Off the Grid

Ok, we've been super lazy on posting even though we have made many delicious and adventurous meals since our last post. We'll try to update them soon.

Here are some pictures from our adventure from the Friday night OTG (Off the Grid at Fort Mason):

First stop: Onigilly for onigiri. They had Hijiki or teriyaki chicken. We both had the chicken. Kind of not worth it for $3 each....and not very easy to eat while waiting in line.



Second stop: Laksa from Azalina....It was definitely not the usual laksa that we love. This is more like blended curry with minimal noodles. The whole time I was so cautious about people bumping into me. Quite a disappointment...



Third stop: Kung Fu Taco - duck and asian asada. Great sauce with the asada. Will definitely return!



Last stop: Creme Brulee Kart - Favorite of the day!! Vanilla (right) and Nutella Chocolate (left). I couldn't get enough of it. If it wasn't in public, I would've licked the tin cup until absolutely nothing is left.


Overall, we had a great Friday night dinner at OTG. The tip is to go early to beat the crowd! By the time we left at 7:30pm, we could barely squeeze through to the exit. It's so worth the wait for everything....

Peach Clafoutis

We had a 3rd annual girl's dessert party held at our place last weekend. All the guests must make a dessert and share with the party. We had less people this year due to schedule conflicts but it was equally good. It gave me a chance to finally use the cool china that my MIL has and decorated the house as a mini tea party .

As for my dessert, at first I was debating between a Peach Clafoutis or a Kiwi Orange Popsicle. Since the weather was on the cooler side that day, I decided to make something warm instead…so I used a Peach Clafoutis recipe from Martha Stewart's Everyday Food magazine.

I actually never looked up what Clafoutis means. According to Wikipedia: Clafoutis is a baked French dessert of black cherries arranged in a buttered dish and covered with a thick flan-like batter. The clafoutis is dusted with powdered sugar and served lukewarm. Even though I have never tasted clafoutis before, it just looked too good to not try it and it was super easy.


(taken with my crappy camera right out of the oven)


(taken with an iphone after final touches)

The kitchen was filled with the custard intoxicating aroma and it turned out really well. The edges weren't as brown as I wanted it but I think that was because I ambitiously put too much peach slices in it. The custard had a slight dan tat taste to it. The tartness of the peach was a perfect combination to the sweetness of the custard. I wish I could make the presentation a bit nicer but oh well.

Here are some additional pictures from the party


(This was before all the other plates of desserts and hor derves were on the table)



(BFF's dessert - Banana Cream Tartlet with fresh fruits)



(C&T's Stuffed Mushrooms)


I really enjoyed hosting the party and I hope to do more soon. A friend and I are planning a baby shower in the next few months so I can hardly wait!

Give me a Bahn Mi!

It's been a while since we last updated. Thanks to the overflowing love from parents, we haven't been cooking much at all since their return. We did attempted to do a few dishes on our own but this was the only one that's worth featuring.

Since I had a half-day off, which may I add that I highly deserved and needed, I went to Costco and picked up a pack of the bulgogi that everyone raved about. We cooked it as is for the first day on the skillet and ate it with rice and stir-fried broccoli and mushroom. Nothing too special. Since we had a 1/2 pack left, we decided to make Bahn Mi.

I picked up some sweet rolls from Boudin, a jalapeno, and used the left over cilantro from our mussel night. This was one easy meal and packed with flavors. And…it only cost us $3 altogether besides the meat.



My mom made some pickled carrots and radish since I was craving it and it was the best way to use them. As we were cooking the bulgogi on the skillet, we warmed up the bread, cut up the jalapeno, and fried an egg for each of us. The next step was just assembling. Spread the mayo first on the warmed bread, packed the bulgogi mean inside, added the pickled veggies, topped with jalapeno, cilantro and the fried egg.



(top - the man sandwich, bottom - the lady sandwich, which the man made a weird cut but he's still the best)


First bite…..OMG HEAVEN! Second bite….Heaven x 2! It was one of those really quiet meals because we couldn't chew fast enough to take the next bite. Easiest meal ever and I seriously can't emphasize how good it was…..(ok, I'm literally drooling as I'm typing this reminiscing how crazy good it was)

Flamin' Strawberries

It's been a while since we last updated….mainly because the last few weeks we barely cooked anything special. It was either dinners with friends or family or something else. Finally over the weekend, we had the chance to make a good meal as a celebration for Jer's bday. It was worth the entire afternoon in the kitchen….

Appetizer:
Cole Slaw with Homemade Dressing
Ok…I cheated on the slaw mix. I wasn't gonna spend like an hour chopping up different types of veggies when I could get a bag for $1.99. The dressing, however, was made from scratch. Miracle whip, oil, vinegar, sugar, salt…whisked together and mixed it into the slaw mix and refrigerated for at least 2 hours. A tad sweet for my taste, which was what most people said on the recipes (and I even cut back on the sugar already). Not my favorite recipes but it passed.

Main Course:
Oven Baked Baby Back Ribs
Recipe courtesy of Jia Jia Chan. She raved about it so much that I had to make it. Bought baby back ribs from Costco. I rinsed it and patted it dry on Saturday night and let it soaked in the Lee Kum Kee Char Siu Sauce. Sunday evening I took it out and baked it for 50 minutes in the oven at 350*. Brushed with honey and baked for another 10 minutes. Came out to perfection. The meat was tender and juicy. I think the boys expected it to be like Armadillo ribs but it tasted more like char siu ribs. It wasn't fall off the bones tender yet but it was still very good. Great recipe Jia Jia!

Side Dishes:
Corn on the Cob - nothing special, just corn

Mac and Cheese
I went a tad overboard with the cheese….This was rather a unique recipe. It called for cheddar, cottage cheese and sour cream as the sauce. The recipe had raving reviews so I had to try it. I kind of messed up on the porpotion of everything but oh well. =) It came out just ok….I was never a fan of cottage cheese but it did make the dish pretty cheesy and saucy. Second day was actually even better!



Dessert:
Chocolate Cupcakes with Flamin' Strawberries
It was definitely my favorite part of the night! I found this recipe through Jia Jia and I knew I had to do it for Jer's bday. I made the cupcakes (which were totally fluffy and light) ahead of time along w/ the frosting. I hollowed out the strawberries and filled it up with Absolut Vanilla Vodka. We lit it on fire using the lighter, and the alcohol lit up inside the strawberries with a blue flame! I actually tried it in the afternoon but the whole house was so bright that I couldn't see any flames. I almost burned my finger coz it was so crazy hot too. When we did it again at night and turned off the light, it was soooo cool to see the blue flames dancing on top of the cupcakes! Although the flames were short-lived (about 30 secs or so), it was soo cool to watch. Jer tried to take a Vodka shot from the strawberry and it wasn't such a good idea…. =p

It was supposed to look like this:



But since I don't have a fancy camera, it looked like this from my kitchen (hahahaha):




I was too busy with the prep work that I didn't get a chance to take many pictures but it was a wonderful night spent with the people I love and with good food.

Happy Birthday sweetie!!!

Beer Chic-Kans!

So I realized that I would have to write after meals...unless I get hit by food coma. In this case, I might be hit by a week long food coma.

The meal, or rather the meals, that I will cover at this moment will have to do with chicken. Yup, chicken again, but it's by choice because I'm confident in this type of cooking. This way is, of course, the beer. Specifically, a can of any beer. The first of the chickens done was a whole chicken seasoned with mesquite. I like mesquite because of the smoky flavor I can get without the smoke. And it just goes well with crispy chicken skin.

What I decided to try was to marinate the chicken and let the skin of the chicken sit in the seasoning. I heard that it's recommended to have the skin of the chicken dry to have the crispiest possible result. Soon I learned that marinating is best done when it involves wet marinate, not dry. So I recommend rubbing the seasoning on dry chicken skin until it changes color and if possible, unload fistful amounts of season for maximum flavor!

Ready some onions in quarter-inch squares and stuff them into the chicken. Don't stuff too much or you find an interesting surprise at the next step. I had the oven pre-heated to a 375 degrees, but I think if the chicken is heavier, the temperature should increase. I misjudged that part since the chicken was about a 5 pound chicken. One other chicken that I did before was much smaller, at about 4 pounds. I remember this because I had a hard time sticking an aluminum can into the cavity of the chicken's...rear end.

Here's the tricky part. Empty, or drink, a little more than half of the can of beer. Any beer works in general, but I like to think that different brews with different ingredients release different subtle flavors. At least I like to think so... Anyway, I had the can of beer on a baking pan lined with aluminum foil and carefully slip the whole 5 pound chicken over the can. If you had too much onions inside, you might find it challenging to do this, but it's okay. By having more than enough onions inside, a couple pieces of onions lost in the process is an acceptable loss. Use the chicken legs to balance itself into a make-shift tri-pod with the beer can and carefully balance the pan into the oven. For a chicken this big, I would leave it in the oven for about an hour at that heat. 45 minutes for a smaller chicken.

If everything goes according to plan, your chicken should look something like this.



After this, eat it whole or cut into quarters.



Here's another variation of beer chicken that I tried. Beer Chicken Wings! This works almost like the chicken breast from the first post. Drown the chicken wings in beer and seasoning for a even marinate. Leave it out for as long as you can. I had mine drowned for a couple hours. Lay these out on a foil wrapped pan and have some of the marinate in the pan. This seem to keep the meat juicy and moist and having the side facing up crispy. I eyeballed the cooking time and cut one of the wings open to check the rawness of the meat.



Beer is awesome. I love it and I love to mix it with my food. Alcohol has an amazing way to open up new flavors and with the many choices of liquor and booze out there, I'm sure that there are many different flavors you can achieve with alcohol. Remember! Cook responsibly and don't operate machinery under the influence. Keep that in the food!

Chocolate Chip Bread Pudding

The best bread pudding I have ever had was at Chaya on the Embarcadero. Ben and Jer could attest to that. I would never be able to achieve what they did so I did my own version.

Jer bought a ton of bread of Christmas and we have all these left overs that the two of us will never be able to finish. It was perfect for the bread pudding and it was the easiest baking ever!

Cut up all the bread and scatter them into the baking pan. Fill up with the egg mixture with milk, half and half, cinnamon, nutmeg, and sugar. Push the bread down so they all soak up the eggie goodness. Top with chocolate chips and into the oven!



45 minutes later…..



While it's still warm, eat it with vanilla ice cream….ahhh…perfect dessert for a cold winter night. =)

We should stop making so much sweets…