Dulce de Leche Brownies (Welcome Home Saeyoung Baking Series #1)

i love wrapped treats!

Saeyoung is coming home today!  YAYYYYYYYY!  In honor of this momentous, fantastic, stellar occasion I decided to bring a basket of baked goods to the airport.  There's something really lovely about receiving small gifts upon arrival at the airport--it starts off a trip on a very good note.  

So using homemade dulce de leche I made some dulce de leche brownies, recipe courtesy of David Lebovitz here.  I didn't put enough dulce de leche maybe.  I wanted to reserve some for my praline macarons.  Mistake, maybe.  Still I think the brownies will make Saeyoung happy.

Tomato Basil Pasta With Beet and Mandarin Salad

No photos here.  I forgot to take them.  I wish I had though because the dinner was great.  Sam came over and we started the evening with a great red wine that Sam kindly brought over and two types of goat cheese.  For dinner we cooked tomato basil angel hair pasta and because we share an obsession of beets we made a beet mandarin salad with feta and pine nuts.  Fantastic!

Oh, and afterwards we went to Scoops, which never disappoints.  I had mango poppy seed and tiramisu.  Sam had mango poppy seed and raspberry mascarpone. 

And you know what, despite the gratuitous amounts of food I ate this evening (did I forget to mention that i ate more pasta, salad, and a bowl of cereal after Scoops), I don't really feel disgusting. 

Tomato Basil Pasta

angel hair pasta

cherry tomatoes

basil

olive oil

parmesan reggiano

salt and pepper to taste

roasted garlic

1. preheat oven to 400 and roast garlic in a foil pouch for about a hour, or until tender and slightly browned

2. heavily salt boiling water and cook pasta 

3. halve tomatoes and chop basil

4. mix the basil, tomatoes, 1/4 cup olive oil, roasted garlic and salt to taste

5. drain pasta 

6. add pasta to tomato basil mixture with parmesan cheese until well coated

Beet Mandarin Salad

2 beets

1 can mandarin oranges

handful of pint

toasted pine nuts

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons mandarin orange syrup

juice of half a lemon 

1/4 cup feta cheese

1. preheat oven to 400 and roast beets for about a hour and a half in a foil pouch

2. dice the beets

3. mix the beets with drained mandarin oranges

4. whisk the olive oil, reserved mandarin syrup, vinegar, lemon juice, and a pinch of salt

5. pour dressing over the beet mandarin mixture

6. toss with pine nuts and feta and chopped mint

Scallop and Beet/Mango Salad

I felt experimental today and so I did a variation of a Thai mango salad.  Because lately I've been nearly inhaling beets, I thought I'd add them to the mix, which ended up being a really wonderful counterpart to the Thai chilis and curried lime dressing.  I topped the salad with seared jumbo scallops and cilantro.  I have to say, I was really thrilled with this dish.  First off, the colors were gorgeous and pairing scallops with mango worked really well.  

I'm excited to make this for Saeyoung when she's here for the Summer, it's right up her alley.

Ingredients:

4 jumbo scallops

2 beets

1 large unripe mango

1/4 onion, very thinly sliced

2 Thai chilis

cilantro

salt and pepper

1. preheat oven to 400 degrees and roast the beets

2. once the beets are roasted, dice them into sizable cubes

3. peel and slice the mango into long slivers

4. slice the onions very thinly--you don't want the onion to be too overwhelming

5. slice the Thai chilis very thinly--use only one if you're sensitive to spicy food

6. salt and pepper the scallops and sear them in non-stick pan until golden on both ends and opaque in the middle

7. make the dressing (see below) and toss with all the ingredients minus the beets

8.  add the beets last and toss very gently otherwise they will spill their red color over everything

9. top the salad with the scallops and cilantro

Dressing

2 tablespoons fish sauce

3 tablespoons lime

2 teaspoons dijon mustard

1 teaspoon curry powder

1 tablespoon honey

combine 

Macarons: Have I Failed You or Have You Failed Me?

IH@6F*)!!/!.[]8676!@#%%

Macarons are infamously unpredictable and difficult to make.  I felt like I was so close! I had finally gotten the technique of piping the right amount of batter onto the pan.  I double layered my baking pans.  I bought ridiculously expensive almond meal.  I beat my meringue until glossy. I let the shells harden for a hour before putting them in the oven.  I even let my egg whites evaporate for two days ahead of time.  It was heartbreaking to see my macarons fissure in the oven.  There was nothing I could do about it.  They still tasted good but the unfortunate thing about macarons is that they are almost just as much about aesthetics as they are about taste and if the shell is not perfectly smooth and perfectly round...well, there is very little point.  I was so deflated I forgot to take a picture of the end result.  

I guess i'll use them to make a trifle, or something.  Maybe I'll sprinkle the cookies broken up over ice cream. I don't know.

I'm going to blame it on my stupid oven.  Yeah, it's the oven's fault.  Yeah.

Praline

Another very easy thing to make that has great possibilities.  Make it ahead of time and store to sprinkle on top of ice cream or other sweets.

1/3 cup sugar

1 cup sliced almonds

In a non-stick saucepan heat up the sugar and almonds over medium heat until a light golden color.  Spread over a greased sheet of wax paper.  When cool, put in a food processor and pulse to make small praline pieces.  

Dulce de Leche

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why is dulce de leche so amazing.  And it's the easiest thing in the world to make!

here is the recipe-courtesy of David Lebovitz: http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archives/2005/11/dulce_de_lechec.html

Kappo-Honda

quail-yakitori style

grilled saba

blue crab and spicy tuna rolls

eggplant and chicken cartilage

pork kimchi

udon

natto and tofu

marinated raw baby squid

I picked up my mom and her husband from the airport Saturday night and they came off the plane very hungry because, as always, airplane food is an unsatisfying venture.  It was near 11 pm and the only place we could think of was Kappo Honda in Huntington Beach.  We often frequent Honda-Ya, its sister restaurant and a likely contender for our family's favorite restaurant.  Both restaurants are izakaya style, or Japanese small plates.  

Some of their menu items are definitely for the more adventurous diner--such as the marinated raw baby squid.  When I saw it on the specials menu, I got really excited because I love ika and I was imagining a ponzu sauce as a marinate.  Not so.  I hadn't realized that the squid was going to be be whole babies and they were slimy and marinated in its own sort of fermented juices.  Koreans use something similar as a starter in the fermentation of kimchi. So yeah, that dish was a bust.  Everything else was excellent though, especially the grilled saba.  Saba mackeral is one of the cheapest fishes you can by but when its grilled and with the crushed radish and lemon juice, its pretty great.  

I hear there's a Honda-Ya in Little Tokyo---I must try.  

Kappo Honda

18450 Brookhurst St

Fountain Valley, CA 92708

714.964.4629