Indian Food

I have been really lax about posting. I've had awesome stuff to post about, but I just haven't made it to the computer to sit down for 20 minutes to write it down. That being said, yesterday was my birthday! And this year, it's a five day celebration!!

First we had a March Babies birthday party on St. Patrick's Day. We had a fabulous time! There are three of us at work who have March birthdays plus Tom whose birthday is April Fool's Day, so we claim him as ours!

Then, Lincoln & Nikki took me out for Indian food which I had never eaten in a restaurant before. I've made curry at home but that's about it. They took me to Anarbagh Indian Cuisine in Woodland Hills. It was delicious!!! They picked out their favorite dishes, plus I picked one out that sounded interesting. Here's a picture of them with the food!

Lincoln & Nikki at Anarbagh

Starting from the bottom left and going clockwise, we had Beef Vindaloo (hot beef curry prepared with lemon juice & potato), Chicken Mango Masala, Chicken 65 (boneless chicken sauteed with yogurt and spices), and Sag Paneer (spinach & cheese cooked with onions, tomatoes and herbs). Everything was so yummy. I told them that I could go eat there every week.

I love spicy food, so I was wondering, how have I never eaten Indian food before? I won't let that trend continue. In fact, I could probably try making some at home. I will definitely go back there again. The sauces were yummy and I love having saucy rice, so it was perfect!!

Volunteering & Peruvian food

On Tuesday night, I took a group from My People Connection over to the AIDS Project L.A. food bank to bag groceries. We had a great time and bagged 250 bags of food and 10 boxes of romaine lettuce in less than 2 hours! I've done this event many times and let me tell you, that is stellar! We had a really great group!

Afterwards, we went out to Las Quenas in North Hollywood and had Peruvian food. I've never eaten Peruvian food, so I was interested in giving it a shot. I have no idea as to the history of Peru, but after looking at their menu, I wonder if they had a lot of Chinese immigrants in their country. There was a section called "Pasta" that the waiter said was like chow mein and saltado which is like a stirfry with the meat of your choice, french fries, onions and tomatos, and served with rice.

That sounded delicious, so I tried the saltado with beef, chicken, and shrimp.
Saltado Cielo Mar y Tierra

Here are some other yummy concoctions:

Fried plantains

Pescado Sudado

Seafood soup

Bisteak encebollado

Locuma ice cream

I'm not sure of the fruit name. It's a Peruvian fruit.

Dante's Chicken & Ribs in Eagle Rock

Last Friday, Jason, Jodi & I went to Dante's Chicken and Ribs (a new BBQ joint near the house) for dinner. The interior is like a fast food place. There are only three small tables inside, so it's kind of cramped. Nothing too fabulous as far as the "looks" of the place.

As for the menu... When Jodi & I saw deep fried pickles on the menu, we knew we had to give it a try!! They were delicious!! The ribs were just OK, but the pickles and fries were delicious.

Deep-fried pickles


French fries

I think the fries were the best thing from Dante's. I had a half slab of ribs, Jason had a combo plate with ribs, sausage and chicken breast and Jodi had the sausage plate. All the meat was slightly overcooked, but their fried food rocked!! I love spicy food, but I think their spicy sauce is too hot and not enough flavor. I will definitely order the house sauce next time. I think too that the ribs tasted better after they sat in the fridge a couple days and we microwaved them. I think the microwaving added some moisture to them.

However, we saw a table next to us with a Kobe beef cheeseburger that looked delicious! That will be the next thing I try. Overall, it's OK. I give it a 6.5 out of 10 and really, it's probably a 5.5 without the fries.

The Coffeehouse Investor

I finished reading this book while sitting in a beach chair in my front lawn this past weekend. The sun was out, but it was chilly and I loved it!

The book has basic information about investing and the author, Bill Schultheis, makes a very good case for indexing. So, I changed my 401k to index funds and I'm going to stop worrying so much about it. I would highly recommend this book. His advice makes a lot of sense and it's an easy read. It encourages being informed. I agree with that. I think too many people make financial decisions without looking at all towards the future. He doesn't recommend not living your life now to save, he just wants you to recognize that decisions now do affect your future and to what extent.

A few facts and figures stuck out to me... A 25 year old starts saving $300 per month vs. someone who starts saving $300 per month at age 35. Those extra 10 years (and $36,000) end up making a difference of about $457,000. Wow!! Don't cash out those 401ks when you switch jobs. Hang on to them because time is on your side!

There is a retirement worksheet and based on my current savings and age, I need to save $927 - $1,003 per month (depending on if I count my Roth IRA). So, I'm right on track! Perfect! His worksheet assumes 7% return which I think is a fairly good number. Only time will tell, but it's not too conservative or too agressive. It's just right!

Money can't buy happiness...

I saw an article on Yahoo today about how lottery winners can end up broke just like anyone else. The worst bad story in there was about a guy whose brother tried to kill him to get the inheritance. That is just awful!

I guess it goes to show you that money can't buy happiness! Also that some people REALLY don't know how to handle money. It's a skill and the hardest part about saving money is having the discipline to do it!


On a retirement note: I do have a Roth IRA at Vanguard and I just changed the investment. For the last few years, I've been in the Vanguard 500 Index Fund. Last Friday, I switched my IRA to invest in the Vanguard Target Retirement Fund 2045. I don't want to retire in 2045, but I'm trying to be agressively diversified! These new target retirement funds reallocate themselves every year as you get closer to retirement. All I have to do is just keep putting money in there and forget about it.

Talking about money is a no-no

My favorite things to browse on the internet are (in no particular order): food, games and money. I bring this up because lately, I've been having periodic fits of money obsessions and I find myself (like tonight), lost in a sea of personal finance blogs reading about nameless faces' net worths and saving techniques and suggestions. There are tons of blogs out there on every subject under the sun and I started thinking that maybe I should start writing about personal finance tidbits that I find interesting. The problem is, talking about money is one of those taboo subjects.

If I had an "anonymous" blog, I would feel free to write about all my trials and triumphs related to money. But since I personally know people who read my blog, I usually don't put hard numbers in the blog, but make general statements like, "I want to save more." Isn't that odd? I'm pretty forthright and if a good friend wanted to discuss it, I would. However, it's weird to have acquaintances knowing the ins and outs of my financial world. After a minute more of thought, I think the problem I have with it is the inequality of information. I have a couple friends that I can discuss all my financial stuff with because it's a give and take situation. We discuss our situations and I know about their money woes too.

How do other people reconcile this? I'm in good shape financially, so it's not like it's an embarassment or anything. Hmmm... I guess it's just not considered "polite" to talk about money, sex and religion. Technically, it's my blog, so I guess I could talk about anything I want, but... I don't know. I'm considering it. Just putting it out there.

In the meantime, there's a website where you can track your net worth called NetWorthIQ. You can plug in your numbers and see how you compare to others. I think some of them are inflated though and throw off the averages. There's no verification to make sure things are on the up and up. Thanks to the southern California real estate market, my net worth looks pretty good. Yea!

100 new games?

My gaming friend Dave tries every year to play 100 new games. I don't really know how that is possible for him since he's been doing this for years. Do 100 new games come out every year?

I was thinking about that and thought, hmmm... I wonder if I could play 100 new games a year. I wrote down a list of the new ones I've played this year, and I'm already at 13. I won't backtrack to cover them, but 13% of 365 days is about 47 days, so I'm a little behind schedule, but close! Today is the 55th day of the year. We'll see how it all shakes out.

Tater tot casserole and games!

Last night was a pretty busy night for me!

Right after work, I went to Shane's house for dinner. She fixed a tater tot casserole for me. It was good. I think it needed to be cooked at a higher temperature. Here's a photo:

Tater Tot Casserole

Tater Tot Casserole (adapted from Cooks.com)

Ingredients:
1 1/2 lbs. ground beef
1 can green beans (14-15 oz.)
1 can corn (14-15 oz.)
2 12 oz. cans cream of mushroom
1/2 c. water
freshly ground black pepper
enough tater tots to cover the top fo dish
shredded cheddar cheese

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 450 F. Brown the beef. Drain the fat and place at the bottom of a 13 x 9 casserole/baking dish. Combine green beans, corn, cream of mushroom soup and water in a bowl. Mix well and pour over the ground beef. Arrange the tater tots to cover the mixture. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until tater tots are lightly browned. Sprinkle shredded cheese over the top and bake for five more minutes. Let cool for 5 more minutes and serve.

Then, I headed over to Lincoln & Nikki's for some games. I had a TON of fun! I arrived around 7:30 PM and chatted for a bit while unpacking my cheese ball and crackers. Then I proceeded to play:

Ra - with John, Karen and Mike. This was my first time playing it and I enjoyed it. I probably need to play a couple more times to really get the hang of it, but it was fun. Karen got points for the most pharoahs in all three epochs and dominated us!

For Sale - with John, Karen and Mike. Again, my first time with this one. Simple to learn and play. This is a good filler game. We were waiting for a game of Kreta to wrap up.

Can't Stop - with Davebo, Lincoln and Dave. I played this last weekend at Gary's for the first time and not only could we not stop playing last night (two games before Davebo took off), but I couldn't stop laughing! The D2 were cracking me up!

Emerald - with Dave and Lincoln. First time, quick to learn. I need to pay more attention to how my moves will affect others. The graphics were cracking me up because you have to go through a tunnel thing and it looks like a birth canal going up to a uterus. Here's a picture of Emerald:

Emerald with Lincoln & Dave

Here's a close-up of the board. Can you see the resemblance to the birth canal?? :-)

Emerald board

Overall, a very fun evening with all of them. I left around midnight and I listened to my Katamari Damacy CD that Lincoln made for me! Yea!!

Oh, and I almost forgot, Shane with lipstick! Probably not the right color, but for someone who NEVER wears it, what a difference!!

Before: Shane with new glasses, but NO lipstick

After: Shane with lipstick!

And if any single guys are out there checking this out, she is single!! :-)

The Joy of Baked Potatos

It's been years since I actually baked a potato. Since buying a microwave with handy-dandy cooking methods on it, I've used the "baked potato" feature that allows you to wash, stab and microwave potatos (or potatoes if you prefer), then wrap with foil for 5-10 minutes and voila! A microwaved (baked) potato. The big pro: Super fast - maybe 15 minutes from start to finish.

I was talking to Shane on Monday night and she said that she had eaten a bona fide baked potato. Apparently, she enjoys the crispiness of the skin and the texture of the enclosed potato that you can only achieve from actually baking the potato in an oven. Since it's been a little chilly here lately, I decided, what the heck, I should give it another try.

I used Shane's easy recipe...
Wash the potatos, stab them and bake for one hour at 400 F.

The results? Yummy, potatos that had much more flavor than the microwaved ones I've gotten accustomed to over the last eight years! She was absolutely right! The skin is crispy and yummy, the insides delish! I think what I enjoyed the most about it is the uniform texture on the inside of the potato. Microwaved potatos are sometimes not as soft in the middle, while at the same time sometimes a little overcooked near the skin. Also the "roasted" smell coming from the oven while they were cooking was yummy!

Verdict: I think I will switch to baking them in the oven when the weather permits! They were very tasty. I forgot how much I missed real baked potatos.

I also tried a recipe from Allrecipes. Preheat oven to 300 F, rub down potato with light amount of olive oil and sprinkle with desired amount of kosher salt. Do not wrap. Bake on the rack for 90 minutes! Perfecto!!

Weekend update - Food and Games

What could be better than friends, food and games over the weekend?

Saturday
I met Shane over at A Window Between Worlds to do our karmic souls some good and we did data entry for a few hours. They had about 20 sorority sisters in there doing the regular volunteer work (painting the envelopes) and boy did I feel old! And very practical! I listened to a few just going on about their dresses and accessories for some big dance that was coming up and I thought, boy they have NOTHING to worry about in this world yet.

Then, Lincoln and Nikki came over for dinner. I made the Sunday rib roast and asparagus with parmesan cheese (both from a Barefoot Contessa book). I also tried a new buttermilk mashed potato recipe from my first Cook's Illustrated magazine (thanks Shane!!). The mashed potatoes were good as was everything else. I was hoping that everything would be excellent, but I'd have to say it was very good. I let the meat sit a little too long, but Lincoln and Nikki both said that they thought it was good, so that's all that matters.

After we ate, I introduced them to Katamari Damacy. That game is just so darn cute! I love it. They loved it too, so I was glad to spread the Katamari love. In fact, Lincoln already has the soundtrack for me! Yea!

Sunday
Shane & I went to Gary's house for a games day. It was fun. I played Time's Up, Can't Stop, Boggle, and Settlers of Catan with the 5-6 player expansion.

Time's Up - Fun as usual. This is probably one of my favorite party games.

Can't Stop - This was my first time playing and we couldn't stop! We played three games. It's quick, easy and fun. I'm already hunting down a copy on eBay. I loved it!

Boggle - OK. I had a little stint of playing Wordracer on Yahoo! games for a while a few years ago, so I can play it, but not my game of choice.

Settlers - Always fun! First time I've played with six players and it didn't slow it down as much as I though. The board is bigger and there are two extra ports. Jesse (new guy) who hadn't played Settlers before LOVED it and wanted to play again immediately, so they played a four player version. At the beginning of this games day, he listed is favorite games as Uno, Scrabble, and some other generic games. I have a feeling he will fall in love with the German games and never look back.

Overall, very fun weekend. I'm already scheduled for another games night on Wednesday! I'm really hoping to play Caylus, Vinci or Euphrat & Tigris. I'm new to this group, so we'll see. I will go with the flow...