My Weekend in Instagrams: Trip to Chicago

4 days in Chicago is seemingly the amount of time it takes to suddenly fall behind on all else on the weekly agenda. Even with that being said -- was still worth the trip out :)  It felt like a short weekend. It flew. But it was enough time away from my everyday routine to return and realize it may be time to switch up my routine. As much as I love the area I'm in now...I also miss city life. Tall buildings, fast cars, swarms of new faces, new streets and corners, and in all of that, finding calm in the chaos. 

You know you're cousins when she makes you coconut pancakes for breakfast. <3

Next Door coffee.

Milk, honey, Darjeeling, and a new day...

Product placement. It's in your hood.

Tall buildings, tiny windows. Tall trees, tiny branches.

Downtown with my cousin Kristen.

Bistrot Zinc. Ici on mange bien.

Unicorns on the wall.

Three naked ladies.

If this is what the French eat...why are they so skinny?

A town home near the water.

Red light.

No crossing.

On the menu: octopus, scallops, whole olives, mushroom pizza, cheese, prosciutto platter.

Cheers.

Wildflower Chai with milk and honey. The end of the meal. The beginning of the night.

Cold skies.

Let it Flo. Brunch #1 with Chris-Tia Donaldson from TGIN. She's the greatest.

Brunch #2 with the fam.

My cousin Jamie and I. Before the onset of bottomless mimosas.

My first cronut.

Hanging light fixture - on my 'to make' list.

Nasturtium, Berries, and Spicy Arugula Salad with Poppy Seed Dressing

The BF and I love going to Detroit Eastern Market. What we love most is the plants and the food! And depending on our mood, some days are plant splurges (where we become plant hoarders) and some days are food splurges (where we buy enough food so we can go home and stuff our faces...). 

Last time we visited Detroit Eastern Market, we were happy to find a build your own salad booth with a bucket of nasturtiums. Nasturtiums happen to be a big favorite of the BF's -- because you can quite literally eat the entire flower -- and we decided to pick up a bag! Along with a few ears of fresh corn and strawberries (all fresh from the market). The only things not immediately fresh were the blackberries!

You Will Need:

Large few handfuls of spicy lettuce, arugular and salad

1 ear of corn

1 handful of strawberries

1 handfull of blueberries 

Small to medium cut of feta cheese.

Handful of  crushed walnuts

Basically, throw everything in a big fruity ball. 

We used this brand of Brianna's Home Style Rich Poppy Seed Dressing --wich was delicious! 

Then either toss your salad, or served on a plate for people to pour their own dressing. Yum!

We served it up with some zucchini bead, also from Detroit Eastern Market, and smoked salmon.

Enjoy!

Mini Banana Nut Cream Pies

I think banana cream pie may be my favorite pie! The bf and I were inspired to make this after having the banana cheese cake from Cheesecake Factory (my favorite) and didn't quite get a substantial enough fix of banana because it was too good. We made the mistake of sharing one. 

Anyway...banana cream pie is yummy but very easy to make if you cheat like we did and use Jello pudding mix. The secret is to mix the banana cream flavor with vanilla--otherwise the banana cream flavor alone is a bit overkill and tastes too concentrated. Mixing it with equal parts vanilla pudding makes it way better.

You will need:

2 + 3/4 c. milk

1 vanilla Jello pudding mix

1 banana cream Jello pudding mix

Mini pie crusts

1-2 bananas

Cool whip (or whipped cream)

1/2 c. crushed walnuts

*If you don't want to make as much, use half the milk and half the Jello pudding mixes

First mix the milk and Jello mix for a few minutes until smooth. Let sit for a few minutes until it sets. Line the pie crusts (already prepped and baked) with 3-4 banana slices and a teaspoon or so of crushed walnuts.

Then top with the pudding mix and let these sit in the fridge for around a half hour.

When ready to serve, take out the pies and top with whipped cream, then sprinkle with crushed walnuts as a topping.

And that's it! It's very simple...and delicious. Admittedly, it's probably got nothing on Cheesecake Factory's banana cheese cake. But it is something! 

Enjoy!

My Weekend in Instagrams: Blue Moon Birthday, Farmers Market, and Sister Breakfast Bash

I'm not surprised that out of 5 snapshots, 4 of them have something to do with my food...

My two little sisters visited for the week and we had a lot of fun! At least I did. I hope they did...we did a lot of cooking and a lot of eating out at restaurants...but for breakfast one morning we made stuffed french toast rolls and they were yum! 

The recipe is very easy...we used potato bread (just because). Before dipping into whipped eggs, spread on a thin layer of whatever filling you'd like on one side of the bread (Nutella, honey & peanut butter, or jam & cream cheese for example!) Then, roll the bread so the filling is inside roll. After rolling, dip in whipped egg batter and roll around so all sides are submerged. Then fry in a pan sprayed with light oil. Top with whipped cream and berries. We used the leftover whipped eggs to make a scramble...

In all of the commotion of driving 10 hours to NJ to pick up my sisters, driving 10 hours back, taking a couple days off work, dealing with a power outage and lots of rain when I returned to work, and spending time with sisters in Michigan, I suddenly turned 23. I feel very indifferent toward it...I feel like I'm at the pivotal point where you don't want to get any older. I'm not panicking just yet. But fear I might soon...still not sure where I'm going with my life. Hoping somewhere good....

To celebrate, I hosted a mini "Blue Moon" themed party at my house -- of course decked with all blue-moon treats. Including this pear, blueberry, and blue cheese flat bread (recipe here -- we added blueberries and walnuts). And my "Blue Moon" chocolate cake...with the help of my dear friend Trader Joes. (I just decorated with gold sprinkles...).

We also made a Blue Moon beer-cheese fondue which was delicious...and Blue Moon beer-battered onion rings and string beans. These were the most experimental because I have never made them before. But they were good! I used this Guy Fieri recipe as a guy and just left out the ingredients I didn't have (sun dried tomatoes, bell peppers...) and replaced the beer he uses with Blue Moon. Everyone liked the batter. 

My sisters have never spent much time in Detroit, so on Saturday I took them on a drive around town and we stopped by Eastern Market. I go there often on Saturdays. We got ridiculously good zucchini bread...and they liked it. Maybe one day I could start selling Latidoe products at Eastern Market.......maybe. 

And lastly, but not least -- lavender soda from Great Lakes Coffee. This is one of my favorite coffee houses in Detroit (probably tied with Roasting Plant). I like it because it comes equipped with a bar...and occasional DJ. A good place to have a coffee, get some work done, (or eat waffles with sisters) and then celebrate productivity with a beer. I opted out of beer and went for the lavender soda instead...and it was good! I love flower flavors...so am always anxious to try lavender, rose, jasmine...etc. in new forms. Soda was a new one for me...

Grilled Swordfish with Tangy Asian Glaze over Apple Salsa

This is what happens when the BF makes dinner! I can't say the secret ingredients for the glaze and salsa...but I can show it off :)

DIY Nuts and Berries Cocktail Recipe

Last weekend I met up with The Rita Way for our semi-regular cocktail girl's night!

We sometimes just indulge in random parties (of two) with elaborate drinks and an accompanying menu at either of our living spaces. This time, we let Cardamom, a really good Ann Arbor Indian restaurant, do the cooking -- but we made these fancy pants Nuts and Berries Cocktails.

If you don't like creamy cocktails, you may not like this. But it was yum! Especially with the fruity raspberry from the Chambord. 

Nuts and Berries Cocktail Recipe:

1/2 oz Chambord Liquor

1/2 oz Frangelico

2 oz milk 

We used the tiny bottles you can buy at the counter because a whole bottle of Chambord is not cheap! But the real reason is because the bottles are so cute...

Cheers :)

Mami's Wake/Funeral in the USA, African Style

This weekend I visited Jersey again for the American wake for Mami -- my grandma, and primary reason for my last visit to Cameroon. When Cameroonians have funerals...not much of the time is spend in mourning. Especially for someone like Mami who lived over 90 years -- it's a celebration of her life instead. And when I say celebration, I mean literally a huge party with a live DJ and huge speakers loud enough to move the neighbors to call the cops on us, which they do every time my dad has a big party. And when the cops show up expecting to bust underage high school drinkers, are surprised to see grown men and women dancing like their at Ricks (for anyone from Ann Arbor) wearing suits and shiny shoes and heels. I guess this means my dad is way cooler than me because I have never thrown a party big enough to have been busted by cops. Multiple times. 

Overall it was so much fun -- a lot of work -- but a lot of fun. With A LOT of food. Food pretty much comprised 90% of all the set up/prepping time that took all of Thursday and Friday preceded by a few weeks of planning and forming committees. I felt like I was in Cameroon all over again. But it was nice to relive if only for a day. 

Myself in the dress I had tailored in Cameroon

Party dresses

The set up -- 100 chairs + full bar!

The people

My dad

My step brother and nephew

The preacher who spoke in French

Batons de maniocs waiting to be unraveled

The unraveling

Cooking stew over patio bricks and coals

Team effort: Kebabs

Enough chicken to feed the world

And even more fish, poultry and meat to feed the world a few more times.

And even more.

My plate -- mmm.

Me again.

I don't care for dancing much. But in Cameroon, when somebody dies, you have to dance for them. It's a way of tears--both the happy and the sad kind. So even though it was one in the morning and our feet were sore and the onset of hangovers were already beginning...we danced, and danced, and danced, and danced...so Mami would know her life was well lived.