Kelocity.com

A runner with an appetite for adventure!

Homemade Tzatziki Sauce! June 1, 2011

Filed under: Cooking,Food — Kelocity @ 5:08 am
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I love Mediterranean food. I am part Lebanese and grew up eating all kinds of Arabic food. (Remember Zartar?) And I love hummus and chickpeas, but for some reason, I don’t like falafel. Maybe it’s the spices? But Irving really loves it and we picked up some fresh falafel at the farmer’s market this week. He wanted to make a sandwich with some tzatziki sauce, so instead of buying it for him, I decided to try my hand at making it fresh!

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I based it off a few recipes online, but in the end, decided to wing it myself.
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I just put some Greek yogurt, cucumber, olive oil, lemon juice, dill, salt and pepper in my food processor and give it a whirl. (Those are my favorite recipes: take some ingredients and mix em’ together.)
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[When Irving found out I was making this, he FREAKED out when he thought we didn’t have pita in the house for his beloved falafel sandwich. Don’t worry, situation averted. Pita has been procured.]

It came out pretty good. A little runny (maybe it didn’t need the olive oil?) The real test will be when Irving tastes it on his sandwich tomorrow at lunch! Crossing my fingers!

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And while I was cooking that, Irving was making homemade matzo ball soup. The fun just doesn’t stop around here, let me tell you!

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We also just got back from our 3 mile walk with a stop at the bank and Trader Joes. And now it’s 9 o’ clock. How does that happen?!

 

Baked, Sealed and Delivered May 31, 2011

Filed under: Food,Happy — Kelocity @ 8:05 pm
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Recently, Tina at CarrotsNCake had a blogger bake sale to raise money for kids in low-income areas to get health and fitness education. It definitely seemed like a good enough cause, and I was really just doing my part by bidding on some amazing cookies. When all was said and done, I won some Orange Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies from Kaitlin with Honey! Actually, they were made by her roommate, Mark. I was so excited!
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[source]

And today, they were hand delivered by the baker himself!
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Oh my gosh, they were all packaged up so cute!
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Four boxes of the most delicious cookies you’ve ever tasted!
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Look who wandered over to take a looksie!
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Let me tell you, we love cookies. Our house currently has this hidden away in the pantry:
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But Irving declared these cookies “even better than milano”.
They were soft, chewy and full of chocolate chunks and orange flavored goodness.
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Thanks Kaitlin and Mark, these were incredible. And you should consider selling them. They are just perfect!

 

Classing it Up May 30, 2011

Filed under: Food,Video Games — Kelocity @ 9:31 pm
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Remember that cookie concoction I bought at the Larchmont Bungalow yesterday? We broke it out last night for dessert.
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It was marshmallow sandwiched between two chocolate chunk cookies, dipped in chocolate, covered in sprinkles and topped with a layer of white chocolate. Got all that?
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It was definitely tasty, but it was almost a little too much. Even for me. I would have been fine with just a chocolate chip cookie or two. The thing was so huge that it actually took two of us to eat it in almost four different sittings.
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PS… here’s Erica’s post about this place from one of the times she went there. Worth the trip!

We spent most of the day unwiring and rewiring the entire living room in preparation of our newest arrival… our XBox! This led to a trip to the toy store Fry’s Electronics. What better way to spend a three day weekend than buying cable splitters, Ethernet cords and surge protectors?! Honestly, I can’t think of anything better. lol
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But yea, to be fair, we also got the “You Don’t Know Jack” video game and some Spanish software (I’m trying to learn Spanish this year and the software was free on rebate!) Oh man, this “YDKJ” video game is great. I used to play it on my computer YEARS ago and now it’s back! It’s hilarious. We played for hours today!

Then we went to see “Hangover 2” with Erica! It was raunchy and ridiculous and completely over the top, but it was really really funny and pretty well done. The music score was fantastic and the characters are just perfect for those roles. Glad I got to see it since I’m sure everyone will be talking about it this week.

For dinner, I took the lazy way out and assembled “make your own tacos”.  You really can’t go wrong with Spanish rice and taco meat.
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Our dishwasher didn’t run last night as planned, so we ate our meal on paper plates with plastic forks. We’re classy folks over here!
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Served with some of our Rum In A Bag from Vegas. But don’t be fooled, there was very little rum in this glass since most of it was crushed ice and Orange Juice.
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Sadly, we didn’t get out for a walk today, thus kind of failing the walking challenge, but we did go for the past few days and I went about 16 miles in 6 days or so. We’ll pick it right back up tomorrow and keep making it part of our lifestyle.

 

By the way, we’re going to buy one of the XBox Fitness games and we’re torn between The Biggest Loser, EA Active and Your Shape. Any suggestions?

 

Red, White and Blue….Pancakes! May 29, 2011

Filed under: Dining Out,Food,Los Angeles — Kelocity @ 5:45 pm
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A while back, my friend Erica told me about Larchmont Bungalow. They are known for their Red and Blue Velvet Pancakes and ever since I heard about them, I’ve been DYING to go!
Artisan Food [source]

Just a few days after I saw her post, it popped up in Groupon and I bought it right away! I was saving it for the perfect weekend, and since it is Memorial Day and all, it seemed appropriate!

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It was such a great, cute restaurant with lots of tables scattered around and outdoor seating aplenty. You really do feel like you’re walking into someone’s house when you enter, everything is very cute.
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You order your food at the counter and they bring it to your table when it’s ready. We had $30 to spend with our coupon and came up a few bucks short. So it made sense to drool over the dessert selection and grab one for later!
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We got a chocolate chip cookie whoopie pie. I don’t know what it is, but there are cookies, chocolate, marshmallows and chocolate. I’m sure it will deserve it’s own post when we attack it, so just sit tight for now.

We sat outside and sipped our coffee while we waited. Boy, was their coffee strooong!
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And then, this beauty appeared in front of me. Behold, the Red and Blue velvet pancakes!
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I was expecting it to be cakey, but it wasn’t, it had the consistency and taste of a pancake, but with a hint of red velvet in it. It was awesome. In between the warm deliciousness was a layer of cool cream cheese frosting. Topped with walnuts and powdered sugar.
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I don’t know how they get it to be so blue, but I’m not asking any questions. It was fabulous.

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Irving got the Larchmont French Toast which is “Stuffed with Nutella and plantains, then topped with toasted hazelnuts and served with a warm hazelnut syrup.”
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We both saved about half to have again tomorrow.

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[Edited to add: I couldn’t wait til tomorrow and have already eaten the leftovers for lunch!]

On the way back home, we saw some angry looking clouds, but they were just passing through.
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We’re looking forward to a cookout later today and a nice walk in the evening…. and a long night of playing video games too!

 

Feliz Navidad

Filed under: Computer,Family,Galaxy — Kelocity @ 2:30 pm
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We’ve had a busy summer so far (and only getting busier), so we were happy to be able to spend the Memorial Day weekend at home, just getting some things done. Irving is working on sorting and editing all of our Egypt & Dubai pictures, and it is a painstakingly frustrating task. We’ve both spent hours pouring over the pictures, and I’m glad he’s taking the reins on finally getting that project over with. I’ll have to do a post on computer organization sometime, it’s quite interesting.
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While he was doing that, I deleted my whole computer (after everything was –hopefully—backed up, of course) and restored it to it’s factory settings. Sometimes it’s just good to start fresh and get rid of any bugs you might have. So far so good! Seems to be running faster already!

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When we were about ready to claw our eyes out, we left the house to do a few errands. First stop was Aaron Brothers to get a painting framed. That was one of my valentine’s gifts to Irving! And then we headed to Best Buy to make a very important purchase…..

Our First XBOX! Actually our first gaming system… ever! We’ve never had a PlayStation or a Wii. The last system I had was old school Nintendo. And before that was Atari. Yea, it was about time we bought one. We felt like little kids in the store asking about controllers and games. We ended up with the XBox Kinect! We were very excited and practically danced out of the store. lol
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The best part was that Best Buy was having a sale… buy an XBox and get a $50 giftcard to use on games or whatever later. I definitely giggled at the giftcard. Feliz Navidad!
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We have yet to actually set the thing up, we have a feeling once we do, we’ll never want to stop. What games do you recommend? We definitely want a workout one, and probably LA Noire too.

Last night, We had a double date with my sister, Mikaela and her boyfriend, Chris!
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We all watched the LA Galaxy vs. NE Revolution soccer game “together”!
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Irving and Chris even had a beer “together” while they watched. It was fun to see them and pretend like we didn’t live 3,000 miles apart!

I’m very happy that I’ve installed and updated Windows and all my favorite programs (Windows Live Writer was top of the list!) But I think I still have more to download, catch you soon!