truit fart

Inspired by Nad's Bakery's post on a fruit tart, my sister and I decided to give it a shot.

We're still getting the strawberries from the same spot, and while I don't often go out on a limb to sing my praises about this hoot nanny or that, this little shack sells the best strawberries I've ever had, and the prices aren't too bad looking either (~$16 a box or less than $10 for seconds(smaller strawberries, but same sized box).

the finished product, which was laughable compared to nadia's. guess i should have looked at her pictures before putting on the fruit haha. also i ignored my sister about the crust being too thick, which it turned out to be. timing the crust cooking time was tricky too, and the crust ended up being overcooked but not burnt thankfully. overall though, it tasted good if you just closed your eyes and didn't look at the thing. i plan to give this another shot, but will use vanilla bean instead of extract to see how it tastes.

Another Pie Post

Apple pie this time, and again, it was a recipe given to us by our dad's manager.

I liked this double crust recipe because I'm not a fan the dry and flaky crusts. But we made the bottom part thin and the top part thick, so I'll have to remember to adjust for next time.

The apples used were Jonagold. I never had one until that day, and I found them soft like a Gala. There's so many different apples out there, so it should be fun, trying them all out and seeing which tastes best to me. The apples weren't as firm as I'd like them to be, but that may be fixed by slicing the apples thicker or using a different type of apple. What are your favorite apples to use?

We opted to use a pyrex baking pan because it'd be easier, and the pie pan we had might have been too small.

Dotting it with butta (sorry blurry picture)

My sad attempt at trying to make a flower/Mitsubishi sign on the crust.

Baked.

Done.

Once again, the presentation was ugly, but it tasted pretty damn good. I'm going to give it another shot next week with different apples.

Happy new year to everyone! I'm off to do some running. First work out of the year. Lost all control over the break...too many baked goods!

Pie o my

My sister and I attempted to make a lemon meringue pie a few days ago. This was definitely trickier than the other pies I've made and required a lot more work and time. The crust was made first, then the filling, then the meringue.

I rolled out the the dough for the crust for the first time. It's gonna take a while before I can get it down, but man, it was not easy (nor pretty).

The finished product.

After letting it cool and fridging it, it was time to taste test it.

Failed. What pie? It was a friggin soup. While everything tasted good, I had baked the meringue too long, which is why you can see some droplets. The bigger problem was the filling. It was thick before I had topped it with the meringue, but somewhere and somehow along the line, it became watery. Upon some research, I'm guessing I either did not completely cover the meringue over the pie or I didn't let it cool enough, which resulted in the pie becoming "weepy." I am going to have to ask the baker what I did wrong and try again.

With some leftover crust pieces. I quickly (as you can probably tell) squished them, dipped them in some cinnamon and sugar, and baked it with my pie. I called them "crusties." =p

still messing w/ the blog as you can see. Not really sure what I want for the picture for my header nor do I really know what to do with the size.

Almost January. It never ceases to amaze me every year how fast time goes. Days are mere minutes...

My first pie(s)

gawdddddddddddddddddddddamnnnnnnnnnn

I SAID, ahhhgawddddddddamnnnnnnnnnnn

Sorry everyone. I know that I've been neglecting the blog lately, but I'm still alive. Life has been quite busy, and this week is no exception w/ finals coming up. So here's a quickie on my past Thanksgiving.

I decided to step it up this year and attempt to make two pies, crust and all. Sprinkles and that cupcake craze? Nah kid. Pass me the pie son cuz I got five on it. Gimme a fatty slice, and you better make sure to put on some of that freshly made whipped cream too FOOL.


The first pie I chose to make was Uncle Richard's sweet potato pie, recipe courtesy of Homesick Texan's beautiful blog. I had actually made it the week before as a trial run and because I had never had a spp before. It turned out well, so for Thanksgiving, I decided to tweak the ratios of the ingredients. Baking that pie made me feel confident, but I got too big for my britches because I should have just left it as it was. The first pie wasn't too sweet, had a good sweet potato taste, and went well w/ whipped cream. But this pie oh deed on the spices and ended up tasting very close to pumpkin pie although you could tell that the texture and taste were slightly different. Lesson learned. Also, I don't know what I did wrong, but on both pies, there was a paper thin layer of some white froth after it was done baking (you can see it in this picture too). Any suggestions/ideas? Oh, and a holla to my sister who made the crust. It was a little bit too thick, but certainly better than the frozen stuff you can buy.


The second pie I made is a favorite of mine: banana cream pie. I got the recipe from my dad's manager, an excellent cook and baker from the east coast(she makes an apple pie for us every year, and i'd put my bollocks on the table to say that it is the best apple pie I've ever had).

The graham cracker crust was easy to make: crumbs, sugar, and butter. And yes, I am well aware that I could take a few classes on presentation, but I tried damnit! When I read the recipe, I was surprised that bananas didn't actually go into making the cream/pudding. I layered the bottom with bananas before I put on the pudding and found that the flavor had infused overnight. It was pretty fun making it, especially whisking the liquid and feeling sweet satisfaction as I felt it getting thicker. I had to skip the end part, which called for putting the pudding through a mesh sieve. I didn't have a clean one, so I didn't want to do it. Overall, I thought it tasted good, and next time, I will make a thicker crust because it came out a little too thin for my liking. I will also get some nilla wafers and put them on top too.

I'm out folks. Going up to SF once I finish my tests, so see ya in a few.

Exhausted

As of today, I have successfully baked my first banana cream pie! Woohoo! Pics to come later.

Hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving!

Hump Day Randoms

I love Wednesdays. Well, Wednesday nights to be more exact as I drive home from work. I have one easy class on Thursdays, and even though I have to work part of the weekend, I don't mind because the worst of the week is over.

Last Sunday, I finally got to try one of the many recipes I've had bookmarked for a good while now and made some Rosemary Apricot Bars that I saw on Gastronomy's blog.


Here's a piece. Mine was nowhere as pretty as hers, but I was happy with the taste. The only thing I think I messed up on was the consistency of the topping. I didn't mix it well enough and I could have added a little more butter to avoid some parts that had a gritty feel from just being unmixed sugar. Still it was a lot of fun to make and even better to eat!

I also met up with some of my cousins last weekend, and one of them surprised me with a few beers he had picked up for me. So without further ado, the beers of the month:


I've only tried the Franziskaner before, so I look forward to drinking them all...in one sitting. Kidding!

Hope your week is going well, and huzzah huzzah, tomorrow is Thursday!

Tuesday Night Cooking Quickie

Damn...now that Mt. Sac started, I don't have as much free time as I would like, but on the upside, the quarter at Cal Poly is almost over. On a side note, I think it's sad and a bit shocking that Mt. Sac has better labs for students than what I've seen at both Cal Poly Pomona and UCSD. Anyhow, here's a post for anyone just trying to get through the week, esp. the worker bees. Thank God it's hump day...

The food blogging world is endless (and that is only a small part of the bigger blogging universe), and I've found another food blog that I like called For the Love of Cooking. On it, I saw an interesting recipe that I wanted to try called Vegetable Tian. She adapted it from a Barefoot recipe. What a "tian" is, I really don't know. I tried looking it up, but none of the hits really said what it was or where it was from. Is it French?

I'll leave the specifics for you to read on Love's blog, but here's the gist of how to make it.


Dice an onion into small pieces and saute in a pan, along with two cloves of minced garlic. When the onion becomes translucent, layer this in your baking dish.


On top of the onions/garlic medley, tightly arrange sliced potatoes, zucchini, yellow squash, and Roma tomatoes in a ring. Season with salt, freshly ground pepper, and dried thyme. I didn't have just dried thyme, but I did have some Italian seasoning and sprinkled that on it. I liked the colors of it all. Go look at Love's site, to see how it should look haha...hers looks a lot better.


Bake the dish covered in the oven for about 35 minutes. Then add 1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese. For some reason, I thought she wrote Mozzarella, so that's what I added, only to quickly realize that I was wrong. So I added some Parmesan cheese to this as well. Then, uncovered, bake it for another 30 minutes.

I should have cooked this longer to let it develop more of a "crust" from the looks of Love's pictures. The vegetables turned out nicely though...nothing got overcooked. A simple and easy dish to make, but it tasted good, if you like vegetables. I think next time I will try some fresh herbs, and maybe add some eggplant to the mix.

I've also had a hankering for some cookies. I remember in high school in the mornings before class, there would be freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, 3 for a buck. They were so good...
But today, I decided to make oatmeal raisin walnut cookies, using Simply Recipes Recipe. I don't know if this was coincidence, but I was looking at the Quaker's Oats (the oats I used) Vanishing Oatmeal Cookies recipe, and it was pretty much the same except that the Quaker's called for 1/2 cup less of the granulated sugar. On another side note, I made a fairly recent discovery to link Quaker's Oats with the Quaker religion and the guy on the label...haha yea I'm slow...

x 2

x 2
The recipe made 24 humongous ugly cookies. I baked em a bit too longer than I should have because the out edges came out almost crisp. But the middle was still chewy, so they weren't ruined. Next time, I will try the Quaker's recipe, by cutting down the sugar and also adding more walnuts.

That's it for today folks...Until we meet again. Same time, same channel.

snowball effect

It started with some roasted garlic salsa recipe that my cousin in law gave out at the wedding last fall. Broil roast 1/2 head of garlic, a habanero and Serrano pepper in the oven. This was my first trying this cooking method out and when I opened up the oven, I could feel the spiciness from the peppers...they were packing some serious heat. Then blended it with some canned tomatoes(Muir's Fire Roasted), cilantro, onion and Mexican oregano.


End product. I love salsa, and this was no exception. Chips and salsa are so addicting...


This was pretty spicy, but I felt after I added the oregano, the heat level toned down a little bit. The half head came out to be 5 large cloves, but next time I'm going to add more with a little less oregano. The recipe also called for some fresh cilantro to be mixed in at the end, which I forgot to do. I still have some leftover, and will add it tomorrow and see how it tastes.

I don't know what got into me that night. I had a bunch of stuff to do, yet I still wanted to cook. Animal physiology quiz be damned. So I decided to make some vegetable soup. Pan cooked some broccoli, onions, squash, carrots, garlic, pancetta and added it to a pot of vegetable broth. Dumped in some tomatoes, northern beans, fresh basil, and some dried italian herbs. Topped it with mozzarella cheese. I had bought some celery, but forgot to add it.


The "mystery" soup as I liked to call it came out okay. Next time, I will try adding some fresh herbs instead of the dry stuff, as well as some white wine. There is a new produce market in the Chino Hills Shoppes called Farm Boy. Herbs are $.89 and you get the same amount of herbs, if not more than if you were to buy the prepackaged ones at the market, saving you a good buck or two. I know even this is expensive, but it's closer than driving to the farmer's market for now...although there is a nice one in the Ontario/Pomona area.

Still, the soup just wasn't enough. Up to this point, I was listening to Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but now started to zone out, as I entered into a sort of cooking reverie. On my list of things I'd like to cook someday, I had a pumpkin bread recipe found on Allrecipes.com, and found this to be a nice sort of dessert. Along with the prescribed ingredients, I also added some ground ginger and chopped walnuts.


It wasn't bad. I ended up using more than a cup of the pumpkin puree simply because I had some left over and didn't know what to do with it. This did affect the consistency of the bread, making it a little "wet" (for the lack of a better word at the moment) although I tried to compensate for this by cooking it longer. Most of the bread came out okay, but some parts weren't that great. I packed some in my lunch the next day with some pretzels and found later that while the pretzels were soft, the bread was now good haha. Tastewise, the bread had a tad too much going on in the nutmeg department. I should have looked at the ingredients on the can before I rationed out the spices, but I still ate this up, and overall, I liked it.

Some could just call it procrastination in an attempt to avoid the necessary to dos of the day, but I thought it was a fun day in the kitchen, and this sort of thing hasn't happened to me before...I can only compare this feeling to having a great rally in tennis when you're in the "zone," having a grand old time, smacking away at the ball. (And in case your wondering, I gave that quiz a hard spanking it will never forget. For more on spankings, check out my friend's recent trip to Vegas)


To end, here's a picture of my latest obsession. I swear these things are like candy. No sugar added, simply dried pineapple rings, but the chew of these things are so DAMN GOOD! They are like those dried out old Harbio gummy bears you find at the bottom of the candy bin at Ralph's, which have become hardened over time, but give one hell of a chew, like a good aged wine. Now think about those, but thinner. Probably not the best analogy, but give these things a try if you like pineapples.

Sakura and Mitsuwa are going bye bye

Yup in Little Tokyo. Heard H-Mart is coming to town. They're going to be closing on the 25th, so they have a 50% off sale on everything (which started yesterday). Stopped by with gramps to get some tuna for granny. Afterwards, we ate lunch at Sakura (Snack? that's what it says on Yelp, but all I saw was "Sakura" in neon lighting cursive letters), which is in the Mitsuwa Market, near the front right side where the cashiers are. Seemed like a place of cheap Japanese eats, whose menu mostly consisted of some teriyaki bowls, udon, and ramen.


Large shrimp tempura udon for $6. I didn't hear any complaints from gramps, so I can only assume he liked it.


Miso Ramen for $4.95. The broth came out hot and was mediocre. Nothing good or bad about it. It just was. Lots of green onions and sprouts. But as for the chasu, two thin pieces, as you might be able to see in the picture. It was really sad. The noodles, however, were thin, chewy, and a joy to eat. Overall, I'd have to say this bowl was pretty decent. For their udon and ramen, you can get a bowl of pork fried rice, curry, or some other thing for a buck more. They have a bunch of condiments near the pickup area, but no garlic to be seen unfortunately...


Also got an assorted platter of sushi from the market. Two diff roes, tuna, squid, shrimp, crab, tuna roll, and abalone, I think. I saw some sign above the sushi area, where the LA times said good sushi. The tuna was okay, but the squid wasn't. The rice wasn't that great either. I didn't really eat much of this nor did I want to.

Mitsuwa and Sakura
333 S Alameda St
Los Angeles, CA 90013

It seems odd to put these pictures here together with the sushi, but I made some blueberry muffins today, using a recipe from Simply Recipes, and I want to include this in the post. They turned out okay, but there was a lot of batter, and since I only made 12, the muffins came out huge. I could have cooked them a bit longer than the recipe called for because of its size, but it passed the toothpick test. They tasted good, and not too sweet, but I'm going to try out another recipe next time. This had too much butter in it, although I did like the usage of yogurt. Thinking about it now, I could have subbed it for a decreased amount of vegetable oil to see how it would have turned out...


Blueberries are delicious.


I realize the muffin looks a little messed up, but it's because the heads all merged together while baking because of their huge size. No way around it. I only got one muffin tin.


Inside view of the muffin.

Well, my four day weekend is now over. Back to reality. Damn.