Pizza 2 ways

After visited Eataly in NY, I was in the mood to make some Italian food. so I decided to make pizza for lunch.




The First one is caramelized onion pizza. I made caramelized onion with garlic, thyme, rosemary, balsamic vinegar. I love the combination of sweet and sour onion jam(caramelized) and salty Parmesan cheese... My favorite.




I also like topping this pizza with some arugula.

another one is just simple tomato sauce with olive and mozzarella.


garnish with some basil.

Mini Cream Puffs

I made cream puffs for the first time.

It was a lot easier than I thought, It's also nice that you can make a lot at once.







I filled them with pastry cream that I had made ahead and dusted with powder.

Thai style fried rice

I had always been afraid of "FISH SAUCE" but LOVE Thai and Vietnam food.
so I decided to get fish sauce one day and it was a BAD choice....so I asked my friend which one is the best kind...

The place I went didn't have the one my friend recommend but before lots of people recommended this 3 crab picture one.



It was very different from what I had(the bad one). Still stinky... since it is FISH SAUCE after all, but the dish came out great.

strawberry and basil cocktail

my Strawberry plants started having a cute mini strawberries.
It was warm today so I decided to make strawberry and basil cocktail.



They don't look pretty, but has tons of flavor!



all you do is muddle strawberry, basil, sugar and add ice, water and vodka. you can add sparking water instead and it's delish!

Memorial Day Grilled Dinner

We don't normally buy stake to cook at home but since Brad had a day off and it was Memorial day today so we decided to splurge and get stakes from Wholefoods and grilled out. We also grilled zucchini and corn. My favorite way to grill corn is Japanese way and it is to brush soy sauce while it's on the grill. This reminds me summer festivals in Japan. mmmmm so good!

I marinated stakes with Orange juice, Soy sauce, Rosemary, thyme and garlic.

Apricots from garden

It's the time again to pick apricots.

Every year we had some competition between squirrels and us for apricots.


I don't know how many the squirrel and birds got but I got 26 today. I couldn't reach higher so I'll ask Brad tomorrow for more!


It turns pink where the sun kissed.


It's golden and orangy inside. yum!

Heavy Cream Pound cake

I had never made pound cake with heavy cream before so I tried it. It came out super moist and incredibly soft. I think I found the best recipe for pound cake.

spinach pesto pasta

I made spinach pesto pasta for dinner.

Spinach
garlic
walnut
salt
olive oil
lemon zest and juice
pecorino and parmesan cheese

middle eastern spiced pita sandwitch

Every time I buy rotisserie chicken from Costco, I have left overs. So I turn the left over chicken into a middle eastern sandwich by adding chick pea, lemon, cumin, chili pepper, garlic. saute them on the frying pan until they become crispy. to brighten the sandwich, I stuffed it with arugula, cucumber, tomato and yogurt sauce.

Strawberry Jam

Yesterday, I found strawberry was on sale. so I bought 8lb of them to make a year supply of strawberry jam/thick sauce. I have a big freezer at home for my business so I normally make freezer jam. Since freezer jam contains less sugar, I prefer that way. and I recycle glass jars.



I also added lemon peel and juice(at the end) from my friends garden to cut the sweetness and also enhanced strawberry flavor.



I use this jam/thick sauce for smoothie, over ice cream, betoween the layer of cake, with some cheese on the cracker and on and on, you name it.

Chocolate truffles

Yesterday, my little kitchen became a chocolate factory...
I made more than 200 chocolate truffles for my friend.

I love chocolate so I never thought I get sick from chocolate until last night...

Yeasted chocolate coffee cake

I saw this recipe on Martha Stewart TV yesterday.
the way the cake/bread looked SO good on the show I couldn't wait to make it
I downloaded the recipe last night and I was happy to find out that I had all the ingredients.










This is like a brioche dough but marbled with chocolate and has crumb topping.
Crumbs fell to the sides and made marble cookies, yum!




It has tons of butter so it's really rich and moist.



while it's been baking in the oven, your whole house smelled like heaven!

here's the link (recipe)
http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/yeasted-chocolate-coffee-cake

Chili and Cornbread

Pulled pork chili and flavorful cornbread.

I added lime zest, butter, honey, corn and chipotle Tabasco to add more flavor to the mix corn bread.

Tilapia with lemon butter sauce

Rustic Bread

I've been making this no knead bread for a long time but I haven't baked lately so I decided to make one today.

It can't not be easier and always comes out perfectly.



if you want the recipe visit here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13Ah9ES2yTU

Heirloom Tomatoes

I've been planting tomatoes and harvesting for the last 2 years.
I found heirloom variety at the Santa Monica farmers market and they were so great.
My favorite one was called "Garden Peach" which produce golden yellow, sweet and meaty tomatoes.



so I decided to get it from the same place again for this year's crop.
As I was talking to the vendor guy; because I wanted to buy another variety, he told me he has San Marzano kind.
I HAD TO get it.

so now I have Garden Peach, San Marzano and cherry tomato(but quite big) which kept reproducing by its self for 2 years. when the vine got really long and had a lot of tomatoes, the vines start to get brown and at the bottom of the plant there were new shoots growing. Normally tomato plants die in the winter but because it's sunny and it doesn't get that cold here, the plant never died.
The cherry tomatoes must have produced more than 200 tomatoes over 2 years.

I can't wait the summer to harvest!

Beer braised beef stew

Since my husband is a meat and potatoes kind of guy, I made beer braised beef stew for Valentine's day dinner.

I normally use red wine but I used only beer this time. It came out better than I thought.



Pressure cooker makes beef so tender so fast.

Brad picked up a bottle of wine and it was a perfect dinner....