pancakes and philly

So I am a little behind in blogging, thus there will probably be two updates tonight.  If you can't tell what this one is about maybe you should refer again to the title.

The first part is just cause I didn't have any other awesome photos of what I was cooking last week, mainly cause I spend all of last week eating pancakes and sausage.  (don't believe me, ask david, he now thinks I am pancake obsessed)  But they were covered in blueberry sauce (my favorite) :).

The rest of this is somewhat interesting things - mainly cause instead of sitting around doing nothing this weekend I visited Margaret.  Which meant sitting around in a car for a 2 hour drive to Philly.  I even woke up early (as in I got gas and was still on my way at 8:30am).  After a free pancake breakfast (mmm more pancakes, these ones had chocolate chips) we wandered to the used book store across the street.  An hour later we wandered out.  Then we went to a giant market.  If you want to know what it was called ask Margaret, I forgot.  Unfortunately I forgot to get any pictures.  Getting there involved city traffic and scary parking garages.  I am really glad I drive a small car.  Really, really glad.  After we bought lots of fruit and vegetables and various baked goods we went to an early dinner.

Margaret took me to a place called Dim Sum that she had heard of.  It was fun trying to find.  She had been told it was kind of down a sketchy alley.  We thought it was down here.

It was not.  But we got photos of the sketchy alley anyways.

We did eventually find it.  The "alley" it was down wasn't actually all that bad.  I made Margaret order a bunch of food for me since it wasn't chinese food I was used to and I figured she would know what was good.  Since "cold cumumber" isn't very descriptive.  The red bean paste cakes came first, I made a mess.  Surprise surprise, Margaret did not.

This photo is to show people that I do not fail at using chopsticks.

Lots of food!  (And a cute Margaret)

I forget what these are called all I know is they were delicious.  They were pork stuffed dumplings with a broth in the middle. I filled up eating these.  Apparently I don't want to learn to make them though as Margaret ordered them cause they are such a pain to make.

The rest of the food was the cold cucumber, which was cucumber in a vinegar and something sauce that made them amazing.  As in I don't like cucumber but I want the recipe.  The other dumplings were just pork dumplings.  And the stuff in the top left corner was "scallion pancakes".  Not so much a pancake texture, they were more fried than that.

These are photos from the car- Margaret didn't tell me a turn so we wound up here.  Thankfully with 2 phones with GPS we didn't stay here long, even if a bridge was under construction so we had to drive around until the GPS took us a different route.

After that we collapsed in her dorm room.  Full of delicous food and way too tired to move.  Eventually we got up the energy to wander around the neighborhood.  Found a coffee shop, and then I left.  Was too tired to want to drive home too late.   So I left at 7 or so, and got back home at 9:30 and was starving.  So instead of being sensible and making real food I had the raspberry foldover pie thing I bought at the market.

ginger ale

So this post will be rather short, and will be updated later.  A friend reminded me of the awesome ginger ale they  make over at Thyme (the restaurant I used to work at).  And we decided it would be a good idea for me to learn to make it.  Due to me wanting KFC last night, and hanging out at my cousins today, I didn't cook at all this weekend.  But I did run to the grocery store today and pick up some ginger root and club soda to make a ginger infused simple syrup.  I figured that mixed with club soda would give me something approximating ginger ale.  And it did, sort of.

Unfortunately it didn't quite have the bite to it that I love about the stuff I get from Thyme.  So I checked the internet.  Apparently I need to add lemon juice.  But no lemons in the house, of course.  Thus, while I will enjoy my glass of gingerish soda water, I plan on going to the store tomorrow to purchase some lemons to squeeze. Thus, if you actually read this tonight, check back tomorrow.  Also, expect new delicious ideas soon, got the next issue of Bon Appetit.

Update:

Final result?  Homemade ginger ale is delicious.  Also, apparently ginger + acid turns things pink.  If I was Alton Brown there would be chemical equations written to show why lemon juice turned the mixture pink.  But I am not that amazing.  So you just get a photo of the pinkish syrup instead.

In other news, corn on the cob (fresh from the grocery store) goes wonderfully with leftover KFC.  Tomorrow is probably going to be pancakes and sausage.  :)