it takes one to know one, kid. and you've got it bad.

crossposted.

Mon, 04 Sep 2006 21:30:27 GMT

Food successes of the summer:

One of the easiest and simplest but most satisfying meals I had this summer came from the grill! Chicken breasts marinated in rosemary, oregano, black pepper, honey, lemon juice, a little chili powder and ketchup (I know, that just brought down the culinary value of this dish to -1001 points, but, seriously, ketchup ~~and its numerous preservatives and huge amount of sodium~~ is crucial to this - I tried grilling chicken breasts without it once and all the tenderness/moistness of the meat was gone :(), grilled and topped with sliced gouda near the end. Wegman's W bread sliced and drizzled with EVOO, lightly toasted on the grill. Thinly, thinly sliced homegrown tomatoes and organic spring mix salad, dressing/condiment of your choice. All sandwiched together, it's delicious. The lightly crispy and strangely rich bread, the almost melted cheese, greens softening and mellowing from the heat of the chicken, alsdjfdf. Best sandwich ever.

Chocolate gelato and crema gelato. I'm usually not too impressed with my own cooking, but I bluffed my way through this recipe and it still came out amazing, so I pretty much feel awesome right now. I didn't have cream or whole milk or evaporated milk, but some sketchy substitutions using skim milk/butter and weird foodie logic paid off. The original recipes sound amazing though - chocolate gelato and custard gelato. Seriously, it's so good. And I don't even have an ice cream maker, oh god. The chocolate version is the most intensely chocolate thing I've had in a long, long time. There's almost too much chocolate.

I also got a massive craving for peanut butter recently, which led to an effort to recreate a giant Reese's Cup at home (Pimp That Snack style, everyone). Graham cracker bottom layer, freshly ground peanut butter mixed with powdered sugar, a little salt, and a dab of butter, melted chocolate on top. Allow to harden and enjoy.

Last of all, my favorite fruit of the summer. It's crazy that there was a time when I hated peaches! Pennsylvania ones rule.

Old experiments I never got around to posting:

Lemon blueberry cake loaf sliced in half, layered with toasted almond slices and lightly soaked in Meyer lemon infused honey before being filled with Meyer lemon curd. The idea was nice and it looked delicious, but it was too sweet and too complicated, I think. And the curd was really amazing - for about a spoonful or two; I'm not very good at handling extremely rich foods, and the lemon was a bit too strong. Meyer lemons are lovely, though.

Lemon curd is actually not difficult at all to make, although you need to be really careful while heating it to avoid cooking the eggs.

However, my carrot cake recipe never fails me. I baked this for my English class and it's so, so good.

mmm. biscotti.

Sat, 25 Feb 2006 23:59:28 GMT

I never imagined that homemade biscotti could be so simple and so delicious! These are nothing like the stale, hard as a rock sort that you might find being sold in the supermarket aisles. Instead, they're rich and perfectly textured for either dipping in coffee or simply savoring them by themselves. This is the basic dough recipe. The wonderful thing about biscotti is that the variations are endless - you can add whatever you'd like. This recipe makes roughly two dozen biscotti.

INGREDIENTS
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup white sugar (the original recipe called for 1/2 a cup, but I usually find baked goods a little too sweet for my liking; adjust to your preference!)
1 1/2 cups and 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract (or almond/anise extract, if you'd prefer)

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets or line with parchment paper.

2. In a medium bowl, beat eggs, oil, sugar and extract until well blended. Combine the flour and baking powder and stir into the egg mixture to form a heavy dough.

3. Divide dough into two pieces. Form each piece into a roll that's a little over 12 inches long. The size is pretty flexible, so just use your judgment. Place roll onto the prepared cookie sheet, and press down to 1/2 inch thickness.

4. Bake for about 20 minutes in the preheated oven, until the biscotti is a light golden brown color.

5. Remove from the baking sheet to cool slightly on a wire rack. Slice each one crosswise into 1/2 inch slices. A pizza cutter is fantastic for doing this, by the way.

6. Place the slices cut side up back onto the baking sheet. Bake for an additional 6 to 10 minutes on each side, until the slices are lightly toasted.

I made a different type with each roll. One was cranberry almond, the other chocolate pine nut, and then I dipped the finished biscotti in chocolate and nuts. If you're curious, here's what I used.

Cranberry almond:
1/4 cup sliced, toasted almonds
1/4 cup dried cranberries

Chocolate pine nut:
1/4 cup toasted pine nuts
1/4 cup chopped bittersweet chocolate, preferably of a good quality! (all I had available was 60% cocao Ghirardelli chips)

To dip:
1/4 cup sliced, toasted almonds
1/4 cup toasted pine nuts
good quality, bittersweet chocolate, melted (amount varies here - use as much or as little as you'd like)
coarsely ground sea salt to sprinkle (I'm a huge fan of balancing sweetness with saltiness - salt really makes the flavor more complex and, well, addictive!)

Basically, add the additional ingredients to the egg mixture with the flour. After the biscotti are done, dip them in the melted chocolate, sprinkle with as much salt and nuts (and whatever else you have in mind) as you want. I worked with wax paper during this process.

You can see the sea salt here!

summer.

Sat, 11 Feb 2006 19:58:37 GMT

Hover for text!

:x

Mon, 02 Jan 2006 15:02:26 GMT

Recipe adapted from this.

BANANA-CHOCOLATE CHIP MUFFINS

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup white sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 medium-sized ripe bananas, mashed
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 large egg
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1/4 cup milk
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (I used Ghirardelli's 60% cocao chips, asldfj delicious)

(I also added 1/4 cup oat bran, but that's completely optional.)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease the muffin tin with butter and then flour it.

Mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in large bowl.

Mix mashed bananas, egg, melted butter and milk in medium bowl. This is where I took a departure from the recipe. My bananas weren't entirely ripe yet, so I heated the oven to 400°F and roasted the bananas in there, turning them once or twice, until they were very dark brown and looked like this:

Then I took them out, let them cool a little, and slipped the skins off. I do this for banana bread as well, and it comes out great each time - roasting them intensifies the sweetness/flavor and ensures that whatever you bake won't be lacking in, well, banana-ness. Since these bananas are really hot, I didn't bother to melt the butter, but just cut them in cubes and mixed them with the mashed bananas until the butter melted.

Stir banana mixture into dry ingredients just until blended (do not over mix). Stir in chocolate chips.

Divide batter among prepared muffin cups, filling each about 3/4 full.

Bake muffins until tops are pale golden and tester inserted into center comes out with some melted chocolate attached but no crumbs, about 32 minutes. Transfer muffins to rack; cool.

Makes 12.

because i'm lazy, what!

Sun, 18 Dec 2005 18:41:55 GMT

( Peppermint bark cookies. )

Sun, 30 Oct 2005 19:42:45 GMT

I obviously don't understand the meaning of regular updates. :x But I'll be back, I swear! I've got loads and loads of photographs and recipes to post, it's just a matter or organizing them. In the meantime, chocolate cake with raspberries, whipped cream, and ganache is amazing.

it's getting cold.

Mon, 05 Sep 2005 14:47:23 GMT

Recipe here! I'll copy and paste anyway, with a small adjustment.

INGREDIENTS:
10 cups thinly sliced apples
1 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 or 2 tsp cornstarch (to prevent the apples from being too liquid-y, adjust to your preference)

TOPPING(this makes a lot, but it's the best part, so):
1 1/2 cup oats
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
a little less than 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
a little less than 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup butter, melted

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degree C).
2. Place the sliced apples in a 9x13 inch pan. Mix the white sugar, cornstarch and ground cinnamon together, and sprinkle over apples.
3. Combine the oats, 1 cup flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda and melted butter together. Crumble evenly over the apple mixture.
4. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for about 45 minutes.

lychees!

Thu, 01 Sep 2005 13:57:30 GMT

The bigger the lychee is, the juicier and tastier it will be. I like to chill mine before eating, I just think it tastes better that way. :-?

Start peeling the skin. I love this part, there's this thin delicate layer of light purple/red skin beneath the tougher exterior that's really pretty.

Peel some more. :))

Apparently, lychees are packed full of nutrients/minerals. I just like their taste - sweet but not very sweet, with these really complex and rich undertones.

Take a bite and savor the juices!

What's left over afterwards.

Alexander, our older brother.

Sat, 20 Aug 2005 23:58:06 GMT

Note: the lighting varies in these pictures - some were taken at night, others in the daytime. Sorry! I have been feeling very domestic and suburban lately, what with the ongoing house design and gardening and baking and purchasing of Ralph Lauren polos. Today, I made mini peach pies (of sorts). OH ACADEMIA, I HAVE ABANDONED YOU.

Vanilla Cupcakes:

The Magnolia Bakery in New York City is famous for its retro, simple cupcakes - nothing overly fancy or pretentious, just the deliciously wholesome and old-fashioned cupcakes that everyone longs for deep down. I've never been there, but it's definitely on my list for the next time I'm in the city - I just hope the hype isn't too overblown, because that would be a shame! It sounds charming, though. The point is that they published a cookbook, and one of the recipes is, much to my delight, one for plain vanilla cupcakes.

A kind soul posted it on her food blog as part of her entry for IMBB #13: My Little Cupcake (Or Muffin). Seriously, click that link. The sheer amount of amazing muffins and cupcakes is ridiculous. Of course, I had to make it.

Okay, the lighting here is weird, the color should be closer to the following picture:

The results were really quite good! The vanilla came through well and the cupcake was moist and dense without being too dense. No frosting this time because I was lazy. :x

Black Bottom Cupcakes:

I used this recipe, and asldjfd delicious. I was a bit wary at first, because cream cheese always seems like somewhat of a suspicious ingredient for me to use in baking, but the texture and contrast of it is delicious. I used Ghirardelli unsweetened cocoa powder, and the cupcakes had this fantastically dark chocolate flavor that wasn't overly sweet, while the cream cheese mixture had both sweetness from the chocolate chips and a little bit of sharpness from the tiny bit of salt to balance it out. It's dead easy to make, as well, and by the third day, they were all gone.

And the above two recipes together.

Chocolate Chip Oat Muffins:

INGREDIENTS:
1 1/2 cups oats
1 1/3 cups milk
1 egg
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup chocolate chips
2/3 cup chopped pecans
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
cinnamon (however much you like)

DIRECTIONS:

1. Combine oats and milk, let stand for 15 minutes. Preheat oven to 400 F (205 C). Grease each cup of the muffin tip.
2. Stir egg, oil, brown sugar, chocolate chips, and 1/2 cup of the pecans into the oat/milk mixture (the rest of the pecans are reserved to go on top of the muffins - if you'd rather not do that, go ahead and put them all in!).
3. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Add the oat mixture to the dry ingredients and stir until it just comes together - not overstirring is crucial to a good muffin! Fill each cup, top with pecans and bake for about 20 to 25 minutes, or until done depending on your oven.

*Note: the recipe is a tweaked version of the one here - the baking powder was wrong and, you know, minor adjustments for taste. I thought the version I made was plenty sweet, but if you are a huge sugar fan, go ahead and follow the instructions in the original!

It looks weird, I know. Even if you're not a fan of oats at all, try it out - they're utterly soft and hardly noticeable in the muffin, but provide a needed heartiness and texture. You really can't tell that there are oats there!

I am a sucker for packaging. Isn't it adorable! The other day, I almost bought a box of Band-Aids purely because they were packaged in this darling tin that looked like it had come straight from the 1950s.

I added a sugar/cinnamon/butter/flour topping on a few of them.

I remember December.

Sun, 14 Aug 2005 15:15:52 GMT

I've been on a cupcake/muffin craze lately. I got lazy, though, and stripped away all pretense of culinary expertise because, really, Betty Crocker's Dark Chocolate Fudge cake mix is quite delicious. :)) I tried to add some class by making a whipped ganache frosting, but I only had Hershey's chocolate chips on hand, so not so much with that. It was delicious, though! Basically, I made ganache, chilled it until it was quite thick, and then whipped it up to add air and give it a texture similar to frosting. It literally melts in the mouth.

I also attempted to make caramel popcorn at home. FAILURE. However, I did end up with some excellent caramel milk to drink.

It's a great way of cleaning the pan - add some milk, put on low heat, and all the hardened caramel will dissolve, both making cleaning endlessly easier and providing a great drink.

Coming soon: home-made vanilla cupcakes and chocolate chip oat muffins.

one by one.

Sat, 06 Aug 2005 14:12:56 GMT

This dish is amazingly simple and equally delicious.

Ingredients:
2 pints of cherry tomatoes (or, you know, however much you want)
1/4 tsp hot pepper flakes
salt and pepper to your desired amount
1/3 cup (roughly) olive oil*
*I used extra virgin, and drizzled on enough to coat all the tomatoes, with some extra for the sauce. Use as much as you'd personally like.
3 cloves of minced garlic
a little brown sugar (not all of my tomatoes were completely ripe! If they are, sugar isn't needed.)
basil (a classic ingredient, but I didn't have any! :o)

Pasta
Gouda cheese, grated (it was the only kind of cheese I had on hand! Again, personal preference re: how much to put on.)

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Wash and cut the tomatoes in half. Place them in a baking pan, season, add garlic and olive oil.

3. Prepare the pasta. (Bring water to boil, add salt and pasta, etc. etc. Self-explanatory.)
4. Bake the cherry tomatoes for about twenty minutes, until they are soft and ready to burst.

5. Take the pan out of the oven, let cool for a few minutes, then add the pasta and cheese. Stir together until everything is equally combined and coated. I served it with toasted Tuscan bread that had been drizzled with olive oil and rubbed with a little garlic.

I also added some shredded mild Jalapenos from the garden as well, which was a nice touch, but unnecessary! Seriously, though, I want to make this dish all the time now. Nothing beats cherry tomatoes from your own garden, sweet from the sun. :x

Because I feel the need to post.

Sun, 24 Jul 2005 15:31:04 GMT

Wed, 13 Jul 2005 02:20:57 GMT

I cannot tear my eyes away from this layout. I really can't.

i am updating! finally!

Tue, 12 Jul 2005 15:09:42 GMT

Following in the trend of vestpocket's most excellent recipe & picture guides!

This wasn't my first try at making muffins from scratch, but they were by far the most delicious! These are ridiculously easy to make and tasted fantastic, my favorite blueberry muffins ever, I think. Moist and sweet, but not too sweet, with the deliciously fresh berries. I've baked this twice - in the pictures are ones that I made the first time, in a jumbo muffin tin (only 6 muffins in one tray), but the second time, I used the normal sized tray (12 muffins). Nevertheless, I made two batches of the original recipe both times. I suppose you could just double the recipe, but it's much easier to make the batter twice using the original measurements, seeing as how the batter is really quite thick, and folding in the blueberries requires some patience and care (this might cause problems if you double the recipe - too many blueberries to fold in, too much batter at once, etc.)

Original recipe (which I made twice to get 12 regular muffins or 6 very large ones):

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup white granulated sugar (I only used 1/2 cup, and it was great, but if you like more sweetness, use more than 1/2 cup)
2 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1/3 cup milk (roughly)
a little more than 1 cup fresh blueberries

cinnamon sugar topping (I used this and it was deliciously crisp and great fresh out of the oven, but after storage, becomes soft and too sugary/buttery - I would recommend topping the muffins only if you know they'll be consumed the same day; either that, or don't cover the muffins and store them out in the open):
1/2 cup white granulated sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup butter, cubed
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

EDITED TO ADD: I can't believe I forgot this! After you wash the blueberries, pat them dry and dust a little flour on them. You want the blueberries to be coated evenly but extremely, extremely lightly with flour - it keeps them from sinking to the bottom of the muffin. I find that a good way to do this is to sprinkle a tiny bit of flour on them, coat your fingers with flour, and then just sort of rub your hand over the blueberries until they're lightly dusted.

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (I used 375 :-?) Grease muffin cups or line with paper muffin cups.
2. Combine flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder.
3. Place vegetable oil into a 1 cup measuring cup, add the egg, and then enough milk to fill it up to the 1 cup mark. Mix with the flour mixture.
4. Fold in blueberries.

5. Fill muffin cups right to the top and sprinkle with crumb topping mixture (if using). (I also added walnuts, but that's totally optional. I just like walnuts. :)) Or you could add large crystals of sugar on top for that bakery look.)

To make topping: Mix together ingredients with fork until it reaches a crumb-like consistency. (Duh.)

6. Bake for 20 - 30 minutes, until done. Check with toothpick.
7. ENJOY. I did.

EDIT: recipe added to slightly!

i rented out your room.

Fri, 24 Jun 2005 21:07:23 GMT

Notice that extremely attractive piece of garlic sitting in the middle of the picture. :> I made pasta last week, outside on the stove attached to our grill.

Well, the penne was cooked inside - I let it cook, strained it, and let it sit for a while. This, of course, is before the boiling.

See the steam escape!

See the giant tomatoes taking over the image!

Unfortunately, I didn't have any breadcumbs. Life. So I improvised, but I think I made the meatballs a tad too large.

The finished product, with grated parmesan. Man, I am not in a mood for rambling today, am I? I've got to rush off to make another batch for tonight's dinner, which I just remembered. I win, clearly. Oh, summer is hardly the time for such consuming activities, but. *sweats unattractively over stove* I wish I had taken pictures of the absolutely delicious seedless watermelon I had last week; it's been an onslaught of great fruits lately: cherries, mangoes, strawberries, watermelons, blueberries. And! Our plants are growing so quickly! I will have to picspam with that too.

we found a way, we found a street.

Thu, 16 Jun 2005 19:02:47 GMT

fresh fruit = the best. i put it on the griddle for a few minutes with a little bit of butter. we had grilled the peaches the night before, so i only had to reheat those.

i layered the fruit in a large wine glass with whipped cream and ice cream. ridiculously good.

okay, i know these look weird. but they're amazingly delicious, with the sweet, rich black sesame seed filling that comes oozing out when you bite it! it's warm and lightly sweet and really satisfying. they sell them at local chinese supermarkets, and all you have to do is boil them in water. i'm sure you can make them yourself, but i am not that ambitious.

we are overcute.

Wed, 01 Jun 2005 21:21:46 GMT

so, in the process of making a variation of tartes tatin this weekend, i made caramel! this is a huge achievement for me, because i'm not very good with fancy things, so. i loosely followed this recipe, but with granulated sugar, because i'm lazy. i used a ration of 2:1 for the amount of sugar to water.

i made a small batch this time - half a cup of sugar, 1/4 cup water, with some on the side. i plugged up the sink and filled it with cold water so i could dunk the bottom of the pan in there to stop the cooking, and i had some extra water on hand, too (i needed it to thin the caramel sauce).

boiling it is kind of scary, actually. i set the flame on low at first until the sugar melted, raised it to medium once it started simmering, and after a few minutes, raised it to medium-high. the thing is that you have to get the sugar to a point where it becomes really dark, but not so dark that you can smell it burning. if the caramel is too light, then it won't have that bittersweet, complex flavor that caramel usually has! but, man, boiling sugar is aslgjdf terrifying for me, especially the part where you put the pan in the cold water to stop the boiling and then add some cold water to the caramel itself - explosions of steam, what. the first few times i tried to make caramel (a few months ago), i burned two batches before i found the right time to stop. it's a tricky thing.

this thread is extremely helpful, and has pictures too! my tartes tatin were based off his recipe.

once the caramel cooled down a little, i added the butter. really fast swirling is recommended here.

the final product!

mine wasn't perfect - it was a bit too viscous for hard caramel candy and a bit too thick for simple sauce. as it cooled down and solidified/thickened, though, it became this really delicious rich soft caramel that i kept dipping my finger in. mmmmm.

next up: a photographed journey towards apple tarts.

catch up on your sleep, girl.

Sun, 29 May 2005 22:50:53 GMT

so, i decided to make a brownie torte of sorts last week. basically, i took hershey's brownie mix (with chunks of chocolate already inside), added some oats for texture because my parents wanted me to (edited after bing pointed out the hysterical unintentional meaning i had written), and stirred in about 1/3 a cup of melted chocolate. :x

topped with sliced almonds and chopped walnuts, this is what it looked like when it came out. i used a ten inch springform pan.

i made it for dessert for my mom and dad, so i wanted it to look somewhat nice! thus, this.

i used this little tool to lightly dust it with unsweetened cocoa powder. i think it's originally meant to hold tea leaves.

and more angles, because i can't resist spamming you all with delicious chocolate overload! also, that is haagen daz chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream on top, which i really like, although i think i preferred their old packaging better. there's something different about their ice cream, too, compared to how i remember it - it's oddly firm and easily frozen, and the triple chocolate flavor tastes a bit off, perhaps it's my natural aversion to fudge showing.

and this glass cake platter, which i really like. uh, that black thing in there is a plastic knife.

also, i made a milkshake of sorts with ice cream and milk. i was bored.

man, i feel like i'm giving you the impression that all i do is constantly inhale chocolate and ice cream, or whatever, but i guess this journal just brings out the glutton in me! the majority of what i eat for meals is extremely healthy in that asian way - green vegetables, rice, stir fries, lean meats, oyster mushroom soups, etc. etc. and i love fruit and grilled vegetables/meat/seafood, so. it's just so much easier to record the over the top snacks i constantly indulge in. :))

plenty of paper for scenery painting.

Sat, 21 May 2005 18:00:31 GMT

a full size version of the above! i make pancakes every weekend, but today, i decided to slice some strawberries and grill them a little while i made my pancakes. we have this flat griddle between the two stove sets, and it's pretty great. the strawberries get soft and the flavor becomes really concentrated, to the point where it even tastes a little alcoholic, no joke! you can't really see the grilled strawberries here because i put some fresh slices on top to balance out the intensity of flavors. complete with this charming square dish, how could one resist? (also, this is a chocolate chip pancake. decadence yay.)

top view! you can see the grilled strawberries here, the ones underneath the first two large slices.

gratuitous use of the zoom on my camera.

this is my favorite hot chocolate mix of the moment. real ground chocolate and coffee, mmmm.

with ice cream. this is also why i've taken to running at least a mile a day.

this is the same muffin that i posted about a few weeks ago. i don't always eat breakfast like this, i swear.

I AM ADDICTED TO THIS ICE CREAM. SAVE ME NOW.

the sandwich was awfully good, but i wasn't a big fan of the herby bread. also, i am utterly hooked on snapple's iced tea, any variation. the one here is the raspberry kind, which is oddly good.

i had the best salad of my life for lunch today! freshly grilled sweet corn, honey glazed grilled chicken and seasoned scallops, baby spinach, ripe tomatoes, a little bit of grilled red onions, grated gouda cheese, and garlic and butter croutons. topped with ken's lite caesar salad dressing. i wish i had remembered to take a picture, because omfg good. yes. i could live off that salad, seriously, for at least a week. maybe a month, if there had been some pasta shells in it.

that you don't sleep tonight.

Sat, 14 May 2005 00:36:58 GMT

my mom and i made these last weekend. the american definition of dumpling is a lot different from the chinese version. basically, the fried version of these are the potstickers you would find at chinese restaurants. the process requires some time, though. the basic idea is that you create a filling of ground pork and vegetables and then fill circles of dough with it before boiling. it's one of those recipes that's sort of passed down from generation to generation, i think; my mom and i don't have a set recipe at all, it changes each time. everything is done by eye and intuition, which sounds terribly cliche, but is also very true.

filling: vegetable depends. it ranges from chinese chives to green beans or celery (both boiled before being chopped) to cabbage to this strange but delicious plant whose english name i don't know (which is what we used this time). any combination of the above, also. ground pork. shrimp. soy sauce, scallions, ginger. corn & sesame oil and salt added at the end, mixed in thoroughly.

dough: flour and water. the ratio is very sketchy, i do it by eye and knead until it becomes relatively smooth and firm. let rest a few hours, then split up into thirds or fourths, knead and roll into a long rope, cut discs off.

rolling the discs out is the hardest part, i think, and requires the most practice? using a rolling pin, you only press on the edges because you want to maintain some thickness in the center. a quick circular motion of the hand is helpful here, it takes quite some practice, but by now, i'm pretty decent at it, which is pleasing. i roll and my mom fills and presses the dumplings closed.

the final part is the cooking process, which involves boiling and adding cold water a few times. i'm bad at explaining these things, don't look for recipes from me. :))

the end result!

i usually eat them with a sauce of chinese vinegar & sesame oil, sometimes with garlic or thin strips of ginger.

all you can say is, "where is all the water?"

Sun, 08 May 2005 20:14:00 GMT

i'm a huge fan of dark chocolate, by the way. the darker the better. also, they have these new coffee truffles that i've been eating too many of! chocolate + coffee = killer combination. this will result in a post soon, it's my vice of choice.

my dad's birthday cake. it was really delicious, from wegman's because i'm too lazy and, also, unskilled to bake a decent cake the first time around. raspberry filling between the chocolate layers & ganache & some sort of whipped cream frosting that was absolutely delicious.

the stages of pineapple eating. :)) i think i'm allergic to it in large amounts - i ate so many slices a few nights ago and was fine, but when i ate another piece the day after, my mouth started burning, etc. :-? troublesome, because fresh pineapple is the most delicious thing ever.

in health related news, i ran for the first time since fall today, and it was pretty fucking amazing. i've forgotten how good it feels.

i'm hoping to post about chinese dumplings & ice cream & hot chocolate soon, we'll see.

i wuv you beary much.

Mon, 02 May 2005 20:09:47 GMT

uh, i have this problem where i can't just chose one photo out of several. you should see how many shots i had! :))

they are delicious. :x i used the ghiradelli (spelling?) mix, which makes these really dark and chocolate-y muffins and are surprisingly great. i've tried a recipe by nigella lawson before as well, but they turned out a bit too sweet?