ilubmoney

I was reading this article on MSNBC this morning, and I came across this paragraph:


What?  How do they know it's from the antioxidants and not because these women's partners are thoughtful enough to give them yummy chocolate?  I mean, Albert giving me brownies makes me happy and excited, and that gets my heart beating even before I touch the brownies.

For our lunch today, I was determined to make pho ga (Vietnamese chicken noodle soup). Since I had never made it before, I decided to go to my mom first to ask for advice and maybe a recipe.

When I got to LA last weekend and asked her about it, she raved about these seasoning packets that just needed water, chicken, and maybe some onions and ginger. "It tastes really good and is convenient!" she exclaimed. I wasn't impressed, and I missed it when she made everything from scratch instead of from seasoning packets. I get that time is money and that she's got a large family to feed, but I missed the love in her food.

So instead of using her pho seasoning packets, I used this recipe. It was pretty straightforward, just time-consuming... it took me about 2 hours altogether to make. But it was so worth it.  Towards the end, I kept tasting the broth and noticed that something was missing.  I worried that I had put too much ginger and/or fish sauce and that I completely missed an ingredient.  I added some cinnamon.  Nope, that wasn't it.  It needed  a sweeter flavor.  I added a small piece of rock sugar to see if that would help.  Nope, that wasn't it, either.

Albert came over to help me taste test.  It was then that I realized I forgot to add the whole cloves.  So we added that, let it simmer for 10-15 minutes... the taste was closer, but still wasn't quite right and lacked the sweetness that wasn't from sugar.

"Did you add garlic?"

LIGHTBULB.

Garlic wasn't even in the recipe, but it desperately needed to be.  I added whole cloves of garlic to the broth while Albert chopped up some garlic, sauteed them in a little sesame oil (OMG SO FRAGRANT), and added that to the broth.  It was JUST what the soup needed!

Anyway, the whole point of the story is this: don't use seasoning packets when you've got the time and resources to do better.  Seasoning packets don't give you control over how you want to flavor your dishes, and they don't give you insight on the complexity and art of cooking.  I came away with 3 days' worth of delicious pho and a greater appreciation for well-made pho.

When you cooked for loved ones, it's worth the extra time and effort anyway. :)

Reposted from FB.

Just for fun and just because I've been thinking about it, here are ten of my favorite places to dine in the Bay Area in no particular order. (If there's a place you think is missing from my list, chances are good that I haven't eaten there yet, so make a recommendation!) All of these places have great service, food, and ambiance unless otherwise noted.

This list was hard to narrow down, btw. I don't eat at most of these places regularly with the exception of #4 and maybe #9, mostly because the other places are too far or too pricey to eat at regularly.

1. Assab
The honey wine is good and goes with the food perfectly. My favorite thing to get is the vegetable sambusa, which is kind of like really tasty Hot Pocket infused with great spices. Haven't been back since I moved out of the city, but I'd love to go back.

2. Alexander's Steakhouse
More for sentimental reasons than anything else. Very upscale-casual. My favorite thing from Alexander's at the time I went was their cotton candy, surprisingly enough.

3. House of Prime Rib
I was never much of a steak person until Albert took me to House of Prime Rib for the first time. OH MY GOODNESS. And they give you so much good food! The English cut is good, but I like the thicker bite and loved the City cut the last time I went. (Also, while I have not had a meal at Harris's Steakhouse, it's down the street from HoPR, and they have a fantastic baked alaska.)

4. Grand Century Mall
Okay, a caveat: I haven't tried a whole lot of dishes at the food court here, but there's a place, Banh Khot, that makes the best chicken pho I've ever had. The service is minimal since it's a food court, and the old guy at Banh Khot has "pho nazi" tendencies. And ambiance... it's a food court in a Vietnamese mall. But the chicken pho is fantastic! And there's plenty of people-watching to be had.

5. Crawdaddy
Crawfish remind me of childhood summer trips to Louisiana. The spices and seasonings in these crawdads are delicious if you like spice. The place is decorated like a cool, New Orleans-style hub, and the TVs make it a good place for watching sports. The fries with cajun spices are addictingly good. Fun, greasy place. :)

6. Lovejoy's
This was my first experience at an English-style tea house, and I loved it. Lisa's Tea Treasures in Santana Row is not a bad South Bay substitute, but I love how Lovejoy's tea room is quirky and fun with mismatched tea sets. Plus they had this really nice pumpkin tea during the winter. Great place to bring girls (but not guys).

7. Jimisan
This one's on the list partly for sentimental reasons, but I love this place for the stuffed tomato and my first experience with uni (a very positive experience! I've had bad uni after that, so it made me love Jimisan a little more).

8. House of Siam
The thai food here is good, but the real reason why it's on the list is because of the ambiance, and I'm a sucker for live music/performance during meals.

9. California Sourdough
I don't really care for sandwiches in general, so this place is pretty exceptional for making it on my list. My favorite is the spicy turkey sandwich. Sourdough is super fresh! The dining area and service are pretty minimal, but that's how good their sandwiches are.

10. Flames and Stacks
This one is a tie for breakfast places. I'm a sucker for a good eggs benedict, but while I think they make it better at Flames, I love the potatoes at Stacks. Decisions, decisions!


What are your top 10 places to eat in your area?

My sister Teresa visited me over the weekend, and it was fun-filled enough to where I think I need to chronicle it (both as just a pleasant memory and also as a reference for ideas on where to take out-of-town guests while they're here).

Warning: image-heavy post ahead.

( Saturday and the Death Cab Concert... )

( Sunday and San Francisco... )

( Monday and the English tea shop... )

It was such a great weekend. I'm glad to have this time now to catch up on things I need to do this week, including making this update. :) More photos on Facebook if you happen to have me friended there.

In honor of dementia's birthday, I told her I would eat a cake in her honor. Any cake of her choosing. She chose pineapple upside-down cake.

I knew I probably wasn't going to be able to find this cake easily at a bakery, so I decided to make one.



What is that bright yellow splooge in the middle of the cake, you ask? I discovered later that I might've taken the cake out a little early from the oven. Yeah, it's undercooked in the photo. But I put it back in the oven and ate it later. Yum!



And yes, I made two. I cheated with classic yellow cake batter from the box, so I had enough to make two.

Happy birthday, Demmie!

I had dinner with a new friend last Friday at Shana Thai, a Thai restaurant neither of us had been to before. The popular pumpkin curry there was delicious and probably the best curry I've had in a long time. I took home the duck curry instead, which was also good but not nearly as good as the pumpkin.

I wondered what to do with the curry for awhile. I looked online for ideas on what to do with leftover curry, and one idea from Lunchinabox.net was curry gyoza. They recommended to just use the chunky bits of the curry to make the dumplings, but I decided I didn't want to waste the good liquid seasonings, so I added more duck meat and boiled sweet potatoes to make the curry chunkier. Aside from boiling time for the potatoes, the mixing, wrapping, and pan-frying probably took me about 15 minutes tops. So quick, easy, and delicious to make! :)

Next time, I'll opt for chicken instead of duck meat. When you've got that many seasonings going on in a dumpling, you just don't need the more expensive meat.

Edit:

My most recent drink of choice for several months now has been jasmine green tea. I've probably spent the past 6 months or so exploring various teas, but I always come back to jasmine green.

It's surprisingly not that simple to find those tea packets in a grocery store. American grocers usually carry green but not jasmine. Asian grocers carry both, but usually not combined. I think I discovered the TenRen brand a few months ago that carried jasmine green, and I've stocked up and have drunk it almost religiously since.

So what is it with the jasmine green?

I could chalk it up simply to taste, that I just like the taste of jasmine and green tea together. But maybe there's more to it. I drank a little jasmine tea when I was a toddler--thanks, Grandma--so when I smell it or taste it, it comforts me and reminds me of home. Green tea came from my adult years, probably when I kept hearing about the benefits of regular tea-drinking and the extra-special benefits you get from green tea.

So maybe that's it. Maybe I love jasmine green tea because it's good for me in so many ways. The green takes care of my body, and the jasmine takes care of my soul.

Will introduced me to this site, TED.com, that features "talks by the world's leading thinkers and doers." I loved two of the videos I saw and wanted to share them with you.

The one he told me about is the first video featured below in which Jennifer 8. Lee--yes, that's the number 8 as her middle name--talks about the development of Chinese American food and the cultural significance of Chinese food on an international scale.



This second one was the result of a very short link-surf from the first video. I'm fairly new to the general concept of foie gras, so listening to Dan Barber's story about ethical foie gras was both educational and inspiring.

Christmas has been very pleasant so far. Photos to come. Here's a preview photo:



More photos are already uploaded if you check out my Facebook account.

It's that time of year again. Not only do I have a potluck coming up, but next week is also my snack week* at one of my school sites, and I want to bring some good snacks for the staff there.

I'm only at this school site for 2 days a week, so for my snack days, I want to bring lots of goodies. This Sunday, I'm planning to make and bring banana bread and pumpkin bread. That's probably enough for one snack day; what of the second? Maybe I should bring in Tim Tams and hot cocoa and introduce the concept of Tim Tam slams. (Tim Tams are pretty rich, though, maybe too rich for a simple snack.) I'll probably just end up bringing plated fruit and random things from the supermarket on my second day.

For my potluck on Wednesday, I've been assigned with the task of bringing drinks. I'd like to bring in a great variety of drinks, but there are only 9 of us, so I'll probably stick to maybe 2 or 3 options tops. Any suggestions on good holiday drinks to bring? (Non-alcoholic, please; our meeting's only 2 hours, and most of us drive to another job afterward.)

I've been hit with a cold lately and have been trying to stick to soupy foods for the last few days. This includes pho, miso soup, and ramen. The sodium's probably bad for me. I've also been drinking lots of tea. The hot bowls of pho (and there HAVE been more than one this week... MMM) are just awesomely comforting, even when I'm not sick.



What are some your favorite foods/drinks to have when you're down with a cold?

My roommates--Jayna and CP--went out last night to Jimisan's for our going-away dinner. It's a nice little sushi place owned by Jimisan and his wife Kimi, who's also the hostess/server there. The roomies had gone about 2 weeks ago and were raving about it, and I can't think of a time when I'd been to a really good sushi restaurant, so I agreed excitedly to go to Jimisan's.

It was a great time. Jayna is a regular customer there, so when we came through the door, Kimi greeted her by name as though she were an old friend. We were seated at the bar and spent quite a bit of time talking to Jimi and Todd (the other sushi chef). I loosened up a few sake shots later. :P

Needless to say, I was not disappointed with the fish. Everything was so delicious, but the most memorable bite for me was the very first bite of the stuffed tomatoes (somehow cut sushi style so that the tomato looked like it was a piece of sushi fish wrapped around the rice and scallops). The only other thing we ordered was the tamago (egg) nigiri, then we asked Jimisan to make us whatever's good that night. He obliged happily. The fish were so fresh, higher-quality than what I'm used to in cheaper sushi restaurants, and the pieces were melt-in-your-mouth kind of good. I loved the ocean trout and the toro.

Towards the end of our dinner, Todd started talking about uni (sea urchin) and encouraged us to try it, that it was something one needed to try at least once in their lives. I took him up on this (maybe liquid courage from the sake). CP has a video clip of the moment--I'll post a link if/when she sends it to me. It turned out to be really good, and I could see why some customers would love the stuff so much. It wasn't until I got home later and looked it up that I realized that uni is sea urchin gonads. Still good, though! I'm sure some people may have had bad experiences with uni, but it was fresh at Jimisan's, and Todd warned us that we were coming towards the end of the peak season for fresh uni.

We got to talking about Jimisan's hat when we got to our red bean ice cream. He had this black hat that said "MANILOW" in big red letters and was hanging in the corner. Jayna told us this story about how a customer had given this hat to Jimisan and said that the hat was to be passed on to other people. "He was from Colorado," Jimisan mused. Someone suggested that CP take the hat since she was moving to Denver, so Jimisan gave her the Manilow hat and showed us a photo of the guy who gave him the hat so that if she ever bumped into him, she'd recognize him. Very cute little adventure for her. :)

Anyway, it was good times. I came home quite tipsy. Will post photos when I get them.

I think I may now be addicted to butter mochi.


(photo ganked from Google Images)

My roommate made some last night and let me try some. The only thing that stopped me from asking for more is that I finished off whatever was left in the pan. SO DELICIOUS.

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Edit 4/30/08: This is bad. It's so craveable that I'm still thinking about it today. I hope she makes some more this weekend! :)

Dinner tonight:



A slightly brighter photo here.

Ingredients:
- Steamed zucchini, asparagus, and carrots, very lightly salted
- Canned corn with a little Sriracha sauce on top, both for the spicy kick and to emulate "worms"
- Hard-boiled eggs with carrot and zucchini pieces to make the faces
- Ramen noodles (chicken-flavored)

And it was all unintentionally vegetarian! I think going for color really encourages me to put more veggies into my diet.

Are you sick of the food-related posts yet? :P

P.S. Hopefully, my next roommate will be a photographer, so I can post better photos of these meals!

As per last week's post, I'm starting up bento boxing (bento box making?). I bought this really cute box at Lucky's yesterday with 3 compartments. It was designed to hold sandwiches and cold snacks, but I've never been much of a sandwich person, so I decided to put something else in instead.

My bento box today:
Snack box - Apples & oranges
Sides box - Sauteed zucchini and mushrooms with sun-dried tomatoes
Main box - Rice-a-roni (Mexican)

It's not cute, but it's gonna be yummy and colorful. And I did attempt to make it cute; I cut the zucchini into hearts and stars, but sauteeing them made them less cute.

Photos to come later. Right now, my rice-a-roni is being cooked.

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Edit: Photos!

( Bento! )

Not that cute for my first attempt, but the colors were pretty and it was VERY tasty, so... *high fives self*!

I think my next attempt will be a "bird's nest" ramen box. Planned:
- Ramen noodles for the nest part
- Two hard boiled egg "chicks", pictured in the last bento post
- A side dish of corn
- A small snack/dessert of gummy worms? :P Or vienna sausages cut into the shape of worms (I love sausages with my ramen)
- If I don't do the gummy worms, then the snack/dessert will be banana chips and walnuts

I'll be doing some baking on Thursday afternoon anyway, so I'll probably attempt this for my Thursday night dinner break between classes.

I've been thinking about going into making bento boxes, 'specially on a regular basis. It'll be a great hobby, because:

1) I'll be more nutritionally aware of and involved in what I'm eating, which hopefully will mean a healthier diet!
2) There's something psychologically comforting about food that's visually good-looking.
3) I'll get satisfaction from knowing that I can prepare something beautiful and appetizing.
4) I can start a photo blog strictly on bento boxes (which I think would be a way fun blog to do!)
5) I can show off to people at work or school. That's always fun! :P

So I'm thinking about accruing bento supplies. I'm not sure what this will involve quite yet as there's more to the art than just the cute little bento boxes, but I'd imagine that there are utensil holders, sauce containers, molds, mini cookie cutters, etc. It's intricate, time-consuming work, so I'd probably just want to try it once a week once I get started.

BUT JUST LOOK AT HOW CUTE MY MEALS CAN BE OMG

(I probably won't make them as fancy as mmmbento does, but I'll be darned if I don't try a few times!)

Also, I'd imagine it could have very therapeutic applications for kids. Imagine being a kid and earning your own awesome bento box after working so hard on x issue! Yes, very awesome indeed.

In the meantime, I'm gonna try to make one of these guys:



Site note: my birthday's in about a month, so if you were wondering about birthday gifts, bento-related items are a plus this year. :)

All the potato suggestions sounded delicious, and I plan to try them all eventually. I ended up going with zyzyly's made-up suggestion with stuffed potatoes tonight based on the idea that it would look pretty with my steak. I forgot to add the milk and instead added ricotta cheese to the spinach stuffing. Added basil and parsley. Also, instead of 10 minutes in the oven, I put the stuffed potatoes in for 20-30 minutes because my roommate was telling me a good story. It turned out really crispy, aromatic, and tasty, more fun to eat than the steak.

I breaded the steak and pan seared it before braising it in the oven. Lots of mistakes here, but it was a good learning experience and still ended up tasting okay. First, I burnt one side of the first steak. Oops, left it too long. The second one turned out perfectly golden brown as a result. (See, I learn from my mistakes!) Second, I didn't have vegetable stock available, so I used chicken stock and added chopped veggies in the hopes that their flavors would combine. 'Course, this just made my pork steaks taste like chicken later, but no matter! They were still good. I'll use just water next time.

Here's the finished result:

( I love food photos! )

I'm making breaded pork steaks for dinner tonight, but I'm wondering what to make as the side(s). Anybody have suggestions? Some things I have:

- potatoes
- shredded mozzarella
- spinach
- chopped broccoli, cauliflower, snow peas, carrots (in one of those veggie bags... they were on sale for $1)
- canned corn
- ricotta cheese (that I used for lasagne a few nights ago, and that I should use up)
- rice

Hmm. I seem to be missing tomatoes and garlic. I'll pick some up later after work. Anything else I should pick up?

My breakfast was intended to be Happy Face eggs, but I splashed on the soy sauce before I thought to take the photo. Oops. Also, the right yolk "eye" broke while I fried the eggs, and I splashed on too much Sriracha sauce. So now I name these "Joker eggs" because they kind of look like the Joker.

The demise of the Joker eggs. They were delicious. ;)

I got interested in making homemade jam once Chrissy introduced the idea. I thought it would make great Christmas gifts and would be a little different from the baked goods idea.

So I got together the supplies I needed and did a test run today with a strawberry-peach combination. I used frozen strawberries and canned peaches just so that I wouldn't waste good, fresh fruit on a test run. Also, because I'm new to the canning process, I eyeballed the measurements a bit and kind of messed up on the sterilizing process... which means that for better or for worses, I gotta finish this whole test batch over a span of 3 weeks. I'm crossing my fingers for tastiness; I like how there are chunks of peaches, and I'm thinking it's gonna go great with pancakes.

Anyway, here are two photos.



And just to give you an idea of the size of the jars (4 oz.), my thumb is 2 inches in length:



If you're interested in the canning process and storing jam and other foods in sterile jars, here's a good video of how to do it. It's an episode of Good Eats in two parts: [1] [2]