My first Saturday in Pittsburgh

You may have read the title of this post and asked, "wait, she's been there three weeks now, how is it that this is her first Saturday?!" Well, I wasn't actually in Pittsburgh these first two weekends (look out for posts tomorrow or Monday), so this is my first official weekend here.

Anyway, I had such a lovely day I figured it was worth posting while still fresh in my mind.

One of PNC co-workers named Hang (pronounced "hung") is from Vietnam and we're cube buddies. Everyday at lunch we talk about different countries, traveling, and what we prepared for lunch that day. We've been chatting for several days now about getting together and she was kind enough to invite me to her home this evening for a delicious Vietnamese meal. In exchange, to show her how yummy authentic Mexican food is, I brought a Mexican appetizer. Let's start at the beginning of the day...

I woke up pretty exhausted. I didn't sleep very well this week because I went to bed late and woke up pretty early. I've been getting 6-7 hours of sleep, but that's really not enough for me to function. So, after watching Life As We Know it,  I slept a glorious, uninterrupted 9 hours last night. But I woke up a bit groggy. Anyways, after giving Quincy and Sydney some morning fusses, I showered and headed down to the local Giant Eagle to pick up groceries for the Mexican appetizer, Salpicón (pronounced sal - P-cone). It's essentially shredded beef flank, tomatoes, queso fresco (a soft, unaged, feta-like cheese), avocado, peas, potatoes, and cilantro. Here's the link to the recipe I used (it's from my mom's website in case you're curious).

I headed off to Giant Eagles around 11 am and managed to find most of the ingredients except for the queso fresco. Pittsburgh doesn't have a big Latino population, so I wasn't really expecting to find queso fresco, so I used whole milk mozzarella instead. Shopping for ingredients, I couldn't help but whine a little bit at seeing the $1.99/each sign for avocados....oh how I miss California produce prices!!

I came back around noonish and started cooking. It's been a RIDICULOUSLY hot week here in Pittsburgh (100 degrees today and with the humidity, it feels even hotter) so within minutes of cooking, I found myself sweaty already and coming  back up to my room to cool down. We don't have A/C in the house, just in our rooms. I had the meat on the stove cooking and in the meantime, I prepared the tomatoes, potatoes (haha it rhymes!), peas, and mozzarella, so when the meat was done, all I'd have to do is mix. I was nervous about the meat cooking all the way through but i think I got it at perfect timing. wasn't too tough and not too soft, maybe medium? I don't know... I just went by a rule of thumb using the face test. Once the meat had cooled, I shredded the meat and prepped the salad so it was ready to go.

I was looking at how to get to Hung's house and noticed I'd have to take two buses, and the next bus didn't come for another hour. Janice was kind enough to let me borrow her car (which took only 10 minutes compared the 30 estimated minutes with the buses). I got lost twice going there but eventually arrived around 4:30.

Hung and her husband Greg have a lovely apartment here in Pittsburgh - it's filled with all kinds of neat souvenirs from around the world and has lots of character. Hung showed me how to make spring rolls, even though naturally, mine looked more like burritos. She gave me some good tips on how to roll and seal them so they cook nicely. We then fried them and chatted. Our meal was so good - homemade spring rolls with a spicy cucumber-fish sauce and another spicy sauce, homemade beef pho (traditional Vietnamese soup), and of course the Salpicón I made. Their neighbor later joined us as well and he enjoyed the food,too. Here are some pics of our meal

Frying the spring rolls in corn oil 

My first bite of the veggie-shrimp spring roll.... SO DELISH!

Salpicón - a very refreshing summer meal, it made me homesick while I prepared it ;(

Yummy spring rolls again... I had at least three or four

Cucumber, fish sauce, jalapeno pepper, and garlic dipping sauce for the egg rolls

Hung's scrumptious homemade beef pho, whose broth was flavored with ox tail...mmmm!

After dinner, Greg whipped up some really yummy strawberry sorbet after I raved about how awesome the Vitamix is and the different kinds of desserts you can make with them. Here's a pic

Greg's homemade strawberry sorbet...mmm! so refreshing

After dessert, Greg, Hung, their neighbor and I played a very cool trains game. I can't remember the name but essentially you try to build train tracks across the U.S. and the person that builds more tracks, gets more points, and therefore wins. My tracks ran from Seattle to NY and El Paso to Denver. I think I got third or second place, I'm not really sure but it was super fun. I forget how fun boardgames can be... you're never too old to play them in my opinion!

I left around 9:30 pm, so a solid four hours! I had a really great time and I couldn't have pictured a better Saturday night. I should have taken a pic of the three of us... perhaps I will next time we hang out :)

Hope you had a wonderful Saturday, too!