Home Cookin'

Home was absolutely wonderful, filled with lots of family, friends, food, sunshine, and time at the beach. Straight from the airport papa hill took me to In-n-out. Kinda typical and just as wonderful as I remembered it.



Apart from the food part of the week-I had a great time at home. I got to see my parents, all my best friends, Tay and my new brother in law, grandma and grandpa, and all my cute little cousins. It was so sunny and felt like summer. Only 10 more days until I'm free from school and all the stress that comes with it. Almost there!

Green Curry Night and Going Home

For the past few weeks I've been gearing up and gathering courage for green curry night. I threw a combination of spices I can't pronounce, coconut milk, eggplant, bok choy, tofu, onions, and peppers into the pot, crossed my fingers and walked away.

Meg and I had a few friends over, which is proving to be my favorite part of this whole process. The food is great, its fun learning to use a crock pot and try new recipes, but the best part is the company that comes with it. And lucky for me, crock pots make a TON of food. Even when it says "serves 4"

In other news, I get to go home tomorrow!!! I don't think I've ever been so excited to see my family, friends and sunshine. The past few weeks have been rough, feeling like I'm fighting for my life everyday- so needless to say I am thrilled to be able to see my family, reunite with friends (shout-out to alex and katie-it's been almost 6 months!), sit in the sun, cook with my mom, laugh with my sister and watch the dodger games with my dad. It's gonna be a good week :)

Zack's Famous Salsa

Kat's fiance Zack was in town a few weeks ago and introduced us to "Zack's famous salsa". Let me tell you- the finished product lives up to its name.

He borrowed our tupperware and returned it FULL to the brim of an amazing blend of cumin, tomatoes, onions, cilantro and garlic. All my favorite things! Kat learned the recipe and in turn taught me. I think it's a new fan favorite of the 204. Thanks Zack and Kat for the goodness, as promised, we have named it after you :)

Barley, Mushrooms, Onions and Cousins.

Crock Pot meal # 4- Barley, Mushroom and Onion Soup

Last night Meg and I headed up to my wonderful cousins' house to share some soup and bread. I've loved having Joey in town living around the corner from Britt and Dan. I was so excited to cook dinner for them. The soup wasn't my favorite, but it was fun to have dinner with them, get some family time in and get to help out a little.

Note to self-Buy a crock-pot with a snap on lid as to not burn my roommate's leg again.

Next up-Tofu Eggplant Green Curry with homemade bread from the wonderful Matt Van D-if you reading this your officially invited :)

White Beans with Rosemary and Garlic

I don't know why, but cooking beans seems to be impossible for me. They're either crunchy or too mushy or just flat out taste horrible. So last week I decided to conquer the unattainable task with the wonderful crockpot by my side. It was supposed to be seasoned with sage, but who has fresh sage just lying around their kitchen? Not me.

Lucky for me, our neighboring dorm grows rosemary, so I took a little stroll, slyly stole some rosemary and called it a victory. Who knows if sage and rosemary are similar enough to swap out, but I made an executive decision.

Three ingredients, four hours and almost no effort later-waa laa-white bean with rosemary and garlic.

Oh and the best part-about five cups of beans for under a dollar. Yes please.

My Favorite Chili

I'm not gonna lie- chili has never been on my favorite things to eat list. Actually, up until tonight I don't think I've ever sat down and eaten a bowl of chili. Needless to say I've never felt inclined to make it. But this week I've been craving cornbread and like any good roommate, Megan has been craving cornbread's perfect complement- chili. It's part of the one-pot wonders challenge, which so far hasn't let me down.

We had a bunch of friends over to share our massive pot of chili, catch up on life and take a break from the madness of the week. Thank to those of you who joined in on the experimental first-ever pot of chili.

And what's chili and cornbread without Trevor's "homemade" brownies? Carefully documented at every step, baked to perfection and shared around a table of wonderful friends.

Just another night in the 204.

With love from la cucina bianca

Pesto Bread

Yesterday the wonderful Matt and I made some bread. He's been talking about it basically since we met, so it's been a long time coming. We jumped on the website that he had found and saw an overwhelming number of goodness staring back at us. Cinnamon Raisin Bread. Coconut Bread. Sweet Cinnamon Sticky Buns. Yes please. We settled on Pesto Bread, which in hindsight, there are no regrets.

Matt's a fellow food lover so it was fun to ohh and aww over the dough rising and the finished product together. I'm gonna go ahead and call it a victory :)

With love from la cucina bianca.

la cucina bianca

This blog exists to document the wonderful world inside of my little white kitchen.

I ordered a cookbook online the other day called "the gourmet vegetarian slow-cooker". When it came in the mail I did a little jig around the house, sat down to look through it and posted-noted most of the book as "must cooks" All the post notes looked a bit silly so I thought "why not just cook all of them?" So here it comes friends, the crock-pot marathon of indian, greek, italian, mexican, and thai food. Sort of a julie/julia type thing, minus the insane amount of butter, foods that I can't pronounce and fires in the kitchen (hopefully). Along with the one-pot wonders, I'm sure other experiments and events will scatter their way into writing. Most importantly, it's here as a way for me to show why I love food and cooking so much. It's a way to show hospitality and love for people around me. It's a way to make new friends, tell the already established ones that you love them, an excuse to hang out and a common bond.

Well, here is it- the long awaited (from me at least) blog about food and the love, friends, family, happiness, laughs, celebrations, joys, conversations and heartaches that come along with it in la cucina bianca....