Gingerbread family

I’ve never eaten a gingerbread man up until a few days ago. Whenever I tell people that, they never seem to believe me.  For Christmas, Little Sis got some beautifully decorated gingerbread cookies from one of her coworkers. They were so pretty and I was so excited to finally try one.  I had an idea of one should taste like.  I imagined a crunchy cookie, with some spices.  Unfortunately, the cookie I tasted didn’t taste anything like what I was expecting.

So I decided to make my own gingerbread men, in hopes of finding a recipe closer to the cookie I had imagined. I used a recipe I found on Family Circle Magazine that looked fairly simple to whip together.

The dough smelled of molasses as I was preparing it.  I had a lot of fun cutting out the gingerbread shapes.  I’ve seen people do snowflakes, stars, christmas trees, etc.  But I really wanted to do gingerbread men.  Then I found some cookie cutters for gingerbread babies and gingerbread woman, and decided to use those as well. I could do a whole family!

When I tasted my first fresh baked cookie, it was exactly how I imagined gingerbread would taste.  Crunchy, spicy, with a bit more kick than other spice cookies like molasses cookies or ginger snaps.

After gobbling a couple, I needed to figure out how to decorate my gingerbread family! I scoured the internet for images of gingerbread men.  I wanted something simple.  But also cute.  I wanted my gingerbread family to have faces.  After much research, I even had Boyfriend draw up some preliminary sketches. Then I finally settled in on some designs.

I’m really happy with how my gingerbread family turned out.  I was so excited to eat them after I decorated them.  And then something happened.  I don’t know exactly what.  But when I went to choose one to eat, I couldn’t do it! They stared up at me with their smiling faces, and I couldn’t bear to choose one and bite into it.

After much debating, I finally took one, and turned it face down and started to eat it.  But guilt washed over me with every bite and I wasn’t able to enjoy the gingerbread cookie at all!  I’m not sure why I had this reaction.  I have no problem eating other cute things like gummy bears, panda cookies, etc.

Next time I make these, I’ll have to make sure not to decorate them all so that I have some I can munch on.

Gingerbread family cookies (from Family Circle Magazine)

Ingredients:
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1 Tbsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup (packed) dark brown sugar
1 large egg
1/2 cup original molasses

Directions:
1.  In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, cloves and salt.  Set aside.
2.  In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar until smooth.  Beat in egg,
then molasses.  Stir flour mixture into butter mixture.  Divide dough
into 2 halves.  Wrap; chill 2 hours.
3.  Heat oven to 350 degrees F.  On a well-floured surface, roll half
of dough to 1/8-inch thickness.  Cut shapes with assorted-sized
gingerbread cookie cutters; transfer to ungreased baking sheets.
Reroll scraps together and then cut shapes again.  Repeat with the rest of the dough.
4.  Bake at 350 F degrees for 13 minutes.  Transfer cookies to racks to cool.

Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!  I can’t believe Christmas is already here! It completely snuck up on me this year. I didn’t even have a chance to try out all of my Christmas recipes.

Also Happy Birthday to my Baby Bro! A Christmas baby.  I can’t believe how old he is! He’s definitely not a kid anymore, though I still consider him a baby.

I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday!

Lucky Pho

Lucky Pho
9326 Mira Mesa Blvd
San Diego, CA 92126
(858) 586-7979

After reading some great things about Lucky Pho from mmm-yoso, I put Lucky Pho on my places to try next time I'm in the Mira Mesa area. Unfortunately, I'm rarely in the area and when I think about going there, it just seems so out of the way from all the other places I need to go to.

This past weekend, despite the warm sunny weather we had on Saturday, I was in the mood for a hot bowl of pho- a residual craving from earlier in the week when it was freezing.  So I finally made the trip to Lucky Pho.

I didn't get a chance to snap a picture of the menu, but I found it amusing.  All the "tripe" was called "stripe."  At first I was trying to figure out what "stripe" was.  I thought they were trying to describe a cut of meat used, perhaps one with tendons. 

Boyfriend and I both ordered #15, which is rare steak and tripe.

There were quite a few pieces of thick, rare meat.  The soup was definitely richer than some of the pho places in the Clairemont/Convoy area.  Though not as rich as some of the places I've had in the Bay Area.  However the tripe was severely overcooked.  It was really hard and not enjoyable.  I ended up not finishing my tripe, probably marking the first occasion I have ever left tripe in my bowl.

I was impressed with the quantity of garnishes served with the pho.

We were given quite a big plate of garnishes– more than we could use.

Little Brother ordered a #1. which has everything.

We also ordered the eggrolls. 

I was not a fan of the eggrolls.  You can't really tell from the picture, but the skin used was thick.  It was like the spring rolls served at a lot of the chinese/american/japanese buffets.

Each of our meals came with a free soda.  I'm not sure if this is always the case or if it was just a promotion.  The free soda made Little Brother and Boyfriend happy.  Little Brother wants to keep going back just because of the free soda.