a late night sandwich dinner

So I'm a college student. And that brings up a lot of connotations. Late-night frat parties. Staying up till five in the morning. While doing work or while playing games. Or while watching thirty-two episodes of your latest tear-jerking drama obsession.

mnnn prosciutto...

Prosciutto, prosciutto, prosciutto... oh how I love you so. So three days ago, I took a quick trip to my neighborhood market to buy some for a recipe for the Flexitarian Cookbook. But I looked at the price board at the farmer's market and saw $14.99! Ack! I reeled a little and inspected it more closely. It was $14.99 for a pound of fine imported prosciutto from Italy, thinly sliced. I looked down the board and saw domestic prosciutto for $9.99. A little better but still.... then I saw it.

not-so-thai lettuce wraps

So the other day, I had the opportunity to finally sit down and make some lettuce wraps. I love lettuce wraps. The satisfying crunch of lettuce mixed with the savory sweet flavor of the meat, vegetables, and condiments inside. When I go eat half-off late night, I always order these.

I had intended to make these last week, but a combination of school, life, and work had me eating from take-out trucks and granola bars instead. Fortunately, Spring Break ended up being the best excuse for actually making these.

Most of the recipes I found online had water chestnuts, mustard, and ketchup in it. I avoided those. Instead I used one that I found on about.com. But I didn't want to take too much time hunting for ingredients I didn't have. So here is my lazy girl version of the lettuce wraps.

spring break in snow

It's March. But like most of the rest of the world, I still wake up to see stark patches of white outside my window. So what do I do? Laze around. Of course.

But after that? I head to the Farmer's Market. I buy food, more food then can fit in my tiny little half fridge. And inspired by the multitude and growing food blogs I follow and read obsessively, I plan and mark and find recipes to make and foods to try. Yet then I find another dilemma.

Where to put all these recipes? I could keep another book. On top of my agenda, my calendar, my to do list, my long-term agenda. But food is more than just another thing to do to me. I tried keeping an itouch (I know it's called an ipod touch but an itouch just seems more fitting to me) application for my recipes. However, that ends up being too ungainly, too inconvenient in its pre-structured order.

So I make this blog. Just another food blog in a sea of thousands existing food blogs. But while I will begin it as a way to keep this new passion of mine in check – to personal way of organizing my words in organic tags, a record of what new tantalizing taste worked and did not work for me, I can't help but hope that I can also learn from my readers in comments and links. Maybe. We'll see.

Let's see how long I can keep this going.