have you watched soul train lately?

i wish i could screen shot this episode of soul train because the clothes on this show are sickkkkk oh man. hahaha amazing.

no pictures

wanna buy me a camera?

no camera
no pictures.
lol

or
give colin a lashing for not posting the damn pics online

ARGH
i bought turkey sausage from the farmer's market today
totally excited to eat it for lunch.

then i dropped it

so i went back to find it

AND THEN
right before i back tracked the whole way i saw a woman with a bag of turkey sausage. i thought. oh. thats weird.. to go to the farmers market only to buy turkey sausage.

i'm pretty sure she took MY FKNG TURKEY SAUSAGE.

because i back tracked
and it wasnt there.

WHO TAKES FOOD FROM THE GROUND

WTF?
DONT YOU THINK SOMEONE WOULD COME BACK FOR IT!

ARRRGGGHHH

nothing like a giant bowl of pesto pasta and ina garten to make me feel better

i've been having a pretty bad week. just not really on top of my game.. so today i decided that i HAVE to change this!

i did NOT im today at work ahhaha i know its pathetic that i do it but. how can you resist the temptation??

anyways. after working super hard today (i hope my bosses noticed) i got off at a different stop on the subway, went to fancy pansy 'provisions' to buy basil (incase my trusty associated was closed when i got home) and bought a thing of overpriced basil and overpriced parm. lol well it was fine. i got a free piece of yummy gourmet pork sausage out of it. (nothing like freebies to justify the overpriced food)

ok pesto!

price (about 12 bucks if your retarded and you shopped at the silly expensive gourmet store)

1 cup of basil (i used my whole bundle.. cut up to about 3/4 cup)
1/2 pine nuts
1+ tablespoon parmesan cheese (i had the crumbly kind..)

ok. since i dont have a food processor, i did this by hand. When Alvin was here and we made gnocchi (which he has yet to blog about because he fails). I do actually like hand chopped pesto.. and if youre not making alot of it.. its not that bad. its mainly cos the pinenuts are really chunky if you do it by hand.. and it realy gives the pest a good texture.

so.

- chop basil. I did this gradually. because if you try and chop all of it at once, it'll be messy
- add pine nuts. again, add this gradually, or you'll have rolling pine nuts
- add cheese! (if your a cheese lover, dont get tempted to add too much! You can always add more when you eat it!)

last time, we coudlnt find our parm, so we added gruyere. it actually tasted pretty good but the problem was the gruyere would melt when it got to the pasta and it was just messy. and then the pesto woudlnt mix and would just end up in lumps! (sigh)

anyways. hand chopped pesto is yum :D

i'm also cooking the base for some vichyssoise. I had left over leek from my ham and leek quiche and decided to make the most of the potatoes and leeks in the fridge :D

for vichyssoise you need:

- two big leeks
- two big russet potatoes
-1 cup of sour cream/heavy cream/ or 1/2 cup of sour cream and 1/2 whole milk
- salt and pepper to taste

- chop, soak and drain leeks (most ppl recommend only using the white and light green part.. but i always feel bad about wasting food, plus green bits are always the healthiest! if youre like me, cut off spotty/wilting/too tough green parts and then chop. Put leeks in a large bowl and soak in lukewarm water and swish around so the dirt comes out.. why are leeks always so dirty?!)
- heat up pot, add a splash of oil and caramelize leeks
- add potatoes
- add approx 4 to 5 cups of water
- bring to boil and simmer until potatoes are soft.
- turn off heat and blend with hand blender
- add dairy and stir. the dairy all depends on how creamy you like it. My boyfriend really likes the tangy taste of sour cream. so we use sour cream and a splash of whole milk or heavy cream if we have it
- add salt and ground pepper to taste :D

WHY IS NYC SO COLD! SOMEONE SAVE ME.

alvin fails at blogging. i have insane ocd

lol.

i'm not sure if i have an irrational fear of ecoli. but since theres been news reports every other week about spinach and other such salad veggies spreading ecoli.. well. who isnt afraid?

lol today Colin and I are going to Lindy's for dinner, and i rmbed she lovesss kale salad. I had this genius kale and pumpkin salad at Marlow's and sons last year and thought it would be a really delicious salad to bring!

oh yea. back to e coli. I'm also afraid of naked food. that is..food that is just.. out in the open for anyone to just touch. why is kale always naked? dont they know people eat kale raw? not thinking, i put the kale in the basket.. the whole time thinking.. ew ew.. but not thinking.. oh maybe i should put it in a bag? fast forward i get to the cashier.. and.. facing the prospect of putting my raw kale onto the belt that has meat and all kinds of gross shit put on it all the time.. well. i put my shit down and ran back to fine bags.. came back.. realised one bag wasnt big enough to put two things of kale into the bag.. ran back... got another bag.. then. well... lets just say.. when i looked up.. the cashier and the bag man.. were laughing at me. :(

oh and it doesnt get any better, because i ended up breaking off the tip of my butcher knife.. those cuisinart f***ers

googling led me to April Bloomfield's grilled pumpkin and kale salad. (you can watch her make it here: http://www.eatdrinkordie.com/videos/fa0dea0da8/pumpkin-salad-april-bloomfield-from-april-bloomfield )

Sounds pretty good too since nyc has been a bit chilly and grilled pumpkin sounds really warm and hearty :D Well, I dont have all her ingredients since a) Associated does not sell pumpkin oil b) Associated does not sell curly kale (just normal kale) and c) Associated does not sell pecorino.

So heres my take

Grilled pumpkin and kale salad

ingredients:
1 bundle of kale
1 medium size kabocha pumkin
some parmesan cheese
lemon
olive oil
balsamic vinegar

- wash pumpkin, cut in half and scoop out seeds. cut pumpkin in to medium size pieces (or as April calls it 'rustic sizes) toss in olive oil, salt and pepper and put onto foiled baking sheet. Put into oven at 375 degree. bake until soft (about 20 mins).

- separate seeds from the fleshy meat the seeds are covered in. (i always try to clean them pretty thoroughly or else the fleshy bits burn and its a pain) Toss in olive oil place onto small baking sheet, sprinkle little salt ontop, place into oven/toaster oven at 250 - 300 degrees. bake until crunchy. Make sure to take out every 10 minutes or so to stir the seeds around so they dont stick to the foil/pan.

- remove stems, wash, cut and dry kale.

-When pumpkin is ready, remove from oven and squeeze half a lemon (approx 1 tablespoon) over pumpkin and toss.


-Af

Plating

since i'm bringing this to someone else's house, instead of plating immediately, i'm going to let the pumpkin cool down first (and nibble at the pumpkin bits a little) so the kale doesnt completely wilt by the time it gets there

- layer the kale and the pumpkin. Put a layer of kale, add a splash of lemon, and put down a layer of pumpkin. Repeat until necessary. Save some extra pumpkin on the side to add to the top for color. drizzle with olive oil (or if you have pumpkin oil use that). Add balsamic vinegar if necessary.

I havent put the salad together yet. I'm waiting to add add it together at the last minute.. i dont really want the kale to wilt too much. plus the pumpkin's still hot. (but really delicious on its own) ahhahah :D

i'll take pics later :D

a sponge cake for saena? maybe...

Herro!
so saena and i have been discussing what could have gone wrong with saena's cake? We found a similar recipe to hers and i decided to give it a go. Anyone who went to college with me would know that Erti/Helen/Saena and I spent lots of our 'relax' time (we didnt have a lot of that) sitting in front of the tv watching chick flicks and eating sponge cake. Unfortunately i've lost the original recipe and its been a year and a half since i've made sponge cake. SO! this was the result. just for Saena i did the cute pic of the cake as the owl's tummy ahhaha.

i also made two videos for saena but eh.. the first one is really stupid so i'll save that for her and colin and anyone whos interested in watching me talk about fred and ginger whilst beating egg yolks with sugar. HAHHA

ok so heres my recipe

ingredients:

3 eggs
3 tbsp water
3/4 cup of sugar
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp ground green tea
1 tsp baking soda
1 pinch of salt

- beat eggs, sugar, honey, vanilla extract, water together until pale yellow and foamy. (do not overbeat! if eggs start seperating you know its no good lol)
- fold in dry ingredients, as nigella says 'slowly but firmly' and dont over fold!
- pour batter into lightly greased pan.
- steam in rice cooker (for 20 mins in starting from when water is boiling) or on a rack in a wok/pan for 20 mins on medium heat. If steaming in a pan/wok, cover pot opening with a paper towl or clean hand towel (this absorbs the moisture and avoids it dripping into the cake).



as i suspected while i was making the batter, my cake is a little over folded. I suspect it started when i was beating the eggs, i think i might have over beaten it a little bit. I modified the recipe a lil bit from what i was doing in the video (like the baking soda and the sugar) but i will retest it soon to make sure the recipe is correct.

WELL SAENA! i hope this helps :D

guest blog #2 fails: this is supposed to be...

this is supposed to be ma lai go

this is supposed to be a cookie

i made soy sauce chicken!

ahhahah and it was delicious.

Unfortunately I used a blogger's recipe so i cant copy it onto our blog but i can link you.
http://www.christinesrecipes.com/2009/07/soy-sauce-chicken.html

the other unfortunate thing (esp for our fail king alvin) is its in chinese.. so i'll make a translation w/ personal updates of the recipe



Ingredients:
some chinese cooking wine (Blogger Christine uses 'siu hing', i didnt have any so i just used rice wine)
1/2 cup of light soy sauce
1/3 cup of dark soy sauce.
1 cup of water
1 piece of chinese rock sugar (i used a piece about the size of a.. golf ball.. probz smaller..i think its really up to you how much sugar you wanna put in.. how big the chicken.. how much soy sauce blah lbah
ginger (some for the chicken, some of the pan, some for the sauce)
spring onions/scallions (1 sprig for the chicken, a couple for the pan and 2 or 3 for scallion sauce)
couple cloves of garlic, smashed but not chopped
2 cloves of star anise Blogger Christine puts chinese dried citrus peel, but since i had none, i used 2 cloves of star anise, completely different aroma, but nice

warning! this recipe may be pretty easy to do, but it takes a little bit of time depending on the size of your chicken. Luckily for me its usualy just me and colin, so i got a small 2 lber from the farmer's market. Chinese people really like to use really fresh chicken for steaming, because frozen chicken loses its 'chicken' taste. I think your best bet other than going to china town to find live chickens (which is scary and i would never do) is to buy one from a farmer's market.

Prep: 10 mins

- rinse/clean chicken. You wont be needing any of the gizzards for this recipe if your chicken comes with it.
- wipe chicken dry with a paper towel
- put a few slices of ginger and a sprig of scallion into chicken cavity
- The blog says to 'wipe' the cooking wine onto the chicken... couldnt figure out/be bothered to find something to 'wipe' it with, so i just made sure the chicken was dry and the bowl was dry, then pour some wine over the chicken, and rolled the chicken around so the whole body was covered (dont soak that chicken though! AHHAH)

Prepping the pan: 10-15 mins

the blogger uses le creuset and swears by it.. well i'd love to have one too but too expensive! hhahah so i used a non stick pan. my chicken was small, so i used a 3" deep pan to cook it in.. any bigger and i'd probably HAVE to find a damn le creuset since my other pot is isnt nonstick lol.

-slice up some ginger, scallions and garlic for the pan.
- heat up pan with some oil. 'pop' pan with ginger, scallions and garlic. (chinese people call this 'bao hoong" - like.. exploding red ahahhaha - because your heating up the oil and flavoring the pan, almost all cantonese recipes call for this.)
- pour light+dark soy sauce, water, star anise into pan and bring to a boil, add rock sugar.
- when sugar has completely dissolved, turn heat down to low and add your chicken with the breast towards the pan. take a serving spoon and SERVE THAT CHICKEN SOME SAUCE. no i mean cover the chicken's body with soy sauce. be sure to put some soy sauce in the cavity too! cover the pan with lid and set your timer for 10 mins. now leave it alone.
- after then mins unlid, turn the chicken to its back side, now 'dress' the chicken again with sauce, then put the lid back on, set timer for 8 mins. leave
- unlid, turn chicken to side, dress, lid on for 13 mins, repeat for other side
- unlid, turn chicken back onto breast side, and bring soy sauce to a boil. While it is doing so, dress your chicken some more :D when sauce has come to a boil, turn heat off and quickly put the lid back on. depending on the size of your chicken, this last part will cook any bits that you've missed. My chicken was small, so i only did this for 5-10 mins and my chicken was well done. Make sure that when you cut into the chicken (ie the thigh) the juices that run are clear, not red.

scallion and ginger sauce:

- mix chopped scallions and fresh ground ginger together, add a little bit of salt for taste
- heat up some oil in a small sauce pan. when oil begins to smoke (a little) pour hot oil over scallion/ginger mix and voila. sauce. :D

Be sure to keep the soysauce left over from the chicken! :D i used it to cook some vegetables.. and i think i'll use it to make some stir fry udon today. that soy sauce is really delicious and totally reusable for another dish like fried rice etc. :D

oh doing posts first thing in the morning makes me HUNGRY :D ahahhaha