V-Day at the bachelor pad

Happy…

- Valentine’s Day (if you’re into that, unlike me)

- Forgiveness Sunday (if you’re Orthodox, like me!)

- New Year (if you’re Asian, like my stepfamily)

My one concession to the Hallmarky tackiness of this holiday:

Made my mama heart shaped pancakes.

Carrot cake pancakes (this recipe is my real true <3) made in a heart shaped cookie cutter. Note to self: OIL THE COOKIE CUTTER.

Meanwhile, due to snow madness, my stepmother has been delayed in Asia. That means that, as usual when there’s no woman around, my dad’s home has taken a turn for the squalid.

The fridge:

Margarine, pie, and no-alcohol beer. And the recycling bin out front was OVERFLOWING with frozen pizza boxes.

Fortunately, there was an abundance of… well, at least it’s a vegetable?

And there’s always the freezer and the can:

Giving credit where credit was due, I didn’t really give sardines a chance until Kath gave them a shoutout for being environmentally friendly, low mercury, and tasty.

So I revived the potatoes in some olive oil with garlic salt and pepper. Then I stir fried the sardines and the broc with some crushed red pepper flakes. The result looked like cat food but tasted rather delicious, as it turns out.

Also, a lot of the fun of having family members who spend a lot of time in Asia is fun imported food products they bring home.

Noteworthy:

DIET GINGER BEER! This is huge.

Anyone who has tasted ginger beer, the wonderful fiery beverage of which ginger ale is merely a poor imitator, knows how great it is. And now, the wonderful reasonable people of Australia have made a delicious, lower in sugar but refreshingly low on frightening artificial ingredients, merely 27 calorie version! It’s delish.

Also:

Tom yum flavored spicy peanuts. YES. I love Koh-kae, they make any number of delicious weird things with Gene Simmons (or so I presume) on the front.

And I watched the Olympics with my dad. Not at all bad, as Valentine’s Days go.