Rock N'Restock

I was lucky enough to have been asked to be the photographer for the Rock N'Restock charity event on May 22nd. The event was put on my Goldwasser Realty to raise money for the Capital Area Foodbank in Austin. The event was a great success! Here are some pictures from that night....

Inside of the will call window at Stubbs

The event was held at Stubbs

I was an official photographer, so I had the pass that let me go everywhere!! :) I seriously need this pass every time I go to a concert now :)

This was one of the opening bands... Feeding 5000

The main attraction, Bob Schneider. He has many fans, and a lot of them showed up! Bob and his band were very lively and held a great concert.

I even got to mess around in the "sound area". I noticed this little note, and just had to take a picture.

Holy Shizzz... May is almost over

This month has flown by!!! I swear it was just Easter and we had much better weather. I hate to say it but I am already sick of the sweaty hot weather. I dislike sweating. After growing up in AZ I guess I had it good... lots o' heat, but very dry. I will say that I won't be moving back to AZ anytime soon (sorry Az friends, but it's true), but I miss ZERO humidity. I don't want to think of the next 4 months of crappy hot weather. Hopefully I'll be spending a lot of time on the lake with friends and sipping on fruity adult drinks. Our new favorite drink is a pina colada with a little bit of melon liquor. YUUUUUMMMMMM!

I have a few things to catch you guys up on... like me taking pictures at a charity event (wooohooo), a new and possibly bad kitchen gadget buy (it was one of the gadgets they sell on TV... Jim and I both wanted it so we bought it), and all of the Memorial Day events! I had a little snafu with my computer and the lack of memory, but I think I have it fixed so I can start sending out pictures again.

Work has been busy and slightly exciting. I might be moving to a new location which means more responsibility and a whole bunch of new issues and challenges. I think it might be a week or so before I really find out. I don't want to say a bunch about since I don't really know who is reading my blog but I will be staying with my current employer. And of course, e-mail me and I'll give you the details (a HUGE thanks to Angela for helping me list the pro's and con's of moving!.

I hope everybody had a wonderful and safe Memorial Day weekend!!!

This is a late notice, but if you aren't doing anything tonight and want to support a good cause, check out the Rock n' Restock concert at Stubbs!!

Not pretty, but tasted good!

I tried a new recipe last night that didn't quite look the way it was supposed to, but it was damn tasty. It was a Korean pancake filled with veggies and shrimp. The pancake was more like a crepe. The recipe is soooo simple but the execution of the recipe is what got me :) Let me explain.... I went a little crazy with the filling. I added way more things that what was on the recipe. So after using half of my fridge for the fillings, I realized that I should have cooked it differently. The dish was very tasty, but it looked like a pile of food. Okay, not that bad, but it didn't look anything like the picture on the internet :)



Korean PancakeMake one 9-inch (23cm) pancake
http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archives/2008/05/korean_pancakes_1.html

There's plenty of variations on this recipe and you can certainly make your own up, using some of my suggestions above. A large spatula works best for flipping it, although you can slide it onto a dinner plate and flip it that way, or even cut it in half, then flip each piece separately.Next I'm going to experiment using sparkling water, or maybe add a pour of beer in place of some of the water.

1/2 cup (70g) all-purpose flour
1/2 cup (125ml) ice-cold water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 large or extra-large egg, lightly beaten
1 bunch of scallions
a spoonful of soy sauce
optional: dried red pepper slices
vegetable oil, for frying

Dana's Additions to the recipe: 1/2 chopped onion, 1/2 chopped tomatos, 1 chopped garlic clove, 4 slices of jalapeno, chopped up. I also used appromixatly 20 small shrimp


1. Stir together the flour, water and salt until just mixed.

2. Chop the green parts of the scallions into 3-inch (10cm) lengths. Reserve the white parts for another use.

3. Heat a thin layer of vegetable oil in a 9 or 10-inch (23-26cm) skillet, preferably non-stick, until hot. Fry the scallions until they're completely cooked through and soft. Add a touch of soy sauce to the pan when they're almost done, to season the scallions. * This is where I added all of my veggies that I listed above

4. If using other ingredients, any vegetables, kimchi, or prawns—what have you‐add them now, then toss a few times to heat them through. *I took the veggies out of the pan and added the shrimp to cook. I sprinkled cajun seasoning over the shrimp to give it some spice.

5. Pour the pancake batter over the scallions (and other stuff in the pan), spreading the batter, and cook a few minutes until the bottom is nice and brown underneath. Lift the edge to peek. * This is where my problems started. Since I used so many veggies, the batter did not go to the bottom to cook. I ended up transferring the food to a bigger pan, and tried to flip it in the process. It kind of worked, but the food ended up seperating, which caused the pancake to break apart.

6. Pour the beaten egg on top then swirl the pan to even out the egg a bit, still keeping it pretty uneven. Distribute the dried pepper strands over the egg, if using, and cook until the egg is just beginning to firm near the edges. * I almost didn't do this since the batter didn't really work. But I decided to try it... but I did a little different. I added two eggs (one didn't cover the top) then flipped the sucker again. Flipping this was not easy, and I ended up cutting it into two pieces to make it easier to flip. I'm glad that I did it because it was well worth it.

7. Using a wide spatula, flip the pancake and cook for another minute or two until the egg is set and preferably crispy at the edges. (I tend it cook it pretty well, although I like hard-cooked fried eggs, which I know ain't "gourmet", so use your judgment.) *I never got to this part, but see above for what I did

5. Slide pancake onto a cutting board, then cool to room temperature. Cut into six or eight wedges, and serve with dipping sauce made by mixing 3 parts soy sauce with 1-2 parts rice vinegar and a few drops of sesame oil. A bit of chile oil can also be added. *we at this hot because we were hungry. Like I said,,, this wasn't pretty to look at, but it tasted soooooo good. I plan on doing this again trying various combinations of fillings.

Movies worth watching

We have seen a couple of movies over the past week then I would recommend to anybody. The first movie is Iron Man. Soooooooo goooooooood! Robert Downey Jr did an excellent job, and his sarcasm melded nicely with the comic book movie. I would gladly watch that movie again!!! We went to a normal theater instead of our normal Alamo Drafthouse. While it is fantastic to drink and eat during a movie, we thought the sound was a little better at a different theater. We did not count on all of the freakin kids watching the movie. Hmmmm... Alamo really does have a TON of benefits. Alamo has trained us to go to movies early since they almost always sell out. We got to the theater and were the only people in the theater for about 10 minutes. Kind of weird for a Friday night!!! Anywho.... go see this movie!!!


That's Jim..... he was sooooo happy I whipped out the camera.

We finally watched Juno tonight and I'm sad we didn't watch it before tonight. I think most people that I know would really enjoy the flick and the story line. Funny, sarcastic, a little mellow drama, and lovable characters. Rent it today!

Pecan Street Festival

Jim and I headed out to the Pecan Street Festival a couple of weekends ago. it was a last minute decision, but I'm glad we went. The weather was perfect, and there was plenty of people watching going on!!!



We cut through an alley (in the quest to get cheap beer to drink while we walk around the festival... yes, it is slightly white trash, but everybody does it!! :). This poor guy was trying to sleep in the shade. Downtown Austin has it's fair share of homeless people. Either that or he just had a really, REALLY good time at the Pecan Street Festival and was taking a cat nap.

Ahhhh... Leslie. Leslie is the town tranny, and is well known. I would venture a guess that 75% of people in Austin know about Leslie, the homeless tranny that likes to walk around in very skimpy outfits. I'm just jealous that he has better legs than me...Bitch. :)

Highly appropriate.... (see sign above Jim's head)

We stopped to listed to a band at the festival, and it turns out that Jim knew the bass player. they were pretty cool, they played a laid back jazz.
There are TONS of dogs that go with their humans to the festival. This little guy had his own little pouch.
Jim was thrilled that I had him pose next to the Little Jimmy's Italian ice umbrella

More demolition

This weekend we worked on the room with the washer and dryer. This room has a lot of electrical outlets, the braker box and the knobs and hoses for the washer. Our main goal was to get all of the wood off of the wall and get the nails out (there is usually 6-10 nails per board). Luckily it went pretty well, and no big disasters.

The room before

We also took off of the accordian type door. It was helpful, but it was kind of gross and dirty. Once we took it off, it really opened up that door way.

The door after we took of the accordian type door

Hubby the Handy man

We found LOTS and LOTS of wasps nests once we took off the wood that was above the window. CREEPY! They were empty, but still crazy to think those bugs are calling the insides of our walls home. Before we put the sheet rock up, we are putting foam in all of the cracks as well as adding insulation (which it currently lacked). Hopefully it will save a bit of money on our cooling/heating costs.

After our demolition day!

Turkey Burgers

In the quest to reduce the ba-donka-donk bootie I thought we should try turkey burgers. I tried to jazz them up a bit, but I think they still fell short. I think my choice of cheese did it. I like feta, but I think a good cheddar or pepper jack would have been better. I didn't really keep measurements of what I used but here is my recipe:

1 pound ground lean turkey
1/2 finely chopped onion
couple dashes of salt, pepper, garlic powder, and paprika

Mix above ingredients together and form 6 patties. Make them kind of thin because you'll be using two per burger. You'll see why below....

Chop up roasted red pepper.... I buy them packed in water, HEB brand (can't tell the difference), place on 3 turkey burger patties. Take feta cheese and place on top of peppers. I used a garlic and herb feta cheese. Place the second patty on top of the 3 patties.

You can grill these, but I just fried them up in a pan.

While the burgers cooked, I chopped up a half of a tomato (good size), about a quarter of an onion and two garlic cloves. I cooked the onions until translucent, then added in the tomato's. Once the tomato's cooked down I added the garlic for a few minutes. I used this mixture as a topping to our turkey burgers. I wasn't sure if ketchup or mustard would go well with the burgers, so I made this mixture.

Next time I will omit the feta and add either cheddar or pepper jack. I think it will give it a ooey gooey goodness that I think it lacked!

Wine Fest

We headed out to the Hill Country this weekend with a couple of friends, Nicole and Steven. We stopped for lunch at Nutty Brown Cafe (yummy, but to far to enjoy more often), then headed towards Fredericksburg. We stopped at 4 wineries and made a final stop at the Fredericksburg Brewery. We had a full afternoon of fun, booze, and laughter.

Jim, me, Nicole and Steven

Enjoying a wine-a-rita.... a new twist on a frosty drink. I highly recommend one, but I think this is the only place that has it. Sweet but not overly sweet.

Nicole trying to figure out which wine to try next.

Nicole and Steven