Dani's Yummy Noms

Roast Chicken

2009-11-08T14:30:00.002-05:00

I don't feel like writing much today, so I'll make this simple:
This chicken is really good.
And really easy.

Enjoy these guidelines =)

Roast Chicken

1 raw whole chicken
Garlic cloves, sliced
half a lemon
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
salt
pepper
Potatoes (russet or red), cubed
Raw red bell peppers
Eggplant
Carrots
Onions, raw

1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees fahrenheit. Stuff the lemon half into the cavity of the chicken, and push the garlic slices under the skin. Rub the chicken all over with the olive oil, put it into a roasting pan (with enough space for a lot of veggies) breast side down, and cook for 30 minutes.

2) Meanwhile, cube all of the vegetables. Eyeball how many you can fit into your pan and how much you need to serve the amount of people you have over. General rule = 1 potato per person, 1 red pepper, 1 eggplant (varying size), 1 large yellow onion, 1 carrot per person (although I tend to use baby carrots in this...I hate chopping stuff when I don't have to).

3) When the 30 minutes are up, take the pan out of the oven, turn the chicken over (season it now on both sides with salt and pepper), and add the potatoes. Cook for another 30 minutes.

4) Taken the pan out of the oven again, and add the remainder of the vegetables. Coat them in the juices in the pan, and add a small dash of oil. Return to the oven to cook for an hour or 2 more, it depends on the size of the chicken. Turn the chicken occasionally, and make sure to baste it and stir the vegetables.

5) Check the chicken for doneness by using a meat thermometer or slicing into it. When it is ready, take it out of the pan and place it to the side to rest. Return the pan to the oven to let the vegetables continue roasting, adding a packet or 2 of Sazon Goya (If you don't like using MSG, then just replace this with some other type of seasoning that you prefer), salt, and pepper, stirring well to combine.

6) When all of the vegetables are tender, remove from oven. Carve up chicken, serve with veggies. Enjoy!

Notes:
- I know this is a very rough guideline, but this is how I follow it- very roughly!
- If when you remove the chicken the veggies are practically swimming in juices, pour out as much of the juice as you can. Reserve it to be thickened for a gravy.
- I usually serve this with a green veggie on the side, for good measure.
- The veggies are the best part of this. mmm.

Peanut Butter Filled Fudge

2009-11-03T18:46:00.002-05:00

As I mentioned before, I love putting fillings in between layers of my fudge.
This is my ALL TIME FAVORITE filling, it's very popular with the people I give fudge to.

Love love love
It tastes just like a Peanut Butter Cup. And how can you go wrong with chocolate and peanut butter, anyway??

YUM

To prepare the peanut butter filling:
1) Take equal parts of peanut butter and confectioner's (powdered) sugar (1 cup of each is about enough for a full pan of fudge); stir until fully combined (don't add in all of the sugar at once, as you may not need all of it). You should have a ball of peanut butter that is like a soft cookie dough - firm enough to be flattened out and handled, but not too firm. Think of the Reeses filling!

2) Press the peanut butter mixture into the bottom of the pan that will be used for the fudge. Let it chill like that until you start making the fudge, and then remove it (this is easiest if you line the pan with foil or wax paper first).

3) Make the fudge.

4) Pour half of the fudge mixture into the pan, then quickly top with the pb mixture... if the sheet of pb breaks or anything, don't fret - just put the pieces on however you can, it doesn't really matter. Cover with the second half of the fudge mixture, and smooth out the top. Chill, cut, and wrap as described in the fudge recipe.

Do the pouring quickly! The fudge begins to set after you stir in the chocolate.

This is so good. Really. Mmmmmmmm.

I'll be back (of course) with more filled fudges, like the S'mores Fudge I made recently!

Ghee (aka Clarified Butter)

2009-10-29T15:32:00.003-04:00

Ghee is one of those things that just should NOT be bought at the store. I've done it, it's yucky.

The stuff you can make at home is easy to make, cheap, and tastes SOOO much better.

Plus, it makes you feel cool to say "Yea I made some ghee this weekend. And what!!"

....or maybe that's just me.

Anyways, ghee is also known as clarified butter, made by cooking butter until the fat separates from the milk solids and the water evaporates from it. It's used a lot in Indian/Bengali cooking - everything from sweets to curries are made with it, and it makes a huge difference in taste. Regular butter or oil COULD be substituted for it, but then the dish will miss the nutty flavor that ghee contributes! Mmmmm.

Try mixing a touch of it with some white rice and salt. ooo, all the food groups!

Carbs, salt, and fat. NOM.

Ghee

Ingredients:

1 lb (4 sticks) of unsalted butter

(yes, thine eyes do not deceive thee - 1 ingredient!)

Cut the butter into medium sized pieces (this is just to make it melt quicker and more evenly).
Put in a medium saucepan.

Melt the butter over low heat.

When all of the butter is melted, it is going to start making this popping/crackling sound...this is the water evaporating from the butter, leaving behind the fat and the milk solids.

It will start to look like this, all foamy:

And then as the milk solids separate out more, the foam becomes a little more dispersed with bubbles, and you can see some milk solids on the top.
This is when I dip my spoon in and eat some of those tangy milk solids...mmmm

and then...

Then all of a sudden, whoa! The white foaminess is gone, and replaced by clear bubbles...

...and then BAM, you have immovable, ninja-like white foam covering everything! This is when you need to watch the ghee. This whole time, you don't really have to keep an eye on it or stir it or anything...until now:

Ninja-like, you ask? Yes. See?

I could barely take the picture fast enough to see the bottom!

You need to move the foam aside to see the milk solids that have now sunk to the bottom of the pan, and watch for when they brown. This will happen fairly quickly. The picture above is basically what you want it to look like when you turn off the heat.

Let it cool for a little while, until it is cool enough to strain into a jar. I use a fine mesh tea strainer, something along the lines of this. You don't want the milk solids in the ghee!! So strain well.

I put mine in a glass jar that I saved, it was probably a salsa jar. I love saving jars. It's very useful for storing spices, etc =)
and for storing GHEE!

This is what the milk solids look like at the bottom of the pan:

mmmm. They taste MAD good. Well, I think they do. They're nutty, salty, and tangy...although it depends on the butter used. Sometimes I think they don't taste too good, and other times they're BANGIN'. werd.

Try it and see =)

mmmmmmmmmmmmm

NOMMMM

So here it is in my jar!

And then halfway through it's time in the fridge, it looks like this (with a cool curly tendril of solidified ghee making it's way to the top!!):

Then finally, it will finish solidifying and you will now have a golden jar of this in your refrigerator:

Sometimes mine comes out more nutty brown, and that's fine. So don't be worried if yours isn't this color =)

mmm. Enjoy! This makes about a 12 ounce jar of ghee, which will last you quite a while (unless you are going to deep fry stuff with it, in which case it will NOT last you so long. haha.)

It gets harder than it looks in this picture, so before using you may want to let sit on the counter for a few minutes so it is easier to scoop out of the jar.

This recipe can be doubled if you want to do that, and it CAN be halved, but the ghee from that is not as good. I used to halve it, and the solids just cook too quickly to flavor the ghee.

You can ALSO add salt or spices to it, but I would suggest leaving it plain. What if you put savory spices and then decide to make a sweet with it?? ickk...or vice versa. Plain is the way to go!

Chocolate Fudge

2009-10-20T16:16:00.009-04:00

The best things in life are often born of mistakes. Take, for example, the time that I attempted to make caramels and utterly failed, ending up with a gooey slab of caramel--too loose to be cut up and eaten, but too hard to be poured on anything. So I decided to use it as a filling, but what could I fill with it?

FUDGE.

I made this fudge, put the caramel in the middle, cut it into little squares, and met creamy, chocolatey, melt-in-your-mouth delicious sweetness, with a hint of salt to balance it all out. It's like chocolate went to heaven and came back down, a better man.

This fudge is definitely one of my favorite recipes. Ever.

I could write an ode about this, but how about I just give you the recipe instead? (and then drown you afterwards in my notes on it =D)....
CHOCOLATE FUDGE Recipe adapted from "Best Recipes from the Backs of Boxes, Bottles, Cans, and Jars"

1 1/3 cup of granulated white sugar

2/3 cup of evaporated milk (fat content doesn't matter)

1/4 c (1/2 stick) butter, unsalted

1 jar of marshmallow fluff/creme (about 7 oz)

1/4 tsp salt
12 oz semi-sweet chocolate (preferably chips, or finely chopped)

Directions:
- Line an 8x8 pan with foil or wax paper
- Put first 4 ingredients together in a saucepan. Bring to a boil while stirring. Once it starts to boil, set a timer for 5 minutes, and stir it the ENTIRE TIME.
- When the 5 minutes are over (the mixture should be a more golden color than when you started), remove the pan from the heat and stir in the salt and the chocolate chips until they are melted and incorporated fully into mixture.
- Pour into the prepared pan, and chill in the refrigerator until it is set.
- Cut into small squares or rectangles, and, if you like, wrap them in squares of
foil or wax paper.

Notes:

1) REALLY, I mean it when I say stir for the entire time. If you don't stir it, it will end up with a more chewy texture, like a caramel, and not with the delicious creaminess that defines this fudge. So, don't even walk away for a second! (ok, maybe ONE, but no more!!)
I learned this the hard way, with my twice failed Chocolate Lavender Ice Cream Cake...I'll share that horror story when I finally get the cake not to fall apart all over the table. Did I mention this was twice??

2) These can stay refrigerated, but they're fine once out of the fridge. Maybe a little softer, but still just as good.

3) I like to wrap each piece up individually, although that can be pretty labor intensive - depending on the size you cut, this can make up to 70 pieces of fudge! However, it makes it look pretty, and it makes transporting it or handing it out to people much easier.

4) You can cut this recipe in half, and pour it into a loaf pan, but it becomes more complicated when you do that. The marshmallow fluff jars come in convenient 7 oz sizes! If you have a scale, then you can easily do it...but without it, it becomes tricky.

5) Coat your spoon with cooking spray before putting it into the fluff, cuz that stuff is STICKY!

6) This can be a tricky recipe in the summer, especially on humid days, so until you get completely familiar with the way the fudge is supposed to be, I would suggest only making it in drier weather...or with very good air conditioning!

7) If you stir too little, you'll get a caramel-like texture. If you heat it for too long, the fudge may crumble. If you heat it for too little time, it may never fully set. If anything goes wrong with it in this way, DON'T WORRY! Find another use for it - use the crumbles to top off a pudding dessert or some ice cream, use the non-set fudge as a layer in a cake. Or just eat it all with a spoon and don't worry about other people, cuz no matter what you do to it it tastes great.

Try out different things in the middle - I've put caramel before, and I'm thinking of an almond butter filling (my favorite filling already is peanut butter)...and my dad wants me to try something with raspberry jam! Or mix in nuts. I dunno, experiment!

Speaking of experimentation, I'm going to try to make this with white chocolate sometime - the use of the semi-sweet chocolate limits the variety of flavors the fudge can have, but a white chocolate may open up new doors...
=)
Try this!! Soon!!! It is amazing.
=D
(and tell me if you try out anything yummy and new with it!)

Ricotta Gnocchi

2009-10-15T12:02:00.004-04:00

I love making food from scratch that most people don't think to make at home--they're so much more accesible in the supermarkets. Stuff like butter, jam, and pasta are among these food products.

Buttttttttt....they can be pretty labor intensive, and they won't always come out the way you want.

Take, for example, my first experience making fettucine. I had my snazzy new pasta attachment for my KitchenAid mixer, and spent all day lovingly making the dough, rolling it out, and cutting it.

And then after all of that labor, I overcooked it, and had to endure mushy pasta for dinner....

So you can see why I may be scared to make gnocchi. The traditional potato type seems laborious, with a high chance of failure, and so I don't want to make it yet. I'm scared of wasting my time and ending up dissapointed.

When I saw this recipe for Ricotta Gnocchi, simple and no potatoes involved, I was really excited!

Plus, it's from The Salty Spoon, which is an AMAZING blog...so I knew this had to be good.

I made a few changes to the recipe - subbed half of the parmesan cheese she uses with grated smoked gouda, and made double the amount. I like the flavor the gouda gave to it (although I only substituted because I was out of parmesan cheese made with halal/vegetarian/microbial rennet, and this was the available halal hard cheese), but I do want to try it with all of the parmesan soon.

Which isn't a problem, because I will be making this a lot! The dough was so pleasant to work with, and everything was simple, straightforward. Airy, fluffy pillows of taste. nom nom nom

Enjoy!

Recipe from The Salty Spoon:

Ricotta Gnocchi

My notes on this recipe:

1) Drain the ricotta in a cheese cloth hanging over the sink (you can also line a collander with the cheese cloth, but this way is more effective - it lets the weight of the cheese really force the liquid out...see picture for what I'm talking about)

2) Keep the bowl of ricotta dough in the refrigerator while you work with each ball of dough.

3) You can replace half of the parmesan cheese with finely grated smoked gouda, it adds a nice smoky flavor to the gnocchi. I served this in marinara sauce, but if made with the gouda I think it would be amazinggg with some browned butter over it.

4) Pour all of the gnocchi that you're going to be cooking together into the pot at once! That way they'll cook evenly...since you're timing it from 2 minutes after the float, you want them to all float at about the same time. Just be very careful of splashing hot water!

5) Double of this recipe can serve about 5 HUNGRY people for dinner.

6) This is fun to roll out. Woooooo!

Campus Cooking: Snudge

2009-10-08T21:31:00.013-04:00

My roommate and I get along really well, which I'm glad for. She brags to people that I bake food for her all the time, and I brag to people that she's crazy fun.

So when she came into our room and threatened to kill me if I gave away any of this brown sugar fudge to other people in the dorm, I knew it must be something CRAZY good that I had made.

This recipe is adapted from the one found here, at www.simplytrinicooking.com. It's called Brown Sugar Fudge, but in honor of my roomy, who puts a "sn" before a lot of words for fun (she hasn't figured out how to deal with my name yet...Sndani doesn't work), I've called my version Snudge...
Basically this tastes like a maple candy - you know, those ones that they sell in the shape of maple leaves. I think those are made just by boiling maple syrup, but this has almost the same flavor, despite the lack of any maple syrup or added maple flavor!
Yummm

It's not a traditional fudge texture, in that it isn't soft...but it DOES totally melt in your mouth.

Nom nom nom.

This is awesome stuff, make some and give it to some people!! It's very easy, quick, and has only a few ingredients.

Thanks VERY MUCH to the folks at simplytrinicooking...hopefully I'll be making some more food from that site this weekend when I go home! (I've been drooling over the beef curry and dhal roti)

ANYWAYS, ON TO THAT RECIPE!

Snudge (Brown Sugar Fudge w/ Walnuts)
1 stick of butter, unsalted (aka: 8 tbs, 1/4 lb, or 1/2 cup)
1 packed cup of dark brown sugar
1 can (396g, the regular size) of sweetened condensed milk
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup chopped walnuts

1) Grease an 8x8 square pan with some butter or spray
2) Melt the stick of butter over medium high heat in a small pot.
3) Add the cup of sugar and the milk, and stir to combine.
4) Continue stirring for about 10 minutes, until the mixture has thickened and begins to pull away from the sides of the pan. You can also drop some into cold water and see if it forms a firm ball, or drop it on a cold counter and see if it firms up quickly (That's my method, heehee)
5) Quickly stir in the walnuts and salt, and pour into the greased pan.
6) Allow to cool a bit, until it is firm enough to cut into squares. Cut into small squares and let it cool completely.
7) ENJOY. (but not too much, this is pretty fattening - moderation, people!)

Notes:
- Stir!! You don't want the bottom to burn, and it helps create a more creamy texture if you stir a lot.
- I used dark brown sugar, which I think gave a lot more flavor to the fudge, but you can use light brown.
- Make sure to cut into it before it cools too much! Once it is fully cooled, it's a little too crumbly to properly cut with a knife.
- This is really sweet. You are warned =)

Campus Cooking: Banana Bread

2009-10-04T18:01:00.005-04:00

There are a couple of things that I have learned, through tough experience, NEVER to do:
1) Forget to check if I left my metal fork in the bowl I just put in the microwave.
2) Crack an egg into the batter/dough while the beater is moving.
3) Try to fold egg whites into a batter. I just can't do it.
4) Forget about the pot of boiling pasta on the stove for 2 hours until the water has evaporated and the pasta has become a charred mass at the bottom of the pot, filling the house with acrid smoke.

And last, but not least:

5) Let bananas ripen til very mushy in my small dorm room for a week, and then wonder why the room has been invaded by fruit flies. Hmmm....

(This isn't even how ripe I let them get, mine were BLACK by the time I made this bread)

.......
Despite the fruit flies, I am soo glad that I made this banana bread. I found the recipe here, with rave reviews.
But I've had my heart broken so many times by dry, tasteless banana bread that I was still skeptical as I made it.
This was ANYTHING but dry and tasteless, though! It was sooo moist and full of sweet banana flavor, complimented by a hint of cinnamon. YUMM.
My banana bread search is over. Hello, love, I have found you <3

Banana Bread Recipe
Adapted, barely, from the recipe found here.

INGREDIENTS
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 1/3 cups mashed overripe bananas

Crumb topping:
1/2 c all-purpose flour, minus 2 tbs

1/4 cup brown sugar
1/3 stick unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1/4 tsp cinnamon
(this is an estimation, I didn't actually measure out my crumb topping stuff. I just threw together some butter, cinnamon, flour, and sugar, and mushed it all together.)
1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan or a 12 muffin pan.

2.In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. In a separate bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar. Stir in eggs and mashed bananas until well blended. Stir banana mixture into flour mixture; stir just to moisten. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan (or muffin pan). Combine crumb topping ingredients in a separate bowl, mushing the butter into the flour and sugar to ensure that it is well incorporated, coating every bit of flour and sugar. Crumble or place on top of the bread.

3.Bake in preheated oven for 60 to 65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean. Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.

Notes:
1) I doubled the recipe (I collected about 20 bananas from the dining hall), and it made about 12 muffins and 2 small loaves of bread (about 8 x 3 in, I think).
In my opinion, the muffins were even better than the bread!
My plan was to freeze some of the bread for later quick breakfasts, but...umm...a few late college nights later, it was all gone. Oops =)

2) I didn't make a note of how many bananas made 2 1/3 cups of bananas, but i would estimate about 4, to be safe? Also, let them ripen as much as possible! That's the way to maximize moistness and sweetness. Just beware of fruit flies!

3) I wouldn't call the cinnamon optional, it totally added another dimension to the bread, and filled the whole dorm up with a yummmmmy smell =D Same with the crumb topping - it can be left out, but it makes it reallllly good if you leave it.

4) DO NOT overmix. The bread will come out tough.

I'm going to try to make a lower-fat, maybe lower sugar version of this recipe soon, so stay tuned for that =)
MAKE THIS IF YOU LIKE BANANA BREAD!

A Slew of Pics

2009-09-28T01:35:00.003-04:00

Well, I spent the weekend back in NYC baking cookies for the cafe I sell to. I would love to share the recipes, but right now they're kinda important for me to keep to myself...maybe in a couple of years =)

To make up for not sharing the recipes, I'm gonna share some pictures that I took this weekend. I work with a plain ol' digital camera, nothing really fancy, and I always end up stuck with bad lighting. But this weekend was different! I had natural light during the day and then some surprisingly acceptable light in the creepy basement I bake in (which does have an awesome oven, pictured above filled with cookies).

Enjoy =)

Chocolate Chip Cookies!

^ My KitchenAid mixer in the creepy basement!

Vegan Snickerdoodles:

Oatmeal White Chocolate Cranberry Cookie

Monster Cookies (Oatmeal, pb, chocolate, m&m's)

Early morning peaches (sprinkled with sugar)

Sad picture: I dropped a whole canister of sugar!! =(

Hope you enjoyed =)

Name Change

2009-09-27T05:01:00.001-04:00

Yes, I have changed the name of the blog. My business name is Dani's Creations, but that doesn't fit this blog.
So Dani Noms (Dani's Yummy Noms) it is...as in NOM NOM NOM, eating cookie gooooooood *scarfs down many cookies*

(Think cookie monster, people).

Hopefully, I will have many yummy noms to come.

Campus Cooking: Pear Crisp

2009-09-23T16:01:00.012-04:00

I sincerely like not having to spend money. I think that most people would agree with me on that! And that is the reason that I LOVE this pear crisp - I didn't spend a cent on the pears!

Ok ok.

Technically, I did.

They were taken from the dining hall here at school, which makes it seem like it's for free...but I DO pay for a meal plan.

Oh well....
I still did not pay for a single one of these pears out of my own pocket xD

And this was an easy dish to make in this small kitchen, with my limited cooking supplies.

Look how yummy it looks! Nom nom nom.

Now, on to this simple, delicious pear crisp recipe!!...

PEAR CRISP

Filling:

- 6-8 pears, or enough to almost completely fill an 8x8in pan when sliced

- 1/2 c brown sugar

- 1/4 tsp ground ginger

- 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Crumb topping:

- 3/4 c all-purpose flour

- 1/2 c minus 2 tbs brown sugar (use light or dark depending on preference, I used light but dark might give it a nice touch)

- 1/4 c granulated sugar

- 3/4 stick unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp ground ginger

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2) Slice pears to medium thickness. Mix all of the filling ingredients together (you can add a squirt of lemon juice, which most recipes call for - I didn't use it, and it turned out fine), and pour into an 8x8 in baking pan.

3) Mix together crumb topping ingredients (minus the butter). Incorporate the butter properly by using your fingers or a pastry cutter until it is evenly distributed. (It should be like bread crumbs, with no visible clumps of butter anymore...the butter should be rubbed into the flour so it can coat it).

4) Top pear mixture evenly with crumb mixture. Put in a 350 degree oven until the top is golden and the inside is bubbly.

5) Eat warm right from the oven, or let it come to room temperature, or refrigerate it.

Notes:

- I gave this to the girls in my dorm, and they loved it. We were too impatient, so we ate it hot from the oven, which was REALLY good (woulda been better with some ice cream on top!), but it probably would've been sooo good cold too.

- Feel free to reduce the filling and increase the crumb topping, cuz everyone loves the crumb the most =D

- Taste this before baking! Check the spices to see if it is to your liking, and don't be afraid to adjust them. I personally love the ginger-pear flavor combo, but if it's not your thing, then try out stuff like cloves or something.

- Beware of bubbling over! Put a cookie sheet or some foil on the rack below to catch any sugary drippings. Make sure not to overfill the pan with the pears because then it will definitely drip (I speak from experience)

I hope you try this and enjoy! It is very simple and quick to make, and soo yummy =)

Campus Cooking: Peanut Butter Chocolate Popcorn Bites

2009-09-18T15:49:00.039-04:00

Chocolate + Peanut Butter + POPCORN = love

True to my word, I tested out the "Banana Cheerio Peanut Butter Chocolate" bars with popcorn. OH MY GOODNESSES, is it AMAZING.

My description? Chocolate and Peanut Butter decided to have a baby, and they showered it with Popcorn.

The combination of the salty, buttery, chewy popcorn with the rich peanut butter and chocolate flavors, bound by the power of marshmallow, is so out of this world, it's not even funny...

This is my new favorite thing to make, because it is SO easy (no oven? Takes 10 minutes to make? WHAT?) and it is SO delicious. And pretty, to boot.

Anyways, on to the recipe!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Popcorn Bites

2 cups of marshmallows (about 5.5 oz)

1/3 cup smooth peanut butter (although crunchy could be fine, too...hmm)

2 tbs stick butter (salted! add a pinch of salt if you use unsalted)

1 "100 calorie" pack of butter popcorn (I like the Pop-Secret brand)

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

- Grease an 8x8 square pan.

- Pop the bag of popcorn. Remove and discard the unpopped kernels. Set popcorn aside.

- Combine first 3 ingredients in a large microwaveable bowl (trust me, you really don't want the marshmallow to overflow)

- Microwave for 1 min 45 sec --> stir every 30 seconds!!

- Quickly but thoroughly mix the popcorn into the marshmallow mixture. You may have to use your hands, but be careful-it's hot!

- Quickly press, evenly, into the prepared pan.

- Top with chocolate chips, pressing them into the warm mixture and making sure it fully covers the top. Alternatively, you can melt the chips and pour it on, which might be simpler. But I like how the chips look on top (check out the pic!)

- Refrigerate until firm. Bring to room temperature again before cutting into small squares or rectangles.

- GOBBLE UP. NOM NOM NOM.

I'm sure this would be even MORE awesome with the full fat, salllllllty, BUTTTTTTERY popcorn, but the size of the hundred calorie pack is what I used, so if you use the bigger size, you'll have to change the measurement of the other ingredients. Or, you can just use about 5.5 cups of popcorn.

Foods from Mexico City

2009-09-12T20:03:00.012-04:00

Unfortunately, when I visited Mexico City last month, I was too shy to take pictures of all of the food I ate. I mean, I KINDA already really look like a tourist, so why make myself look, not just like a tourist, but like a strange tourist by takign pictures of all of my food? Next time, I am not going to care, because I missed out on sharing WAY too many awesome foods with you guys. But, alas, there is no way to go back in time and snap those beautiful missed shots (If you find a way though, please tell me, thanks! =p). I will instead work with what I have, so here goes:

SWEETS

If you read my last post, you will already know that I pigged out a lot on some yummy Bolitos de Leche. But I also consumed many other sweet foods to statisfy my abnormally large sweet tooth during this trip, including these foods (top to bottom): a crepe topped with cajeta, a caramel made from goats milk, and nuts; another picture of the cajeta crepe; fried dough topped with granulated sugar, served fresh and hot. And YES, oh yes, I had that crepe for lunch. It wasn't as good as it looked, but really, it was a crepe topped with sugaryness. It didn't really have to be good at that moment! The thing that makes me saddest is that I did not take any pictures of the conchas that I ate a lot while in Mexico. These were sweet yeast rolls topped with a sugary crust that was designed like a seashell. I love sweet rolls! These were airy and just sweet enough, and the sugary crust was thick and crunchy. Mmmm. But I took no pictures! So sad =(

This is someone elses picture of it

But the ones I had were SO much prettier. My sister is still there, I'll try to get her to take a picture of one for me.

FRUIT

My mom and I tried not to eat fruit while in Mexico. Really, we did. We didn't want to risk getting sick, and fresh fruit seemed like a hazardous item...until we finally got some fresh fruit juices from the stands on the street at midnight (so amazing, get any combo of stuff you want, all freshly made...and usually, they make too much, so they let you drink half of your cup first and fill it up again for you!). And then, we went to the supermarket, and ALL OF THESE GORGEOUS FRUITS were staring at us. Bright, luscious fruits. So, we picked up a cactus pear and what turned out to be a dragonfruit. The first picture is of the cactus pear. I really liked the cactus pear, I thought it had a really nice, refreshing quality to it. But those darn seeds! They were too many to spit out without coming off as gross, and they were too hard to just chew and swallow. So, cactus pear, I do not know what to do with you. But I like you, I really do. This next picture is of the dragonfruit. Look at that. Just look at it. Doesn't it look delicious? Alluring bright pink outside, enticing white, juicy flesh on the inside. I bit into this one expecting a burst of fresh sweetness, but I was sadly disappointed. This was perhaps the most bland fruit I have ever eaten. Sooo disappointing - beauty did not pay off in this case. Oh well, it made for some nice pictures. STREET FOOD

This is one of the saddest sections on Mexican food I have here. The abundance of street food in Mexico City is AMAZING--the vendors overcrowd the street and fill the air with sounds and smells of fresh cooking. There are fruit stands, juice stands, taco stands, tamale vendors, and even small sit-down eateries with a more varied menu and about 3 seats at a small counter. I wouldn't have eaten any of the street food, really, unless I wanted to GREATLY increase my chances of getting food poisoning. But I did have the fruit juice, which I didn't take a picture of, and I did pass by these vendors everyday without taking a single picture of them!! Ughh what is the matter with me. This is another of the street foods I got, which I LOVED. I love hot sauce soo much, and potato chips are kinda a universally loved food, i think. I mean, it's potatoes. It's fried. Any objections?? I thought not. These were delicious. They were really crispy, well-salted, and covered in tangy lime juice and even tangier hot sauce. The hot sauce has a distinct flavor, something often not found in sauces that focus on pure heat rather than on heat AND yumminess. And the heat came in the form of an after-though kick, which is always my favorite type. A little messy to eat, due to the narrow plastic bag it came in, but definitely something I would recommend to get.

DRINKS

So, I've said this about a million times--because I regret it so much--but i FORGOT to take a picture of the refreshing, freshly made fruit drinks we got on the street in Mexico City. But I took these pictures, so here goes. Yes, this is Fanta. Yes, you can find this in the US. Yes, my dad only seems to buy Fanta when we're not at home. And yes, I always steal some from him, never ordering my own, because that is the only time it has the full tingly orange flavor that I'm looking for. This is a drink that my sister always ordered: It's like lemonade, except much more tart, and much less sweet. It's made with sparkling water. I liked it a lot, except I always would have preferred it to be more sweet. I could always throw a packet of sugar in if I wanted of course...except I never ordered it myself. I just always took some of my sister's =)

LOBSTER ENCHILADAS

So, this is the only meal that I really took a picture of. Sad, isn't it. It was at a fancy restaurant that we went to one night, where the food was ridiculously good! Every dish was just...a delight. Really. We had this stuffed pepper with caramalized onions and a balsamic sauce that was out of this world, and tostadas topped with shrimp and a tangy sauce that I would love to have at every meal, every day. Those are the two things I remember most, and these: The lobster enchiladas. These enchiladas were made with fresh corn tortillas...I never once saw a flour tortilla in my whole time in Mexico City, and I'm glad. The corn tortilla adds sooo much more flavor to Mexican dishes than a flour one ever could (although flour tortillas are well-suited to Tex-Mex cuisine). They had juicy bits of lobster tucked away inside, which were surprisingly yummy (I'm a snob when it comes to lobster...I think that you can ONLY have good lobster in Maine) and the sauce was SO good. It was nutty and creamy, which blended with the firm juicy lobster and the chewy corn tortillas. YUM. So, that is sadly all for my Mexican food exposition. Ah! If only, if only. Well, next time I go back (hopefully someday I will go back) I will take pictures of everything I put in my mouth...if I can keep it on the plate for that long!!

Product Comparison: Bolitos de Leche

2009-09-12T13:52:00.008-04:00

Although I tend to make a lot of sweet food, I actually prefer savory, salty foods over anything else. So while everyone else is eating the sweets I make, I'm looking around saying, "Oh my goodness, can someone pass me a salt shaker???" This changes when I go to a foreign country, however. For some reason, I have an obsession with foreign sweets--they're so different from the American idea of sweets! Whether it's milky, lightly spiced and oh-so-sweet ras malai, or a warm, fluffy, sweet red bean bao, or flaky, sticky-sweet, nutty baklava, I just find foreign sweets to be fascinating.

Besides trying to make them (I must say, I'm surprisingly good at making Indian/Bengali sweets, mishti or mithai, and I make a meaaaaan red bean bao), I LOVE trying them out from stores and restaurants.

This summer I went to Mexico City, and besides constantly eating sweet foods (like a crepe covered in a dulce de leche made from goats milk that I had for lunch one day), I indulged myself at the supermarket, and became hooked on these extremely sweet Bolitos de Leche - literally, "balls of milk".

I bought some from the supermarket near my sister's house, and then I bought more at the airport. They were two different brands, and they ended up being VERY different in taste and texture, which surprised me. So, I'm going to compare them here:

The above picture is what they both basically looked like from the outside - golden brown, coated in large sugar crystals. They are about the size of a large walnut, I guess.

This next picture is of the Bolitos de Leche that I bought from the supermarket, made by the brand "Las Sevillanas".

When you bite into this baby, your teeth sink through a thin, sugary crust into a creamy, milky-sweet center. As you chew it, the crispy outer layer combines with the smooth middle. It tastes like a toasty, very milky caramel, but it has a texture almost like fudge before it sets completely.

This one is best savored in small bites, or else the sweetness is overwhelming. Small bites allow you to really get the flavor of the bolitos de leche, instead of just tasting pure sugar....Of course, it still tastes good if you pop the whole thing in your mouth. =)

And the texture experience of putting the whole thing in your mouth is CRAZY...you get all of the thin, crunchy crust and this huge BURST of creamy leche in your mouth. Man, I wish I had one right now.

But, moving on to the next one: The ones I bought at the airport, when I realized I had almost finished the whole bag of Bolitos de Leche from the supermarket. I didn't note what brand these were.

As you may notice from the pictures, these are already pretty different from the first ones in appearance alone. Instead of a thin outer crust, these have a thick one, and a true center of caramel. The caramel is more like the traditional idea of caramel--stick-in-your-teeth chewy, whereas the other one had more a fudge-like consistency--sink-your-teeth-in creamy/chewy.

The outer layer was very firm, like an overcooked fudge. It almost crumbled when I bit into it, and then the stream of caramel unfurled from it's deep lair and tried to attack my nose.

I definitely preferred the Bolitos de Leche from Las Sevillanas. These Bolitos de Leche just didn't have that magical texture, and they didn't taste as good either. I felt that they were lower quality.

The only way to really enjoy these ones was to pop them in my mouth and eat the whole thing at once, preferably with a glass of milk! They tasted pretty good then.

Well, I hope that this has interested you! And if you ever go to Mexico City, look for Bolitos de Leche from Las Sevillanas =)

I'm going to write a little later about some of the foods I ate in Mexico, although I have limited pictures...so I will barely be scratching the surface of Mexican food! But, stay tuned =)

Campus Cooking: Banana Cheerios Bars

2009-09-08T20:17:00.006-04:00

Finally, I brought some cookware from home, so I can begin to cook and bake in the dorm! Yay!

I would really like to make some actual meals (chicken parmesan is on my mind, as is beef stew...comfort foods! nomm)...buttttt that involves buying too many ingredients, and I feel bad making food when I have a perfectly good meal plan to use. It feels like a waste of money, so I will save the "real meals" for when I really need them.

HOWEVER, no one ever needs an excuse to make sweets!

So I busted out some Banana Nut Cheerios, halal marshmallows, peanut butter, and chocolate chips to make a version of the Banana Cheerio Treats found on Natalie's Killer Cuisine (awesome blog).

Instead of the butterscotch chips that she uses, I used chocolate chips. I liked how they came out - chewy and crunchy, with undertones of banana-ness and strong overtones of chocolate, with a hint of peanut butter in the background.

But I think that next time I make this I'm going to increase the peanut butter, decrease the chocolate, add a touch of salt, and maybe use just regular cheerios...so I won't post my version of the recipe yet, but stay tuned =)
and enjoy the pictures, meanwhile!

I'm also wondering if I can make this with popcorn (a staple in my roommate's and my own diet). And maybe next time I'll skip the chocolate and peanut butter and just throw in some Reese's Cups. Endless possibilities!

and yes, the marshmallow did overflow in the microwave...I know you were wondering about that -_-

I'm hoping to make some of my awesome fudge with peanut butter filling soon, and I will definitely post about that! It's a recipe everyone should try.

Quicky Pizza

2009-09-01T20:22:00.012-04:00

Ah, college life has begun! I've been pretty busy between my last post and now - I visited my sister in Mexico (the food there is AMAZING), I took the Food Protection Course test for NYC (and passed, yay!), and moved to my dorm in Boston for college!! This week I've been busy with orientation stuff, and starting my classes, and now I have to go home to bake a HUUUUUGE order of cookies!!! ahhhhhhh

DUN DUN DUN

But in my world of food, I have a few things to share that I hope you will like =)

Ramadan is happening right now, so my meals for the moment mostly consist of food snagged from the dining hall before it closes, microwaveable popcorn (100 cal packs, SO GOOD) and VitaTops, MY FAVORITE STUFF EVER <333,>BUT I have some dishes on reserve that I need to catch up on sharing with you, so here goes:

Quicky Pizza!!!

I made this when we got back really late from our trip to Mexico...it was so good, so easy, and so QUICK to make. I love it <3

The flatbread provides a stable pizza crust, and the rest is basically the same as any regular pizza - warm, savory tomato sauce, gooey browned mozzarella cheese, and fresh toasty herbs, tied together with a hint of EVOO. YUM.

This is more of a guideline than a recipe, since you can use whatever you have on hand or just whatever suits your fancy.

Ingredients:

- Flatbread, one (I used an onion flavored one, but use whatever you have, even a pita bread can work) - Tomato sauce, as much as you like (I used Arabbiata, which is spicy, and it was REALLY yummy) - Mozzarella cheese, shredded, as much as you like

- Parmesan cheese, finely grated, as much as you like

- Extra Virgin Olive Oil (optional)

- Herbs and seasonings, according to taste (optional...I used fresh basil and garlic salt)

1) Pre-heat the oven broiler and put the flatbread under it until toasty (this is to avoid sogginess...I didn't actually do this, but I think it would make it less soggy)

2) Put the flatbread, toasty part down, on a baking sheet, and spread the top with the tomato sauce. Top with the mozzarella, parmesan, and a slight drizzle of olive oil, then put the herbs and seasonings or any other toppings on it.

3) Place under the broiler until the cheese is melted and golden. Remove from the oven and let cool for a few minutes, as it is probably too hot.

4) Put on a plate and enjoy! (You might have to eat it with a knife and fork)

Some options I am considering for the next time I make this:

- Putting some nice velvety goat cheese or tangy feta on top!

- Topping with chopped kalamata olives

- Putting gobs of ricotta cheese between the mozarella and tomato sauce

- Roasted red peppers, sauteed mushrooms, caramelized onions w/ a small amount of blue cheese, ETC - really, the possibilities are endless.

Have fun with this!

Hopefully I will be writing soon about some more things, so stay tuuuuuned =)

Cold (?) Chinese Boiled Chicken

2009-08-18T14:31:00.016-04:00

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh
I've meaning to post about things for a looong time!

Ok, so only a week has gone by since my last post, but in that time I've made some yummy stuff that I want to share....and I've been coming up with reasons not to post yet! (like bad pictures, or
lack of a written recipe, or recipes that aren't quite ready to be shared yet and need some more touching up).

However, there is no excuse for the chicken I made last night - some Cold Chinese Boiled Chicken. Question mark on the Cold part, haha (you'll see why later).
I got passable pictures of the meal, plus I have what I did all memorized to type up, so here goes!...

My mom had made something like this that I remembered as being RIDICULOUSLY good, so I searched around for something like it (she didn't remember where she got the recipe...actually, she didn't remember making it!) - it had to be a recipe for a whole chicken being boiled in a seasoned water type of thing, preferably with soy sauce in the mix and DEFINITELY with five spice powder in there! Luckily, I came across this recipe that seemed to be a lot like what I remembered, so I made it...with some alterations, of course =)

DELICIOUS <3

Five-Spice Chinese Boiled Chicken
1 small chicken
1 cup of soy sauce
1/4 cup granulated sugar
3 tsp (more or less according to taste) 5-spice powder
sliced ginger (if you like, however much you like)
1 large cut up onion
1 large cut up carrot
1 scallion (garnish)

1 - Take the skin off of the chicken, and remove as much fat as you can from it (but don't worry about that too much...it's just to avoid a greasy dish). Rinse it under running water, and plop it into a pot large enough to hold it plus enough liquid to completely cover it, with room to let it boil.

2 - Mix together the soy sauce, sugar, and 5 spice powder, stirring to dissolve the sugar a bit. Pour over the chicken, and add enough water to completely cover it.

3 - Bring to a boil on whatever level of heat you want (I almost always cook on high heat, I'm impatient and I don't value slow cooking at all >_<). 4 - Meanwhile, chop up the onion into sizeable chunks, and cut the carrot into whatever size pieces you want. Throw them into the pot as well. 5 - Boil the chicken for about a half hour (adding water as necessary to keep the chicken covered), or until it's done (you can cut into it and see if it is fully cooked, they cook pretty quickly). Turn off the heat, and take the chicken out. Cut it up, and return it to the pan (I just separated it - legs, breasts, etc). Cover the pan, and let it sit. Let it sit until cooled down.

Now, this is where you can take this recipe in a couple of different directions:

Direction 1: Drain the juice from the chicken and veggies (reserve a bit), put onto a serving platter, decorate with the scallions, and serve with some rice and a veggie of your choice, if you want. It can be warmed up so it's hot, or served at room temperature.

Direction 2: Chill the chicken, in the liquid, in the refrigerator, until cold - but preferably, overnight or something. It only gets better with time! This also gives you a chance to scoop any yucky fat off the top. Drain the juice, and serve the chicken cold with rice and a veggie, or whatever you want. It's pretty versatile.

Direction 3: Follow either Direction 1 or Direction 2, but only pull the chicken out, leaving the liquid and the veggies in the pot. After soaking some pad thai noodles (flat rice noodles) for about 20-30 minutes in cold water, heat up the liquid from the chicken and put the noodles in. Boil for about 5 minutes, until the noodles seem done. Drain all of the juice from the noodles, which gives you noodles with the veggies in it and the yummy flavor from the sauce!! Serve with the chicken and a veggie of your choice.

Direction 4: Follow either Direction 1 or Direction 2, but cut up the chicken and use in an asian wrap - like in a rice noodle wrapper, with some hoisin sauce and raw cabbage/carrots, or whatever floats your boat!

Direction 5: Forget about all of this draining stuff! Just serve this as a delicious soup (you may want to still chill it to further flavor the chicken, but mostly so you can scoop any fat off of the top), and maybe even throw those noodles in as part of the soup. YUM! Feel free to add any more veggies to it, too, for a complete meal =)

This chicken and the sauce have suchhhh an addictive flavor, I love it! And as you can see from all of the "Directions" I wrote down that you could follow, it's really very versatile.

You could probably even make this vegetarian, by cooking some firm tofu and veggies in the sauce instead of the chicken! I might try that one night =D

You could ALSO probably sub any type chicken you have on hand, if you don't have a whole one, as well. IDK, have fun with it!

I really hope that you try this, and enjoy!!! Although I wrote a TON about this, it's extremelyyyyyyy simple to make.

(And I hope you can see now why I put the question mark next to "Cold"!!!)
xD

Jaws, Chocolate, and Peanut Butter

2009-08-11T01:47:00.013-04:00

I had a thought today, as I received the second order for two dozen chocolate chip cookies in two days for the same place. I thought of the movie "Jaws" and the scene where they say "We're gonna need a bigger boat." That's the point that I'm at. "We're gonna need a bigger oven!" ...Except the shark in my story is more figurative than theirs was =) Anyways, even though today was soooo hot out and I was going to be baking late tonight anyway, I decided to bake for fun beforehand. Yes, fun! Mixing business with pleasure is oh-so-good. I found this recipe on Cookie Madness (how could I resist that site!) It's a chocolate cookie (yummers) with a peanut butter center (more yummers!). It looked like an easy, fun, attractive cookie to make...and my mom likes peanut butter, so I would have a willing taster =D These came out soooo good!! The chocolate cookie is soft, sweet, and crispy around the edges. The peanut butter is not too sweet, so it offers some contrast that way, along with it's creamy texture. *Peanut butter and chocolate heaven* The place I sell to seems to like chocolate and peanut butter stuff, so maybe they'll order these from me too =) Here's the recipe (I made some revisions to it, but check out cookie madness for the original recipe...i'll link directly to it at the end): Peanut Butter Stuffed Chocolate Cookies

Filling: 1/2 cup chunky peanut butter 1/3 cup powdered sugar

Cookie Dough: 1 cups all purpose flour (4.5 oz) 1/3 cup unsweetened natural cocoa powder 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 3/8 teaspoon salt 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature 1/2 cup + 2tbs granulated sugar 1/3 cup MINUS 2 tbs firmly packed light brown sugar 1 large egg 2/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 large cookie sheets with parchment paper/aluminum foil.

Prepare filling first. Mix together peanut butter and powdered sugar. Drop marble size balls of peanut butter mixture onto a waxed paper lined plate and set in refrigerator. This is to help make the peanut butter balls more manageable.

Stir flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt together in a mixing bowl. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, beat butter and both sugars together using high speed of an electric mixer. Beat until creamy, scraping sides of bowl. Add egg and beat until it is mixed in. Add flour mixture and stir with a mixing spoon until most of flour is incorporated. Add chips and continue to stir until remaining flour mixture is incorporated. If dough seems very sticky, chill it for about a half hour (it shouldn’t be too sticky).

scoop up mounds of dough and wrap each mound around one of your little blobs of peanut butter mixture. Seal the peanut butter ball in the dough the best you can and place on cookie sheet spacing about 2 inches apart. Bake one sheet at a time for 12 minutes.

Let cookies cool on sheets for 3 minutes, then lift with a metal spatula and set on wire racks to cool and set.

Original recipe

Tips and Suggestions:

1) I don't think the peanut butter really needs to be chilled, and since i actually kinda froze mine it really kept it's ball shape in the cookie...which I didn't like. So I think next time I will leave it at room temp.

2) You can make them bigger or smaller if you want, just bake longer for big ones and shorter time for small ones.

3) These taste good hot out of the oven or cooled completely! With a glass of milk =) (or almond milk, even better!)

4) The original recipe calls for shortening AND butter, but I had no shortening...the person who posted the recipe said that the shortening gave it the crispness around the edges, so to get that back I increased the white sugar and decreased the brown sugar.

5) I made half of this recipe and it made 6 cookies a bit smaller than the palm of my hand.

I've made some other yummy things lately (my ALWAYS AMAZING, BEST EVER chicken parmesan, and this Matcha White Chocolate Brownie Cake) but I'll post about those later.

I hope you make and enjoy these cookies! I know that I'm REALLY glad I found this recipe =)

Success and the Halfway Point

2009-08-06T21:43:00.012-04:00

Last night I typed up my plan for the day, and today I ignored half of the things on that plan.
-_-
arghh

BUT, I did get my business registered! So, that is success number one.

When I got home from all of my errands this morning (registering my business - which involved the funniest bureaucracy at the county clerks office - and going to the doctor, plus getting in some biking), I had the BIGGEST craving for...

not chocolate
not cookies
not chips
but VEGETABLES

So I took out some handfuls of frozen veggies (carrots, stringbeans, and peas frozen by me after a huuuuuge sale at this store in Bay Ridge), threw them into a wok with just a touch of hot chili sesame oil, and let them cook til tender-crisp.

I also had this bag of Tofu Shirataki noodles in the fridge from about 4 months ago (they last forever), and I figured I might as well toss them in too.

...Well.....you can never just toss in tofu shirataki noodles, which is one of the reasons I don't like them so much. Yea, the whole bag of "noodles" is only 40 calories, but having to wash it (and endure the gross fishy smell of the liquid it's stored in), cut it up, and pre-cook it before I ACTUALLY cook it, THEN dry it off as best I can, really annoys me. I'm too lazy for all of this!

And besides, they don't taste all that great - they're rubbery =(
Except when stir-fried! Then they're fine...actually, then they're really good! So in they went, along with some soy sauce and thai chili sauces.
YUM
(a pretty HEALTHY yum, I might add!)
And it looked good too (see below)
om nom nom!

Success number TWO, baby!

And then my favorite time of day came - DINNER! Yes, dinner is a time of day.
=)

I had a vision of my favorite chili (no meat, lots of beans, tomatoes, onions with a smoky, spicy, sweet flavor--see this recipe for what I loosely follow) in a taco bowl. Kinda like those taco salads...except my taco bowl would be baked, and it would be small, and it would be filled with chili.

This was exciting.

I bought some corn/flour tortillas - the full corn ones would be too fragile and break, and the flour ones were just too bleh for me. The corn/flour ones offer floppier texture with nice corn flavor.

Anyways, I flopped those into a big muffin pan (rather, formed them into an odd cone shape in the muffin pan), sprayed them with some Pam, sprinkled with a little salt, and put them in a 400 degree oven for about...idk...15 minutes? Until light brown, how's that =)

Then I spooned my chili in, garnished it with some Fage 0% Greek Yogurt, took some pictures, and ungraciously shoved my face into them.

Halfway Point!!
Yummy chili, though not delicious (my mom makes it better than I do, I think I used a darker chocolate than she did - she usually uses bittersweet....anyways...). The shells were definitely small, and kind of hard to eat, but they did look SO cute. And once you had one, you could eat the second one with no problem. Messy, like me, or careful and calculated like my mom.
I shall improve upon this =D

Now my mom has bought me a new pack of matcha green tea, and I shall get to baking with that...soon =D

First Post!

2009-08-05T14:33:00.009-04:00

It figures that I would be doing a voluntary fast on the day that I start a food blog -_- But actually, I eat the most interesting food before and after fasting, so it's not so bad! (Ramadan, coming up soon, should be interesting...) This was my breakfast this morning before dawn prayer time...aka 4:15 am: It's half an Arnold's Sandwich Thin, topped with a fried egg (overeasy) and a yummy slice of halal turkey luncheon meat (like "Spam"). I cooked the spam with a bit of jam on each side, just like my mom has always made it, because that is just the BEST. yummmm <3 class="fullpost"> I also topped this all off with a squeeze of lemon, a dash of kosher salt, and a quick grind of the pepper mill. Another of my favorite ways to eat a fried egg is on toast with a smear of mango chutney and cilantro chutney, plus the lemon/lime squeezed on top with the salt and pepper. It sounds a little strange, but it's REALLY good - it combines salty, crunchy, sweet, spicy, and savory together. Mouth-watering.

About Me and This Blog

2009-08-01T13:30:00.002-04:00

Hi!
My name is Dani, and I'm a college student in Boston at the moment. Originally, I'm from Brooklyn, NY, and I go back there often. This summer I....accidentally...started up my own baking business in NYC O_o

But what do I mean, "accidentally"?
Well, it started with a cookie, a really good cookie, that the manager of a cafe near my house decided he liked enough to sell. And then he decided that I should replace all of the cookies he currently sells, and become his main cookie supplier.
UM.
YIKES.
All of a sudden, in a whirlwind of flour, sugar, and butter, I was testing out 10 different types of cookies (all bigger than my head, I swear) and selling them at this cafe....
and they sold well!

So now I'm just trying to balance out college life, my baking business, and my own personal desire to cook and bake in the tiny kitchen here at school, and trying to use all of that to really improve on my culinary skills.
Because personally, I don't think that I'm all that great at cooking or baking...I find my potential to be much higher, so I'm still striving to get where I want to be.
While taking yummy pictures of it all.

ALSO, I am a nutrition major, so most of the time my recipes will be...healthy...sometimes...heehee =)
This blog is meant as a way for me to share my culinary successes with other people, as well as the failures (but I'll mostly post successes unless the failure has a good lesson to learn from it, haha). By posting things here, I hope to get feedback on what I make, and this includes my food photography skills!, but most importantly I just want to share my culinary adventures with people, one nom at a time. No matter how tame the adventures may be =)

As a sidenote, I am a practicing Muslim, so none of my recipes use any alcohol - even in the form of extracts - or pork.
I grew up Jewish, though (and I didn't keep kosher for most of my life), so I'm always substituting ingredients because the recipes I grew up knowing had all of these things in it that now I can't eat! But I do know what can approximate the results, so you might find in my recipes that I use halal (which means "permissible", as opposed to haram, which means "forbidden") marshmallows, Non-Alcoholic (0%) Beer in place of wine or beer or any other alcohol, beef/turkey bacon, beef spam, non-alcoholic vanilla flavoring, etc.
When you see these substitutions, feel free to un-substitute - my dietary restrictions may not be your own, so go with what you would normally use.

Or, if you are also a Muslim or practice similar dietary restrictions, then enjoy the recipes as-is!
=)

This is also the reason a lot of my recipes may be vegetarian--I'm too lazy (and cheap) to go buy my own meat from the halal butcher while up here on my own, so I just veg it out. I also just love vegetarian food (although I am definitely a meat-eater, I can't go too long without it).

ANYWAYS!

Take a look around the blog, leave me some feedback, and try out some recipes. I hope you enjoy!