It's June Already?

Why hello there. Uhm, okay. It's definitely been a lot longer than I thought it was going to be since my last post. But, but, but, I have good excuses! The month of May has been ridiculous. I'm not sure if April or May has been more ridiculous. April was full of dance performances.

"The Croton Flower Blooms," ethnic Wa Chinese dance.

Photograph courtesy of Mike Ross.

"Wind Flow," ethnic Han Chinese dance.

Photograph courtesy of Mike Ross.

Okay, I'm only kind of sorry for these dance photos. I've been going through some serious dance withdrawal the past month, and so I've been reliving performances through all my photos! Part of me really wants to find a job in San Francisco, so I can just head over to a dance studio after work. :) (Speaking of which, I really really wish people would get back to me in the two weeks they say they will after an interview... no response is worse than a rejection!! In other news, the job that I had an interview for would've been amazing--working with and outreaching to homeless and at-risk youth in San Francisco. But, alas, they refuse to get back to me.)

Anyhow, aside from dance in April, May has actually been pretty full of baking! Mainly because there has been lots of birthdays and graduations and whatnot.

There was Ryan's birthday and a yellow butter cake with chocolate buttercream frosting (he likes very sweet cakes with no fruit, hehehe.)

There was a random carrot cake with cinnamon cream cheese frosting for sh$ts and giggles.

There was Mike's birthday! Lots of roomie love xoxoxo :)

That was a raspberry passion fruit white chocolate cheesecake (with an Oreo cookie crust). It was devoured, and it was delicious. It was also extremely lethal. Personally, I prefer a plain cheesecake (I despise white chocolate, haha!), but yes, it was still devoured.

And there was Alice's graduation cupcakes!

They were chocolate cupcakes with raspberry buttercream frosting decorated, of course, with Cal colors. :)

And finally, there was another graduation party (Eric graduated from the Monterey College of Law!) in Santa Cruz to bake for.

This was a decadent chocolate cake with mixed berry filling and cream cheese frosting. The cake itself was very rich chocolate cake that was soft with a lovely crumb... the only thing is that it also makes it a b!tch to work with (I seem to be more colorful with my language today than usual--my apologies) as it kept on falling apart, even when it was cooled, and even after it was frozen!

So life's been a little hectic and a little stressful. At least May was at least spotted with random days of sunshine and times for new haircuts (I cut my bangs!) and pretty dresses. :)

Photograph courtesy of Scott Milliken.

There have also been random things like blueberry buttermilk pancakes.

Oh yeah, and a surprise birthday party that my friends threw for me. :)

It was delicious sushi. I love sushi. I love Asian food, especially Japanese food and simple Chinese food. I ate so much sashimi that day. Yum.

And finally, on Memorial Day, there was a lovely BBQ at my apartment! Mike was having lots of fun with his new toy. :P We had grilled Hawaiian BBQ tofu, chicken, and pineapple.

Of course, there were also appetizers. There was roasted garlic garlic hummus (yes, it's that garlic-y), hummus, guacamole, deviled eggs, Italian pasta salad, and a mango Southern sweet tea.

And S'MORES! S'MORES! (and Banana Boats, but I totally forgot to take photos of them! Banana boats = banana split in half stuffed with chocolate chips and/or other things, wrapped in foil, and roasted for 5-10 minutes until warm and delicious. It's good for camping as a dessert!)

MUAHAHAHA FIRE!!!

And finally, there has been some hiking here and there. I leave you with a triptych of the beautiful Pt. Reyes. :)

Citrus Ricotta Cookies

Hello hello again. So my posts have been less frequent than usual... it's been a busy busy April and especially May. But I've been making these citrus/lemon ricotta cookies with a delicious glaze, and everybody has loved them, so I just needed to share. :)

They're based off of Giada De Laurentis' (from the Food Network!) recipe. I'll be honest, I don't usually go to the Food Network recipes for my choice of recipes, but I had found a few food blogs that had made these cookies, and it sounded pretty exciting. I had a package of ricotta cheese for some reason--honestly, I can't remember why, but I decided that I needed to use it up. That, and I'm still working on that constant supply of lemons, haha. Also... it's turning to the spring/summer... who doesn't love the light burst of sunlight in their mouths? :)

These cookies aren't so much crunchy or even soft and chewy... they have a more cake-like texture, which is very interesting. It's still very nommy, though! The batter's pretty easy to work with, and uses up both lemon zest and lemon juice, yay!

Click for more ricotta cookie deliciousness. :D

More breakfast: French Toast!

Hey all,

So it's been a while! But I'm back with more breakfast foods... this time, French Toast. :) More specifically, Nutella-stuffed Brioche French Toast with Sauteed Cinnamon Apples.

I've been wanting to make french toast for a while, so I even specifically made Peter Reinhart's Brioche (from the Bread Baker's Apprentice)... it's a lot nicer than a previous brioche recipe that I've used before. But, like any brioche recipe, the dough is kind of sticky and annoying to work with, and definitely requires refrigeration. There are various versions--the Rich Man's Brioche, the Middle Man's Brioche, and the Poor Man's Brioche. The difference is mainly in the amount of butter used... I think that the Middle Man's Brioche was a good choice--not too high in fat, but still buttery, rich, and delicious.

Little brioche à têtes! :D I made one giant 9"x5" loaf, and then another 4 brioche à têtes. :) The little brioche à tête were delicious to eat on their own... I am such a sucker for carbs. They weren't the prettiest things... I tried using the knotting technique instead of making separate balls to make the shape... but I'm sure they'll be prettier next time. :)

Anyhow, so I decided to make french toast the next morning! :) Okay, so yes, they all say that french toast is best made with stale bread, that was it can soak up the "custard" mixture while still holding its shape. I really really wanted to make french toast and to use my brioche, so what I did was cut thick 1/2" slices and toast them on the lowest setting just to dry them out a little. I think stale bread would've been the best... but you work with what you've got!

Click below for more nutella-stuffed brioche french toast with sauteed cinnamon apples.

Good morning... Meyer Lemon Berry Pancakes!

Why hello there. So I apologize for being so MIA this month--it's been a long month with new friends and so many more dance performances. It's vaguely slowing down, but GREs and other things such as peoples' graduations and backpacking trips are right around the corner, so AAAH! Ridiculousness. So even though there has been a decent amount of baking and cooking, but not much photographing, and even less time around the computer. ...I think it's a good thing for me, though, hehehe.

So after another dance performance a week or two ago, I had two friends stay over since they're not from the area. They were able to stick around in the morning, so I figured... why not pancakes?? I don't really make fancy breakfast foods... boiled eggs, cereal, and oatmeal are just fine in my book. But I know everyone likes the occasional breakfast treat, so after browsing through a billion breakfast recipes... and also realizing that my refrigerator was actually pretty empty except lemons (I have a continuous supply of lemons!) left over from an order for lemon tarts and I actually had some leftover buttermilk from making the tiramisu cake (I NEVER have buttermilk!), so I decided on Meyer Lemon Raspberry Pancakes with Raspberry Maple Compote.

Admit it. It looks delicious. M... now you want pancakes. Click below for more pancakes and recipe! :)

Tiramisu Birthday Cake (and dancing!)

Hi all. So although there has been lots of baking and cooking the past couple of weeks, there has also been lots of dancing and ridiculousness... my Chinese dance team held a showcase, and I was in 5 of the dances, organizing 4 of them, and whatnot, so I haven't been around the computer that much, and if I was, I was probably doing something related to dance, hehe. But it was amazing and awesome, and it was, in my opinion, a huge success. :)

Photograph courtesy of Eric Eakin.

Photograph courtesy of Eric Eakin.

Photograph courtesy of Eric Eakin.

Photograph courtesy of Eric Eakin.

So last weekend was also my good friend's (and dance buddy!) birthday. (That's her below!)

Photograph courtesy of Eric Eakin.

I was trying to figure out what to make. She likes chocolate and coffee-flavored things. I didn't feel like making a basic layered chocolate cake or just a bunch of cupcakes... it felt too boring for such an awesome occasion. So... what to do? Chocolate... coffee... tiramisu, of course! But with tiramisu, usually you don't just carry it around in a cake box, and it kind of stays in its baking dish until served, and I didn't feel like walking around the streets of San Francisco with a heavy Pyrex glass baking dish. That, and I didn't feel like making ladyfingers from scratch nor going out on a hunt for them (apparently they're annoying to try and find around here... and TJ's only has them seasonally? anyway.). I know, my life is so hard, right?

So, of course. Why not make a tiramisu but in cake format?

I think it turned out fairly wel. It had two cake layers soaked in an espresso syrup. In between, there was a layer of Kahlua-mascarpone-whipped cream with a nice layer of finely chopped dark chocolate, topped with an espresso-Kahlua-mascarpone-whipped cream frosting all over the cake. Ooh, and then I lined the sides with chocolate covered espresso beans.

Aside from the colossal mess of cocoa powder in the kitchen, I'd say it was a pretty big success. Cocoa powder was seriously everywhere. Lesson of the day? Sure, cocoa power levels out a little when you blow on it, but unfortunately, the cocoa powder goes elsewhere, i.e. on top of counter tops, toaster, sink, floor...

Yeah, everywhere.

Either way, the birthday girl had a bottomless mimosas brunch at Lime in San Francisco (it's a crazy place... it's like you're clubbing with food at 11:30 in the morning).

I'd say she was fairly happy with the cake. :)

Thanks for indulging me in my vomit of dance and photographs, and I promise to have some recipes up soon. :)

Lemon Poppy Seed Bread

So I still had part of a Costco-sized bag of lemons, and I didn't feel like making lemon tarts, lemon curd, or lemon bars... too many eggs and butter and different parts and meh, I was lazy and had been baking a lot. (I had been baking and coking a lot last week... including a whole wheat multi-grain bread, 2 of these lemon poppy seed loafs, vegetable stew, and hot cross buns!  And then a tiramisu cake!) Unfortunately, most lemon cookies or muffins or whatnot require the lemon zest, but not the lemon juice. So what better than a lemon quick bread that requires soaking it with a lemon syrup? ...And then top it off with a lemon glaze?? Not only does it then use lemon juice, but it is also lemon and buttery and delicious.

Okay, confession. I don't really like poppy seed. Maybe my parents bought one too many Noah's poppy seed bagels (By the way, I love Noah's bagels. Grab me a plain bagel, a toasted cinnamon raisin bagel with cream cheese, and an asiago bagel and I will love you forever. Okay, for a moment, until my waist line disappears, then I will hate you. It's that whole love-hate thing, ya know?). Or maybe I really hate how they get stuck in your teeth. Or maybe the flavor's a little too strong. Either way, I don't like poppy seed. But my roommate likes things with poppy seeds. And so do other people. And I found out a couple weeks ago that the local market sells poppy seeds for not to bad a price. So I grab myself a bunch of poppy seeds, figuring that I'd use it for something. Then I remembered, of course. Lemon + poppy seed. Who hasn't heard of that combination?

It seemed to be very popular.

And the glaze. I love sugar. I wanted to lick my cookie sheet after all the excess lemon glaze dripped off of the bread. ...I might've scraped off a few spoonfulls of that delicious lemon-sugar combination. But enough about me, more about the bread behind the jump!

Hot Cross Buns, one a penny, two a penny

Why hello and happy Good Friday and Happy Easter everybody! (To be fair, I started writing this on Friday...) I'm loving trying to bake something for various holidays and celebrations, because I end up learning about the history of the food and the culture/religion it's tied to.

Hot cross buns!  Hot cross buns! One-a-penny, Two-a-penny, Hot cross buns! So everyone's heard of hot cross buns, but it turns out that most people I know have never actually had them, nor do they know what they are. In fact, most people (including myself) only know the first two lines of the nursery rhyme, haha.

So what are hot cross buns? They're generally associated with Easter, and more specifically, Good Friday, with the cross symbolizing The Crucifixion. However, it seems that the hot cross bun actually predates Christianity! Their origins lie in pagan traditions of ancient cultures, celebrating the vernal equinox (Eostre), with the cross possibly representing the balance between light and darkness of the equinox, the four quarters of the moon, or the symmetry of the seasons. During early missionary efforts, the Christian church adopted the buns and re-interpreted the icing cross. In 1361, a monk named Father Thomas Rockcliffe began a tradition of giving Hot Cross Buns to the poor of St. Albans on Good Friday.

Now wasn't that an exciting history lesson?

Anyhow, simply put, hot cross buns is a sweet, spiced yeast bun with currants (or raisins) and often candied citrus peel, and has a cross of a sweet dough on top (though many people now just use an icing for the cross).

I adapted the recipe from Wild Yeast Blog, and oh my goodness is it delicious. I didn't have dried currants, or candied lemon/orange peel, so I just made it with raisins and added a little bit of lemon simple syrup I made while candying lemon slices (I'll write about it later, but it's negligible for the recipe). I saw dried currants at a local farmer's market, so I might get those some day and make these again! Click below for recipe.

New Layout!

Hi all. The month is drawing to an end, and as each day passes, it's another day closer to this blog's first birthday. It's a bittersweet sort of realization, seeing as it unfortunately coincides with my graduation and unemployment. But such is life. But I've been soothing my poor soul with my (re)new(ed) singer obsession, Bat for Lashes.  She's pretty awesome.  Her voice is slightly haunting, and reminds me of Tori Amos in some ways.

Prescilla from Bat for Lashes on Vimeo.

I've been listening to this song on repeat for pretty much the whole day while playing with photographs and css/xhtml. As useful as Blogger is, it's slightly limiting and frustrating to edit the layout with all its widgets and gadgets and whatnot. Staring at the expanded code for the widgets made my brain melt a little.

Anyhow, I wanted to liven up the page a little. I usually play it safe with very neutral colors (well, technically black and white aren't colors, but we'll pretend they are) that aren't very glaring or diverse. This time, I'm going for the whole green/teal thing. I think it works well with my header photo, don't you think?

I also added pages! That way, I can revel in my vain self-whoring. That, and now there's a menu page! With photos! Go go go check it out!  I'll hopefully be adding a recipe index section as well whenever I get around to it...

I want to thank everyone for all their comments, emails, and orders so far. It's definitely been making this past year a lot easier, especially as May is inching closer.

I've been baking here and there since coming back from LA, but most of my time is spent working on dance stuff! My dance group has our first showcase coming up, and I decided to be in 5 dances (semi-in charge for 4 of them), I've been working on advertising flyers and programs, and whatnot, so I've been keeping busy. I've also fallen slightly behind on my economics homework, oops.

Anyhow, I hope y'all like the new layout!  And I leave you with one more Bat for Lashes song.

Sleep Alone from Bat for Lashes on Vimeo.

Hollywood Farmers Market

So a continuation of the SoCal/LA trip... on the Sunday morning we were planning on leaving, we wanted to leave fairly early so we could hit up Solvang for lunch on the way up and then to stop by at Monterey Bay for dinner. Uuuunfortunately, the LA marathon happened to going on that morning, and it ran right in front of the hostel, so we couldn't actually drive out of there until noon-ish or so.

So we decided to walk to the Hollywood Farmers Market, which we had planned to go to originally (but it was supposed to have been delayed due to the marathon, but apparently people were setting up early anyway). It was so worth it! It was probably one of the best farmers market that I've been to.

The farmers market was extremely big, and oh, the samples. The samples were delicious and so filling (it was pretty much a mini-lunch for us, hehe). Not only that, all the produce was just fabulous. They were big, they were pretty, the prices were decent, the vegetables were leafy and green, and all the samples that we tried were so sweet and juicy. Also, what really caught my eye was the fact that there were so many fresh herbs!! Just bunches and bunches of a variety of great looking fresh herbs.

There was a great sorbet stand which had the most delicious cucumber sorbet... Carmela ice cream. The berries down there were delicious and sweet. Finally, there was the most awesome stand of dried fruist and dried nuts.

If you know me at all, I love dried fruits. I even stopped by Casa de Fruita on the way down this trip, hehehe. But the dried fruit here rivaled those at Casa de Fruita, and was so much cheaper! I got some dried plums (which are so so so delicious) and a great mixture of giant dried raisins (with red raisins, golden raisins, regular raisins, and all different kinds!). So good. OH! And their dried persimmons are SO GOOD. Best dried persimmons ever... thick and still juicy inside. And they weren't shy about sharing their samples either.

Anyhow, if you live in the LA area or happened to be visiting there on Sunday mornings, and if you love farmers markets, I highly suggest that you stop by there. <3

LA food: Murakami

One of my favorite types of restaurants to eat at are Japanese restaurants, especially if they have good sashimi or a delicious bowl of udon noodles (I love seafood and soup, what can I say?). Considering I don't really eat out much, especially these days, I didn't want to be stuck at some restaurant with mediocre sashimi. So after browsing Yelp and visiting a billion restaurant websites for their menu, I settled on Murakami in the Hollywood district, which had the best rating for sashimi aside from some ridiculously expensive and ritzy Japanese restaurant.

I think it was the perfect choice for a late afternoon meal after a giant breakfast and wandering around LA for a good part of the day. The portions weren't gargantuan, but rather perfectly sized, I believe. They focus largely on sashimi plates with some salads and some rolls. I'm not a big fan of rolls, and so therefore didn't order any, but if they're as good as their sashimi plates and salads, there's nothing to worry about.

It's a quaint, unassuming place with bright orange walls and funky drawings on the wall. You walk up to the counter to order and try and grab one of the 4 or 5 tables that are inside. My roommate was at first curious and surprised that this place received such a high rating on Yelp.

But don't let size and looks fool you. Their food is fresh and delicious. My roommate and I went with another friend we met at the hostel, and we all thought it was a good find. The sashimi is very fresh, the prices are decent for good sashimi/sushi, and everyone was very full and satisfied when we left.

I wasn't expecting any good, light vegetables at the Dreamworks party later that day, and I wasn't sure I'd be able to finish off a whole plate with rice and a salad, so I opted for the sashimi salad. The sashimi salad came with a fresh bed of greens topped with about 3 slices each of tuna (which they gladly let me exchange for more salmon!), salmon, albacore, yellow tale, and shrimp. It was also topped with cucumbers, tomatoes, kaiware sprouts, and sesame seeds, and dressed with a nice homemade miso dressing. The miso dressing wasn't actually my favorite--I think the sesame taste was a bit strong, and I would've wanted a little more of a miso flavoring to it, but it was still good.

The other two guys ordered the Murakami plate, which has fresh sashimi with sushi rice topped with cucumbers, nori, and sesame seeds with a side salad with miso dressing. They have a list of sashimi combinations that you can order, or you can even mix and match your own plate, how awesome is that? They both got the sunshine plate, which comes with avocado, salmon, and fresh crab. My roommate also ordered an extra side of tuna on top of that as well.

The plate was huge and delicious. I had a chance to try some of the crab and some of the sushi rice with nori on top. Oh my goodness, the crab was fresh and delicious... I love fresh crab, and I haven't had it in so long. I wanted to eat his whole serving of crab. :| The sushi rice was also fantastic. Although the sashimi is relatively good around the East Bay, I haven't really had some really good sushi rice on the side. It had just the right amount of stickiness and flavoring. Aaaah! I wanted to eat a whole bowl of it. And I might have if (a) there wasn't going to be food in just a few hours, and (b) if I didn't need to fit into my Chinese dance costumes that I can't quite squeeze into comfortably anymore for a performance coming up in April. Oops.

Anyhow, if you love Japanese food, and more specifically, if you love sushi and sashimi, and you're willing to shell out a little bit of money, this is the place to go for a good meal. And if you want to go someone who is a vegetarian, they also have some vegetarian choices as well. :)

Traveling means eating out: BluJam Cafe in LA

This past weekend, my roommate and I went down to LA/SoCal because he had a company party for the upcoming movie How to Train Your Dragon (which, unbiasedly, is an amazing must-see movie!). So my opinion of LA is that there isn't too much to do in the immediate area other than shop and eat, especially because of traffic. We arrived there Friday afternoon and left Sunday morning, with the party being Saturday night, so there really was no time to take a full day to drive somewhere farther and way and go hiking, or spend a full day at Six Flags Magic Mountain (which I love, by they way. Rollercoasters = awesome.). Therefore, we did a lot of walking and eating. Oh! And running on the beach. Running on the beach is awesome. Even though, in the Santa Barbara to LA area, if you run around barefoot, you get tar spots due to the off-shore oil drilling, yuck. And also meeting people. We stayed in a hostel filled with international travelers, so we made friends with various accents, hehe. Very full of awesome.

So the next few posts are going to be about food, so much food.

First, is the BluJam Cafe that we had for breakfast.

I'll be honest with you, I'm not much of a heavy breakfast type of person. Sure, eggs benedicts are tasty (though, I don't like much hollandaise sauce) but I don't really love french toast, and pancakes aren't my favorite things in the world. Sure, I can appreciate them, but I prefer a lighter breakfast filled with whole grains, fruit, and some light protein like some Greek yogurt or some egg whites. (I don't understand people who can eat steak for breakfast... I mean, seriously... fill up with your daily requirement for protein and saturated fats and sodium in the first few hours of waking?) Oh, and waffles. For some reason, I'm a sucker for waffles smothered in honey.

Anyhow, the BluJam Cafe is a cozy place for a great breakfast/brunch (don't know about their food at night, but I'm sure it must be good, too). It's located in the LA area not too far from Hollywood and West Hollywood. Oh yeah, it's also a great place if you can eat enough to food a normal family of four. Their portions are generous while maintaining the quality of their food. My only wish is that there were more people there so we could try more of the food. Though, looking at all the food that was served around us, many things on their menu looked pretty darn awesome. And huge.

I had pictures of the menu that I took, which I almost feel obligated to post because while I was taking these pictures, the person on the table next to me (I think she was actually an employee that was eating breakfast there) started laughing at me and told me that I could just take a take-out menu. I said I just really like taking pictures, and then she asked if it was for Yelp!, but no, I don't Yelp! either... *awkward silence* Oh well, I won't bore you with such boring pictures (the lighting was weird anyway).

My roommate had their stuffed brioche french toast. It was a giant plate of french toast stuffed with vanilla yogurt and blackberry jam, and topped with fresh bananas and sweet berries with a dusting of powdered sugar. The french toast is nice and fluffy, and the yogurt with the jam adds a refreshing lightness to it. It also came with a side of maple syrup, but for me, the french toast was good on its own.

Personally, I opted for a lighter breakfast. Or, at least, what I thought was going to be a lighter breakfast. When I was waiting for my food, I was watching the dishes pass by as the waiters walked back and forth to serve other customers. I saw a giant bowl topped with fresh fruit, and I wondered if that was going to be the oatmeal.

It was the biggest bowl of oatmeal I had ever seen. Not only that, the oatmeal was piping hot (which, if you don't know me by now, I love my food so hot you can still see it boiling or sizzling) and so hearty. No, they don't serve you a big bowl of mushy oats filled with mostly water, they are serious about their oatmeal. What also made me happy is that their oatmeal was not cooked with butter. I hate it when restaurants put butter in everything. Oh! Not only that, but the oatmeal even had a slight vanilla taste that added a hint of light sweetness to the oatmeal (okay, I think it was vanilla. I spent a good portion of eating my oatmeal just trying to figure out what that extra taste was). The berries were sweet, ripe, and delicious.

In case you couldn't tell by that bowl how enormous the bowl of oatmeal was, here it is relative to me... If I look tired, it's because I was. The hostel went out as a group to go partying, and I wanted to get up early to do as much as possible.

Picture courtesy of Mike Ross.

I highly recommend anyone in the LA area to go try out this place. We went fairly early in the morning, around 9:15 or so on a Saturday morning, so the parking and seating wasn't bad at all. However, around 10:00, you could see that people were starting to pile in, so I can see it getting pretty full during brunch/lunch hours on the weekend. Come with an empty stomach and a hearty appetite. I hear the crepes are delicious as well.

St. Patrick's Day! Irish Cream Cupcakes

Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone! :) So I'm really sad I missed Pi Day. :( This past weekend was extremely full of baking (which I'll post about later), people, and dance, so I didn't get a chance to make some pie. :( But at least I thought about it? Happy belated Pi Day everyone! But anyway, back to St. Patrick's day.

I wanted to make something exciting and fun for St. Patrick's day that I would not otherwise make. I thought about making some Irish Soda Bread, but trying to research the most authentic Irish Soda Bread was getting tiring, and it's not really somethign you give out to everyone. But everyone loves cupcakes, right?

What is that beautiful thing, you ask? Irish cream cupcakes with Irish cream mint frosting topped with an Irish cream brownie.

Yep, I walked over to BevMo! in the beautiful weather yesterday, and got myself a bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream. I will be honest, I'm not exactly a drinker and I don't really even like the smell of whiskey, but hey, other people seem to like it, so why not. Recipe and more photos behind the cut. :)