Jack in the Box Coupon

Self-explanatory…

http://coupon.hangintherejack.com/fry-drink.php

Lunchables Haters

I’ve been eating Lunchables lately when I either don’t feel like cooking or I’m too hungry to wait till I finish making something.  I bought a bunch on sale at Safeway for $1 each… that hasn’t happened in years!

Long story short, I went online to look for info and came across the yelp page.  Who knew they had a page devoted to Lunchables?!  I sure didn’t.

The reviews made me sad because it seems most of the negative comments were written by people who’ve never had them.  And what kind of review is “no”?

There were two main points which I’ll address:

Schmap

I just found out that one of my photos were included in some sort of map/guide publication (?) called Schmap.  I think this is the direct link to it.

While it’s pretty exciting, I think it’s less the quality of the picture and more the availability of pictures for People’s Cafe (since there were no other pictures for that spot).  Speaking of which, they have great mexican hot cocoa and turkey wraps.. go try it sometime!

To be honest, I feel like they picked the worst picture I took from that location :p  At least two other pictures showed more of the cafe and would be more representative of how the cafe looks…

Well, getting picked for being the only one with a picture from a location is better than not getting picked at all, right?

Sesame Oil Chicken Update

While I was googling Sesame Oil Chicken, I found out that it’s normally eaten with mi^h sua^h (麵線), so that’s what I did next.. :p Below are the pictures of what I ended up with.

I cooked some of those Japanese style thin noodles in a combination of water and chicken broth, cut some pieces of chicken and poured both broths (chicken & sesame) over the noodles.

With, of course, the obligatory close-up picture.

Sesame Oil Chicken (麻油雞)

When I wandered into the kitchen to find food to eat, I remembered I had defrosted chicken thighs, so I took it out to prep it.  That’s when I realized it wasn’t boneless… oops.  I originally planned to cut it up, marinate, and stir fry but I wasn’t about to go through all the work of cutting around bone!

Long story short, I cooked them whole and the sesame oil sitting on my counter called out to me so I added it in.. the oil smelled so good, I ended up making some variation of sesame oil chicken. :p

I googled a couple recipes while it was cooking and ended up adding both rice wine and green onions.

The rest of the ingredients were fairly intuitive so I had added them already (ginger, soy sauce, water, sesame oil), along with my own creative additions (salt rubbed on chicken before frying, pepper, and a dash of sugar to bring out the sweetness of the chicken).

Here are a couple pictures of “professional” ones in Taiwan as a reference.

Yes, my pieces of chicken were clearly way bigger and they pulled the ginger out on the sides of the bowls as decoration.

They also don’t have any green onion…I thought there weren’t either but I figured it couldn’t hurt to combine recipes.  They are actually a nice touch, taste-wise.

I should get one of those fancy bowls too so I can make it look all cool and traditional looking.

Note to self: less oil, bigger pieces of ginger, and smaller pieces of chicken for next time.

UPDATE: I know the link to the second picture disappeared.. appparently that website was revamped… and is still a work-in-progress.. I don’t want to remove the picture until I find a replacement picture because it will ruin the whole format, so bear with me. =)

Painted Cupcakes

The other day, I went into a Lucky store for some groceries… and I noticed these cupcakes.

Ok so I didn’t just “notice” them, I went looking for them.   I always check out the baked goods — just to see what they have and to admire them, even though I rarely buy anything.  Yes I’m strange. :p

Anyway, these are quite unique — not just because they’re colorful, but because they look like they’ve been spray painted.  Yup, the coloring is not a result of very very fine sprinkles.

As in exhibit #2 (to the right –>), there is literally a line of color going down each row of cupcakes.

I don’t know what it is, but it can’t be good for you.  Hoping it was just the party trays, I looked for normal ones — but they also had coloring on them.

The only cupcakes that weren’t painted were the dirty looking ones in the first photo (those were sprinkles).

Yikes.  I wonder how they’re selling.