Last week my friend Lilian (who co-organized this bake sale last year) invited me over to her place for a late lunch and to bake together. :) We had been wanting to bake together for a while but kept having to postpone, so I was glad we finally got together and made it happen. When I got there, Lilian was already busy in the kitchen, cooking up some tasty goodness.
Quinoa with veggies and huge tofu cubes cooked in taco spices. She recently got back from a trip home in the US and brought with her this quinoa as well as a bunch of other things. It's almost impossible to find quinoa in Korea but you can order it from iHerb. I actually have a bag of quinoa that has been sitting in my pantry for months and now I feel inspired to use it up.
Cucumber tomato salad with onions and yellow bell peppers. So fresh and healthy.
Everything was so good, I kept going back for seconds, and thirds,... and fourths... I can't even count how many servings I had. Quinoa is so light and fluffy that it makes you feel like you're not eating that much until a while later when you feel completely stuffed.
After lunch, and while waiting for our dessert to bake up, Lilian put together this snack platter of apples, dried blueberries, cherries, walnuts, and candied ginger cubes. She won me over with the ginger candy.
Who needs to go to cafes when you can just go to a friend's house! Unbeatable suh-biss-uh.
Lilian is a lover of strawberry shortcake and she's actually the one who inspired this dessert last year. We just made a standard vanilla-lemon cake, sliced it up and put strawberries and tofu cream on top. I know this isn't like the traditional shortcake that uses a more biscuitty base, but we made it work. This cake was barely out of the oven and we were already slicing it up~
I was trying to make my plate all elegant and well-balanced, while off on the side, Lilian was creating her own monstrosity:
Lol, Lilian's plate cracks me up cuz you can barely see the cake underneath all the strawberries and cream. Now that's how you do it right.
We both whipped out our cameras to capture the beauty.
Time to dig in! Yummy. I was so full at the end and it was sooo fun to hang out with Lilian. Laughed so much. I'm so thankful for friends who I can share my love of food with and who accept me and all my social awkwardness. Heck, I'm just grateful for friends. :)
Last but not least, Lilian's roommate has a kitty cat!
Wakey wakey! I shall pat you.
i need a hair trim...