A Farm Stand Thanksgiving

Turkey-Day Recap!

Check out this map... You've got Monterey Bay on the left, what is probably Elkhorn Slough up top, and Highway 1 going up the center. 
That star-arrow thing in the middle is pointing right at one of the neatest/cheapest/diverse produce stands in the whole entire world: Farm Fresh Produce. 
Check out the Price indicator on Yelp. ONE DOLLAR SIGN. That's not a joke! This place is super duper di doooper cheap! Also check out "Hours Today: 6:00 am until 5:30 am" That's not true, because that would mean that they are open for 23 1/2 hours a day. You know what? They are actually open 24 hours a day! 
They get new produce around the clock so why not stay open around the clock? Driving from Santa Cruz to Monterey at 3 am and need 10 oranges? Want to get them for a buck? Well this is where you should stop!
My roommate Sarah originally told me about this place and the first time I went I was overwhelmed by all the deals. Now I've got it down to a science... I like to get grapes there, and freeze them for snacking on during the week. I'll also get some apples, plums, and usually an onion.

Before Thanksgiving, I made a booklet of all the dishes I wanted to prepare on turkey day:

1. Seared Brussels Sprouts
2. Orange Cranberry Sauce
3. Alton Brown's Best Ever Green Bean Casserole
4. Honey Glazed Carrots
5. Crab-Stuffed Mushrooms
6. Cornbread and Dutch Crunch Apple Stuffing
7. Pumpkin Pie!!
8. Salad stuff <- but I didn't end up making the salad



I bought my brussels sprouts from the Marina Farmer's Market on Sunday and the rest of my veggies came from Farm Fresh Produce in Moss Landing. Check out my spread:




Orange (#2), Green Beans + Portobello Mushroom + Onion (#3), Parsley + Carrots (#4), Baby Mushrooms (#5), Apple + Onion + Celery (#6), Lettuce + Tomatoes (#8)... Lemons are for beer... MMMMM I love lemon in my beer. Better than orange fo sho.




Yeah... and my total for ALL of that was $12.78 (plus I got a bunch of frozen grapes, not pictured).




Thanksgiving morning David, my mom, my sister Nicole, and I drove at the crack of dawn in the freeeezing San Jose weather to go run the Silicon Valley Turkey Trot! 
One of my favorite traditions is running this race with my Mom and Nicole and Aaron, but sadly he couldn't make it this year because he has a girlfriend and she lives in LA area.

We quickly started the race, and finished the race, and grabbed a bunch of freebie snacks - hoping for any sort of warm sun rays (didn't get any though). Instead of sticking around for a while, we jammed back to the car and drove back to my moms.

After showering, I got to work in the kitchen. Timing things is pretty difficult. I was so nervous that it would be 5pm and everyone would be starving with no food ready. With Nicole and Kyle's help, we actually got a lot of the food ready to bake ahead of schedule.

Adding to the list above: the turkey, Kyle's mashed potatoes, Nicole's secret-ingredient banana bread, and my mom's sweet potatoes (favorite dish), we had 5 things that needed oven time.

Luckily, everything finished on time and was warm and delicious. While it sounds kind of corny,  Thanksgiving dinner truly was delightful. In attendance: Mom, Nicole, David, his 3 sons: Nathan, Sam, and Ben, David's coworker Doug, family friends Becky, Megan, and Andrew, and good ol' Kyle Dozeman... and myself. After my pumpkin pie slice, Ben brought me a chocolate chip cookie he took home from Starbucks - perfect end to the perfect meal. It was so much fun to spend the day cooking in the kitchen with Nicole and Kyle.

I wish I had more time to make fun, creative meals. Sadly, during the week I just don't feel as motivated to make tricky things for just myself to enjoy. Maybe if I had the "Cooking for One" cookbook I could learn how to spice things up without having to eat leftovers for lunch/dinner 2 or 3 days straight!

"Cooking for One"??? That sounds like a depressing gift. Nobody give it to me out of pity! I will make do until my move to San Jose. Hopefully then I can cook with my mom, Kyle, friends.... any takers for dinner dates??

While there weren't any pictures taken of the Thanksgiving dinner spread, I did take pictures of breakfast the next morning: Apple Walnut Sticky Buns!!




Adapted from a Sandra Lee recipe I saw on a Bake Sale special on the Food Network:

You'll need:
1 Granny Smith apple
1/2 C chopped walnuts
1/4 C brown sugar
2 T. softened butter
1 (8-count) tube of refrigerated cinnamon rolls
1/2 t. pumpkin pie spice
1 to 2 t. water

Directions:
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Butter a 12-count muffin tin a lil' bit.
- Peel/core/dice apple into 1/2-inch cubes
- Stir together diced apples with walnuts and brown sugar.
- Divide apple mixture evenly into 8 of the 12 muffin tin slots.
- Put the 8 cinnamon buns, cinnamon side up, on top of the apple mixture.
- Put the muffin tin on a baking sheet and bake until the tops are golden brown, about 8 to 10 minutes.
- Remove the muffin tin from the oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes. Put a clean baking sheet on top of the muffin tin and flip to remove the sticky buns.

For glaze:
- In a small bowl, combine the frosting from the cinnamon roll tube with the pumpkin pie spice and 1 to 2 teaspoons of water.
- Mix until very thick and of pourable consistency. Drizzle over buns and serve.

SO YUMMY!




Now let's start thinking about Christmas dinner... I'm thinking Vegetable Parmesan?

Wild Plum Bakery and Cafe

On Saturday two of my friends from San Jose were in town. Sarah and Brian drove down the night before for their pal's housewarming party. We decided to meet up for lunch and it was my task to find a "cute spot" to blog about! I'm glad Sarah keeps me accountable.


But where to go? Little known sandwich spot? Somewhere on Alvarado? Hit up the municipal wharf?








A few weeks ago, my friend Maren wrote a review of Wild Plum Cafe and Bakery after she had lunch there with her bf Max. I hadn't ever seen the Wild Plum Cafe, hadn't heard about it, but oh man - based on her pictures, I definitely had to file it away in my "gotta try" list. So, when I met up with Sarah and Brian for lunch, the Wild Plum was the place to go!


I'm a big fan of Yelp. I don't really ever write reviews, but I love reading them. Before texting Sarah and Kyle (yep - he met us there) the address, I quickly looked at what Yelpers had to say.  Cons: unprofessional, stressed owner, understaffed. Oh Phooey! They don't know anything.


Check out that one ^^ "Yum. Lunch." My thoughts exactly.

Wild Plum Cafe is right behind Denny's (I think) and has a couple of outdoor tables. We went on a rainy day, and were lucky that an inside table opened up right as we walked in the door. Our waiter brought coffee and water as soon as we sat down. 
We grabbed our menus but didn't look closely look at them for another 10 minutes or so. Our waiter returned probably once every 2 minutes to see if we were ready to order. That means that we had to apologize about 5 times for not being ready to order. Can you blame us though? We had to catch up!!

So 10 minutes later, we had made the HARD decision and each figured out what we wanted to order. Of course, that's when Kyle walked in and he had about 10 seconds to make his mind up... 

I chose the 1/2 sandwich (veggie sandwich) 1/2 salad (sesame chicken) option. So effin good - the bread started crumbling apart, but it was covered in avocado and pesto and who cares if I need to attack my sandwich with a fork? Not me, and not when it's this good!




Brian picked the 1/2 sandwich (grilled chicken sandwich) and 1/2 soup (...soup of the day?). Kyle picked the same sandwich, but the full size. I had a bite and it was warm and cheesy - highly recommend.

Sarah went with the full sesame chicken salad.

Everything was delicious! There were about 5 or 6 things on the menu that I still want to try, so I'll have to come back someday.


MMM food & friends FTW! (I just learned that means For The Win and now I can't stop saying it in my head). We talked about lots of stuff - jobs, challenges facing the educators of America, secret clearances, wedding parties, and... my impending MOVE. Dun Dun Dunnnn... Yup, I decided to move back to San Jose to be closer with the ones I love: family, friends, Jan Hagel, Valley Fair, Orange Leaf frozen yogurt... 
As I write this it's easy to see why moving is the right thing for me. I LOVE Monterey. It's a beautiful town, has lots of charm, and is great to explore with people who make you happy. However, I'm a numbers girl, and the numbers point to San Jose. I am eager to be back in a city that has a higher percentage of people I can go out and experience life with. Let's bring back the kickball games, the random mall trips, and MOM time :) I'm going to miss living here, miss my roommates, but there's absolutely nothing stopping me from future weekend trips.....

Berkeley Eats and Sweets

Saturday I went with Katie and Nick to Berkeley to explore College Ave and eat our way over Shattuck.

After a pit-stop in Belmont at Nick's, we drove across the bridge and up the East Bay and in to Berkeley. We parked at the Rockridge BART station (free on weekends!) and began walking towards Cal, stopping in cute shops along the way.

For lunch, we ate at Manpuku (2977 College Ave, Berkeley). We ordered five different rolls, and the total after tax was under $21! Super cheap... and the sushi was good too! We got an imitation crab CA roll, a roll with eel and mango, a shitake mushroom and spinach roll, a spicy white tuna roll, and the fancier one was... um... I forget. But it had lots of avocado on top!

Grabbing hot tea and water

Check out the tuna!



Mixin in the wasabi - a must!



$20 bucks never looked so tasty.

We walked up the street and found this cute candy shop! (Sweet Dreams)

We enjoyed looking at their scocks and tasting fudge!

Next stop was Ici Ice Cream, a must-try in Berkeley's cold dessert arena.

Ici is a self-proclaimed "one of a kind ice cream shop." They make their ice cream, sorbets, candies and cookies in the shop in small batches. They pride themselves on their local/fresh/quality ingredients. (ie. all dairy is certified organic, fruits/nuts/chocolate exceed organic standards, no artificial preservatives, etc). Mary Canales, former pastry chef at Chez Panisse (ONE DAY KATIE!) left her 9-year tenure and opened Ici a little over 4 years ago. We had our choice of 11 flavors of ice creams/sorbets/sherbets: Pear Ginger Sorbet, Earl Grey, Kirsch Cherry-Fudge Swirl, Vanilla, Lemon Vanilla, Meyer Lemon Sherbert, Chocolate, Brown Sugar-Porcini, Brandied Allspice, Coconut-Rum, Candied Cacao Nib.

Ice cream elves in the back of the shop doing their small-batch thang

The three of us decided to enjoy our picks in Ici's hand rolled, chocolate-filled-tip, cones. Seriously, don't even consider going with a cup. The cones were soooooo good. It tasted like a cookie.

After Nick reassured me Candied Cacao Nib would be tasty, I chose a scoop of that!

I ordered one of their peanut butter bon bons too. I thought the inside was deliciously peanut buttery, but the hand-dipped, bittersweet chocolate casing was a little too rich for my tastes. Gimme that milk chocolate haha...

We went into a lot of shops.... Including this Hat Shop ;)

After we went up and down College Avenue we decided to go to Shattuck area, specifically to check out a highly-recommended cupcakery. Apparently Nick and Katie had been here before and remembered that it was sort of in an off-the-beaten path upstairs building thing. It makes sense when you see it. (1510 Walnut Street Suite G, Berkeley).

Such a cute shop! I like how open it is

Chocolates and Vanillas... standard.

Here's the good stuff. What would you choose between Sweet Potato, Cookies and Cream, and Peanut Butter Cup??!?

I went with PB Cup... of course. That frosting is SOO AMMMAZZINNNGG.

We continued walking around and ended up at The Cheeseboard Pizza Collective (1512 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley). So it has 1647 reviews. But why you might ask? From their website I learned that The Cheese Board (not the pizza part - yet) was founded on November 6, 1967 by two people as a privately owned business. In an effort to treat customers in a way that they would want to be treated, the owners decided to let all workers having equal power, as well as equal wages (= pay cut for owners). "The Cheese Board began making pizza on Tuesdays for lunch in 1985. Gradually this expanded to Wednesday lunch and Friday evening. In 1986 the Cheese Board acquired the space vacated by Pig by the Tail Charcuterie... This space was used to create and sell pizza three week day lunches (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday) and Friday Evening. On Saturdays this space was used as a bread outlet for the main Cheese Board. Some Collective members worked at both sites." They serve one type of (vegetarian) pizza a day. $2.50/slice or $20/whole pie. QUALITY ingredients. "In 1990 six members of the Cheese Board Collective formed a committee to seek out new members to form another collective–The Cheese Board Pizza Collective–which would allow the pizza operation to run full time...Pizza eventually brought in new members, expanded its hours and now is open six lunches and five evenings each week. The Cheese Board Pizza Collective is run as its own business, but Pizza and the Cheese Board are under the same financial umbrella and operate under the identical corporate by-laws." While Katie and Nick went to the bathroom I watched the assembly line. These collective people were fast! One man was handling all the pizza ovens, another was slicing and adding "finishing touches," and a girl was acting as cashier and boxer-upper.

The line might be reeeeally long, but it moves quickly!

Our time in Berkeley was really fun! Usually I avoid Berkeley because I got lost driving there once and the East Bay really confuses me. I hate being lost. However, I'm glad I gave it another shot because after all the walking around we did, I definitely saw spots that I want to come back too... Ici that means you. (And Chez Panisse - for a known-in-advance (?) special occasion OBVIOUSLY).

We headed back to the car and drove south to San Jose. We split for about 45 mins to prepare for a pretty amazing, quickly thrown together, Harry Potter Party (watched the 6th movie in anticipation for the 7th on 11/19!)