happening place that recently had Gabourey Sidibe as a guest. Bangkok Joe's calls itself a "dumpling house" and is situated on the lovely Georgetown waterfront.

Bangkok Bistro
Service: 
Friendly and efficient

Food:
Overall excellent quality. I appreciate their menu because they added vegetarian versions of traditionally meat-filled foods, such as "snow white soup" to replace the chicken or shrimp in the Tom kha soup, or tofu pad thai with the vegan or vegetarian option. I ordered snow white soup, tofu panang and tofu pad thai.  The soup was absolutely delicious, probably one of the best I've had. However, the tofu in the tofu panang was distractingly salty, which I just couldn't get over. The sauce was excellent, though. The pad thai was pad thai, nothing to write home about but not awful either.

Overall: 9/10
With the strange exception of the salty tofu, the food was excellent and worth what was paid for it, the service was attentive and the restaurant has a great vibe with huge walls that open so that the entire front of the restaurant is open to the street.

Bangkok Joe's
Service: 
Efficient but not that friendly. They service tends to hang out in the back of the restaurant talking to each other and standing around. They're never smiling or friendly, either, even though they always get your food quickly. It's very strange. They've also brought out the wrong food before, and overcharged for what I've ordered.

Food: 
The food is great! I got lemon grass soup, tofu panang and a "tomkhatini," which is a martini based on the coconut tom kha soup. The lemon grass soup was great, and the tomkhatini is a revelation. It's really the panang that I keep going back for, though. The curry sauce is thicker than those served in other restaurants, which gives it a truly creamy texture, and the flavor of the kaffir lime really comes through. My one complaint is that the dish typically comes with noodles, so you have to remember to request rice instead. The noodles have an unpleasant texture, almost like solid pudding or something. I really dislike that.

Overall: 9/10
The service has always been strange here, but the food has always been absolutely the best I've had in DC. I have dreams about their panang sometimes...

In the end, if I have a choice I'll go to Bangkok Joe's because I love their food so much, but both are really, really good. You can't really go wrong at either one. Only note is, I'm not sure the price is worth it at dinnertime, when a basic entree can start at $15 - they're typically around $10 at other Thai places.

Bangkok Bistro
3251 Prospect Street Northwest
Washington, DC 20007-3243
(202) 337-2424
www.bangkokbistrodc.com


Bangkok Joe's
3000 K Street Northwest
Washington, DC 20007-5109
(202) 333-4422
http://www.bangkokjoes.com/

24 hours

'Twas the day before finals
And all through the college
Computers were clicking with students
Trying to prove their knowledge.

The library is nearly full
For the first time all year
And the caffeine is flowing
As the end is drawing near.

I sit staring at my screen
Thinking how I should spend my time.
Instead of writing my essay
I'm making up poems that rhyme.

Awake! I must work now
Or risk my degree.
I'll buckle down and write all day
Until I'm finally free.

In the meantime,
Stock the fridge with beer
And get out the tequila
Because the summer is nearly here!

Review: Ragtime

We went to Ragtime for a quick dinner, and it has an atmosphere like TGI Fridays or Applebees.

The Service
Fast, friendly and efficient. Don't really know what else to say to that.

The Food
We ordered Spaghetti with Meatballs, Caesar Salad and Macaroni and Cheese. The Caesar Salad had wilted and black leaves mixed in, and the Macaroni and Cheese was mediocre. It came at room temperature, as if it had been sitting out for a while before they brought it. It's amazing what a difference something that simple can make. I think I would have enjoyed a lot more if it had been fresh out of the oven, or at least appeared as if it was. I tried some of the spaghetti sauce, and that was actually relatively good.

Rating: 6/10
It's a fun, affordable place to go with friends and order a ton of food and beer - my "small" salad filled a regular-sized dinner plate and the $6 mac and cheese filled a huge bowl. However, the food is what you'd expect as "bar food" not what they should be serving at a sit-down restaurant. It's not somewhere I'd go for culinary delights, but everyone inside was with friends and laughing their heads off.

Ragtime
http://ragtimerestaurant.com/
1345 North Courthouse Road
Arlington, VA 22201
(703) 243-4003

Review: Sushi Rock

I ate at Sushi Rock and I have to say I was disappointed. They had been constructing the restaurant for the past few months so I was looking forward to trying it out once they opened. Since their theme is "Rock" they have a cool red/black interior design with rock music blaring and rock-themed sushi rolls.

The Service
The Service was interesting...I thought our waitress was hilarious, but my eating-mate found her off-putting. She was Japanese, so it was a little difficult to understand her accent, but she also made a lot of jokes about us drinking more during happy hour to bolster the tab and carding us for water. I literally laughed every time we interacted with her. At one point though, our water was late and she sort of rolled her eyes and whispered that the busboy tended to be slow about these things. It's my pet peeve when employees at restaurants blame each other, since it is the overall experience that matters, but she said it conspiratorially and laughing, so I didn't really feel like it was that malicious. Nonetheless, it was a little strange. And when I asked to get all the food at the same time, they still ended up bringing the appetizer first.

The Food
The food was overpriced without a similar increase in quality. The speciality rock 'n rolls (hardy har har) were minimally $12 each, so we both opted for the cheaper classics, ordering a cucumber roll ($6!!!), spicy tuna roll and salmon roll. I also got the agedashi tofu appetizer.

The tofu was fine but the sauce was rather flavorless. The cucumber roll was dry and uninteresting and apparently the other rolls were "fine". I'm more than happy to pay extra for sushi, but if I'm paying above the market price, I expect above-average quality, which we definitely didn't get.

Rating: 4/10
They got the 4 points for being fast and because I personally found the waitress hilarious. Not worth the investment.

Sushi Rock
http://www.sushirockdc.com/
1900 Clarendon Blvd
Arlington, VA
571.312.8027