Friday, February 26, 2010

Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter and Strawberry Frosting





















So, for the last few days I was stuck at home with good old food poisoning.
What better way to celebrate it by making cupcakes I can't eat? I've been wanting to try this recipe for a while, but finally got a mini muffin pan so i can make bite-sized cupcakes :)

Chocolate Cupcakes

http://cupcakeblog.com/
























INGREDIENTS
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, room temp

2 1/2 cups sugar 4 large eggs, room temp
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 cup milk

2 teaspoons vanilla

INSTRUCTIONS
Preheat oven to 350degrees.
Beat butter until softened.
Add sugar and beat until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.

Add eggs, one at a time, beating until well combined.
In a small sized bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder
In a separate bowl, stir the milk and vanilla
Add about a third of the dry ingredients to the butter/sugar and beat to combine. Add about a half of the milk/vanilla and beat to combine. Continue adding, alternating between dry and wet and finishing with the dry.
Fill the cupcakes up until half way. Turn oven down to 325 degrees and bake cupcakes for about 18 minutes.









































Strawberry Frosting


INGREDIENTS
cup freshly cut strawberries, stems removed

sugar to taste
1 pkg creamcheese (8oz) at room temp

1/2 stick unsalted butter at room temp
4 cups sifted confectioner's sugar
2 1/2 tbsp strawberry sauce


INSTRUCTIONS
strawberry sauce

Soak strawberries with about 1-2 tbs sugar for 15 minutes
Place strawberries in a small saucepan and heat under medium heat with lid on.
Cook strawberries for approximately 15 minutes till strawberries become soft and saucy. Adjust sweetness with sugar.
With a blender, puree until you get the desired smoothness or chunkiness Cool before using in recipe.

frosting
Beat butter and cheese at medium speed until creamy.

Add half of the sugar, beat until combined.

Add strawberry sauce until you achieve the right color and flavor, making sure not to add too much or the frosting will be too soft.
Gradually add remaining sugar until you get to the consistency and sweetness you like.

I realized later that I put too much strawberry sauce and my frosting turned into an icing :(

Peanut Butter Frosting

INGREDIENTS
1 stick butter - room temperature

1 cup creamy peanut butter
1 cup sifted confectioner's sugar

1/4 cup heavy cream


INSTRUCTIONS
Beat butter and peanut butter with an electric mixer.
Add sugar and beat until evenly incorporated.
Add heavy cream, beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes.

Enjoy :)


Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Simple Curry rice

Curry rice is for those days when you come home exhausted from a good day's work.
You're tired but you still need to make something for dinner and lunch the next day.

All you need is:




















and a few odds and ends:






















Throw it all in a pot with boiling water and voila!




















Tomorrow's lunch is ready to be served :)

Friday, February 19, 2010

Green Tea Frosting





















Since my matcha supply has almost come to an end, I decided that I would celebrate it by creating it into a beautiful green frosting.

I took a simple cream cheese frosting recipe and added the matcha in hopes that they would pair well together. Luckily, this experiment worked and voila, matcha frosting :)

INGREDIENTS

2 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar
3 tsp matcha
4 tbsp unsalted butter (1/2 a stick)
8oz cream cheese
1 tsp vanilla extract

INSTRUCTIONS
In a medium bowl, whisk the confectioner's sugar and matcha together
In a separate bowl, use an electric mixer to blend together butter, cream cheese, and vanilla.
Slowly incorporate the sugar/matcha mixture while using the mixer.
When fully incorporated, beat on medium for approx 5 minutes.


Monday, February 15, 2010

Spicy Crab Stuffed Mushrooms & Chicken Pot Pie

Hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day!

We ended up seeing Morten Lauridsen's
Lux Aeterna and Carl Off's Carmina Burana at Carnegie Hall's Love, Lust, and Light concert. We were so hungry that during intermission we snuck in a bag of m&ms. As the second half of the show started, we found ourselves trying to find clever ways to slip those m&ms in our mouths and chew them to the beat of the music. If we could do it again, I would recommend not getting the peanut ones, they have an extra crunch to them.

Now let's talk about dinner :) I've always wanted to try stuffed mushrooms, and was so excited when I found one where the filling had crabmeat in it. Thank you, good ol' Emeril Lagasse!






















INGREDIENTS

12 oz white mushrooms, cleaned with stems removed.

1 pound crabmeat, picked over for shells & cartilage

1 tsp chopped garlic
1/2 cup chopped pickled jalapeno's (I substituted these with Rick's Picks Mean Beans)

1/4 pound Pepper Jack cheese, grated

1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce

1 tsp. hot sauce (I used sriracha)

1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 cup mayo
2 oz. Parmigiano Reggiano cheese

INSTRUCTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F

Place mushroom caps on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, mix together crabmeat, garlic, jalapeno's, pepper jack, worchetershire sauce, hot sauce, salt, mayo, and parmigiano reggiano.
Place a heaping tbsp. of the crab mixture into each mushroom cap.

Bake for 30 minutes.



Another dish I've always wanted to make was Chicken Pot Pie. The recipes I've always found always seemed to be so time consuming. I thought I struck gold when I found Paula Deen's Easy Chicken Pot Pie recipe. I was a little skeptical at first, but after seeing 137 review and still having 5 stars, I thought I'd give in a try adding my own additions to the recipe. The recipe makes 2 servings.

























INGREDIENTS
1 chicken breast, cubed

1/4 cup canned carrots
1/4 canned peas
1 potato, cubed and boiled
3 mushrooms, cubed
1 tsp minced garlic
1 can cream of chicken with herbs (Campbells)
1 can chicken broth
1 cup bisquick
3/4 cup milk
2 tbsp melted butter

INSTRUCTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Sautee the chicken breast with garlic until fully cooked. Divide into the 2 ramekins.
Divide the carrots, peas, boiled potatoes, mushrooms into the 2 ramekins as well.
In a separate bowl, whisk together cream of chicken with chicken broth then pour into the 2 ramekins.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the bisquick and milk and carefully pour on top of the everything else, spreading out the mixture evenly on top.
Pour a tbsp of melted butter on top of each pot pie.
Bake for 35 min.





Friday, February 12, 2010

Seaweed Soup





















miyuk gook


I haven't been feeling well lately, and so I i turned to a Korean comfort food that always seemed to help me recover from the common cold.
Not only is it proven to strengthen your nails and hair, but also it cleanses your bloodstream.
In Korea, it is traditionally made for you on your birthday, only if you're lucky to have someone make it for you ;)

Seaweed soup may not sound the most appetizing, but it has a great, hearty flavor and is super easy to make with the right ingredients!
So easy, that I was able to teach my boyfriend how to make it hoping that he'd make it for me on my birthday and when I wasn't feeling well :)
The problem was not the taste of the soup he made, but was getting him to make it in the first place...har har

soooo with that in mind, enjoy the simple recipe from my mother's kitchen!



INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 tsp sesame oil
2 tbsp soy sauce

1 tsp minced garlic

salt


OPTIONAL INGREDIENTS
1 cup of dried seaweed cut to 2 inch strands
1/2 cup dried shitake mushrooms
1/2 cup frozen mussels

1/4 cup ground beef


INSTRUCTIONS
Start by soaking the dried seaweed and dried shitake mushrooms in water (using separate bowls) until they are soft and fully expanded.
Squeeze the water from the seaweed and mushrooms while preserving the excess water (saving it for the broth) and put into a medium sized pot.

Sautee together adding the ground beef, sesame oil, soysauce, and garlic for about 2 minutes.

Pour the saved excess water and add more to fill to the top of the pot. Add in frozen mussels.

Boil for about 30 minutes adding salt/soysauce to taste.



































Thursday, February 11, 2010

Green Tea Cookies
























I remember the first time I tried these scrumptious little morsels. It was my first year in college and during break I went to the little bakery that everyone was raving about. I fell in love with Panya and their green tea cookies.

Recipe from imbibemagazine.com

























INGREDIENTS

3/4 cup confectioner’s sugar

5 oz. unsalted butter, cut into cubes

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

3 large egg yolks

1 1/2 Tbsp. matcha (powdered green tea)
1 cup granulated sugar (for coating)

INSTRUCTIONS
Whisk sugar and matcha together in a bowl.
Add sugar mixture and butter to bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.
Mix until smooth and light in color. Add flour and mix until well combined.
Add egg yolks and mix just until eggs are fully incorporated and a mass forms.

Form dough into a disk and refrigerate until firm (about 30 minutes).


Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.

Roll dough out to 1/2-inch thickness.
Cut with a small leaf cookie cutter (or whatever you prefer).

Toss each cut cookie in a bowl of granulated sugar to coat.
Place cookies on a parchment-lined pan.
Bake 12–15 minutes, or until slightly golden around edges.

Makes about 25.






























Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Oven Roasted Frites
























Who says that french fries can't be good for you?
Now friends, here is a guilt-free recipe that you can use for those movie nights, entertaining, or dinner for two.



INGREDIENTS

2 tbsp olive oil
1 pound large baking potatoes

fleur de sel
pepper

INSTRUCTIONS
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F
Brush a heavy large baking pan with olive oil
Peel the potatoes and cut them to 1/3 inch thickness all around
Toss the cut potatoes in a bowl with olive oil and then spread them on the baking pan.
Bake until golden brown and crispy on the edges, about 35 minutes, stirring 3 times
Let cool, sprinkle in fleur de sel and pepper to taste, and serve.



For optional flavors, instead of fleur de sel, i like to use crushed garlic salt.
Another substitution is to use Herbes de Provence which is a mixture of herbs which typically contains savory, fennel, basil, thyme, and lavender.

Happy Roasting!





































Monday, February 8, 2010

Have your daily dose of clouds in your coffee


Hello and welcome to clouds in my coffee

here I hope you will find all those little delectable life's delicacies to flavor your lives.