Shaz by the Sea

Jim has his LAST class tomorrow night!!!! I can tell he is jumping out of his skin, as am I. He actually said to me this morning, "Shaz, should we have a party when I'm done with school?"  (In other words -- "Shaz, throw me a party when I'm done with school"). Whichever way he approached it, he definitely deserves a monstrous party. For his birthday last year, I rented a boat for a few hours and we went out in the marina with about 10 friends.  It was so fun. I could tell he loved it. Maybe we can do something like that again...or maybe we just have a huge party here at our place. We'll see...stay tuned for that decision to be made. Today I am still in the process of cooking up everything in my fridge. I was craving hash browns, and since I had a couple sweet potatoes in the fridge, I decided to make sweet potato hash browns with scrambled eggs...and whatever else we had. They were AMAZING. They certainly are a must-try, if you have the patience to ...

Greetings!!   I am excited about this post because I am cooking one of my most favorite foods in the entire world -- eggplant.  My friend and I ventured to farmers market in Westwood on Thursday. It is located near the UCLA campus, so it's typically pretty busy. As soon as we arrived, there was a vendor with tons of bags of 3-4 pieces of eggplant for $3! I didn't think twice and immediately picked one up. I also grabbed some freshly made eggplant hummus from one of the vendors -- and also a bag of fresh basil for $1. I remembered I needed some fruit for the house, so I grabbed a couple green and purple plums and a few apples. They are all so fresh and delicious this season. I was also in search for some olive bread since I had the eggplant hummus, and although none of the vendors had any left, I found the last loaf at the bake shop on the same street. It's called Le Pain Quotidien and ironically, there is one next to my h...

Happy 29th birthday to John Lawlor Bosch!! The other night, I was craving some serious penne alla vodka, so Jim made a pit-stop at the grocery store to grab a few necessities. He picked up heavy cream and some turkey sausage. I had the penne pasta, vodka, marina sauce and some seasonings. I took a few pics of the process....here's how it went down: As I mentioned in my "Olive oil, Garlic and Wine" page tab, this is my typical start to my Italian dishes. This time, however, I used a little different order. To start, I tossed in some EVOO, garlic and some onions to the pan. I let those sit for a few minutes while I started boiling some water for the penne. I went with some mezze penne.   Instead of my usual "wine" ingredient next to get the sauce working, I remained in the booze category by choosing a Russian vodka. I always cook with whatever booze item I would actually drink. For example, don't...

  Even though I am against using recipes, this post will be used as a guide or example for you to see what I would make for dinner on a random night. Since I am traveling out of the country tomorrow, and even though my husband is going to be home, we all know my vegetables will spoil. Therefore, I am going to indulge in a what I would call, a pasta primavera -- with chicken sausage.   In order to make this dish, here's a photo what I will use: Olive oil, garlic, white wine (not pictured), onion, red pepper, spaghetti squash , summer squash and a Mexican style squash that resemble zucchini   -- notice a theme?        As with almost any dish I make, I begin with some olive oil in my saute pan.  I like to use it liberally, as I am tossing in about 5 vegetables together and like to have the olive oil touch each veggie.   I then use one clove of garlic and mince it. I throw it in to the already hot ...