31 posts tagged “fruit”
Last Friday, for the second time in my life, I had the pleasure of trying bread pudding. We were having the usual free Friday lunch at my workplace, and the dessert options are usually fruit or cookies. Well last week the cafeteria decided to give us bread pudding as a special treat, how nice! I was a bit skeptical at first, because it looked a lot like stuffing... but after my first bite I was completely hooked and my first thought was that I must learn to make my own bread pudding! Like no other dessert I've tried before, bread pudding has a mild creamy flavor that simply melts on your tongue, and a unique soft, chewy texture that isn't at all like eating bread. The bread pudding I had that day also had some blueberries baked in, which gave the pudding a wonderful fruity sweetness, since the pudding itself is not too sweet. Just heavenly - my kind of comfort food!
So this weekend I finally went grocery shopping and restocked my fridge (which is why there haven't been any updates this past week... I didn't feel like making more eggless and butterless baked goods). Being a frugal student, I always check the clearance racks at the supermarket, just in case there's anything useful to me. This time I saw a huge loaf of sliced Italian bread on sale for just $1, because its sold-by date was that same day. Well no problem, I could just freeze the loaf and keep it for however long I want - what a steal! I wasn't actually thinking of the bread pudding when I bought the bread, but today the thought came to me and I was simply giddy with the idea that I had the perfect bread for bread pudding. The one thing I didn't have was berries or raisins, which are usually added to bread puddings, so I just used an apple instead. And it being St. Patty's Day weekend, I knew it was the perfect occasion to pull out that Bailey's Irish cream and add a little zing to my bread pudding. The stage was set!
While I was looking up bread pudding recipes, a realization dawned on me - these things aren't so good for you haha. Most recipes called for 4-6 eggs, several cups of milk and heavy cream, and lots of butter. I'm sure it makes for a fabulous bread pudding, but Mah's comment a little while back did remind me that maybe I could make a few modifications for a healthier bread pudding. And I'm proud to report that I did succeed in making a healthier version of bread pudding without sacrificing much at all :) My boyfriend, like the typical guy, was a bit wary of the notion that I'd be making healthy substitutions to a rich and creamy flavored dessert. But after taking a bite of the finished thing, he happily told me that it tasted creamy and custard-y. Success! The secret is in replacing eggs with applesauce, and using low fat milk instead of whole milk and heavy cream. Usually applesauce can be substituted for oil in muffins and breads, but it works great in this recipe in place of eggs because it is not necessary for providing leavening or structure. Of course, I didn't replace all of the eggs... that would probably result in a pretty awful pudding. So remember, no matter what you substitute, try not to get rid of all of it. I used that rule of thumb for my low-fat creme brulee, and it worked really well. Compromise means everyone is a winner right? Haha. Now I share with you how I tweaked the basic bread pudding recipe to get a tasty but not-as-bad-for-you bread pudding :)
Bread Pudding with Apples and Bailey's Irish Cream (serves 4-6) adapted from Allrecipes.com
Ingredients:
10 slices of Italian bread, or any bread of choice (I prefer a crusty bread)
1 large apple, peeled, cored, and diced
4 tbsp salted butter, melted
1 tsp ground cinnamon
3/4 cup white sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
3 cups milk (1%), scalded
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
2 tbsp Bailey's Irish cream
pinch of salt
brown sugar to top
Directions;
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease a 9" diameter round pan, or equivalent square baking pan.
2. Cut bread slices into cubes (don't remove crust). Toss in melted butter, then mix in diced apples. Lay into baking pan.
3. Scald the milk by heating over medium heat until just starting to bubble at the edges (do not let boil!). Remove from heat immediately.
4. Beat together eggs, applesauce, sugar, vanilla and almond extracts, and salt. Slowly stir in milk. Add Bailey's Irish cream and mix well.
5. Slowly ladle the milk mixture over the bread cubes in the baking pan, making sure to coat all the bread. The liquid should come up to just short of the rim of the pan. Let bread soak in milk mixture for 10 minutes.
6. Sprinkle brown sugar over top and bake for 30 minutes, or until bread bounces back and liquid does not ooze out when pushed with a spoon. Serve warm or cooled, with whipped cream or ice cream if desired.
Having tried the bread pudding both hot out of the oven and later when it had cooled off, I would say that I think I like the texture of the cooled pudding better. That's obviously a personal thing, since I like my bread pudding a bit chewier, whereas others might like it more soupy or soggy. The hot bread pudding certainly has more liquid in it, so it has more of a melt in your mouth, custard-like texture, which my boyfriend really liked. I thought the apples in the pudding were great - they complemented the cinnamon in the pudding, and added a nice little bit of soft crunch and sweetness.
Next time I would add more brown sugar to the top, since it made for a really great crunchy topping. I'd probably also double the Bailey's, since the flavor was subtle here. But I have to say, I couldn't tell at all that there had been applesauce substituting for most of the eggs in this recipe, and I think that the fact that it uses apple as a component hides the applesauce flavor very well. The bread was soft, the flavor was mild and creamy from the milk, and there was just the right amount of sweetness so as to not overwhelm the dessert. It was certainly great with some vanilla ice cream on the side... although I suppose that would negate the strides towards making this dessert somewhat healthy right? Happy eating! ;)
It's hard to believe that today marks the one year anniversary of my Vox. How quickly the time passes! I'm so glad to have started this blog last year: I've learned to appreciate food in so many ways - whether it was in making it, eating it, photographing it, writing about it, or the constant pursuit of new things to make. And along the way I've met so many of you wonderful Voxers whose ideas and skills inspire me and encourage me to maintain this food blog. It has honestly become one of my most beloved hobbies.
For this coming year, one of the things I would like to improve on is my photography. I think the first step will be to improve my camera... after all, it is a point and shoot from 2003! (I use a Nikon Coolpix 3200... really one of those ancient puppies that is very reliable but limited in its abilities). Of course, I am still a student, and will be for many years yet if you tack on medical school, so I don't have the money to buy a nice DSLR camera. My boyfriend knows how much I love food photography, and generously offered to buy me a newer point and shoot for my birthday next month - a Canon A720, which is very well rated and what many consider to be the perfect compromise between a point & shoot and an SLR. I'm so excited! Of course, I am still very limited in my resources for photography. I have no access to daylight in my apartment (just one window in the bedroom that gets indirect light), and I enjoy baking at night anyway. I also have no mini tripod (plus shaky hands), no natural looking lighting (only the harsh fluorescent overhead lighting of my dorm kitchen), and no nice bowls or plates. These are all things that I can do very little about, but that have not stopped me from doing what I love. I hope to improve these conditions with time, so bear with me :) Here's to another year of baking, cooking, and eating!
Now then, you didn't think I'd forget to bake something to celebrate my Vox's birthday did you? Of course not... except I looked in the kitchen and realized that I have no eggs and less than 1 stick of butter. Well I figured I could find some sort of vegetarian or vegan recipe that is free of eggs, and I did find many of those at eggless.com (of course, haha). A recipe for cream cheese butter cookies caught my eye, and I noticed that it was basically a thumbprint cookie recipe. That sounded cute and refreshing to me, and a nice way to use some of the jam I had lying around, since I don't eat bread much. The recipe was super simple, which originally made me a bit suspicious, but the end product eased all my worries. Even though these cookies are eggless, they taste fantastic... with a light buttery scent and a slight sweetness that pairs great with the jam filling in a small bite-sized cookie that looks pretty. Love it!
Eggless Cream Cheese Thumbprint Cookies (makes 2 dozen small cookies)
adapted from eggless.com
Ingredients:
4 tbsp butter
1/2 cup brown sugar, lightly packed
2 oz. cream cheese
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp vanilla extract
jam of choice to fill cookies
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Cream together butter and sugar. Stir in cream cheese until well-mixed. Add vanilla.
3. Gradually sift in flour and stir until blended. Chill briefly (30 min) if desired, to make dough easier to work with.
4. Roll dough into small balls about 3/4" in diameter, and place on an ungreased, foil-lined baking sheet. Using your thumb, push down to make an indentation on each ball. Fill with about 1 tsp of jam each.
5. Bake cookies for 15-20 minutes, until they just begin to brown. Remove and cool on a wire rack.
For my cookies, I experimented with several fillings - orange marmalade, raspberry spread, milk chocolate kisses, and creamy peanut butter (at the request of my boyfriend). I personally thought the raspberry filled cookies tasted the best, followed by the orange marmalade ones, then the chocolate ones. The jam cookies were in general better than the others, because the tartness offsets the sweetness of the cookie to make for a bite that is well-balanced in flavor. The chocolate kiss cookies were decadent, but were a bit sweet, though probably perfect for kids. Finally, the peanut butter ones were lacking a little something, I think it would have been better if I had added some sugar to the peanut butter itself, as it has a native saltiness to it that was odd with the cookie.
I had a lot of fun making these though, it was so easy and the end products are so colorful! When fresh out of the oven, the cookies are slightly crispy on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside, which I loved. They firm up more as they cool down, but the jam-filled ones will stay moist in the center and crispy on the outside. I'd definitely serve these as a casual snack for guests, with tea or coffee. Be warned though, their small size means that wandering hands will pluck them from the cooling rack without hesitation! :)
My boyfriend is such a lucky bum. He gets to indulge in every single item I bake, no questions asked. It's like, imagine for a moment that someone is always making random desserts without you having to ask, because that's what they enjoy doing, and you can just sit around and wait for the next thing to come out of the oven. I wish there was someone that did that for me, hah! Anyway, I asked him what he was interested in trying next, and he told me he really wanted something with lots of cinnamon in it. Ideas of carrot cake and cinnamon buns twirled around in my head for a while, but neither were piquing my interest at the moment.
Then, my parents came to visit for the day and brought me a bagful of fresh apples and plums... and that got my gears turning. Being like many other college students, I don't usually eat fruit, and that's a habit that developed out of having little access to fresh fruits other than apples and bananas that are overpriced in our dining halls. So even when my parents are kind enough to bring me fruit, they usually get forgotten after I eat one or two, which is unfortunate. Apple pie was out of the question, as I had no pie crust nor the means to make one, but I did find a mouth-watering and very well-rated recipe for apple crisp that sounded perfect to me. I could use up some of my apples and have lots of cinnamon in it, plus it's a warm dessert which is always nice in the wintertime... yum. I took a few liberties with this recipe and it still came out great! Apple crisp is definitely an easier alternative to apple pie, and I'll remember that next time I have spare apples to use up. (I got some hand me down orange plates that you might see in my pictures in the future... it's nice to finally have something else besides the Corelle plates I've been subsisting on... although orange is a tough plate color to use haha.)
Ingredients:
4 cups thinly sliced apples (I used 2 medium-large gala apples)
1/3 cup white sugar
1 1/2 tsp all-purpose flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 cup water
for the topping -
1/2 cup quick-cooking oats (I used 1 package instant oatmeal - cinnamon roll flavor)
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/8 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 cup butter, softened
Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Slice up apples and sprinkle with some lemon juice if desired to keep them from browning. Mix together white sugar, 1 1/2 tsp flour, and cinnamon together. Toss apple slices in sugar mixture until coated. Evenly layer the apple slices on the bottom of an 8" round pan or equivalent. Pour the water evenly over the apples.
3. In a bowl, stir together oats, 1/2 cup flour, brown sugar, baking power, and baking soda. Using a fork, cut up the softened butter into small chunks and mix into oats and sugar mixture until you get mostly small crumbles about the size of small peas or so. Spoon over apple slices.
4. Bake at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes. Serve hot with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and enjoy! :)
I think when I make this recipe again, a few changes I would make include peeling the apples first (I wasn't a big fan of the skin still being there), and maybe giving them a little bit of time to cook on a stovetop prior to assembling in a pan, since I think I would have liked the apples just a tiny bit softer. And finally, I would either add more butter or reduce the amount of topping mixture so that the butter to topping ratio results in bigger crumbles. But the amount of topping in this recipe is already plenty for my pan, so don't heed the reviewers of the original recipe that insisted on doubling the topping heh.
I was very happy with the results of this recipe... the apple crisp smelled so good while it was baking, the entire apartment was filled with its wonderful aroma. I just couldn't wait for it to cool down to dig in! I also thought it was really convenient that I could just sub in a package of instant oatmeal for the quick oats, and I'm sure the powder in the package added to the cinnamon flavor (I quadrupled the cinnamon in the total recipe and I thought it was just perfect). Yum!
A few days ago, I was staring at a bunch of rapidly ripening bananas sitting in the kitchen, calling out to me. It was after dinner, and I was just not in the mood to eat bananas, yet I really didn't want them to go to waste. A thought popped into my head to make bananas foster as a way to use up some of those bananas, disguised in dessert form. And you know, sometimes we get the idea that restaurant desserts are really hard to make at home, but the truth is that sometimes they are so incredibly easy to make that once you've figured it out, you'll never burn your money on them again. Bananas foster is certain one of them.
Traditionally, bananas foster is a dessert in which bananas are cooked in a brown sugar based sauce, with banana liqueur and rum added and then burned off for flavor and effect (this is called a flambe). While the flaming bananas foster is exciting and certainly doable at home, I didn't want to play with fire since I neither had a pan with a long handle nor a long match or lighter to set the alcohol on fire in the pan. But if you have these tools, you can simply light the alcohol in the saucepan from a distance, and it will flame with a pretty blue color until the alcohol burns off. The recipe I used comes from Allrecipes.com, and doesn't burn off the alcohol, so I replaced some of the alcohol with water, since I didn't want the taste to be too strong in the final sauce. In the end I didn't really taste any of it, so you can probably add more to get the flavor.
Ingredients:
1/4 cup salted butter (half a stick... okay fine, this dessert isn't exactly good for you)
2/3 cup dark brown sugar
3 1/2 tbsp rum (I substituted with 1 tbsp Bailey's Irish Cream + 2 1/2 tbsp of water)
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 bananas, peeled and sliced lengthwise and crosswise (I only used two, but the sauce is more than enough for 4)
Directions:
1. Melt butter on medium heat in a skillet.
2. Add brown sugar and stir well to obtain a thick sludge. Stir in vanilla, cinnamon, and alcohol and/or water.
3. Continue to stir the sauce until it bubbles and becomes liquid (the brown sugar will melt). Add in bananas and heat until warmed through, about 2 minutes.
4. Pour out and serve immediately with vanilla ice cream (I don't have ice cream, so I just added some whipped cream on top hehe). Yummy, simple, and fast! To make it healthier, I'm sure you can use a butter substitute. Since I had a lot of sauce for the number of bananas I made (the sauce is sweet, I only needed a little bit with each bite, although my boyfriend was having fun drinking it haha), I just refrigerated the rest of the sauce to use for a future batch or for a topping of some sort. Mmm...
In my search for a dessert to follow Thanksgiving dinner, I had a lot of criteria that I wanted to fulfill. I wanted a dessert that would be light enough to follow a heavy dinner, but rich enough to feel like a decadent treat, flavorful enough to be unique, but not too sweet so that I could cater to the Asian palette. Furthermore, I was looking for a dessert that would have stunning presentation and simple ingredients. Combining a recipe for "chilled orange creams" from a dessert book I own (The Essential Dessert Cookbook - $2 on sale from Borders!) and a recipe for panna cotta with raspberry jelly from The Joy of Baking online, I inadvertently created a bavarois - a custard that is set with gelatin. It was a little bit awkward to serve my dessert to the guests without having a name for it, but I can now proudly present it to all of you as a tangarine bavarois with orange gelee. It consists of a tangerine flavored custard that is lightened with fresh whipped cream and set with unflavored gelatin, then topped with a thin layer of orange jelly that is flavored with tangerine and orange juices. Even though it was time-consuming (presumably because this is my first time making it and I was trying to combine 2 different recipes in my head haha), and even though I screwed up in 5 different places, I really really enjoyed this foray into decorative desserts :)
Ingredients:
For the bavarois:
1/2 cup of freshly squeezed tangerine juice, strained
3 tsp of unflavored gelatin powder
4 egg yolks (I used 2 egg yolks + an equivalent amount of egg substitute)
1/2 cup of powdered sugar
1 tsp of finely grated tangerine zest
3/4 cup skim milk
1 1/4 cup of heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
For the gelee:
1/4 cup of freshly squeezed tangerine juice
1/2 cup of orange juice
1 tsp of unflavored gelatin powder
1/4 cup of cold water
Directions:
Bavarois:
1. Chill a large bowl in the freezer. If you plan to unmold the bavarois onto plates, then grease your molds/cups with almond oil or melted butter. Otherwise you don't need to grease the cups.
2. In a small heatproof bowl, pour the tangerine juice and sprinkle the gelatin powder on top. Let sit for 5 minutes until gelatin powder becomes spongy. Boil water in a large pan and remove from heat. Slowly lower the gelatin bowl into the water so that it is half submerged but not touching the bottom of the pan. Stir the gelatin mixture until completely dissolved. Set aside to cool.
3. Stir together the egg yolks/substitute with the powdered sugar. Heat the milk, 3/4 cup of the cream and orange zest in a saucepan until scalded (small bubbles will form). Slowly pour hot milk into the egg and sugar mixture, stirring constantly to prevent the eggs from cooking. At this point I was supposed to return the mixture to cook until it becomes a custard that coats the back of a spoon, but I accidentally added the gelatin solution into it prior to cooking it (you normally add the gelatin after cooking).
4. After cooking the custard and adding the gelatin, stir in the vanilla. Pour the mixture into the pre-chilled bowl and stir occasionally as it cools, until it begins to thicken. (Here again I made the mistake of not letting it cool enough...)
5. Whip the remaining 1/2 cup of heavy cream until it forms soft peaks. Gently fold it into the cooled custard. (Because I didn't cool my custard enough, a lot of the volume in the whipped cream disappeared as I incorporated it. The purpose of adding the whipped cream is to increase volume and to lighten up the custard).
6. Divide the custard up into molds or cups and let chill in the refrigerator until set (2 hours or so).
Orange Gelee:
1. In a small heatproof bowl, pour the cold water and sprinkle the gelatin powder on top. Let sit for 5 minutes until spongy.
2. Combine the juices and heat in a saucepan until just boiling. Remove from heat, and add to gelatin mixture, stirring to dissolve.
3. Allow mixture to cool to room temperature, and spoon a thin layer over the set bavarois. Return to fridge until set (another few hours or so).
4. Decorate with chocolate shavings, orange wedges or slices of orange rind, or fresh fruit.
The end result was quite attractive and the recipe was very robust, I must say. When I was cooking the custard with the gelatin in it, it started to curdle and I remove it from the heat right away to save it, and in the end it came out just fine. The bavarois and the gelee also set very quickly, unlike the recipe suggested (4 hours per layer). I had an interesting time trying to make chocolate curls off of the back of a solid chocolate easter rabbit haha, so I ended up with chocolate shavings instead. I like the combination of chocolate and orange, I just wish I could have accentuated the chocolate a little bit more. The fruit was a last minute addition from a fruit salad that a guest brought over, and it really lit up the dessert with color, texture, and flavor. One of my regrets with this recipe is that I didn't add enough sugar, because I felt that the bavarois was a bit lighter than I would have liked. On the other hand, my parents seemed to really like the fact that it was so light. Guess you can't please everyone. I hope my guests enjoyed it, it really was a labor of love that took me the better part of the day to make (juicing all those tangerines...). The French are really some very amazing dessert makers, I love the subtlety and elegance of their recipes :)
So while I was home for part of my vacation, I decided to make use of our BBQ grill. My parents have a nice deck with a gas grill on it, but they never use it unless there's company over or I'm home. It was the middle of summer, and I just really wanted to get some grilling action in since I don't have easy access to one at school. The only issue is that my parents really don't like hamburgers and hot dogs haha, I guess it's just not something about not growing up here in America that makes it difficult for them to appreciate some of the common BBQ foods. So I created a more seafood geared menu, and tried to make it a healthy BBQ (unfortunately that meant no ribs).
Teriyaki Salmon Skewers (serves 4-5)
1 lb. salmon filet (I got mine with skin but it's up to you)
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup honey
1 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tsp minced garlic (or 1 clove fresh)
pinch of white pepper
bamboo skewers pre-soaked in water
Directions:
Cut up salmon filet into 1 inch wide strips (about 1 inch thick), leaving skin on if desired. Thread each strip onto a soaked bamboo skewer (soaking it helps prevent burning on the grill).
In a bowl whisk together soy sauce, honey, vinegar, garlic, and pepper until well mixed. Marinate salmon skewers in mixture in a shallow casserole dish for 30 minutes at room temperature, turning to coat occasionally. If you have skin on your salmon, marinate with the flesh side down to get the most flavor.
When finished marinating, pour off excess marinade and simmer in a saucepan for several minutes. Save this sauce for brushing the salmon during grilling.
Preheat grill for medium-high heat and place aluminum foil on the grate to help prevent the salmon from sticking to it and breaking off. Spray foil with oil and place salmon flesh side down on the grill. Cook about 4 minutes per side or until the fish is just flaking but not breaking apart when turning. Brush with saved sauce as desired during grilling. Turn salmon skewers carefully with tongs during grilling.
Grilled Shrimp and Vegetable Kabobs
These shrimp kabobs were pretty easy to make. You can thread on any assortment of vegetables you have sitting around, as long as you like eating it. The important thing is to marinate the shrimp before grilling, which gives it enough flavor so that the whole kabob doesn't come out tasting bland and boring. I threw together a pretty random but successful marinade based on what I had available in my kitchen. Feel free to experiment!
Marinade for shrimp:
These are the approximate ingredients and you can vary the amount as desired, since I didn't do any specific measuring anyway. Mix together 1 tsp salt, sugar, white pepper, 1 tbsp herb seasoning (including onion powder, rosemary, thyme, garlic powder), 2 tbsp Hidden Valley ranch dressing, 1 tbsp olive oil. Coat peeled and deveined raw shrimp and marinate at room temperature for 30 minutes.
Thread shrimp onto kabobs alternating with fresh cut vegetables (above I used onions, red and green bell peppers, and zucchini). Grill on medium-high heat until shrimp is cooked through, they will become opaque and orange, and will curl up slightly. Turn every so often to get even grilling.
Turkey Burgers (makes 4 patties)
Ingredients:
1 lb. lean ground turkey
1/3 cup of ketchup
2 tbsp mustard
2 tbsp honey bbq sauce
1 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp hoisin sauce (optional)
1/4 cup of minced onions
1/4 cup minced carrots
2 egg whites
Combine sauces above and stir into ground turkey. Stir in onions and carrots, mix well. Shape into 4 burger patties, they will be moist and floppy, so grill them over a foil-lined grill surface so they take shape as they cook. About 6 minutes on each side or until centers are cooked through.
I really liked the turkey burgers because they were so flavorful from all the condiments in the meat! I learned the idea from a Weight Watchers recipe, which says that by flavoring the patties with condiments prior to grilling, you get extra flavor in the meat and don't even need condiments on top when you eat it. You can definitely taste the flavors from the sauces, I thought it was great. Plus it's so healthy too.
Grilled Peaches with Brown Sugar
These were a simple but tasty dessert after a bbq meal. They're a healthy and refreshing way to end the meal without much fuss. The directions are super simple: cut peaches into halves, remove pits. Spray flat side with cooking spray or brush with melted butter. Sprinkle with brown sugar on top. Grill on foil surface with flat side down until sugars melt and become bubbly. Continue grilling until peach is warmed up, let cool briefly and serve. Admittedly you don't get pretty grill marks on them when you cook them on foil, but I like the thought that all the sugars are staying in place instead of falling down into the bottom of the grill. When you grill them, the sugars in the peaches get caramelized on the surface, and together with the melted brown sugar it becomes a lovely glaze to go with the warm peach flesh. Tasty!
Vietnamese Summer Rolls
As a side dish I also made some Vietnamese summer rolls for variety. They're pretty easy to make, and don't need to be heated up. Plus it was summer! Summer rolls in the summertime seemed just perfect to me :) All you need to do to make these is to get a packet of dried rice paper sheets for wrapping the rolls. They might say spring roll wrappers on them but make sure they are made from rice flour and look somewhat translucent (don't accidentally get the doughy spring roll wrappers used for fried spring rolls). Before starting, prepare some cut up lettuce, carrots, onions, and cilantro. Briefly boil some rice vermicelli and rinse in cold water. Let sit in a colander to drain. They should be opaque and soft but not mushy. Also cut up some thin slices of pork and shrimp, boil briefly to cook through and drain.
To make the summer roll, take a sheet of the dry rice paper and soak it in cold tap water until it softens up. It should look clear and feel very delicate. Do not use warm or hot water, as it will cause the paper to turn into mush. Next, lay the sheet flat and lay some vermicelli on top. Add lettuce, carrots, onions, cilantro, meat, and shrimp as desired. Roll up the sheet and it will stick to itself when you are tucking the ends together. The sheet will have some flexibility, but be careful not to tear it while folding it up. When you are done, the sheet will look translucent (no longer clear, but not opaque either), but will remain soft. Serve with peanut dipping sauce.
For the peanut sauce, mix together smooth or crunchy peanut butter with water until consistency is like a dipping sauce. You may add water or peanut butter as you adjust the texture. Add some hoisin sauce and garlic for flavor. I also added sesame oil but found that it tended to separate out from the sauce, so you can skip that step if you'd like.
I hope you enjoyed my little summer bbq menu! :) I grilled all the food myself, it was my first time grilling so I was kind of nervous, but everything came out great and my family really enjoyed the meal. We also had some grilled corn on the cob and watermelon, so trust me when I say that we were stuffed!
I'm sorry that my updates seem sporadic lately, it's not intentional, I promise! There's no point in making excuses, because I am pretty much always "busy", but I have been good about taking all the necessary pictures. So without further ado, I present a collection of things I've eaten, seen, or done in the past month since graduation!
I've been pretty excited about the delicious assortment of exotic fruit available now that it is summer. One of my favorites is mango, especially when it is fully ripe. I'm not very good at slicing one open and avoiding the large fuzzy pit in the center, but when I finally get around to eating the soft sweet flesh it is an amazing flavor. I also like gnawing on the flesh surrounding the pit at the end, but if I do that then I always have to floss because the fuzzy fibers always get stuck in my teeth. I wish I had a blender in my dorm, because I would definitely be making my own mango smoothies. The ones I've eaten are incredibly ripe and sweet, so I imagine the smoothie would be quite flavorful.
These little babies are what most of my breakfasts consist of this summer. I tend to always wake up too late to eat anything substantial before heading off to work, so these bars are perfect for my always on-the-go schedule. The one pictured above is trail mix flavored, and the others I've bought are honey almond flax, and peanut peanut butter, all of which are fantastic. These are so good for you, and they fill me up for most of the morning too, unlike other cereal bars (ahem, Special K).
I apologize for having disappeared for a while, I was a busy bee studying for my MCAT retake, then with MIT's senior week, and finally with graduation this past Friday. The good news though is that I accrued many pictures of food, friends, and sights during the past few weeks. So enjoy while I slowly update highlights from where I left off. I would like to get everything up to speed before I become more backed up. I will try and group things together into certain periods of time.
Week I was at Home Studying for MCATs
(5/26) Continuing from where we last left off... at our dinner party that my mom cooked up tons of food for, one of the guests brought us a box of mini desserts from the local wholesale club. There were four different dessert types in the box: chocolate swiss rolls, white chocolate mini eclairs, chocolate hazelnut cream puffs, and strawberry vanilla napoleons. I of course had to try some of them that very night... :) I think my favorite was the white chocolate eclair, which doesn't look too impressive but tastes dreamy (it's the upper right dessert). White chocolate is actually one of my favorite flavors, and the eclair was topped with white chocolate, filled with bavarian cream, so the combination was very elegant and pleasing. I prefer it very much over regular chocolate topped eclairs that are filled with Boston cream. The chocolate hazelnut cream puffs were also quite interesting. The outer surface is covered with a layer of chocolate studded with toffee bits (oh yum!), and inside the puff itself was a light chocolate mousse.
(5/28) Several days later while I was taking one full length practice MCAT after another, I decided that I really needed a break. My comfort activity whenever I come home is to bake or to cook. But I didn't have the time or the energy to go in search of an interesting recipe to try, nor did I want to spend a whole afternoon in the kitchen. I was digging around in our pantry when I found an oven mitt with a package of brownie mix stuffed inside of it and a ribbon tied around the whole thing. It was one of those gift items that you can give to your friends. I asked my mom if she was keeping it for a gift later, and she said she bought it because it looked cute and told me I was free to use the brownie mix.
So off I went, and it was a rather interesting brownie mix compared to the others I've made before from Duncan Hines and Betty Crocker types. All I needed to add was an egg, a stick of butter, and a few tablespoons of water. But due to the utter lack of liquid called for, the batter became a big doughy mass, very stick and very heavy. The directions then said to spread the batter out into a square pan, which I did with much trouble. It didn't pour out like other brownie batters. I literally was pressing it into the pan as if it were semi-hardened playdough. Finally though, I stuck it in the oven, and they came out as thin, fudgey, chewy brownies that my whole family adored. There was a lovely vanilla flavor that really stood out, which I preferred over the heavy and forced chocolate flavor that some other brand name boxed mixes offer. Now I only wish I knew the ingredients in the mix that made such a unique brownie!
I was initially worried that the brownies would be too sweet on their own, since my family is not big on sweet desserts. So I wanted to make some whipped cream that could go on the side to lighten things up. Unfortunately, we never have heavy cream waiting for me in the fridge when I come home, because my family doesn't use it for anything. I did however, discover that our big container of non-dairy coffee creamer claimed to be "so rich that it whips!", and it even included a recipe for how to make whipped cream from the coffee creamer. All it needed was 2 parts coffee creamer powder to 1 part cold milk, with sugar and vanilla to taste, then beaten for 5-7 minutes. It was easy to blend the cold milk and creamer powder, but once I had it going, it was quite difficult to get a firmer consistency in the cream, which was never quite like the whipped cream I could make with heavy cream. I also had to keep setting it in the fridge to cool down before continuing to beat, since 5-7 minutes on the counter really heated things up more than I would have liked. The end result tasted rich and creamy (but not refreshing like the real thing), and lacked the ability to hold any shape of its own because it was too soft. It went well with the brownies though, even though I'm sure everyone thought it was weird that I was serving brownies with whipped cream haha.
(5/29) I was getting bored of making breakfasts out of oatmeal and milk, so I decided to have some jazzed up toast. I lightly toasted the whole grain bread in the house, and for a few days I tried spreading peanut butter on it and topping with various fruits, all of which I enjoyed. I started off with banana slices, then moved onto strawberries, and finally kiwis. I must say they were all amazing, and the different flavors made breakfast so much more interesting. It was also a healthy and hearty breakfast that kept me full until lunchtime, and I'm sure it was great food for keeping me energetic while studying for my MCATs.
(5/30) The night before my MCAT, my mom tried to make some dishes that she knew I would like for dinner. There was a lovely dish of two whole tilapia, cooked red braise style. I absolutely adore red braised whole fish, especially when my mom makes it. The fish meat is tender, and the red braise sauce gives it a lot of flavor, since fish tends to be one of the less flavorful meats. Most of the time I still enjoy fish as it is, for its light and clean flavor. But when you give me red braised fish, it is just so much more exciting to eat fish :)
(6/01) The day after my MCAT I finally had time to meet up with an old friend from high school, Reid. He and I are really close, and I love him so much. We met in my junior year of high school, when I switched to a magnet high school, and we became very close. After we parted ways for college, we rarely talked during semesters, but every time we were both back in town for the holidays and on break, we would always find time to see each other, and we always had a lot to talk about. It is so comfortable being with him, no matter how long we've been apart. There is never any awkwardness between us, and we share everything with one another. On this particular day, he had a lot to get off his chest about his recent breakup with his boyfriend of two years, and I really felt bad that he was so hurt by the breakup. I hope that our time together helped make him feel a little better. We went to Piccadilly Pub for lunch, where I got their Arizona egg rolls appetizer, which is like the firecracker chicken rolls I got before from Longhorn steakhouse, except these were filled with black beans, corn, some chicken, and other Tex-Mex-y items that I can't recall anymore. It came with a salsa ranch dip.
11:00AM
Another breakfast of instant oatmeal with milk, except this time I decided to throw in some of those delicious strawberries into the oatmeal, and that made it so much more fun to eat haha. I'm also in love with the daylight that we get in our kitchen, it makes taking pictures so much easier.
Leftovers from last night, mainly just rice with the zucchini and mushrooms and more napa with crab.
7:30PM
It was really hot out today, it got up into the 90s. Nobody in my family was particularly interested in a hot meal, so my mom made a popular Chinese dish called cold peanut sesame noodles (recipe below). We make it using spaghetti, and the sauce is made from peanut butter, hoisin sauce, soy sauce, sesame oil, and a tiny bit of vinegar. It's a really simple dish to make, and particularly refreshing on a hot summer's evening. Throw in some veggies for a side dish and you've got yourself a meal.
Ingredients:
noodles
sesame oil
peanut butter
hoisin sauce
vinegar (white, black, or Balsamic will all work)
water
Directions:
Boil noodles of your choice (we used regular spaghetti) until al dente. Strain and soak in cold water for 5 minutes before straining again. Toss with sesame oil to taste (sesame oil is very strong, so only use a little bit at a time so as to not overpower the sauce later).
To make peanut sauce (for 4 servings): stir together 3 tbsp of peanut butter, 1/2 tbsp of hoisin sauce, 1/2 tsp of vinegar, and 3 tbsp of water. It takes a while to get everything well blended, and you may have to add more peanut butter or water to reach a desired sauce consistency. I usually make mine until it has the consistency of tomato sauce, so that it's easy to coat the noodles with. You can adjust hoisin sauce and vinegar to taste.
Toss noodles with peanut sauce, or let your guests spoon out their own portion onto their noodles. Garnish with scallions and enjoy :)
11:00AM
Breakfast at home... waking up late... man I'm lovin it haha. Unfortunately for me my family isn't big on breakfast, so we all end up fending for ourselves most of the time. Today I rummaged around in the pantry before deciding that I would at least try to eat somewhat healthy where I can lol. So I made myself a bowl of instant oatmeal (peaches and cream flavor) for breakfast and nibbled on a few cashews.
2:45PM
More of the same leftovers from last night. Yeah... I'm totally ready for new food lol.
7:30PM
Mom's home cooking. We had a nice salad of iceberg lettuce, baby carrots, tomatoes, and fat free croutons, with Vidalia vinaigrette dressing. My mom likes to make this salad quite a bit lol. But it's pretty refreshing, so I'm down with it.
[ Alright, the saga continues on my quest to post my updates from home. I've been busy the past few days because I have been putting all my efforts into studying for my MCAT (I'm retaking it on May 31st). So forgive me as I try to recall what I've been eating, but look forward to some good pics :) ]
10:00PM
Strawberries! My parents bought several boxes of strawberries from Sam's Club because they're in season right now. I had myself a bowl for dessert and they were amazing. Juicy and sweet, and soft to the bite, unlike those winter strawberries that are practically crunchy. I love summer fruit!
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