Mint Tea

Mint tea is something I’ve grown to love whenever I go to a Moroccan restaurant, specifically Cafe Mogador. My friend showed me it’s really simple to make and you can make it hot or cold depending on season.
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13 Places to Eat in 2013

I know I should be worrying about my weight and waist size but I can’t give up food. I just have to work out twice as hard so that I can try out all these awesome food eateries! It’s New York, a place where I can have Thai food for breakfast and pancakes for dinner.

These are listed in no particular order but just look at all the yummy food!
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Snow Crab and Asparagus Risotto

I am one of those typical Asians who grew up eating rice all my life. I could not imagine not having rice for an entire week. When I went to Italy for over two weeks, all I had was pasta and meat and I was getting homesick and tired of the food. When I finally got to Venice, I tried the seafood risotto at the famous Antico Dolo. It was like home all over again! Granted, the rice grains were short and al dente and it had that cheesy butter taste, it was still great to have rice again.
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Steamed Egg

A lot of time, many of my recipes are halved or used very little egg. And I’m left with all this egg! I couldn’t possibly throw it away! So I normally save the egg to make steamed egg. I find it’s the poor people food because it’s mostly water.

My mom makes this all the time when she didn’t know what to make.

Ingredients:

  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 cup of water
  • several pinches of salt (some people put a crap load but I like only a hint of salt)

Additional ingredients:
half a stalk of scallion
baby carrots (I always have baby carrots with me)

Steamed Egg

You can steam it on the stove in bake safe bowl over simmering water for 15 minutes or cover and put in microwave for 1.5 minutes high.
Steamed Egg

Spicy Tuna Stuffed in Panko Crusted Squid

One of the things I love about tuna is that it can taste like meat if you cook it right. So when I originally tried this menu Spicy Tuna Stuffed Squid Tempura by Jennifer Yu of Use Real Butter (by the way, she has AWESOME photos on her website!), I thought, wow, it was amazing! It tasted just like dumpling fillings that my roommate always make using pork and chive. I recommend trying out the original recipe (fried and all!)

I’ve been on a healthy kick diet, refraining from fried and buttery food but I was just craving this dish!

So I thought, well, what if I used less flour with more panko and baked it! Tada!

So follow the instruction from Use Real Butter. I abstained by adding mayo because I absolutely hate it with a passion. And I didn’t realize I ran out of sriracha sauce, I used chili garlic sauce, and halved the recipe since I wasn’t paying attention when I bought the squid, thinking, wow, what a great price I got…it’s because they are tiny. But (!) since they are smaller, they were easier to cut and much softer to chew on.
Spicy Tuna Stuffed in Panko Crusted Squid

I rubbed the squid in egg, and 1/8 cup of flour, 1/4 cup of panko, and some cajun spice for a nice kick. I set it to bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes.
Spicy Tuna Stuffed in Panko Crusted Squid

Viola!
Spicy Tuna Stuffed in Panko Crusted Squid

If you’re wondering what to do with the egg, don’t throw it out! Use it again to make steamed eggs!
Steamed Egg

Tour of Sweet Eateries in the Village

It’s been awhile since I’ve made plans to go out and explore the city. Mostly, it had been dreary, cold, and a stressful start to the year. Mother nature worked out on my side as fog and rain dissipated to warmth and sun. I walked through Soho to find a beautiful public artwork on the ground. At first, my friend thought it was a circuit board but turns out, it was a subway map.
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A Slice of Pizza and Life

This weekend has been one of those weekend I wish I could take away all the bad things and keep only the good things. There are times where you wonder, what is a life? What happens after life? Will I see you again? Will I see her again? Will they remember me? Am I really just a grain in time? These are questions no one has really brought back from the grave (though some claim to but one is always/must be skeptical).

Despite the heartbreaking news of a dear friend, life does move on. In your mind and heart, you carry a memory of them. And you know they are surrounded by loved ones until the end, so there’s a sense of ease and acceptance.

Sadly, the news coincided with my pizza making class that I had booked a month ago (Groupon). I went with a heavy heart, unhappy, tired, and emotionally drained out. But the thing was, it turned out to be a good distraction. I enjoyed it more than I expected.

Slice is a local pizzeria that uses local and organic ingredients and boasts locally crafted ales and beers. Their Pizza 101 class is located in their Greenwich Village location. It’s a small little place that probably only seats 20 people and 4 bar seats. Cute and cozy, there was a constant stream of people coming and going despite it being the Superbowl night.

Class started promptly at 3. My friend and I ordered a ginger lemonade, which was a good start. Not fizzy at all and entirely homemade.

So what was the pizza we made? It was a honey whole wheat 10 inch personal.

Ingredients:

  • 2 cup whole wheat flour
  • 1 cup white bleached flour
  • Garlic salt
  • Kosher salt
  • Honey
  • Olive oil
  • Yeast
  • 1 cup warm water (more, if too dry)

The flour was already prepped so we just made an indent to pour the dry ingredients (salt). Toss it around and then add the fresh yeast. You really have to work the yeast to break it up so it doesn’t clump and cause weird rising in the dough.

Here, the teacher poured in 1 cup of warm water. We really worked the dough. At one point, I ended up standing up to knead. Why exercise when one can do some arm workouts just working pizza dough?

After kneading it until the wrinkles are gone, we rolled in into one big ball, divided it into two and cleaned the wrinkled with some water. Pour some olive oil to keep the dough soft. One was put away so we could take home. The other was put on top of a stove (do not put on hot service) so that the dough rises in half an hour. Otherwise, room temperature rise takes about 2 hours.

In the meantime, we were served with complimentary merlot wine Widow’s Walk and Asian Cabbage salad with peanut sauce. I’m allergic to most nuts so they kindly gave me hummus and pita. I was starving at this point, having been unable to eat from depression (I’m one of those people who don’t eat when I am sad), so I ordered their Flight of Pizza, which is 4 small slices of their different pizzas.


As I was finishing up, the dough came out. We were told, kitty paw the dough from center out. After which we put on a rack. We added the marinara sauce (recipe is a secret) and tossed some part skim mozzarella cheese (this is the first time I will say, more cheese would have been great) (also, I didn’t know that cheese before sauce is called a Chicago style). Then a tray of toppings were passed around: barbecue chicken, chicken sausage crumble, kalamata olives, red peppers, button mushrooms, and eggplants.



When that was put away, we were served with another glass of wine! Pumphouse red wine. Considering I’m a lightweight, at this point, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to drink anymore.

The pizza cooked for 8 minutes and voila! Honey whole wheat pizza with red peppers, olives, and eggplants!

PS, they served a third glass of wine for free.

PPS, My friend made a mini pizza. The teacher named it Darrell. He was quickly munched up.

Fire Roasted Vegetables

Living so close to Costco has been amazing and difficult. Amazing that food is so available but difficult with what I want but can’t/shouldn’t have. The task with living in New York is carting everything back and finding places to store them. How does one bring it back? I’ve yet to use what I call the “grandma cart” to haul everything back so items must be purchased sensibly.
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