Burnt Noodles and Fruit Lupuls

I see seafood

2007-09-23T17:19:00.001-07:00

Last week, I was down with an illness. These things happen when you start a new job and hang out with over 80 new germ carriers aka kids. In my wallowing, dinner magically appeared, cooked with love.

Mmmm... Delicious Delverde brand Tagliatelle all'uovo a nido, made in the Majella National Park, Italy tossed with sauteed fresh scallops, giant prawns and portobello mushrooms in garlic butter and a lovely secret sauce. Let me say again: MMMM... I think I may find myself coming down with a cough...

Are you trying to tell me it was 90 last week?

2007-09-13T14:10:00.000-07:00

The one thing I love best about summer ending is that despite it also meaning the end of all that readily available fresh produce and delicious summer cooking is that when the weather starts getting cooler and you end up bundled up inside buried in a hoodie instead of lounging in front of a fan wishing there was any possible way you could budget yourself just one more day of air conditioning, you get to make fall food. And fall food is awesome.

Fall is when you get to bust out all the heavier, spiced foods; soups, potatoes (especially sweet potatoes!), squash, super crusty breads...the list goes on.

So anyway, when I saw this garbanzo bean soup recipe over at Vanilla Garlic, my first thought HOLY CRAP GARBANZOS! (I've inexplicably loved them since I was about five, and thought that there was nothing weird at all about ordering the salad bar at a restaurant so I could mix croutons, garbanzos, cucumbers, and those weird little Asian crispy things together with ranch), and second, FALL FOOD!

I made it immediately, and then couldn't think of what to drink with it. Neither tea nor coffee sounded right, nor did juice, and I was sure as hell not drinking my roommates' Mountain Dew. What's fall drink? I asked myself - and the answer, my friends, is cider.

Except all we had was buy one get one free $1 apple juice from Meijer.

Even that, can be remedied, though, I have learned: you can mull apple juice too. It certainly isn't as good, but it's damn well better than what you started with.

YOU NEED:

1 3 inch cinnamon stick
Allspice (to taste)
Nutmeg (to taste)
Cloves (to taste)
1/4 cup brown sugar

Basically it's as simple as real cider: throw all that in a pot with a quart of apple juice and let it simmer for 20 minutes. I like to add a bit of orange zest, too - and when it's possible, use whole cloves, etc. - today it wasn't.). Then you can strain and serve! It's always a little sweet since it's made from gross artificial apple juice, but it tastes a hell of a lot better, and goes awesome with hot soup and crusty bread.

Epic Nachos

2007-09-11T22:05:00.000-07:00

So, when you just get home at 2 am from working 15 hours straight, outside, on your feet, living heavy objects that are twice as tall as you, getting painfully sunburned, and having subsisted all day long on nothing but a particularly lackluster disaster of a meat-slopped-on-a-bun type thing that you're told is a "pulled pork sandwich" and a granola bar, you are both (a) starving and (b) dead on your feet and much too lazy to cook something real.

This was my Saturday.

The clear solution was something totally unhealthy (uhh it has fruit! that counts for something!) - a plate of greasy, cheesy, sour-cream saturated nachos.

I'd made guacamole (two avacados, a glop of sour cream, and some generic guacamole spice mix on sale at Meijer) the night before after getting off of a similar, though not as long, day of work, and devoured most of it, but there was a little bit left, so I through it together with some cheese, sour cream, hot taco sauce (I was out of salsa and there was no WAY I was going anywhere), nectarines (my dad makes an amazing peach salsa that I could probably die for and fully intend to get the recipe for from him, so I figured why not freshen this whole thing up a little with some fruit?), and green onions.

My eyes deceived my stomach and I only got through about half the plate before I had to go pass out from exhaustion, but they were amazing. Who says I can't break this whole trying to eat healthy thing now and again?

Cupcakefest!

2007-09-03T13:44:00.000-07:00

So a couple weeks ago, the power cord on my laptop died, leaving me with no functioning computer until Best Buy could get around to sending me a new one. I was so bored I at one point baked three batches of cupcakes in a matter of two days (I had to take a bunch of the extras over to my friends' place - being a house of four college boys, they demolished them, even as they insisted I should make something more "normal").

I'd had a lot of these recipes sitting around for a long time, so despite the fact that I probably gained five pounds that week, it was awesome! First on the list was the zucchini ginger muffins that got rave reviews when the lovely ladies of IPB first made them.

My favorite thing about these cupcakes was the ingredients - the fact that my kitchen now has such exotic things as "crystallized ginger" and "valencia orange peel" was worth making them in and of itself. Then again there wasn't much to not love about them - they had a great, spicy taste without seeming too much at all like "health food" cupcakes. Except for the frosting (which was amazing itself - I usually dislike frosting because it's too sweet, so this cream cheese variation was brilliant), they could have almost been muffins. And besides that, they were moist and crumbly and twice as delicious when warm. I definitely intend to make them again!

After the zucchini cupcakes, I realized I had a box of dark chocolate cupcake mix lying around. Schnookie had mentioned chocolate pepper snap cookies (and chocolate habanero gelato!), and I started wondering if the same principle - chocolate and spicy peppers - could be done in cupcake form. It sounded brilliant to me, so I went to work. I bought some canned chiles, threw them in my food processor, and then added it to my chocolate batter until I thought it was spicy enough. After searching around on the internet for a while for what might be a suitable frosting, I stumbled on Vanilla Garlic, a blog that had the same idea I did - only with cinnamon. That sounded like a brilliant idea, so I followed that recipe and added some of my own, then frosted them with a mixture of cinnamon, confectioners sugar, and a tiny bit of cayenne. I can't believe how good these turned out - everyone who told me those flavors went together great was very right.

Lastly, now that I'd found the blog, I of course had to wander around on it for a while, which led me to these red bean-filled green tea cupcakes. I've had extra red beans ever since I made oshiruko last October, and I love any and all things flavored like green tea which, combined with the fact that I've always wanted to try filled cupcakes, pretty much settled it. You can't tell from the picture (which is terrible - I don't know how I didn't get anything better of these), but I forwent the suggested frosting and ended up with a strawberry flavored glaze that was delicious. The only problem I had with them is that they were a little dry, and thus dried out a lot in only a couple days. I would have thought the bean paste would help with that, but apparently not so much.

I froze six of both these and the chipotle chocolate cupcakes and took them to Collingwood with me to visit my grandma - not only did they survive the trip, but they were both just as delicious upon thawing!

Word.

2007-08-13T07:01:00.001-07:00

For Better or For Worse, Monday, August 13, 2007

How sweet savoury can be

2007-08-13T06:39:00.000-07:00

Breakfast today: Scrambled eggs with sauteed mushrooms and smoked salmon, toasted sesame bagel with fresh chive cream cheese and tomato slices. Chased with a cup of coffee and swig of orange juice (straight from the carton, hee hee).

I know it doesn't look like much but it's the first meal I have made in my new place and I am damn proud of it. It's actually the first time I have cooked a whole meal in almost two months too. I miss cooking. I miss creating. It's time to start. I'm getting settled now and picked up a frying pan yesterday so things are coming together.

I don't have a real camera anymore so pardon the blurriness of the picture that was taken on my phone and transferred to the computer via good ol' Bluetooth.

Lunchtime!

2007-08-12T12:19:00.000-07:00

A good chunk of my friends absolutely swear by tortillas as being all-purpose college kid food - and they're probably right. Leftover Chinese food? Throw it in a tortilla! Hamburgers? Chop them up with some melted cheese and slap it on a tortilla.

So we always have them lying around. I thought, though, that it would be more interesting to dress up the typical quesadilla with a recipe I replicated from a cafe downtown (where it was inanely overpriced) and ended up with delicious Crab Apple Quesadillas:

Like all quesadillas, these are super-easy. Spread one tortilla with a generous amount of cream cheese, toss some imitation crab meat, slices of apple (Granny Smith and McIntosh both work well, you definitely want a tarter apple), chopped up green onions, and Colby Jack cheese. Stick them in the oven until they're toasted and the cheese is all melted, then top with a dollop of sour cream, some cheese, and the leftover green onions - they're also delicious with some fresh salsa or a nice pico de gallo. The apple and the crab add a tiny bit of sweetness that really make the quesadilla for me - and the apple gives it an awesome crunch, too.

I'm not dead.

2007-08-05T11:16:00.000-07:00

I just went about a month being a big cheapskate and not buying anything to make anything worthwhile, for the most part. Now, however, I have restocked and am looking forward to at least a week or so of making all sorts of delicious food. Starting with!

This was a really simple sandwich I made the other day to make use of fresh groceries. I stuck two halves of a baguette in the oven for a few minutes to brown them and spread some cream cheese and pesto on them. Then I pan-grilled some boneless chicken thighs (I tend to use that over breasts, mostly because I like how they're juicier) and sauteed mushrooms, and then stuck it all together with some fresh organic spinach and enjoyed it with deli coleslaw. Simple, but absolutely delicious.

This was breakfast this morning - a friend having heard about my love of avocado mentioned something a friend of hers had mentioned being a common cooking thing in her culture (I want to say it was an Indian thing, but I could be wrong): yogurt in a hollowed out avocado. I used boysenberry Dannon fruit on the bottom because it was what I had available, and garnished it with some raspberries. I cut the avocado so it was actually less than half on the plate because I knew I wouldn't be able to eat that much, and I was right, I only made it through maybe 2/3 despite eating about three times as much yogurt as is in the picture. The flavors matched brilliantly though, the avocado added a sort of odd but delicious texture to the yogurt, and the rich sort of nuttiness matched the tang of the fruit really well.

As pretty as it is like this, though, I think if I were going to do it again I'd just cut up some avocado slices to eat with my yogurt since it would be less of a waste.

Next up: As soon as I get my hands on some crystallized ginger, I'm making an attempt at these ginger zucchini muffins that my lovely friends Pookie and Schnookie assure me are wonderful.

Something healthy and something decidedly not.

2007-07-09T17:21:00.000-07:00

Ummm so let's talk about how lazy I've been lately! It's been too hot and I've been too busy to even be cooking much that's been worth taking pictures of, but all is not lost:

This one happened a couple weeks ago; basically I bought some yogurt, but you can't ever get plain in small containers, so I had a ton extra. The obvious solution? Marinade! I googled the stuff I had lying around and pulled up this yogurt mint chicken (or something close to it at least). I modified it a little bit, using bone-in thighs instead of boneless breasts because I like dark meat much better, and I pan-grilled them because since moving I don't have access to a real one anymore. If I made it again I think I'd halve the extra topping sauce - it was really good but I just had way, way too much. I'd like to try it out on an actual grill next time, too.

The salad was another result of wondering if I could mix the random things I had sitting around in my fridge - this time it was a head of romaine, strawberries, shrimp, and feta cheese. I didn't follow a recipe, just threw all that together with some garbanzo beans, cucumbers, and balsamic vinagrette for a light, sweet salad that went really well with the yogurt.

The other day I was shopping with a friend for a dinner party, and I ran into edam cheese on sale. Last summer when I was in Prague, there was a dish called smažený sýr - basically a slice of the cheese fried and then served with either mayonnaise or tartar sauce - sold at street vendors, in restaurants...almost everywhere. I couldn't resist grabbing some and making my own, coated with egg, one cup bread crumbs mixed with a quarter cup flour, restuarant style with a light salad and mayo.

So unhealthy but sooooo good!

Long time no see!

2007-06-19T22:39:00.000-07:00

Well I'm sure only me and my pet cat still remember this! Nonetheless I've been a little slack, minimum cooking and as well dining out (I had dinner at this great Chinese restuarant with our family. They had a sort of cubed steak with wasabi mayo which sounds weird but is addictive. As well a snowfish in a teriyaki sauce which basically had us all in love with it). I was cleaning out the pantry for something to eat but I found some pasta which I cooked with leftover cream (rather suspicious) a bit of white wine, butter, onions and mushrooms (yay mushrooms!). For some reason, everything just turned out great. The sauce was simple and I love pasta! Nonetheless I felt it was an important photo moment.

In other food news, my mum cooked a Malaysian favourite, Laksa noodles. She even boiled the egg so it had a gooey centre!

Dessert is the most important part anyway right?

2007-06-05T13:47:00.001-07:00

Um so I haven't cooked anything substantial in like a week because I've been moving. BUT! I'm finally done thank god. What I forgot about, though, was that in my Toronto excursion last weekend there was most definitely some food sampling that deserves being mentioned!

As I was wandering around the city with fellow food-blogger HG, I realized I was starving - to which she suggested we stop by the illustrious Wagamama Cafe. Having heard the praises she's sung of their peanut butter cookies I of course agreed. The things are huge! And delicious! I want another one now!

Possibly even more excellent than the cookie was the drink I got. At first, right after I ordered it (blueberry iced tea!), I was worried that it was going to be sweet - I forgot that Canada is like the south in that the tea always has sugar in it. Luckily, instead of being pre-sweetened, it came with a little cup of liquid sugar that you could pour in it if you wanted to! I didn't, just squeezed a little bit of lemon in and enjoyed.

You could really taste the blueberry, too. I wish I knew somewhere a little closer that I could get it again. Oh well, I suppose this just means I'll have to go back to Toronto sometime soon? We never did get that sushi!

I love chocolate! - Max Brenners and the revisit.

2007-05-27T03:59:00.000-07:00

I think if I was going to die a cruel and unusual death, it would probably some sort of chocolate related death. Of course there will be some problems with it but there are some times where you sit back and sort of go "this is it". Chocolate is it for me. It's been so it that my friends give up on giving me presents and just send me chocolate (or bribe me with it to do someting for them).

Nonetheless what you see is a chocolate pizza. It's a pizza base with chocolate sauce and covered with marshmallows, white chocolate, cornflakes and toffee before being toasted to a gooey consisitency. What makes it rock? Well there's the crunchy flakes which blend with the chocolate and help smooth the flavour. My friend doesn't like it much. Though it doesn't matter because, more for me!

We had waffles again which were toasted better and actually made me reconsider my previous rating. I'd take those waffles anyday, to bed, to school, to work, to my romantic times...

Last but not least (and I mean it!) is this thing they call the "dome". Now it's a sort of caramel flavoured chocolate mouse filling (which they shamelessly declare as creme brulee) which is covered with a thick ganache like layer of dark chocolate. It's paired with a pot of milk chocolate fondue and strawberries.

I think I can die happy.

I love Summer.

2007-05-21T18:48:00.000-07:00

I had about a million errands to run today, but one by one they were whittled down into being able to accomplish just about nothing due to places being closed (I swear I'll be productive tomorrow!). So when my roommate came home from work early, it was gorgeous outside, and we had nothing better to do, we decided....barbeque! It was nice enough out to walk over to the grocery store and pick up some corn on the cob while our steak marinated, as well as fresh mushrooms!

The steak was just marinated in a lime chipotle sauce, the mushrooms tossed with some garlic, salt and pepper. The corn was covered in a mixture of butter and fresh basil, wrapped in foil and tossed in the coals to grill! Best way I've ever found to cook corn.

Afterward my roommate and I decided to recreate the highlight of my trip to Prague - no, not Jaromir Jagr's sports bar (IT CLOSED!), Kick Ass Dude Sorbet. Basically one of my favorite (and by far the coolest looking) bars of the trip, Ultramarin (home of tasty tequila drinks and...Thai food?) had a drink special one day by the name of Kick Ass Dude Sorbet. And how do you refuse that? You really don't. It was a glass full of a shot or so of vodka, lemon sorbet, and about a whole handful of mint leaves (crush them up and mix them in before you eat/drink it!). Unfortunately I couldn't find sorbet so I substituted sherbet which worked almost as well, but lacked the tang the sorbet would have had, which was a big part of what made it so good to begin with.

Overall 10/10 and I love barbequing!

WAFFLES WHOOOO!

2007-05-18T05:24:00.000-07:00

I am a woman posessed when it comes to waffles. After cheating on my chinese test successfully (never do what I do folks), I pestered my friend to join me in a trip to the fine establishment of Max Brenner's. It's essentially a chocolate cafe so it's hard to really suggest it as a dinner meal. My mind has been filled with nothing but waffles.

Now I haven't been to Max Brenner's for a long while, but my meal was accompanied by an espresso frappe that was really crap. Their hot chocolates are lovely though so I would reccoment those more often. Their waffles are always exceptional and popular, with strawberries and a scoop of home made icecream. Their ice cream is just plain AWESOME and I wish there was more. The strawberries used to be just sliced and sprinkled on the waffles but I guess it's easier and cheaper for them to dice it and spoon it into a small bowl.

Overall the waffles were wonderful but I'm still unsure whether they're worth the 12 dollars I pay for - especially when the takeaway waffle stand at the train station has them for $2 each and have similiar quality. It's a fun experience but most of the dollars go to the gimmicky nature of it. They have great chocolate but Koko Black (another cafe/store) has somehow bested them in that sense.

Jordi's rating on her guide? Probably a 7/10. It's good for a special night but the food's limited by just the chocolate theme and it's only dessert. However when they make it it's awesome.

"And in my spare time, I knit a pair of socks for each member of a large Ethiopian family"

2007-05-15T04:25:00.000-07:00

So Mother's Day has graced us and my mam took a short trip to the outer city in a luxurious spa treatment. I decided it was a great idea to make cookies (which I am enthusiastically modeling for on the side). I am utter shite at baking. You put the thing in but what if it doesn't look cooked? I mean if you take it out before it's cooked and the other ingredients set and you have to re-bake it and you have to oh my god baking is insane. Because I rolled out the cookie dough into huge balls, it became mini cakes. I know if I redid it with small sizes it would be perfect. But Jordi is a dumbass. What can you say? By the way I think eating cookie dough is icky and gives me the heebie-jeebies.

Thankfully my sister saved the situation with Triple Choc Brownies. Being as rich as they sounded, they were a pleasurable mouthful. There is nothing I would enjoy more than having MORE of them.
Anyway back on the "cooking side" of things, it seems that my parents have come to expect me to cook for them. My parents work a full load of 9-6 + closing hours means that they come home at around 8pm. Ever since my mum caught on that I took an interest in cooking, she decided that it would be a good idea to ask me at least once a week to set dinner. Sometimes I am pissed and get pretty ticked off when she asks. Nonetheless my ability to cook has not been improving and somehow Tuesday has become the official "Jordi cook dinner" day. The annoyance mostly stems from the fact that most times I am unready and there is no recipe which matches the contents of the fridge (Where's that chef that fixes everything from your fridge? I need him). Nonetheless the anxiousness is doubled when the crowd that I feed are a bunch who prefers meals that they eat everyday. My father loathes Italian, Vietnamese and enjoys regular Chinese meals. He's used to eating the things he grew up with, so most Western food kind of die with him. My aunt is fairly similiar, she would not stop complaining that the rissotto was too soggy and I had overcooked it with too much water.

By the way I always respect my mum but god, I respect her cooking a lot more now. Anyway so I've been cooking every now and then but the dishes I make are mostly underwhelming. But I've figured a way to configure my camera to not have A) too dark shadows to make it impossible to figure out what is in it or B) phantom glowing thing-ies.

Tonight was another random "cook tonight honey" night. So I had some frozen baby squid and broccolli which I fixed by frying the broccolli in oyster sauce and garlic (my mum gave me this speech about how oyster sauce contained corn starch and Asians AKA dad loves some sauce to soak the rice so add some water to make it into a broth rather than gluggy mess). The squid was a mixture of lime juice, soy sauce, paprika, garlic, pepper and sambal paste. Sambal paste is a spicy chilli paste so it's a good use for a kick and well I found limes. Anyway cooked the thing up and the family ate it all so that's a good thing.

And oh yes dessert. Tonight features tiramisu cake and ice cream both from local places. The icecream has choc chip and caramel pieces and are taaaaasty.

Käsekuchen!

2007-05-13T23:31:00.000-07:00

I came home to my parents' house yet again this weekend because I was promised playoff tickets to tonight's Wings/Ducks game, and whenever I make my way to this side of the state I find myself bored out of my mind. Not to mention I nabbed a ride with a friend, so I don't even have a car at the moment.

I do, however, have a massive amount of rhubarb that's been growing rampant and threatening to take over our entire garden. And I really love rhubarb. I also have three packages of almost-but-not-quite out of date cream cheese that really needed to be used up. The simple solution? Cheesecake!

It wasn't hard to find a recipe that used both ingredients, but it was harder to find one that wasn't just a plain cheesecake with rhubarb sauce...which sounded much too boring! I finally stumbled on this, and decided I had a winner. I did have to modify it a little - I didn't have a springform pan, so I used a regular 9", and 3 cups of rhubarb was way too much for my little pan; I ended up using about two. The crust and the rhubarb, the most interesting part, was tasty enough looking all by itself:

The cheesecake itself came out delicious, if a little bit creamier than I usually like (I tend to like firmer cheesecakes, and this is milder in that respect, but does have a really good flavor). It also took about 10 minutes longer in the oven than the recipe suggested, but that might be in part to do with the pan that I used.

I added some strawberries on top because it was just too plain looking, and overall it did wonders to calm my seething hatred of Chris Pronger! It was also a very nice light (as much as one can be) cheesecake, and good for the summer. Before I found this I considered making a key lime one instead since I thought that sounded lighter as well, but I'm glad I decided on this! I give it an 8.5/10 in tastiness, only because of that consistancy and the fact that I think I'd like to taste the rhubarb a little more, and a 10/10 in restoring my sanity after a ridiculous game.

Maple Hoo Eats, Episode 01

2007-05-13T16:58:00.000-07:00

Today I am proud to present the first installment of BNFL's inaugural guest series from Schnookie and Pookie, of IPB fame.

Today was the first day of what I'm trying to approach as my "Maple Hoo Eats: The Summer '07 Challenge". (Maple Hoo is the name we gave our vast, sprawling estate. It's actually 'Maple Hoo Farm & Orchard'; we have a little over half an acre on which we've installed a handful of raised vegetable beds and 12 apple trees. While the land itself might be humble, it obviously aspires to greatness) See, summer in Jersey means one thing: tons and tons of fresh vegetables, and Summer '07 at Maple Hoo also means no functional kitchen, thanks to the world's most drawn-out remodeling job. So I'm trying to figure out how to creatively tackle the quandary of not wasting the bushels of nature's bounty coming from my local farm membership and front-yard veggie garden just because I have no countertops, no stove, no oven and no sink larger than the ones in the bathroom vanities. It's still early going, though, for both the kitchenlessness and the veggie onslaught, so today was easy. Our first harvestable crops came in -- spicy mesclun mix and French Breakfast Radishes -- so I very artfully tossed them with some blush-wine vinaigrette (store-bought. I'm not that dedicated) and served with fresh-squeezed lemonade, just the thing after a grueling day of being a gentlewoman farmer. And while it may seem humble, damn if that wasn't the best salad I've had since, well, the final head of farm-fresh lettuce last fall. The first taste of fresh-from-the ground veggies is always the best, so this salad gets a rating of no less than 7 Hoos out of a possible 5. The lemonade, while refreshing, suffered texturally because I used the wrong pulp filter on my kick-ass electric juicer, so it only gets 4.5 Hoos out of 5. Delish!

One of those nights...

2007-05-13T10:34:00.000-07:00

Friday night was a girls' night out. I was lured out with the promise of mojitos but the place we went didn't have them so I drowned my sorrows in two double shaken lime margaritas. A friend and I declared that was now or never for mojitos so thanks to the power of texting, I found a place that probably had them. We headed over there and were intrigued by the rest of the drinks on the menu, pushing aside the mojitos for a more interesting sounding drink. I ended up getting an El Diablo (not related to Steph's El Diablo) which was incredible. Mmmm... I didn't know what creme de cassis was so I looked it up and it is a blackcurrant liquer. TASTY! Once that one was gone, I went for the mojito and...

Even though it was a nice drink to look at, it didn't taste as amazing as I thought it was going to be. I think I know it's because the mint tasted like basil and I think it's more suited to a hot, muggy day instead of past midnight on a cool evening. I will give it another chance come the middle of summer.

Drink recipes:
Margarita
El Diablo
Mojito

El Diablo!

2007-05-11T10:14:00.000-07:00

I love sushi almost as much for how pretty it is as how good it tastes. And I never get it because here in stupid Kalamazoo we only appear to like Chinese food. So every time I drive back home I have to stop in Ypsilanti, meet up with a friend, and trek down to Ann Arbor to hit up this little place called Sushi.Come, and gorge ourselves.

My favorite is the diablo roll (middle with the spicy orange sauce), but we tried a new thing (not pictured because they forgot it at first and had to bring it out later) that was "fried sweet potato roll" - fried sweet potato and inari served hot, which was absolutely amazing.

Not to let me down, Kalamazoo recently fought back and opened an ASIAN FUSION (no seriously that's what the sign says) place called Sushiya which, though it had liquor license issues at first and is a little pricey, actually turned out to be excellent (having friends who work there and give you free food helps, too). So a big group of friends and I went out for some sushi and sake and came away with this:

The place even had its own diablo roll (lots different but still excellent - it's the far right one on the foil and those mounds on the top of each one is actually a scallop), so I was particularly happy with it.

I fully intend to go back to both places....when I can afford another $15 meal.

Be still, my tuna

2007-05-10T12:30:00.000-07:00

My favourite place to eat in all of Toronto is a cafe called Wagamama. Today, a friend and I went for lunch where I dined on the best tuna sandwich EVER followed by the best peanut butter cookie EVER. I have claimed that I would only eat peanut butter for the rest of my life if it was in the form of a Wagamama cookie. Saturday mornings start the weekend right with one of the best muffins EVER - my first choice is apple crumble but I also like the pumpkin or cranberry bran - followed by the best latte EVER.

No this is not a Martin Biron wet dream

2007-05-07T02:13:00.000-07:00

I know I've been spending very little time cooking. I blame assignments (which is not true) but mainly because I've become a little lazy in ingredient buying. I keep forgetting to ask what happened to my super special cocoa powder since I've been wanting to make cookies since god knows how long.

Anyway frozen waffles taste like crap, we have a waffle iron in the house but it seems to look like too much time to prepare. So I still ended up buying some frozen waffles which is like eating a really thin crumpet. Nonetheless I had it sitting in the freezer for a while since I lost my need for waffles. (However I have developed a craving for whipped cream)

Today I've got an essay due in two days and I'm trying to complete it tonight (I might have to work tomorrow and I don't want to have to hand in another typo essay - but I seem to be waste time easy). I was fixing up some kind of afternoon brunch while watching Brokeback Mountain (weird combination and guess what? I cried in the movie. I'm never a person to always cry but you know a lost lover - especially one as pretty as Jake Gyllenhal is worth crying over).

Nonetheless here is waffles, drenched in a berry thing and melted chocolate. Accompanied with marshmallows (I had a pack sitting there and thought it was a good idea at the time) and vanilla icecream. There's a LOT there and I was surprised I managed to finish it without chucking - within the first spoonfuls I was full and halfway through I had to pause because I was getting sick.

The berry sauce thing was just some frozen berries I found in the fridge and some sugar (those frozen berries are um... kinda old) in a pan. While the chocolate was melted with a small bit of milk because I hate doing the whole "melt it but don't make it seperate!" shiznit.

Overall I'd give the frozen waffles a 2/10 for tasting like ass, my berry thing 3/10 for being too watery but I couldn't give a shit and then my chocolate a 10 because it's chocolate duh. The icecream is as well tasty so it's a 10. Overall I should never be allowed to cook ever again.

I've come to realize my plates are really boring.

2007-05-05T23:16:00.000-07:00

I went home for the weekend but before I did I figured I should use up some of the things sitting around my fridge that probably wouldn't have lasted otherwise...so I had a field day.

Simple from scratch pancakes with chocolate chips and raspberries! I don't remember the recipe I used, but folding the berries into any sort of pancake recipe would work the same I'm sure. Delicious despite the fact that I made the batter really thick (I tend to like it that way) so they were huge and also really thick and sopped up all the syrup. Pretty easy, but in general all my breakfasts are because I'm lazy at that hour of the morning (okay seriously I think I made these at noon).

HG told me about a really tasty sounding hamburger when I mentioned having avacados, but since I didn't want to go out and buy peppers and things when I was planning on leaving for a few days, I made do with what I had - this is a really easy hamburger I cook a lot, actually, especially since my ex-roommate left me with about a million hamburger patties. Slap on a little cheese, avacado slices, mushrooms and barbeque sauce and you're set! (By the way the corn is totally a cop-out, it's frozen complete with butter sauce. You forgive me right!?)

Last! Also not particularly impressive, but steak marinated in italian dressing and some seasonings (mostly just salt, pepper and a little garlic salt for good measure) with eggs! Somehow I decided it sounded really good even though it wasn't breakfast time at all. Throw in a side of some chopped up broccoli steamed and then covered in a light cheese sauce and it's a fast dinner.

Now that all that stuff's gone I can go back to planning out stupidly elaborate meals I can't afford! :b

Stir frys (or is it stir fries?)

2007-05-03T20:37:00.000-07:00

If I'm stuck and need a quick dinner with a healthy serving of veggies like twice this week, I look in the fridge and grab what I can to whip up a stir fry.

Stir fry #1 - Spinach noodles, teriyaki-flavoured extra-firm tofu, garlic, zucchini, white onion and soya sauce.

Stir fry #2 - Wild and brown rice, shrimp, orange pepper, asparagus, tomatoes, dried chili flakes and a swirl of honey.

French Toast AGAIN!

2007-05-03T14:04:00.000-07:00

Get used to it.

This past Sunday saw a trip out of my usual corner of the city as we headed out for brunch after a little sleuthing online to see what my options were. My detective skills turned up Lucky Dice Restaurant, located at 2868 Lake Shore Boulevard West in Etobicoke, which is about a 10 minute drive west of downtown. The review I read on Chowhound left me a bit curious:

For a greasy spoon - the lucky dice on the corner of 5th and lakeshore- looks a bit dodgy from the outside, is a bit on the inside, but aren't all good greasy spoons.

Once we arrived, I agreed - yes it was dodgy on the outside but pretty clean inside. We sat in the back in a large open room that reminded me of a community centre in a small town where people have wedding receptions and bingo tournaments. Our waitress looked really busy but she was quick on the draw. I ordered my usual French toast, which was delicious, and my dining partner had eggs and sausage with toast and hash browns. Coffee was included in the breakfast price but even after we added two glasses of orange juice, the final total was under $20.

Verdict: 5 pats of real butter out of 7

Quick & Easy!

2007-05-03T10:22:00.000-07:00

The other day I was hanging out at a friends' place and he happened to go through my camera, looking at a bunch of pictures from the Oilers/Blackhawks game I caught on April 1st. Well, at some point he asked me who a certain player was and when I answered "Ladislav Smid" he gave me an entirely perplexed look and made me repeat myself - turns out he thought I said "lettuce on Smid."

And ever since that day I had a craving for salad. So I went out to the store and acquired some spinach, cucumbers, chickpeas, mushrooms, avacado and croutons, tossed them all together with some French dressing, and came up with a surprisingly delicious Lettuce on Smid salad. If only the real thing had been involved.

Jordi cooks!

2007-05-02T04:24:00.000-07:00

Yes, to think that she does nothing but buy food and talk about it. I made some quiche quite a while ago. My mum called me a pumpkin for not following a recipe when I should when baking (but what if the thing explodes!?). Overall the quiche was cheesy (from my creativeness) and thus a little oily. Would make again only so I can get better. It had bacon bits, spinach and mushroom and a lot of love. I love how the camera made it look more delicious than it really is.

On to item #2: Green Tea Prawns with Honey and whatnot that Steph posted before (it's in the oven since I finished early and was waiting for people to come home). Now I thought my dad would sort of enjoy it and I have a track record of cooking things he might not like. Unfortunately he loathed it. Now this is mostly because a) I added too much green tea powder (accidentally since I'm an idiot and was like "what happens when you do this... okay too much.") and made it overall very bitter and b) it looked really unappetizing. Did I read the recipe right? Anyway I probably wont make it again since it just creeps the fuck out of me. The honey wasn't my beef with it since I thought it was doable but the cornstarch was waaay too much. Things I'd cut out? most of the cornstarch - none on the shrimp and only a tiny teaspoon in the sauce (my mum told me only to have a small teaspoon and I didn't follow her advice through) because the texture is alright either way. I doubled the recipe since it was for my whole family so I somehow ended up with more sauce which I should've considered. And really, you don't need the chicken broth in my opinion - it adds nothing to the taste and the saltiness is already there from the oyster sauce.

I think the green tea and the honey clash way too much and you should only add a teeny bit of green tea and no more even when you double/add on the recpe. Though really, I'd just have honey and oyster sauce stir fry sans broth and all the frippery. Too much prep with the ingredients and not enough satisfaction on my end. And the green look looks too creepy for comfort.

I think I messed it up from the start though so I happily take most of the blame in fucking it up.

Tonight I cooked as well with frozen calamari (the scored kind) and just some more broccoli and capsicum. This was just garlic salt & pepper and I could've added a bit of sambal chilli paste to give it a kick but I was unsure of overdoing it. That and I had a side of chinese broccoli fried with garlic and a bit of oyster sauce - I kind of missed chinese broccoli for a while so I liked that more.

On a lighter note, all meals should be enjoyed with hockey!

Because I can't resist weird sounding things...

2007-04-28T15:43:00.000-07:00

A while ago, like seriously six months or so, I was looking for things to do with shrimp, since Meijer had a big sale and I nabbed about four bags of them for the price of one, and I stumbled on Honey Garlic Green Tea Shrimp. I love green tea, and green tea flavored things (mmmm green tea cheesecake) but what really got me about this was that it used actual green tea leaves ground up, not just matcha flavoring.

I changed it a little bit because I didn't have any asparagus handy - so I used green beans instead. And I have this weird thing about peppers, so I just omitted that, and added a little bit of matcha for extra green tea flavor.

The recipe didn't mention serving it with anything but since it seemed mostly like a stir-fry to me, I figured I'd put it over some rice, and toss a sour dough roll on the side. The honey made it a little sweet, and if I make it again I'll probably put in less of that and more of the oyster sauce, but all around is was really delicious. I think it might also be better with bigger shrimp, the taste gets a little lost with these small ones.

Recipe Test: Asparagus and Mushroom Frittata

2007-04-25T17:21:00.000-07:00

In the inaugural post here at Burnt Noodles and Fruit Lupuls, Jordi linked to a recipe for Asparagus and Mushroom Frittata. During my grocery trip yesterday, asparagus was on sale so I picked some up for the first time this year. Tonight, I tested out the recipe.

I can never follow a recipe. I have to change it. This time was no different. I don't have a scale so I guesstimated and put in 1.25 cups asparagus, 2 cups sliced mushrooms but then I also added 1.25 cups chopped zucchini which I added at the same time as the asparagus. I didn't have mozzarella or fresh parmesan so I substituted with a blend of pre-shredded mozza, cheddar and Monterey Jack with jalapeno peppers (yes, I'm lazy and buy pre-shredded cheese) and sprinkled a bit of regular parmesan on it.

It felt weird to not put in any garlic or onion though and next time I think I will. It called for thyme as a spice with no salt or pepper so upon tasting it was quite bland. Thyme made it kind of musty tasting or something.

Adding the water to the eggs and cooking it slowly definitely did make it light and fluffy however I wish I had read the reviews before I started because my asparagus was a bit overcooked and it was a little olive oily. The frittata was in the oven for 10 minutes before I added the cheese and turned the broiler on.

I knew with all the veggies in the frittata I didn't worry about making a veggie side dish but I can't eat eggs without tomato. I couldn't think of a grain side so I went for a simple piece o' toast. Three hours later, I am still full, not full like stuffed but full like I ate a good meal.

Verdict: I would make this again with some minor tweaks. I give it 2 out of 5 sporks.

I heart French toast.

2007-04-24T18:07:00.000-07:00

Banana French Toast at Over Easy, 56 Yonge Street, Toronto

Challah French Toast at Toast Restaurant, 993 Queen Street East, Toronto

DOUBLE THE SIZE FRENCH TOAST "TEXAS STYLE", The Brownstone, 601 Yonge Street, Toronto. It really was on the menu in CAPS and bold font. My friend also had this and claimed it tasted like Disneyland. Can't beat that.

Just a plate of delicious homemade French toast that I had in Calgary. What made this super tasty was the hint of nutmeg that was mixed in with the egg.

Banana Bread French toast with warm berry compote and Frangelico whipped cream, The Ranche Restaurant, Fish Creek Park, Calgary. You read that right - French toast made with banana bread. Oh. My. Goodness.

The French toast I grew up with. Simple. Tasty. No syrup, just icing sugar.

Boo to lunch :(

2007-04-24T11:46:00.000-07:00

I hate lunchtime. I hate thinking of what to have for lunch. I hate making lunch. I only like sandwiches if someone else makes them. I am really picky when it comes to soup. I would rather snack on veggies and crackers and cheese. But thanks to a friend, I finally have a lunch I can whip up and it's super tasty.

Three cheers for beans in maple sauce with a side of toast and tomato, chased with a glass o' milk.

Pizza time!

2007-04-24T11:36:00.000-07:00

Victory pizza celebrating the end of the playoffs for me. I love Dr.Oetker's Ristorante Mozzarella pizza. It's nice and easy to make - just pop it in the oven for 10 minutes at 425 degrees.

The wonderful aroma of fresh cheese provides this pizza with its elegant taste, combined with tomatoes, Edam cheese and a delightful mixture of herbs.

It's even tastier when you don't drop it on the floor.

What I Ate!

2007-04-23T22:53:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the horrendous darkness of that because the flash made the dish all sparkly and hard to see. And now it's dark and looks like sheep's insides. What is there is rice, tofu and mung bean sprouts. It's always what my mum cooks and I love it like no other. It's actually just regular tofu stir fried with the mung bean sprouts and a teeny bit of oyster sauce and pepper. I recommend it to everyone. Seriously. It's that good.

And what was was for dessert? Strawberry Cheesecake! There's this great bakery that makes wonderful cakes. The cream used to be a lot fluffier and less firm but I guess they prefer this new one. Though the chocolate mousse or tiramisu cake is just lovely.

WHEEEE!!!

2007-04-21T22:43:00.000-07:00

First post - I really want to put some recipes here to save for later. Because I'll never cook them. I'll take a photo of them when I do! I swear!

Things to make when hungry:

Asparagus & Mushroom Frittata - how hot is that?
Baked Omelet
Spinach & Mushroom Quiche
Spinach Quiche - looks a little too cheesy :(