happy 2008

It seems my crafting has been placed on the back burner, but cooking has been in full swing for the holidays. Spent a week back in the Bay Area during Christmas and learned my mom's version of pancit palabok and igado. I'm not a big fan of liver, but she had me try the igado before adding the liver and it definitely made a difference in the flavor. She skips the other organs in traditional recipes I've seen online (thank goodness!), but adds pimento stuffed olives. It's so good! We made a big pot of it and had leftovers for days. It's one of those dishes which seems to get better each time it's heated up.

Rung in the new year (well, almost...only made it to 11:30 p.m.) with more of my fave choc-oat chip cookies. We brought our last batch to the parents in PV, so we had to replenish our freezer supply. We also tried out a new recipe for chewy chocolate gingerbread cookies from MS. They're a bit too gingery for me, but I'll probably make them again.

Today was my first attempt at char sui bao, Chinese steamed barbecued pork buns, out of the never failing Chef Chu cookbook from my mom/sister. They turned out really, really, really good! I can't believe I've waited this long to try this recipe. I thought it would be a lot of work, but it isn't much more effort than other special dishes I've made. Just have to be patient and wait for the dough to rise. So, it's similar to when we made pizza (another first!) last Friday.

We were planning on visiting Zhen Zhen, the new panda cub at the zoo, but the parking lot was, well, a zoo. So, we closed off the year by playing tourists along the San Diego embarcadero at the Maritime Museum. The Star of India is probably the more popular ship to visit, but I thought the B-39 Soviet submarine was just as interesting to check out. Such cramped quarters next to torpedos! I haven't quite figured out who's on this poster in one of the compartments.