Eat Your Weight

TRANSFER

2009-09-13T13:27:00.000-07:00

Eat Your Weight has moved!

We're trying our hand at some semblance of polish and professionalism.

It's still very much under construction but it's a start.

http://www.thesproutandthebean.com/

Eggplant Bread Casserole

2009-09-11T00:06:00.001-07:00

A casserole is my idea of "good returns". Somehow baking anything in layers of starches and sauces in a large casserole dish until the individual ingredients become one massive slab of goodness is very satisfying. And the best part is that it's an excellent way of emptying out the vegetable drawer in your refrigerator.

I never seem to have room in my refrigerator. There is no reason why a refrigerator that feeds one person should be so full to the brim that I have to rough it up in order to get the door to shut.

I suppose this was something of a lasagna, sans the lasagna, replaced with sourdough bread. Oh, and it's vegan, but if you have no need for vegan constraints I suggest the addition of ricotta cheese layers and and a top layer of grated parmesan reggiano.

Ingredients:

4 large tomatoes (I used a variety of very wonderful heirloom tomatoes, which I think makes a difference)

2 large onions, sliced into strands

2 cups mushrooms (I used a combination of both brown and white)

3 large eggplants, sliced into 1/2 inch discs

1 loaf slice sourdough bread, toasted very well

1/2 cup Italian bread crumbs

1 1/4 cup Marinara sauce

1. in a large saute pan add 2 tablespoons of Earth Balance (just butter if not vegan) with a pinch of sugar

2. when the Earth Balance has been melted add the onions on low heat and caramelize, stirring often. This will take a good 15 minutes. Make sure the heat is on low to avoid burning

3. preheat oven to 400

4. lay the eggplant discs on a lined cookie sheet and drizzle with olive oil and then salt liberally

5. bake in the oven for about 20 minutes or under very tender and slightly browned

6. meanwhile, saute the sliced mushrooms in olive oil under tender

7. in a large casserole dish make a layer of the toasted sourdough, trying not to leave any open space

8. put a layer of the baked eggplant discs on top of the bread

9. spread a layer of marinara sauce over the eggplant

10. sprinkle 2 tablespoons of breadcrumbs

11. layer with mushrooms

12. layer with caramelized onions

13. start the layers over again until the casserole dish is full

14. when the casserole dish is filled, top with sliced tomatoes and then salt and pepper

15. bake in the oven for 40-50 minutes

Trio of Cream Puffs (strawberry, chocolate, and green tea)

2009-09-10T23:36:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to a movie night with a newly formed film club that I am very fond of. I am also fond of the way we've decided to incorporate food into our movie nights, potluck style. My contribution was the vegan crumb cakes (below), an eggplant bread casserole (above) and these cream puffs.

I feel like these cream puffs may have triggered an anxiety attack. I'm blaming it on the cream puffs.

I made the cream puffs in the morning and they were adorable and thrilling in a way because I've never worked with choux pastry and my pastry bag sprung leaks all over the place and I was almost positive that the puffs weren't going to come out well. But they did. They were crispy on the outside and airy and delicate on the inside. I wanted to make a pillow out of choux pastry.

But here's the unfortunate part: I overlooked the fact that choux pastry does not hold up very well when left in sweltering apartment heat all day. By the time I was ready to fill them with whipped cream and take them to the film club the puffs had lost their crispness. I don't know why I become so upset by things like this. I tried to crisp them up again by throwing them in the oven for 5 minutes, which worked for the most part except that the internal temperature became too warm to fill them with the cream. But I was going to be late and so I filled them anyway and immediately regretted it because the whipped cream started to deflate immediately. My solution was to stick them in the freezer. By that time the cream puffs had been through such a variety of temperatures that they were pretty useless.

ARGGGHH!

Vegan Crumb Cupcakes

2009-09-10T03:10:00.001-07:00

Here is a second vegan option for the Les Figues auction.

My friend Jared assumed the role of my vegan dessert taste tester and helped me decide on this crumb cake for the auction. This decision was made mostly because these cupcakes are almost ridiculously easy to make and really I don't think that it being vegan meant that taste had to be sacrificed. I've done a fair amount of research on vegan desserts and a few years back I was making a lot of vegan desserts with Ener-G Egg Replacers and fancy dairy substitutes but in the end I decided that these ingredients led to inconsistent results. These ingredients were expensive and for the most part I've had the best results with simple, practical replacements like soy milk and Earth Balance. Canola oil is pretty key in vegan desserts, I've realized.

I think I will add either hazelnuts or walnuts to this recipe for the auction.

Please come to the Les Figues auction for these cupcakes plus here are the other things I am making for the event:

1. lemon cupcakes with chamomile honey icing

2. chocolate and matcha cupcakes with bittersweet chocolate ganache

3. vegan crumb cake

4. fig and pear mini galettes

5. lavender chocolate sable cookies with cream cheese filling

6. vanilla sables with sour cherry filling

7. chocolate sables with honey peanut butter filling

I will also be auctioning two items at the event:

1. a basket of 7 homemade farmers market preserves

2. an alchemical baking commission: you dream up any dessert your creativity can conjure and I will design a recipe according you specifications, bake the item for you, and give you a copy of the recipe. The wilder the commission the better. Here are some starter suggestions : lychee cheesecake, strawberry and azuki bean cupcakes, tamarind cheesecake, olive oil raisin pound cake, root beer cake, mochi blondie bars, black sesame brownies, blueberry goat cheese tarts, ginger and strawberry cake, and avocado cake

Les Figues Auction:

September 12th, Saturday

Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions

6522 Hollywood Blvd

Los Angeles, Ca

Buy your tickets and find more info here:

http://www.lesfigues.com/giveafig-2009/

Prune & Lemon Baby Cakes

2009-09-08T14:16:00.000-07:00

Part 2 of the desserts I brought for Janice's Labor Day bbq--this part, not so much vegan. I wanted to make something lemony because that seems appropriate for an outdoor event and I had bought some French prunes from the farmers market the other day. Prunes are fascinating. I've never seen them in their non-dried form. I just assumed that "prune" was the term given to a dried plum, but apparently I was wrong. According to wikipedia, they are a small plums with easily removable pits. Okay.

These mini prune and lemons cakes were very simple to make. I used cupcake tins to make a small grabbable sizes and just inverted the cakes so that they wouldn't be mistaken for muffins. Ah, the versatility of bakeware. Also I made a lemon glaze to go on top just to give it an stronger lemon kick but you go without out the icing if you'd like. Without the icing I'd imagine that they'd make a very nice breakfast tea cake. I love tea cakes.

Ingredients:

16 prune, split and pitted

The zest of two large lemons (about 3-4 teaspoons)

1 cup granulated sugar + 1/8 cup sugar for muddling with the zest+1/4 cup sugar for cupcake tins

1 stick of butter (1/2 cup) at room temperature + 8 tablespoons of butter for the cupcake tins

1 large egg at room temperature

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup buttermilk

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

1. preheat oven to 375

2. muddle the lemon zest with 1/8 cup of granulated sugar and set aside

3. sift together flour, baking powder and salt

4. with an electric mixer beat together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy (approx. 3-4 minutes)

5. add the egg and beat for another minute

6. add the buttermilk and beat for another two minutes (at this point the batter will seem oddly curdled but do not fear, this is normal)

7. add the vanilla and lemon zest/sugar mixture

8. slowly add the flour/salt/baking soda mixture in three separate additions, folding very gently

9. grease 16-17 cupcake tins with vegetable oil or shortening

10. at the bottom of each mold put about 1/2 tablespoon of butter

11. over the 1/2 tablespoon of butter but about 1 teaspoon of granulated sugar

12. place the sliced prune on top of the sugar

13. divide the batter among the cupcake tins, about 3/4 full

14. bake for 20 minutes

15. let the cakes cool for about 20 minutes

16. while the cakes are still in the pans, take a serated knife and cut of the domes of each cake so that they will sit flatly when inverted (save the cake tops by wrapping and plastic wrap and freezing)

17. invert the cakes by taking a butter knife and gently running it along the edges of each cake and then place a large cookie sheet on top of the cupcake tins and then flip. The cakes should unmold easily.

Optional Icing:

3/4 cup confectioners sugar

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

1. whisk together

2. put the icing in a sandwich bag and push contents into one corner of the bag

3. snip and small corner off the bag and then ice the cakes.

Vegan Apple Rose Tarts

2009-09-08T01:56:00.000-07:00

Happy Labor Day! I don't really understand what Labor Day is, but all the same, it's nice to have an excuse to have a bbq with friends. Janice, Jeff, and Jared (oh! i just realized they are all "J" people) invited me over for an afternoon bbq. This was also coincidentally a good opportunity to test out some dessert possibilities for the Les Figues auction this Saturday. Among the multitude of anxieties I am feeling about this event, the vegan portion of the desserts that I am catering is causing me a fair amount stress. Good stress though. I find the experimentation phase of working out recipes pretty exciting, but only when the recipes turn out well.

When baking vegan desserts, my stipulation is that it should be unrecognizably vegan, that it should be plainly good regardless of its non-dairy-ness.

I think this apple rose tart is 75% there. The pate brisee dough was a little too crumbly, maybe. I can work with this. I wanted to try veganizing this recipe because I'm very comfortable making non-vegan apple tarts and it seemed like an easy transition. And because the primary ingredient of this dessert is fruit, it felt a little safer to me.

I have a couple more recipes I want to try before I settle on a decision for the Les Figues Event.

Ingredients:

vegan pate brisee:

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup Earth Balance, cubed and chilled

1/2 Vegetable Shortening

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sugar

3 tablespoons ice cold water

apple filling:

4 small apples or 3 large ones (granny smith preferably), cored and thinly sliced

1/4 cup Earth Balance

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup apricot jam

1. Pour the flour onto a clean surface

2. Make a well in the flour and put the vegetable shortening, earth balance, salt, and sugar in the center

3. slowly work the flour into the center of the well until the mixture is crumbly (the dough will not hold together at this point)

4. add the ice cold water, one tablespoon at a time and work the dough until it begins to hold together

5. divide the dough in half, pat into discs and wrap tightly in plastic wrap

6. chill in the refrigerator for at least an hour or you can freeze for up to 3 months

7. roll the dough out to about 1/4 inch thickness and place into either 12-15 tartlet pans or two large tart pans

8. arrange the apple slices in a single direction, going around the tart pan so that it looks like a rose

9. dot the apple slice evenly with Earth balance

10. sprinkle with generous amount of sugar

11. bake at 400 for about 30 minutes or until the apples and crust look golden

12. let the tart cool

13. heat up the apricot jam in a sauce pan at low heat

14. brush the tarts with the jam

Peach Scones With Peach Whipped Cream

2009-09-04T23:20:00.000-07:00

Yes, these scones were very delicious. But that's besides the point. These are sad scones because their baker is sad. Half way through making these I realized that this is precisely the kind of thing Saeyoung would love. Peachy, barely sweet, moist, and kind of has the texture of a fat fat baby. If scones were the type of thing one could ship, I would do so, immediately. Unfortunately scones have a very limited shelf life. They should probably be eaten within the same day of being baked.

Really, what is the point of baking if not to fatten up the people around you? I certainly don't want all that butter around my hips. no no.

I think I'm in a bit of mourning from having my sister on the other side of the country. But on the up side, we've already started planning a trip to New York together in January, so there's something to look forward to.

Okay, mourning aside. These are very good scones, though perhaps not the most traditional. Most scone recipes call for very cold butter that it cut into the dough to make for a flaky crumb, but more often than not scones are dense and really very clumsy door stop like things. I softened my butter and used sour cream rather than heavy cream, making for a very light and delicate scone--golden and crusty on the outside and so soft on the inside that I wanted to stick my face in the center. I can't take credit for the sour cream/softened butter idea--that came from The Steamy Kitchen Blog where she wrote about a recipe for blueberry scones with lemon curd. I adapted the recipe a bit, adding a little bit more sugar and substituting the blueberries with peaches.

Also, the peach whipped cream was pretty key. I didn't sweeten my whipped cream at all. I just pureed some peaches and very gently folded it into the batter (fold vveeerrry gently into your whipped cream will just become soupy). And then I topped the whole thing with honey.

Peaches and cream and honey. I love breakfast.

Peach Scones With Peach Whipping Cream

Ingredients:

Scones:

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 cup butter at room temperature

2 cups sour cream

1 large peach (or 1 1/3 small peaches), small dice with skin still on

4-5 tablespoons of granulated sugar

Optional: egg wash and sanding sugar for sprinkling

Peach Whipped Cream

1 cup heavy whipping cream

1/4 cup peach puree

1. preheat oven to 350

2. in a large mixing bowl sift together dry ingredients

3. cut in softened butter with a pastry cutter, or use hands to work the dough until it resembles the texture of coarse crumbs

4. mix the vanilla extract into the sour cream

5. fold in the sour cream and vanilla mixture into the dough very gently

6. fold in the peaches

7. use a 1/4 measuring cup or use a very large heaping ice cream scoop to measure out the dough onto a lined cookie sheet

8. bake for about 30 minutes

9. while the scones are baking use an electric mixer to beat the whipped cream until it peaks

10. fold in the peach puree

11. keep the whipped cream refrigerated

makes about 20-22 scones

Tatte : chos eat boston finale

2009-09-04T00:35:00.000-07:00

hazelnut rose

fig almond biscotti and two animal cookies

the best brioche i have ever had

Recently Sergio Hernandez asked me if I ever get excited, like physically-gesturing-12- exclamation-points excited. I thought about this carefully. I thought about it for a day afterwards actually. I can't recall a time...

I asked Saeyoung, and she also couldn't recall a time, she says I'm much more likely to verbalize in a semi-intonated voice the I'm excited with statements like, "that's exciting."

Well, I found myself pretty enthralled the other day when Saeyoung and I came upon Tatte Bakery right outside of Saeyoung new apartment on Audubon Circle. Look, this is my enthralled face:

It was such a fortuitous find. We passed by it while heading towards the T and I thought the signage was cute so we decided we should stop by.

Tatte specializes in everything that I love: French style tarts, buttery breads, figs, gallons of nuts of every kind, beautiful combinations like sesame and honey. Oh, and the brioches! Buttery and almost velvet in texture.

So so good. I feel like Tatte is The Sprout and The Bean's Boston counterpart.

Tatte

1003 Beacon St

Brookline, MA 02246

617.232.2200

http://tattecookies.com/

Zaftigs : chos eat boston part 5

2009-09-04T00:25:00.000-07:00

Breakfast is a meal I frequently skip but for the convenience of time Saeyoung and I were super into breakfast/brunch meals during this trip. For my last meal in Boston we went to Zaftigs in Brookline. We've actually eaten here before, but that was for dinner. We were somewhat unimpressed by the dinner but apparently what Zaftigs is really known for is their breakfast so we gave it another chance.

And you know what? It was good, it was really good. Lots of options and we left glowing of roundness. Saeyoung ordered the banana walnut pancakes with date butter. Ohmigod, date butter. I think I will try and make date butter. I can't be that hard. I had the lox and red onion scramble with marbled rye. Nothing fancy, very satisfying. A funny thing: my dish was advertised as coming with fresh seasonal fruit, which apparently means a very sad slice of watermelon and single graying strawberry. haha. saeyoung warned me about the lack of good fruit in New England.

Zaftigs

335 Harvard st

Brookline, MA

617.975.0775

http://www.zaftigs.com/

The Hungry Mother : chos eat boston part 4

2009-09-03T23:54:00.000-07:00

roasted chicken with grits

grilled blue fish with tomato jam

squid with hominy

fried green tomatoes with arugula, red remoulade, and bacon

ciabatta with olive tapenade and green tomato preserves

The more I recall this meal, the more fondly I'm feeling about it. My experience with southern foods is pretty limited and I suppose there something strange about having the best southern meal I've ever had in Boston.

Now that the initial laudatory comment is over with, I have to say that Saeyoung and I were basically scolded for being 20 minutes late. I promise we were there on time! Believe me, I understand the value of timeliness. We just had a hell of a time trying to find parking. Upon arrival, a very sour man told us that he was expecting us at 7 and that they had another party of two coming in at 9, "but they'd try to move a few things around." I definitely got the sense that he was trying to make us feel guilty. The whole thing left a very bad taste in my mouth. But, to be fair, The Hungry Mother was very busy, fully packed on a Tuesday night, which I suppose says a lot about the popularity of this restaurant. Later I think the same sour man felt bad and made several stops to see how our meal was going. But I'm not one to get upset about quality of service. Whatever, as long as my food is good, much is permissible. And also, our server was very nice.

We started off the meal with a starter of 3-olive tapenade and green tomato preserve on grilled ciabatta. I lurve olive tapenade. The tomato preserve was very sweet and was pretty fantastic with the saltiness of the tapenade. I have a thing for the combination of salty and sweet.

For our starters Saeyoung and I shared a grilled squid dish and fried green tomatoes. I think my favorite was the grilled squid and Saeyoung's favorite was the green tomatoes. The fried green tomatoes were alarmingly ungreasy and they smelled amazing. I was almost happy to just smell the dish.

I've never had bluefish. It was very mild and they grilled it so that it was almost blackened on one side and really melty in the center. Very delicious. Nice and clean.

Saeyoung ordered the roasted chicken, which was similarly nice and clean.

It was nice to have clean flavors since the appetizers had so much kick.

Also, pretty much everything came with bacon. Really delicious thick cut bacon. Is this typical in Southern food?

The Hungry Mother

233 Cardinal Medeiros Ave

Cambridge, MA 02141

617.499.0090

http://www.hungrymothercambridge.com/

Christina's Ice Cream and Toascanini's: chos eat boston part 3

2009-09-03T17:08:00.001-07:00

I love love Scoops in Los Angeles, but I have to admit, Cambridge might be a better ice cream city. Why? Because there are two amazing ice cream shops within walking distance from each other with equally exciting flavors.

Toscanini's is a bit hipster-y, filled to the brim with 20-somethings on their macs and lots of skinny jeand. At Christina's, I get the sense that it is a family-run business. Both have their merits. When compared, Saeyoung and I decided that we liked the texture of Toscanini's ice cream better but the flavors of Christina's ice cream better.

At Christina's I had the carrot cake ice cream--amazing! Scoops should make a version of this. Saeyoung had the burnt sugar ice cream that tasted exactly like Bbop gi--a Korean candy that vendors make on the street. They melt sugar with baking soda in a metal ladle until it is browned and then pour it onto a flat surface and use a cookie cutter to partially perforate a shape (usually a star). If you can manage to eat the candy in such a way that you preserve the shape of the star the street vendor gives you another for free.

That was a tangent, but my point is that the burnt sugar ice cream was really exciting for us and we wished so much that we could bring our mom some because she has such vivid memories of eating bbop gi in Korea when she was a kid.

At Toscanini's we were able to get two flavors in one scoop. I had chocolate spanish chiles and lemon meringue. Saeyoung had strawberry cream cheese and hazelnut. The flavors I chose were really strong and you probably couldn't eat a whole bowl of them but they were really exciting for the first few bites.

Now I have my Scoops and Saeyoung has her Boston equivalents.

Toscanini's

899 Main st

Cambridge, MA 02139-3512

617.491.5877

http://www.tosci.com

Christina's Ice Cream

1255 Cambridge St

Cambridge, MA 02139-1338

617.492.1338

http://christinasicecream.com/

Amelia's Trattoria : chos eat Boston part 2

2009-09-03T14:48:00.000-07:00

goat cheese and beet ravioli

homemade spaghetti with plum tomato ragu

goat cheese salad

calamari with preserved lemon risotto

polenta with wild braised mushrooms and crispy sage

Family friends, the Rolniks took Saeyoung and I out for an amazing dinner at Amelia's Trattoria. It was so nice seeing them again. They are incredible foodies and I've pretty much never not enjoyed dining with them. I have fond memories of Zac making us a simple appetizer of crusty french bread with grilled porcini mushrooms and garlic chips.

Amelia's Trattoria was a very small intimate restaurant right next to MIT. There was only server and service was understandable and forgivably slow. They had an open window into the kitchen where we could see the food being prepared, which was nice. This was definitely meatless. Regardless the sauce was very refreshing, pretty classic basil and tomato--you can't really go wrong there.

I think more than the entrees, we were impressed with the appetizers. Saeyoung doesn't really like earthy tasting mushrooms but even she liked the polenta with braised mushrooms. Zac, who does not like sage, even liked the crispy sage, because let's be honest, anything fried in butter can't help but be good. The calamari was my favorite. Though I love balsamic vinegar I was a little weary of the balsamic reduction liberally drizzled on the plate because it seemed like such a strong flavor to go with preserved lemon, but oddly it all worked out. Ohmigod, I love risotto. I've never had a citrus based risotto and am eager to try it.

Zac ordered the chicken milanese, Diana ordered a goat cheese salad, and Olivia ordered the spaghetti carbonara (though she switched to the chicken milanese half way through).

I'd imagine this would be a nice date spot, but a special date, like an anniversary date or something celebratory like that.

Amelia's Trattoria

111 Harvard St,

Cambridge, MA

617.868.7600

The Friendly Toast : chos eat boston pt.1

2009-09-03T10:17:00.000-07:00

breakfast sandwich with home fries

egg white omelette with corn salsa, lime avocado sauce, marinated red onions and yellow peppers

hansel and gretel waffle

I flew back with Saeyoung to Boston to help her move in to her first apartment. I think we knew that this wasn't going to be a leisurely trip-moving is always something of an obstacle course. But for all our hard work we agreed on eating enormously well. I mean, I think we do that anyway but we sort of made a point of it in Boston. You know how heavy full-table breakfasts are a rare treat? How usually breakfast is a cup of coffee and a piece of toast or a bowl of yogurt? No, in Boston we ate every morning like that was all we were going to eat the entire day, which obviously was not the case.

We arrived in Boston at 5 am, really haggard from not sleeping on the plane and knowing that we had a whole day of the business of moving. After checking into our hotel and putting our heads down for a miniature nap we went to the Friendly Toast, which was within walking distance from our hotel. I had found THIS article about the Friendly Toast and we especially interested in the anadama bread.

The restaurant reminded me a lot of North Park in San Diego actually. It had that feeling, kind of aware of its unpolished hipness. Apparently this ambiance is very typical of Cambridge.

Saeyoung ordered the breakfast sandwich. I ordered an egg white omelette with fillings of my choosing (lime avocado, corn, roasted yellow peppers, marinated red onions). And we also shared a hansel and gretel waffle which is a gingerbread waffle with pomegranate molasses. Saeyoung's sandwich, while good, was nothing exciting. It's a basic breakfast sandwich. My omelette was quite delicious. I was a fan of the marinated red onions. I think the best part was the waffle. Where does one even get pomegranate molasses. It wasn't as sweet as you'd expect, actually it had a very nice sour bite to it. Oh, and the anadama bread was only okay. They slathered it with too much butter and I felt like all I could taste was butter.

A very nice start to our Boston trip.

The Friendly Toast

Ste. B3101

1 Kendall Sq

Cambridge, MA 02139-1595

617.621.1200

thefriendlytoast.net

Taking The Necessary Knocks

2009-09-03T01:37:00.000-07:00

Baking comes with its hazards. I'm okay with that. An oven burn here. A bruise there. Swollen fingertips. The worst though is that the constant washing of my hands is giving me old lady hands! If you know me, you already know that I can be obsessive about washing my hands and when I'm cooking it feels like my hands are constantly under a stream of water. I should be more diligent about lotion. My hands feel very raw. My sister and mother recommended that I slather on the thickest hand cream I could find and then put on sleeping with gloves on to lock in the moisture. Well I didn't have gloves and the closest thing I could think of was a sock (pictured above). I'm pretty sure this was ridiculous, me and my sock mitts. I couldn't keep them on for too long, they came off unknowingly in my sleep. Pathetic.

Vegan Cookie & Cream Cupcakes For Kristina (+ more nutella banana cupcakes)

2009-09-03T00:59:00.000-07:00

yes, i crush oreos with a mortar and pestle

Kristina turns 16 today! Kristina has recently become vegan and can almost never eat the things I bake. I think I want to learn how to bake more vegan things. This is a new challenge to myself.

For the occasion of Kristina's birthday I made vegan cookies & cream cupcakes. I've made these before and the recipe is very dependable. Really, I don't think much is sacrificed here just because there is no dairy. I found this recipe in "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World". The recipe is exceedingly simple.

I also made some more banana nutella cupcakes for my mom because she's become somewhat obsessed with them. She's admitted to eating four in one sitting.

Ingredients:

cupcakes-

1 cup soy milk

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup canola oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1 cup all purpose flour

1/3 cup cocoa powder

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

10 vegan chocolate cream-filled cookies, crushed (oreos are now vegan but i think Trader Joes O's are quite good)

Frosting:

3/4 cup nonhydrogenated vegetable shortening

3/4 cup nonhydrogenated margarine

4 cups powdered sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/4 cup plain soy milk or soy creamer

5 chocolate cream filled cookies, mashed finely

1. preheat oven to 350 and line 12 cupcake tins

2. whisk together soy milk and vinegar in a large mixing bowl and set aside for at least 10 minutes so that the milk can curdle

3. Add the sugar, oil, vanilla extract, almond extract into the soy milk/vinegar mixture and beat with an electric mixer until foamy (about 3-4 minutes)

4. sift together flour, cocoa powder, salt, baking soda, and baking powder

5. gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and fold until just combined

6. fill the cupcake tins about 3/4 full

7. baking for about 20 minutes-the tops will slightly crack

8. let cool in pan for 10 minutes and then let them cool completely out of the tins

9. frost generously

For Frosting:

1. beat the margarine and shortening together

2. add the powdered sugar in small increments

3. add vanilla and soy milk

4. fold in cookie crumbs

Pelican Hill Resort

2009-09-03T00:14:00.000-07:00

i may have snuck a small jar of this: that's probably tacky

wasabi

ohhhh cheese

butter

Last Sunday we had two occasions to have a large family meal: one celebratory, one rather sad. It was Kristina's 16th birthday and Saeyoung's leaving to go back to Boston.

We went to the Pelican Hill Resort and had brunch at the Coliseum Grill. The truth is that the location/view was more impressive than the food. I mean, the food was good. Lots of great cheese, even cheesecake made with goat cheese (I think). But there wasn't anything that was really extraordinary. But it was a beautiful day and the view of the pool was kind of amazing. Oh they're jam selection did include a bitter orange marmalade that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Mostly though, I was sulky about Saeyoung's summer at home having come to end so quickly.

Pelican Hill Resort

23000 Newport Coast Drive

Newport Beach, CA 92657

800.585.1654

Nancy, You Sure Are Neat! (Upside-Down Fig Upside Down Cake)

2009-08-29T12:19:00.000-07:00

It's Nancy's Birthday!

Do you know Nancy Romero? You should, you really should. Her hair always smells like happy apples and she owns one of those backpacks with a water bottle connected to a giant hose/straw built in. She deserves a cake. She actually needs cake because she bikes a gazillion miles a day.

No seriously, Nancy is a very wonderful person.

For her birthday I thought about making Nancy Cake again but I think the occasion called for a bit of celebratory experimentation. You may have noticed that I am obsessed with figs. I wanted to make a hazelnut fig upside down cake but very stupidly placed the figs upside down, creating an upside down-upside down cake. This was a shame because it would have looked so pretty with the open fig flesh all caramelized. And because I placed the open flesh into the batter I am scared that the cake became too moist with fig juices. I'm going to blame my stupidity on lack of sleep. My body keeps waking me up at 7:30 in the morning for no reason, even though I haven't been able to fall asleep before 3 a.m. lately.

I hope it tasted okay. The problem with baking birthday cakes is that you can't swipe a bite and test if they turned out well. You just have to hope for the best.

Oh also, while I was making this cake this morning I must have been making too much noise trying to get rid of air bubbles in my batter and the people living below me came up to complain. They thought I was angry at them and was trying to send them a message with my loud noises. It was embarrassing.

Happy Birthday Nancy Romero.

Ingredients:

Topping:

1/4 cup chopped hazelnuts

25 figs, depending on size (halved)

1 stick of butter (1/2 cup)

3/4 cup of brown sugar (I used dark because that's what I had but I think golden would be better)

Cake:

1 cup buttermilk

2 cups and 2 tablespoons of all purpose or cake flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 stick of butter (1/2 cup)

2 eggs

1 cups of sugar

1. preheat oven to 350

2. melt the butter for the topping over low heat

3. add the brown sugar and whisk together until fully incorporated

4. pour the butter and brown sugar mixture into a greased 10 inch cake pan

5. sprinkle the hazelnuts over the brown sugar syrup

6. arrange the figs halves, open flesh side down

7. set aside pan

8. in a large bowl beat the sugar and butter together until pale and fluffy

9. add the eggs one at a time

10. add the vanilla extract

11. sift together the flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder

12. alternate 3 separate additions of the flour mixture and buttermilk into the egg/sugar/butter mixture

13. pour the batter into the pan and over the figs

14. tap the pan down on a hard surface to get rid of air bubbles

15. bake in the oven for about 30 to 40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out cleanly and the top of the cake in golden brown (it looks almost like the color of cornbread)

16. let the cake cool for 10 minutes

17. place a flat pan or plate over the top of the cake pan and then flip

18. the juices will run down the side of the cake, this is a good thing

19. let cool before serving

Honey Whole Wheat Fig Muffins

2009-08-29T08:20:00.000-07:00

All these ingredients, together, make a world of sense to me. Iced with cream cheese frosting makes it all the more exciting.

I think I still have to experiment with the recipe a little because it was just barely too moist. Perhaps less buttermilk.

Because I made an enormous amount of batter I also tried to make loaf cake with this batter but they didn't set quite right and so I sliced the loaf up (biscotti style) and re-baked them just slightly to make breakfast bar type things and I really like them in that form. They're still soft and chewy but the honey has sort of caramelized around the outside. Quite nice with morning coffee.

Sable Cookies

2009-08-29T08:03:00.000-07:00

Hurray for another order! Hansoul, a former co-worker of Saeyoung's, ordered a dozen chamomile apricot sable cookies. I love sable cookies. The dough is a little testy and the measurements have to be very precise, so precise that I prefer to use a digital scale but when it works the cookie is a very delicate, buttery, and not-too-sweet.

The chamomile apricot combination seems to be popular but while I was at it I thought I'd experiment and make other types of sable dough. Sable dough freezes perfectly for up to 3 months so when making it, it's probably smart to make in large quantities. I try to avoid extracts if possible and so when including ingredients like lavender or chamomile I buy the flowers dried and then grind them in a coffee grinder right before using. I think it makes a difference.

The types of sable dough made:

1. chocolate

2. lemon

3. lavender

4. chocolate lavender (i'm thinking chocolate lavender cookies with cream cheese filling)

5. vanilla

6. vanilla cinnamon

And also, did you notice the pretty gift wrapping?

Email me if anyone wants to order any sable cookies! sprout.bean.food@gmail.com

Caramel Apple Cake

2009-08-26T18:02:00.001-07:00

Jee Hyun, co-worker is moving to Korea tomorrow due to the evil nature of U.S. immigration. We had a small going away party for her today and I provided dessert.

Saeyoung and I had a caramel apple the other day and it tasted incredibly comforting and was just plainly fun to eat. Going off of that I thought I'd use the caramel apple as inspiration.

It's all in the trimmings here. The cake is a very reliable recipe for yellow cake. But the caramel is not overly sweet and the roasted apples give it a little tartness. And the peanuts bring everything together.

I like this one very much.

I am sad to see Jee Hyun go. Good luck in Korea.

Ingredients:

for cake:

1 cup buttermilk

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter

1 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups plus 2 tablespoons sifted cake flour (you can use all-purpose in a pinch)

2 large eggs

for caramel:

1 cup heavy cream

1/2 cup packed golden brown sugar

1 tablespoon light corn syrup

1 teaspoon vanilla

pinch of salt

for apples:

4 large granny smith apples

3 tablespoons butter

4 tablespoons brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

other:

chopped peanuts for topping

1. preheat oven to 350

2. beat the sugar and butter together until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes

3. add in eggs one at a time

4. add vanilla

5. sift together flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder

6. alternate 3 separate additions of flour mixture with 3 additions of buttermilk

7. pour batter into a buttered and parchment lined 10 inch cake pan (you can use 8 inch as long as it's a high walled pan)

8. tap the pan a few times to get rid of air bubbles

9. bake in the oven for about 35 minutes

10. let cool for 10 minutes and then invert and let cool completely

11. in the meanwhile bring the oven up to 400 degrees

12. peel, core, and slice the apples into about 1/2 inch wedges

13. combine the apples with melted 3 tablespoons of butter, 4 tablespoons of brown sugar, and vanilla

14. lay out the slices in one layer

15. bake for 30 minutes or until slightly golden and fork soft

16. while the apples are in the oven make the caramel

17. bring the heavy cream, brown sugar, salt and corn syrup to a low boil over medium heat

18. use a candy thermometer to measure when the caramel reaches 220 fahrenheit (about 12-15 minutes)

19. take the caramel off the heat and mix in the vanilla extract

20. pour the hot glaze over the center top of the cake, the excess should drip over the sides

21. arrange the apple slices in a concentric circle around the top of the cake

22. top with peanuts

23. let cool completely-about 30-45 minutes

Adzuki Red Bean and Coffee Brownies

2009-08-26T17:42:00.000-07:00

Okay, let's just say this right at the beginning. Let's say it like we're ripping off a bandaid.

This was a failure.

Conceptually, this is something I've been wanting to experiment with for quite a while. I've been slowly planning this for two weeks.

Red bean is a very commonly used ingredient in Asian desserts. Good. Coffee. Good. Chocolate. Undoubtedly good.

Here's where the problem was: I decided to make this gluten-free, which is dumb because i love gluten. Yay for gluten! The complete lack of flour made these brownies very heavy, rich and intense. If I could cut the heaviness in half, I think I'd be pretty happy.

I am not discouraged. I am going to re-work this recipe, perhaps tonight. I can make this work. I think there is potential here. And watch out world, when I figure this out I'm going to be throwing red bean into everything.

Honeyed Marscapone Fruit Tartlets

2009-08-23T22:17:00.000-07:00

I am amazed at the varieties of figs. Incredible. It isn't just a matter of color. Some taste more tart, almost raspberry like. Some taste like pure honey. And the textures are dramaticially different. The Calimyrna fig has a thicker skin and a seedier bite. Some are less seedy and have flesh that resembles a thick jam.

There's a man that I'm utterly devoted to when it comes to buying figs. I suppose I should find out his name and the name of his farm but all I know is that he's slightly crabby and surprisingly generous (he'll throw in a few freebies here and there). Also, I know that he is of Portuguese descent. I don't know why I know this.

Most farmers market vendors sell either Brown Turkey figs or Black Mission figs but my favorite fig man seems to add new varieties every week.

He is at the Hollywood farmers market and the Echo Park farmers market.

Though I love figs and fruit in all forms, when the fruit is really good it seems like a shame to bake it or to sugar it up. For the most part I ate nearly 2 1/2 baskets of fresh figs all by myself but to use up the last few figs I made tartlets with marscapone cheese.

I had some leftover dough from my quiche so I baked those into tartlet form and filled them with the marscapone cheese and fruit and topped the whole thing with a generous dripping of honey.

Here is the recipe for the marscapone filling:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup marscapone cheese

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 tablespoons honey

pinch of salt

1. combine all the ingredients together

2. spoon into tart shell

Saeyoung and I should perhaps consider competitive eating as a plan B...

2009-08-23T21:26:00.000-07:00

chicken nachos and mixed seafood ceviche

mahi mahi salad

blackened swordfish nachos

lobster taco, fish taco

done and done

saeyoung and eli

There's just no excuse for the quantities of food saeyoung and I eat when we're together. It's pretty disgraceful actually.

We went to Taco Loco with Eli for dinner today and while Eli ordered like a normal human being and had one tofu mushroom burger, Saeyoung and I thought we'd share a sampling of more or less the entire menu. Between the two of us we ordered a mahi mahi salad, mixed seafood ceviche, a lobster taco, a fish taco, blackened swordfish nachos, and chicken nachos. Right, one type of nachos was not enough for us. We basically ordered a meal for 4-5 people for the two of us.

...and we cleaned house. We ate everything.

But wait, let's put this into context. This is after having an enormous Chinese dim sum brunch a mere 4 hours prior. And after having snacked on sour patch kids and gummy worms at the movie theater. Also there was a popsicle and fruit somewhere in there.

Here's the truly disgusting part: right after Taco Loco, we walked down the street and had a white chocolate covered caramel apple.

No wait, there's more. There is talk of frozen yogurt later...

China Garden Dim Sum

2009-08-23T21:17:00.000-07:00

duck

shrimp shumai

broth filled shumai

almond souffle

bbq pork bun

here is a question: where is the best place for dim sum in southern california? I am willing to drive wide and far for good dim sum. My family went to China Garden in Irvine today, which is decent but is nothing compared to the dim sum we've had up in the Bay area.

Also, Chinese food is a mystery. It's so greasy and heavy but I usually don't feel like I'm going to keel over after having eaten it.

The Hollywood Farmers Market

2009-08-23T11:52:00.000-07:00

...made better with friends

Butternut Squash and Goat Cheese Quiche

2009-08-23T11:33:00.000-07:00

I had leftover filling from my butternut squash mini galettes and I also had frozen some tart pie dough that I had made a couple weeks ago. Easy easy.

Basic recipe for quiche:

Ingredients:

tart pie dough or any dough of your choice or store bought pre-made dough

filling of your choice (it can be something as simple as gruyere cheese or chives or steamed asparagus with goat cheese

2 egg yolks

1 egg

1 cup heavy cream (or milk if you don't want to consume heavy cream calories...but I recommend the heavy cream)

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1. preheat oven to 340

2. whisk together egg, egg yolks, and cream

3. add nutmeg

4. arrange filling of your choice in a half baked tart pastry

*note, if you don't want to bother making your own dough you can buy puff pastry, fit it into a cake pan, bake it at 400 for about 15 minutes and then fill it and bake until done

5. pour the egg mixture over the filling

6. bake in the oven for 30 minutes

Honda Ya-Tustin

2009-08-20T13:10:00.000-07:00

sashimi bowl

takoyaki

synchronized eating

steamed crab shumai

chicken salad with mayo cod roe dressing

seared tuna with ponzu

zaru tofu

ika sashimi

When asked what cuisine I couldn't live without, my answer comes out pretty readily. It's Japanese. I mean, Spanish is pretty exciting, French is wonderful, Vietnamese is my idea of comfort food. But when it comes down to it, if not for Japanese food, there would be a great big gaping black hole of culinary misery in my life.

What I find really great about Japanese food is that there is a duality about Japanese cuisine--the elegant minimalist side most obviously embodied by sushi and sashimi, which is probably what it most popular. Whoever first decided that fish can be eaten raw, well that person is just miraculous.

But just as wonderful is that Japanese food also includes saucy fatty gluttonous foods that often include all sorts of mayo, deep frying, and big flavors. I'm not sure but I think a lot of Japanese bar food may have developed with the onset of Westernization (think: mayo).

And also presentation: Japanese food is just so beautiful to look at. Japanese sweets are unbelievable. I can hardly eat them, they're so delicately made.

That's not true. I can eat them.

When I was in Japan last Winter we saw these tiny candies (the size of a pinky toenail) with really detailed faces painted on each one.

My family loves Honda- Ya because we can get both sides of Japanese food at once.

We always order takoyaki there, which I think can be qualified as Japanese street food) are these doughy balls of octopus and bonito flakes. I have fond memories of going on a road trip in Japan with my mother's side of the family and stopping at the Japanese equivalent of a truck stop and ordering takoyaki from a street vendor and passing around the styrofoam plate around the car.

My mother always orders the chicken salad at Honda-Ya, which is okay but I think the mayo cod dressing is a little heavy on the mayo for my taste.

Sashimi, of any kind: always good.

Anything with ponzu sauce I will inhale.

Not pictured:

bitter melon, bacon, and stir fried tofu

tanuki udon

side note: it looks as if I may be going to Japan this coming Winter! It's my grandmother's 80th birthday and to celebrate she wants to take a trip to Japan with all her daughters and their daughters. no boys allowed. We're still trying to decide between Vietnam and Japan. I might be rooting for Vietnam since I've never been.

Honda Ya

556 El Camino Real

Tustin, CA 92780

714.832.0081

Who Do You Think You Are Katie Joel?

2009-08-19T09:10:00.000-07:00

I totally failed at my baking ban. This is okay because I've finished the bulk of my chapbook. Or at least I thought I had until I had a bit of a formatting trouble today and it is giving me a massive headache. In any case, I wanted to bake something last night, and I'm not good at denying myself much.

In the new Food & Wine Magazine there was an article about some sort of party at Katie Joel's house. I don't understand. Who is Katie Joel? Why is she somehow associated with things culinary? I still don't know why she hosted the first season of Top Chef. I don't even care enough to wikipedia her. They featured a supposed blue ribbon recipe for angel food cake that apparently won Katie Joel's grandmother a ton of medals and such. I'm generally suspicious of "grandmother" recipes and even more suspicious of award winning recipes. If these recipes are so valued and treasured, why would one reveal it in a large-distribution magazine.

Fishy, I say.

And you know what? My suspicion was well founded. The cake finished baking in half the suggested baking time (and I have a slow baking oven). Also the measurements were all wrong. What was supposed to fit a 10 inch tube pan, actually filled a 10 inch tube pan in addition to 12 cupcake tins!

That being said, with the necessary adjustments the cake was quite good but tasted mysteriously of cotton candy. If I were to make this again, I think I would cut the amount of sugar from 2 1/2 cups to 2 cups, maybe even less. Also, I put the sugar through a food processor to make a finer grained sugar because it makes for a better meringue with beating the egg whites.

Here is the recipe.

But remember to cut the baking time by half.

Roasted Carrot and Beet Salad

2009-08-18T20:54:00.000-07:00

Saeyoung is done with her internship and we're finally in the same place at the same time! We've been doing this awful shuffle all summer where I'm in Orange County while she's in Los Angeles and then mid-week we switch off. She makes my work week in Orange County infinitely more bearable.

She's been cooking dinner for the family lately since she isn't working anymore. You will notice her beautiful panzanella salad blogged about below. Today she made scallops with a tropical fruit salsa, which I am sure she will blog about later. It was quite delicious.

My contribution to dinner was a roasted carrot and beet salad with a minted greek yogurt dressing. It tasted fine but I think the plate looked too busy. I'm blaming it on the cucumber chunks in the dressing, it was one ingredient too much. Also the pine nuts were probably unnecessary. And the avocados were tasty but somewhat clumsy on the plate.

Edit edit edit. As in writing, as in food, all the same rules apply.

Ingredients:

2 medium beets

1 cup peeled baby carrots

1 sweet potato

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1/3 teaspoon cumin

pinch of cinnamon

3 tablespoons of olive oil

2 teaspoons of salt

4 garlic cloves

for dressing:

1 1/2 cups of greek yogurt

juice of half a lemon

2 cucumbers, small dice, optional

3 teaspoons of chopped mint

1/2 teaspoon of crushed garlic

salt to taste

1. preheat oven to 400

2. wash and trim beets

3. wrap the beets along with the whole garlic cloves tightly in foil, making sure that there are no open vents for the steam

4. roast in the oven for about 1 hour

5. cube the sweet potato so that the segments are about the same thickness as the baby carrots

6. toss the carrots and the sweet potato cubes in a large bowl with the olive oil, the spices, and about 1 teaspoon of salt

7. spread the carrots and the sweet potatoes on a lined cookie sheet, making sure that none of the pieces are overlapping

8. bake in the oven for about 20-30 minutes. you can just stick them in the same oven as the beets when the beets reach the 30 minute mark

9. remove the beets from the foil and let cool

10. when the beets are cool enough to handle slip their skins off and slice into thin rounds

11. arrange the beets on a platter

12. crush the roasted garlic and toss with the roasted carrots and sweet potato

13. top the beets with the roasted carrot/sweet potato/garlic mixture

14. garnish the dish with avocados if you like

15. spoon the dressing on top

for the dressing:

1. in a food processor, combine all the ingredient minus the cucumbers

2. when blended, salt to taste and then add the cucumbers

3. you can make the dressing in advance and keep it in the refrigerator until ready to use

Panzanella Pandemonium!

2009-08-18T00:39:00.000-07:00

At the request of Almighty Mama Cho, I prepared a panzanella salad for supper tonight. It was a quick easy recipe that I made some slight adjustments to.

First step, I sauteed 1 inch by 1 inch cubed slices of some old bread we had around the house, an olive sourdough loaf and some kind of La Brea ciabatta I found in the fridge (my mom has a strange habit of refrigerating bread). It was sauteed in butter, olive oil, and garlic. I tossed that in the oven until crisp, which took surprisingly long.

Meanwhile, I sliced heirloom tomatoes that my sister has been begging me to use. I just threw in some grape tomatoes for crunch. Diced up celery, yellow bell pepper, and cilantro. Mixed it all together with 1/2 cup of balsamic vinegar. Added a little salt and pepper to taste with just a bit of red pepper flakes (b/c my family insists on spice).

Then I just mixed in the toasted bread before serving. Finito! A quick dinner - carb lovers delight!

I think I need to adjust the bread to veggies ratio, but other than that... a success.

Coming up tomorrow: seared scallops with fiery fruit salsa

Let's Re-Evaluate Our Priorities

2009-08-18T00:07:00.000-07:00

I'm imposing a baking ban on myself, just until this Saturday, which I guess isn't really that long. I have to finish a chapbook by Friday and truthfully I've been using baking as an excuse to avoid finishing it up. Why do I do this? Not because I don't care about writing, but I think because I care about it a great deal and because I've been terrified of writing for some inexplicable reason as of late.

Okay, no more excuses. I can do this.

That being said, I am roasting beets right now. There is no ban on roasting.

Sam, it's your birthday and this calls for treats

2009-08-16T23:32:00.000-07:00

It was Sam's birthday yesterday. Theme: bathing costume. I failed terribly at this theme. I thought I was going to go as figure skater because I used to figure skate when I was younger (which, by the way, I was really bad at. I danced like a brick) and had this ridiculous blindingly gold competition outfit. Well, as it turns out, I am not the same size as when I was in 6th grade. And as it turns out, my ass was hanging out of this costume and the top was startlingly transparent. I'm not sure why I assumed the lycra/spandex could stretch over 13 years of growth, adolescence, and the strange elastic carnival that the body puts itself through.

So yeah, I just wore my swimming suit.

Other people wore great things. Sam was a sparkly sea lion. Andrea was a French mime. Stephen was the solar system. A friend of Sam's was a unicorn. Katie, well I don't really know what Katie was but it was pretty and she looked very seaborn. Oh, also she wore a great octopus necklace.

I want to do this thing where I bake birthday cakes customized to the birthday person's personality. For example, I created Nancy Cake for Nancy when she finished her first marathon and every time I bake it and introduce it as Nancy Cake, i get kind of tickled by that.

For Sam, my intention was to make a chamomile bundt cake with lemon honey icing. She just seems like that sort of gal. It was really exciting in my head. Unfortunately to work out a new recipe it takes a little experimentation and I lacked the time. Also, because the party was at the beach, it seemed like having a whole cake would not be very easy to eat. So instead, I deferred to something easily grabbable. I made green tea shortbread with vanilla cake and white chocolate ganache.

I'm sad that I didn't get to make Sam Cake. Maybe for a different Sam-centric event I can make it. I'm sorry Sam.

Note: I used half rice flour and half all purpose flour in the vanilla cake to give it a firmer texture. It's probably not a good idea to make this recipe without the rice flour because the cake will be too tender to be sandwiched between the green tea cookies. You can find rice flour at most asian markets. Look for glutinous sweet rice flour. I like Mochiko brand.

Ingredients:

Green Tea Cookies

2 medium egg yolks (it's important to use medium rather than the more common large)

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 sticks of butter (200 grams)

1/3 cup superfine sugar

2 1/4 cup all purpose or pastry flour

1 teaspoon matcha green tea

Vanilla Cake

3 large eggs

3/4 cup rice flour

3/4 cup all purpose flour

1 stick of butter, melted

2/3 cup of sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

1 pinch of salt

6 oz of cream cheese

additional:

1/2 cup good quality white chocolate

Make Green Tea Shortbread Cookies

1. On a clean surface measure out the flour and the salt and make a well in the center

2. Put the cubed butter, matcha powder, and sugar in the well and slowly start to work in the flour into butter/sugar, softening the butter by working it between your fingers

3. make another well in the center and put the egg yolks in

4. work the egg yolks in until just combined

5. knead 3-4 times (do not overwork the dough)

6. form into a ball and refrigerate for at least an hour (you can freeze this dough for up to 3 months)

7. at this point you can make the vanilla cake while the dough is chilling --please skip down to vanilla cake section

8. when the dough is chilled unroll it to about 1/4 of an inch thickness on a lightly floured surface

9. cut the dough with biscuit cutter or what ever shapes your want. I like to make my cookies of various sizes because I think there's something charming about that.

10. bake for 8 to 10 minutes in an oven that has been preheated at 340 degrees. The cookies are done when there is the faintest ring of gold around the edges. These burn easily so be careful

Vanilla Cake

1. Beat the sugar and cream cheese together for about 3-5 minutes

2. incorporate the eggs, one at a time and beating for about a minute after every addition

3. in a separate bowl sift together the rice flour, the all purpose flour, the baking soda and the salt

4. add the flour mixture into the batter in 3 additions

5. fold in the melted butter and the vanilla extract

6. grease two-9 inch square pans and separate the batter evenly between them

7. give the pans a hard tap against your counter to release air bubbles

8. bake in a 350 degree preheated oven for about 20 minutes or until the edges start to pull away from the pan

9. let the cake cool fo about 15 minutes and then invert

Assembly:

1. melt the white chocolate in a double broiler or in the microwave by heating at high for 30-45 second. I recommend the double broiler to prevent scorching

2. cut the cakes to fit the size of your cookies

3. spread each side of the vanilla cake with the melted white chocolate and sandwich it between two of the green tea cookies

4. let the white chocolate harden as an adhesive

5. you can also shock the cookies in the freezer for about 1 minute if you're in a rush

Butternut Squash and Caramelized Onion Mini-Galettes

2009-08-16T23:26:00.000-07:00

Didn't I say this was going to happen? Didn't I say that I was going to begin a parade of galettes? What's better than a galette? A mini coin purse sized galette. And better, a galette with roasted butternut squash, roasted garlic, caramelized onions, thyme, and goat cheese.

Nikki Darling, of this blog had a barbeque the other night at her adorable house in Highland Park. As I am unlikely to show up to parties and other gatherings empty handed I wanted to make something easily grabbable and preferably something savory. My sweet tooth has waned a little as of late.

I bought this enormous butternut squash from Weiser Farms the other day and as I couldn't imagine eating the entire squash by myself I thought this occasion was as good as any to utilize the squash. Also used: amazingly sweet bermuda onions from the Santa Monica farmers market. Butternut squash and caramelized onions...it's one of those combinations that makes an almost unquestionable amount of sense. I used thyme as the herb but I think sage would be quite nice too.

The barbeque was fun. There's something very pleasing about sitting on grass with a beer and a friend. I unfortunately left right before the pinata festivities, which i hear was filled with candy and unmentionables. I wish I had stayed for that.

Ingredients:

For galette dough (galette dough recipe adapted from smitten kitchen):

2 1/2 cups of all purpose flour

4 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

1/2 cup sour cream

2 sticks of very

1/2 cup ice water

1/2 teaspoon salt

optional: 1 egg and 1 teaspoon of milk for an egg wash

Filling Ingredients:

1 butternut squash, cubed

3-5 sprigs of thyme

3 bermuda onions, cut into crescent strands

3 tablespoons of butter

5 cloves of garlic

3 tablespoons of olive oil (2 for the butternut squash and 1 for roasted garlic)

1/4 cup goat cheese

2 teaspoons of salt plus more to taste

Make the galette dough:

1. cube the butter and put in freezer for a hour

2. in a large bowl combine flour and salt and make a well in the center

3. put the cold cubed butteri n the center and use the pastry cutter to work the flour into the butter until the mixture has a coarse crumb. This may take some time and a little arm muscle

4. make another well in the center

5. whisk together the sour cream, ice water, and lemon juice and add the mixture into the flour/butter well

5. work the ingredients together with your hands

6. knead until the crumbly bits of flour are picked up by the dough. the dough will be quite chunky but this is a good thing.

7. form the loose chunks of dough into a ball and tightly wrap in plastic wrap.

8. refrigerate for at least an hour, freeze if using later

Filling:

1. roast the garlic in a tin foil packet with just enough olive oil to coat the cloves. add a sprig of thyme if you'd like. put it in the oven at 375 for about 45 minutes or until the cloves are easily smashed and golden brown

2. cube the butternut squash and coat with 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil, depending on the size of your squash. add about 1 teaspoon of salt.

3. spread the squash evenly in a single layer on a cookie sheet. you will most likely need two cookie sheets.

4. roast the butternut squash at 375 for about 40 minutes or until tender and slightly browned (if using 2 cookie sheets, switch them at the half way mark)

5. meanwhile caramelize the onions with butter and anout 1 teaspoon of salt. (if using an onion that isn't a bermuda onion, add a pinch of sugar)

7. in a large bowl smash the garlic

8. add the onions and butternut squash and thyme

9. salt and pepper to taste

Assembly:

1. tear off about a tablespoon and a half of galette dough and roll into a small disk (about 3 inches diameter) on a lightly floured surface.

2. in the center of the dish add about a spoonful of filling, leaving about 1 inch edge all around the disk

3. sprinkle with a teaspoon of goat cheese

4. fold up the edges, pinching the dough as your go around

5. optional: brush the dough with an egg wash of one egg whisked with a teaspoon of milk

6. in a 400 degree preheated oven, bake for about 20 minutes or until the dough is just golden

Pasadena Farmers Market

2009-08-15T14:15:00.001-07:00

Here is how I would rank Los Angeles farmers markets:
1. Santa Monica on Wednesdays
2. Hollywood on Sundays
3. Pasadena on Saturdays
...I'll throw in Silverlake on Saturdays for convenience of location

--note: my commitment to stop my obsession with figs has failed. I bought more. In fact, out of the 8 I bought, only 3 made it home. I ate everything while walking around the Pasadena farmers market.

Pasadena Farmers Market
Victory Park, Pasadena
Saturdays 8 to 3

Beef On The Brain

2009-08-15T13:27:00.000-07:00

A friend once described his brain as a "silent, dumb muscle" and when I think about this I picture a slab of beef, a tumored cancerous slab of red raw meat. I don't know why. That is what my brain feels like during the week. For the summer I've been working in Orange County 3-4 days of the week, and it isn't that the work is especially hard or even unstimulating, but by the time I get to go back to my own space in Los Angeles my head feels as bit masticated and like this dull throbbing knob of a thing.
So when I get to spend my weekends in Los Angeles, I can't even say how much I enjoy letting myself reach equilibrium. I peruse farmers markets with headphones and my iPod on shuffle. I cook unnecessarily elaborate meals for one. I attempt to forget the sound of my own voice. I wake up at 7:30 in the morning and eat fruit and tea and bread with butter.

on a side note: do you ever feel that your iPod shuffle is psychically tied to you? I swear my iPod is either magical or psychic or more likely a combination of both.

Duck Egg over Chanterelles and Peas (plus other things)

2009-08-15T01:50:00.000-07:00

I went to the Santa Monica Farmers Market the other day, which was my first time actually. I saw Mark Peel there discussing apples. He looked super official in his chef's jacket.
Things that are in season and wonderful and purchased by me:
1. figs (I need to stop with the figs. I'm more fig than girl at this point)
2. bermuda onions (very sweet, tastes vaguely like cipollini)
3. thyme
4. orange and red tomatoes

I also bought some chanterelles, which I haven't seen at farmers markets this summer. I'm not sure when chanterelles are in season but they were pretty pricey. At $12 per pound I could only afford a handful. I couldn't resist though. I have a deep love of mushrooms and chanterelles are up there on my list.

I also found a duck egg. It was the last one. I felt almost obligated to buy it. Just as an object (not as a food item) an egg is so pleasing to look at. If I could assign a personality to eggs, I'd say that they seem enormously calm. That's probably stupid. I should stop romanticizing everything I eat.

For dinner I used my purchases to make a really gorgeous dinner, for one, pathetically. Is it still pathetic if I preferred it that way? I sauteed bermuda onions with the chanterelles with some thyme and peas and topped it with a fried duck egg and then I drizzled the whole thing with the white truffle oil I got with my gift certificate to Williams and Sonoma.
Also, a side salad of tomatoes in a meyer lemon balsamic vinaigarette.
Oh! also I enjoyed figs with a port and honey goat cheese! Saeyoung, I'm bringing your some of that goat cheese. It's ridiculously good.

Ingredients:
1/2 a bermuda onion
3/4 cup chanterelle mushrooms
1/4 cup peas (frozen or fresh)
3 sprigs of thyme
2 tablespoons of butter
salt and pepper to taste
1 duck egg

1. melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat
2. sweat the onions. try and not move them too much so that they will caramelize but make sure that they don't burn and go bitter
3. when the onions are cooked down and translucent add the chanterelles and thyme
4. when the onions and chanterelles are browned add the peas and cook for about one minute or until the peas are just tender
5. salt and pepper to taste
6. take the mixture out of the pan and plate
7. in the same pan with the browned butter, crack the egg and fry until the white part is opaque. You want the yolk to be runny (you may have to add more butter or oil to the pan before adding the egg)
8. top the chanterelle mixture with the egg and drizzle with white truffle oil or just extra virgin olive oil will do just fine

...other variations:

this would also be good with pancetta or some sort of salty cured meat

Fig & Apple Galette

2009-08-14T00:19:00.000-07:00

Oh, I love galettes!

I have a thing for rustic looking desserts, free form pastries, things that I imagine a French grandmother with a chignon making. I wish I were a chignoned French grandmother.

I am not.

I foresee a period of obsessive galette making. Yes, I think I'll make a bunch of galette dough tomorrow and freeze it. That is the other great thing about French-type pastry doughs...they freeze beautifully. You can make them and wrap them tightly and then store them for up to 3 months.

I'll tell you something about this fig and apple galette: the small extra something, almost imperceptible but absolutely wonderful part of this galette was brushing it with a homemade orange honey glaze and then sprinkling it with sugar that had been mixed with orange zest.

This dessert makes me anxious for the Fall.

Thai Bros

2009-08-13T23:47:00.000-07:00

seafood salad

chicken stuffed chicken

steamed orange roughy

pad thai

I have two favorite Thai restaurants in Orange County. One is Siamese Express for pure comfort. Affordable, convenient, no fancy pants garnish, and tamarind paste all over the place. The other is Thai Bros in Laguna Beach. And while Thai Bros is probably too pricey to make me a regular, I have to say I've never had a bad dish there.

My cousin Patricia and I had dinner at Thai Bros the other night. She's visiting from New York and we've only just realized that we've never had a meal together, just the two of us. We're usually swamped between aunts and uncles and cousins at enormous productions of family dinners, so it was quite pleasant to have an intimate dinner together.

My favorite of the evening was the seafood salad with glass noodles. It's the lime dressing. I'm a sucker for limes (ha!). I think Patricia might have liked the chicken the best. I've had these chicken stuffed chickens at other Thai restaurants and I've always thought there was something slightly grotesque about them. First, ground chicken is not the texture that I like my chicken to be. And also, it seems a little comical to reconstitute them by stuffing them back into their skins. Oh! I've just realized why I find them grotesque. It's like Frankenstein's monster! Kind of. Well, I guess not really. But a little bit.

It tasted good. It's just something I find a bit perplexing.

I ordered the Orange Roughy because I needed something clean, something simple tasting. The steamed Orange Roughy accomplished that. I was satisfied.

I have to say though, the best Thai food I've had has been at Jitlada, just around the corner from my apartment in Hollywood. Patricia, Saeyoung, and our cousin Whun plan on having dinner there next week. It will be fun. I already know this.

Thai Bros

238 Laguna Ave

Laguna Beach, CA 92651

949.376.9979

Cherry Coconut Mochi Bars

2009-08-11T02:06:00.000-07:00

It's a great feeling when you're experimenting, when you're throwing out the measuring cups and guesstimating approximates and the results are exactly what you'd want them to be.

Baking experiments are exciting. Rice flour is exciting. These mochi cake bars are exciting.

I'm enormously pleased with how these turned out. Chewy, very tender but not gummy. And the coconut is fantastic. It's making our house smell heavenly, tropical and heavenly.

I'm already thinking of variations. Maybe matcha, macadamia nuts, and white chocolate? Some coconut in there too?

Ingredients:

note* I wasn't kidding about the throwing out the measuring cups...so these measurements are approximations, though they are fairly accurate I believe.

1 1/4 cup rice flour (I like Mochiko brand--I used exactly half of one box)

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup chopped cherries

3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup sweetened shredded coconut

3/4 cup superfine sugar

3/4 stick of butter

2 eggs

3/4 cup of coconut cream

1 teaspoon vanilla

1. preheat oven to 350 F

2. grease an 11 x 8x 2 pan and fit it with parchment paper on the bottom of the pan

3. sift together the rice flour and baking powder, set aside

4. melt the butter and let it sit out for about 10 minutes (or until it isn't hot)

5. beat the eggs and sugar together for about 2-3 minutes with an electric mixer

6. add the melted butter and beat for another minute

7. add the coconut cream and vanilla, combine

8. fold in the rice flour carefully in 3 separate additions

9. fold in the cherries and chocolate chips. make sure to fold in very gently so that the cherries do not bleed all over the batter

10. pour the batter into the prepared pan

11. tap the pan on a hard surface to get rid of air bubbles

12. evenly spread the coconut over the top

13. bake for about 25-30 minutes

14. let cool completely

It All Began w/ a Macaron in Paris...

2009-08-10T12:56:00.000-07:00

Let's face it, I'm no cook. I eat like a professional, but my sister was the one blessed with kitchen talent. Instead, I've decided to do what I do best... business. Sprout & The Bean catering is officially open for business.

Followers of 'Eat Your Weight' have seen this blog grow and develop. We're now taking the next step...or leap rather... into the catering world.

Order a custom cake for your friend's next birthday, bring a batch of Rosemary shortbread cookies to the potluck, or book Sprout & The Bean catering for your entire party from amuse bouche to dessert.

You can look forward to the freshest ingredients from local farmers' markets, unique flavor combinations, and quite simply, a really delicious dessert that you won't find anywhere else.

Sprout & The Bean
Sae Cho
949 683 9304
saeyoungcho@yahoo.com

Sprout & The Bean
Saehee Cho - Chef
949 677 6987
saeheecho84@yahoo.com

Further Preservation

2009-08-10T00:33:00.000-07:00

a sampling

macerated strawberries

boiling the preserves

Calimyrna, Black Mission, and Kadota Figs

Fig season is here! They've sort of been trickling into farmers markets for the last month and now they are all over the place. I went to the Pasadena farmers market on Saturday and purchased a smattering of different varieties. I must have eaten a basket of figs, sampling them from stall to stall. I'm very particular. And figs are testy.

Along with other fruits I bought there I made more preserves, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite summer activities.

also, thank you to Saeyoung and Eli for being my preserve taste testers. Saeyoung's favorite--strawberry balsamic. Eli's favorite--fig, apple, almond

This round:

strawberry with balsamic vinegar

strawberry with mint and black pepper

fig (mixed variety), fuji apple, and almonds

note*

I am auctioning off a basket of my preserves at the Les Figues Benefit Auction this year along with an alchemical baking commission.

In the basket so far are:

fig.vanilla.honey

yellow nectarine.chamomile

gaviota strawberry.grand marnier

cherry.peach.rosebud

blueberry.white nectarine.vanilla

strawberry.balsamic

strawberry.mint.black pepper

fig.apple.almond

and next week I plan on making peach and white wine preserves, which I'm sure will make it into the basket. To purchase tickets to the event or for more info, go here.

Break of Dawn

2009-08-10T00:10:00.000-07:00

smoked salmon, poached eggs, and oatmeal galette

crispy shrimp and lobster rolls

mi rancheros

Today was a good day. A bit unexpectedly, Saeyoung and I found that we had the better part of the day to ourselves. A little bit of leisure time goes a long way. Just a bit though. Too much leisure time is another story altogether.

Saeyoung and I started the day working out, which is something I almost stubbornly never do. I really detest it. But today it felt somehow very balancing and also pleasantly numbing and I enjoyed it very much. And because the only reason I would work out is so that I can eat more, we rewarded ourselves with brunch.

We went to Break of Dawn in Laguna Hills, a small restaurant that serves mostly American food but with small nods to Vietnamese cuisine. Is it just me or has Vietnamese exploded in the last 3 years or so?

The restaurant is located a little strangely, in a strip mall behind a Trader Joe's, but I suppose everything in Orange County is a strip mall so whatever. In any case the food is wonderful. I think this place just has good energy. Or maybe it's the idea of having a leisurely brunch that has good energy.

I ordered the smoked salmon which came with two absolutely perfectly poached eggs (clean and runny) over an oatmeal galette. Despite having been pan fried the oatmeal galette was surprisingly light and held up to the runny yolk.

Saeyoung ordered the mi rancheros which I think was a version of huevos rancheros. Also, surprisingly light. It was served with some sort of masa cake (nothing like a tamale...though I have been craving a good tamale) that was especially good.

Really, a wonderful day.

Break of Dawn

24351 Avenida de la Carlota

Laguna Hills, CA 92653

949.587.9418

Strawberry Basil Challah Bread Pudding

2009-08-09T23:37:00.000-07:00

I'm getting a kitten!

This is enormously exciting and slightly frightening. Earlier this year I was nursing a basil plant, which became strangely taxing. I worried a lot about Rita (yes, the basil plant's name was Rita), about making sure she wasn't in direct sunlight for too long, about the lack of sun she was getting when it was overcast, about how top heavy she got and the threat of her toppling over. I even had babysitters for her (thanks nancy, thanks mom).

Point is, now I'm going to be have this living moving animal under my care and I'm sure that I will be 10 times more worried for this kitten than for Rita. But I'm okay with that. I'm ready for that. In fact, I'm undoubtedly thrilled for it. I have all these romantic ideas of letting it fall asleep on my lap while I have morning coffee in the kitchen or finding it unexpectedly under my pillow just as I get into bed and saying, get out kitty, this is my spot!

I think it will be happy with me. I hope it will be happy with me.

Stephen, a friend and fellow Calartian (him, alumni) has a cat named Louise and Louise just had 5 kittens. I went over yesterday to claim a kitten and to visit with Stephen in his brand new Silverlake house, which was really beautiful. How do people find such wonderful places to live? It's confounding. It felt very Californian--open spaces, a backyard deck.

Okay, back to the kittens. I immediately gravitated towards a black and white kitten named Lou Jr/Divorce. I'm thinking of changing his name but I'll let his personality determine that.

As evidenced above I tried to take a photograph but found this strangely impossible. They weren't moving and there was nothing wrong with my camera and on top of that Stephen's camera was out of batteries. It's like the world did not want me to capture an image of these kittens. There's something kind of sweet about that, I suppose. I'm very grateful to Stephen for my kitten.

It's a five week countdown until I can bring my kitten home!

Oh yeah, and I made strawberry basil bread pudding as a housewarming gift for Stephen. A very summery dessert. I really do love the combination of strawberries and basil.

Find the recipe here.

Kitten!!

Strawberry Cupcakes

2009-08-08T11:28:00.000-07:00

The center piece of the children's party catering job.

Would you believe that I put strawberry Jello in these cupcakes? We can credit the Jello for the adorable pink color.

Raspberry White Chocolate Sandwich Cookies

2009-08-07T23:09:00.000-07:00

I catered a children's birthday party today. This was not ordered but I thought I'd throw them in for free after encountering them in Martha Stewart's Cookies and because they fit the theme of the birthday party so well.

The white chocolate raspberry cream turned out a little grainy for some reason, which was unfortunate. I think this might have something to do with the quality of white chocolate or perhaps the temperature of the heavy cream. In any case, they tasted very good. Very appropriate for a children's party. Warning: these cookies are very sweet so if you sugar overload easily, these may not be for you.

RECIPE HERE

Matcha Green Tea and Chocolate Pound Cake

2009-08-06T19:33:00.000-07:00

Oh, you know how I feel about matcha. Truthfully, I think matcha and white chocolate make a better pairing but I really was excited about the idea of this color combination.

This recipe makes a pound cake that avoids being the dense clumsy brick that we might be familiar with. The crumb is a bit finer and I think has a much more appealing texture. And the color!

Matcha Chocolate Pound Cake

2 sticks (8oz) of butter, unsalted and at room temperature

8 oz of good quality semi-sweet chocolate (3 oz for the ganache, 5 oz to blend into the batter)

1 tsp of matcha green tea (powdered green tea is not the same thing)

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 tsp baking powder

1 1/4 cup all purpose flour

2/3 cup granulated sugar

1 tsp vanilla

4 eggs (separated)

1/4 cup heavy cream

1/2 cup whole milk

1. grease and flour a 8 1/2 inch loaf pan (or I used 3 disposable mini-loaf pans) and preheat an oven to 350

2. sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. set aside

3. melt 5 oz of chocolate in a double broiler

4. cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy

5. add the egg yolks one at a time and beat for one minute with each addition

6. fold in the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with additions of the whole milk

7. beat the egg whites until they hold stiff peaks

8. fold the egg whites in very gently. it's okay if they are not completely blended in

9. divide the batter in half

10. to one half of the batter add the melted 5 oz of chocolate and mix until just combined

11. to the other half add the matcha and vanilla extract until just combined

12. fill the load pan(s) with heaping spoonfuls of batter, alternating between the matcha batter and chocolate batter.

13. settle the batter by tapping it against a hard surface

14. with a butter knife marble the batter by making a swirling motion, make sure not to over mix.

15. bake in the oven for approximately an hour if in a large loaf pan and about 4o minutes if in the mini-loaf pans

16. let cool completely

17. heat up the heavy cream and then pour over the remaining chocolate

18. let stand for about 1 minute and then whisk until smooth

19. spread over the top of the loaf and let harden for about an hour

Melon Salsa And Tandoori Chicken

2009-08-05T08:51:00.000-07:00

My mom made tandoori chicken last night and to utilize the last of my Galia melon I made a melon salsa to eat with her very tasty entree.

Ingredients

1/2 melon, thickly cubed

1/4 red onion, small dice

a handful of chopped cilantro

juice of 2 limes

zest of one lime

2 chopped jalapenos

1/3 cup of corn kernals (preferably fresh and raw)

1. just toss it together

Melonopolis

2009-08-05T08:50:00.000-07:00

As has become my habit, I went to the Hollywood Farmer's Market this Sunday. I've said this before, the farmer's market is like my Disneyland.

I bought a Galia melon from Weiser Family Farms (a consistently good vendor that I recommend). I also bought some other fruits but really the prize of the day was that Galia melon.

Sometimes complications are unnecessary. A simple fruit salad is perfect and wonderful. Of course, if you add some grand marnier...well, nothing is wrong with that. For my perfect midday snack, I boiled down some Grand Marnier with sugar and craisins and tossed it with fresh fruit and chopped mint. The craisins plump up in the Grand Marnier adorably. Also, I used very little Grand Marnier in proportion to the fruit because I didn't want the fruit bathing in there. If making this, make sure that the Grand Marnier syrup isn't hot when you toss the fruit or you'll scald your snack. No good.

Mo-Chica

2009-08-03T23:44:00.001-07:00

salad of the day : beets and arugula

arroz con mariscos

seco de cordero

ceviche del dia

First of all, let me apologize for the quality of these images. I forgot to bring the "good" camera.

I've had Peruvian food a number of times, each time was mediocre. I always got that "I'm more full than satisfied" feeling. This was, I am fairly sure, the best Peruvian food I have ever had. And the best part was that it was enormously affordable for what it was. Ceviche for $5? A braised lamb shank with white beans, rice, and cilantro beer stew for $13? Arroz con Mariscos that was generous with the seafood for $13? Excellent, very excellent. I assume that they can keep their prices reasonable because the location is a bit odd. It's in something like a food court in downtown. It feels like a big warehouse space that several restaurants made a collective out of and are sharing a communal space. But that's okay, affordability is more important than ambiance.

I also liked that they seemed to have a rotating menu of specials. It seems their ceviche changes pretty regularly. When we went they had sea bass, which was served with Peruvian corn. The salad of the day was beets and arugula and if you know me, you know that beets are a dear dear love of mine.

I ordered the seco de cordero, which is not something I would typically order but the idea of cilantro beer stew was very exciting. My meat was maybe slightly overcooked but delicious nevertheless and the stew was wonderful. I don't think there was a drop left on my plate.

Saeyoung ordered the arroz con mariscos, which I guess is more or less like paella. And really, you can't go wrong there.

And to top things off, everything was beautifully plated. Things like plating are important to me. It's true, things taste better when they're pretty.

I'm not really someone who gets hung up on service. As long as my food is good, a lot of things are permissible but I do appreciate good service. The server was wonderful and at one point the chef came out to ask us how are food was. And I asked for more pickles thinking I'd get a few slices but was met with a bowl full of them.

I recommend. I recommend highly. In fact, I'll go with you.

Mo-Chica

3655 S. Grand Ave

Los Angeles, CA 90007

213.747.2141

http://www.mo-chica.com/

Dear Bright Morning

2009-08-03T23:40:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I make these decisions, these very conscious decision to have a good day. I have to decide this as soon as I wake up or there's no controlling how my day goes. It has to be as soon as I open my eyes. It usually works.

Yesterday was one of those days. It probably isn't accurate to say that my pure will was 100% responsible. These good feelings were also informed by the fact that I knew I had a leisurely day ahead of me. Saeyoung had decided to leave work early so that we could have a sister day, which we've been meaning to do. And also, I decided not to put any pressure on myself to write something for the day.

I woke up around 8 and started the morning with some warm matcha milk tea and a handfull of some gorgeous kadota figs (pictured above). Aren't they lovely? They're a bit sturdier than the black mission figs and have an almost raspberry like tartness to them. And also the color is enormously pleasing. I really liked starting my morning with a palate of greens--the matcha was also of a very calming shade. I don't know that I've felt that unrippled in a while.

I recommend this, especially when there are things to be ruffled about. Choose to blot out the worry. Be avoidant. Drink a milky warm beverage. Eat fruit that seems, by nature, romantic. Eat it without elaboration, with out honey or yogurt but put it in a pretty bowl.

Dae Sung Oak--post reading dinner

2009-08-03T23:37:00.000-07:00

fish in red pepper with radishes, potatoes, and tofu
the communal pot of vegetables and beef--this will eventually be made into a porridge when the broth is all cooked down
mung bean pancakes
the spread
pork belly that you wrap in cabbage with kimchi and an oyster

After the Out of Nothing reading I went out to dinner with my family with Nancy and Lan. Predictably we got Korean food. Saeyoung and I had this discussion afterwards about how Korean food is just not conducive to conversation. There is nothing leisurely about it. The server is constantly bringing food-small side dishes, checking on the meat, bringing rice. It feels something like an attack of food actually. Korean food is aggressive. Are we an aggressive people?

And the other problem is that the table gets so full with food that there isn't even room to put your elbows down (that's bad manners anyhow, but still). My brain kind of stops working when i'm overwhelmed with food in this way.

We went to Dae Sung Oak which specializes in a Korean shabu-shabu type dish. A boiling pot of broth is set in the middle of the table and vegetables are added (mushrooms, cabbage, seaweed, sweet potatoes, peppers, etc). When the broth looks like it's at a scalding level, thin raw almost carpaccio like slices of beef are added. When the meat is cooked through we dip it in a sweet soy sauce. When the broth is all cooked down an thickened, they add rice and make it into a porridge. It's quite gluttonous, also glutinous. haha.

Dae Sung Oak

2585 West Olympic Blvd

Los Angeles, Ca 90006

213.386.1600

Out Of Nothing Reading and some promotional sweets

2009-08-03T23:12:00.000-07:00

The ever busy Janice Lee and Joe Milazzo organized a reading this last Sunday for their online literary journal : out of nothing

a very wonderful publication. please take a gander. also, i believe they are accepting submissions for their third issue...

The reading was held at New Puppy Gallery. I really loved the space. It felt like the belly of an ark. Noah's ark, even. If I were as enterprising as Janice and had the connections to organize such a reading, it occurred to me that I would hold it there.

Because I'm just starting this catering thing, I thought I'd bring some free baked goods. I made the same banana nutella cupcakes that I made for my 2nd catering job. I made chocolate cherry cookies. Also, I made cinnamon roll muffins. Problem was that I was so busy baking that I didn't have time to write down any promotional material or make business cards. Last minute, Saeyoung helped me write some bare minimum details on some gold doilies while I was setting up at the gallery. I think that I'm going to have to figure out how to time myself better. I gave myself plenty of time to bake, or so I thought, but nevertheless I was scrambling at the end. Also due to the scramble, I forgot to take any pictures of the final products. Ugh, I hate it when that happens.

Also, I was informed later that the ants-in-residence at the gallery found their way to the remaining cupcakes and therefore made them inedible. What a waste...

Blueberry Tartlets

2009-08-03T22:50:00.000-07:00

These are more for show. The taste, I think, was not as exciting as they looked. I recently purchased tartlet pans and they've sort of been taunting me in their cuteness. But making tarts seemed time consuming and I've only just gotten around to using them for the first time. Surprisingly not that time consuming, especially since I had made the tart dough before hand.

Ingredients:

pate sucree--

1 3/4 cups pastry flour

7 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold and small cubed

1 cup confectioners' sugar

pinch of salt,

2 large eggs at room temperature

blueberry filling--

2 cups blueberries

1/3 cup sugar

zest of half a lemon

juice of half a lemon

egg was--

one egg, beaten

1 tablespoon milk

Making the pate sucree

1. mound the flour on a large surface and make a well in the center

2. place the butter, sugar, and salt in the well and begin to incorporate the ingredients into the flour

3. again, make a well in the center and this time add the eggs

4. knead the dough until it begins to come together

5. form into a ball

6. wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or until ready to use (or this can be stored in a freezer bag for up to 3 months)

7. when ready to use, unroll the dough onto a floured surface and use a rolling pin to make it about 1/4 inch in thickness

8. drape the dough over the tart pan and press the sides into the flutes of the pan

9. remove excess dough by rolling the rolling pin over the tart pan once

10. preheat oven to 350

11. meanwhile, line the dough in the tart pan with parchment paper and fill it with dry beans or pie weights

12. bake for about 10 minutes

13. remove the parchment paper and beans/pie weights and bake for 3 more minutes

14. meanwhile combine ingredients for blueberry filling and cut out circles in the remaining pate sucree with a mini biscuit cutter

15. fill the baked tart shell with the blueberry filling

16. cover the blueberry filling with the circle cut outs of pate sucree in a circular pattern

17. brush with egg wash and sprinkle with sanding sugar

18. bake for 15 minutes or until the pie top is golden brown

2nd Catering Job, not so much a failure: Banana Cupcakes with Nutella Frosting

2009-07-31T10:38:00.000-07:00

My second catering job! They turned out well! I know this because I snuck a cupcake (or two).

Martha Stewart's Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies

2009-07-31T10:29:00.000-07:00

I've re-discovered Martha Stewart's "Cookies". It's a really exciting book. I made gingerbread cookies because I'm on a bit of a molasses kick. I used chopped chocolate rather than chocolate chips so that there would be large chunks of melty chocolate.

Here is the recipe. I recommend it highly.

Pineapple, Molasses, and Lime Zest

2009-07-30T22:40:00.000-07:00

I have a new side job. My mom and her husband are going to Spain and France in September. I'm in charge of planning the whole thing, from flights to dinner reservations. I'm pretty much planning my dream vacation, but for someone else. (sigh) I'm totally more excited about this trip than they are. I've been downloading every itunes show about Spain and France that I can find and predictably I'm tending towards the ones with a foodie bent. The other night I watched "On the Road Again" with Mario Batali, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Mark Bittman. It's really mediocre. Gwyneth Paltrow is pretty obnoxious. But, they do eat some beautiful food. In the episode about Barcelona they went to Inopia, a restaurant by one of the Adria brothers (tangent: I tried to make a reservation of El Bulli, the Adria brother's restaurant but they are booked up for the next year!). For dessert at Inopia they serve fresh pineapple with lime zest and molasses. Simple, simple, wonderful. I've never thought about using molasses with fresh fruit. I like this very much.

Cranberry Macadamia Cormeal Biscotti

2009-07-28T12:44:00.000-07:00

I'm back on the horse! I don't really know what that means.

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cup all purpose flour

1 1/4 cup cornmeal

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs (room temp)

6 tablespoons of butter

1 cup sugar

3/4 cup dried cranberries

3/4 cup chopped macadamia nuts

3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

zest of one lemon

for the maple icing:

3/4 cup confectioner's sugar

1 1/2 tablespoons maple syrup

1 tablespoon water

1. preheat oven to 350

2. sift together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, and salt--set aside

3. cream the butter and the sugar until fluffy and light

4. beat in the eggs, one at a time

5. add the flour/cornmeal mixture to the butter/sugar/egg mixture

6. add the lemon zest, chocolate, cranberries, and macadamia nuts

7. combine all the ingredients

8. on a parchment lined cookie sheet form the dough into a log that is about 14 inches long

9. bake for 30-40 minutes or until the bottom edges are slightly browned and the top begins to crack just a bit

10. remove from oven and let cool for about 20 minutes

11. slice the log into 1/2 inch slices and place back onto a parchment lined cookie sheet

12. bake for 15-18 minutes or until the edges are slightly browned

13. remove from oven and let cool completely

14. mix the ingredients for the icing and pour into a sturdy ziploc bag

15. push the icing into one corner of the bag, making sure to release all the air from the top of the bag

16. snip off a tiny part of the corner of the bag and drizzle the icing over the biscotti

17. serve dipped in coffee or milk or dessert wine

A Good Gathering

2009-07-27T19:11:00.000-07:00

requisite

honey brined chicken

jab chae (glass noodles with vegetables)

bean sprout rice

soups (also requisite)

saeyoung and patricia

marinated tofu

no one ate this but me

i found orange cauliflower at the market and i couldn't resist

butternut squash fries

maple dipping sauce

peanut sauce

my favorite guacamole : thai guac

mango cherry salsa

I love cooking with my mom and sister. Once in a while we'll have extended family over for large weekend dinners. We say it will be a simple meal, but it never is. Simplicity just isn't in our blood. We meticulously plan. We make several trips to the grocery market (the korean market, the american market, and the last minute trip to Ralph's). We toil. We barely sit down to eat but somehow manage to gorge until our stomachs are disgustingly rotund. We then clean for what seems like centuries. And then we pull out leftovers from the fridge and eat again.

These make up some of my happiest moments. We're oddly cheerful when we cook. We have a sense of collectivity, of doing something together and enjoying what we made together. Call me sentimental, because there's no denying it, I really am.

This last Sunday we had one of these large dinners. I was in charge of appetizers because I believe that's my favorite part of a meal. I made a Thai guacamole, which is my favorite avocado dish, hands down. Also, I made a mango cherry salsa, inspired by the fruit we had in the fridge. Also, butternut squash fries with peanut sauce and a maple dipping sauce. Saeyoung made a strata, which she will post about very soon (yes, she also blogs here *nudge nudge saeyoung cho). She also made her famous peach drop cookies, which are always excellent. Mom, being the faithful Korean that she is made jab chae, spinach soy bean soup, tofu salad and bean sprout rice . Doc, faithful to his grill, made korean short ribs and a very tender honey brined chicken.

Very pleasant evening.

My First Catering Job

2009-07-26T23:34:00.000-07:00

last minute "business cards"

Carly Yu hired me to bake a birthday cake + some cupcakes for her sister's birthday. It's exciting to get paid for something you enjoy doing. Unfortunately, I have a nagging suspicion that the red velvet cake was not as good as it could have been. Let me explain. I don't like the idea of baking cakes too far in advance. I like to bake things the morning of the day it will be served. In this case, this meant staying up all night baking. Seriously, I didn't touch my bed that night. I don't know if my mind was fuzzy from lack of sleep but when I unmolded the red velvet layers they felt a little stiffer than they usually do. And obviously I couldn't sample a bit to confirm my suspicions so now I feel all anxious about how the cake was. I'm scared that I didn't measure something correctly, that maybe in my sleepy delirium I put an extra 1/2 cup of flour or left out a few ounces of butter. What if it was horrible? What if it was stiff as a board? To be honest this is really bothering me. It felt really important that my first catering job went well, like it was supposed to be good omen of things to come. Oh (!!) I'm almost positive it wasn't my best red velvet. I'm sad and disappointed in myself.

I also made strawberry pink lady cupcakes, which were adorable. I bought these great tulip baking cups that were just perfect. I thought they tasted pretty good and I made a double batch so that I could take some to Felipe's 27th birthday party. But Thomas later told me that they weren't my best cupcakes, that they weren't as moist as they could have been.

....................

I am a failure!

Oh, I am very unhappy with this. Maybe I just wasn't meant to exchange my baking for money.

A Very Pleasant Evening (recipe for pear and bittersweet chocolate cake included)

2009-07-26T23:04:00.000-07:00

homemade kettle corn

cantaloupe, watermelon, mint, and white wine salad

pear and bittersweet chocolate cake

i really love the idea of a movie night. i think they're nice. and relaxing. and usually there is food involved. i had a few people over the other night to watch "in the mood for love" and "talk to her". Are movies at movie nights supposed to be light and easy? Because, these movies were decidedly not. But I think that's a good thing. We actually had conversations about the movies...like little discussion sessions after the viewing. it felt----productive (??). In any case I had a lovely time and i think my friends are peachy.

When I have people over, I get really host-y. It's probably obnoxious but I all of a sudden feel responsible for everyone's comfort. The best way to deal with this is to stuff people up to the gills with food. Speaking of gills, Gil brought the most amazing pita bread--unusually doughy and adorably misshapen. I think he said it was from a bakery on Fairfax. I will have to get the address from him. Also, Sam brought an excellent fruit plate. fruit and summer. thomas brought hummus and babaganoush (which he mistook for tabouli/tabbouleh). lan brought her buoyant and joyous self. I made a pear and bittersweet chocolate cake, a melon mint white wine salad, and homemade kettle corn.

Pear and Bittersweet Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:

3 pears diced in cubes

3/4 cup bittersweet chocolate, chopped

1 cup flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 eggs at room temperature

3/4 cup sugar

1 stick of 4 ounce butter

1. preheat the oven to 350

2. either use a decorative disposable cake mold or butter a 9 inch springform pan

3. sift flour, baking powder, and salt and set aside

4. with a mixer, whip the eggs on high speed for at least 5 minutes until the eggs have greatly increased in volume and the mixture looks pale and thick

5. brown the butter at medium heat in a sauce pan. the butter is done with brown solids begina to form and the butter turns just slightly brown. careful not to burn. as soon as the brown solids appear, remove from heat

6. add the sugar to the whipped eggs and mix for a few minutes more

7. add the brown butter and flour in alternating additions, being careful not to over beat

8. pour the batter into the cake pan

9. top with the pear cubes and chopped chocolate

10. bake for about 50 minutes

adapted from smittenkitchen.com

Toasted Sesame Seed Sugar Cookies

2009-07-20T00:46:00.000-07:00

I found this recipe in a McCormick advertisement in Bon Appetit Magazine. Plug Plug. Here is the recipe.

I quite like these cookies. I like the idea of using sesame in a dessert.

Pepin

2009-07-19T18:59:00.000-07:00

vegetarian paella

paella valenciana

cured salmon with capers

eggplant, goat cheese salad

beef and tomato empanadas

crab and arroz negro croquetas

mushrooms with escargot

sherry mushrooms

sangria

On our last night in Scottsdale we went to Pepin Spanish restaurant for some tapas and paella.

The restaurant was a bit on the campy side with a flamenco dancer but otherwise the food was quite good. I was especially impressed by their vegetarian paella, which I'm not sure that I've ever encountered before. Meat and/or seafood always seem to pretty integral to paella. The paella was a bit buttery for my taste. It was sort of swimming in broth which gave it an almost stew-like quality. I like mine a little crisped at the edges and I like to taste more saffron than butter.

Not pictured but also delicious were the sweetbreads in a wine sauce. On the sweet side but the sweetbreads were very tender.

Pepin

7363 E Scottsdale Mall

Scottsdale, AZ 85251-4414

480.990.9026

Blueberry Cornmeal Pancakes With Honey Butter + other fuel foods

2009-07-19T18:23:00.001-07:00

okay, my frittata failed. it at least tasted good

The night before going to Arizona I couldn't sleep. I almost can never sleep before travel days. Even in elementary school I never slept the night before a field trip. With the extra hours I decided to make a large breakfast for my family before our morning flight.

Menu:

Blueberry Cornmeal Pancakes With Honey Butter

Oatmeal With Warmed Soymilk, Candied Figs, Walnuts, And Cinnamon Apples

Vegetable Goat Cheese Frittata

Blueberry Cornmeal Pancakes

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup cornmeal

1/4 cup sugar (separated)

1 1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt (kosher or coarse)

1 1/2 cup low fat buttermilk

1/4 cup milk

3 tablespoons butter

1 large egg (yolk separated from the white)

2 cups fresh blueberries

1. soak the cormeal in the buttermilk overnight. This is an optional step. Soaking overnight smoothes out the grittiness of the cornmeal but if you like the gritty texture, feel free to skip this step

2. melt the butter and cool to room temperature

3. sift together the flour, baking soda, 2 tablespoons of sugar, baking powder, and salt

4. in a separate bowl combine the butter, the milk, the cormeal/buttermilk mixture and the egg yolk

5. add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until just combined

6. beat the egg white until it holds stiff peaks and then fold very gently into the batter (this may seem like an unnecessary step but it makes for a fluffier lighter pancake. but if you're in a rush feel free to just combine the whole egg with the wet ingredients rather than adding them separately)

7. heat up a griddle at medium-low heat and brush with melted butter

8. meanwhile toss the blueberries with the remaining sugar

9. ladle a large spoonful (I like my pancakes small so I put about 3 tablespoons of batter per pancake)

10. arrange the desired number of blueberries on top of the pancake

11. when large porous holes start to bubble up on the wet side of the pancake, flip and cook for about one minute more

12. serve with maple syrup and honey butter

Honey Butter

1/2 stick of butter

2 tablespoons of honey

Simply whip room temperature butter with honey until the butter is fluffy

Frozen Cherry Basil Lemonade

2009-07-13T23:35:00.000-07:00

I feel melty.

Drink cold things.

Listen to music with somber but oddly uplifting melody with mediocre lyrics.

Ingredients:

10-15 cherries, pitted and halved

4-5 basil leaves + 2 for decoration

2 lemons juiced (limes would be nice too)

1/3 cup ice

3 tablespoons of simple syrup (add more if you like, I like my lemonade a bit tart)

1 cup cold water

1. muddle the cherries and basil

2. divide the cherry basil mixture into two cups and set aside

3. combine the lemon juice, ice, water, and simple syrup in a blender and blend until desired consistency is achieved

4. pour the frozen lemonade over the cherry basil mixture

5. decorate with a basil leaf

I Have Been Issued A Challenge

2009-07-13T00:17:00.000-07:00

Swiss Cheese Cheese Cake

~challenge via Tomasita Brewsario Trudgeon

This certainly will be a challenge

Chocolate Honey Cake with Caramelized Banana Filling and Nutella Frosting

2009-07-12T23:21:00.001-07:00

Did you know that I have a brother? His Name is Brian and he just turned fourteen. For his birthday I offered to make him a cake. Brian requested a chocolate cake. Now, my natural inclination was to add all sorts of things to this simple request for a chocolate cake. Lavender came to mind. Sour cherries came to mind. Caramelized figs and pears with chocolate ganache came to mind.

But in the end I had to edit myself because as delicious as the previously mentioned flavors seemed to me, I just wasn't confident that they'd suit Brian's palate and it is his birthday after all.

I came to a compromise. Caramelized banana filling and a Nutella frosting. Approachable, right? The idea for the Nutella frosting came first and then bananas came to mind as a good pairing. And I really do love caramelized fruit of all kinds.

A small tragedy happened while I was baking this cake. I really wanted this to be a tall 3-layer cake and everything was going well until I accidently dropped one of the layers and it split. There's just no salvaging a broken layer of cake. It won't ice prettily. Sure I could have left it at a two layer cake, accepted my losses, but I felt almost comically resolute about this having to be a 3-layer cake. It was about 2 or 3 a.m. and at that hour sometimes I lose a sense of practicality and common sense (though it could be argued that I lack that altogether). So for me the logical solution was just to bake another three layers of the cake. Again, I could have done the math to change the measurements to make one layer, but again...loss of common sense.

I feel like maybe I put at lot of expectations on this cake, like I had high standards for it, or something. Or maybe I was projecting a lot of tension onto the poor cake. In any case, while I was assembling the cake a small bit of the bottom tore off, the tiniest bit, an imperceptible bit. I sort of lost it. With my icing spatula in one hand I sort of leprechauned into the air and had a nano-second tantrum, yelling something about needing the cake to be perfect. Saeyoung was a shocked witness. It was weird. I felt very out of body. I think I need sleep.

But yeah, the cake was pretty yummy.

Ingredients

1 3/4 cup cake flour (you can also use all-purpose if you choose)

3 eggs

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

3 tablespoons cocoa powder, unsweetened (I recommend Valhrona or Callebaut)

6 ounces dark chocolate, unsweetened (I also recommend Valhrona or Callebaut)

1 stick of butter

3/4 cup granulated sugar + 1/2 cup of sugar

1/2 cup freshly brewed extra strong coffee

1/2 cup honey

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons of vanilla

2/3 cup buttermilk

Filling:

5 bananas, sliced at about 1/4 inch rounds

5 tablespoons butter

1/3 cup brown sugar

2 tablespoons rums

Icing:

2 1/4 cups Nutella

2 sticks of butter

2 cups confectioners sugar

2/3 cup heavy whipping cream

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons vanilla

1. preheat oven to 350

2. in a double broiler, melt the 6 ounces of chocolate

3. when the chocolate begins to soften, add the coffee and 1/2 cup of granulated sugar and whisk until smooth

4. in a bowl sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa powder and salt and set aside

5. in a large mixing bowl, beat together the butter and 3/4 cup of sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy

6. add the honey to the sugar and butter mixture

7. add eggs one at a time

8. add the vanilla

9. alternately add the flour mixture and the buttermilk in three separate additions and fold until just combined. finally fold in the melted chocolate/coffee mixture.

10. divide the batter between three greased and floured 9 inch round cake pans

11. bake for about 20 minutes

12. invert the layers and let cool completely

13. meanwhile, slice the bananas and melt the butter on a very large saucepan or griddle type pan

14. sprinkle about half the sugar onto the pan

15. arrange the banana slices into a single layer on the pan and sprinkle the remaining sugar over the top

16. let the butter and sugar bubble. when they look brown and caramelized on one side, flip them

17. add the rum

18. remove from heat when both sides are caramelized

*note : if you do not have a large enough pan, you may need to do this step twice

19. let the banana slices cool

20. meanwhile make the frosting

21. with an electric mixer beat the nutella and butter

22. add the confectioners sugar, vanilla, and salt

23. add the cream

24. when the cakes have completely cooled, arrange one layer on top of a doily

25. take strips of parchment paper and line the sides of the cake by tucking the edges slightly under the cake for easy removal after icing

26. put a layer of caramelized bananas over the layer of cake

27. top with the second layer of cake and again place the bananas on top of that layer

28. place the third and final layer on top

29. ice the cake generously

30. remove the parchment strips

* the chocolate honey cake was adapted from "Sky High Cakes" chocolate almond cake with bittersweet chocolate ganache cake"

Flavored Marshmallows

2009-07-12T22:53:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure what came over me. I was driving to Los Angeles yesterday and it dawned on me that I'd like to make marshmallows. I get most of my ideas while driving, which maybe is why I am such a poor driver. Sometimes my ideas are a little...impractical. Like making plus 200 marshmallows, perhaps on the impractical side. By the end of it I felt like I was living in an Easter colored bounce house made of marshmallows.

Marshmallows are strange. No one thinks of making them at home. And I can understand that. They're a bit time consuming and it's almost cheaper to just buy them at the market. But I can guarantee you that your jet-puff grocery bought marshmallows lack the springy loveliness of a homemade marshmallow. I'm not sure what makes for the difference but homemade marshmallows are incomparably more delicate, certainly lighter. It occurred to me that if I were to assign babies a flavor, they would probably taste like homemade marshmallows--in a world where I had the power to do that sort of thing.

Also another plus for homemade marshmallows are the exciting flavor possibilities. If all you're looking for is a plain marshmallow, I suppose Kraft does just fine but my mouth bores easily.

I made:

Coconut marshmallows with coconut flakes

Raspberry marshmallows

Lemon marshmallows

Maple Praline Marshmallows

Vanilla Marshmallows

My favorite was the maple praline with crunchy bits of praline. I was very pleased.

Ingredients:

3 1/2 packets of Knox gelatin

2 cups granulated sugar

1 cup cold water (divided)

1/2 cup light corn syrup

3/4 cup powdered sugar

1 tablespoon desired flavoring (i.e. vanilla extract, coconut extract)

2 egg whites

1. whisk together the gelatin and 1/2 cup cold water in a large mixing bowl and set aside

2. in a pot heat the granulated sugar, corn syrup, and remaining 1/2 cup cold water at medium heat for about 10 minutes (make sure that the sugar does not burn)

3. add the sugar syrup to the gelatin and beat together for about 10 minutes or until the mixture begins to almost triple in volume and it begins to pull away from the sides of the bowl

4. in a separate bowl beat the egg whites with cleaned beaters until they hold stiff peaks

5. beat the egg whites into the marshmallow mixture until well combined

6. add flavoring and food coloring if desired and beat until the coloring has blended completely

7. oil and dust a large casserole dish with confectioners sugar

8. pour the marshmallow mixture into the dusted dish

9. sprinkle additional confectioners sugar over the top of the marshmallows

10. allow to sit for at least 3 hours

11. after at least 3 least hours have elapsed take a knife and insert it at several points along the edge of the dish and pull inwards to tear the marshmallow sheet away from the sides

12. invert the marshmallow sheet onto a surface that has been dusted with confectioners sugar

13. with kitchen shears cut the marshmallows into 1 x 1 inch squares and dust all sides with confectioners sugar

Charlie Palmer's

2009-07-10T00:32:00.000-07:00

Old fashioned Chocolate 7-Layer Cake from SusieCakes

caramelized banana tarte tatin

cheesecake with apricot sorbet

smoky cinnamon zeppoles with espresso hot chocolate

blue cheese crusted filet mignon

Aged New York Strip Steak

Pork Chop with Apricots and Red Onions

Scallops with Daikon

Steamed Halibut with Shrimp Stuffed Zucchini Blossoms

Watermelon and Watercress Salad with Marinated Feta

Avocado Gazpacho with Crab

Caponata Amuse Bouche

Starting off with a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon

For Doc's 48th birthday we went to Charlie Palmer's in Costa Mesa. It's the kind of place that has a sommelier on hand, which is simultaneously intimidating and impressive. Maybe it's because I'm on the low end of the economic scale, but I just don't know that food should be this expensive. It isn't that I'm not willing to spend money on good food. It is actually one of things I don't have a problem splurging on. If the food is good, it is shocking how much I am willing to stretch my wallet. It's just that at $35 per entree, I need things to be amazing.

Was Charlie Palmer's amazing? Hm. Well, to be fair, some items were amazing. Some were not.

Like the watermelon watercress salad: very good. The marinated feta in the salad was tart and wonderful. Oh, and the golden watermelon!

My steamed halibut in bouillabaisse sauce: decidedly not very good. My fish arrived cold. Like sitting out for an hour cold. And the bouillabaisse was run of the mill. However, I did like the zucchini blossom that was on top of the fish.

Saeyoung's diver scallops: fair. Excellent sauce. Topped with what I think was rice crackers. The scallops could have afforded to be a little less salty but overall a very nice dish.

Farro risotto: good

Truffled Mac & Cheese: also good

Fries: rather limp

Pork Chop: okay, the sauce was more memorable than the meat

Steak: I'm not a steak person so maybe I'm the wrong person to gauge this

Lyonnaise Potatoes: Quite good

Smoky Cinnamon Zeppoles with Espresso Hot Chocolate: Amazing! House made marshmellows on top of cinnamon whipping cream with really thick hot chocolate. The zeppoles were delicious. Very reminiscent of churros con chocolate.

other brownie points: A parade of free things. A great amuse bouche of eggplant caponata that had, I think dates or maybe raisins or maybe both. Also blueberry cookies. Also dark chocolate truffles, cherry shortcake, and other confections.

The wine was good as well. A memorable Amarone and pleasant Cabernet Sauvignon.

Note* they offer a prix-fixe menu that is a much more affordable option. $39 for a first course, an entree, and a dessert. not bad.

Note ** terrible for vegetarians/vegans. Kristina ended up having to order a few sides but no meatless entrees. Unfortunate.