Korokke Balls

I wonder why the US doesn't have something like this for it seems like Americans love potatoes. Basically mashed potatoes breaded and deep fried. This Japanese food is breaded with panko and usually shaped more into patties but this time I tried making balls. I actually liked these better because it seemed like there are more of the outer crunchy-ness this way and it was a lot easier to make (I used my cookie dough scoop.)

Collard Green Coleslaw

I've been subbing in for someone in the organic produce co-op this summer. The produce, although a bit pricey as organic things are, were of excellent quality. I couldn't choose what I got, but the grab-bag has been a good variety. This month's box had collards in it. Never had collards before so found a recipe for Collard Green Coleslaw on the Vegetarian Times website. Liked the fact that it was mayo-free, since mayo coleslaw's all I've ever made before, and I get to try something new. It was a little on the tangy side, but still quite good.

Homemade Slurpee

Sage found this recipe for Homemade Slurpees/Slushies online so we made Lemon-Lime Slurpees. Few days later we made a Lemonade slurpee which was really refreshing and good. Upcoming flavors are coke slurpee and cherry slurpee. ^_^

Quinoa Tabouli

My usual tabouli usually consists of couscous or bulgur but I gave quinoa a try. I liked this better than the other two kinds, mainly because the quinoa is better and somehow doesn't seem as soggy. And besides, it's a Superfood so all the better. ^_^

Buttery Soft Pretzels

Thursday nights are summer concert nights and finger foods are just perfect to munch on. Since I've already done burritos and calzones, so this week was pretzels. It's been a while since I've made soft pretzels, for some reason the last time I made them, I recall them being time consuming and a little too much work, although they were delicious. This time, things were a little different. Everything went smoothly and was actually very simple. Found the recipe on Allrecipes. They were delicious, especially those fresh out of the oven. We will be making these again for sure. ^_^

Fresh Fruit Tart

My take on Martha Stewart's Grape Tart. Oat crust with pastry cream, topped with cherries, mangoes, blueberries and raspberries.

Lemon Sherbet

Made some lemon sherbet from the Joy of Cooking website. It was so good and refreshing. We did a taste taste with the Luigi Lemon Italian Ice and this one was so much better. It was just more "lemon-y" and I had even omitted the lemon zest, just cuz I'm a little lazy that way. This recipe's a keeper. ^_^

Kale Chips

If I ever went totally raw, one thing I think I would miss would be chips. Looking at raw recipes, I came across Kale Chips. Many of them were flavored with "cheese" or "bbq" but I wanted to try the simple version first, so I tried Simply Raw Recipes' Basic Kale Chips.

Started off with this beautiful, almost-a-shame-to-have-to-cut-up flowering kale.

Seasoned with only olive oil, lemon juice, and salt. This actually tasted pretty good even before turning into chips.

The chips came out pretty good, a tad too lemony, but mmm mmm mmm! Gonna have to give the cheese and bbq version a try. ^_^

Please Stop

Although I appreciate comments I don't like how people would take advantage of another person's site to create a link to advertise their own. Especially inappropriate ones. I will keep deleting your comments and not post them, so please stop wasting my time and yours. Thank you.

Plum Sherbet

My uncle has a plum tree so he gave us a bunch of plums. I've never made any sort of plum dessert before so I tried making Plum Sherbet. Turned out a little tart but still very delish!

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Plum Sherbet

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2 1/2 c. plums, sliced and pitted

6T-10T sugar, depending on plum ripeness

1 t. lemon juice

pinch salt

1 c. heavy cream

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Puree everything together and strain. And put in your ice cream maker.

Raw food: Day 2+

Yesterday I tried continuing the raw food diet for the second day. Body started detoxing around 1pm, headache and drowsiness hit hard I had to take an one hour nap. Woke up somewhat refreshed and could still feel the detox. I give in and have a piece of toast and I start feeling better . Later I eat some leftover crab legs before they go bad and some grapefruit for my evening snack. I feel normal the rest of the night, decide to step on the scale and I've lost five pounds! I'm not the kind who weighs herself daily, maybe once a week. So I'm not sure if the weight loss is due to the raw food diet since it's only been a day or two, but my weight's been pretty consistant for 20+ years (minus the pregnancy years, of course). Morning of Day 3: last night I went to bed kinda late (that's why I usually don't nap ^_^) woke up 6.5 hrs later feeling well rested. I usually sleep 7.5-8 hrs. My body wasn't achy like most mornings. Feeling pretty good so I had a raw breakfast. Seeing my folks for lunch at a Mexican restaurant today so I wonder how my body will react. Maybe a taco salad and let my kids eat the shell...

Raw for a Day

The raw food diet has been catching my interest lately, especially since reading Steve Pavlina's blog. Having been eating mostly vegetarian the last few months, it seemed like it was a good time to just give this thing a try. The kids are with my parents for a few days so I don't really have to cook, it was perfect timing to try it out for a day.

Breakfast: a bowl of fruit. I was surprised how much this filled me. I couldn't finish it all. I went to my usual Jazzercise class afterwards and felt normal.

Mid-morning post-exercise snack: Celery sticks with homemade raw peanut butter and sunflower pate, and leftover fruit from breakfast. The raw peanut butter was ok, I'm so used to roasted nuts that the "raw" taste didn't appeal to me a whole lot. The sunflower pate, on the other hand was really good.

Late Lunch: Lettuce boats with sunflower pate and guacamole. These were really good. My main concern with this diet was that I'd be constantly hungry. Surprisingly this was not the case. The mid-morning snack filled me enough that I didn't have my lunch till 2pm.

The sunflower pate tasted good as dip too. It would make a good spread for crackers.

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Dinner (sorry, forgot to take a pic): Big salad and a banana.

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Overall, I felt pretty good. Felt a little tired around 3pm but I'm not sure if it's from the exercise or a mild form of detox. Later in the day I developed a mild headache as well, possibly my body going into detox but I'm not sure if that can happen so quickly. The only food craving I got was for warm white rice around 7pm, but it may have been a craving for something warm, for rice isn't strong in flavor.

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Having read about the benefits of this diet I think I'm going to start incorporating it into our normal diet, maybe have a raw meal a day or have a raw day once a week, maybe even start sprouting. I'm not going to strictly enforce it but am going to try to do another raw day today.

Ginger Glazed Mahi Mahi

Salmon is our usual go-to fish, it's so readily available and fairly inexpensive. But the other day I found a Mahi Mahi fillet at a good price and so it was today's dinner. I can't remember that last time I've cooked that fish, I think we usually just make fish tacos. BBQ-ing was the plan and David suggested I marinate it. So I found a recipe online I gave a try. Interesting marinade...honey, soy sauce, basalmic vinegar, ginger, and garlic. The marinade was later cooked down and used as a glaze. My vegetarian girls thought it was just ok, but my meat-loving son LOVED it, especially the glaze. He poured it all over his rice!

Daring Bakers May 2010: Piece Montee (Croquembouche)

Okay, I'm a little late but I finally got around to completing last month's challenge: a Piece Montee (croquembouche) or in plain English, a cream puff tower. I believe this is the French's version of a wedding cake.

The May 2010 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cupcake. Cat challenge everybody to make a piece montee, or croquembouche, based on recipes from Peter Kump's Baking School in Manhattan and Nick Malgieri.

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I had already missed the May deadline but since this looked so good I told my kids I'd still make it. My daughter's birthday was June 9th, and she tells me this is what she wants for her b-day dessert. She says, If I say I want this for my birthday, you have to make it. Yes, that's what she really said. It was her way of getting me to actually complete the challenge. Well, it turns out that her birthday landed on the last week of school, which was a very busy week for me and she gave me the ok to make her something else.

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I was still determined to make it so I attempted it on Father's Day. We had friends coming over for a bbq, it would of been perfect. Well, till the pate a choux turned out very runny and didn't puff up at all. It made good cookies though that my kids ate anyway. ^_^

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A week later, since the creme patissiere was already done and sitting in my fridge, I made another attempt at making the shells. This time they rose nicely and looked great. Whew!

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You can check out the recipe here.

TVP Tacos

Gave another shot at vegetarian "meat", this time made some TVP taco meat.

Started off with 2c dried TVP soaked in 2c hot water for 10 minutes. Then cooked it with 3T oil, 2T soy sauce, 1 1/2 packets of taco seasoning. Later added some taco sauce for added moisture for it seemed a little on the dry side.

Served with a nice refreshing side of cucumber and radishes tossed in lime juice and salt.

Abby turned her broken taco shells into tostadas. Don't they look pretty?

Eggplant "Lasagna"

The other day someone gave us a bunch of american eggplant. We usually buy the asian eggplants which are skinnier. We weren't quite sure what to do with these big, fat eggplants! And then need to be eaten SOON. Thought about a eggplant dip call Baba Ganoush but having never eaten that before I thought I'd save that for some other time.

So I tried making lasagna but instead of lasagna noodles I use eggplant, layered with mozzarella cheese and marinara sauce. A little sprinkle of parmesan cheese, italian seasoning, and fresh ground black pepper in between the layers. My vegetarian girls loved it, my meat-eater son thought it was just ok. ^_^

Egg Muffin Sandwich

My latest kitchen gadget... English muffin rings/egg molds. I had been wanting these for a while but didn't want to fork out ten bucks. So I was real happy when I found a set of four for a dollar at a yardsale. So I made some egg muffin sandwiches with cheddar cheese for the girls, and with pepper-jack cheese with bacon for Sage. Yum-yums!

Cheese Crisps

I've seen this made with Parmesan cheese, but since they're a bit costly I tried my first try with Colby-Jack cheese. Heat up the frying pan and put some shredded cheese on it to melt and crisp up on the bottom, flip, and repeat. These tasted like super cheesy Cheez-Its. Abby couldn't stop saying "mmmm" as she ate it. Very yummy and tasty, and probably very fatty too! ^_^

Clam Chowder in a Bread Bowl

I used to work at Boudin's Sourdough, the one in San Diego and I remember these Clam-Chowder-in-a-Bread-Bowl being their best selling item. I can see why, they are so good! And they are so easy to make at home. I used Quick and Easy Clam Chowder from Allrecipes.com (with slight modifications as reviews suggest) and made my own bread bowls using the 5-minute Artisan Bread recipe by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François. (some of the recipes from the book can be found at Mother Earth News. One good reason to make your own bread bowls is that you can make it as big (or small) as you want (and the home-baked goodness is a plus too... ^_^) to accomodate the appetite of each person. Can be made with any creamy and thick soups, such as chili and stews.

Easiest Meatballs Ever

Although my girls are vegetarian, I like to have a meat option for the men in the house. Spaghetti was on the menu for dinner so I made some meatballs out of Italian sausages. So easy and quick. David says they aren't really "meatballs" cuz they're not made out of beef, but if Martha Stewart (got the idea from her Everyday Food magazine) can call them meatballs, so can I!

Vegetarian Jap Chae

Tried making some Korean noodles, Jap Chae. This usually has meat in it but went vegetarian with spinach, mushrooms, carrots, and onions. The noodles, glass noodles, kinda remind me of shirataki (Japanese yam cake noodles). I was hoping this dish to be very flavorful but it was kinda on the bland side, even with adding more sesame oil, soy sauce, salt, and pepper. I was kinda surprised to see that everything is tossed together rather than cooked together. The glass noodle doesn't absorb the flavors much. I've never had it before so I'm not sure if that's how it was supposed to taste. Looks pretty though. Recipe by Dr. Ben Kim.

Cool Food Art

DB March 2010 Challenge--Orange Tian

The 2010 March Daring Baker’s challenge was hosted by Jennifer of Chocolate Shavings. She chose Orange Tian as the challenge for this month, a dessert based on a recipe from Alain Ducasse’s Cooking School in Paris.
I wasn't quite sure what to expect of this month's challenge, never even heard of an Orange Tian. I haven't really been a fan of citrus desserts (except lemon bars ^_^) so I proceeded without high hopes. This thing was like an upside down orange cream cake. It had many little steps, not too difficult. The bottom layer (which becomes the top) is a layer of orange segments that had been soaked in an orange caramel sauce. Oh, this was really good it could easily be a dessert on it's own, maybe with a dallop of whipped cream... The next layer is whipped cream with a little orange marmalade folded in. And then a layer of homemade marmalade, which was something I had never made before. It was quite simple and very delicious. I think I'll make it again sometime. And then, the last layer was a Pate Sablee. Kinda like a shortbread/butter cookie.

Rather than make individual rounds, I made it family-style in my 8x8 pan. This dessert ended up being really good. Light, refreshing, and tasty. I'll probably re-visit this one again. Next time I'll double the whipped cream and omit the marmalade layer. I enjoyed it but it was a little too strong in flavor for the kiddos. Check out the recipe here.

Flax Seed Crackers

Lately, the Raw Food Diet has been catching my interest. So I picked up a book called, "Raw Foods for Busy People" by Jordan Maerin. In it was a recipe for Flax Crackers I gave a try for it looked simple and I needed to use up my flax seeds. I wasn't bad for something with only flax seeds and water. Very healthy tasting and quite brittle so it wouldn't be a good cracker for dipping. Next time I might try their variations for more flavor. Here's the recipe:

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FLAX CRACKERS

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Try this experiment: Soak 1/4 cup of flax seeds in 1/2 cup of water for 3 hours. Stick your finger in it. Now you know why flax crackers are so easy to make: It's the goo!

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2 cups flax seeds

4 cups water

Salt, spices or vegetables (see below)

1/2 cup sesame or hemp seeds (optional)

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For a blender-free version, soak flax seeds as described above, spread the flax seed goo onto solid dehydrator sheets, and sprinkle with you choice of salt, garlic powder, Italian seasonings, cayenne, or Chinese 5-spice.

For more complex flavors, you can use a blender to liquefy the veggies and spices of your choice in the water, before adding to the flax seeds for soaking (see below). If using wet vegetables, like tomatoes, reduce the water to 3 cups.

Dehydrate for 8-12 hours, and then move crackers to slotted trays and dehydrate for 4-8 hours more, or until crisp.

A stiff spatula works well to spread the flax goo onto the dehydrator sheets. If you don't have enough solid dehydrator sheeds for all the goo you've got, you can spread the goo onto pieces of waxed paper. If you use waxed paper, however, you must watch your drykng time carefully and remove the crackers from the paper after about 3-4 hours. If the crackers are left on waxed paper for too long, they'll be stubbornly stuck together.

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Sample Variations:

Mexican Flax Crackers: Blend water with gfresh tomatoes, cilantro, lime juice, peppers, garlic and salt.

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Italian Flax Crackers: Blend water with tomatoes, zucchini, garlic, Italian seasoning, fresh basil, olives, bell peppers, and salt.

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Asian Flax Crackers: Blend water with Nama Shoyu, lemon juice, cilantro, peppers, garlic and Chinese 5-spice.

(Since the recipe didn't say at what temperature to set the dehydrator, I set it at 135*F and it ended up drying in half the time stated.)

Cream of Broccoli Soup

Right when it's starting to feel like spring, we're hit with a really cold day. So it was time to make some soup! I tend to stick with my usual set of soups, ones that I have memorized, but the other day I found a recipe for the Best Cream of Broccoli Soup that caught my eye because it had just the basic ingredients. So here it is... served with some homemade croutons and focaccia bread. The only chages I made were to add some potatoes and garlic. It was very simple and delicious.