Winter, Finals, and Honeymoons

Winter's here, after a very long, and stunning fall. We've already had one round of freezing rain, and a little bit of snow (followed immediately by said rain). Needless to say, I have upped my consumption of hot chocolates in direct relation to the dropping of the temps. In the 30s tonight? Just one will do. In the 20s, you say? I think I'll have a refill, please.

In my endless pursuit of procrastinating studying - during which the house gets sparkling clean (miraculously!) and Christmas cards and baking also somehow get done (amazing how productive I am, isn't it?) - I tried out a new baked tofu recipe. We finally figured out how to fry tofu the right way a while back - dipped in flour and deep-fried - but I was pretty unimpressed with our marination efforts.

This time, I modified a recipe found here: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/baked-tofu-bites/detail.aspx and baked instead of fried the tofu. Instead of maple syrup, I added honey, subbed mustard for ketchup, and randomly added red chili, black bean sauce, and ginger paste to taste. I let it all soak in a big ziploc bag for about 4 hours before taking it out to bake...With some salt, pepper, and sesame oil on top, it went in the oven (375) for 30 minutes and turned out uber-tasty! And also, much cheaper than pre-baked tofu at the store.

Yum. We're also finally planning our honeymoon - leaving in a week! I'm sure our wallets would have benefited from earlier planning but, hey, what can you do? I'm so excited... I think it's my first real vacation in 2 years. I also think we both really need a break. When I come back, it'll be time to apply for summer externships, which I'm hoping to try to work in with the good ol' day job, plus school. So, recharging the batteries will be a very good thing. Updates on the trip once we return - we've become huge fans of TripIt for organizing our itinerary (thanks, Pieter!) so it should be easy to collect the highlights of our trip and post.

Our plans are to split our time between wandering, doing nothing, and exploring Argentina - hopefully at a very leisurely pace. This will tie in nicely with my goal for 2010: to slow life down a little, and enjoy it more. With a little over a year left of my 20s, I am ready to dial it down a notch. Also: yikes! I think it's time to start the cliche'd "list of things to do before I turn 30". For Sapun it'll have to be the list of things to do before he turns 31. Ha!