My Franck Muller Watch

Howzit peoples!  I managed to stay away almost a whole week.  Sorry for being such a liar. 

I can't help it. I wanted to share with you the $THOUSANDS$ watch I got yesterday for $1 at a rummage sale. You can check out Franck Muller watches on eBay here. 



Gonna be researching more to see if it's a fake like my Chopard watch turned out to be. Will let you know!


In the meantime, stay safe. No drive in the bad weather. Clean house instead. 

Nope, Still Bittah

The tsukemono is just a skosh better but still bittah after 4 days. I'm gonna chuck the eggplants and daikon. The cucumbers I'm gonna try soak in water/sugar/vinegar like here. 

I stole the picture below from Leslie's blog. I put her on my computer desktop at work. She cracks me up every morning when I turn on my computer and every afternoon when I log off. 

I'll be taking a break from blogging for maybe around 2 to 3 weeks so I wanted to leave you with this picture. That way you can have a laugh whenever you check back. 

Medihoney

I mentioned burning my fingers on my previous post. The first thing I did after taking the picture of the food was to run my fingers under cool water . . . mostly because the faucet was right there, and it felt like the right thing to do. 

The next thing I did was to dab on some Medihoney gel. Not sure if it was the gel or just the superficial nature of the injury, but BAM the pain went away, and in no time even the redness disappeared. 

I heard about Medihoney from my friend Susie who said that she uses it on her mom's bedsores. She said that it aids in healing. 

I got it from Amazon. You can check it out here. This tiny tube was $7.05. There is an expiration date embossed on the edge . . . mine is 05/2018. 



Here's the product description on Amazon:

MEDIHONEY® Active Leptospermum Honey dressings:

MEDIHONEY® is the global leading medical-grade honey-based product for the management of wounds and burns. 

These unique dressings contain Active Leptospermum Honey, a unique honey from New Zealand that has beneficial plant-derived properties. The dressings can be used in all phases of wound healing and could be considered a key dressing in any wound bed preparation protocol. 

MEDIHONEY® dressings have been shown in several large randomized controlled studies to be effective on hard-to-heal wounds. The line consists of various patented dressings that can manage a wide variety of wound types in a wide variety of settings.

Wendell's Balsamic Glazed Chicken

The recipe for this dish came from delish.com and can be found here. 

Moments before taking this shot I had burned my fingers on the just-out-of-the-oven cast-iron pan and without realizing it ended up focusing mostly on the potatoes.  I had to majorly crop the picture in Photoshop to include at least some of the chicken . . . LOL. I still wanted to post it with the recipe, though, because it was really good.

INGREDIENTS

• 1/2 c. balsamic vinegar
• 2 tbsp. honey
• 1 1/2 tbsp. whole-grain mustard
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• kosher salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 4 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
• 2 c. baby red potatoes, halved (quartered if large)
• 1 tbsp. chopped fresh rosemary
• 2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
• 3-4 rosemary sprigs, for skillet

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. In a large bowl, combine balsamic, honey, mustard, and garlic and season with salt and pepper. Whisk until combined. Add chicken thighs and toss until fully coated, then transfer to the fridge to marinate at least 20 minutes and up to 1 hour.
2. Meanwhile, prep potatoes: In a medium bowl, add potatoes and rosemary and season with salt and pepper. Add 1 tablespoon olive oil and toss until combined. Set aside.
3. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, heat remaining tablespoon oil. Add chicken and marinade and sear, skin side down, 2 minutes, then flip and sear 2 minutes more. Add potatoes to skillet, nestling them between chicken, and rosemary sprigs.
4. Transfer to the oven and bake until potatoes are tender and chicken is cooked through, 20 minutes. (If potatoes need longer to cook, transfer chicken to a cutting board to rest and continue cooking until tender.)
5. Serve chicken and potatoes with pan drippings.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2!!!!!!!!!

Release Date: May 5, 2017

From Fox News:

 “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” is going to explode in theaters like a "supernova" according to star Chris Pratt.

“This ups the ante for the last one in every way and shape you can imagine,” he said at the movie's Los Angeles premiere, comparing it to the first installment. “It’s funnier, it moves faster, it’s richer, it has more dynamic stories, deeper emotional pull…we get to spend more time storytelling and less time giving expository backstory and origin story. It’s emotionally driven, character driven, relationship driven, epic space supernova that explodes and it’s bigger brighter faster than any movie you have ever seen.”

BABY GROOT!!!  Sooooo cuuuuute!!!

Dunno if I can wait for the DVD to come out on this one. I might have to dish out the big $$$$ to see it at the theater.

Wendell's Okinawan Shoyu Pork

I actually posted this by mistake. Supposed to be for tomorrow but some people already read it so you get two posts for today. LOL!

You can't go wrong with melt in da mouth pork belly, yah!  Wendell got the recipe for this dish from I Love Hawaiian Food Recipes site.

• 1½ pounds pork belly
• ½ cup sake
• ⅓ cup shoyu (soy sauce)
• 1-inch ginger, peeled and crushed
• ½ cup sugar
• ½ cup mirin
• Green onions, garnish (optional)

1. In a large pot add pork belly and cover with water. Bring to a rolling boil and turn heat down and simmer for 10 minutes. This is to remove excess fat. Drain and rinse pork, then cut into 1 to 1½-inch pieces.
2. In a large pot, add sake, shoyu and ginger then bring to a boil. Add pork pieces to mixture, cover and simmer for about an hour. Turning pieces 3 to 4 times throughout the hour. This will evenly glaze pork.
3. Mix together sugar and mirin and stir into pork pieces. Cook for another 45 minutes uncovered until pork is soft and evenly glazed.

My Sake Kasu Tsukemono

Finally! Four days in the mash, and now the unveiling!



Looks good, hah! I know . . . I was all excited.


Here's the cucumber after rinsing. So perfect.


The daikon . . . beautiful!


I was surprised that the eggplant wasn't purple anymore.


I cut thin slices for the money shot.  So pretty, yah.  And the taste?



O M G


⬇


SOOOO  


⬇  


BITTAH!!!!   


⬇


NIGAI!!!  苦い


⬇


PTUI!!!  PTUI!!!!

Kahai Street Kitchen Again

I couldn't help myself. I went back to Kahai Street Kitchen yesterday. I wanted to try the Korean Cobb Salad that Honolulu Aunty recommended. I even braved the parking situation myself. It wasn't too bad. There was on-street parking about a block away. 

Korean Cobb Salad ($10.25). It was so good!!



Landon chose the Kalbi Soft Shell Taco ($10.25). On the night that me and Wendell went, three people before us ordered it so I was curious about it. 

Landon said that it was "good, but not great". I looooved it. 


Here's one of the tacos opened up. I highly recommend it. But, as the veggies (and sauce?) are pretty moist, it's probably best eaten right away.

Kahai Street Kitchen

Around dinnertime this past Friday me and Wendell were just putzing around . . . I think I was on the computer and Wendell was watching TV.  I walked into the kitchen and noticed nothing was happening so I said that I could make some Mi Goreng. He said nah, how about we go to Kahai Street Kitchen. I said, "Wow."

It was around 7:15 pm when we got there, and they close at 7:30 pm. The menu selection was huge, so of course, I started pressuring out. I was gonna go for something like what Wendell chose, but at the last minute I changed my mind.

Here's Wendell's combination plate ($10.25). Garlic chicken and hamburger steak. He chose mac salad to go with it. 


This is my Grilled Chicken Provencal ($9.25). I chose toss salad.


Now I know what all the hype is about . . . SOOOOOO ONO!!!! I would totally go back again . . . but Wendell gotta drive. Parking is horrendous. We sneaked and parked in the First Hawaiian Bank parking lot. 

Wendell's Miso-Glazed Eggplant

Wendell found this recipe on the site called Bebe Love Okazu here.   I loved this dish.

• 3 to 4 eggplants, cut lengthwise
• 1 tablespoons canola oil
• Nobu’s miso glaze (below)
• Roasted sesame seeds for garnish

1) In a large frying pan, heat oil and cook eggplant until tender. Cook about 3 – 4 minutes on each side. I like to brown the eggplant so that’s it’s almost carmelized. This adds great flavor to this dish!

2) Warm-up the miso glaze in the microwave for just 30 seconds so that it’s nice and warm. Spread a little bit over the length of the eggplant, then garnish with roasted sesame seeds. Serve immediately while hot.

for Nobu miso marinade:

• 3/4 cup mirin (sweet sake)
• 2 cups shiro miso (white miso paste)
• 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
• Splash of sake

Sake Kasu - Part 2

I researched online for the best (easiest) way for me to use the sake kasu and found info here at Umami Mart blog.

It said to first salt the veggies and rest with a weight on overnight.


I actually started in the morning and by the afternoon they looked ready.


I rinsed them well and buried them in the sake kasu. I put some chili peppers in there too. According to Umami Mart I leave it for 3 to 5 days. I'm tempted to put it in the 'fridge because I feel like it might spoil left out. But I'll be good and listen.


BTW,  Happy Easter peoples!

Sake Kasu

I saw this at Marukai yesterday. I knew that it was sake lees (a byproduct of sake production) and is used to make tsukemono. I stood in front of it for awhile remembering a few Japanese programs that I'd watched before where they show how some households have a kasu-filled vat in a corner somewhere, and anytime they needed tsukemono they would go to it and dig out a pickled vegetable. I think that's so cool.

I wanted to try. This bag was $4.29.


This daikon ($1.49) is actually not as big and obscene-looking as it appears. 


Lahaina Baby Eggplant ($3.87)


Keiki Cucumber ($3.99)


Now, I gotta figure out how to do this. Wish me luck! LOL!

Tips to Look Good in Pictures

Isn't YouTube wonderful?!  

I stumbled upon this video and wanted to share. I thought it was so helpful, but I do need to practice. It makes me chuckle to think that some of you (like me) will be standing in front of a mirror checking out the tips.

Let me know if you can do what she explains at around 4:10 to 4:26. I think it's so cool how her face transformed, but I can't do it. I end up only raising my eyebrows.

Macaroni Grill

My pal Dean gave us a Macaroni Grill gift card for Christmas, and we finally got to use it this past weekend.  Thanks Dean!!

Their complimentary bread was really good. It had specks of salt on the outside and bits of herb throughout. The texture was perfect.


I dunked the pieces in this seasoned olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Sooo good it's bad.


Our salad came first . . . Chicken Florentine ($12.95).  Very yummy. 


This is the Farmhouse Pizza ($15.95). Also good.


Wendell thought that one pizza wouldn't be enough, so we ordered two. This is the Margherita Pizza ($14.95).


We ended up packing up the pizza below and remnants of the salad to take home.  Only thing . . . the leftovers never made it home.  

When we exited the restaurant, a homeless-looking guy approached us and asked if we had some food to spare. I was about to say, "No", but Wendell said, "Sure" and handed over our take-out bag. Wendell always does the right thing. I'm sure the guy enjoyed it as much as we did.

Planet Earth II Trailer

Incredible footage. Left me speechless. Actually, not really. I did say, "Holy Cr@p!" 

Those BBC guys are unreal.



Thanks for sharing, Kevin!

One Dollah Watches

It's so good fun to go to the swap meet and look for $1 watches. And then it's even more fun when I take them home and fuss around with them. 

The third watch from the right below is a Seiko and is the best find in this batch. It's very well made and is going to coworker Penny.

The left-most watch is a Winnie the Pooh watch. It's in really good shape because it was kept in a plastic bag and actually still has a protective plastic cover on top of the watch face.

The Totoro watch in the middle made me gasp when I found it. On further inspection though I found that it's made in China and is poorly constructed. I had to glue parts of the band together to prevent it from further falling apart. Still, when I put a battery in, it worked! So I will totally be wearing this watch . . . just because it's so cuuuute. 



I found the batch of watches below in another swap meet outing. The Japanese character watch on the left went to coworker TJ. 

I've been off-and-on wearing the Minnie Mouse watch. The band was all bust-up so I went to Walmart and found a replacement band for $8. 

The watch on the right says "Memento". Did you see that movie? It's a very, very cool movie about a guy with short-term memory loss. The movie starts from the end of the story and, in segments, works its way to the beginning.  You feel lost all the time, trying to figure out what's going on . . . as if you have short-term memory loss . . .  just like the main guy. 


I paid $2 for this Hello Kitty watch and got all P.O.'d when I got home and saw that the band was broken. 

Cucumber Tsukemono

I picked up this tsukemono-making instant powder thing from Marukai this past week. It looked interesting to me because it says mustard on the packet. It also says "easy". This two-pack was $2.36.



From what I could figure out, you put cucumbers in a bag and pour in the powder. You moosh it, moosh it, try to get all the air out of the bag and then refrigerate for 24 hours. Then you rinse the cucumber and cut up. Sounds easy yah.


As you can see I started off wrong from the start. I cut up the cucumbers before I read the directions. Oops.


It came out potent . . . you know the go-to-the-brains owieeee hurt the sinuses mustard burn? I was gonna soak the cucumbers in water to tone it down, but Wendell said no need. It was okay to him. Landon liked it too.

After rinsing off the mustard, it ended up looking like just regular cucumbers. But I wanted to show off the plate so I took this picture.

DVD Winner!

ALIBABA37, you won the Up and The Croods videos!  Congratulations! Can you email me your mailing address? [email protected]

Bed Frame

Wendell likes Bulk Pick-up Day. And the reason he likes Bulk Pick-up Day is because that's his chance to find bed frames.  Uh huh . . . yup . . .  bed frames. 

If he should spot one on the road, guarantee he's gonna return in the dark of night to grab it. And for him it's such a SCORE!

He explained to me that bed frames are the perfect L-Shaped Angle Iron something, something. "You can use it to make all kinds of stuff." Wendell took some welding classes at the community college, and I think that's how he's creating his "stuff".

Once he made a contraption for his softball team to use to level the dirt on the playing field. He had his whole team looking for bed frames for that project.

The one below he found near our house recently. He said he's going to use it to make a table to put the motor for his huli huli spit. His plan is to put wheels on one side only like a wheelbarrow so that when he's done using the motor, he can just wheel it away to store. 

Sounds like a good idea to me. 

Donut King

I'm not too much into doughnuts, but Wendell is. The other day, I innocently mentioned to him that I saw a new doughnut place in Market City. 

Guess what. He went to check it out soon after. And guess what else. The doughnuts are goooooood. 

The Old Fashion ($1.45) has a nice crunch to it. It's kinda dense like a buttermilk doughnut. 


The Honey Glaze ($1.45) is light and fluffy like Krispy Kreme. 


The Apple Fritter ($3.25) has a bit of a crunch at first and then is dense and moist inside with bits of apple and maybe some cinnamon. 


We finished off the doughnuts in no time, and Wendell jokingly asked me to pick up more on my way home from work. 

So a few days ago, being the dutiful and obedient wife that I am, I did.








This was $11 something. I was kinda surprised . . . seemed expensive for just six pieces. But I guess it all adds up.


I feel a bit guilty recommending something so unhealthy and fattening to you, but like Chet said . . . YOLO! (I had to Google it . . . You Only Live Once).

Up and The Croods

I love, love, love these two movies . . . that's why I'm giving them away. No make sense?

Actually, I found the Blue-Ray versions of both at the swap meet so these are now extra. 

If you're interested, email me at [email protected] or leave a comment here.  If more than one person is interested I'll have a drawing, winner to be announced this Sunday, April 9.