Archive for the ‘experiments’ Category
oh yes i did
I had bought a bag of flour to deal with my pancake cravings and had also sprung for some scallions for the cha soba dish that I made. So here we are. Bag of flour. Bunch of scallions. Can you guess what happens next?
Scallion pancakes that’s what. I looked far and wide for an easy how-to and found one here. After a brief pep talk to ready myself for the task, I got down to business and ended up with these.
what to do with cha soba
True confession time again.
I’ve been to Daiso 4 times in the last 4 weeks. Obscene right? It all started off because I need a plastic bowl for my morning cereal. It has now morphed into a weekly, mostly innocent visit to pick up a peeler, a bottle opener, some tupperware. Whatevah. Then I started venturing into the food section at Daiso and it was all downhill from there.
Sometimes I buy things and have no idea what I’m going to do with them when I get home. Such was the case when I spotted some green tea soba at Daiso. For two dollahs I figured I didn’t have much to lose. I perused the internet (as is what often happens, you go to Google for life’s answers) and found two recipes that served as inspiration. One is from superfamous food blog Chocolate & Zucchini and the other from the Aussie mag The Gourmet Traveller.
splenda(did) chip cookies
My dear old Dad was diagnosed with diabetes a few years back. He’s lost something like 35lbs in these last few years. Takes a lot of will power to refrain from gorging on steamy white rice (speaking of rice, what is UP with the price doubling?!) and sugary desserts. Luckily he doesn’t have to never eat these things, he just has to enjoy them in moderation.
lazy enchiladas
I’m finally (cross my fingers) getting over the latest bug that left me bed bound for the last week or so. Thank goodness!
I first made this recipe two weekends ago when the LA crew was in town. The recipe below is based off that first go-round with the enchiladas. The pictures are from the rerun of the same but smaller portioned recipe.
nutella rice krispy treats
I had a random craving for Nutella this weekend, but unless I could find a few recipes I couldn’t really justify investing in a whole jar of the stuff. Luckily, I found a few inspirations online and I trekked over to Safeway to pick up a bottle of the yummy chocolate hazelnut delight. During my Europe travels I enjoyed a lot of breakfasts with Nutella. It even came in small individual packets. I dunno why the US has not embraced Nutella as much as Europe has.
Anyway, I didn’t have eggs so I had to abandon my initial Nutella plans. That and I was feeling lazy. Instead, I present to you Nutella rice krispy treats.
bibimwhat?
Looks pretty good eh? So I *almost* invested in a stone pot but came to my senses because other than the random bibimbap what other use do I have or a freakin’ stone pot? Shockingly, I got the recipe for this one on Food Network. Apparently, courtesy of Bobby Flay. As usual, I used the recipe as more of a guideline and ventured off into other parts unknown (read: using whatever veggies I already had on hand). Here are all the parts of my masterpiece.
black bean noodles
Black bean noodles have intrigued me since I watched Witch Yoo Hee a few months ago. Yes, that’s a Korean drama. Anyway, they slurped up these noodles all the freakin time and it looked so GOOD.
ricotta straw/blueberry almond cupcakes
What a mouthful.
I stumbled across the CupcakeBlog a few weeks ago. The recipes are really inventive but not for the kitchen novice. For my first attempt, I opted for her recipe for blueberry & raspberry almond ricotta cupcakes. I altered the recipe slightly – halving the almonds since I didn’t want the texture to be too grainy and using strawberries instead of raspberries. I also used the cream cheese frosting recipe I posted a few weeks back rather than hers since it yielded a little more frosting than I wanted.
trader joe’s thai green curry
I didn’t always like curry. In fact, I think I pretty much hated it. My theory is that in my old age my taste buds are dulling (or maturing) so that things I hated before are not as overpowering as they used to be. Included in this list: cilantro and curry.
My favorite is yellow curry but I found green curry sauce at Trader Joe’s and figured I’d give it a shot.
trader joe’s frozen gnocchi
I’m trying a few new things from Trader Joe’s this week. The first of three experiments I’m posting is frozen gnocchi. I was pretty skeptical about this. The best gnocchi I’ve ever had was at Emil’s restaurant in San Jose. We made them fresh for a cooking class and got to eat them afterwards. But who has time (or skillz) to make real gnocchi? Not me.
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