A weekend at Stefanie’s

A few weeks ago we had an OSU girls reunion–the Midwest version.

Stefanie and I lived with May our sophomore year of college. She’s always loved cooking and eventually got her Masters of Science in Food Science & Technology from Oregon State.  When she graduated, she landed a job as a food technologist at Kellogg’s (yes, the cereal company), which has taken her from the great Northwest and has landed her in Kalamazoo, MI.

Tiffany and I roomed together for a quarter our junior year and then again for 2 quarters our senior year.  After our graduation in 2006 Tiffany moved out to Detroit and has been working in medical research and has just been accepted into med school at Michigan State (YAY!).

So, somehow, three girls from Portland, OR most unlikely to be here found ourselves in the Midwest all within 4 hours of driving of each other. We planned to meet up in the middle and visit Stefanie to have a girls weekend slash baking workshop.

And what a girly weekend it was! Stef was amazing and was completely prepared with all ingredients for projects we requested.

Tiff, Uyen, Stef working in Stef's bakery

Upon arriving on Friday afternoon Stef taught Tiff and I how to make Vietnamese Beef Stew.  While it was stewing we dived into watching Bride Wars while holding our appetites over with English muffins topped with Stef’s homemade strawberry-lemon jam. We talked about her interesting job at Kellogg’s and how she has access to tons of samples from the breakfast foods departments. She showed us all these great products from Kellogg’s, Kashi and Bare Naked and started creating goodie bags for us. When the stew finished, we dug in (and it was delicious!) and then headed off to downtown Kalamazoo to see Wolverine on opening night. The movie was great (love Hugh Jackman), we went home and played a hilarious game of Scattergories. We were all terrible, but I somehow managed to eek out a victory.

Saturday morning was spent at the farmer’s market and on a stroll through downtown Kalamazoo.  Then we went to the famous Plainview Ice Creamery and were introduced to the midwestern “blue moon” flavor.  We followed that with a couple of hours at Michigan’s most famous winery, St. Julian.  Free wine tasting and tours!  We left with a bottle of their Passionate Peach Spumante and Sauterne white wine. On our way home, we decided to stop at the Chicken Coop which is acclaimed as AMAZING fried chicken. We went wild in the drive thru, calling out orders for everything fried–chicken, okra, gizzards, smelt, mac n cheese, and coleslaw. Hehe, and it was tasty! =)

At Plainview Ice Cream w/ our double scoops

When we got home, we set off to make our menu for the evening. Stef wanted us to make a giant batch of eggrolls since she would have helping hands. She taught us the mixture and it Tiff and I rolled at a surprisingly fast rate. We had those babies rolled in no time!  After the eggrolls we set about frying them while starting on our first baking projects: lemon cookies and chocolate chip oatmeal.  Whilst our baking and frying Stef and Alan prepared our dinner of mushroom risotto and an amazing salad Stef learned from Oprah’s caterer. YUM. We finished off the night with Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

Sunday morning we were joined by Alan’s friend Abe who flew in from San Francisco.  We grabbed brunch and then continued our baking madness.  Red velvet cupcakes, chocolate macaroons and sugar cookies.  Stef even squeezed in time to create an out of this world chicken pho.  We feasted and decorated our sugar cookies just in time before I had to catch my train back to Chicago.  I was overstuffed but satisfied. 

I can’t wait to get the recipes from Stef so that I can recreate what I learned from her.

Beef stew
Lemon cookies
Chocolate chip oatmeal cookie
Red velvet cupcakes w/ cream cheese frosting
Sugar cookies w/ sugary glaze
Chocolate macaroons
Chicken pho
Eggrolls
Mushroom risotto
Butter lettuce salad w/ asparagus, edamame, sugar snap peas w/ lemon mint dressing

Tiffany working in the eggroll factory

Tiff working in the bakery
The result of our baking madness

Those goodie bags Stef started us ended up with boxes of Kellogg’s cereal, snacks, Rice Krispies treats, eggrolls to freeze, and tons of cookies. It was fantastic!  Also – Tiff and I were trying to convince Stef to revive her blog because she already has a fanbase!