Cantonese Tomato Beef

I was left with several parcels of tomatoes the other day when a friend went on a month-long research trip to California. "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." But when life gives you tomatoes, make...?" Feeling slightly nostalgic for my mother's cooking, I opted to make a Cantonese dish consisting of tomatoes and beef. Traditionally, this mixture is served over rice, but I decided to make it with vermicelli noodles because I had no rice in the house, and I love noodles. My version of this recipe is quite bastardized and randomly whipped together, but it turned out pretty good nonetheless!

(2-3 servings)
3-4 cloves of garlic (depending on garlic tolerance)
250g beef mince
~330g sliced cherry tomatoes (more or less depending on your taste; regular tomatoes are alright too and actually more traditional)
soy sauce (to taste)
1 tsp sugar
375g vermicelli (i.e. rice noodles)
dash of sesame oil
2-3 eggs (depending on # of servings)

Stir fry the garlic in a bit of oil for about a minute. Add the beef mince and fry until about 75% of the beef is cooked. Add the sliced cherry tomatoes and squish them to get all the water out. Add in soy sauce and sugar and let it simmer for a couple minutes. Give the mixture a try and add more sugar and/or soy sauce depending on how sweet or salty you want it.  Stir in the vermicelli, sesame oil, and more soy sauce if needed. Mix well for another two minutes. Keep tasting and adjusting the ingredients to your taste buds. In another pan, fry up some eggs. Put the noodles in dishes and top each serving off with an egg.

This recipe is quite ad hoc, so feel free to play around with it. There's really no way of messing up as long as you keep tasting and mixing in things little by little until the flavor suits you!

Cake Dreams

In celebration of A. Kole's viva, completion of PhD, and return to Medical School, his roommates and I decided to make a "Med School" themed cake. This was the first time I've ever used fondant, and I was surprised that it wasn't too difficult to handle. Not that I'm saying we're complete experts, but it's easy to get into. You're basically playing with clay-like frosting. The next time you consider making a cake instead of buying, I highly recommend giving this stuff a go.

Cream Gets Creamed

An Ice Cream Cookie Sandwich for Adults

Recently, my friends and I have been puzzled by how Cream, the place on Telegraph that used to be Beard Papa's, gets so much business. Answer: Ice Cream Cookie Sandwiches for $1.50 (actually I heard it's changed to $2 GASP) . Questions to be asked: Why is it so cheap? And, what are college students eating these days?! Word has it (or the College Yelpers say) that Cream serves Double Rainbow Ice Cream and Otis Spunkmeyer Cookies. I'm not going to hate. I'm sure Double Rainbow is good, and I actually like good-ole Spunkmeyer on occasion. But do these kids realize they can make these at home for cheaper?! And, that they will not be as fat, overstuffed, and a mistake?! Go on yelp and look at the pictures! It is a sight to be seen!

Anyways, rage put aside. Tob-asco and I bought our own cookies and ice cream a few weeks ago and made said sandwiches. It was fantastic, and even just buying Andronico's cookies and Ben and Jerry's ice cream is a better deal. However, I decided to up the ante. I baked my own chocolate chip cookies and added some scotch to the ice cream to give it a kick. For the cookies, I turned to Smitten's "Crispy Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies" recipe:

http://smittenkitchen.com/2009/03/crispy-chewy-chocolate-chip-cookies/

I baked cookies that were medium size vs. her suggestions of large or small. However, the cooking time was about 15-17 minutes (same as the large cookies). Just a heads up, I ended up baking about 3 dozen with that recipe. :S For the ice cream, I bought Ben and Jerry's Mint Chocolate Cookie. I just scooped some ice cream into a bowl, poured a smidgen of scotch, and mixed. Throw the ice cream in between two cookies and voila, ICE CREAM COOKIE SANDWICH!

P.S. These sandwiches were made in celebration of getting into Grad School...just in case people were worried about my health.

Happy Valentine's Day...

Oh yes, it's that time of year again...when hearts, red, and pink, throw up everywhere. (As is the case with my own apartment.) So, Special K and I decided to throw an (Anti) Valentine's Day Tea Party. My contribution will be Strawberry Cupcakes. I usually try to make things from scratch, but the strawberry cake this time is admittedly from a box. It's been a stressful few weeks, and it was on sale for 89 cents at Safeway. Also, let's not hate on the convenience and deliciousness of boxed anything! Anyways, the strawberry frosting IS made from scratch. The recipe came from Martha Stewart's website, but she actually stole it from Sprinkles'. One thing I did change was the amount of confectioners' sugar and strawberry puree. I only used 3 cups of sugar because I ran out, but you honestly don't need that much sugar. The frosting is way sweet. So sweet, in fact, I kept adding more strawberry puree to balance it out. I think I may have doubled the amount, which ended up being too much. My suggestion would be to keep taste-testing the frosting and add puree until it tastes good but isn't too mushy. Here's a link to the recipe:

http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/candace-nelson-strawberry-frosting

Cheers and Happy Valentine's or Anti-Valentine's Day to you!

Want: Wontons

After experiencing Wonton cravings for weeks, I finally got the nerve to make them myself. The process itself is not difficult, but it is a bit time consuming. I called my mom for a recipe, but like any mom she told me "a little of this...a little of that," i.e. ingredients, but no specific quantities. I guess that's what happens you know you're a pro. I adapted my mother's advice with a recipe that appeared in the Bold Italic article on dumplings in the city. I omitted shrimp because it's expensive, and I'm not a huge fan. I also left out water chestnuts...mostly because I was too lazy to get them and am not particularly partial to them in wontons. Other than that, I basically followed the recipe, but I also added an egg yolk as per my mother's recipe. Here's a link:

http://thebolditalic.com/TienlonHo/stories/340-wrappers-delight

It's actually pretty self explanatory. Wrapping them is fun, but like I mentioned before, a bit time consuming. Be prepared to wrap around 40 with that recipe!

Treat-or-Treat?

Last month, I was really effing serious when it came to Holiday treats. On the Friday before Halloween, I decided it was time to have another baking night. After deciding against Japanese Cheesecake because it would be way too complicated for "just some Friday night baking" (it's like baking souffle and cheesecake at the same time), I decided on Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes. Might I add that I made everything from scratch! And, I bought Halloween/fall sprinkles for the occasion. I was originally going to get orange frosting to make Giants cupcakes, but the store didn't have any...and I didn't feel like going through the process of mixing food dyes, etc. The recipe was taken from Special K's Cupcakes Galore cookbook, and as usual, it called for too much frosting. Since I was on a roll, I decided to save the frosting and made chocolate-sugar-peanut butter sugar sandwich cookies that Saturday. Let me also add that we had a pumpkin carving party that night, so my labor wasn't for nothing.

(I actually started this post last month and ended it with "GIANTS ARE GOING TO THE WORLD SERIES BITCHES." But now I can say, GIANTS WON THE WORLD SERIES BITCHES!)

Cinnamon-Sugar-Butterball...I Mean Snickerdoodles

Finding a Snickerdoodle recipe without corn syrup or shortening is nearly impossible. According to some, shortening makes the cookies a bit more puffy. But oh well, I'm not dying to die from shortening any time soon. The recipe I decided to use is once again from Smitten Kitchen. She adapted the recipe from Martha Stewart and basically just took out the shortening. The cookies turned out a bit flat and didn't really crack, but they were pretty tasty nonetheless. You're supposed to use a small ice cream scoop to scoop the dough, but you can just use your hands to roll the dough into balls. Here's the recipe: http://smittenkitchen.com/2009/09/snickerdoodles/

So Much Thai Curry!

On the Top: Green
On the Bottom: Red

Last month there was some crazy Thai Curry making at the House of Radpanda and Special K. Both Green and Red were contenders! It was admittedly not all made from scratch because I have no clue how that works and according to one of my friends who actually took a curry course in Thailand, you can't find a lot of the fresh ingredients here. Anyways, Thai Curry is actually relatively easy to make. The "Thai Kitchen" brand of pastes and sauces are sold almost everywhere. (Andronico's and Costplus for sure. I even saw it at Bi-Rite Market). These pastes have really easy to follow recipes on them! Choose your curry color of choose and grab a can of coconut milk. The rest is up to you. Tob-asco and I opted for chicken, bamboo shoots, peas, carrots, corn, and onions for the green curry. For the red curry, I think I chose chicken, tofu, bamboo shoots, peas, carrots, corn, onions, AND tomatoes. They were the most awesome tomatoes ever.

Some advice: You can substitute soy sauce for fish sauce if you don't have it on hand or want to buy it. Also, throw in a bullion cube or stock of some sort! It really makes a difference.

Scandalous Cookies

I made these 2 months ago, but thought I'd blog about them anyways. Special K., K.yo, Tob-asco, and I like to play the "if you were on a island and you could only have one _______ (insert blank; ex. type of cookie, breed of dog, form of cuisine), what would you choose?" I chose the infamous Nipple Cookies for the cookie question, which I believe are just called peanut butter kiss cookies, but my friends and I have dubbed them this name. It's the perfect amount of peanut butter cookie to chocolate kiss ratio...way better than the usual recipes, which basically tells you to plop the kiss on top of a peanut butter ball. The recipe was acquired from Special K's awesome International Cookie Book. The photo of the cookies is quite scary, since they're surrounded by a shit ton of teddy bears. But, do not be turned off by the way they look or the bears. THEY ARE THE MOST AWESOME COOKIES EVER. Don't feel like putting up the recipe at the moment. However, if anyone really wants it, just let me know!

"Everyday" Chocolate Cake

Piece o' advice: Don't bake chocolate cake unless there's an occasion or a ton of people around to eat it. On a thursday night, I randomly decided to make this sweet morsel. The recipe was plucked once again from the Smitten Kitchen Blog, and I'd been eyeing it for months. I'm still wondering what "Everyday" Chocolate Cake means tho because chocolate cake, although delicious, should not be everyday. However, I am not complaining. This thing was freaking tasty, but Special K and I were eating it for days even though we were able to pawn off a few pieces to friends. Here's a link to the recipe:

http://smittenkitchen.com/2010/08/everyday-chocolate-cake/#more-6620

I followed it exactly, except I made my own buttermilk substitute, and I didn't have berries on hand. Just in case you don't want to buy buttermilk, here's the recipe for the substitute:

Milk (just under one cup)
1 Tablespoon white vinegar or lemon juice

Place a Tablespoon of white vinegar or lemon juice in a liquid measuring cup. Add enough milk to bring the liquid up to the one-cup line. Let stand for five minutes. Hella easy!

Easy Peasy Tomato Sauce

When I'm extremely lazy and want to make something that will last me a couple meals, I resort to this recipe from Smitten Kitchen, a blog that Special K and I follow adamantly. This woman has the most amazing recipes and photographs. Go check out her blog! This sauce is seriously the easiest to make, and it's quite delicious. Here's her recipe (I simplified and added things in some cases):

Serves 4-5

28 ounces (800 grams) whole peeled tomatoes or tomato puree from a can (She likes San Marzano, but you can really use any brand)
5 tablespoons (70 grams or 3/4 a stick) unsalted butter
1 medium-sized yellow onion, peeled and halved
Salt to taste (maybe)

Throw the tomatoes or puree, butter, and onion in a sauce pan over medium heat. Bring the sauce to a simmer then lower the heat to keep the sauce at a slow, steady simmer for about 45 minutes, or until droplets of fat float free of the tomatoes. Stir occasionally, crushing the tomatoes against the side of the pot with a wooden spoon. If you are using whole tomatoes, CRUSHCRUSHCRUSH. Otherwise, your sauce will be less saucy and more tomato chunky. Remove from heat. She prefers to discard the onion, but I'm a fan of leaving it in. Add salt to taste if you please. However, most tomatoes came salted, so you don’t really need to add more. Keep sauce warm while you prepare the pasta.

Serve with spaghetti or your choice of pasta. It tastes good with or without parmesan cheese, so it's up to you what you prefer. Bon appetite. :)

Egg Salad Sandwich Saturday

Another beautiful day in the neighborhood. Way too hot to eat something warm, I decided to venture into something more refreshing/afternoon tea-y. Tob-asco had actually suggested Egg Salad Sandwiches the previous day for a picnic. Too hot for a picnic (for us), but we decided to make the sandwiches anyways. We basically did a variation of one of Martha's recipes. Egg Salad is pretty simple, and you can really just experiment and mix shit together until you like it, but Martha's recipe had curry in it, which was pretty exciting. (Wow, that was a long sentence. I blame Tob-asco for reading Kant to me while we were cooking/eating.) Anyways, here's the tweeked recipe:

(serves 2)
4 Eggs
1/6 cup (half of a 1/3) of Mayonnaise
1/2 teaspoon Relish
1/2 teaspoon Mustard
Dash of Curry Powder
Salt and Pepper to taste
Bread (obviously)
Salad/Greens of some sort (I used spinach.)

Boil eggs for about 10 minutes. Mix together mayonnaise, relish, mustard, curry powder, and salt and pepper. Eggs should probably be cooled, but it really depends on how warm/cold you want the salad. To quicken the process, we put the eggs in the freezer for a few minutes. You can cut the eggs with an egg cutter or just mash them into the aforementioned concoction. Toast bread and slap on the egg stuff. Salad can be in or out of the sandwich. It's up to you! Man, Tob-asco and I have been making a lot of egg-y things lately...

Freitag Frittata

My Comp. Lit. advisor is the most amazing person ever. Not only does she give me awesome advice, but she always makes me feel better when I think I'm sucking at life. She's like the mother of the Comp. Lit. department. For one of the recent major gatherings, she made us all frittata! Delicious yet simple, the frittatas were winners, and I stole the recipes from her. Tob-asco and I decided to recreate the Artichoke Parmesan Frittata Nom-ness. Here's the recipe:

8 eggs
1 can of Artichokes in water (quartered)
1 Red Onion
1/2 cup Parmesan Cheese
1/4 cup Half and Half or Creme
Salt and Pepper to taste

Grease or spray a 9x9 baking pan or a pie pan with pam. Set oven to 350 degrees. Chop up the onions and saute until translucent. Let cool. Rinse artichokes and squeeze out as much moisture as you can. Whisk eggs, cheese, half and half, and salt and pepper together. Layer onions and artichockes on the bottom of the pan. Pour egg concoction over the onions and artichokes. Bake for about 25 minutes. The frittata will be brown along the bottom and pretty firm to the touch. SO FREAKING EASY. Love it! Serve it up with a bit o' salad. Tob-asco threw together some spinach, apples, and a balsamic-olive oil vinaigrette. And since we're hella classy, we paired our meal with some Asahi. ;)

Sh-low Day

So K.yo and I got a bit peckish on our way to Trader Joe's today and decided to stop by Slow, a new restaurant that opened in Berk a week ago. The Chef's mission is to provide gourmet, not-overly-priced food from local/seasonal ingredients. Sounds good to me! Lunch actually does look quite affordable...sandwiches range from $5-6. But, dinner's a tiny bit more pricey. Plates range $9-12. However, the Braised Short Rib with Mascarpone Polenta, Escabeche Carrot, and Roasted Cippolini Onion was quite tasty. The short rib was perfectly tender, and the polenta was creamy nom-ness. K.yo and I both ordered it and were quite satisfied. We also left with a Double Chocolate Chip Cookie that was probably one of the best double chocolate chip cookies we've ever had. :) Definitely check it out. But if you're strapped for cash, go for lunch. They have pulled pork! Oh, and also vegetarian options!

After said adventure, I decided to bake some matcha green tea cupcakes. I absolutely love cupcakes, but every now and then, I can't justify buying one for 3 bucks, when I could bake a dozen for the same price. Special K. (my roomie) and I have been eye-ing the "Orient Express" recipe in her Cupcake book...basically it's an almond, green tea cupcake with ying-yang frosting. As you can tell from the pictured I avoided said frosting. Oh, and I despise anything with the word "orient" in it, but I thought I'd give these cupcakes the benefit of the doubt. Honestly, the recipe was a bit weird. The consistency of the dough was kind of bread-y. Not quite sure why...maybe there were too many almonds? IDK. Frosting, which was from another recipe, turned out pretty well though. I had to bust out a new can of matcha green tea, which has a prettier tint of green than my last. So, if you're making green tea frosting, know that the color will vary depending on the matcha.

Spam Musubi

Touché my feline friend. I see your Coffee Rant 1.5 and raise you a Spam Musubi! That's right! This shit is "This is Why You're Fat" status. A certain K friend and I have been waiting to satisfy our musubi cravings for months, but every time we head to May's Coffee Shop in Japantown, they're sold out. We be sadpandas. So tonight, we made our own with special spam musubi mold, twice-fried Spam, and a couple diy musubi tats included.

If you are interested in taking part in the musubi madness, several recipes can be found online, but make sure you don't make too much rice! We cooked 3.5 cups and ended up making some makeshift Fried-Rice Musubi.

Fun Fact: There are quite a few stories for the origin of the word "Spam," but one explanation states that the name is actually a portmanteau of "Spiced Ham".