Nov 27, 2011

Gambling, Gluttony, and Gastronomy

The 4th Annual Balwinski Las Vegas Extravaganza came to an end last night.  We flew out on Wednesday evening, giving us 3 solid nights in what be my favorite place to visit in the world.  My wallet went up and down throughout the entire trip, but I still had a ton of fun.  I didn't have as much luck with the slots as I did the last three trips.  In fact, I only played Wheel of Fortune this time around.  The quarter machines lost the little novelty they have pretty quickly, so I went to a couple of dollar machines.  Unfortunately, but as expected, I didn't hit $1000 twice again.  I didn't even hit it once.  My best "pull" was 600 credits on a quarter machine and I think I hit $40 on a dollar machine.  Oh well...I guess it's true that you can't leave with Vegas's money every time!  We came home down only about $120, so we're happy!

The eating was nothing short of awesome.  Thanksgiving dinner was filets at The Steakhouse in Circus Circus.  Yes, the casino is gross and the people playing and wandering are disgusting.  In fact, just before dinner while in the casino, a small child vomited near us and then someone rolled right through it with a stroller.  Nevertheless, the atmosphere in The Steakhouse was totally different and for the first time ever at a restaurant, I had a filet that was cooked (more like warmed, since that's how I like it) internally to perfection.  Since it was Thanksgiving, I felt it was okay to stuff myself completely by following dinner with some bananas foster.

On Friday, Joe's dad and I hit the gambling hard around 8:00AM, then Joe joined us and we hit the road to the Grand Canyon Skywalk.  We tried to go to the Skywalk two or three years ago, but we missed a turn and ended up way off track and instead turned around to hit the Hoover Dam.  This time, we didn't miss our turn.  The two-hour drive from Vegas to the Skywalk included about 9 miles on an unpaved road--we were glad to be in a rental car.  The highlight of the drive was seeing wild cows and bulls just chillin' along the road.

I was very uncomfortable at the Skywalk.  Of the hundreds of people there, I could have counted all of the Americans on my hands.  I really, REALLY wish that when foreign tourists would come here, they were put forth some sort of effort to use our language and blend in with us.  In Germany, I feel very ashamed and obnoxious any time I speak English in public.  If you are going to travel to another country, please, PLEASE try to learn the language--even just a little bit--and USE IT.  But I digress.  Guests aren't allowed to take ANY lose items, including cameras, onto the Skywalk, so we couldn't take any sweet pictures.  We did get to take pictures, though, literally on the edge of the Grand Canyon.  Since the Skywalk is on an Indian Reservation, they don't have any walls or fences installed at the edges of the canyon.  I was able to lay down onto the ground and have my head hang over, looking 4000 feet down.  That was incredible--even moreso than the Skywalk itself.  Still, the whole thing was a cool experience. 

That night we had a great Italian dinner at Bacio in Tropicana.  I had some kind of thick pasta noodle with artichokes, prosciutto, and a cream sauce.  Joe and his dad had spaghetti and Joe shared the biggest breast of chicken parm the three of us had ever seen.  No dessert on Friday night--we were way too stuffed and didn't want to put ourselves through that discomfort two nights in a row while trying to enjoy blackjack.

Last year we had a lot of luck playing blackjack at Luxor on our last day, so we decided to try that again this time.   We did REALLY well there and Joe got excited that when he colored up his chips, the dealer called, "Purple out!"  Afterwards we went to Diablo's for lunch and to watch the O$U-Michigan game.  My fajitas were great and the result of the football game got me all kinds of giddy.  On that high note, we checked out of our rooms, played a little more blackjack, then we were on our way home.

It was a great trip and we can't wait for next year!  Maybe we'll delay it a week so that I can run the Las Vegas Marathon!

Nov 22, 2011

Fun with Risotto

Sunday evening I was feeling some serious post-race dinner.  I picked up some filets, which Joe prepared, along with a sweet potato and the fixins to make risotto.  You can't go wrong with a sweet potato.  I just peeled it, diced it, boiled it, then mashed it up with about 2 tablespoons of butter, a tablespoon of brown sugar, a little garlic, and a splash of skim milk (organic, of course).  The risotto was really basic, but freaking delicious.  Recipe was as follows:

3 T unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups arborio rice
1 medium shallot, diced
1/2 cup Chardonnay
1 T lemon juice
6 cups beef stock, brought to a boil then kept over low heat
1/3 cup freshly shredded parmesan
freshly ground pepper

In a large saute pan over medium heat, melt the butter and then add the rice.  Stir in the rice so that it all gets a nice, thin coating of butter.  Let that brown slightly--about 2-3 minutes.  Throw in the shallot and stir a bit until the shallot is translucent.  Stir in the Chardonnay and lemon juice.  Stir until Chardonnay is absorbed by the rice.  Once the Chardonnay is absorbed, add a ladle of the beef stock and stir continually until the stock is absorbed.  Repeat this process until all of the beef stock has been added--this should take about 20 minutes. Turn off heat and stir in the parmesan and pepper.

This recipe makes way too much risotto for two people, so we had a lot leftover yesterday.  That turned into risotto cakes, as risotto cakes are apparently their best when the risotto has been chilled over night in the fridge.  I just made four balls of risotto, each about the size of my palm, and smashed them down to about 1 inch thick.  I then heated over medium heat a tablespoon of EVOO in a saute pan and browned the cakes on each side.  What was extra yummy was the sauce I made for the risotto cakes, though.  It was a red pepper cream sauce, which was THIS simple:

1 medium red bell pepper, roasted, peeled, and chopped
1 T EVOO
1/2 of a small onion, diced
1 t red pepper flakes
one twist of the sea salt grinder
1/3 cup heavy whipping cream

In a saute pan, heat the EVOO over medium heat.  Add the onion and stir until translucent.  Add the red pepper flakes and sea salt, stir, then transfer to a blender.  Add the red bell pepper also to the blender and puree until the mixture is smooth.  Finally, add the heavy whipping cream and pulse until the mixture is a nice, light orange color.

It was SO good.  There is so much of the red pepper cream sauce leftover today that we are going to have it again, but I will be making a poblano cream sauce as well.  I wanted to add a different color to the plate, since there has been so much orange food over the past couple of days.  Today, we're going to have the risotto cakes and pepper cream sauces with some strip steaks and a pound of snow crab legs.  Mmmmm... can't wait!

Nov 21, 2011

Hello!

Ohai!  No, I am not an LOL Cat.  But YES--this is my blog!  Let's see how long this lasts.  You may or may not know that I had a blog in my early OU days.  Back then, I was opposed to using one of these template-based sites and instead wrote all of my own HTML.  Well, I'm finished with my days of being an elitist.  Also, I definitely don't have time for all of that mess anymore.  Instead, I'm taking the easy (smart) route.

What will you find here, you ask?  Mostly a stream of consciousness.  I plan to blog about my new hobby (running), our cats (because I'm a crazy cat lady), any super awesome things Joe and I do (which could be everything we do), and cooking.  I'm going to hit all of those points right now!

I ran my first half-marathon yesterday!  That was fun.  In case you didn't know, I took up running this summer.  I returned from Germany on Saturday, July 2nd.  On Tuesday, July 5th, I decided that I wanted to become active.  Yeah, I was an avid tennis player in high school.  I fell out of that in college because the people on the club team were lame--not at tennis, but they just weren't very cool people.  All passion I had for tennis fizzled.  Last year, for the three months before out wedding, we did P90X.  That was all right, but there were too many days on which I thought, "UGH!  I don't wanna do yoga/cardio/arms!"  Actually, after our first night of yoga we decided to go hit some tennis balls.  That didn't last long, because I sucked so badly that we left the court after hitting for about five minutes--it was ugly.  So other than hiking in Germany, I hadn't done anything physically strenuous since July 27th-ish of last year.

That brings us back to Tuesday, July 5th.  I fired up some Katy Perry on my iPod and did a run around the block.  Boy-oh-boy, I thought I was being really hardcore running about seven-tenths of a mile.  I did that same run three times in a week.  The following week, I did what I assume was closer to a full mile.  A week later, I decided that I would just run until I couldn't run anymore.  That ended up being about 2.5, and after I was able to do that, I registered for a 5K for August 3rd.  Since I paid $20, I took "training" more seriously and got out 4-5 days per week doing 3 miles.  That 5K was rough--it was hot and humid, and I finished in 28 minutes, soaking wet and beet-red.  But I felt great!  After that, I increased my mileage to 25 to 30 miles per week.  I've met some pretty awesome ladies with whom I've been waking up dark-and-early on Saturday mornings to get in 8 to 12 miles.  Well, I guess we don't really wake up together.  Anyhow, that's how I got to doing this Fall Classic half-marathon yesterday.  What a blast!  And I'm itching to run another big race.  I am pretty sure I'll be running another half in Chicago on January 28th, then I'm going to try to get myself ready to either run the Athens Marathon or Glass City Marathon in the spring.  We'll see how well winter treats my training!

Well, I lied earlier.  I said I would blog about running, cats, awesome fun things, and cooking.  The running stuff went on too long, so you'll have to stay tuned until next time.  Off to the grocery store I go, then it's beer-thirty.