Other 2013 Happenings in Abby's Kitchen

Happy New Year! 2013 was a year life changes and a lot of delicious food. Here are some of the highlights with links to some of our favorite recipes from 2013 that we've made over and over again.

In January, I passed my qualifying exam at WashU and decided to leave graduate school with a master's degree in Biological and Biomedical Sciences. But before I finished my degree, there was a lot of procrastibaking. One example: on C's last trip to St. Louis, we made orange rolls from Taste of the South Cast Iron Issue. With the cold weather that weekend, it took them hours to rise and they were ready just in time for dinner! A few months later, I found another recipe for orange rolls from Pastry Affair and it's my new go-to.

In February, with much anticipation and a little fear, I moved to Houston, Texas to be with my boyfriend, C. We started hosting Fish Taco Fridays. It felt like a neat way to make the Wisconsin tradition of Friday night fish feel a little more Texan. We tried a number of recipes but keep coming back to the Homesick Texan's Guajillo Chile Fish Tacos. Homemade tortillas made of lard are surprisingly delicious but only occasionally do we admit to our friends that we made them with lard! I'm pretty sure we're going to become Homesick Texans one day because we've loved everything we've made out of Lisa Fain's cookbook!

In March, I started working as a Sr. Research Assistant on a clinical trial testing the use of a probiotic bacteria to prevent catheter-associated urinary tract infections and on investigations of bacteriophage to treat and prevent bacterial biofilms. March also marks the beginning of both Rodeo and crawfish season in Texas! After a chilly morning on the beach in Gavleston, we went to a restaurant for lunch and C ordered a delicious bread bowl full of crawfish étouffée. One morning, C couldn't walk past the Saturday crawfish boil stand at HEB without buying a bag, so we spent the afternoon shelling crawfish! I am a little freaked out by crustaceans. In addition to crawfish, March included a Saturday-morning pancake craze. My favorites recipe was Coconut Lime Pancakes from Homesick Texan though C preferred Crumpets with Chorizo Maple Syrup from Little Goat (Chicago).

In June, a manuscript I'd been working on for 2 years with my old laboratory was accepted for publication in a special issue of the Journal of Chemical Ecology focusing on microorganisms. It seemed like May and June were full of celebrations and parties. On Memorial Day, C and I celebrated the anniversary of a whirlwind 18 hour trip he made to St. Louis when I was having a rough time with graduate school (at least that's what he said--I think it was mostly because he missed me). Shortly thereafter,  we celebrated my first publication. We celebrated the end of C's intern year of residency with a trip to Buffalo, NY to see his family. We celebrated a friend's new home at a housewarming party. For the housewarming party, I made a Brandy Alexander Pie from Food52 (for an extra treat, try it with an Oreo crust). It was very well received and full of liquor, because that's what you bring to a housewarming party, right?

In July, I celebrated my 25th birthday and realized how much I like Ethiopian food! One night in St. Louis, C and I went to Meskerem in Tower Grove. I was so nervous to try a new cuisine that I suggested we split a dish at the Ethiopian restaurant and then go down the street to split tacos at a Mexican restaurant. I was so stuffed (and satisfied) from our vegetable platter that I no longer needed my back-up, but I did find myself a bit leery of injera. Thankfully I gave it another go at Nazareth in Houston. After devouring a sampler platter, I was hooked. A few weeks later, when I found myself craving Ethiopian food again, I search the web for recipes to make it myself. We had friends over for a feast and even the skeptics enjoyed it! Our favorites were the doro wat (chicken dish on bottom), mesir wat (red lentil dish on the left), and atakilt wat (cabbage and potato dish on top right).

In August, we went two-stepping for the first time at C's favorite dive bar! Our boots had been sitting on the shelf collecting dust since Rodeo, but no longer! They even made it two-stepping twice in 2013! Indoor activities were key because of the scorching august heat. For some crazy reason, we decided to have a pizza party with friends one night. Our apartment may have been approaching 110º by the end of the night, but it was worth it for a slice of Roasted Tomato and Kale Pizza from Annie's Eats. Everyone thought I was nuts when I was sautéing kale to put on pizza, but by the end of the night, they all agreed that there wasn't a better way to eat kale. Using kale or zucchini, whatever we had on hand at the time, we made so much pizza! Oh my gosh, and crepes. This year we made a ton of buckwheat crepes with nutella and banana (a food memory from C's travels through Europe)!

In September, I started volunteering with an organization in Houston that promotes healthy eating in elementary school classrooms by teaching kids how to grow food in the garden then use what they've grown to prepare healthy meals. During class one afternoon, we made homemade granola and smoothies. I was shocked when a number of our students said they didn't like granola after they tasted it and asked if they could throw it away. I, on the other hand, really like granola! Here's my favorite homemade granola: Chocolate Hazelnut Granola from Kitchen Courses. The next homemade granola I want to tackle is a carrot cake granola that tastes like the one made by Love Crunch.

In December, I finished my second series of Hepatitis B vaccinations and finally had positive antibody titers (an exciting thing for a microbiologist with upcoming travel plans in developing countries)! I spent Christmas in a wintery wonderland with my family in Wisconsin and returned to a semi-bare fridge with a container of week-old brown rice and a crown of broccoli on the verge of spoiling. With C on call at the children's hospital, I reverted to my bachelorette ways and whipped up a batch of Naturally Ella's Spicy Peanut Sauce (with extra peanut butter, garlic, and ginger) and made a wonderful vegetarian dinner! The last thing made in Abby (and C's) kitchen in 2013 was homemade whipped cream for Irish coffees before we went to a New Year's Eve show at Music Box Theater. Here he is, in his Texas flag apron (I have the matching lady version), whipping up a storm!

Thanks to all of you who have followed my 2013 kitchen experiments! Stay tuned as 2014 is bound to be full of many more. Without giving too much away, there are big changes planned in the upcoming year and Lab Notes from Abby's Kitchen is soon to be blogging from a 4th kitchen! The only hints I'll give are that I won't have access to Kitty/Sir-Mix-A-Lot (my stand mixer), I'll be boiling it, peeling it, cooking it, soaking it in vinegar, or forgetting it, and I'll likely be posting a lot of ethic recipes. Intrigued?