Some eat to live. I live to eat.

Thanksgiving 2013 - Pilgrim Style

2013-11-30T16:37:00.000-05:00

Another year has gone by, and with it, so has my favorite holiday - THANKSGIVING!!!

I had doubts this year - as menu planning was delayed even more so than last year...don't ask me how, but somehow, it happened. And somehow, with the help of my family, I was able to get it all together by Thanksgiving eve.

Another curve ball in this year's festivities was that we were going in to see the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade from a sweet office view! How could I pass up that opportunity? And so, many of my dishes had to be planned ahead and prepped accordingly.

I hate to admit it, but I also had to cut down on some dishes I originally had on my menu due to time and the realization that there was way too much food planned (though isn't that what the holiday is all about? I mean...that and being thankful of course!).

The theme this year was Pilgrim Style, and I wanted to keep it to more of the traditional Thanksgiving dishes - the idea of actually keeping it to what the Pilgrims ate went out the window as soon as I learned they didn't have potato dishes.

Appetizers

Beet & Spinach Tartine

Sweet Potato Squares with Lemon Garlic Mayonnaise

Ratatouille Stuffed Zucchini Pizza

Sides

White Corn Pudding

Cranberry Basil Sauce

Apple Celery Salad

Caramelized Onions Mashed Potatoes

Brussel Sprouts

Southern Style Stuffing

Corn Bread

Gravy

Green Bean Casserole

Cranberry Chili Meatballs

Entrees

TURKEY

Summer Kale Salad

Sticky Rice

Bibimbap

Malaysian Paella

Spanish Rice

Curry Shrimp

Desserts

Pumpkin Pie

Cake

Raspberry Cheesecake

Bread Pudding

**Dishes without links are what the other guests brought**

My sous chefs were out of the picture this year, but that's fine, as soon as I got home Wednesday afternoon, it was GAME TIME.

The Planning Process - taking inventory

First part of business - get the turkey in the brine

Then tackle the easiest dish so I feel somewhat productive/inspired - Cranberry Sauce

Sometimes when you're going based on feeling and not actual measurements, you might sometimes pour in way too much heavy cream into your mashed potatoes...and then you have to peel and boil the rest of the potatoes to mix in...and sometimes you might also burn the bottom of the pot while you're at it...but it does make for a pretty cool design???

Round 1 - as you can see in the bottom right...just a tad too much heavy cream there...got a little...heavy handed! ::guffaws::

Super potatoes to Save the Day!

Caramelized Onions

Everything mixed together

Something else that I learned this year was that it IS possible to get a chemical burn on your fingers from jalapeno peppers...was told to dip my fingers in milk...I think it helped? For sure though, the Southwest Cornbread was guaranteed to be muy caliente!

Chemical Burn was totally worth it

This was my first time ever roasting beets - I was slightly terrified, but it was so worth it and way easier than I thought it would be! I didn't have gloves either to avoid the stains, but was given the resourceful idea of using those plastic bags that the beets came in to peel off the skins. GENIUS I tell you!

Beet Tartine - the color is truly amazing

Spinach Tartine

This must have been the year of conquering fears or something, because I have never made traditional stuffing before (at least that I can remember). For some reason, I have always had it in my head an unpleasant taste of soggy bread and...I don't even know what. Whatever it was, I have always avoided it. But since I was going to be traditional, what's a Thanksgiving dinner without stuffing and gravy? So I was off to find what looked like the least scary recipe that called for bread crumbs instead of bread pieces.

Stuffing Adventures

Dinner break - taking advantage of all the oils & grease that I had already in the pan!

I almost didn't make it back into the kitchen after my dinner break - I swear I need to start training for this weekend next year. My endurance is not what it used to be! But somehow I found it in me to persevere...and here we go corn pudding inspired by my recent trip(s) to Hill Country BBQ:

Pureeing corn & sauteeing shallots

Corn pudding coming together...

Brussel Sprouts! Why do kids hate them again?

Prepping the lemon garlic mayonnaise for the sweet potatoes

Roasting beets for the kale salad

Apparently this was all that was captured for the pumpkin pie - I didn't focus too much on dessert this year

The prep table

**END SCENE**

Thanksgiving Day, after ~~being woken up~~ waking up earlier than I have in a long time, we made the trek into the city for the parade. I was pretty unhappy about the whole situation until I was finally indoors with coffee and donuts in hand and could see everyone else who would be outside in the cold for the duration of the event.

View from above

Paul Frank Monkey, some Midwest Marching Band, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Russell Simmons, Ocean Spray Float, Aflac Duck Float, Hello Kitty, Snoopy & Woodstock

Jump Rope Team (impressive), Spider-man (looking a little worse for wear), Spongebob, Zuzu Hamsters Float!, Ronald McDonald, Miss America on the Drake Float, Jimmy Fallon and the Roots on the Sesame Float, Toothless the Dragon, Marines Marching Band

Santa!, Elf on the Shelf, Papa Smurf, Pikachu chasing after the poke-ball

When we finally got home around 2, it was time to get that twenty-something pound turkey into the oven!

Out of the brine, slathered with thyme butter (under the skin of course), and rubbed all over with sea salt

Apple Celery & Walnuts (I subbed) Salad

Kale & Beets Salad

It didn't make sense to skewer the sausage and sweet potatoes in a one to one ratio, so I just tossed them all together

My helpers - does this taste ok?

Zucchini Ratatouille Pizza

Star of the night!

And now, some final product photos which I have borrowed from everyone else's pictures:

Beet & Spinach Tartine

Brussel Sprouts with Bacon

Caramelized Onion Mashed Potatoes

Sweet Potato Squares with Sausage & Lemon Garlic Mayonnaise

Apple Celery & Walnut Salad

Summer Kale & Beets Salad

Southern Style Stuffing

Sangria making & an homage to the Turkey

View 1 of the table

View 2 of the table

Grown-ups, table & "kids"

Dessert Time

Even our guest dog Waffles McButton was tired out by the end of the night with me in my Snuggie!

Thankful for this holiday dinner, family, friends and that life that I am living, as well as for the leftover mashed potatoes that I was able to make into the Shepherd's Pie on Black Friday.

Hope everyone has had a most wonderful Thanksgiving (or Thanksgivukah) weekend and a most Happy Holidays!

Pan-Fried Chives Buns

2013-11-22T00:16:00.000-05:00

These are actually some of my favorite things (break out into Sound of Music song)...aaaaand we're back.

But seriously, anytime I'm in Flushing, I will for sure try to get one of these delicious buns/dumplings or whatever you want to call them, I really only know the real name in Chinese - 韭菜盒子 (Jiu Cai He Zi). Not knowing the English name makes it really difficult to actually find a recipe via Google, but I did find one that looked manageable.

Funny enough, the recipe I found was adapted by an American. But it worked! The only thing was that I found the recipe to call for a bit too much water and I kept having to add more flour. It makes sense though, since upon further research, it looks like the ratio of flour to hot and cold water should be closer to 3:1:0.5, and the recipe I was following called for 2:1:1.

Super excited that I can now make one of my favorite things and all extras can be frozen to be quickly fried up at a moment's notice!

Dough Prep

Filling Prep

Final Product!

A Very Buzzfeed Friendsgiving

2013-11-18T21:51:00.000-05:00

Friendsgiving: The celebration of Thanksgiving dinner with your friends. This usually occurs on the Wednesday before or the Friday after Thanksgiving Day, since Thanksgiving is usually reserved for family gatherings.

Our gathering did not follow the rules that Buzzfeed has compiled - I would say we definitely had a much less stressful one!

So my friend and I decided to do a roast chicken - Thomas Keller style as taken from the Buzzfeed Roast Chicken Tournament.

However, and I did not share this thought with aforementioned friend, that morning, when I looked more closely at the recipe, I realized that all the recipe really was...was throwing a chicken in a pan with some salt, pepper and herbs and roasting it in the oven for a bit. So I figured I could improvise a little bit Why not add some extra veggies here and there...and *gasp* add some butter (though the recipe said only add butter MAYBE at the end) under the skin in the BEGINNING!!!

It didn't seem like a big deal until we were running into the host's apartment slightly late and a bit disheveled, and when she saw me start with the thyme butter, she started yelling "THE RECIPE SAYS NO BUTTER!" as I'm yelling back "IT'S OK I PROMISE!" to which she responds "THAT IS NOT THE THOMAS KELLER WAY" and I yell "HE'S JUST ROASTING A CHICKEN! I'M GOING TO MAKE IT MORE INTERESTING!!!" at which point she begins to tear up (though this might have been on account of the onions that she was chopping at the time) , and responds "THOMAS KELLER WOULD NOT APPRECIATE YOU SAYING THAT!!!"

Finally I'm done and throw the chicken in the oven to stop all the LOUD NOISES!!!

Picture proof:

From my magical backpack

Brought all my knives! Well...except for the bread knife

Getting ready to butter the chicken under its skin

Jen crying while cutting ~~veggies~~ onions....

Work in Progress...

Right before entering the oven (stop yelling at me now Jen! Please!

I PROMISED YOU IT WOULD BE BEAUTIFUL! (And delicious!)

Ahhhh, Friendsgiving :)

Whew! Now that that's done...let's rewind to how we even got everything there. Being football Sunday, where else do people hang out but at bars watching the game and drinking beer? Problem was, my apartment is all the way over in one direction, and the bar and ultimate dinner destination were over on the opposite side. Being as I had all the ingredients...I had to figure out the optimal plan to get the chicken, veggies, cast iron skillet, knives & vegetable peeler over to my final destination AND try to catch part of the games (gotta see if I have any chance in moving out of last place in our fantasy league!). I had the chicken and the skillet in the fridge before, so I was really hoping they would keep each other cool in my backpack with all the other supplies as I made the trek crosstown.

Girl walks into a bar...with a really heavy and lethal backpack. And Backpack Chicken was born.

Empire State Building was purple that night

Lobster Pizza

2013-11-09T11:00:00.000-05:00

It's Monday night, and there's a container of lobster meat in the fridge. A shelf below that, there's some Fairway pre-made pizza dough. What to do what to do...MAKE LOBSTER PIZZA!!! Duh.

But wait, what is lobster pizza? I didn't know, but was eager to find out/make it up. Thanks to the magic of Google, I found that I was not the first to make lobster pizza, and took bits and pieces from a few of the recipes that I found based on the ingredients that I had.

Oil the pizza pan with some salt & pepper

Attempt to roll out the dough on the pan (not the best idea) - spread butter all around and sprinkle with garlic powder

Top with Parmesan & mozzarella cheese, diced tomatoes, shallots, lobster pieces & black pepper

Then add MOAR CHEESE!!! Cheddar cheese and green scallions

After about 20 min of baking at 400 degrees - looking good!

After an additional 10 minutes...

ZOMG

Perfection on a Monday night

What better way to spend a Monday night but with some surprisingly awesome pizza and a glass (or maybe all the glasses) of wine?

The Dumpling Path

2013-11-05T21:44:00.000-05:00

Tonight marked my second dumpling night in exactly a week, but unlike last time (post to come), I had leftover filling this time to "deal with."

I've had this idea in my head to make beef, tomato & egg dumplings for some time now, so after a trip to Flushing for a haircut, I also picked up everything I would need to make an Asian culinary feast.

Since I used store bought dumpling skins, it becomes all about the filling.

It started with some eggs, a hot pan, and oil.

The beginning

And then it took off from there - see below the process in picture collage form:

Starting from the top left, after the eggs were scrambled, I let them sit in the bowl to cool while getting started with the rest of the ingredients.

And by get started, I mean throw the following ingredients into a bowl and mix them all together: ground beef, scallions, raw egg, sesame oil, diced tomatoes, salt & pepper to taste. Add in the scrambled eggs, and we're ready to assemble the dumplings.

Once assembled, steam them in the pan, and voila! Dinner is served - with enough leftover to pack up for tomorrow's lunch! Problem was though (and really, it turned out to be the best kind of problem), I didn't end up using all of the filling with the dumpling skins that I had. Sooooo, I decided to stuff some Asian eggplants that I had also bought.

I chopped up the eggplants into segments so they would be easier to scoop out, rather than struggle trying to keep it all in one piece. Cut those segments in half, and then used a paring knife to take out the meat in the middle. Stuffed the scooped out pieces with the beef filling from the dumplings, and put them in a foil lined pan for baking. Drizzled everything with some sesame oil (my love) and soy sauce. Baked in the oven at 350 degrees for...actually I'm not really sure - maybe about half an hour covered, and then 10 min uncovered.

So now one may ask - what did you do with the meat of the eggplant segments??? A simple saute with some of my favorite flavors.

A few of my favorite things

First saute some garlic, scallions & shallots in a mix of vegetable and sesame oils. Your kitchen will smell something amazing. Throw in the eggplant pieces and season with soy sauce and maybe ground pepper to taste. Let everything sizzle for a little bit, then add some water and cover on medium/low heat. Once it starts boiling and most of the water has evaporated, uncover and turn up the heat. Then add some chili oil if you want (I did want), and some green scallions for the finishing touch!

To boot, after all of this, I was brought home some awesome grapefruit yogurt bubble tea from Kung Fu Tea! Life is good =)

Lazy Sunday

2013-10-13T23:59:00.000-04:00

While I was out and about today, last Sunday was a perfect lazy Sunday, where I did nothing but lounge around the apartment, watch Netflix and make some easy brunch and dinner.

When I finally rolled out of bed and made my way to the kitchen, I decided to finally use up the egg whites leftover from making ice cream at my last dinner party (post to follow...eventually). I feel like I'm always looking for easy recipes that use up leftover egg whites since egg yolks always seem to be the more favored child.

So I felt like I found the perfect use for it with this mini egg white frittatas recipe - where I don't need to keep track of exactly how many eggs whites I actually have, and the other ingredients can be manipulated to anything I want them to be! This time I used spinach, red onions and cheddar cheese.

The various stages of frittata (counter clockwise from top left): pre-baked, baking, post-bake

Brunch is served!

Maybe the most productive thing that I did all day after eating was start posting on this blog again - with the stuffed baguette post, which I also ate the rest of along with the frittatas.

Then all of a sudden, my stomach was telling me that it was dinner time!

Seriously one of the best things that I have discovered this year other than the fact that Fairway Markets opened up another store closer to home, was that said Fairway Market also sells pizza dough! So I threw together some of the things we had in the fridge for Sunday pizza night - spinach, red onion, button mushrooms, tomato & mozzarella cheese on top of garlic & herb pizza dough.

The ingredients

Layers

Final Product

All in all, one of the best Sundays that I have had - I think this is me finally learning how to relax properly! And it is AWESOME.

Steak & Rice

2013-10-07T16:38:00.000-04:00

In an effort to improve my ability for cooking meats, and in celebration of my recently acquired electric skillet, I picked up a cut of meat at the market and a head of broccoli and got to work!

I had this amazing broccoli rice at a Brazilian restaurant months ago, and I believe it was mostly finely chopped broccoli, garlic and rice with olive oil. So I sauteed some garlic with chopped broccoli (below) in olive oil before adding the cooked rice.

In the meantime, I had the meat marinating in soy sauce, sesame oil and a little bit of sugar and dried rosemary. Set the skillet to 400 degrees, put the steak on for a few minutes on each side just so it was browned on the outside...

...and medium rare on the inside! I erred on the side of being more rare b/c then when reheated for lunch, it wouldn't get too overcooked. One must think ahead about such things!

"Take This Baguette & Stuff It"

2013-10-06T14:36:00.000-04:00

I'm baaack! And super excited about my latest culinary adventure!

On Friday I received a daily email from Tasting Table with the subject "Take This Baguette and Stuff It." Due to my love for breads and just carbs in general, I was intrigued. Upon opening the email, I see marinated mushroom, Gruyere cheese & thyme stuffing??? AND I have almost all the ingredients? Must. Make.This.Bread.

So I picked up some mushrooms on my way home (I used button mushrooms instead of cremini), and began the marinating process in soy sauce and balsamic vinegar.

Next day after a run up the Hudson River Path with my running buddy, and brunch (because we earned it!), I came back to make the dough. I have never truly had great success with getting pizza dough to rise properly, so I was super excited to find the difference in dough size an hour later:

After rolling it out and dividing the dough in two, it was time to add the stuffing. Layered out the mushroom and grated Gruyere, then sprinkled it with dried thyme leaves (I opted for dry because it's always so difficult to buy just enough fresh herbs for what is needed without having a bunch left over that end up going to waste). Rolled it all up, and left it to rise again for another hour.

10 minutes in the oven covered in foil, and then another 15 uncovered...and voila! I MADE STUFFED BREAD! And it was golden and beautiful and yummy! I could barely contain myself when I pulled it out of the oven =)

This opens the door for so many more opportunities!!! Can't wait to try pizza dough using bread flour and trying to make different breads (totally geeking out about this right now)!

What Makes a Chowder a Chowder?

2012-12-26T20:55:00.003-05:00

Potatoes.

Just kidding. That was what someone told me when I was telling them about this awesome Potato Chowder recipe I tried the other week.

The definition that Wikipedia gives is not as definitive. Regardless, my love of potatoes and chowder (um, fatchowder?!), remains the same.

There's a place near me that has an awesome Potato, Cheddar & Jalapeno chowder, which my friend assigned for me to recreate somehow. After a quick Google search, this recipe from a blog called Evil Shenanigans looked promising.

With the leftover potatoes from Thanksgiving (I bought 5 lbs with this in mind), and some substitutions here and there, this is what happened:

POTATOES!!!

I didn't take out bacon from the freezer ahead of time, so I had to do without this time (I know, shame on me). I also didn't have seasoned diced tomatoes from a can, but had a box of yellow cherry tomatoes, and used poblano peppers instead of jalapeno peppers. Instead of cheddar cheese, I used shredded monterey jack cheese and added corn. I also didn't have sour cream to garnish when serving (seriously, how did I even make this soup???), but at least I did have green onions!

Next time, there will be bacon, more red tomatoes, cheddar cheese and the potatoes will be boiled longer for a different textured soup. The corn stays.

From left counter clockwise: boiling potatoes & sauteing everything else; cheese & peppers; chowder is served!; peeled potatoes

Thanksgiving 2012 - May the Odds Ever be in your Favor

2012-12-02T13:39:00.000-05:00

Planning for Thanksgiving 2012 felt almost as chaotic as the events that preceded it - between my 10 day long trip abroad for work to dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, I started panicking 2 weeks before because I didn't even start my menu yet. My sister was kind enough (yea, I said it, you were kind, now you can get over yourself) to offer to send out the invite emails herself, and she quoted Hunger Games in the invite, which I decided later to theme our Thanksgiving.

**I am also going to use all this chaos as an excuse for why I haven't posted in 2 months =X Apparently my mother even reads my blog and has been complaining that there are no new posts! I guess momma really is my biggest fan, haha.

There was supposed to be a game I found to play while watching the movie, but we didn't end up doing that so people just wondered why I had Hunger Game quotes plastered everywhere around the house.

As per tradition, preparation begins the night before. Something new that I was able to do this year was take a day off the week before, after I had compiled my menu and excel spreadsheets of when dishes were scheduled to be made and a comprehensive list of all the ingredients needed and what dishes they were used in (I am well aware that there is something seriously wrong with me).

I was lucky enough to get out of work early and was ready to go by 4:30 on Wednesday. I even got home before Miss Teacher! I was determined this year to have all the prep work done and everything ready before I actually begin putting a dish together the way they do on the Food Network. I wanted everything to be chopped and measured ahead of time. Due to this, my cousin helper was a bit disappointed when he got home and wanted to help, because all the boring stuff was being done that night. He missed the chaos and actual dishes coming together the next day to see the parade.

Here is this year's menu with links to the recipes:

Appetizers

Cranberry Orange Pecan Roll-ups

Bacon Cornbread

Sides

Sweet Potato Casserole

Acorn Squash Stuffed w/ Wild Rice

Cranberry Sauce

Creamed Onions w/ Bacon & Chives

Garlic Parmesan Mashed Potatoes

Green Bean Casserole

Entrees

Turkey

Papardelle w/ Pumpkin Poblano Sauce

Mushroom & Barley Pie

Desserts

Fruit Galettes

Upside Down Chocolate Pear Cake

Pumpkin Pie

Fruit Tart

The night began with the easiest thing that could be prepared and completely finished ahead of time: CRANBERRY SAUCE! I made it this Riesling, which is great, because what I don't use, I get to drink =)

Cranberry Sauce

Every year, I'm not sure why I haven't learned to accommodate for it by now, but I always forget that as some point, life goes on, and people still expect normal meals in the middle of all of my Thanksgiving madness. Somehow, we had a turkey leg and oxtail sitting around (I do believe our fridge is of the magical variety), and I had planned ahead of time to use the rest of the barley and beans mix that I had bought at Trader Joe's to make the soup that was on the package. From all of this, soup night was born. But silly me, after I threw all the barley/beans in the pot, I threw out the bag...so I had to make up the rest of the recipe. Whoops! I did however, get a rare compliment from my dad when I forced him to try the soup which was that it was of "restaurant quality!" He did not specify what sort of restaurant...but no matter, I'll take it where I can get it!

Then I decided I wanted to try my hand at oxtail soup for the first time. Pressure Cookers are my new best friend. In addition to a creme brulee torch set, I want to add a pressure cooker and a crock pot to my future kitchen wish list. Just saying..

From Top Left Clockwise: Turkey Leg; Sous Chef hurt herself (first of many times to come); Barley/Bean Soup; Turkey Leg & Veggies; Chopped Veggies; Sous Chef actually working

From Top Left Clockwise: Oxtail; Oxtail soup ingredients in the pressure cooker; Barley/Bean Soup

I actually almost didn't even make it through the whole night. I was so exhausted from the week that I took a break around 8 and watched AGT for about 2 hours. My sous chef completely conked out at that point, as usual. At least this year I had more helpers at my disposal, so my cousin took her place before my mom tagged in to help me with the turkeys.

Speaking of turkeys, I was only expecting one this year, so I was only planning on using the apple cider and citrus brine. This wasn't communicated very well to my mother, so she found something else that used cider and herb butter. Slightly thrown off by that, but it worked out. I was more thrown off by the fact that we ended up with two turkeys. I didn't want to make two birds for dinner again this year because I felt that it was just too much food - plus I didn't know what I wanted to do with the second bird. Then I thought of something that a coworker told me about once - cooking with beer, especially with poultry, kind of sucks out the fat but keeps the moisture in. Fact? Don't know, but I decided to give it a try and so the second bird was soaked in Budweiser for about 48 hours. I got real close to the first bird when it came time to butter it with sage and rosemary butter. Not gonna lie, things got a little weird...just kidding. But not really. You really have to get the butter under its skin. And melted butter is really messy. The things I do for amazing food...

Various Stages of Turkey prep and final products

I realize now that I've gone out of chronological order, and have already skipped to the main event, but let's get back on track to Thursday morning, which started off, again, as per tradition, with the Sous Chef that has gotten so much sleep from the night before, running around the house around 7 in the morning after I had gone to bed at 2, raring to go. I refused however, to get out of bed until 8.

Here's what followed in picture form:

From Top Left Clockwise: Excel Spreadsheets; Studying the recipes assigned to her; Her planning includes putting her recipes in the corresponding dishware; crowded oven; our food was made with dance; balancing; cleaning up one of many messes; Woodchuck Cider makes cooking/dancing more fun; results of food shopping

Orange Cranberry Pecan Roll-ups

Acorn Squash with Wild Rice Stuffing - they also make for very large ears. Shout out to Isgro for the idea

Bacon Cornbread

Mushroom Barley Pie

**A note about the mushroom barley pie - in Smitten Kitchen's recipe, she added that the recipe could use a bit of a kick, since mushrooms and barley tend to have more mild tastes. So I tweaked it a little bit by adding some Israeli couscous with the barley and beans mix instead of just having pearl barley, used some sesame oil for kicks and I added my go to for taste - red chili pepper flakes! Still needs a little bit of something else, but not sure what it is...

Papardelle w/ Pumpkin Poblano Sauce

**The papardelle was one of the two dishes that I was most excited to try. The other was the upside down chocolate pear cake that I've been meaning to try for the past few years. First of all, it is impossible to find the papardelle - um, Barilla, can you please get on that?! But I did find a lemon pepper papardelle from Trader Joe's, which went pretty well with the Pumpkin Poblano sauce. I should have put a warning on the dish though, because the poblano peppers really gave it a nice kick. Sadly I did not get a photo of the final product, but the taste will forever stay in my memory!

Fruit Galettes

Upside Down Chocolate Pear Cake Prep from Top Left Clockwise: Cousin at work chopping chocolate; Pears; Caramelizing Sugar (x2); Pear Layout on sugar glaze; Mixing Cake Batter; Cake Dry Ingredients; Melting Chocolate; Pouring out the sugar caramel into the spring pan

Upside Down Chocolate Pear Cake

**Let me just say about the cake, which was all I could have hoped for and maybe even more, that 1) next time I make it, I want to add chili powder to the chocolate because I love spicy chocolate and 2) the Spring Form pan helps to make it easier to flip upside down, but needs to have a foil lined tray underneath while baking because the sugar will melt and seep out and start burning at the bottom of your oven.

Pie Crust Repair for the Pumpkin Pies

Someone brought flowers!

From Top Left Clockwise: Sous Chef and the amazing Butter Garlic Biscuits that someone brought; all the "kids"; Round 1 food; "Seafood" Turkey; Digging in; Green Bean Casserole; Creamed Onions

Leftover Friday began with Dunkin Donuts quality breakfast sandwiches and some oxtail soup. I say that they were Dunkin quality because when the last cousin woke up after everyone had eaten, he was handed one of the bagels with bacon, egg and cheese, and asked if it was from D&D, haha. I also had a Thanksgiving Leftover dinner get together later that night (can you tell this is my favorite holiday? I just never want it to end!). That was when I cooked the beer bird, which came out awesome, if I may say so myself.

From Top Left Clockwise: Leftover Dinner; Turkey; Bacon; Breakfast Bagel; Oxtail Soup; Model Emily; Hairdresser Jake & Alex; Silly Kristalynn

Turkey Wreath Pre-baking using leftover turkey, cranberry sauce, celery & crescent rolls for a Housewarming party Saturday night

All the little elves, aka cousins at work helping Angela put up the Christmas decorations on Saturday (as per tradition!...one would think we are living Fiddler on the Roof)

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and a most Happy Holiday Season!

Wafels and Pies

2012-09-29T10:46:00.001-04:00

I've been wanting to try Wafels & Dinges for the longest time - not only does it have a cool name, is sold out of a food truck, it has also been said to be quite delicious. My friend promised me he would take me one day via Twitter (source of all things true), and the Waffletruck concurred it was a good idea. I had been waiting for that day...which finally came last Monday!

Speaking of things good and delicious, at the last place that I worked, I saw a sign for Pie Face opening soon. It's an Australian chain which I had read about earlier because there was a day that they were giving out free pies...but alas they were too far away from where I worked :( BUT THEY STILL HAVE NOT OPENED THERE!!! I did run into one while walking down through Times Square one night (**cringes at thought of crowds in Times Square**), but we did not have time to wait on line that night [insert another sad face here].

Last Monday though, the universe decided to give me an evening of epic food adventuring, and not only did we make it to the Wafel truck, we also had time to pick up some pies from Pie Face on the way home.

I decided to go with the classic "Throwdown" at the Wafels & Dinges truck with spekuloos (like peanut butter and Nutella had a baby with extra spices) and whipped cream. I am actually getting hungry just writing about it right now...

The Wafel "Throwdown"

Then at Pie Face (do you hear the angels singing right now?), I decided to go with the Minced Beef & Tomato pie...STACKED!!! What does it mean to get your pie stacked you ask? It means that the pie of your choice is topped with mashed potatoes, gravy & mashed peas. How could I not get my pie stacked?!?! And the woman was so excited that I chose to do so too...she did a sort of "I get to make a stacked pie" dance. I'm all for dancing, so it was all good. I almost started dancing down the streets myself, but had to stop lest I spilled or mussed up my pie at all.

The wait was worth it for all of the above. I can't wait until the next time I come across the wafel truck or the next time I drag someone to Pie Face with me :)

Pie Face!!!!!

~~Eating~~ Devouring my pie on the train - classy as always

Anita Raid Your Kitchen

2012-09-23T15:16:00.000-04:00

I have recently, and by recently I mean last night, come up with an idea for a new YouTube series. "Anita Raid Your Kitchen." Get it? Anita...I need to...ok, I'm over it (but not really)...

Apparently I love to take over my friends kitchens and figure out how to make something based on what they have - it's like an adventure! It's not my kitchen, so I don't know what is there that I can use. Come to think of it...kind of sounds like how the show "Chopped" works - except I don't make things half as amazing as what they do on the show. Then again, I'm not a professionally trained chef...I just like to eat a lot.

So last night just hanging out at my friend's house for girl's night in and the natives started getting restless...so we started investigating the fridge and freezer...when I saw the pesto sauce and frozen shrimp and vegetables, I got kind of excited and asked if I could take over. Luckily, my friends are rather laid back about this sort of thing and said they enjoy being cooked for? I suppose that is why the restaurant business is still booming.

Alex, whom I have done this to earlier last year and featured in a Carbonara post was present as well and fully supportive of my kitchen nazi-ness and took my criticism well when I got a little bit aggressive about the frozen bacon.

Here's how it went down:

Found: Frozen Shrimp, Frozen Bacon, Frozen Peas, Frozen Corn, Frozen Broccoli, Whole Wheat Pasta, Pesto

I gave her the task of cutting off slices of the very frozen bacon...check out those guns!!!

Getting a bit territorial/aggressive about the bacon

Sautee-ing everything together - look at how colorful it is!

Dinner, is served.

Banana Crepe Cake X 2

2012-09-20T17:23:00.000-04:00

When I see bananas getting overly ripe, I used to make banana bread. Now, I'm kind of obsessed with crepe cakes ever since seeing Smitten Kitchen's post on banana crepe cake w/ butterscotch walnut topping. I have made it once before following her directions exactly and it came out pretty well, but the filling was a little heavy and too cream cheese-y for my taste. So I started looking into seeing if I could find an alternative using something closer to what Lady M Bakery uses.

And here is why I love Smitten Kitchen - she had that too! "Gateau de crepe" was her post. Please note the use of the brulee torch, which cemented even more my desire to own a brulee kit (will be one of the first things on my wedding registry when that day comes...many many years from now).

I ended up making the banana crepe cakes twice this week. Actually the first time was Monday morning (I had off from work - Happy Rosh Hashanah!!!), and I had been debating between the crepe cake versus banana bread due to time restraints because my cousins were visiting and leaving later that morning and I wanted to make them an awesome breakfast after the Pesto Potato Pizza & Skillet Lasagna Dinner the night before.

But then I could only find 2 bananas, which wasn't enough for the banana bread (I was going to make banana bread ice cream sandwiches w/ pistachio ice cream), so I guess my decision was made for me. Then the filling called for 6 egg yolks, so I used the rest of the egg whites plus 2 more eggs to scramble together with the leftover peppers and cucumbers from dinner the night before.

Afterwards, I did end up finding another banana in the fridge, so I blended together batter to make later during the week. Helped that I had leftover filling anyway. This happened around midnight tuesday night - very therapeutic I might add. Helps to have the batter all ready and I found the rhythm of just flipping crepes to be very calming after a long day.

Egg whites & Milk w/ Vanilla (I didn't have any vanilla beans on hand)

Custard on the stovetop

Filling/Custard coming together

Crepes on the pan

Melted chocolate to cover some coffee beans

The leaning tower of crepe cake

A lot less prep is needed when everything is already made

Some beautious crepes =)

Whole crepe cake

View of the layers

Potato Pesto Pizza & Tzatziki Sauce

2012-09-17T22:59:00.001-04:00

Last night, in celebration of some cousins visiting and just because I selfishly wanted to try some new recipes, as below. The driving recipe being the Potato Pesto Pizza for which I saw in an email from Tablespoon a week or so ago. And since I was making the main course for dinner, I might as well plan the whole thing - 'tis the only logical thing to do.

A few weeks ago, I had finally started compiling a Google Document of sites and recipes that I wanted to try. This was definitely something I should have done a long time ago but for some reason never bothered to start...oh well, better late than never! Looking through what I had already added to the list, I figured a Tzatziki Sauce from FoodRepublic would be easy enough to throw together with some raw veggies as I already had enough carbs with the pizza. Then I really wanted to try making Lasagna cupcakes, but had to accept the fact that it just wouldn't be time efficient nor did I have access to wonton wrappers for the shells and didn't have time to experiment with using lasagna noodles instead...but since I had said lasagna noodles and ground beef and tomatoes, I figured I'd make some skillet lasagna instead. Sadly, this was actually the thought process that I had going back and forth in my head for hours during work and even as I was running around the supermarket on my way home.

Was a bit panicked when I first got home, thinking everyone else was surely as hungry as I was and rushing around the kitchen like a chicken without its head. Finally I settled down a bit and figured I would calm down a bit after finishing at least one thing - Tzatziki Sauce it was!

Dicing Cucumbers

Beautiful Peppers

Greek Yogurt mixed w/ the cucumbers, chopped dill, olive oil & lemon juice

Plated Veggies

Next I rolled out the dough (the last of the dough pre-made from my last pizza adventures), and baked it in the oven while I prepared the toppings. Sad to say, I had used a pesto mix b/c I didn't have time to try to chip up fresh basil and pine nuts, but for the purposes of this pizza, I think there was enough going on to let that one slide...During this time I also started on cooking the lasagna noodles. For once, probably because I was in such a rush and I've made it before, I didn't document any of the lasagna process! Tres sad, I know. Hopefully the potato pesto pizza will make up for it in all its glory -

Slicing Red Potatoes

Peeled Onions

Sliced Onions - some for pizza, some for the lasagna

Crust w/ Layer of Pesto

Layer of Mozzarella

All toppings added

Out of the oven =)

Pizza A$$ Annie

2012-08-29T14:58:00.000-04:00

Last weekend my sister had some friends over for a relaxing weekend with some kayaking and good eats. I decided to crash the party, because that is what I do, and demolished their leftovers when I got home Friday night and commandeered Saturday activities :)

In my defense, at least my takeover was not hostile, and in fact, was rather delicious. Saturday day started with taking some of the leftover salad, tomatoes and baked potatoes and tossing them all together with some scrambled eggs. Sometimes it's great to just wing it with what you have on hand (especially if you actually have great ingredients to pick from).

Saturday day started with me picking up some drinks and snacks for kayaking because the swagger wagon was being used, and I was the only one home who could drive my car (manual, woot!). I originally went to pick up some Mike's Lemonade for them, but then this box of "Twisted Teas" caught my eye...and when I saw that they had it in a Lemonade Iced Tea flavor, well, how could I NOT get it?! And then the Skinny Popcorn was also on sale, so of course I had to get that too. My kryptonite - Arnold Palmers and Popcorn. So while they kayaked, this was what I did.

Twisted dude!

A hornet flew into my first drink...upsetting to say the least, but made for a cool shot

As "summer" as it gets

For lunch/dinner, I had extra pizza dough from making a mashed potato pizza a few weeks ago (no post on that one yet, just the original). I had also been talking to a coworker earlier that week about using beer in cooking - her example was that beer on roasted chicken evaporated all the fat, but still kept the chicken meat really tender. I didn't exactly have a chicken to work with here, but I found a bag of meatballs in the freezer and a Bud Light in the fridge and figured, hey, this could work.

So I sauteed together the meat with garlic, chopped red onions leftover from the night before and diced tomatoes from our garden. Then tossed in the beer and let the whole thing simmer. After an afternoon of kayaking, there was quite a bit of stolen bites before the crust was ready.

And now for the explanation for the blog title. One of the girls who came over, Annie, had been requesting a shout out in one of my posts, and I was like, sure, when I post about this I'll give you a shout out. THEN, after I had rolled out my crust and brushed it with olive oil, I had it on a stool because I was running out of counter top space. At some point. I turn around and see Little Miss Annie proceed to sit ON MY PIZZA CRUST!!! I let out a scream and yelled "YOU'RE SITTING ON THE PIZZA!!!!!" And she immediately jumps up, startled. Luckily, not much harm done, I had turned around and yelled in time. She just got a little bit of olive oil on her shorts, that's all. From that point on, I decided to refer to her as Pizza Ass Annie. And Annie, there you have it - a whole post dedicated to your butt.

She gained back a few extra points when she helped me put together the Spinach salad with slices of carrot, tomatoes and white wine vinegar with lemon.

What was exciting for me was that this was one of the few times that I actually had enough people and not too much food that we finished everything! As much as I love leftovers reheated to scalding hot temperatures the day after, sometimes it's nice to not have to worry about packing food up after a meal and throwing everything in the dishwasher instead.

Meatballs & beer.

The crust going into the oven post butt-sitting and with red pepper flakes added

Slightly baked crust with toppings added

Spinach Salad - we can be healthy too!

Final product: baked & melty goodness = meatball pizza

A Productive Saturday - Muffins & Pie Cookies

2012-08-25T14:35:00.000-04:00

I've been looking up and printing many recipes lately, but I haven't actually had a chance to try them all! Turns out, it takes less time and effort to research them than it is to see them through...hrm...

As it turns out, I finally had a whole Saturday yesterday where I didn't have to work nor did I have any prior obligations. So what did that mean for me? A trip to Costco and Bed Bath & Beyond and some quality time in the kitchen!

A new mini muffin tin later, it was time to get this baking-fest started! First, I started with cappuccino muffins - I was drawn to the recipe because I happened to have all the ingredients and the topping showed promise for a delicious top of the muffin to give it some texture and help keep it from tasting too dry (I have been having this issue with muffins).

Dry ingredients

Mixing in the chocolate chips

Crumble topping

All ready to go into the oven!

Overflow batter made it into regular sized muffin tins

Le petite muffins!

Next, I tried this apple w/ oatmeal topping recipe. I was really trying to do things right this time, so I was careful to measure everything out, and the only things I substituted were flour (I always used half white and half wheat), butter (half butter and half applesauce), and for the apple muffin recipe that called for 3 eggs, I substituted one for ground flax seed (who knew!).

Regular eggs pre-flax seed

Flax seed egg substitute

Whisking the Eggs w/ Flax Seed sub

Apples chopped & ready to go

Walnuts chopped & ready to go

Mixing the toppings

Batter ready for the mix-ins

Apple chunks mixed into batter

Toppings on and ready to go!

Sneak peek in the oven...I couldn't wait to see how they were doing...

Overflowing muffins are the best type of muffins =)

Overflow of batter ended up in regular muffin tins

And finally, last but not least, a recipe that I've been dying to try for months now, apple pie cookies from smitten kitchen! I made the dough for the crust after the first two muffins, and then took a break to cut up some watermelon (I needed space in the fridge) and get some quality time on a kayak - trying to take in the last few days of summer (it's been going by so quickly!). Then resumed assembly of the cookies when I got back.

Clearing out space in the fridge, aka, cutting up watermelon

Prepping for the Apple Pie Cookies

Sliced & Diced

Cutting in the butter (can't find my food processor, so had to do it by hand)

Liking the green and yellow =)

For coating the apples

pre-seasoned apples (recipe calls to coat them one at a time...but that definitely didn't happen)

The rather laborious job of stamping out pie crusts - the larger

Before & After Baking

I am obviously biased toward the apple pie cookies...they got their own instagram compilation

Results:

- The Cappuccino muffins were a little heavy for my taste. If I make them again, I will definitely be reducing the amount of sugar and need to figure out what else to do to make them lighter and more fluffy. Also will add more coffee flavor next time (can't really taste that much of it)

- Apple muffins - I loved! I think because there was a pretty even ratio of apple chunks to batter, kept it from being too dense. Plus the oatmeal/sugar topping gave it a nice texture.

- Apple Mini Pies - so worth the wait! I struggled a bit with the assembly, and I wonder if the whole wheat flour made it softer and less easy to work with? The dough didn't seem to be chilled enough though it had been sitting in the fridge for almost 2 hours (usually recipes call only for 1). I also didn't cut the apple pieces the same way that she called for, so I had to work around jagged edges instead of apple discs. Even for the dough I had to use makeshift cookie cutters! One ended up being tupperware...

Summary of the day

All in a day's work

Catching Up on Summer - Kayaking & Banana Crepes

2012-07-15T16:04:00.003-04:00

I can't believe it has been almost two months since I have posted any updates, and yet, it has been almost two months *le sigh.

However, it has not been 2 months wasted without wondrous food adventures - in fact, armed with a newly renovated kitchen and longer summer hours, I have been more inspired to cook more. I have also found that when I cook more, I eat less, to which my trainer responded - KEEP COOKING! I imagine that in his head, the rest of the phrase went something along the lines of ("if that is the only thing that will keep you from consuming food like a 300 pound man, do not ever stop cooking").

From experimenting with various muffins and spontaneous brunches, to having epic summer BBQs, I have much to catch up on! But let's start with this weekend and work our way backwards.

Just as an homage to summer - KAYAKING! I was lucky enough to get out of work yesterday, which was a beautiful sun-filled day, so I took off for the beach right after I got home for some relaxation/reading time on the water.

View from the Dock

Chillin'

Catching the last rays of the sun on the beach

When bananas start to get too ripe, one must either a) peel them and put them in the freezer until further notice, b) make banana bread, or c) make banana crepes. I still had banana bread leftover from the last time I made them, so I decided to go with the crepes.

Originally, I was going to try another crepe cake on Wednesday, so I pre-made the batter on Monday night. But then I never got around to actually doing anything with them until this weekend. Not sure if that affected the batter...I'm thinking it did a little, but at least it still turned out well. My main issue with it was that it took a lot more failed attempts than usual (I've already come to accept the fact that the first pancake/crepe or two will not turn out well).

For the filling, all I did was cut up pieces of banana and add some slightly melted chocolate chips and then stack them all to make them look fancy.

Crepes in action

Failed attempts...I added some sparkle effects to make them (I mean me), feel better about ~~myself~~ themselves

The "good" ones that made it

Banana Crepe Tower

Mother's Day Dinner

2012-05-20T17:01:00.002-04:00

Mother's Day Weekend started off as a whirlwind trip to LA for a friend's wedding - yay B&E!!! And while I had told my mom that my Mother's Day gift to her would be my homecoming that Sunday, apparently that wasn't enough, so I was roped into cooking dinner (not that I'm really complaining), for the family and then some. These were the messages I got from my family that morning too:

Sister: A student's mom wished me a Happy Mother's Day...so, I'll take this opportunity to be waited on all day, as soon as Anita returns from CA. (Happy Mother's Day!!!)

Mom: Have a safe flight - I took the liberty of inviting [lists names of mothers who's kids are out of town] to dinner as well. See you soon!

THANKS FAMILY.

So I'm at the airport early Sunday morning (LA time), frantically looking up recipes that we have most of the ingredients for at home and making up a list of what else I would need to buy while texting my sister to start getting certain things prepared and double checking what we actually had at home.

I land in NY around 3:30, take the train to the nearest station by our house, get picked up, go straight to the grocery store, and am home around 5:30. When I get home, my mom's friend and son are cooking up a storm of ribs and marinated pork, so I wait a few minutes for them to clear some space in the kitchen (need to make sure I can maximize kitchen space and time to get dinner out in a somewhat timely manner).

Round 1 chefs

Thankfully Angela had been able to thaw and shell a pound of shrimp for me beforehand, which i was using for 2 dishes, so those were all ready to go. She also made her onion bread with bread to hold people over in case they got too hungry (we ended up being the most hungry and were eating while cooking as soon as her dip was done).

The onion dip pro at work

Onion Dip

once the kitchen was cleared, I figured I would start with the raspberry tiramisu because it needed a lot of chilling time. From that point on, I kind of lost track of any order I had in mind - luckily I had Angela and Mark to kind of boss around the kitchen (my favorite thing to do), and help out with prepping things and dish washing (I'm officially giving Angela the titles of "dish washer" and "puree queen").

Somehow, by some miracle, between the multiple chopping boards, the oven and all the stove tops on, everything ultimately came together. "Everything" includes a Chilled Zucchini Soup with Lemon Cumin Shrimp and Cilantro Sour Cream, an Onion Frittata and Lemony Shrimp Scampi Pasta.

Some things I learned from the experience to fix if I ever make these dishes again (I recently realized I tend not to repeat dishes because there are always so many recipes that I want to try!):

- The poor Onion Frittata actually ended up being the most neglected dish, from the time an egg hid behind the bowl, so I only ended up using 7 eggs instead of 8. Then come dinner time, I totally forgot I had it sitting in the oven (the oven was off, I just didn't have any more counter space), so that was added to the table after everyone was pretty much full. Oops!

- I forgot that the soup was a "chilled" soup, so did not allot any "chilling" time. Instead, we made a mad scramble to stir in crushed ice cubes with the soup to try to cool it down.

- Tiramisu is one of those awesome desserts where things don't necessarily have to be measured out perfectly. While I'm OCD about many things in life, I much prefer the somewhat organized chaos in the kitchen of adding a "pinch" here and a "pinch" there instead of super-exact measurements.

- Make a more solid plan/timeline for things so as not to be so chaotic! (yea right...)

And as always, I made sure to take lots of pictures during the process - hope everyone had a fantastic Mother's Day! Thanks to all you mommas out there!

Onions used for multiple dishes...made sure I had some chopped ones on hand

2 of my favorite things...lemon and butter!

Raspberry Tiramisu: The Process

Zucchini Soup: The Process

Lemon Scampi Sauce: The Process

Putting everyone to work

Shrimp-Cumin and Lemon Mix

Eggs & Herbs for the Frittata

Onion Frittata - pre-bake

Sautee-ing shrimp with lemon sauce for the scampi pasta

The puree queen (reminiscent of Thanksgiving) - Facebook caption: "COME AT ME, YO!"

Chilled Zucchini Soup with Lemon Shrimp-Cumin and Cilantro Sour Cream

Onion Frittata

Lemony Shrimp Scampi Pasta

Raspberry Tiramisu

Table Settings

Dinner is Served!

Dessert is Served! plus remnants of the damage done to the rest of dinner

Guests of honor + photo bomber

Chefs

Mother's Day Flowers I picked up spontaneously - South African Sun Burts

Birthday Weekend Eats

2012-05-06T16:07:00.000-04:00

For one who generally does not like celebrating birthdays (I mean seriously, what did I do to get born? I really had no choice in the matter...), my impending quarter life mark resulted in a crisis that started well before the month of my actual birthday. To me, and I hear I am not the only one, turning 25 seemed to mean I now officially had to be a "real person." An adult if you will. What that means, I have no idea, but whatever it was/is, it stressed me out to no end. And I worried that I wasn't where I thought I would be...but where was that? I have not a clue. Nevertheless, it caused me much anxiety.

I almost didn't even do anything to celebrate because I was in such denial, but then the week before, I thought that if I really didn't do anything with anyone, I would come to regret it later in life (ahhh, such insightful forethought on my part!). So that week I made plans for eating and drinking with friends. And as you will see, I did quite a bit of eating...I recently started with a trainer at the gym because I really wasn't making the time for myself and needed that extra push, and when he asked how I ate that weekend, I said..."a lot." To which he responded "well I'm glad you're honest...but...you might want to work on that." So how exactly do I explain to him that I'm fatchowder? haha

Moving on - it started on Friday night with dinner at Yakitori Taisho in St. Marks (I have no photos, so the web link will have to suffice). All the grilled meats on sticks were great, but being such a carb lover, I'd have to say that the Yaki Onigiri (grilled rice balls) with salmon inside were my absolute favorite...even just writing about them now has me craving one.

The next stop was at Sweet Revenge in LES where I met up with a college friend who's birthday was actually that night, and we always celebrated in school together because our birthdays were so close together and we were the same year (and she actually liked celebrating her birthday).

JENITA

On Saturday, I made plans to go hang out at Perdition and figured whoever had time and wanted to show up could show up - I'd been there before and knew it didn't really get too crowded, so it made it perfect for something casual without the stress of having to make reservations or book tables.

But let's backtrack to earlier in the day, when we had an actual family meal for the first time in who knows how long...complete with the traditional pigs feet that is eaten for birthdays with noodles for long life.

mmmm, pigs feet w/ noodles!

Then before heading into the city, I had to stop by Flushing to get my haircut because my bangs were starting to constantly poke me in the eyeballs and I had difficulty keeping them out of my face so that I could see. And a trip to Flushing, means I'm going to eat some delicious Chinese food. My sister and I ended up at the food court in the relatively new New World Mall food court. Between the two of us, we did some damage on a giant bowl of stir fry rice cakes with a mix of meat and veggies that you can pick yourself, mixed in this most awesome hot sauce.

Before

After

Sunday night dinner, to thank a family friend for helping me get my taxes together (I absolutely despise accounting and doing my taxes), my mom brilliantly suggested that we take her out for dinner at Riviera Grill, which if you couldn't tell from my last post, is now my favorite local "to go" place.

Appetizers Cold Plate

Piping Hot Garlic Bread

Mom's pasta verde

Sister's Parpadelle alla Vodka

My Fettucini Abruzzo

Torta della Nonna

Peach sorbet...back in the peach!

On my actual birthday on Monday, my manager who had wrestled out of me my date of birth, took me out for a nice lunch at Stout before she completely embarrassed me in front of the office. And while we were at lunch, since she told everyone that it was my birthday, and it was the waitress's birthday the day before, I guess they were in a good mood, and we got a most delicious chocolate cake on the house.

Steak Salad

Amazeballs - warm & gooey chocolate cake w/ ice cream

After lunch, at the office, she presented me with a tirimisu cake (also amazing), which I accidentally walked into as they were preparing it, and had the office sing for me, not once, but twice, happy birthday (this was after they already sang at lunch). I actually tried to run out of the room in embarrassment. Then she presented to me Jeremy Lin paraphernalia because her goal is to marry me to him, and a set of nail polish because she knows I am nail obsessed.

Birthday swag

Playing with new nail polish!

I had class that night, so I kind of had an excuse to not have to do anything, or to not explain to people what I was doing to celebrate. But in a mini-celebration, I bought some sushi from my favorite sushi to go place at LZ Sushi before class to help make the time go by. Seriously, 3 types of rolls (my favorite combo is the spicy tuna combo), 24 pc, plus soup, for $12 - how can you beat that?

Sushi dinner

So I suppose overall, the process of turning 25 wasn't so bad, at least for that weekend. We'll see what it has in store for me the rest of the year. There will most likely be much food involved...I also booked a trip to New Orleans last weekend...FRIED CATFISH HERE I COME!!! :-)

Making it through Wednesday Hump Day

2012-04-26T18:18:00.001-04:00

I had the hardest time getting myself out of bed yesterday morning, so when I got to the train station and I saw the sign for $3 coffee and a bagel w/ cream cheese, I thought to myself - yes. This is exactly what I need because bagels solve all problems. I think if world leaders should consider having more bagels in life and perhaps then, we would have world peace.

Coffee & everything bagel w/ cream cheese

Then when I wasn't even halfway through my bagel, a coworker drops by and drops off this beautiful Chinese pastry - a fried sesame ball with red bean paste inside. And it was all warm and fried and downright DELICIOUS! And I thought to myself, this is exactly the way to start hump day.

Fried sesame ball

I also had a great (early birthday) dinner to look forward to at Vice Versa, which I have been meaning to go to to try the Tagliatelle Al Caffe Con Salsa Ai Tartufi Neri which my sister has been raving about since she went last year. I should have done my research before I went, because much to my dismay, it was no longer on the menu! The waiter recommended instead that I try the Casoncelli filled with veal, raisin & amaretto cookies with sage butter and pancetta (whew! that was a lot of words...). I wouldn't normally go for a dish like that, I generally prefer dishes that are more on the savory than sweet side, but I figured since I had been wanting to try a coffee flavored pasta, that I might as well try one stuffed with amaretto cookies.

It was indeed a tad bit on the sweet side for me personally, and perhaps it was the texture of the veal that made it seem more mushy, but overall my impression was just OK.

Their chocolate cake dessert however, was delicious. It was all warm and gooey on the inside (gooey is a silly word, but when describing chocolate cake is fantastic). I also asked to substitute the vanilla gelato for pistachio, which they kindly obliged and was definitely the right thing to do - I love me some pistachio gelato! And we spent time ooh-ing and ah-ing over the pretty "Happy Birthday" writing on the plate.

The dinner party - this was one out of 20 pictures that our enthusiastic actor-waiter took while we were getting into photo formation

Green Beans Attempt

2012-04-14T16:48:00.000-04:00

I love ordering sauteed green beans in black bean sauce every time I'm at a Chinese restaurant, but for some reason, I've never tried to make the dish myself. But as I was left to my own devices for a few weeks with a bag of Chinese green beans in the fridge that would go bad and inevitably have to be thrown out if I didn't do anything with them, I thought I'd take a stab at cooking it..somehow...

The preparation part of it went well...I think where I went wrong was the sauce. To be quite honest, I Google'd a few recipes for Chinese String Beans, and since I can't really read many of the sauces that we have in our cabinets, I just experimented by throwing in a little bit of...well, I think I ended up throwing in a little bit of everything to try to get a similar flavor. It wasn't until the end that I realized I was missing a key ingredient - the black bean sauce. But I had no idea where that was hidden, so I had to settle with what I had, which ended up being edible, especially paired with some of the microwavable bao zhi (pork buns), that I had stashes of in the freezer, but I'll have to figure out how they really ought to be cooked at some point.

Intimidatingly long beans

chopped

Preparation

Slicing ginger

Into the pot we go...

Cooked

An afterthought...I was missing that kick in the flavor

Final dinner for uno

Smashed Potato Pizza

2012-04-06T15:00:00.000-04:00

As one of my favorite pizzas, it's only natural that this get more than one mention on my blog.

I came home early enough on Monday to make the dough while my sister went running, then started prepping the potatoes that she brought back and cutting up all the salad components. This dough turned out a lot better than the one I made with the pizza. I used a different recipe that didn't call for kosher salt...and somehow, I think that made a difference. The recipe also called to split the dough in 3 parts, so now I've got two more pizza pies that I can make, just waiting in the freezer to be rolled out. Will definitely save a lot of time!

So by 8 pm, aka, when NBC's The Voice was on, I had the mashed potatoes done, and the dough was just about done rising. Then for the next hour, I was running back and forth between the kitchen and the living room between commercials to put everything together.

it's steaming up...yeast working its magic!

Potatoes w/ clothes --> NEKKED POTATOES!!!

Potatoes: CHOPPED!

Potatoes: MASHED!

With all my potato captions, I'm starting to feel like I'm a character on Super Smash Brothers...instead of Falcon - PUNCH! I'm Captain Potato! Whoa, wait, lightbulb moment! If I were ever to be a super hero, I am totally claiming CAPTAIN POTATO!

Cheese & Tomatoes

Summary of all things complete before 8 pm

And here begins the semi-hectic process where I had my sister scream for me every time the show started up again (she probably lost some of her voice after watching The Voice...[insert *hearty guffaw* here])

separated dough

Rolled out pizza dough

Mashed potatoes on pizza with red pepper flakes! (the best, I love love love red pepper flakes!)

Entering the oven...

Finally topped with the salad, cheese & bacon ranch dressing

Slice 1

Making it "artsy" for social media

With a pizza pie for only 2 people, we actually had some leftovers, which I brought in to my coworkers the next day to try to convert more people to the magical deliciousness that is mashed potato pizza. They were skeptical at first, but I won them over! And it begins...first step pizza, next...THE WORLD.

Fruit Tarts & Hot Pot

2012-04-04T18:47:00.000-04:00

My cousins visited us last week for their spring break, which meant a few things: I would inevitably gain 5 lbs, my liver would start crying by the end of the week, I would be exhausted, I would have had a lot of fun - and I would be making a fruit tart...or two.

I think the first time I stumbled upon this Nestle mini custard fruit tarts recipe was for Thanksgiving a few years back. I did do the mini version for that meal, but afterwards, figured it was too much of a pain in the butt to make so many mini pie shells, and decided to combine them all into one. And it's so easy, that I have made it many times, especially when I am with my cousin (as shown in my post where I made a version of it in Berlin). As for the graham cracker crust, it's really so easy - mix melted butter, sugar, and crushed graham crackers together and press them into a pie plate. I don't remember where I read this tip, but to crush the crackers (and this applies to crushing of any cookies or crackers that are not too hard), I put them in a Ziplock baggie and crushed them with a rolling pin. Sometimes it gets a little tricky/messy if a jagged edge gets caught in the bag and makes a hole, but this time was pretty smooth sailing.


Had enough to make 2

While I baked the shells (for less than 10 minutes), it was time to start on the custard, which also takes about 10 minutes.

After filling in each pie shell with the custard, it was time to leave it in the fridge to congeal. Apparently the smell of the baking crust and the simmering custard woke up the sleepy nappers...who also woke up very hungry. As it was a rather cold March evening, we decided to have hot pot for dinner, where the troops were put to work for their own dinners.

very hungry squirrel

Heating up the spicy soup base

Hot Pot Spread!

After a brief digestion period watching the OSU NCAA semi-finals, which they lost =(, I topped the pies with were-frozen mixed berries, and we proceeded to finish both that night...we are quite the fatty family =)

March Madness - Pasta Edition

2012-04-02T14:07:00.001-04:00

I've always been mad for pasta...well, truth be told, I've really always been mad for any carbohydrate. And as it works, the few times that I did get around to cooking this month, were pasta dishes that I could quickly through together.

First round - my sister and I were on our own for dinner, and she had some Vodka sauce that she had been meaning to use...but never did (probably because I was never available to cook it for her o_0). However, the only penne we had, was whole grain, and as much as I am an advocate for eating/being healthy...ok, I'm actually more like 50/50 for healthy versus borderline disgusting junk...whole grain pasta just doesn't do it for me. It has a more grainy texture that I don't like as much. So I used ziti instead. Then I scrounged up whatever veggies I could find (see, HEALTHY!), and came out with an onion, edamame soy beans, carrots and celery.

Speaking of celery, it's just a vegetable that I don't understand. Can anyone please explain it to me?

This is what came of all the ingredients listed above. At one point, we got really ambitious, and thought that we could actually finish the whole thing (2 girls, 1/2 pound of pasta). But luckily, came to our senses and saved some for lunch the next day.

Source of Inspiration

Boiling...

Lookit all the pretty colors!

Final Product

And while I am a firm believer that we all have a dessert stomach separate from our regular stomach, not finishing it all also helped save stomach space for this!

Toasted Corn Muffin with Banana Split Ice Cream - absolutely delish!

Near the end of dinner, I also realized that this pasta would probably taste pretty good on pizza. Although we were full, we did make an attempt to find a pre-made crust around the house...no such luck (probably for the better). But I tucked that idea away in the back of my mind for the next time when I could plan ahead of time to make the crust.

Fast forward a week and a half, and I found time! I wasn't so thrilled with the way the crust came out, I couldn't remember what recipe I had used the last time, but it was still edible. I threw together the rest of the ziti and vodka sauce and mostly all the same veggies (had no more onion though), and topped the pasta mix on top of the pizza.

Yeast Mixture

Mixed Dough

Letting the dough rise

Rolled out Dough

I remembered the mushrooms this time...just love the colors!

Pasta Reprise

Pizza on Crust


Final Product w/ extra pasta

Then last weekend, we had a party that was turned into a potluck last minute. I got home later than expected, and didn't realize I was expected to make this fettuccine with sausage and creamy tomato dish that is my go-to dish. When I make it properly sometime, I will post it. But when I got home, I learned that the sausage hadn't actually been defrosted, and I already knew we didn't have fettuccine...and then we also didn't have shallots or heavy whipping cream. Oh well, time to throw some things together again! I did microwave the sausage a little first to defrost. Then I tossed the below garlic, onions, carrots & mushrooms together with the sausage.

Ingredients


Sauteed garlic & onions

Add the spicy Italian Sausage

Add the canned diced tomatoes (such a great dish to throw together in a time crunch)


Final Product And that's all I've got for the Pasta Edition of March Madness! Not too much variety...but how can you go wrong with pasta?

Missed Connection - The Dorito Taco

2012-03-31T14:27:00.001-04:00

Late last Saturday night, I was returning home from a friend's birthday, when I realized that I had some extra time before my train...which meant I could finally try a Dorito Taco from Taco Bell!!! I have heard mixed reviews - some disgusted, some finding it to be a most magical and wondrous thing. Me being...well...me, was really hoping for the magical experience.

I was not disappointed.

I also had a missed connection experience.

w4m.

I didn't get a good look at your face, as I was too busy enjoying my magical taco, but you sat a seat away from me and I could tell you were tall. You were also enjoying your purchase from KFC - which coincidentally is often paired up with Taco Bell. I think it's a sign. Your stop was 3 before mine. Perhaps we shall meet again. I think you might have been my soulmate.

4.22.12 Update

First of all, Happy Earth Day everyone.

Secondly - apparently I am not the only fan of the Dorito Taco as Grub Street recently posted about its success.