Strawberry Coffee Cake

What to do when faced with a strawberry excess?  This.  

Mango Cherry Chicken Salad

  For whatever reason, lately people keep giving me mangos.  There are mangos all over my refrigerator.  A couple years back Prayer made a mango and cherry salsa that we ate with tuna tartar.  I thought about re-doing this recipe but as a chicken salad because it sounded very summery and nice, which it was. 

Ingredients:

1 semi-ripe mango

7-10 cherries, pitted and quartered

handful of chopped cilantro

1/4 cup finely diced red onions

1/2 teaspoon red chile powder

a pinch of cayenne pepper

the juice of 1 lime

3 chicken breasts

1. dice the mango in cubes

2. dice the red onion and soak in lime juice

3. combine mango, cherries, onions (in lime), red chile and cayenne and set aside

4. boil chicken in salted water until fully cooked

5. let chicken cool and shred

6. add to the mango salsa

7. salt and pepper to taste

Linguine With Oyster Sauce

Living with Saeyoung is funny.  She goes off to her internship and I'm left at home to my own devices and I have dinner ready by 5:30 when she comes home.  Being without a job makes me restless and when I'm restless I cook/bake.  

Today I made mango cherry chicken salad (see above) and because we are incapable of having a meal without a healthy dose of starchy carbs, I made a quick pasta dish.  Would this be considered a stir-fry?

I use oyster sauce in this recipe which can easily be found in most Asian grocery markets and is just a good thing to have on hand.  If you want to make this recipe vegetarian, a black bean sauce would also make an excellent substitution.  Also, angel hair pasta might work better but linguine is what I had so linguine was what i used and I was mighty please with the results anyhow.  

Also, toasted almond slivers in this would be nice.  

Ingredients:

4 garlic cloves

3 tablespoons of oyster sauces (or black bean sauce for the vegetarians)

4-5 stalks of broccolini

1/2 box of pasta of your choice

generous handful of parmesan reggiano cheese

1. preheat oven to 400

2. in a foil pouch, roast the garlic cloves with some olive oil and salt. make sure that the pouch is closed tightly

3. take out garlic cloves in one hour or until slightly browned and very soft

4. cut the broccolini in thirds and boil in salted water for two minutes

5. rinse the broccolini in a cold water bath

6. cook pasta

7. saute the roasted garlic cloves with the broccolini in a wok with a little bit of olive oil

8. add pasta and oyster sauce until evenly coated

9. add cheese and toss

A Farmers Market Dinner

pita with greek dill yogurt and smoked salmon

saeyoung as smoked salmon sous chef

beet and orange salad with pine nuts

mushroom and pea gnocchi

butternut squash fries with curry ketchup and sriracha mayo

So this is what I've decided: the farmers market is my disneyland.  If I were to win the lottery, the first thing I would do would be to head over to the farmers market.  We took a family trip to the UCI farmers market and bought some produce for a dinner I was going to prepare later that night.  This is what I want to do every weekend--go to the farmers market and cook a meal with my purchases. 

So happy!

Chocolate Espresso Raspberry Mini Cakes

I went to the 99 cent store the other day and found these adorable heart shaped mini cake pans.  And i'm not necessarily a person that gravitates towards heart shaped much but i got really excited about these.   And then I got mildly stressed out because i felt like i needed to make something worthy of these pans--a run of the mill chocolate cake would not do.  After a little refrigerator rummaging, I found some raspberry extract. And as coffee flavors pair well with raspberry and chocolate, I came to conclusion that chocolate espresso raspberry mini cakes was the way to go.  When making this recipe, make sure to only fill these pans half way as the cakes rise quite high.

Ingredients

1 cup espresso

2 teaspoons raspberry extract

1 3/4 cup flour

2 cups granulated sugar

3/4 cup cocoa powder

1 cup milk mixed with 1 tablespoon of vinegar

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 eggs

1 teaspoon salt

1. preheat oven to 350

2. stir together wet ingredients in a large bowl

3. sift together the dry ingredients in a smaller bowl

4. add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients in three additions

5. bake for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out cleanly

6. let cool and glaze with ganache (recipe for ganache follows)

Raspberry Chocolate Ganache

ingredients:

4 oz bittersweet chocolate

2/3 cup heavy cream

2 teaspoons corn syrup

1/2 teaspoon raspberry extract

1. heat heavy cream until just boiling

2. add cream to the chocolate in a bowl and let sit for one minute until the chocolate begins melting down

3. stir and add corn syrup and raspberry extract

Brodard

egg noodles

deep fried shrimp and sweet potato 

tilapia with dill and bun noodles

shaking beef

pork spring rolls

So the other day my family went to Chateau Brodard without me! This had to be remedied.  We went to the more casual branch of the restaurant where the food is cheaper.  The spring rolls are their signature dish, I believe.  They were pretty great.  My only complaint is that the atmosphere is quite hectic and I felt pressured to eat frantically and somehow the whole experience left me feeling exhausted and stressed.

Brodard

9892 Westminder ave

Garden Grove, CA 92844

Left over hot dogs don't have to be...left over hot dogs

Unlike my sister, it is a real occasion when I decide to cook for myself. I'm not quite sure I can call it a "decision," because my limited budget essentially forced me to cook at home, but I'm pretty happy with the result. 

I chopped up a left over hot dog from our family Memorial Day BBQ and added a ton of onions. I added a spoonful of corn salsa that I found in the fridge and just added bottled pasta sauce I found on sale at Vons the other night. 

With a giant plate of linguine, parmesan cheese, and tobasco, it's hard to mess this up. I watched VH1's MAXIM's Hot 100, while forking this giant plate of carbs into my mouth!

I topped off the meal with a slice of Nancy Cake (see two posts below). Mmm...

Look at me now Unee, I'm domestic. :)