Snowballs

Hello, my pretties! I figured I'd start the holiday season off with a Christmas cookie post. I wanted to eat these yesterday, so I decided to make them. And then proceeded to eat about 15. Whoops. Also known as Mexican Wedding Balls and Russian Teacakes, I like to call them pecan snowballs (though this time I used walnuts and they were delicious) in the winter. Easier than anything, and only 5 ingredients! I took my own pictures, but then couldn't find my camera cord, so instead am just posting some I found on the internet. But the recipe is mine, so fear not!


Snowballs:
2 c. flour
3/4 c. powdered sugar, plus some for rolling
1 c. (two sticks) butter, softened
1 t. vanilla
1 c. chopped nuts (pecans, walnuts, hazelnuts)
–> you can either chop the nuts in a food processor or by hand (I did the latter this time, because it's quieter and also more satisfying)

Sift flour and powdered sugar in a bowl. Beat in butter, vanilla, and nuts, but beware flying powder if you go too fast. Roll into small balls (1-inch or so, depending on what looks appealing to you) and place on a baking sheet. Bake for 12-15 minutes at 325 degrees (I set it for 10 and then add time as needed--you want them to be very lightly browned, almost unnoticeably so).
Remove from oven, let cool on wire rack. Once cooled (or at least cooler, since I can never make myself wait til they're really cold), roll in powdered sugar. Wait a few more minutes/until they're cold, and roll in powdered sugar again. Eat. Share, because a) there will be plenty, and b) they're best the day they're made or the day after, but any longer than that and ... they're still delicious, just not AS delicious.
Makes about 30? Varies depending on cookie size. Delicious with tea or coffee. Be careful not to breathe in when you're eating them, because you'll inhale powdered sugar and cough rather unappealingly. But YUM!

pear pie, farewell dinner

pear pie made with sudhir (cousin).
noodles my mom made for the farewell dinner

Filipino Brunch: Tortang Talong

Went to brunch this afternoon with Sekhar at Bistro Luneta, a Filipino place in downtown San Mateo. I ordered Tortang Talong, which is layered eggplant tempura with sauteed ground pork, scrambled eggs, banana (flavored) ketchup. It was delicious.

Chocolate Roll-Out Cookies and Nutty Wheat Bread

This post consists of two baked goods: one full of nuts and healthiness, the other full of cocoa and deliciousness.

1. "Brownie Roll-Out Cookies"

Borrowing this recipe from the great smitten kitchen blog, I embarked upon a dark chocolate journey. These cookies demand to be soaked. Milk is great, but ice cream (as in, ice cream sandwiches) are even better.

2. Whole-Wheat Bread with Sunflower & Flax Seed

This one came from a peer-rated recipes site that I like to visit. The recipe called for 1/2 wheat flour and 1/2 bread flour. However, I wanted to make this whole wheat for my diabetic father.

I tried increasing the yeast to 2 teaspoons, and decreasing the overall amount of flour to 2 1/3 cups. Apparently this was not enough, since it was still rather dense and didn't taste as much of yeastiness. I'd try an entire yeast packet and 2 cups of wheat flour next time.

The too-dense batter. Looks like bread already!

Oh well. It was very nutty, as my parents like, so I'd consider this a step towards success. (Rather than a complete failure.) I would have tried to make it better, but I was packing and ready to leave for Swarthmore!

I want to try to make more bread! It's fun and rewarding. My little sister points out that it's not very cost-efficient (as it is for other baked goods), but what the hell. It's vastly more delicious than store-bought bread.

I Ain't No Challah-back Girl

Or maybe I am.

Pepper Bhajis

1. Slit the banana (or bell) peppers and soak in tamarind water to make them less spicy and give them a tamarind flavor.
2. Mix a wet dough using water and besan (chickpea) flour and dip pepper halves.
3. Then fry in oil till golden.
4. Top with onions, lemon juice, and salt. Spicy, salty, sour, deep-fried deliciousness!

Graham Crackers!

These are profoundly delicious, thanks to the molasses, cinnamon, shortening, and other goodies that go into them. It's also fun to poke holes in them with a fork before baking.

Let me know if any of you want the recipe! My recipe calls for the addition of rye flour, but I just used white & whole wheat and they turned out really well.

Bread

To distract myself from my disappointment, I made a loaf of bread! Isn't it beautiful? The photo is ostensibly for scale, but actually just gave me a chance to be really sketchy with a loaf of bread. :)

The ingredients are:

1 scant Tbsp yeast (mixed with warm water & a pinch of sugar and left to sit)
1 heaping Tbsp brown sugar
1 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 cups white flour
1 tsp salt (VERY important)
3/4 cup milk (or possibly water)
herbs! if you want

You have to knead it quite a bit, then let it rise and punch it down several times before baking it for 40-45 minutes at 350˚. I was also inspired to brush the top with a leeetle bit of egg white before baking, to give it that classy shine.

I'm liberal! (surprise, surprise)

I'm not sure why granola is associated with liberals but I have learned to love it so much (after eating way too much of it this past semester when I first discovered it) that I made some myself.

eat. eat. sleep. cook (occassionally). eat. itch. sleep. repeat.

Greetings from the West Coast! I said that I probably wouldn't post anything else but my hungry thumb (ha ha..no...) was itching to cook when I made it back to a real kitchen in my house. So here goes!

My first venture of the summer was SPINACH & LENTILS! I ate some of Urooj's mom's and then some of Urooj's and every single time I ate them, I nearly keeled over from excitement...so I decided to try it out and needless to say, I didn't do as good as a job as both of them. (attempting to replicate Urooj's sad rabbit) I did make a tasty dish but I just couldn't replicate the flavor(s). One reason may be that I used minced garlic instead of

chopped garlic and a different type of lentils. Nevertheless, here is a picture of it.

So tasty but not what I expected. I'm going to try to obtain the correct lentils and make this dish until I get it right so that I can feast on fiber-laden lentils all semester long...yay

And here comes dessert! So I made cheesecake from a recipe that I obtained last summer from Jordan/family. Did I succeed? maybe..it was fantastic but not perfect...but then again, cheesecake is one of those things that pretty much needs to be perfect. Here are the pics..

HELLO, HOMEMADE CRUST! (I <3>

Hello, cheesecake that is not quite ready yet but straight out of the oven so that it smells amazing and deserves to have a couple pictures taken of it.

Hello, slice of cheesecake, that will bring me much joy in the next two days (or perhaps less)!

Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with Dark Chocolate Frosting

Chocolate cupcakes with chocolate chips and chocolate frosting. Yeah, you need a high chocolate tolerance for these. I made the cupcakes with Niki and the frosting with Arik.
The plain "before" cupcake:
Here's the cupcake recipe. Tip: we put in a whole 2 cup bag of chocolate chips. Do it.
After frosting:
We sort of made up the frosting by taste as we went along. Arik assured me that nothing would go wrong if we just kept mixing in different delicious ingredients and taste-testing the results. I was skeptical but he turned out to be right-- the chocolate frosting is really rich and delicious.

Start by melting the chocolate in a bowl over simmering water, and slowly add butter, cream, sugar, and cocoa powder. Keep stirring until it thickens and let it sit in the fridge until it has frosting consistency.

Ingredients
1/2 stick butter
3 squares unsweetened baker's chocolate
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 1/2 cup confectioners sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
Just one was enough to put me into a blissful chocolate coma.

More Peru

I wish I had pictures now, but I suppose y'all will just have to wait for that. Here is the latest update from Peru, this time from the heights of the Andes. Enjoy!

We're in the Andean mountains now, staying on Lake Titicaca at 13,000 feet. [Note: On the Bolivian side of the lake is where Chipaya is spoken. If they were there, Jasper could make use of the one Chipaya word he knows--hwala, or "llama". What a pity, all that drilling for nothing...] The altitude is awful, but a nice combination of coca tea, water and advil are finally making me feel less lethargic. On our domestic flight, they served us a little snack in an awesome looking box. It featured a yummy sweet cake and some crackers, all very neatly arranged in the box. I liked the food, although the Irish couple sitting next to me didn't, which they blamed on their altitude medicine. Fortunately, the snack survived our two landing attempts in Cuzco (the pilot had to pull up at the last second before we hit a ditch by the runway due to the winds). At our hotel, I tried alpaca, which is really tender and lean (apparently also cholesterol free!). [Alpaca yarn is also really soft and lovely. They're the miracle animal!] Coca leaf tea tends to dull your hunger (along with pain and altitude sickness). As a result, when we went into Puno for a late night dinner, I couldn't even finish my soup even though it was so good. I think it had couscous or a similar grain, a big potato, cheese, and some other Andean ingredients. My parents had a trout and potato sampler, which they really enjoyed. Just wait until I can send the photos to Amy for uploading!

Peru

Well, gang, Jasper is in Peru now, and after one day there has already done more for the food blog than I have in the past month. But since I'm posting it, can we give me a little credit? Just enough that you all don't pelt me with rotten squash when I see you for not posting at all. Now, I may be a little bit biased, but this post is so much funnier than anything I could ever write. I should probably just give my spot on the food blog committee to Jasper, but then again, he didn't make any of this food and so has no official food blog cred. Keep that in mind at the next group meeting, should a vote arise. I told him he should write for the Phoenix, but he took that as an insult (I just figured he should start small!) and proceeded to tell me that his parents were once featured in the NYT food section. I'm investigating the legitimacy of this claim...But enough of my ramblings. Enjoy!

Peruvian food varies widely. The coast is nothing but seafood, while the Andean people enjoy llamas, guinea pigs, alpacas and other adorable creatures. Not dogs though. Peruvians are civilized enough to not eat dogs. [Thanks for the shout-out, dear.] South America is where corn, peppers and potatoes come from, and in our first day we've already had several forms of each that I had never heard of. Another popular food in Peru is called "Chifa," which comes from the Mandarin word for to eat rice. It's a Chinese-Peruvian hybrid created by Chinese immigrants, and many of the dishes are to Peru what pizza is to Americans.

Dispatch One: 30,000 feet above Cuba, heading from Atlanta to Lima

On the airplane ride down, we were privileged enough to sample some of the cuisine of the Delta people. I had a delightful piece of chicken on a bed of gently mashed potatoes. The grainy yet watery texture nicely complimented the "vegetables," whose fall-apart-in-your-plate tenderness made the terrorism-proof knife hardly necessary. The real star of the meal though was the piece of bread with a "butter-like spread." Also, there was a slice of cheese from Amy's home state. I can now say that Oregon is easily in the top 50 states for cheese, though it's place there is jeopardized by the possibility of Puerto Rice becoming a state. The cookies were super though - Milanos. I later pocketed two additional cookie packs while waiting to use the lavatories for my after-dinner smoke.

Dispatch Two: Lima (photos when I return!)

For lunch we went to an awesome ceviche place near our hotel. On each table was a small bowl of "popcorn" - roasted kernels of corn that hadn't popped, but still had a nice crunch. We started with a mixed plate of ceviche, featuring delicious octopus (my first time eating this!), squid (my brother ate all of it), shrimp (o so good), and various types of fish (all melted in my mouth). The plate also came with some sort of sweet potato or yam that was rich enough to be a dessert and a super-hot pepper that my mom and I tried. It tasted like bungee jumping, except without a bungee cord. My main dish was tuna, which was maybe cooked a few seconds too long, in a pepper sauce with a yellow rice and mushroom risotto. It was all awesome food.

For dinner, we went to a restaurant that is right next to an archeological site. Part of the proceeds from every meal go towards the restoration and archeological work on the pyramid there. The restaurant was awesome, although my brother, Elijah, questioned their choice to buy so many bottles of wine when situated in earthquake territory. My dad and I split an appetizer sampler. It had four appetizers: scallops on shells with some sort of fried onion or potato (my mind is blanking from tiredness), a stuffed meat dumpling, a potato with ceviche on top, and fried guinea pig (at Amy's insistence). The guinea pig tasted a tadbit like chicken, which may either disappoint or delight you. For a main course, I had an Argentinean steak with potatoes. Strips of potatoes had been stacked to form a rectangular cube that looked so cool that I felt bad taking the first bite. Elijah had a Chifa inspired beef dish, my mom had something awesome involving fish, and my dad had ... something else. I seem to have left my memory in the northern hemisphere. Sadness. Dessert was chocolate volcanoes for me and my brother, a dish involving rice pudding for my mom, and a dessert we had never heard of for my dad. His dessert was some sort of pastry, with a chocolate covering and some sort of paste on the inside. We theorized that it might be some sort of sweet potato or yam, since it was orange/sweet potato colored. We also enjoyed pisco sours, whose taste made paces drinks seem like child's play. The waiter also paired the 3 of age (18 is drinking age!) diners' dinners with wines. My parents had white, while I had an Argentinean red wine. Fortunately, I did not pull a Mark Sanford and pair the Argentinean steak and wine with an Argentinean soul mate.

Tomorrow, we head up to 13,000 feet to start getting acclimated for our trek. Whenever I next get internet I'll send in the latest on Andean food and coca leaf tea. Happy winter and thanks for making me a guest blogger!

Artichoke Hearts with Mushroom and Peas in a Lemon Sauce

Artichokes have always struck me as kind of mysterious. I 'd never eaten or cooked one and had no idea how to attack a whole artichoke. Even reading the recipe freaked me out a little: "Now, from the top, and in a circular motion, cut out the hairy choke". Hairy choke? That sounds terrifying. Fortunately Niki kept a cool head and all went smoothly. Yum.
We used fresh whole artichokes but this version of the recipe uses frozen artichoke hearts to save time.

Whole Wheat Apple Muffins

I'm proud of these babies. Jen, Omer, and Niki have all approved these muffins which makes me so happy/relieved because this summer has been one of baking failures. Cooking successes, but baking failures. Here's the recipe.

I took SmittenKitchen's advice and topped the muffins with a lot of brown sugar (and cinnamon, of course) and this made the tops crunchy and delicious. Other alterations to the recipe: I threw in some walnuts, doubled the amount of cinnamon, and substituted heavy cream with 1 tbs lemon for the yogurt. This makes me seem somewhat competent, but I honestly panicked when I realized that I didn't have yogurt. But the internet is a wonderful thing and after some intense googling I discovered the substitute. I've already devoured three. Whole wheat is good for you, right? ;)

Omer took some photos too, so you may see some better gratuitous food porn shots up here soon.

Spicy Shrimp & Spring Rolls

I went home one weekend and was excited to have a stove again. I was going to make some pork picadillo that sounded pretty delicious. (Recipe here.) I didn't, however, because my mom wanted me to use the leftover shrimp she had.

So I began peeling and deveining a pound of irregularly sized shrimp. This takes forever, everyone. Once done, I tossed the shrimp in some olive oil, paprika, cayenne pepper, and garlic and threw them in the pan.

They tasted pretty good, actually. I made a lame attempt at garnishing the plate of just shrimp.

Just when I was about to make an accompanying salad, my brother walks in and announces he has a sore throat and won't be able to eat. Darn it--the only willing meat-eater around!

My mom makes me feel better by whipping out everything needed to make fresh spring rolls. You usually put plain, unboiled shrimp in them. But we could use the spicy shrimp. Why not!

Here you can see the heap of lettuce and fresh herbs (mint, sawtooth herb, some other things I do not know the name of). My mom is also slicing up some cucumber unto her plate, which already contains the wet rice paper and herbs. We happened to have some unripe mango lying around, so we decided to add it in.

Here is a step-by-step layering of the ingredients.

I couldn't take a picture of myself rolling them up. That's too many hands that I don't have. So here's an action shot of my mom:

And this is her finished product, with the shrimp all lined up inside the roll. And some obligatory fish sauce with chili. Almost every Vietnamese dish needs fish sauce!

Sorry about taking up so much room on the blog, but I love pictures of food! Does anyone know how to hide part of the entry under a cut?

Anyway...these were pretty good. I prefer my spring rolls with plain shrimp, though. That way the sauce and all the herbs get to contribute their own delicious flavors. Oh well! At least we did something with all that shrimp.

Triple (Sorta) Chocolate (Sorta) Delight (Sorta)

Shilpa and I made these (sorta) delectable concoctions, but they didn't turn out quite as expected...mostly because Shilpa and I (read: Neena) cut a few corners during the baking/making process.

For 21 cookies, we used 5 oz. (rather than the 8 called for) of unsweetened (rather than semi-sweet) chocolate. We also forgot to use 2 cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips and overestimated the amount of sugar to compensate.

They look cupcake-y (and well, turd-y) and tasted chocolate-y but not sweet. The texture is ok. Like many fine wines and cheeses, they've gotten better with time...as I adjusted...to the taste.

Here's the recipe. For you to never ever replicate.

Sushi? Kimbap? Not really.

So it wasn't an authentic anything (hell, we didn't even use sushi rice, we used arborio) but it was delicious. And surprisingly quick. Cooking the rice was the most time consuming part. Niki is vegetarian so we put in egg, cucumber, and carrot. Next time I want avocado.

Small Batch: Chocolate Chip (cinnamon?) Cookies

I got a craving for chocolate chip cookies this afternoon. I didn't want to make a lot so I googled "small batch chocolate chip cookies" and this recipe made 10 cookies:
2 T plus 2 t butter room temp
2 T brown sugar

2 T granulated sugar

2 T egg, well beaten
1/4 t vanilla
1/4 cup plus 2 T flour
scant 1/4 t baking soda
1/8 t salt
1/3 cup chocolate chips (not enough in my opinion...throw in a handful more)
Optional: 1 teaspoon cinnamon. I absolutely cannot resist adding cinnamon when baking.

Cream the butter and sugars, mix in the eggs and vanilla, stir in the dry ingredients, then the chips. Bake at 375 for 8-11 minutes.

I am no baking expert (that's you, Ames) and in my hurry I forgot the baking soda! Explains why the cookies are kind of flat. Somehow they're still good: crispy around the edges and soft and chewy in the middle. My only complaint is that they're a little too sweet- try this using less sugar.
Mmm. With a glass of milk.

Naan Revisited

Liz and I went to visit Shilpa! And she made us naan! I would say that I helped, but that would be a lie: after pinching off a piece of dough to roll out, I promptly dropped it on the floor.

This time, Shilpa experimented with thyme, garlic powder and dill, and the results were delicious. I especially liked the flavor of the dill with the naan. I will be making my own this week, I hope.

Brodard Chateau

So there's this uppity Vietnamese-French restaurant in Garden Grove, in the hub of the Vietnamese community in Orange County. The restaurants in the area can be quite good, but tend to lack a sense of decor, or cleanliness, or class. Which is completely fine by me.

Then a wave of well-decorated restaurants and bars started to infiltrate the area: they're mostly filled with young Vietnamese-Americans, and the only places where their white friends feel comfortable or at home. Which is great! Diversity makes unicorns fart rainbows and sunshine.

In any case, this was the crowd at Brodard Chateau, a place that's been getting some attention for their devotion to decoration and awareness of fine food. The only problem is that most of the food isn't quite as wonderful as the soft lighting and pretty menus.

I've been here a few times with my family and usually sample their food. Some of it is delicious: their nem nuong, or grilled Vietnamese pork patties, are perfectly juicy and slightly sweet. I ate their nem nuong cuon (Roasted Pork Spring Rolls) the first time I was here. I have no pictures, sadly.

This time I wasn't too hungry and shared an appetizer with my sister, the Vegetarian Spring Roll. I'd never had eggplant or avocado in my spring rolls before, and this innovation gave the rolls a satisfying, almost meat-like richness that really surprised me. Seriously yum.

Thy took that photo, so credit her amazingness. I also had the Shrimp Satay appetizer. Apologies for the blur and washed out vegetables.

The shrimp was decent, but the sauce was yummy. It was spicy and thick with coconut milk--almost like curry without the curry powder. The vegetables were a refreshing touch. However, this was not Vietnamese food at all. Just yummy.

My siblings and cousins said their dishes were decent, but not delicious. I think I picked the right ones to eat! Below are Scallops in Black Bean Sauce (too salty, not enough scallop flavor) and Clam Fesci (again, not enough clam flavor).

Some Vietnamese are all about the seafood, so this was clearly not the best around. My mom knew better than to order her favorite fish here, so she stuck with sharing a rice dish with my aunt. The regular Vietnamese dishes, except for the nem nuong, could be improved. But all in all--pick the right dishes, and you can have a fairly authentic Vietnamese experience in a swanky place! And that's often hard to do.

Garlic Naan

I took what I thought looked good from several naan recipes online. My bread didn't have air bubbles in it like the restaurant kind but it was still pretty good. Maybe if I had used all white flour and had the traditional clay oven...


There are several recipes online and I combined them. This makes about 5-6 naans.

Ingredients:
2 cups whole wheat flour (or white if you want..I used whole wheat bc it's more filling and healthier)
1 cup all purpose flour
1 egg, beaten
1 cup milk
2 teaspoons yogurt (optional, I just needed to finish it)
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon dried yeast

1. Mix the yeast with some warm water and let it sit for 10 minutes.
2. Mix all the egg, milk, sugar, salt, yeast, and yogurt until the sugar and salt is dissolved. Slowly add flour into the mixture. You might need a little more or less flour to create a good (not too sticky) consistency. I forgot to use 1/2 teaspoon baking powder -- you might want to add it.
3. Knead the dough for 8-10 minutes.
4. Let the dough rise for an hour or two. I usually just forget about it.
5. If you have a grill you can use that. If not, it's easiest to cook the naans in a pan on the stove. Knead the dough a little to deflate it and pinch off a piece. Roll the piece into a ball. Flatten it with a rolling pin...can be whatever shape you want as long as it fits into the pan. Press on some minced garlic or whatever topping you want.
6. Cook on high heat in the pan or on the grill and flip after each side gets browned.

Dab some butter on the finished bread and you're all set. It's pretty easy if you have the patience to let the bread rise!

Microwave Cake Proves Too Good to be True

I was so excited when I saw this recipe for a single-serve cake that could be made in two minutes. I didn't know what to expect so I tried it myself. Even though the concept is really fun, I can't say that it's worth making. The texture is more pliant and elastic than normal cake, making it hard to fork out of the cup, and the flavor is not chocolatey enough. Are there any times I can imagine using this recipe? Maybe if there was absolutely nothing else for dessert, and I really needed something in 5 minutes. Maybe.

An interesting experiment, though!

4 T self-rising cake flour
4 T sugar
2 T cocoa
1 small egg
3 T milk
3 T oil or applesauce
⅛ t vanilla
2 T chocolate chips

Mix flour, sugar, cocoa and salt in a bowl. In a separate bowl, beat the egg. Stir the egg, milk, applesauce, vanilla, and chocolate chips in with the dry ingredients. Mix well and transfer to a lightly greased coffee mug. Microwave 1.5-2 minutes on high.

Jing's Delicious Mushroom Tofu Creation

Jing was on campus today and we had dinner together. She threw together a delicious mushroom tofu dish. I can't tell you how exactly she did it, but it involved garlic, soy sauce, sesame oil, kinds of mushrooms (both dried and fresh), and soft tofu. The mushrooms added so much flavor to the sauce-- I've always stayed away from using mushrooms but now I really want to cook with them!We devoured the entire thing. It was wonderful.

Pielette

I've been craving this fruit pielette for several days, but we didn't have any fruit. But I went over to Nana and Papa's for the 4th, and Nana of course gave me so much fruit and food that our fridge got magically full again. Then I got some vanilla Haagen-Dazs from a local grocer, because it was on sale, and voila! Deliciousness. The recipe, should you desire to make some yourself, is below.

Crust:
1 c. shortening
2 c. flour
1 T. vinegar
1 t. salt
1/3 c. milk
(This makes enough dough for a whole pie, including top crust, so I just made a half-batch for this pielette).
Use a pastry cutter (or knives, or your fingers) to mix the shortening in with everything else. Roll it out thinly on a floured surface (you'll probably have to flip it over once so it doesn't stick too badly) and transfer to a cookie sheet.
Fruit:
5 c. fruit (I used plums, apricots, and strawberries, but anything works)
1 T. corn starch
1/3 c. sugar
(I only made half of this too)
Cut the fruit into pieces; I did 8 pieces per plum/apricot and quartered the strawberries, but you can really do whatever you want. It gets all mushy anyways! Stir it all together and pour into the center of the flat crust. Fold the outer edges of the crust over the filling (avoiding holes, if at all possible, but it's usually not--just means some of the juice will trickle out. And possibly burn, so have the oven fan on!) and bake at 400 degrees (375 on convect) for ~35 minutes, or until bubbly near the center. Remove, let sit for 20 or 25 minutes (otherwise all the fillings will plop out), and eat! Delicious with ice cream, whipped cream, or half-and-half.