Soften 1/4 lb stick of butter to room temperature. Add 2tbsp of milk or water and whip with a mixer on slow until light and creamy.

It makes SUCH a difference when you are serving bread!

I also once went to a restaurant that had a trio of flavored butters to go with their bread. My favorite was the sun dried tomato butter which I plan to make for boyrobot one day since he loves butter and sun dried tomatoes. Here are some recipes I found. It seems like a pretty simple way to dress up butter and impress your dinner guests!

Lemon Honey Butter
4 oz butter, softened
¼ tsp salt
2 tsp lemon zest
1 tbsp honey

Sundried Tomato Butter
1 cup boiling water
1/3 cup sundried tomatoes (soak in water for 10 mins, squeeze them out, and mince before adding)
4 oz butter, softened
¼ tsp salt

Garlic-Herb Butter
4 oz butter, softened
1 clove garlic, finely minced
2 tbsp fresh basil, minced
1 tsp fresh oregano, minced
½ tsp fresh thyme, minced
¼ tsp salt

And if you ever want to make your own bread, don’t forget to try the no knead bread recipe. I made it once and it was SO easy and yum.

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You can see her get over $200 worth of stuff for only a penny here

If you’re interested in finding coupons, good deals, and things for free….these blogs seem to sort of follow what Kathy Spencer does. They have great coupons for Target and CVS especially:

Coupon STL (this is a St. Louis centered blog but she covers stores that are nationwide)
Money Saving Mom

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Here is an interesting article about password security from technet that shows you the time it takes to brute force passwords:

Kind of scary how easy it is right?

Well I recently read about a tip that I’ve started employing. Basically you make up a code for the password that involves some personal information about yourself and somehow incorporates the website.

For example, for the website http://www.twitter.com you could have a code like this:

the first letter of the website – t
the last 2 digits of the year you were born – 79
your middle name in all caps – DON
the last letter of the website – r

so your password for twitter.com would be something like “t79DONr” and you can add more to make this password longer if you’d like. So for every website you sign up you would employ this same method and now you’ll have complex passwords that are easy to remember!

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My favorite….”I’m her mom….no she’s not…”

PS. I’ve started sharing things through my google reader so if you use it…add me! (halfasleep is my gmail name) I share things that don’t make it on the website but are still interesting nonetheless!

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I haven’t received mine yet so I can’t confirm the quality or anything but you really can’t beat free right? I ended up using my picture from Peru with me and boyrobot in front of machu picchu. Can’t wait to stick them on my luggage!

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Cute dog costume :) Happy halloween everybody!

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According to their in depth study here is the recipe:

Soft Boiled Eggs

Ingredients
3 quarts water
1-6 large eggs
Procedure
1. Bring water to a simmer in a medium pot. Reduce heat until water is barely quivering. Gently lower eggs into water with slotted spoon or strainer (do not drop eggs into water, or they might crack).
2. Cook for exactly 6 minutes, then remove eggs with slotted spoon, and serve.
Hard Boiled Eggs

Note: If you have a particularly strong burner, a very thin-walled pot, or live at high altitudes or in a very cold or hot environment, initial volume of water may need to be adjusted. Once you figure out the specific volume for your location, use that same volume every time.
Ingredients
1.5 quarts cool water
1-6 large eggs
Procedure
Place eggs and water in saucepot. Place over high heat and bring to a bare simmer. Immediately shut off burner and wait at least ten minutes. Peel eggs under cool running water, and serve.

The method I’ve always used is to put an egg in a pot and fill it with cold water. Turn heat on high and bring water to a rolling boil. Once it starts to boil, turn off the heat and let the egg sit in the pot for 15 minutes. I’m not sure if my eggs were “perfect” but they were good enough! I didn’t know there were all these tricks to making hardboiled eggs.

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Shave Ice at Waiola’s
Wow I’ve never had such finely shaved ice. It was SO goood. Unlike any shave ice I’ve eaten here on the mainland. This is a must stop in Oahu. I did not try the famed Matsumoto’s so I can’t say it’s the best on Oahu but it sure was good!

I had the POG – passion fruit, orange, and guava

Boyrobot had the green tea with condensed milk which was also amazing

We tried a few other shave ice places like at the food court in the international market and the shave ice truck at the Diamondhead Crater and it’s safe to say that not all Hawaii shave ice are created equal. While these were decent, they tasted more like something you can get on the mainland. With the hot weather, I think this place was my favorite eating experience in Hawaii. Never knew shave ice could be so good!

The garlic and butter shrimp scampi plate at Giovanni’s Shrimp Truck
If you are headed to the North Shore, you’ll notice a lot of shrimp farms and shrimp trucks. I believe this is the most famous one and I initially read about this place because it is one of Josh Holloway’s (from Lost) favorite places to eat! I did not run into him there though :P The shrimp was really good and oh so garlic-y. I didn’t care much for the rice though. It was kind of dry and hard but some people in our group liked it so I guess it’s your own preference on how you like your rice cooked. It was topped with a bunch of garlic so that was good.

There is also a spicy shrimp plate that I hear is super spicy even if you like your spice. On the menu it says “No refunds” next to that item. I was curious to see how spicy it was but nobody in my group was brave enough to get it either.

Spider Poke at Tokkuri Tei
Tokkuri Tei is a japanese izakya. We went here because I wanted to try some poke and I had heard that the beef tongue skewers were to die for here. Unfortunately, we went kind of late in the evening and they were all out. I was SOOOOO SAD! But at least I got to try the poke!

This is the spider poke and it was the 2000 Sam Choy’s Poke Contest winner. It was very pricy at $16 but how many times am I going to eat poke in Hawaii? Might as well get the best right? :) My picture really does not do it justice though, it was beautifully presented.

We also tried the squid pancake which was also super tasty!

Dim Sum at Fook Lam
We were all craving dim sum so we decided to hit up chinatown at a restaurant called Fook Lam.

We ordered the usuals: chicken feet, pork spareribs, shu mai, sticky rice, fried taro, har gau, cheung fun, egg custard tart, etc.

Everything tasted so hot and fresh. It was actually yummier than when I eat dim sum in San Gabriel Valley! I especially liked the shu mai….which I’m usually whatevers about.

Banana macadamia nut pancakes at Boots & Kimo’s
Ok this has to be my worst picture of the lot which is ironic because I think this was everybody’s favorite meal. I think I was so anxious to try the pancakes that I just shot this picture very quickly so I could dig in! This picture makes it look like some white glob doesn’t it?

Well, in reality it was 3 banana pancakes covered in a white macadamia sauce with shaved macadamia nuts. I’m not sure what was in the sauce but it was SO DELISH.

And of course I had to order some hash browns with my pancakes:

Thanks to boyrobot’s friend Si for recommending this place to us!

I just googled to see if there was a copycat recipe out there and there is: Boot’s & Kimo’s secret macadamia nut sauce. Can’t wait to try this out.

Other places we ate at:
Ono’s – If you want straight up hawaiian food this is the place everyone recommends. The lau lau was pretty good here! They also serve poi here but I’m not a fan.
Paradise Cove – We went here for our hawaiian laua. I will talk about the luau more in pt 2 of my recap but the food here was pretty good. They served a variety of typical Hawaiian food and it was all very tasty for a buffet style meal.
Leonard’s – I can’t believe I didn’t take a picture of the malasadas here. I think it was because I couldn’t stop to take a picture before scarfing these down. My favorite had to be the original white sugar malasadas. I say skip the custard filled ones. This is also a definite must eat in Hawaii!
Iyasume – I couldn’t go to Hawaii without having some spam musubi. Boyrobot also had a spicy fried chicken musubi which he thought was really good. I regret not taking a bite!
Kapiolani Community College Farmers Market – Omg! I wish all farmer’s markets were like this one. There were samples galore and everything was so yummy. If you love food, you have to go here!
Random ramen restaurant – For the life of me I can’t remember the name of this ramen place but that should show you how memorable the food was. The ramen was decent, nothing special.

Ok, I think that covers most of our meals in Hawaii. Next I’ll cover all of the things we did! That post might come a little later though since I want to post some non-personal girlrobot posts first

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While I’m there, I’ll (hopefully) be continuing my 200 situps. Seems like a few of us are doing it together. We started yesterday! So join us if you can. :) And since I’ll be traveling within the US, i’ll have internet access! I’m gonna try and twitter my trip, so follow me if you’re interested in reading about me eating spam and snorkeling all day!

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