Good food I've had lately

Looking through my iPhone, I realized how many pictures of food I have. Which should be unsurprising really, given the fact that I'm a foodie and any delicious meal gone undocumented is quite a regretful experience. SO I decided that I'd create a post/compilation of all the good food I've had lately! Prepare yourself for some tasty pictures...hereeeee we go!

Fat Face Popsicles: Mango Sticky Rice and Rich Espresso Fudge (Off the Grid)

3-Sum Eats: Rice Krispy Crusted Fried Chicken Sandwich!! (Off the Grid)

BFF Breakfast: Mochas with whipped cream and giant cinnamon rolls :)

beef brisket sandwich with a side of coleslaw 

hot bowl of curry Pho

  homemade pizzas

a true breakfast of champions (made by yours truly)

froyo...what could be better

Made by my mother: a fresh tomato couscous salad  

Lovejoy's Tearoom fresh fruit, raisin scones, tea cookies, and a variety of small tea sandwiches!

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...

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.

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).

empanada making 101

So what's pretty awesome is that we live in San Francisco. This means Heather and I have the opportunity to experience some pretty magical food. But ALSO, we have friends with lots of cultural backgrounds! So this weekend, we went to an 
empanada making party! Our friend Adriana is Colombian, so her mom knows WHATS UP when it comes to making empanadas. She doesn't use any specific recipe, and learned how to make these from watching her mom make them growing up. 


She taught us how to make them from scratch. We got to make our own filling, roll out the dough, flatten the dough, stuff the dough with the filling, and then fry them! 
The filling started off with sauteing onions and tomatoes with cumin, salt and pepper. Simple, yes? yes!
We had a few chicken breasts that we cut into small cube-like pieces, and threw those in after. No extra secret sauces, spices or marinades. "The KEY to these empanadas, is that it's all about the cumin!", says Adriana's mom. 
We were simultaneously boiling potatoes, and then mashed them and added the rest of our saute to them. Then, we got to add salt, pepper and cumin (yes, that is all) to the filling until it tasted good TO US. This is the freedom that comes with using no recipes! 

The empanada dough was made out of a sort of maiz (kind of like corn-starch), and the only thing that needed to be added was hot water. Instantly, it turned into this very sticky dough!


We made them into little balls, and then flattened them into the shape of disks. Then, we filled them with our perfectly seasoned filling and closed them up. They were pockets of joy!


The process was actually a lot harder than it sounds, though. It took a lot of concentration to close up the empanadas without having holes pop up everywhere, which is why we had some lukewarm water on hand to "mend" the empanadas! 

raw empanadas ready for frying!

aaaand in they go

...SUCESS!! They were.. yes, you guessed it: crunchy on the outside and soft, warm, creamy, steamy, flavorful---and any other adjective describing the insides of empanadas---on the inside! best part is that they were 100% homemade!! 


And as Adriana's mother told us: the NUMBER ONE RULE of cooking in the kitchen is that you must always have music playing!