My First Quiche & Tart Pan Cooking

New thing today, made a quiche with a tart pan - both firsts, and both a disaster :) To explain, I got the recipe from Weight Watchers and had the refrigerated dough from pies for the season, so wanted to try my hand at quiche. It seemed like a totally do-able recipe and I love quiche. It was pretty good all set - photo below. 

Then, cooked for allotted time, and well, time to take out of the oven. When I was taking it out of the oven, the removable bottom popped out and the outside rim part fell off. Everything was fresh & hot, and it totally threw me off guard. Fabulous non-stick tart pan slipped and the quiche ended up face down on the floor. Photo below. 

Disaster. I was devastated. I pretty much spent about 1-2 hours of a complete waste of food and a mess of dishes making it and a mess of slop cleaning it all up. I think the dog enjoyed licking off the taste of it after we cleaned off everything, but ya, only the dog got to taste my quiche that night.

Oh the agony of spilt quiche. I didn't cry, but it felt pretty awful. Husband was a dear and helped me clean. At least we had other food to eat that night but I wasn't really hungry anymore. So frustrating, aggravating, demoralizing and upsetting.

I practiced my Zen, and let the incident go. I let all the frustration with myself, the pan and the failure go. It took a little while, but not long after I was ok. I'm going to cook smarter next time, and try it again, except maybe put it on a cookie tray/baking pan before I cook, and then take it out on the pan. Or I'll use two gloved hands when taking out the quiche. 

Overall I learned how not to make quiche. And I remembered, my first experiments with bread turned out awful, but I kept at it, and I ended up making some really really fantastic bread after some bad turns. You can't win them all, and you can't be arrogant enough to think that everything you do will be perfect and wonderful every time you try new things. Although I'm pretty arrogant and expect that things will be perfect and I will do wonderful things. Reminder, that you will spill quiche, but also Thank your blessings, that we had all this extra food, and it wasn't our only meal, and that I wasn't making anyone go hungry because I spilt and wasted this food. 

So many lessons. A first, not a last. You will see another post, and I will make another quiche, and maybe I'll do a "new thing today, made a successful quiche" post or something like that :) But yes, lets focus on the failure too. I hate that turn the frown upside down always sunny positive crap. Sometimes things are just miserable, wasted, unfortunate or bad and you have to honor that. Sometimes, things just flop. *Sigh. And then, you let it go, and move on.

Daily Knowledge Podcast

New thing today, listened to the Daily Knowledge Podcast. Sometimes I work on mind numbing stuff, which I sometimes enjoy because I can listen to podcasts and sort of veg out. I discovered this and it's sorta interesting. Listened to a few episodes and enjoyed it. Not sure if I'll stick to it, but it's got some interesting posts here or there. It's also a bit like what I'm doing here, sharing something new every day. They have a main website TodayIFoundOut.com which is kinda neat. Always learn :)

Santa Barbara Courthouse & Public Library

New things today, went to the Santa Barbara Courthouse & Public Library. We sort of unexpectedly ran into them. We were just planning on going to State Street and walk around, when we parked at some random parking lot which sort of landed us right next to both locations.

We left the parking lot and saw the Santa Barbara Library. So cool so decided to walk in. They have a Faulkner wing and when we went it was a gallery filled with what looked like local art. Inside it was half modern and half old world bookshelves. It was cute and I would gladly spend a respite from shopping there in the future. Looked like a super cozy bookshop inside.

Then right next to this, we saw this huge tower with people looking out into the city. So decided to check that out too. It was this gorgeous old Spanish architecture building, with beautiful grounds and a huge tower. Turned out it was the Santa Barbara Courthouse and what we first saw was the Observation Tower. Weird thing is, we've been to Santa Barbara quite a few times and never saw this building before, but its been there forever so it was an exciting first!

It was gorgeous! It was absolutely awesome inside and out. The grounds were so pretty, and the tower had fantastic views of Santa Barbara. We went when there was gorgeous light and it was a beautiful day. It was truly truly awesome! I loved the mosaic tiles throughout the building. There was this great spiral staircase and just the doors, the borders around the doors, the floors, ceilings, everything was really really beautiful. This could be one of my favorite buildings. Best of all, it's free to go inside and wander around. We're going to go there again, and I will take snippets of photos from the internet and post them down here, but it's quite a photographers paradise :) I love this building and Spanish architecture - very cool.

A panoramic view

Main Courthouse

Inner Courtyard & Grounds (pic doesn't do it justice, it's so much more pretty)

A Mural

The Spiral Staircase

Goleta Butterfly Grove

New thing today, went to the Goleta Butterfly Grove. Exciting!

It was magical because the husband thought of it and wanted to take me :) So it was really awesome and sweet of him.

What I was expecting

What we saw

So basically most of the butterflies were in the trees and sleeping or something, so they looked like brown clumps around the trees. Some were flying around, but not much. 

We saw more butterflies at the LA Natural History Museum Butterfly Pavilion when we went a few years ago. Even though the butterfly grove was disappointing, the highlight was past the butterfly grove to the beach. We spent most of our time there at the beach, watching our dog have a blast running up and down. There were beautiful cliff views and it was a really great day. We enjoyed the beachside so much more. Had a lovely lunch picnic on the cliff overlooking the beach and ocean, and well, it was just awesome. A very lovely afternoon.

On our way back from the beach we went by the butterfly grove and found a docent there teaching and talking about the butterflies. That was much more interesting. She said a lot of the local development and pollution over the years have probably influenced and reduced the amount of butterflies that come to the area. 

I hope we were just unlucky and I want to go again, just for the beach if anything. I hope we see more butterflies next time, and I hope you do too if you go. Still sorta neat. 

The Grilled Cheese Truck - Three Cheese Melt

New thing today, had a Three Cheese Melt from The Grilled Cheese Truck. Wow it was magical! There was so much hype behind The Grilled Cheese Truck, that I was actually doubting that the sandwiches would be good. I was wrong and it held up beautifully!

I had the Three Cheese Melt as it looked like the least indulgent and had one of my favorite cheeses - Bleu! It was made with Gruyere, Aged White Cheddar, and Bleu Cheese. I had it on white bread and got no sides, as still trying to keep it relatively healthy. It was AMAZING! I would gladly get this again and I would gladly try other sandwiches.

This was awesome, delicious and a must-try for the future :)  Happy Friday folks.

Paid for Gas with Cash

New thing today, went to the gas station and paid with cash. Whoa! I seriously have never done that before. So different.

Ok here's how it goes. I've been switching to using just cash and an app to track my spending. Been doing it a few months now and it's working really well for me. Usually I'm with my husband when we gas up the car so we use his card. This time I was by myself and needed a filler up.

Felt really dumb and weird paying with cash, but I think I like it a lot better than the card. You get some human contact with the cashier, and I'm not super paranoid the card swiper is rigged to steal my cc info. Also you get what you pay for. Just give them whatever you think it will cost, or a little more, and fill. It stops when it's done, don't need a receipt and don't need to double check my cc statement later that month.

I like it! Who knew the old ways would be more fun? Maybe I'd hate it if it were busy, but it was pretty easy.

Yeay! New thing that I enjoyed weirdly enough.

Rose Parade 2014

New thing today, attended and saw the 2014 Tournament of Roses Parade.

This is not my first Rose Parade, but this is a first in being able to see it. Let me explain. When I was a kid (guessing between 7-9 years old), we went. It was miserable. It was cold, crowded, and being a kid, we weren't in the front so I pretty much didn't see anything. My family was excited and swore I would enjoy it, but I didn't. My view, pretty much consisted of something like this - which is what part of the experience was this year. When I was a kid, it was the view of a bunch of backs, waists, pants. It was freezing cold. I heard music once in awhile, and I was pretty much bored out of my mind. It was miserable. Here is what it probably looks like to a kid not in the front of the parade.



THIS year, we had a lot of fun. Mainly the fun part came from the family time. We were going because a cousin was going to be dancing and be part of the KC and the Sunshine Band and the Stella Rosa float. All of us weren't really wanting to go, but if we were going to go, this was the best year to go. How often is a relative in the parade anyway?

Preparation - mom suggested bringing step ladders (brilliant) and we dressed prepared for freezing cold morning, with layers as it may warm it. The weather turned out awesome, and we had our jackets off in the first hour or so standing outside. I think the average temperature was like 65-75 that morning :) Beautiful!

So, early morning driving in, the excitement mounted as we saw grandstands and traffic. The freeways were blocked off with all sorts of busses and horse trailers. We saw some people prepping and a bunch of traffic. Mom knows the back roads and she works in Pasadena, so we got lucky, were able to park in her office building, and walk over to the parade a few blocks away.

We ended up setting up our viewing area by Colorado and Los Robles, not far from the beginning of the parade, so a lot of the people in the parade were in good spirits and energetic on and around the floats :)

Waiting. There's a lot of waiting around. This guy was our favorite. He was making bacon wrapped hot dogs with onions and peppers. Delicious! Sister and I got some and it made our morning delicious!

Perspective - how far we were from the floats, and a view of the crowd.




The cute floats we saw - a little camera zoom.

The Budweiser Clydesdale horses!!!!
*On the side, I enjoyed cheering for the dressed in white popper scooper teams following all the horse teams. There's a small group that cheers for them throughout the parade, so I joined and they are our unsung heroes!

Surprising highlight - the music!!!! Watching it live, I really really enjoyed whenever we managed to get the bands to play in our area. I'm not a marching band or parade fan, but the live music - pretty awesome and joyful. It was such a nice highlight and so awesome live. It helped that the Asian marching band played Gangnam Style and were dancing a bit along. Yeay! The music does not translate over the TV well at all. Watching it on TV, I'm mainly annoyed at the band sections, but live, the bands were enjoyable.

Another highlight - the smell!!!! These are only things you can get live, but it smelled amazing :) So many fresh flowers! Probably will drive you nuts if you have allergies, but smells pretty great. 

People watching! There was this guy. He was either wearing a hearing aid, or he was a cop. I'm pretty sure he was a cop or security. The way he carried himself was just too serious. 

Then there's this lady. lol. 

Anyway here is my BEST shot of the float my cousin was dancing beside. Even though we were on step ladders and could see above the crowd, I still barely got a glimpse of her. 

We left early a few floats after my cousin's float. We were glad because we did not want to get stuck in the after parade traffic. Also we were all a little done. Not super exciting or interesting watching the parade in the first place.

Conclusion - best place to still "SEE" the Rose Parade is on TV! I love the commentary descriptions, the sitting cozy at home, the close-ups, the panning camera and such. So much more convenient and makes you appreciate the floats better.

Live - it was a lot of fun, because we had good attitude, good weather and lucky with getting a good viewing spot. Plus it was lucky that everyone in our family was in a good mood and we were all having a good time together. It could easily turn pain in the ass if any of these factors were off. We hung out after the parade, and the good times continued :) Overall I think we just enjoyed our time together more than the actual parade itself, but it was an event to attend!

So Cheers and congrats to my cousin! She's featured ON TV and she was actually in quite a few of the clips, YouTube videos and such. This might be the best one. I won't say who she is, but we're proud of her and happy she got to be in such a cool event. Plus I'm glad the weather was good for her too! I hope she had a blast. We did :)

Happy New Year folks!