Miso and Tofu

Miso and Tofu © 2016

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Sorry for the Silence

Howdy folks! As we are coming up on our first wedding anniversary, I realize how badly I have neglected this blog. I have no better excuse except that we’ve been busy and lazy. 

I will be catching up on some posts here soon including Cute House of the Day, wedding decor details, honeymoon and photos from recent trips. 

<3 Lizzie

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Summer is coming to an end! :( Check out this #SummerSwimATX series on Instagram (Follow lizziechen on Instagram)  I started last year on Instagram. Nathan and I love summers because we get to go jump into 68 degrees water at Barton Springs or lounge at Deep Eddy and other swimming holes around Austin. I hope to go for a last few swim before fall arrives. 

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We are married!!! I’ve been slacking on my blog due to planning for our big day and now that it’s finally over, I have more free time to get back to life like watching terrible tv shows, blogging, cooking and laying out on the couch. 

Nathan and I met 8 years ago on the sun deck of Taos Co-op and I got to marry my best friend on June 12, 2016. It was definitely the most stressful day of my life and also the best day. Due to our limited budget, our wedding included a lot of DIY projects including the ceremony arbor, program fans, center pieces and many more. Throughout the summer, i will post more photos from the details of our wedding that our lovely photographers captured. 

We got a few sample photos back last weekend from Mary Kang of Prima Luce Studio and Marisa Vasquez. The last two photos were taken by Marisa and the ones before were taken by Mary! 

Enjoy the photos and will post more soon! 

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Cute House of the Day , April 17, 2016 

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We love spring in central Texas!! We picked mulberries from my dad’s and loquats from our neighborhood. And finding random mushrooms like woodears. 

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I believe in these kids, help me help them get to college!

I wouldn’t write this on my personal blog unless if I truly care about these kiddos! Amplify Austin is less than one week away on March 8-9 and the entire city will spend 24 hours fundraising. As many of you know, I am the multimedia specialist at Southwest Key Programs and East Austin College Prep. I have the wonderful opportunity to tell the stories of our clients and students and get to know them on a more personal level. I have been here for almost three years and I am still enjoying every moment of it. 

This year, I am raising money again for East Austin College Prep, specifically for the Dreams Never Settle Campaign which will help fund scholarships for our first class of seniors! I want to thank everyone that helped me surpass my goal of $500 last year and I was able to raise $1000. A special shout out to all my out of town friends and family that gave to East Austin College Prep. This year, I want to challenge my friends to help me raise a minimum of $1,000 because this year is very important for us.

I started at Southwest Key in 2013 when our first graduating class was finishing up their freshman year at East Austin College prep. In just three years, I have gotten to know many of our seniors and their stories.

I've personally interviewed many of these students who tell me their stories and what East Austin College Prep means to them. I hear students speak about, "family, brothers, sisters, hope, and dreams." This is what EAPrep means to them.

Not many of my friends and family know but I am working on a year long documentary capturing the lives of four seniors at EAPrep and this monumental occasion of the first graduating class at EAPrep. I've been following four seniors since the summer of 2015 and capturing both the exciting and mundane parts of their lives. Like I mentioned in my previous campaigns, I did not have much growing up and as a first generation American, I often time see myself in their stories and I want them to go further in life than I did!

Please watch the trailer I created for the documentary that I am still working on. I plan to follow these seniors as they first step foot onto their college campus. I hope in watching this trailer, it will not only inspire you to donate to our scholarship fund but to come visit our campus and learn more and meet the students. This scholarship will help them with books, dorm supplies, food, or even a bus pass since many of our students do not have vehicles. Majority of the seniors have been accepted to colleges already and they are currently deciding which schools to go.

You don't have to wait until March 8th to donate, you can schedule your donations starting today! Again, I have a goal of $1,000 and please go to my personal fundraising page to set up your payment today or on March 8th. I will send out another email to remind you guys that this is coming up.

This year, as a special personal thank you, I will be mailing you a tiny polaroid photo of our Tiger in East Austin or a polaroid of a landscape.

Last, after spending in-depth time with these students, I truly I believe in these students. They have what it takes to succeed in life but they just need a little help to make their dreams come true.  

I want to thank everyone in advance for even taking the time to read through this long post and helping the youth in east Austin. If you have any questions about my work, please do not hesitate to reach out to me.

Love, Lizzie

P.S. Last year, we made an awesome THANK YOU MUSIC video to thank our generous donors. Who knows what we will do this year. ;-)

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We enjoyed Roberta’s Pizza’s popup at Bufalina Pizza on Thursday evening. The Franklinstein pizza was👌! 

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Miso and Tofu, thanks for the free ad. 

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Pie and Cats

This weekend, my photo friend Lauren and I made a pie from Four and Twenty Blackbirds recipe book. 

We made the chamomile buttermilk custard pie and we added lavender to it. Lauren did a great job with the crust because the pie crust was yummy. We drank wine and played with her cats while we waited for the pie to bake. 

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#NOT30YET

It was my birthday yesterday and I am not 30 yet! Making real ramen was always on my to do list for 2013, 2014 and now 2015. I decided to make it happen before it was 2016. And I made it happen! I followed a Bon Appetit recipe and it was yummy. It was my first time cooking pork and it was kinda dried. My friend made me a fancy red wine chocolate cake with whipped mascarpone. So good and pretty. It was a good one but I look forward to turning 30 next December 30th!! Woot woot! 

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Why 2016 Will Be Awesome!

Last year, I did a blog post on why 2014 was awesome. This year, I am going to look forward and do a post on why 2016 will be awesome. I am excited about 2016 for lots of reasons but below are the top five main reasons summed up in five hand-drawn animated gifs. (I also plan on eating lots of pizza in 2016.)

I am working on an exciting documentary that I hope to finish in 2016 AND to improve my video skills. 

Nathan and I plan on traveling, camping, cooking more and just having F-U-N! This will be the first year where neither of us are in school. We can enjoy each other, relax and have fun! 

In case you did not know, but we are getting married next summer! FINALLY! I can’t wait for this special moment in our lives but it’s also a bit nerve-wracking too! #FinallyChenGaar

I am finally going back to Taiwan after 20 years! I have not been back since I was 8! I get to share this experience with Nathan and he gets to meet the rest of the Chen family there. Also, the FOOD... I am most excited about eating the food. (XLB, Bubble Tea, Lu Rou Fan, and many more!!!!!)

2016 is also going to be awesome because guess what?! I am turning 30! I am not afraid to turn 30. My 20s was fun but I don’t mind leaving it behind too. 

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Kitsune Udon Noodle Soup with Maitake Mushrooms 

I was inspired to make this udon noodle soup after purchasing a cheap package ramen from the local Japanese store and it was called Kitsune Udon and filled with MSG, yuck yuck. I can’t blame them, it WAS only $1.99. 

I went on to do some research so I can make my own and wow, so easy! There’s just a few ingredients, marinated fried tofu, fish cake, udon noodles and dashi broth! 

Below is my version of it and please don’t hate me, I cook with my heart and instincts so the measurements are just guesses. 

Ingredients: 

-Dried Udon Noodles (you can use the frozen kind too)  -Marinated Fried Tofu Skin (you can get this at a Japanese or Korean store) -Fish Cake (Frozen aisle of any Asian grocery store)  -Maitake mushrooms (my take on it to make the meal more savory) -julienned green onions 

Dashi Broth:  -Kombu (Dried kelp) -Dried Shiitake mushrooms  -Bonito Flakes  -water

1. First make the dashi broth. I put a few pieces of kombu and 3-4 shiitake mushrooms inside a medium pot and filled it with water and let it sit there for one hour  2. After an hour, I turned on the heat to medium and added in the bonito flakes and let that cook for 30 minutes  3. Strain the broth through a filter to remove the bonito flakes  4. Set the broth aside  5. Cook your noodles, put them in a bowl  6. Warm up the fish cake and tofu skin in hot water  7. Stir fry the mushrooms with salt and pepper  8. Set your fish cake, tofu skin and mushrooms inside your bowl on top of the noodles  9. Make it pretty  10. Pour the broth over the noodles  11. Add your green onions  12. EAT 

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Olamaie, you’ve captured our hearts. 

Nathan and I first checked out Olamaie back in September when Nathan received his job offer as a software developer at Spiceworks!! Yay! And we also wanted to celebrate our 7.5 years anniversary! Olamaie made my biscuit and gravy dream come true! The last few years, I’ve been on the hunt for the best biscuits and gravy. I order it everywhere when I can. Their biscuits are the best i’ve had, although I am still waiting to try the famous biscuits in Nashville at Loveless Cafe. The gravy was a little too salty for me at Olamaie but their biscuits with the honey butter, UHHHHHHHHHHH UHHHHH UHHHHHHHH. I have dreams about it, so flaky, so soft, so buttery, so yum. 

Nathan turned 30 last week and I asked him where did he want to go to celebrate and of course he picked Olamaie. Again, they made my dreams come true but this time with rice. I am a rice snob, having grown up eating it every day, I am pretentious about my rice. I get angry when I am served shitty rice. Do you want to piss off Lizzie Chen? Well, then serve me badly cooked rice. Ever since I heard about the Golden Carolina Rice on Mind of A Chef with Edward Lee, I had to try it. It’s good Southern rice. Simple. It’s just rice and butter and so good. I thought it tasted like congee! The rest of the meal was amazing but then again, personally, I am sensitive to salt so I thought it was a little too salty. 

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My family never ate burgers growing up. In fact, we hardly ate any type of American food growing up because my dad thought it was nasty and unhealthy. “Don’t eat that! It’s going to give you cancer!” But we’ve grown to love Hopdoddy. It’s changed our perception on burgers! Now our dad even tags along with us to Hopdoddy! I always love the lighting at Hopdoddy, how the light hits the burger at the right moment. I am such a nerd. 

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Nathan and I were making a lot of hatch chile chicken soup during hatch chile season! We’ve altered several recipes we found until we finally came up with our own and our not so secret ingredient is using a whole fennel bulb and adding goat cheese. Yum. 

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It has been months since my last post! I have been swamped with work and wedding planning! I want to get a few posts up before I wrap up for the year. I made this dish back in September from a recipe in a Food and Wine magazine.

This is coconut braised chicken with chorizo and potatoes with a coffee/lime zest gremolata. It was so rich and delicious. I am going to post a few photos from some food we made before we started eating salads. I miss spending long hours in the kitchen.

I can’t believe it’s almost 2016! 

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Boulder, Colorado. Miranda took us to this really cute/pretty tea house and I drank monkey picked oolong. Then we went walking around the plaza and went to Mountain Sun Brewery where Nathan and I sat glaring at each other so there are no photos from that neat little brewery.