Brown Bag Turkey + Friendsgiving

Last weekend, Ken and I hosted our friends at our apartment and had our last Thanksgiving as an unmarried couple. We sent out invitations using Paperless Post, moved all of our furniture into our bedroom so we could make room for a nice table and chairs, and cleaned the apartment from top to bottom. Also, we tried making the turkey using a brown bag method that I learned last year during a Thanksgiving luncheon with Laura’s friend. The turkey was the moistest turkey I’ve ever tasted and I wanted to recreate it for our friends this year. Our friends all brought food, too, and we had a really fun night eating and playing lots of competitive bananagrams. If you’re still looking for a way to make your turkey this year, I recommend checking out the spatchcock method or the brown bag method below.

I purchased a turkey at Whole Foods, brined it using an old recipe, and roughly cut some veggies to stuff into the cavity of the turkey:

I used celery, carrots, onions and garlic and whatever didn’t fit into the inside of the turkey, I just put it around the turkey. Before I put it into the oven, I made my herb butter mixture and placed it between the skin and the meat. I also rubbed the entire turkey in olive oil (it prevents the skin from sticking to the bag:

Then, Ken and I opened up two paper bags from Trader Joe’s, stapled them together, and then placed them around the turkey and the aluminum container:

I also sprayed a little water on the paper bag:

I placed it into a pre-heated oven (375 degrees) and let it bake for about two and a half hours. The paper doesn’t burn because it’s only 375 degrees and paper burns at 451 and the turkey browns REALLY well:

It’s beautiful!

We had guests over around 7:30 for dinner and everyone brought great dishes – here are some of them:

More good food:

My first plate of food:

Wai-Sing and Mike getting their first plate of food:

And Stephane and David getting food on the assembly line:

We drank a ton of wine, ate some great apple pie that Kristen made, and played bananagrams until very late into the night. It was my fourth Friendsgiving dinner and I hope we continue the tradition even after we’re married! How are you celebrating Friendsgiving or Thanksgiving? Wishing you and your family lots of love.

Gifts from Paris

Stephane, my friend from work, went to Paris and other parts of Europe during the Christmas holiday. He was nice enough to bring me back some gifts (food gifts, my favorite!):

Stroopwafels are waffles with a light caramel in the center:

They’re crispy and sweet but not too sweet. Good to pair with a light green tea.

The poilane biscuits had beautiful origami-like packaging:

The box was filled with shortbread-like cookies:

Also great with green tea:

Stephane is a very generous friend and was very nice to bring back chocolates and biscuits for me and Ken. He said we should share the stroopwafel and the poilane biscuits but we should keep the chocolates to ourselves! There are only two of each flavor so you have one to sample and one to really enjoy:

The passion fruit was my favorite – they are all filled with a little extra sweetness or crunch and were all delicious. I shared with my mom when she came to visit, but no one else!

Thank you, Stephane, for being a wonderful friend!

Daiquiri Dick’s

On Thursday night, we went back to the city and walked the boardwalk again for another dinner with the family. We decided to eat at Daiquiri Dick’s because Paul read some positive reviews of the restaurant on chowhound. We actually passed the restaurant when we went to La Palapa but thought it was a touristy place so we passed on it.

The food was surprisingly good – Ken started with the tortilla soup:

And I had the cuban black bean soup:

We sat right by the beach and watched the sun set (this isn’t a great shot because there’s a big palm tree in the middle, but it was very breathtaking, I promise):

For my entree, I ordered the whole red snapper with Mexican rice:

The red snapper was very fresh and the meat was very tender – we squeezed a ton of lime juice onto the snapper and happily ate it with the Mexican rice and jicama salad.

The chef was actually an Asian woman that originally came from the United States (before that, she lived in Thailand). She said she was one of the first Asian chefs to go to Mexico and back then (30 years ago), it was really difficult to get Asian-inspired food in Mexico, but now it’s available everywhere!

The daiquiris were very good because they used fresh fruit and not syrup, like the resort, and we had another great meal in Puerto Vallarta.

Puerto Vallarta Yacht Club: Whale Watching and Fishing

On Wednesday of our trip, Paul decided to charter a boat so we could go fishing and whale watching. Charley was super excited about the trip because we were going deep sea fishing for marlins and the pamphlet we found at the hotel had photos of people holding huge fish after very successful trips to the ocean. We went to the Puerto Vallarta Yacht club to meet up with our captain and board the boat:

Charley, studying the pamphlet:

Our boat, the Nicole, was large (but not too large). I usually don’t do well on boats, or any moving vehicles, but decided to tag along because I figured the waters couldn’t be that choppy. Me, before I realized I had made a huge mistake:

We headed out to sea and I was already feeling a little queasy but I couldn’t really ask to turn the boat around (that would’ve been too embarrassing, right?) The last time I was on a boat was for work and we did a cruise around lower Manhattan. I really didn’t want to go but it was a team event so I boarded the boat and sat in the exact same spot looking at the horizon until they allowed us to get off the boat an hour later.

We were having a good time on the boat and I even went and sat by the captain so I could see exactly where he was going (sometimes it helps when I sit shotgun so I can see exactly where we’re going in cabs so I figured it would be the same for a boat). When I went downstairs to sit with Ken, I immediately knew that I couldn’t handle sitting on the boat anymore (but there was absolutely no where to go since we were about an hour away from shore). I usually feel nauseous but nothing happens, but I couldn’t handle the seas that day and ended up throwing up off the side of the boat. Ken said I threw up a lot of papaya (that’s what happens when there’s unlimited papaya at the resort) and lots of pico de gallo (there was pico de gallo right outside our door that was sooooo good going down, not so good coming back up).

After clearing my stomach, I felt a little better but couldn’t get the energy to fish. Luckily, the captain sighted a lot of whales that day and we did a two for one – whale watching and fishing!

We saw at least 12 whales that day – lots of whale tails like this one:

But I did see one whale jump on its belly (I couldn’t even focus my camera that day so most of the shots are of whale tails!)

The experience is pretty surreal – I thought we were getting super close to the whale (of course we were a safe distance away so we weren’t disturbing them but it still seemed dangerously close):

Speaking of dangerously close, there was a whale boat that we were going to ride the next day so we could do a full day of whale watching; basically it’s an inflatable life boat that takes you super close to the whales because a helicopter looks for whales while communicating with the boat captain. Here it is:

The entire boat was screaming when they saw the whale because it was SO close — we decided seeing the whales from a safe distance was good enough for us and didn’t end up going on the second whale tour!

Charley ended up catching two fish that day, but nothing that was large enough for us to take back to the resort to have the chef cook for the family for dinner. Instead, we had a great dinner on the resort with the entire family. It was a really fun day!

La Palapa

Since we had such a fun time at Tacos El Gordo, we decided to venture outside of the resort for another dinner. The entire family didn’t come (Sammy was too tired to join) but we went to the downtown area and ended up finding a great restaurant, La Palapa, right on the beach. The downtown area is quite fun and lively and has a lot of little vendors selling Mexican street corn and little desserts (actually, it looked like they purchased cakes from a Sam’s Club, sliced it, and sold it by the slice). We walked for a long time before finding La Palapa but Ken insisted on going there because he read good reviews beforehand.

Charley, me and Ken after finding the restaurant:

We were all pretty hungry by the time we found the restaurant and were very eager to order. The restaurant is located in the romantic zone of the boardwalk and it was dimly lit so my photos aren’t the best (but use your imagination!)

For an appetizer, we ordered mussels in a red pepper cream sauce:

The mussels were gigantic and really delicious – I usually make mussels with a lemon butter and wine reduction but this was a really decadent preparation.

Ken and I shared the tortilla soup:

We really fell in love with tortilla soup while we were down in Mexico and ended up ordering it at every restaurant that served it. This preparation was my favorite because it had the crunchy texture of the tortilla chips.

We all shared taquitos with jicama salad:

We also shared duck soft tacos smothered in a cream sauce:

For my main entree, I ordered the sea bass covered in macadamia nut:

And Ken ordered the braised short ribs:

Service was a little slow but there was live jazz music to keep us entertained as we waited for our food to arrive. The portions were very large and we ended up ordering way too much (especially since we were eating so much at the resort that we were accustomed to ordering multiple courses for a meal).

After dinner, we walked along the boardwalk and Ken realized he misplaced his blackberry (and had to run back to the restaurant where the waiter had luckily picked it up). We had a fun time at the restaurant and really enjoyed our meal and our evening in the city.