J2Food

Veggie Fritatta

2012-01-19T20:54:00.000-08:00

Mmm we've been on a veggie kick in my apartment this week, so here's my contribution to the the healthiness.

Ingredients

2 T olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 yellow onion, diced
1/2 c mushrooms, sliced
1 red bell pepper, diced
1/2 zucchini, diced
1/4 c eggplant, diced
1/4 c parmesan cheese, shredded
6 eggs
1 stalk green onion, sliced (only white part)
salt and pepper

Directions

Heat olive oil in large pan and saute garlic till fragrant
Add in onion and saute till soft, put aside garlic and onion
In the same pan, saute mushrooms till soft and shrunk to about half the size, put aside mushrooms
Saute bell pepper, zucchini and eggplant until just soft.
Beat 6 eggs until combined, add green onion, salt and pepper to taste. Combine cooked vegetables, parmesan cheese, and beaten eggs in a 8x8 baking dish.
Bake frittata at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Broil for another 3 minutes at end.

Feta Green Onion Waffles

2011-05-28T22:02:00.000-07:00

Well I was looking at this recipe for cheddar onion biscuits and they just looked so darn good. Scrambling around my kitchen I found myself some feta cheese and green onions and bisquick, perfect for a savory snack. These were so good, I made myself another batch this morning.

Ingredients

1 egg
1/4 c Feta Cheese
1 c Bisquick Mix
1/2 c milk
1 t vegetable oil
1 green onion chopped
1/4 t salt
1/2 t freshly ground pepper

Instructions

Preheat waffle iron.
In a mixing bowl, beat the egg,and then add all other ingredients. Mix until well combined.
Place mix on waffle iron, should make about 2 waffles. Cook 1 minute longer than normal waffles on your iron.

Feel free to top with some more feta cheese crumbles.

Spam Misubi

2010-11-18T22:53:00.001-08:00

nom nom nom nom. i actually don't like spam. but i do like anything even closely related to sushi. and i guess my love of sushi is greater than my dislike of spam.

okay i'm going to make up for the lack of directions with just a whole lotta pictures.

Ingredients

1 cup uncooked jasmine rice
1 T sushi vinegar
1 can spam (I think I used a 8 oz can)
1 T soy sauce
1 T oyster sauce
1 T white sugar
10 seasoned dried snack seaweed pieces

Instructions

Make your rice, preferably in a rice cooker, otherwise equal parts water and rice in the pot. When your rice is finished, add the vinegar and stir well, then place in fridge to cool.
Cut up spam on the side into ~5 slices
Mix soy sauce, oyster sauce and sugar, and coat spam in the mixture.
Fry spam for about 5 minutes on each side until golden.
Pack rice into your spam can, nice and tight. Put a spam piece on top, then lay a seaweed piece over the spam and flip over. You might have to hit the can a couple of times to get everything out. Add the second piece of seaweed on the rice side, and use some water to stick the two seaweed pieces together on their overlap.
Repeat. And then eat :D

Spinach Orzo Salad

2010-10-11T23:31:00.000-07:00

I went to a potluck on Saturday that I was not aware of until late friday night...so had to make something quick and easy and would feed a good amount of people. I also had to get my car setup for gettaround (sign up if you're at ucsd) so I was carless and making food at Alex and Elliot's place. Interesting because I didn't know where any of their bowls were, or their utensils/ they are not exactly the cleanest boys so everything was in the sink or sitting on the table etc...

But this is a dead simple recipe which you can do for under $8 to feed like 8 people even under dire circumstances.

Taken from all recipes with a few minor changes. http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/spinach-and-orzo-salad/Detail.aspx

Ingredients

1 (16 oz) package uncooked orzo pasta
1 (10 oz) package baby spinach leaves, finely chopped
1 large cucumber, diced
1 1/2 cup cherry tomatoes, quartered
1/2 pound crumbled feta cheese (optionally with mediterranean spices, found some at Trader Joes)
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

Directions

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add orzo and cook 8-10 minutes or until al dente; drain and rinse with cold water.
Transfer to a large bowl and stir in spinach, feta, cucumber, tomato, basil, thyme, and oregano. Toss with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Refrigerate and serve cold.

I ended up leaving half of this salad with the boys and some for the mechanic working on my car. It makes a lot :D

Mish-mash

2010-08-21T10:57:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I'm getting lazy and definitely not-writing-detailed-recipes anymore.

BUT THAT'S OKAY because it (hopefully) means more regular entries (with pictures!) instead of long, empty months of abandonment.

Lemon-thyme Yogurt Cake

The lemon cake base was very tasty, but the addition of thyme, though interesting, made it a little too savory for my taste. A friend commented that it reminded her of cornbread (texture-wise it was still quite cake-y).
A special point: it has olive oil and Greek yogurt!
Lemon-thyme recipe. Original lemon yogurt cake recipe.

Marshmallow Cake

This no-bake cheesecake (the true nature of this deliciously fluffy concoction) is a recipe I had bookmarked for about 4-5 years before finally trying it~~ Originally found it on AllRecipes while looking for a way to use up marshmallows.

Spinach-Cheese Swirls

For these, I vaguely followed this recipe, found on the inside of the Pepperidge Farms Puff Pastry Sheets package.
My significant changes include: using fresh, instead of frozen, spinach (not a great idea, it got messy and weird, though taste-wise it was fine); using whatever cheese I had in the fridge; adding sun-dried tomatoes (delicious~).

Cold Osmanthus Honey Dessert

Okay, I'll post a recipe for this one because, a) it's really easy, and b) the original one is in Chinese (somehow I got it right!...I think).
I made this because I really wanted Osmanthus Jelly (桂花糕) but I could only find osmanthus sauce, and no dried osmanthus flowers (have since found/bought the flowers, will make some proper gui hua gao sometime soon).
Note: it's very very sweet (well duh, 1/4 cup honey?), probably accentuated by the osmanthus sauce's high sugar content. Were I to make this again, I would switch the sauce out for flowers, compensating for this by: infusing flowers in 1/4 c. hot water while making gelatin/water mixture with only 1/2 c. water.

Ingredients:

3/4 tbsp gelatin (um...I guesstimated this into 1 tbsp. maybe. don't quite remember. Also, now that I'm re-reading the recipe, it seems you're supposed to use tapioca flour...oops.)
3/4 c. water
1 tbsp. Osmanthus Sauce (桂花醬)
1/4 c. honey

Steps:

Add the gelatin (or tapioca flour, haha) to the water, slowly heat until it dissolves completely.
Add osmanthus sauce to hot gelatin and water mixture, heat to a low boil.
Remove from heat (remembering to turn off the heat, too), add honey, stir until well mixed, then pour into flat bottomed pan*.
Place pan in refrigerator. Once contents have cooled and completely congealed, remove from refrigerator and cut out cute, bite-size shapes to serve (and eat!).

*I didn't do this part right, haha (you can tell from the photo..?)! Instead of following instructions (because I didn't understand them before, I suppose..), I poured the mixture into little silicon molds, let it cool in the fridge, then ate them out of the molds (because it seemed too difficult to pop them out). Turns out that only the top layer exposed to air is stubbornly sticky, once you cut through that part, the rest comes out fairly easily.

J2Special! La Jolla Living~

2010-08-19T18:02:00.000-07:00

Coronado Island, not-actually-an-island, a little south of La Jolla

So back in May....at the very beginning of summer (for semester folk at least, haha..)....I (Jo) visited UCSD! :D
And of course, because people do not live on bread alone, there was cooking! Together again ♥

Jerk-flavored chicken thighs, Jeanne's awesome stir-fried snap peas, white rice

Recipe for the chicken was partly taken off the bottle of jerk-sauce and partly improvised--basically we put the thighs in a pyrex dish with one onion (sliced), covered the whole thing with the sauce, and baked it (at 375°F?) for 30-40 minutes, turning the thighs over once. Easy&delicious.
I'm not sure exactly how Jeanne stir-fried the snap peas, but they tasted wonderful.

♥dulce de leche cheesecake♥

For the (no-bake!) cheesecake, we bought dulce de leche in a can (by nestle!) and used the recipe printed on the label.
Yummmmy, but very, very rich. Ummm...I don't think we finished it.

Hopefully more updates soon...before I leave for Japan!

~~~* Passion-Orange Sparkling Drink ~~*~

2010-05-13T00:00:00.000-07:00

In celebration of warmer weather, pre/post-finals relaxation, and overall refreshment, here's a sparkling juice drink "recipe" (I like to think of it more as, "guidelines").

Serving size: 1 glass (but easily adjustable!)

Ingredients:
-1 orange, room-temperature
-passion fruit syrup
-cold carbonated water (Calistoga, San Pellegrino, club soda, etc.)
-ice (optional, but definitely nice if you have it)

Method:

Juice the orange. Be impressed by how little juice is contained in that entire orange.
Pour carbonated water into a glass until 2/3 - 3/4 full (this depends on how large your glass is).
Pour in your fresh-squeezed orange juice. Be amused by how it fizzes.
Add in a couple spoonfuls of passion fruit syrup. Stir a few times, to make sure everything's nicely mixed. Taste, then adjust sweetness and passion fruit flavor by adding a little more at a time until desired sweetness/passion is reached.

Notes:
-If you want to make A LOT of this, it's probably most practical to just buy some (not from concentrate) orange juice.
-The proportion of carbonated water to juice is approximately 3:1. That means the final drink is 75% fizzy water, 25% OJ. If you're inaccurate like me, err on the side of more juice, less water.
-The reason temperature is specified for the orange and carbonated water (under ingredients) is...science-y! Sort of. I remember reading somewhere that you get the more juice out of citrus fruits when they are at room temperature than when they are cold from the fridge (there's some scientific reason, I can't articulate it). For the carbonated water, it comes down to gas laws: the colder it is, the more gas will dissolve into the liquid (something to do with molecular motion, I think...hey, chem was a long time ago..). The converse is also true: the warmer it is, the less gas will be dissolved in the liquid. This is why soda is so much more awesome cold. Essentially, for maximum fizziness, refrigerate carbonated beverages.
-I got the idea for this combo from a can of juice concentrate, haha...
-Orange juice + Sprite/7-up is also a most excellent combo. :3

Mini Strawberry Tarts

2010-05-09T22:50:00.000-07:00

Peter came over and since he lacks any kitchen accoutrements at his dorm, we decided to satisfy his cravings for some home cooking. We had some fresh strawberries on hand, time, and a hankering for sugar. Since we were waiting for food to be delivered (from ATE Comfort, super yummy and cheap in the San Diego area) He called his mommy, and she gave us a pastry crust recipe. I googled and found a custard recipe. Good teamwork.

Tart Crust

1 cup flour
pinch of salt
1 T Sugar
1/4 t orange peel (optional)
4 oz unsalted butter
1 T Water
1/2 t vanilla
handful chocolate chips

Mix dry ingredients together
Cut butter into dry ingredients
Add water and vanilla
Mix until holds together
Refrigerate for ~20 minutes until cold
Divide up dough into 6 equal parts. Press dough ball into muffin pan with fingers. Push to cover bottom and sides. Try to make it an even thickness ~1/4 in.
Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes. You might want to check after 10 minutes.
Put chocolate on bottom while still warm. Spread chocolate out on bottom when melted.

Strawberry Filling

1.5 cups fresh strawberries
3 T sugar

Cut strawberries into slices
Sprinkle sugar on top, and mix

Custard Sauce

1 c Milk
1/4 c Sugar
3 Egg yolks
Ice

Heat milk and sugar until simmering, without stirring.
Take off heat, add slowly to beaten egg yolks
Return to burner, and let mixture thicken until coats back of spoon. Be careful not to overheat and cook the egg.
Take off heat and stir over ice until cool
Place in fridge until cold,

Tart Assembly:

Wait until the tart shells are cooled off.
Spoon a bit of custard into the bottom of each shell.
Assemble strawberry slices on top. If you can do it artfully congratuations, if you can't it's still yummy.

Makes 6 mini strawberry tarts.

You'll probably have a lot of leftover custard, mmm. Put on ice cream, dessert, or your spoon.

Strawberry Scones & Cupcake Craziness

2010-04-11T23:42:00.000-07:00

I like alliteration.

But that really doesn't have anything to do with this post besides the title.

Anyway, I didn't cook much at all this past week because it was busy-busy-busy and I still suck at time management. I did eat a lot of salad and hard-boiled eggs. But I -did- manage to bake a couple things (real food? pshhhhaw...), and will now share them (or at least, photos of them) here~ Two recipes to recommend today:

First off...

Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes with Rose Buttercream Frosting~

Recipe from: Joy the Baker

The recipe lists all "organic" ingredients, but my (monetary) resources are somewhat limited, and I gotta move everything outta the apartment in a month or so, so buying a whole new *organic!* set of ingredients would have been...stupid.

Otherwise, both recipes were quite simple and reliable! :D
About the buttercream: What I adorrred the most, is that it doesn't use powdered (confectioner's) sugar!! Instead, the frosting is thickened with a milk-flour mixture. When making the milk-flour mixture, it doesn't ever actually need to boil; you just need to heat it until it's steaming a little, and it'll thicken up just fine. I did notice that after a day or so in the fridge there was a bit of a not-so-smooth crystallization thing happening that probably doesn't happen with confectioner's sugar based frostings (don't really know, I don't usually make frosting...), but taste was still fine. Compared to store-bought and other frosting recipes, it's not as sweet, but I still found it pleeeenty sweet enough.

I made these on Easter day (4/4/10), so these were decorated to go with that lovely commercial-Easter kinda theme. They were also frosted with some Betty Crocker vanilla whipped frosting I picked up at Safeway a while back, instead of the rose.

Concerning rosewater (that's how you get rose flavoring in the buttercream): You can get a nice, 12-oz (I think..) bottle of it at Whole Foods for $3.99 (or was it $2.99? either way, less than $5). That's cheaper than an itsy-bitsy bottle of vanilla at some places (definitely cheaper by-the-ounce than anywhere else). Wow. And it feels like such a luxurious, gourmet flavoring~ Don't try drinking it straight, though. Please, please trust me on this. Seriously. Don't.

...and another set decorated with the vanilla store-bought frosting. I gave these to some of the sophomore guys in my fellowship--the chocolate cake is our sinful lives before Christ, the red sugar the drops of blood Jesus shed, the white frosting the forgiveness and grace with which He purifies and covers our sins, and the egg representative of new life in Him. Complex, cheesy (not in actual, physical taste! just in meaning), and...eggy all at once. Yeah, I'm aware that the toppings look like bloody fried eggs...

and to finish...

Strawberry Scones! ^^

Recipe from: Confessions of a Tart (cute name, yeah? XD)

These were the first shaped/cut/then-baked scones I've made in a couple years.. you know, where you pat the dough into a circle and then cut triangle slices out to bake..? yeah. I usually just do drop scones because it's a lot easier and much less messy. But I had a lot of extra strawberries, and I figured, as a scone-lover, I really ought to give these a try..

They were pretty yummy, and really not as much of a pain as I'd imagined (even the cutting in little butter cubes part). The strawberries were quite juicy, and it all turned out rather tasty~

J2 Special! Strawberry Coffee Cake

2010-03-28T16:47:00.001-07:00

This entry is special!

Why so special?

Because it's the first one we've made together this year AND uploaded to the blog. :D

Strawberry Coffee Cake, recipe from Joy the Baker

yayyy~ :'D

Look it's so puffy! Look it's so sweet. Look, I am hungry all over again.

Back to the Book - Cloverleaf Rolls & Blueberry Buttermilk Muffins

2010-02-28T20:13:00.000-08:00

There's something oddly comforting about using recipes that (wow this is going to sound so 20th century) come from a book. Or print resource (i.e., magazine). NOT from allrecipes, NOT from epicurious, NOT from someone else's foodblog. So weird..

try to ignore the mirrored text. yay for free browser-based webcam apps.

Seeing the method/photos/commentary on someone else's blog makes me feel way more reassured and trusting about the recipe they recommend, though. Whereas when it comes from a book, you get maybe a couple sentences of intro/commentary, a perfect result picture/photo (haha, step-by-step, those books are...more expensive), and a supposed assurance of recipe-testing because, yeah, this did make it to print, right? That strange tendency to believe in solid things..

Anyway, enough rambling! The following recipes are both from real books. Like, the book was open while I was cooking! In the kitchen, on the counter, getting splattered by batter! CRAZY, I know.
(I was going to copy the recipe WORD for WORD, but then I realized that was, like, plagiarism. You know, that thing that makes a 10-page paper worthless, screws your academic record up forever, bad-bad-bad, etc. hmmmmm. Err I'm no awesome recipe writer, so this is still going to be sort of word-for-word, and then where there are more words, i'll use my own. oookay.)
Cloverleaf Rolls (from Joy of Cooking, twenty-fifth printing, 1981)
makes: 24 two-inch rolls
Ingredients: milk, sugar, butter, salt, active dry yeast, water, all-purpose flour, egg (optional), shredded cheese (optional)
Process:

Scald:
   1 c. milk
Add and stir until dissolved:
   1 tbsp sugar
   2 tbsp butter
   1/4 tsp salt
Sprinkle:
1 package active dry yeast (I assumed the size of yeast packets hasn't changed in the last 30 years...)
over:
2 tbsp 105°-115°F water (40°-46°C; lukewarm..)
Add the milk mixture when it has cooled to lukewarm. Beat in:
1 egg (optional! but eggs are tasty, so I added it.)
Sift before measuring (as if I ever do, hahahaha..):
2-2/3 c. all-purpose flour
Stir in about half to two-thirds of the flour; knead in the rest. Basic bread-making principles apply here, so add flour only until dough is "workable"...probably like, not sticking to the floured surface you knead it on. Google "how to knead bread" before starting, it can be helpful. And confusing. Eh, it's google. Place in a greased bowl (I usually put about 1/2 - 3/4 tsp oil in a bowl, then use a paper towel to distribute it evenly over the entire inside). Turn dough over so entire surface is lightly greased (believe me, this will help you so much later).
Cover the bowl and let the dough rise in a warm (~80°F) place until it has doubled in bulk (about 40 minutes to an hour). Punch down the dough. Divide the dough into three even portions. Divide each portion in half. You should now have 6 pieces of dough. Each piece is equivalent to 4 rolls.
Assembling the rolls (there was a cute, very clear picture in Joy, but I'm too lazy/scared of copyright violation [now I'm scared?] to post it):
Take one piece of the divided dough, rip off a fourth of it (this really doesn't have to be super exact. I rarely am). Divide this small chunk into three more pieces. Roll each piece into a ball, and fill the bottom of a muffin tin with the three balls (they should fit, and not be stacked on top of each other). Do this twenty-three more times. Alternatively, you could just roll all the balls first, and then fill the tins, but I tend to lose count, so this method works better for me (though I still managed to lose count..).
Once you've used all the dough to fill tins, brush melted butter on top of each little cluster of dough-balls (this step is SO worth the extra butter and three minutes).
Cover muffin tin, let the dough rise again in a warm place until doubled in bulk. Optional: Sprinkle rolls with shredded cheese (any kind will do..I think. this is suuuper tasty, by the way). Bake in a preheated 425°F oven for 15 - 18 minutes. Remove from pans as soon as they're out of the oven.

each little roll splits magically into three buttery chunks! 8D

Note: This recipe is amazing. When trying it out, I actually halved everything...except for the flour (because I'm horribly forgetful). Soooo, I was slightly panicking when I realized I'd added waaay too much flour (and finally understood why the dough wouldn't absorb any more)...and yet they turned out okay! bahahahaha..

Blueberry Buttermilk Muffins (from The Totally Muffins Cookbook; I borrowed the Joy formatting for this recipe, though :P)
makes: 12 muffins
Ingredients: butter, sugar, eggs, buttermilk*, vanilla, all-purpose flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, blueberries
Process:

Preheat oven to 400°F; grease muffin tins or line with paper cups.
Cream together until light and fluffy
6 tbsp butter
2/3 c. sugar
Add
   2 eggs
   1 c. buttermilk*
   2 tsp vanilla
Lightly beat until blended.
In another bowl, stir together
   2-1/4 c. all-purpose flour
   1/2 tsp salt
   1 tsp baking soda
   2 tsp baking powder
   1/2 tsp nutmeg (actually, I used pumpkin pie spice :P)
Add dry mixture to liquids, stir just until flour disappears. Gently stir in
1-1/2 c. blueberries, fresh or frozen (unthawed)
Fill muffin cups to top; bake 20 minutes. Let cool 5 minutes. Eat at risk of burning tongue, or wait until cool and then eat.

Note: I added red food coloring to the batter (with the eggs and vanilla) on a Valentine's-day-mood kinda whim, so that's why the batter is pink. It's exceptionally useful for deceiving people into thinking the muffin itself is strawberry flavored or something..which it's not.
*I...never need more than a cup of buttermilk, so I usually just make a substitution: 1 c. room-temp. milk (warmed in the microwave) + 1 tbsp. lemon juice or white vinegar. Let sit for five minutes, then use. Smells kinda funky.

...okay. I should probably go study for my midterms now. And write that Chinese essay. And finish that overseas study paperwork. And...

Rosemary Redundancy

2010-02-25T20:29:00.000-08:00

I'm terrible at clever titles, so I really ought to stop trying. >_>;;;

Anyyyway, this commonality in this batch of recipes is...ROSEMARY. mmmm. very...fragrant. yeah. kinda minty. often featured in scalp washes. but uhh that's not what I used my $2.69 (+tax!!) little .75 oz (not even a full ounce!!) box of the herb (no, not that kind of herb) for.

1) Rosemary Bread - this was the main reason I bought rosemary. I reeeally wanted to try baking bread from scratch, this recipe had pretty decent reviews and a nice picture (yeah, photos really can matter), so..I did it. 8D Probably because this was my first time baking bread (allll by myself), the results, though lovely-smelling, were kinda so-so on taste/texture levels--a little too dense, not much flavor. Probably could've used more kneading. In all honesty, it was mediocre, and one of my first thoughts was: "I'll stick to store-bought". It did make really good toast, though (like on reviewer on allrecipes mentioned, haha..). Less of a sandwich bread, far more suited to soup-dipping. Which leads rather nicely into...

2) Creamy Potato with Rosemary Soup - AHHHH. it was good. (need I say more? not really, but I will, hahaha.) I eventually might also add it to a possible post, perhaps titled "Adventures in Immersion Blending: Going Outside the Canister". Or I might never write that post.
Anyway, this soup is awesomely-amazingly thick and creamy. it's kind of like liquidy (in the best way possible) mashed potatoes. I happen to like mashed potatoes, so this really worked for me. :P It's a bit of a fatty, starchy soup, though (well yeah, "creamy", duh), and time-consuming to make; I'd use it again for a special occasion.
note: expect more potatoes in future posts. I bought a 10-lb bag of them, on sale, at Safeway for $0.99. Less than a week later, 5-lb bag is for $3-4. :)

3) Rosemary Lemon Cookies - most delicious shortbread I've been able to bake. probably thanks to an excellent recipe. ^o^ The only thing I did differently from the instructions was to add half a teaspoon of peppermint extract (was going to use it for peppermint bark, but never got around to it with finals and all...). There's still one more log in the freezer, so maybe I'll have more cookies to enjoy (with half the effort!) in a week or two~~

Hearty, but not Heavy -- Shepherd's Pie

2009-12-08T11:51:00.000-08:00

fun fact: my apartment is so cold, the sauce oil in my instant noodle packet congealed.

fun fact II: my apartment is so cold, that even after two hours on the counter, the butter barely softened.

fun fact III: a space heater works more effectively when you put it in an open area, instead of cramming it into a tiny little space...(i.e., the room is warmer now that the space heater isn't trapped under my desk where my feet are)... :P

Wellll, it's been extra cold these past two days (DUDE, snow in the bay area! last time this happened was... 3 or 4 years ago? yeeah), and I was extra hungry today, so I reeeally wanted to try this Shepherd's Pie recipe I saved from Allrecipes~ Since I made a slightly altered and somewhat reduced version, I'll fully explain it here.

Essentially, this shepherd's pie was layers of stuff:
mashed potatoes au gratin (= cheese topping ;D), over
mashed carrots (plain), over
fully-cooked ground beef and onions

Because I am lazy (and because I've had a box sitting around since the beginning of the school year..), I used instant mashed potatoes...the dried flakes that come in a packet, that you add to milk, water, and butter. IT IS DELICIOUS, no matter how weird it is... and it worked just fine for this recipe. meh.

Ingredients (for approx. 1 qt. casserole, a fairly small size, especially convenient for households of...one)

1 packet from the box of seasoned mashed potatoes (enough for 2 people, it says..)
1/2 a shallot, minced
2 carrots, chopped into large pieces (you might actually want another half or whole carrot)
1/2 an onion, chopped (I used a "sweet onion"..it looked yellow?)
1/2 lb ground beef (I'm not sure how much I actually used...it was probably more)
1 tbsp. flour
1/4 c. beef broth
2 tsp. Hoisin sauce
Several generous handfuls of grated cheddar cheese
oil for frying, milk/butter/water for potatoes (follow the instructions, yeeeah), a little bit of salt

Note: I was also going to add some canned corn, but the leftover corn from a can I opened...a while ago (maybe two weeks?)..was ALREADY MOLDY. :( ewww. greenish blue spots and all, yo. Instead, I added a layer of zucchini slices (1/2 a zucchini) to the individual casserole.

HOW-TO:

Depending on how long it takes for your oven to heat, and how long you take to make the layers, remember at some point in the recipe to preheat your oven to 375°F.

Boil some salted water, and when it's rolling right along, add the carrots, and wait for the water to boil again. Boil until carrots are soft-ish (approx. 5-7 minutes). Dump out the water and mash the carrots until lumps are whatever you will tolerate. Laver 2, ready!
Make the mashed potatoes; while still warm, add a handful (according to the original recipe halved, "2 tbsp") of cheddar cheese.
Saute the shallots in a liiittle bit of oil until they are fragrant and starting to go clear. Remove from heat and add into potato/cheese mixture. Layer 1, ready!
Heat some oil over medium, medium-high heat (depends on how patient you are, ahahaha...), and cook the onion until pieces are clear. Add the ground beef and cook till well browned. At this point you can either pour off the fat, or just leave it in the pan like a certain lazy recipe writer (hey, I bought the 90/10 instead of the 80/20 for a reason..gosh, what we're willing to pay for convenience..).
Sprinkle flour over beef and stir in until you don't see anymore white powder. Cook for 1 minute, then add the beef broth and Hoisin sauce (the original recipe called for ketchup, which I don't have--not even stolen packets from In-n-out or McDonald's or the dining commons, sad, I know). Bring mixture to a boil, then simmer for 5 minutes. Or slightly longer than that, depending on how long you forget about it. >_>;;;
Remove beef from heat. Layer 3, ready! Now it's time for casserole-assembly. HOW EXCITING.
Because homemade frozen food is infinitely cooler than commercial, store-bought, chock-full-of-preservatives frozen food, I followed the process described in this Just Bento article (it's really short, no worries) to make a bunch of muffin-tin sized pies that I can nuke(or toast)-and-eat through finals week (instead of wasting hours upon happy hours cooking). I made eight muffin-sized (..in a muffin tin), and one individual dinner-sized one (typical Marie Callendar potpie-size?) in a 2-cup round pyrex container.
Pour the beef and onions into the bottom layer, spread some mashed carrots over that, top with a scoop of mashed potato, cover generously with cheese, and pop it in the oven for 15-20 minutes. It is recommended that you check on it after 15 minutes, and every 3-5 minutes after that it remains in the oven.
Remove it when done. If you want to freeze anything, let it cool to room temperature first (or if your room is like mine, it's near equivalent to a refrigerator..oh wow, the temperature's below freezing outside..32°F), then pop the mini-pies into the freezer. If you have room, you can shove the whole tin in, or if there isn't as much space, carefully remove the pies from the tin and freeze them on a plate or something. After they're thoroughly frozen, put in a freezer bag (I haven't bothered with foil yet...we'll see how that turns out) and leave in the freezer bag until the next time you're hungry. While you're waiting for the to-freeze-pies to cool, though, enjoy the rest of your pie fresh, warm and toasty. :)

A tip I learned from Joy of Cooking about cooking stuff in muffin tins (not sure if it only has to apply to muffins, you know?): if there are any empty cups, fill them with a few tablespoons of water before baking; this prevents stuff in the filled cups from getting too dry. It also allows for more even heat distribution throughout the pan. :) That's usually a good thing in baking, yeah?

Fun Fact Finale: I have an unfortunate tendency to forget about the stuff I put in the oven, especially when I start using the laptop while waiting for it to cook. :P Thanks to this, many cookies have come close, and some lost, to burnt disaster.

Chicken and Dumplings

2009-11-27T16:22:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, one of my friends, Danni, got appendicitis. A group of us went down to visit her in the hospital. It was fairly late, our bus wasn't arriving for another 45 minutes and we were starving so we headed down to the hospital food service area. They had some soup and dumplings. Personally I only got a single dumpling and some gravy which fetched an odd look from our cashier. The dumpling was split between 3 people and was so yummy that I just had to go back for more. Who would have known a lump of dough could be so tasty?

Ingredients
For Chicken Soup

cooked chicken carcass
1/2 onion, roughly chopped
5 cups boiling water
2 celery stalks, 1/2 inch pieces
1 large carrot, 1/2 inch pieces
1 t dried thyme
salt and pepper to taste

For Dumplings

2 cups flour
2 T baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/2 t sugar
1/4 cup melted butter
1/2 c milk

Instructions

In a large saucepan, start heating up the chicken pieces, letting it get aromatic along with the onions. Cook for about 5 minutes, the onions don't have to be soft yet.
Add the 5 cups of water to the chicken, and celery, carrots, thyme and salt and pepper. Simmer for at least 30 minutes.
While the stock is cooking, start making the dumpling dough. Mix all the dry ingredients together, and then the butter, and slowly mix in the milk until it forms a dough. Knead the dough maybe 8 times. Form the dough into 1.5 inch diameter balls. Set aside.
When the broth has finished simmering, fish out the chicken carcass pieces. Pick off any remaining meat and place in the broth. The broth should still have onion, carrot, and celery pieces.
Place the dough balls into the simmering water and place a lid on the pan. Do not open for at least 15 minutes as the dough is cooking in the steam. When the dumplings are ready they should float to the top, enlarged and fluffy. Check to make sure the insides are cooked by inserting a toothpick. If they are not done, cook for another 5-10 minutes with the lid on.
When the dumplings are ready, serve the soup and dumplings together immediately.

Salmon Provencal

2009-11-25T05:51:00.000-08:00

This is what fresh fish should taste like. Simple but beautifully soft and succulent.

I got the recipe from Simply Recipes but again I made a few modifications.

Ingredients

2 Fresh Salmon Fillets
Olive oil for baking Salmon
2 T Olive Oil
1 T Balsamic Vinegar
Juice of 1/2 Lemon
1/2 t Dried Thyme
Salt and Pepper
2 Springs Green Onion, chopped
1 Medium Tomato, diced
1 Garlic Clove, minced

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees
Place the salmon on a greased baking dish, drizzling olive oil on the fish. Salt and pepper to taste.
In a small bowl, mix together the 2 Tablespoons of oil with the balsamic vinegar, lemon juice, and thyme. Squeeze a few drops of lemon juice onto the salmon.
Place the salmon in the oven for 10-12minutes, until pink and just barely cooked through. There may be some cooked fat collecting around the salmon.
Serve the fish immediately topped with the green onions, tomatoes, and garlic and then the oil, balsamic mixture drizzled on top. Garnish with a lemon slice.
Goes well over a bed of pasta, rice, or spinach.

Lemon Butter Prawn Pasta

2009-11-24T16:02:00.001-08:00

I happened to have all the ingredients on hand so this was a delicious midnight snack after playing pool at the pub. It's incredibly easy to put together, I think it took me 15 minutes total. But it's also a recipe that demands top-notch ingredients.

I got the recipe from bbc , I changed it a little bit which I'll just retype here.

Ingredients

small handful of linguine or spaghetti (enough for 1)
1/4 c butter
1/2 c raw peeled prawns , preferably tiger prawns
squeeze lemon juice
small handful flatleaf parsley , roughly chopped
salt and pepper

Directions

Prepare your pasta according to the package directions.
When your pasta is nearly done, melt half your butter on low heat in a saucepan, then saute your prawns in the butter for about 1.5 min.
Squeeze your lemon over the shrimp, and add the parsley and remaining butter. Add salt and pepper to taste. Cook for another minute.
Take the shrimp off the heat immediately and try one to see if it's at the right consistency for you. Better to start off undercooking than to end up with rubbery expensive seafood.
If it's to your satisfaction just pour the entire prawn butter concoction over your pasta and enjoy!

Apple Turnovers

2009-11-19T07:54:00.000-08:00

Well first off, college kitchens are not conducive to baking. I ended up making these turnovers without a rolling pin, pastry brush, or more importantly an oven. Instead, I made due with a good deal of palm pressing, a wooden spoon, and a microwave oven with an oven setting. Okay, so they ended up a bit underdone, but I blame the microwave oven.

Ingredients

1 large granny smith apple
2 T sugar
1 t ground cinnamon
1 egg
1 sheet of puff pastry

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Hopefully, you got a sheet of puff pastry and not a block of it. If you did get a block, roll it out into a square like shape of about 14x14 inches (or larger) The dough should be 1/4" thick. Cut the dough into 4 7x7 inch squares
Cut the apple into thin wedges, the apple should make about 16. Coat these wedges in a mixture of the sugar and cinnamon. Make sure they are well covered.
Scramble the egg in a small bowl, and using a fork.
Brush the egg onto the edges of each of the puff pastry squares with a pastry brush.
Place 4 or so wedges onto each square.
Now fold the squares over diagonally, to make little triangular turnovers. Be sure get all the apple within them, and then pinch the edges close.
Place the turnovers in the baking dish
Brush the tops of the turnovers with the egg wash, and cut 2-3 slits on the tops of the turnovers for steam to come out.
Place in the oven for 20-25 minutes. Serve immediately

Simple Lasagna

2009-11-17T12:06:00.001-08:00

Mmm. I think we all crave a good cheesy lasagna every now and again. My flatmates had just brought back two huge lasagnas in a row from home, and I decided to make my own. The one problem with lasagna is that they come in huge boxes of like 20+ noodles, and you can never use them all up, without having to buy another box. This recipe is really quick for a lasagna recipe. Makes a 9x9 pan.

Ingredients

8 Lasagna Noodles
1 lb Ground Beef
2 T ketchup
1 T mixed herbs
2 T fresh parsley
Salt and Pepper to taste
1/2 onion, chopped
1 1/2 cups ricotta cheese
1 1/2 cups grated mozzarella cheese
4 cups store-bought pasta sauce
3 large tomatoes, sliced

Instructions

Start off by soaking the lasagna noodles in hot water for about 15 minutes.
Mix the ground beef with the ketchup, herbs, parsley, and salt and pepper.
Brown the beef mixture with the onion in a frying pan for about 7 minutes until the meat gets dark, and the pan is full of juices.
Place four of the lasagna noodles in a layer on the bottom of your lasagna pan.
Spread half the ricotta cheese on the noodles, and then half the meat fry. Top with 2 cups of pasta sauce and half of the mozzarella cheese.
Repeat with the remaining ingredients
Top the entire thing with the tomato slices and place in the oven at 350 degrees for 35 minutes.

Bento!!

2009-11-16T21:31:00.000-08:00

I'm finally putting that absolutely lovely gift basket of bento supplies into good use. THANK YOU AGAIN!! ♥ it was like finding a baby on the porch...only much quieter and less worrying. ;D

My favorite online bento resources:

Lunch in a Box -- the emphasis on food safety, healthy cooking, and speed-packing are ♥

Just Bento and Just Hungry -- same owner, similar excellent material; special emphasis on diet/healthy bento

Cooking Cute -- one of the first sites I found; sadly inactive for more than a year now, but still full of useful info, some neat recipes, and lovely pictures

Freakin' Tasty Bento -- this is actually a link to a specific entry: "Bento for Cheap Bastards"; it's a nice little reality check with practical advice :)

all links in food item names go to recipes~

Bento 1!

Top (actually it's the bottom compartment, haha~): white rice (sprinkled w/ green onions post-photo)

Bottom: mini banana-choco muffin; dried mango slices; mock-Italian hamburger halves; balsamic-stir fried bell peppers

(sad story: I flipped it off the table while I was eating, so the mini-muffin and some of the mango slices became not-edible ;-; oh well.)

Bento 2!

Left: Curry-fried rice -- heat leftover curry in frying pan, add rice, heat thoroughly and stir until fairly dry; there was a layer of plastic wrap b/t the rice and the container so it wouldn't be as smelly :P

Right: Trader Joe's gyoza over spinach; one slice of dried mango; chocolate mochi squares; fruit jelly cups

Bento 3!

This is the triangular onigiri case~ :)

Top: Soboro-stuffed onigiri (soboro is easy! awesomely tasty! eat it with plain rice for dinner!)

Bottom: Hard boiled egg (not cut very cleanly..>_>;;), blanched snow peas

the persimmon is table decoration :P

Bento 4!

Left: blanched bok choy stalks and leaf-rosette; tamagoyaki w/ nori filling; leftover pasta and sauce

Right: gingersnap halves; dried mango slices; fruit jelly cup; frozen-then-reheated curry-flavored beef and potato croquettes

Bento 5! BIG (3-person) picnic lunch~

Top: Soboro-stuffed (rounds w/ seaweed wrap), plain rice onigiri (triangles); chicken; zucchini

Bottom: dessert tray; balsamic green beans and red bell pepper pieces

Lemon Chicken Nuggets and Pan-fried Zucchini (used Country Crock margarine--ahahaha yeah i know i said i never use it in baking, but i do use it in sandwiches and stuff--instead of oil)

Dessert: Coconut jello (from a packet; I added less water than recommended so they'd be a little firmer) and blueberries

And then, because this meal was just too healthy, we went and ate $1-a-scoop ice cream. :]

Pumpkin flavor = oooomgsh good. Next time you come to Berkeley, we're going!!

In all honesty, these take 1 - 1.5 hours to prepare, mostly because I'm not a very efficient cook (or person..) yet...haha...having pre-made and frozen stuff, plus leftovers, plus a microwave makes things go much faster~

...I still can't quite believe I sometimes wake up at 6:30 to make lunch.

Recipe Recommendations [I]

2009-11-15T11:12:00.000-08:00

Not everything I make comes from the amazing, fermented brilliance of my mind.

In fact, quite a lot of it originates in other people's recipes, especially those of the huuuuge community at Allrecipes.com~

here are some of the things I've made from there that are worth trying for yourself :D

Gingersnaps! they don't snap, but they're sweet, spicy, and deliciousss
Soft Sugar Cookies IV -- ahh they're kinda cakey. really yummy~~
Rasberry and Almond Shortbread Thumbprints -- oooh they're rather buttery. but an excellent, homemade substitution for those knott's jelly-filled cookies i used to often buy from the vending machines at school.
Easy Fruit Cobbler -- made this with apple slices leftover from an apple pie~ a very bread-like base, and i'd like to try it again with peaches or some other fruit..maybe plums? mmm..
Black Magic Cake -- AHHH it's wonderful. and wonderfully easy. definitely making it again, and trying it with frosting~ (last time it was totally finished even w/o, kept fairly moist for 3-4 days, maybe more!)
Quiche Lorraine -- haha, it's not sweet or a cookie. it's SAVORY and supersuper good. also very easy, and open to modification, like adding spinach~
Chicken and Apple Curry -- i made a couple modifications, like cooking it on the stovetop and chopping the chicken breasts into cubes, but the heart and taste of the recipe was still there. my first successful curry ♥
Caramelized Pork Slices -- a little bit sweet, but still quite good. I'd make it again :)
Spam Musubi --It's so simple that you really only need the recipe the first time; the marinade was tasty, but since i'm usually kinda pressed for time, i don't mind frying the sliced spam straight-from-the-can; also, as long as you're using a non-stick pan, you don't really need oil to fry spam...it's plenty greasy on its own..

click to see full-size! :D

Notes:

I never use shortening or margarine... if they're in any recipe, i always replace them with butter. I do so because shortening scares me, and butter somehow scares me less by being uhhh "natural". it just seems easier to trust. :P
The recipes listed here are simple & ones I haven't made much modification to; they can be followed pretty much as-is (or by reading one or two of the reviews); only the butter thing, halving recipe yields (i usually only cook for 1 person...and for one person to finish everything...too much, yeah?), and ummm dropping-out-spices-because-i-don't-have-them

I went through a whole pound of butter in about one week.
((just thought I'd mention it.))

Sangria and Seafood Paella

2009-11-14T10:20:00.000-08:00

Went to Spain for the last couple of days and I took a "cooking" class. Well, I watched someone else make food more-like but here were the recipes, and they were delicious.

SANGRÍA

Tools required:

· A jug / pitcher.
· A wooden spatchulla.
· Thirst.

Ingredients:

· Fruit, washed and chopped (orange, lemon, apple, peach…).
· White sugar.
· Brandy and fruit liquour if you like such as peach snaps.
· Red wine.
· Orange and lemon soda, or juice.
· Ice.

Procedure:

Place the fruit in the jug, add the sugar and the brandy (count until 3 or 23) and mix with the spatchulla.

Then 2/3 of red wine and top up with the soda / juice.

Serve chilled or with ice and carefull, it’s so sweet, refreshing and easy-drinking, you may get under ground before you realize.

PAELLA

In 10 easy steps

Tools required:

· Fire (or it’s electric equivalent).
· A flat pan (a flat frying pan but not a wok).
· A wooden spatchulla.
· Hunger and patience.

Ingredients:

· Prawns.
· White fish, boneless and skinless, in chunks.
· Calamari rings / squid fish.
· Mussels / clams, clean.
· Olive oil.
· Onion and garlic, chopped.
· Red pepper/capsicum, courgette/zuccini, green asparragus, carrot, green peas, green beans or any other seasonal vegetable of your choice, chopped small.
· Tomatoes, blended.
· White rice (long grain if you don’t want a mashy paella).
· Fish broth.
· Olive oil.
· White sugar.
· A pinch of safron.

Procedure:

1- Cover the bottom of the pan with olive oil, heat and slightly fry the prawns for a minute. Take them out and save for the end.

2- Add the garlic and the onion until it appears translucent.

3- Add the rest of the veggies and cook slowly and then the tomato until all the colors start blending.

4- Toast a little sugar and mix the golden caramel with the vegetable base.

5- Add the rice, a handful per person, plus one for the pan , cook for a minute ensuring it doesn’t stick at the bottom with the wooden spatchulla.

6- Fully cover with broth, sprinkle the safron all over and allow to cook with no rush, slowly, at the lowest heat until the rice is about 74.18% cooked or until somehow you can predict it only needs 5 more minutes and has enough broth for it. Trick: taste a little bit and by the way check if it’s salty enough.

7- Place the sea food on top, in circles if you want a charming one.

8- Once it’s 95% cooked (the rice is tender but not mashy and the fish is done but not flaked out) cover the paella with a tapa, wether it is a lid, foil or a cloth. Wait for 10 minutes or take the chance to open a chilled bottle of white wine or fresh water or prepare a jug of sangría.

9- Proceed to enjoy your paella served on a plate or eating straight from the pan with a wooden spoon like the creators of this dish from Valencia’s countryside (although they had no fish there -minor detail- but you could have done a meaty paella instead).

10- Lay on your bed or your beach towel, on the beach (supposing it’s already 4pm and the sun is not roasting) and close your eyes. Think about how mellow it feels or instead, think nothing and just chill... For 30 minutes! If you crash out and sleep through the afternoon that’s not a “siesta”! Traditionally, the man of the house prepares a paella on Sundays and does the washing up as well.

Notes:

To prepare a broth, slightly fry in a deep pot the parts of the fish or meat you don’t eat in a bit of olive oil and add salt. You can also use garlic, parsley or white pepper if you like. Then add a large amount of water, allow to boil for about an hour and strain it.
You can either add the clean mussels with the shell closed or steam them first for a couple of minutes with a little white wine and mix this liquid with the fish broth.
The ten minute wait for the paella to meditate will allow all the flavors to settle down and fuse while the rice absorbs the rest of the broth. Be aware some times this last step overcooks the rice, so we can stop the fire when there’s still a little broth and the rice “only needs a little bit more”.
In the hypothetical case the heat wasn’t low enough and the rice got really stuck at the bottom of the pan and it’s burning, don’t scratch it and keep going like nothing happens. Eat only the top and next time you know!
If you prefer you could finish cooking the paella in the oven once you have poured the broth.

Spicy Asian Style Chicken

2009-11-03T05:48:00.001-08:00

This was my quick lunch in between classes. Yay for improvisation! Makes enough to serve 2.

2 Chicken Breasts
1 T Soy Sauce
1 T Chinkiang Black Rice Vinegar
1 t Oyster sauce
2 T Vegetable Oil
1 t ground chilli pepper
1 pinch chilli pepper flakes
1 green onion, sliced thinly
1 c snap peas, with ends cut off
rice

Clean the chicken breasts, and cut off any stringy white tendon. Cut the chicken into large 1.5 inch chunks, feel free to make a stab or two into each piece so the marinade gets in better.
Mix together the soy sauce, vinegar, oyster sauce, vegetable oil, and chili pepper. Add the chicken and coat.
Fry the chicken on medium heat for 6 minutes. Add the green onions and snap peas, then stirfry for another 5 minutes.
Serve over rice

Vermicelli is Magical

2009-10-28T19:05:00.000-07:00

Magically easy to make delicious!

Just the noodles:

Soak dry vermicelli for about 15 minutes in a bowl with enough warm water to cover the top. As they soften, loosen the noodle-block by gently stirring and shaking it apart.
Start heating some broth (vegetable, chicken, beef, w/e you want) in a sauce pan, add the noodles, and then add enough broth to come even with the noodles, or just under.
Bring to a boil, then stir over medium or medium-low heat until vermicelli has absorbed almost all liquid.
Toss noodles into a colander, and quickly rinse with cold water; I suspect this rinses off extra starch or something, and I know it makes the vermicelli less sticky and easier to handle.
You're done! Add a sauce, chill it for a while to eat cold (or rinse in more cold water), or follow me to the next recipe...

Curry Stir-fry Vermicelli

Curry (I used leftover homemade green tofu Thai-style curry...it wasn't made very well, which was why I had leftovers)
Cooked Vermicelli
Any extras--extra veggies, maybe a little broth or water if your curry is really dry, or curry powder if your curry is bland (which is very, very unfortunate for curry, and partly why mine wasn't so tasty..)

Heat a non-stick frying pan (or wok or skillet, just something that will conduct heat, yeah?).
If your curry is cold from the fridge, heat it through first either by microwave or in the pan. Pour curry into pan, and once it's warm, add noodles.
Heat curry and vermicelli to a food-safe temperature (steaming, hot, yeah yeah), stirring so that the curry coats all the noodles. Add any extras while stirring so they can coat they noodles, too. :)
Pour onto a serving dish, yay, you have food!

Meat Bake a la Olaf and Meatballs

2009-10-26T11:28:00.001-07:00

So I remember Olaf describing to me a meal that he had from time to time, a sort of personal comfort food. Here's my version of his meat bake, it was pretty good. I ended up mashing it all together on my plate and while it looked gross, was pretty delicious. I had extra meat so I made some meatballs for subs. Makes 2 servings and 6 meatballs.

Meat Bake!

1 large sweet potato
1/2 lb ground beef
1/4 c diced onion
2 cloves garlic minced
1 T dried thyme
2 T olive oil
1 T fresh parsley, and some extra for garnish
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 large tomato sliced

Poke some holes the sweet potato, and then microwave on high for 20 minutes.
While your potato is cooking, mix together the ground beef, onion, garlic, thyme, olive oil, parsley and salt and pepper. It's gooey but doing it by hand is more fun.
When your potato is done, slice it in half, and scoop out the insides. Mash this up and spread along a small baking dish. Layer your tomato slices on top, and finish with a layer of your meat mixture, about a 1/2 inch thick. You'll have extra meat leftover to make meatballs with.
Place your dish in the broiler at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes or when meat looks done.

With your extra meat feel free to make some meatballs. I made six 1-inch ones which I just fried in olive oil for use in meatball subs later.

Pad Thai a la Martina

2009-10-24T11:11:00.000-07:00

So instead of working on my essays, we decided to make Pad Thai. Martina, my german flatmate, and self-proclaimed Thai foodie, and I set off to make her recipe. This isn't the typical red Pad Thai you find in the states. Enough for 4.

6 T Fish Sauce
4 T Soy Sauce
6 T Granulated Cane Sugar
2 T Tamarind Extract
200g Thai rice noodles (the flat 1/4th inch type)
4 eggs
2 Cloves Garlic minced
2 Cups Bean Sprouts
3 Stalks of green onion sliced, with some leftover for garnish
1 Cup Shrimp
2 T chilli powder
3 T crushed peanuts, wish some leftover for garnish
Vegetable oil

Soak the rice noodles in some hot water for 5-10 minutes until they are pliable.
Start heating up a wok with some vegetable oil. Mix the fish sauce, soy sauce, sugar and tamarind in the wok, heating until the sugar is dissolved and the sauce is simmering. Move the sauce into some other bowl.
Scramble your eggs in the wok, adding some fish sauce if you like. Move the eggs to another bowl.
Drain the rice noodles and run through cold water. Heat up some more oil then add the garlic, stirring for about a minute. Add the rice noodles and bean sprouts to the garlic. Pour the sauce you made earlier over the noodles, and stirfry for about 8 minutes. Add the green onion, shrimp, chilli powder and peanuts and cook for another 3-4 minutes until the shrimp are done.
Serve your meal garnished with green onions and peanuts on top.

Pumpkin Mochi

2009-10-07T18:23:00.000-07:00

I ♥ Daiso's $1.50 SUPERcute cookware~

Mochi is delicious. Cake is delicious. Pumpkin is delicious (and wonderfully appropriate to the autumn season~).

Something that combines all three? 3x the deliciousness! Plus, it's really easy to make. :D

Recipe from Allrecipes.com : http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Pumpkin-Mochi/Detail.aspx

I followed the recipe nearly exactly--my only two changes were:

I added the mochiko (rice flour) mixture to the liquid-y ingredients; ever since a certain experiment with making nian gao (rice cake), I realized it's a lot easier to mix stuff when you add the dry to the liquid. There may be times where you shouldn't do this, but mochi is not one of those times.
I baked some of the batter in little star-shaped souffle dishes (see picture); these took about 30 minutes in my toaster oven @ 375°F (temp. from recipe). There was still pleeeenty of batter left for the 9x13 pan.

Scones

2009-10-04T00:21:00.000-07:00

Cranberry Scones

This scone recipe is really easy to make, really easy to modify, and yields results most delicious when eaten warm from the oven (or microwave)~ It only takes [me...and I'm slow..] about an hour (20 minutes of that being bake-time where you can wash the dishes or finish last homework or something), so you can bake them in the morning for a fresh breakfast. To speed up the process, prepare the mix of dry ingredients the night before.
Reference: All Recipes - Blueberry Scones

Servings: approximately 12 three-inch diameter scones

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/8 cup white sugar, plus a little more for later
1 tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup butter, chilled
3/4 to 1 cup dried cherries, cranberries, some kinda small fruit pieces
3/4 cup half-and-half cream
1 1/2 tbsp almond OR vanilla extract
1 egg

Steps

Preheat oven to 375°F (190°C).
Mix flour, sugars, baking powder and salt in a medium-large bowl. Cut the butter into these dry ingredients (I use two knives and just kinda chop at it until it all looks very crumbly). Stir in the fruity bits so that they're distributed somewhat evenly in the mixture.
In a separate, smaller bowl, beat together the cream and egg, adding in the flavoring extract when almost mixed. Slowly pour these liquid ingredients into the bowl of dry ingredients, and gently stir until the wet and dry are well mixed. At this point, it'll look and feel pretty sticky.
Take a spoon and start dropping spoonfuls onto a parchment-covered (or else ungreased, but hopefully nonstick) baking sheet. Space the blobs apart a little because they do spread 1/2" to 3/4". When done dropping the scone batter, sprinkle the tops with sugar, then pop them into the oven to bake for about 18 - 20 minutes.

And that's it~ Eat them warm with butter, jam, etc. They keep for at least 3 - 4 days (perhaps more in a refrigerator?). Microwave cold scones for about 10 seconds to bring back to original tastiness.

Cherry Almond Scone

Rosemary Potatoes

2009-10-01T15:56:00.001-07:00

Quick and Easy! Don't worry about peeling the potatoes just wash them well. Chop up potatoes into wedges. Each potato should make around 6. Enough for 1 person.

3-4 small yukon potatoes
1 T Rosemary
1/2 t salt
1/4 t pepper
3 T Olive Oil

Toss all ingredients in a ziploc bag or mix in a bowl.
Place in a microwavable bowl in the microwave on high for 15 minutes.
Put in the broiler if you wish for 2 min at 400 degrees.

Makes a good side dish :D

Tofu a la Peter

2009-10-01T10:37:00.000-07:00

Similar to Ma Po Tofu without the meat. Enough for 2 people.

Tofu - 1 package
Peanut Oil - tablespoon
Oyster sauce-1/3 cup
Red Hot sauce with the rooster on it - 2 teaspoons
Rice Vinegar- tablespoon
Soy Sauce-tablespoon
Sesame Oil-3 teaspoons
Green Onions- 2
Peanuts-as much as you want

Cut up the tofu into 1/2 - 1/4 inch cubes.
Then put tofu in a pan with some peanut oil and cook it until no more water comes out and the tofu is a little browned remember to keep stirring it.
Mix oyster sauce hot sauce rive vinegar soy sauce sesame oil together and pour that on the tofu. Make sure the tofu is evenly coated then take it off the heat and add peanuts and green onions.

J2Food

Veggie Fritatta

Feta Green Onion Waffles

Spam Misubi

Spinach Orzo Salad

Mish-mash

*J2Special!* La Jolla Living~

~*~*~* Passion-Orange Sparkling Drink *~*~*~

Mini Strawberry Tarts

Strawberry Scones & Cupcake Craziness

*J2 Special!* Strawberry Coffee Cake

Back to the Book - Cloverleaf Rolls & Blueberry Buttermilk Muffins

Rosemary Redundancy

Hearty, but not Heavy -- Shepherd's Pie

Chicken and Dumplings

Salmon Provencal

Lemon Butter Prawn Pasta

Apple Turnovers

Simple Lasagna

Bento!!

Recipe Recommendations [I]

Sangria and Seafood Paella

Spicy Asian Style Chicken

Vermicelli is Magical

Meat Bake a la Olaf and Meatballs

Pad Thai a la Martina

Pumpkin Mochi

Scones

Rosemary Potatoes

Tofu a la Peter

J2Special! La Jolla Living~

~~~* Passion-Orange Sparkling Drink ~~*~

J2 Special! Strawberry Coffee Cake