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.

I had some left over cocoa powder from making truffles...so I TasteSpotted "cocoa powder" and this gorgeous looking recipe for bread came up. Between this morning's July 4th parade and tonight's festivities I had all day to leisurely let the dough rise, etc.
It's soft, chewy, and has melted chocolate chips . I substituted 2 cups of whole wheat flour for the 3 cups of white flour in the recipe so it's vaguely healthier. Whatever. It's chocolate bread!

PS I'm having fun with this so you guys may have to put up with more bread posts...

Plain Ole Whole Wheat Bread

I get annoyed shopping for bread at the supermarket because it'll always have a TON of ingredients like azodicarbonamide, high fructose corn syrup, and soy lecithin. I just want plain ole whole wheat bread, people! So I took matters into my own hands.

and it's yummy for a first attempt!
Ingredients: whole wheat flour, water, yeast, salt, and oil.