Stressed

When I get stressed, I get hungry. And so I bake. I haven't baked in quite a while, i have had little homework (actually, i just haven't been doing it all...), I have been managing well at gymnastics and the fall play had not yet taken over my life.

Fast forward to right now. I have an AP environmental science textbook open in a vain attempt at note taking, my math homework and all of it's imaginary numbers make me want to be imaginary, the fall play is in two weeks so I will be having 14 hour school days, we are learning a new tense in spanish, I have two books (one of which I have no started) due for AP english, my drama teacher expects me to be choosing a monologue for an upcoming competition, I am signing up for next semester classes tomorrow and my intra-squad meet for gymnastics is coming up in less that six weeks.

I would say my stress level is pretty high. And so, instead of dealing with these issues and, oh, I don't know...doing my homework, running lines and working out, I decided to make cookies.

Milk chocolate walnut cookies made out of pancake mix. Pancake mix? Yes, pancake mix.

Loosely inspired by this http://newhopemills.com/pages.php?page_id=6, my recipe is as follows (makes about 2 1/2 dozen):

1. Preheat oven to 375 and spray baking sheets (mine weren't non-stick, lame)
2. Cream 1 1/3 cups packed brown sugar, 2/3 cup unsalted butter and 4 tsp vanilla (I ALWAYS make my cookies extra vanilla-y)
3. Add 2 eggs and beat
4. Add 3 cups of, wait for it... PANCAKE MIX!
5. Beat on medium until well incorporated, and this means well, NO LUMPS.
6. Taste your batter...just to make sure its not poisonous(:
7. Fold in desired amounts of goodies--I used 1/2 bag of milk chocolate chips and 1/2 cup walnut pieces but feel free to experiment.
8. Place rounded teaspoon-fulls on baking sheets
9. Bake for 12-15 minutes, shoot for slightly underdone and just let rest before you remove 'em from the pan.
10. Don't tell your little brother the cookies are done until you have eaten the biggest one, enjoy!

And here they are in all their glory, fresh out of the oven and just dying to relieve my stress.




ps, is that not the most excellent apron you have ever seen? Yeah, I thought so.


pps, these would be even more excellent if i had my bff forever to share them with...

bi rite re-runs

So it's been a while...a really, really long while.
And I'm just going to apologize for that right here and now. With all of our summer laziness, also came with the neglect of this beautiful food blog. What did our blog do to deserve such neglect?! Nothing, I tell you, but it's time for me to give it a little refreshment.
With all this neglect of updating our blog, there was another thing I was neglecting---visiting bi rite. yes, thats rite folks (ha), I probably hadn't been to bi rite since the last bi rite post I made on the blog!!


But I finally had a relapse; yesterday, after a long excruciating gymnastics workout, I made my way over there. Unsurprisingly, the line was incredibly long, but I had no hesitation to jump right in there.
After having my mind set on ordering the good ol' brownie sundae, my mind was forever changed when I got closer to the front. I saw they had a new sundae in store; "Breakfast at Tiffany's". Sounds rather elegant, yes? Not sure how an ice cream sundae can sound elegant and dainty, but bi rite was somehow able to do just that.
It was composed of ricanelas ice cream (one of my faves: cinnamon and snikerdoodle bits!!), chunks of home made coffee cake (sensing the elegance yet?), drizzled with caramel sauce and topped off with their house made whipped cream. YUM.

I'm pretty sure that if i hadn't just worked out for 4 hours, it would have been much more difficult to finish this thing. What confirmed this belief, was that the cashier asked if i wanted a second spoon. Like, he thought that I was planning on sharing a bi rite sundae with someone else. He didn't know that my true plan was to eat it on my own. I gave him a laugh and said no (awwwkward for him!!) And then went on my merry way to finish the sundae. In fact, I polished it off to the very melting parts at the bottom. 

It was very satisfying.

smitten

With our love of ice cream, when we heard about a pop up ice cream store in SF's own hayes valley, we just had to go. this wonderful store was called smitten. This creative little store made ice cream right in front of you! We had heard the stories--the instantaneous ice cream making, the liquid nitrogen, oh my!
And so we went one day on a whim. And as we drove up, the line down the square got our hopes up even more. We jumped out of the car, got in line, and waited. And waited. And waited. The liquid nitrogen freeze technique was great and was the whole point of this store BUT, took a really long time. This was unfortunate but we decided we would spend the time waiting wisely and choose our flavor. Unfortunatley, out of the three flavors offered that day, only two were left. 

strawberry goodness

We really wanted to try salted caramel but so did everyone before us and so by the time we got to the front, we had strawberry and vanilla left. We ordered one of each from a hipster holding an iPad who wrote the order on a colored post-it and gave us a poker chip. This clever method of order/pick up worked pretty well except that because we had ordered two flavors, we got them at two different times. 

kickin it old school--VANILLA

When we finally got them we had watched the twenty somethings who made the ice cream pour the giant bottles of unfrozen ice cream into tiny liquid nitrogen mixers to freeze countless times. Wait a minute... Liquid nitrogen, you say? WHAT? Yes. This liquid nitrogen is what makes Smitten really special. They freeze each ice cream order individually. They pour their magic ice cream mix into the mixer, get some gaseous liquid nitrogen and use their chemistry genius to freeze up some iced desserts.


We got the ice cream--eventually--and it was good. Small but delicious. And extra good because we saw it get frozen just for us.

banana blob!

So today I was just doing some casual baking, as per usual. 
We had some rotting bananas in the fruit bowl, so instantly I thought "BANANA BREAD."
As I was pouring my lovely batter into the loaf pan, I noticed how much batter I had. I had A LOT, and it almost went to the rim of the pan. BUT, mothers know all, so I asked mine if there was too much. 
"won't it overflow?" I said.
"no, no, no! it'll be fine. you know, i always used to worry about that stuff too. 'is it too big? too much, too little?' no, the batter will be just fine!" assured my mother.
And in went the batter...

 ...AND OUT CAME AN OVERFLOWING PAN OF BANANA BREAD! the biggest blob that dropped to the bottom of the oven was salvaged, and eventually eaten by me. It was deliciously underbaked and the bottom was burnt, but i just cut that part off. it was a blob of banana bread! tasty!

banana blob

my mom said it looked like dog poo. i blame her for this.




Thankfully though, the rest of the loaf turned out beautiful!

bi rite creamery

There's something so ridiculously addicting about bi rite creamery. Their sundaes are just...I CAN'T GET ENOUGH OF THEM.

browine sundae: vanilla ice cream, spiced pecans, housemade brownies, chocolate sauce and whipped cream!!!

I will literally have my brother drive me across town at 9:30pm, on a school night, just to go have one of their sundaes.

see this sundae right down here? it's the s'mores sundae (a special!)

are you ready for this? it's toasted MARSHMALLOW, atop chocolate ice cream, house made graham cracker pieces and caramel sauce. 

...and I am so very proud to say that last week I finally made it through their whole sundae menu--that's right folks, I've tried every sundae on the bi rite menu. And then some!!

banana split: caramelized bananas, toasted walnuts, malted vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce and whipped cream!

tumblr?

yes, tumblr. we have just created a tumblr:
http://ilovemesomefood.tumblr.com


In this wonderful new blog, we shall be posting photos from THIS blog, reblogging food from other tumblrs, and adding pictures we didn't have space for here.
but no worries, activity on this blog wont diminish, see you on tumblr :)

bakin' up a storm

just whipped up some homemade rice krispy treats. it was so much faster and simpler and easier than i expected it to be! I had never actually made them before and was SHOCKED, there were only three ingredients-- rice krispies, butter and marshmallows.
These are going to be such a hit with the fambam.
so tasty!

also, take a look at this banana bread...
it's extremely underbaked!! JUST THE WAY WE LIKE IT.
i swear, the center of this bread was actually just banana bread batter. not sure how that happened, but it doesn't really matter. we probably ate 3/4 of the loaf...

tropical smoothie!

the lovely season of SUMMER is finally approaching us! and in celebration, heather and i decided to take advantage of this rare, sunny weather (damn fog), and tan on my roof! after around an hour of soakin up the sun, we were red and sweaty and PARCHED.
we were also very inspired by my recent trip to jamaica. and conveniently, there were some very tropical fruits sitting in my fruit bowl.


oranges and pineapples and bananas and mangos, oh my! 
so we sliced 'em up and kinda winged it...THAT'S HOW WE DO!

after adding some ice, lime juice and milk to the mixture, our fruit was all ready to be blended!

end result: a quenched thirst and some proud smoothie holders!!

giving back

Gifts for the kind people of the world. Its certainly not christmas but I was in the mood to give back today and so i made an angelfoodcake for one of my friends fathers. This man is so great. He drives us everywhere (more than my own parents) and is always making us food and sining along to the radio and GETTING ME MY WRIST GUARDS. 
He drove for a total of an hour and a half to save me from getting stress fractures on my wrists and allowing me to compete beam last friday at gymnastics finals. The man is a saint.
In conclusion, I made him this cake. Angel food, his favorite kind. And my least favorite to make because egg whites take SO LONG to whip up into nice foamy peaks. But I did, and it turned out well...I hope.




Updates on the taste as well as some nice photos of it being served to come, after I give it to him that is.

jamaican me hungry!

SO, a few weeks ago I was fortunate enough to take a quick, AMAZING vacay to JAMAICA!!

Jamaica is known for many things, including music and beaches, but who could forget the food? so, being the foodie i am, I managed to photograph a pretty decent amount of meals. LETS BEGIN. 

jerk chicken, shrimp and pork

One of Jamaica's most famous dishes is "jerk chicken"--basically it's chicken that's cooked over an open grill (with pimento wood) and marinated with TONS of spices. but they also make jerk pork and jerk shrimp too. my first meal in jamaica was the jerk chicken sandwich...such a good start. i also had some jerk chicken skewers (top left)....those were TASTY.

Jamaica's also all about big, hearty meals and lots of root vegetables. this dish probably could've fed 5 people! 

Naturally, being in the caribbean, Jamaica has some pretty slammin bananas, coconuts, papayas, mangos and fruit in general. THIS dish to the left was probably one of my favorites. It was coconut chicken. The chicken was cooked and coated in coconut shreds and AHH it was so good!

(my first ever) RUM CAKE

<<AND THEN I HAD THIS COCONUT CREAM PIE FOR DESSERT. oh my god. we actually ended up going back to that restaurant another night, where i then proceeded to order another slice.

curry chicken served with "rice and peas", which is actually just rice and red beans.

jerk shrimp served in a papaya boat!
they hollowed out a papaya and served the shrimp in
it along with rice and peas, and root veggies.
so good.

And every morning I had this seasonal, local plate of fruit and a cup of blue mountain coffee. 

it's definitely a place we're gonna return to...for the food, of course ;)

chocolate cake

Lately, with all of the AP test studying, the final projects, the plays, the vacations and the gymnastics meets, we have had just about ZERO TIME to do anything food related. Which is a sham, because baking is such a stress reliever. Luckily, today my wonderful friend from middle school Everett came over and we baked a chocolate cake.
A delicious cake, made with cocoa powder and fresh brewed coffee and then a powdered sugar and maple syrup drizzle. HOW YUMMY!

We forgot to preheat the oven and so had to wait foreverrrr until we got the cake in there and by the time it came out, well, we were a little impatient and frosted/drizzled before--way before--the cake was cooled and so it was a little...runny. But I did get to show off my wonderful new cake stand (thank you, easter bunny).

boston cream cupcakes

I'm going to try and keep this post as brief as possible because the pictures pretty much speak for themselves (and I had over 100 of them to sort through!) But basically, the food channel inspired us to make these extremely rich, adorable little boston cream pie cupcakes. 

The process of making these came in three different parts: making vanilla cupcakes, chocolate ganache, and the PASTRY CREAM (<---the caps lock is to show the intensity of that task). 



The cupcakes and the chocolate were all relatively straightforward. (although we still can't figure out why the vanilla cupcakes always end up tasting slightly like cornbread). The pastry cream was where this all got very challenging. It was a panicked frenzy of nonstop whisking and stirring to ensure that the milk wouldn't curdle...and our eggs ended up cooking in the very last step of the process, which was a huge letdown. 

at least we used a real vanilla bean!!

scrambled eggs....?

And although the pastry cream scrambled eggs tasted mighty good, they were in no shape to be assembled into our boston cream cupcakes. SO we quickly googled "easy pastry cream recipe" and used that. We gave it a second shot and....BAM!

pastry cream!

So the assembling began, first on our mini tester cupcakes, and then we moved to the real deal cupcakes. They were sliced in half, the top was cut out, the bottom half smothered in pastry cream, top half put back on, and the hole was filled with more cream! Then the hole that was cut out was placed on the very top as a garnish. Eventually, this would all be topped off with our chocolate ganache. whew.

they all looked different...unique little cupcakes!

oh my god. look at that decadence. these puppies were so filling that we couldn't even finish them! and that's saying something!! 














Now...what to do with the leftover pastry cream? 

Po Cha

Po Cha is a Himalayan tea also known as buttered tea. When I was in elementary school, I read a book where everyone was constantly drinking this warming beverage and ever since then I have wanted to try it.
And so, instead of doing homework or going on a run today, I decided to craft some buttered tea. Oh boy was it worth it. Normally, Po Cha is made with rancid butter and yaks milk, making it a VERY acquired taste but I made mine with more familiar ingredients. This tea tasted like buttered toast and english breakfast tea rolled into one, it was light and buttery and sweet with a hint of salt, SO DELISH.


My tea was created as follows:
- 2 cups water
- 1 earl grey tea bag

not the most photogenic, but oh so yummy

- 1 cup milk
- 4 teaspoons sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 tablespoon butter


1. Boil that water with the tea bag fully immersed.
2. After the water has reached a steady boil, turn the heat down to medium and add milk and sugar.
3. Whisk as the mixture comes back up to a boil, making sure the sugar is fully dissolved.
4. Turn the temp. back down and as the tea simmers, slowly add butter and whisk to incorporate.
5. When everything is incorporated, pour tea into a cup and drink up!