My pros and cons of the Fall/Winter season

MY PROS:  

1.  I'm a sucker for pumpkin everything.  To me, pumpkin to the fall season is like Christmas carols are to the winter season.  Some people are serious pumpkin grinches, but I haven't gotten tired of pumpkin things yet, and I think it's fun to try making my own pumpkin things.  So far I've made pumpkin scones, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, pumpkin pancakes, and pumpkin oatmeal.  I'm hoping to try making my own pumpkin spice latte (I actually dislike the Starbucks version) and there may be pumpkin bread in my future.

Pumpkin scones and pumpkin chocolate chip cookies!

2.  Stunningly gorgeous fall foliage.  Upstate NY is the BEST during the autumn season!  We may not have skyscrapers everywhere, but we've got enough colorful trees to make you smile.  Skyscrapers don't make me smile.  The bright mixes and shades of orange, red, and yellow leaves definitely make me smile.

3.  Flannel sheets and down comforters.  I discovered flannel sheets in college, I believe.  I think I got myself a set of penguin twin-sized flannel sheets.  Definitely did not grow up with them.  They're so warm and fuzzy - perfect for cold evenings.

4.  Having a wonderful husband to snuggle with.  Yeah, I'm a closet snuggler.  I don't think people's first impressions of me would include the assumption that I'm a snuggler.  Pam didn't really like it whenever I'd try snuggling with her growing up (she's not much of a touchy person), so I'm glad I'm spending the rest of my life with someone who likes to snuggle with me.

5.  Festive holidays.  I love Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I love reasons to get together with family and eat good food, and I love celebrating the seasons with little things like putting up decorations, listening to Christmas music, and even changing my desktop backgrounds to match.  I like the traditions and trying to develop new traditions, and dreaming up new and creative ways to prepare and participate.  It's fun and often helps me be reflective for me, too.

6.  Apple picking & farms.  Not only am I a sucker for pumpkin-y things, but I'm a sucker for apple picking and other farm-type activities and goodies.  Corn mazes, cider doughnuts, hot (or cold!) apple cider, the whole shebang.  I'd even go for the cheesy hay ride.  Almost went this year on one.  Would've gone if I had the time.  

MY CONS:

1.  Dry skin.  Especially dry, cracked skin that never moisturizes no matter how much you put lotion on.  It is painful, my friends, painful.     

2.  Cold, cold apartment.  Nathan describes our apartment like a thermos - it keeps the heat hotter in the summer, and keeps the cold air colder inside than outside.

3.  My desire to participate in outdoor activities decreases.  It's already hard trying to get me to exercise...try convincing me to run the cold.  I really like participating in (or rather, the possibility of participating in) warm outdoor activities like picnicking, rock scrambling, walking, biking, etc.  Though, I really love ice skating.

4.  When it slushes instead of snows.  It's dirty and gross and wet and not very pretty.

5.  The dangers and frustrations of too much snow.  Black ice?  Been there.  Digging out and pushing a car through the snow?  Done that.  Scary and time-consuming.  Not fun.

6.  Harder to wear pretty clothes.  I love skirts and dresses and pretty blouses and wish I had more of all of them and could wear them all the time.  Bundling up in pretty clothes is just not as easy for me to do in this season.  Maybe I need to just be creative?

Same number of pros and cons this time around, but can you tell which ones hold more weight in my opinion?  :)

My first Easter as a married woman.

We celebrated Easter in Binghamton, work has been kicking our butts, and I've got that "Ho Hey" song stuck in my head.  Okay, that last one was more of a random, unimportant thought to share.  Still, there are a lot of thoughts to unpack, but since I'm a big fan of linear thinking, we'll go in the order I've said them.

Nathan and I did indeed celebrate our first Easter as a married couple in our alma mater town.  Most of our friends there assumed we were on our way down to NYC or were passing through Binghamton on our return home to Rochester.  But neither were true.  The original plan was always Rochester-to-Binghamton, Binghamton-back-to-Rochester.  

Ironically, Easter was never a big thing to celebrate in my community growing up.  I say, 'ironically,' because as Christians, it should be one of our biggest celebrations of the year.  Very arguably bigger than Christmas.  It's the day we recognize Jesus's power to conquer death, the penalty he took on himself though we deserved it.  Declaring, "Christ is risen!" and, "Alleluia!" doesn't even seem to capture the magnitude of awe for what Christ has done.

But I don't have many childhood memories of making Easter a big deal.  My family didn't get together to have a special meal, and my church would maybe sing some special songs and put white, smelly lilies at the foot of the sanctuary podium.  Besides those few things and my Sunday School teacher saying, "Happy Resurrection Sunday!" to everyone he passed by, Easter more often than not didn't feel very different from any other Sunday.  And it's only within the past several years where I actually began to care enough to notice and grew a desire to do something about it.  

Now, even though I come from an Asian American Christian background/community, I can't assume or blatantly generalize that we're not joyful or that the way we express it is simply wrong (I can rant about the ideas I have for ways the Asian American Christian community could celebrate Easter in a special way without losing or diminishing our Asian American culture, but that's a post I've already done somewhat and can continue at another time).  Instead, my desire comes from a place of wanting to partake in a corporate celebration that expresses deep, gracious joy in a way that's special from ordinary days but isn't so completely different that it distracts me from the true focus. 

Visiting Binghamton was a great opportunity to fulfill this desire.  Last year, Nathan attended the Anglican Church of the Good Shepherd's (a church we've been to several times because some of our friends go there) Easter Vigil and Sunday Easter Service and joined the MacQuarrie family (InterVarsity volunteers) Easter dinner as well.  Nathan's love and appreciation of worship through liturgy (as well as the pastor's teaching), and the notorious chaos of the MacQuarrie family get-togethers had won him over so much that he asked me if we could go back this year.  Although my introverted side of me cringed a little, the idea of visiting friends and celebrating Easter in a new way immediately outweighed any of my hesitations.    

There are so many thoughts I could share from this great weekend (though it had its hiccups as well), but since it's the end of Easter weekend I'll share one thing that struck me during the Easter service sermon:

I am like the women who went to Jesus' tomb with embalming spices.  Like them, I have been following Jesus for a long time.  Like them, I know His promises in my head.  And I've tried and tried and tried to jump-start this knowledge as felt reality.  But this year it's been hard to feel His presence.  And as this year has gone on, it has gotten harder to believe His promises.  As I said earlier, ministry work has been kicking my butt - and when your husband's ministry work is also kicking his butt, and you're adjusting to married life with someone who's almost your complete opposite while also trying to develop solid community from scratch in the post-grad world, it can take a toll on your already waning relationship with Jesus.  I began to mourn the loss of my relationship with Jesus the way the women were convinced Jesus was not coming back. 

But today, while there was no bursting whoop-de-doo moment or tear-jerking movement, Jesus has reminded me of His hope.  I was faced with the reality that Jesus' promises are not grounded in the strength of my emotive will.  Today, Jesus has filled my empty heart with true joy despite my circumstances.  And though I've heard the Easter story over and over again many times, today Jesus gave me a fresh glimpse of the fullness of his conquer over the grave.  Alleluia, alleluia!

With Barb MacQuarrie's, "Once you have a seat at our table, there'll always be a seat for you," comment, it looks like Nathan and I have a new Easter celebration tradition to partake in that I will certainly look forward to each year.

Sweet, sweet sabbaths.

I am so grateful to God for the gift of sabbath.  Especially in the midst of having this rain cloud hang over my head, taking sabbath is like running into a shelter for a moment of protection from the downpour.  It is by God's grace and mercy that I can rest despite the unrest I've often felt recently in my vocational world, my familial world, and my future.

It's also twice as wonderful to take sabbath with my new husband - three times as wonderful when you find a   beautiful way of taking sabbath together for two very different people.  Nathan came up with the brilliant idea of making a list of all the local coffee places and deciding to visit a different one during each sabbath.  It works really well for us.  Nathan gets to go explore a new area of town and gain a mini sense of adventure; I get the stability and consistency of visiting a coffee place (there's coffee and there's food).  Since Nathan is a high extrovert, he gets to be around the hustle and bustle of people coming in and out, having intriguing conversations or just being there; since I'm a pretty high introvert, although there are people everywhere, I thankfully don't have to talk or interact with them - I can just be in my own world of reading or writing or talking (when I feel like it) with my husband.  There's no rush to go somewhere or meet anyone, and we have the freedom to change plans on the spot.  And on top of it all, we get to learn a little bit more about our new neighborhood, enjoy some delightful treats, and spend quality time in each other's presence.  Even more so, since we tend to travel a lot, we can take our sabbath practices with us on the road...there's usually a coffee place of some kind in every town!

Have I mentioned how much I enjoy taking sabbath with my husband yet?

A pancake fanatic, a dutch baby, and homemade applesauce.

These food pics are actually quite old.  I made them a long time ago but haven't put them up because of a number of reasons:

1) Picnik is apparently joining Google+, so the normal features I use to make these picture collages aren't available - and it didn't occur to me to find another free photo editing website until now.

2) I've been busy/trying to scale down my food budget or at least be more conscious of it and so I've been baking less - and when I do I try to keep it super simple with things I have on hand in the kitchen that I don't have to go out and buy special ingredients.

But thanks to FotoFlexer, I'm back, and here are some finished products from the last few months.  Lately I've been trying to use my new low-fat/low-cholesterol cooking and low cholesterol cookbooks (because really, those are the only cookbooks I currently own - I used to use my mom & family's cookbooks and recipes), and decided to try out one of the baking recipes.  

That's when I came across this strange thing called a dutch baby.

I think it really was the intrigue of the name rather than the simplicity of the recipe that inspired me to try this out.

Modified dutch baby

It's actually super easy and is pretty much a giant pancake.  Maybe a pancake fruit tart wannabe.  It's nice because you can put whatever fruit or stuff you want on top - just like you would with crepes.  The recipe called for strawberries and kiwis but I didn't have either of those so I used what I had on hand - bananas and clementines.

Yum.  I'd make it again.  It calls for a bit of a confectioner's sugar, but there are other recipes that don't use that much sugar.  Plus, I'm sure it would taste just as great with syrup or honey.  But the citrus juice and sugar are what makes it a dutch baby pancake, though. 

So along the lines of pancakes, I've been making pancakes pretty frequently ever since I've moved to Binghamton, as you've seen some of my experiments in previous posts.  They have so many variations that they're just fun to make and experiment with.  For these I found a banana pancake recipe from my low-cholesterol cookbook and decided they were boring banana pancakes so I threw in some cinnamon, honey and shredded coconut with the banana slices.

Banana coconut cinnamon pancakes

Now, I'm not a big muffin fan who knows the muffin man, but I'm always looking for new things to eat for breakfast.  And since I came across a streusel muffin recipe (which I've never heard of before) that seemed simple from my low-fat/low-cholesterol cookbook, I decided to give it a whirl.  Plus, I think Kenzie was staying over at my house at the time and I wanted to have something nice for her to eat.

I always get confused about what the difference between streusel and strudel was, but I looked it up and it turns out that strudel is that flaky pastry while streusel is the crumbly cinnamon sugar topping you put on cakes and pies and such.  You typically see it on coffee cakes, you know what I'm talking about.  Now you know.

I guess these were pretty delicious - Kenzie and I ended up eating like 3 1/2 of them for breakfast one day.

Streusel muffins

So I'm trying to remember where I found the recipe for these gingerbread pancakes, but I think I used the one from my low-fat, low-cholesterol cookbook and excluded the syrup topping the recipe called for and substituted the molasses for honey (not the greatest substitute, but hey, it's all I can do).

Gingerbread pancakes

They actually turned out okay, but the fun part was adding my own little pizzazz to them.  I knew we had a lot of peppermint candy canes leftover from Christmas, so I crushed some up (quite a stress reliever, I must say) and sprinkled them on top to complement the gingerbread taste of the pancakes and give them a little extra crunch.  I would definitely do that again.

Sweet homemade applesauce

As I've been looking through a bunch of low-fat and low-cholesterol baking recipes (and even before I was searching), I've been noticing that some recipes use applesauce to substitute for sugar.  I've sometimes read reviews of recipes from allrecipes.com where people did that as well and said it turned out nicely.  But I've never actually tried it, so I decided to try and make my own.

Now, brace yourselves, because I'm about to tell you a secret:  the only kind of applesauce I've ever known in my entire life was Mott's.  And it's not that great.  I never knew there was such a thing as applesauce from real apples.  I know.  My naivete sometimes deprives me of good things.  But don't worry, ever since Nathan introduced the concept to me last year, I have crossed over to the land of "Experienced" who know that homemade applesauce is pretty awesome.

The process of making applesauce is SO simple (at least, from the recipe I followed) that I don't think I'll need to buy applesauce ever again.  But even though it was simple, it wasn't the easiest thing for me to actually do when it came to mashing the cooked apples.  I didn't have the proper tools so I ended up using a puny fork to mash the cooked apples which made for a lot of work.

The moral of the story:  use a potato masher or something of equal capability to mash cooked apples or else the time and effort to make applesauce may not be worth it.

The end.

Till next time :]

From cake rant to cake respect.

I must say, it is a rare occasion when I make a cake.  I enjoy baking in general, but I usually fall into the cookies-and-brownies category rather than the cake or cupcake one.  I think it's mainly because of the kind of persona I feel like they give off:  with most cakes and cupcakes, it's all about the decorations - frosting, candy, colors, you name it.  Not that I'm saying most cakes and cupcakes taste bad, but it feels like the pomp and circumstance is naturally more about the outside looks rather than the taste.  I enjoy the natural beauty of the way baked goods have built-in chewiness, crunchiness, or melt-in-your-mouth textures you experience when they come warm out of the oven.

Plus, with cupcakes, they're such fussy treats to eat (unless of course, you do it the Tuttle way).  And with cakes, I just personally have not found many cakes that I enjoy eating.  I do like cakes from Wegmans, but even with those maybe it's the naturally spongy and airy texture of cakes and their thick, heavy, frosting partners-in-crime that frustrate me.  And sometimes, cakes tend to be dry and the frosting is so overdone to try to make up for it that it makes you feel gross after you eat it...if you even get that far.  It's just likely that the dessert will look so delicious and pretty but when you bite into it, you're just disappointed every time.      

But I'm not a cake hater, I promise.  Here, I'll show you.

Chocolate ganache

Traditionally, in my family, someone (when we were younger, my mom; when we got older, Pam) would bake a chocolate frosted two-layered cake for us to celebrate my dad's birthday.  I think more often than not it's been the same recipe from a Hershey's cookbook that has a little coffee zing to it that's really good.  Nothing wrong with it.

But this year, probably because everyone in my family is working now and I happened to be in NYC for my dad's birthday, everyone had a part in putting together something for my dad's birthday and I was put in charge of the cake.    No problem, I thought to myself, I could spare a couple of hours.  And come on, it's my dad's birthday - how often have I had the chance to bake his wonderful cake?

So in choosing what kind of cake to make, I decided to deviate from tradition - but only a little bit.  I decided to attempt a two-layer chocolate cake, but since I knew my dad loved raspberry chocolate cakes, I'd do something along those lines.  I scoured our family recipes books and the world wide web for a simple chocolate raspberry cake recipe, but there wasn't any that really struck me as worthy to be baked.

Hooray for learning tricks from the internet!

So I decided to do what I've been more accustomed to doing ever since I moved into my apartment:  I improvised.  I don't improvise everything, but there will be a few things here and there that I'll do differently when I cook or bake, sometimes depending on how lazy I am, or what ingredients I'll have on hand.

This time, I decided to take a chocolate ganache cake recipe that I had tried last summer and was a huge hit, and adapted it.  I doubled the recipe and put the batter into two round cake pans instead of square pans, and bought a jar of raspberry preserves as a layer in the middle.  Then I made the chocolate ganache as the chocolate frosting.

Little did I know I was in for a quite a ride.  Part of the reason is just because that's how the cake-making process goes, but part of it is just because making this cake brought out a little of my perfectionist personality in me.

This is a cake you'd love to eat the scrapings of

For one, I didn't spray the cake pans with a cooking spray.  The pans seemed to be pretty non-stick, and I think (if my memory serves me right, although you and I know it often does not) the recipe said not to do so, so I figured I'd trust the recipe people.  But as a result, when I took the cakes out of the oven, I couldn't get them out of the pan.  And of course, with cakes, they need to come out cleanly, so I was obviously very worried when they didn't even budge.

No one was home (except my dad, go figure) and after coming up empty from scanning my memory files for any tips or tricks my mom might have taught me in the past, I turned to the one who always helps us during times likes these:  Google.  I googled something about cakes stuck in cake pans, but for the most part I came up with people saying things like, "line the cake pan with parchment paper," or, "make sure you butter the cake pan so that the cake comes out clean!" where I in turn said, "Hey, Google, I obviously wasn't smart enough to do this stuff in advance, so where are the answers for the people in a pickle that they can't go back and re-do?"

Frost yourselves! (Guess what movie I'm quoting from?)

Thankfully, Google came to the rescue.  Actually, it might have been Yahoo! Answers that saved the day - I don't really remember.  Some guy suggested holding the cake pans over and open flame of a stove for about 15-30 seconds and repeating that process until the cake comes out.  I decided to try it and at first it didn't seem to be working, but after I did it a number of times, it actually worked!  Well, for the most part.  I tried to show in the second set of pictures (above) that the first cake actually tore a little.  But that was because it was my attempt to get the cake out before trying this new method.  I was SO happy it worked though.

Then came the ganache and decorating stage.  Another big boo-boo I made was funky - when I melted the chocolate into the heavy cream for the ganache, I realized the mixture was super lumpy.  Then I realized I had used buttermilk instead of heavy cream.  Wa-wa.  I had to chop new chocolate and start the whole process again to get it right.

I love this chocolate cake recipe - the cake is so moist!  It's so moist and totally delicious on its own (without the ganache frosting) that I used the cake scrapings from the pan as crumb decorations for the top of the cake.  Waste not, want not, right?  I thought the crumbs would add a nice textured look to the smooth ganache frosting.

Chocolate ganache raspberry cake with cookies & cream ice cream
and a dollop of whipped cream

After adding the pecan halves and pretzel squares as decoration, I realized it the cake would've looked more "professional" and classy without them, whereas with them on there it looked more home-made-y...like a little kid added them.  But I liked the concept of the added crunch and sweet-and-salty flavor, so I said 'whatever' and moved on.

All in all, I had a ton of fun making this cake.  However, I was SO TIRED.  It took me a total of about six hours from start to finish to make this cake.  My feet were so weary it felt like I could hear them wheezing, "Please, put us our of our misery!"  I apologized for standing on them all afternoon and suddenly gained a ton of respect for those who make cakes a hundred times better than this and do it everyday...or even just for fun.  I knew it was hard work, but golly, that was a bit much and a bit too tedious for my kind of baking hobby.  Kudos to the professionals.

And so ends my rant and respect for cakes.  I wonder how I'd feel about pies - I've never made one before.    Or tarts.  Oh, and one of the things on my baking bucket list is to make a cheesecake.  Those seem rather difficult, so I'm scared to try.  And no, I do not have an actual baking bucket list.

Latest food stories.

I posted a picture of these pumpkin scones on Facebook the day I first made them.  I wanted something different for breakfast and decided to make these scones.  I also made another batch for the E-board Nomination Committee as a "dessert" for our brunch.  They tasted delicious with the locally made strawberry cranberry preserves I got from Apple Hills Farm.  My mouth's watering just thinking about these beauties.  

Pumpkin scones

There wasn't a really exciting story to go with this curry.  I just had a craving for curry when I decided to make this chicken curry for me and Sarah for dinner.  It was my first time making it and I kind of cooked off-the-cuff from the recipe I looked up, so all the vegetables weren't as soft as how my mom makes it.  Ah, I miss my mom's curry...

Chicken curry

When it comes to pancakes in the McNamara house, I don't really make plain pancakes.  I'll try to find whatever's in the kitchen to make them.  With these pancakes, it was an occasion where Sarah had been working hard through the night to finish writing a paper - she was awake when I went to sleep and still awake when I woke up - so that morning I wanted to make her breakfast so she wouldn't have to worry about being hungry.  And I just wanted pancakes.

These weren't from scratch (sorry, Nathan), but I had to improvise a little because after I pulled out the Bisquick and found some coconut and chocolate chips, I discovered that we ran out of eggs.  Wa wa.  Thankfully, Google came to the rescue and I was able to put together an egg substitute out of water, baking powder and oil.  I'd make them again!

Coconut chocolate chip pancakes

This tuna casserole recipe is one my mom really likes to whip up on days where she doesn't feel like doing any intense cooking and wants to just make something easy but not Chinese-y.  The recipe calls for frozen peas, but a) I'm not a big fan of peas, let alone frozen peas, and b) I didn't have any.  So I chopped up some broccoli and zucchini and threw those in instead.  Best substitute for frozen peas, hands down.

Tuna casserole

I actually made this whole casserole for myself.  People have told me that they often don't like to cook when they're just by themselves or when it's just them and one other person because it's just sad/pathetic or too much food, but I love it.  I love leftovers.  Sorry, for those of you who aren't fans of leftovers.  I think they're great for lunch or dinner because then you don't have to cook again.

I had turned off most of the lamps and lit our indoor Christmas lights and some candles when Sarah came home and asked if she could have some of the food I just made.

"What's in it?" she asked after she started eating it.
"It's super easy to make!  You just need a can of cream of mushroom soup...and I put broccoli and zucchini instead of the frozen peas it called for.  And I used whole wheat egg noodles..."
"What?" she said, her eyes widening at the food she had been putting in her mouth.  "I didn't even notice a difference!"
I laughed.  "You like it now, don't you?  I told you whole wheat pasta could be yummy!"

Another cool part about this dish is that it tastes delicious cold.

Just a couple of extra treats I made recently.

These are also some things I've made that I haven't posted yet.  

I believe these were take two of these kinds of pancakes.  They're actually whole wheat apple cinnamon fair-trade coffee-flavored chocolate chunk pancakes.  What a mouthful (haha)!  These were the pancakes I made from scratch for Michelle and Nathan when they came to Binghamton a few weeks ago.  

Apple cinnamon fair-trade coffee-flavored chocolate chunk pancakes

They were inspired from the pancakes I had made just a week before they came.  I was in the mood for pancakes one Saturday morning and decided to surprise Sarah and make some for breakfast when she woke up.  I didn't want just plain pancakes and wanted to experiment, so I threw in some apple chunks because I had so many when I had gone apple picking the weekend before. I figured cinnamon and nutmeg go really well with apples so I threw some of that in there, along with some coffee-flavored chocolate chunks  because chocolate chunks are just delicious and go great with apples and cinnamon in pancakes.

Banana bread with non-fat vanilla frozen yogurt

This banana bread I made pretty much right when I came back from Expedition because I realized we had three really ripe bananas that probably should've been eaten soon.  But I don't like eating really ripe bananas as they are (I like to eat them when they're perfectly yellow and have very little to no brown spots - I know, even though the brown spots tell you that the banana is ripe), so I figured I'd just throw together some banana bread because I needed exactly three really ripe bananas.  Yum!

I went out and bought non-fat vanilla frozen yogurt as well, because I was in the mood for ice cream but knew ice cream would be a less prudent choice for my high cholesterol and that the non-fat frozen yogurt would make that treat a little more guilt-free.  I was right!

A ratatouille double date.

I used to be that girl that thought double dates were gushy and cheesy.  It was probably because I had never been in a relationship before and was half envious that people could even have double dates (doubly rubbing in my face that I was not in one), with the other half of me over-imagining what double dates were like, giving them more weight than the reality needed to have.

When Nathan and I hang out with Will and Kat, it's nice because we were all friends before we started dating so getting together is more like having dinner with friends that just happen to be dating.  We're not dating couples that have to try to figure out how to be friends.  Nothing has to be formal or awkward.  It's pretty sweet.

Layers of vegetables for ratatouille!

This should technically be a really old post because this dinner happened a while ago.  I don't really remember what inspired this dinner - I think I might've just seen a recipe for it in passing for something else and remembered how I'd been wanting to test out a recipe ever since I watched the awesome kids' movie, Ratatouille.  I wasn't really into cooking back then, but I knew I wanted to try it out one day.

The finished product

Ratatouille is super easy to make - you chop up a bunch of vegetables and voila, ratatouille.  You can probably tell from my pictures that I didn't have enough cheese to lay across the top of the dish, but I think it still turned out okay.

Chocolate bowls epic fail

Nathan attempted to make chocolate bowls for dessert.  We got some balloons and dipped them in this chocolate ganache-like sauce that he made to put them in the freezer.  Except the chocolate didn't harden enough by the time we wanted dessert, and the chocolate just stuck to the balloons.  So we ended up throwing some vanilla ice cream and banana rum sauce onto the tray and scraping the chocolate right off of the balloons.

Yeah...I know.  I think I only had one and mostly scraped chocolate off of the tray.

Sweet potato fajita night in the McNamara house!

This dinner was also from a long time ago.  We had a bunch of sweet potatoes and I had been wanting to make these sweet potato fajita things for me and Sarah, and since we had recently gotten avocados, we whipped up some guacamole and put together a mini-fiesta for ourselves.

Oddly, I've been finding that I've beginning to experiment a little more when it comes to cooking.  If there's a specific dish I'm trying to make, I'll follow the recipe as closely as possible, but if I'm just trying to figure out something to eat with out having to look a recipe up, I'll just experiment with ingredients and spices and herbs.  It's odd because I wouldn't normally do that kind of thing.  I guess it just shows how far I've come in the world of possibilities.

P.S.  It would've been the perfect end to the night if we actually watched Ratatouille that night, but alas, we didn't have access to the movie.  I'm still in the mood to watch it if anyone has it/wants to watch it with me!

Eggplant Parmesan, the vegetarian solution.

I invited a few friends over for dinner one night during Rosh Hashanah.  And as I usually try to do, I asked if anyone had any allergies, cravings, or special requests as I started putting together a menu.

Kit said she was a vegetarian, so at first I tried thinking about what separate vegetable dishes I could make.  But then I wondered if there were some easy vegetarian dishes that everyone could enjoy together.  I don't know how I came up with this, but I decided to try my hand at eggplant parm from scratch.

Sweating out the eggplants' moisture

Eggplants are funky vegetables to work with.  I've never cooked eggplant before, so it felt funny skinning and slicing the spongy but firm things.  In the recipe it didn't say to do this, but in people's reviews they suggested sprinkling salt over the eggplant pieces and letting the eggplant pieces sweat out some of their moisture before cooking them.

Who knew eggplant parm was so time intensive?  I didn't!

Oh my goodness, I didn't realize how much time it took to dip and bread every single piece of eggplant.  Just for that, I don't think I'll be making eggplant parmesan again in the near future.

I think this was my favorite part - layering the sauce, eggplant and cheese!

It was a fun adventure, though, putting that dinner together.  I also made a simple spinach and garlic side dish, along with this recipe I found for roasted sweet potatoes and caramelized onions.  I love simple recipes that make delicious food!

The sweet potatoes and caramelized onions were a hit!

I really liked how the eggplant parmesan turned out.  On the up side, I had extra eggplant pieces so it was really easy to save them for making another batch of eggplant parm another day.  Unfortunately, the first day's process of making it took hours to put together that I don't think I can sacrifice unless it was for a really special occasion.

I'd definitely make the spinach and sweet potatoes again.  They were simple and quick to make.  I thought the sweet potatoes were pretty unique, too.

And it was a great night of food, friends, and good conversations around the table that I hope will happen again in the future.

Graham cracker frenzy.

Okay, do you see these cookies?  They were my first attempt at making a cookie called, "Everything but the kitchen sink."  They're called that because, well, you can put a whole lot of stuff in them and it doesn't really matter what it is.

The problem that occurred, though, is that I think I over-mixed the butter and sugar so that the cookies came out super flat.  And they were so flat that I had a terrible time trying to lift them off of the baking sheets - they just crumbled apart no matter how careful you tried to be.

They are the failed kitchen sink cookies.  They still tasted good, but they just...weren't cookies.  My family didn't like them.  Nathan begged to differ, though.  He loved them.   

Failure kitchen sink cookies - chocolate chips, walnuts, coconut, cinnamon

Anyway, I decided to try and redeem myself because I love the concept of these cookies.  I took another recipe (from joyofbaking - I'm telling you that website is absolutely wonderful) and tried it out, adding my own little random ingredient...graham crackers.  I added the graham crackers to the kitchen sink cookies because, well, I mind as well since they were being used already for the million other things I was baking.  And hooray, they turned out to be awesome!  Well, you were at least able to hold them in your hands without them falling apart.  I'd deem that a winner.

Winner kitchen sink cookies - chocolate chips, coconut, walnuts, toasted pecans & graham cracker chunks

So in reality, I was baking three things at once:  I was making a second batch of s'more granola bars (these were the batch I made for Libby), along with four and a half dozen kitchen sink cookies and the nanaimo bars, which are documented below.

Please don't ask me to pronounce these nanaimo bars.  I have enough trouble saying it myself.  They're Canadian, I believe.  I just saw them on the joyofbaking website while I was browsing around and their layers intrigued me, so I've been wanting to make them ever since I saw them.

They were added to my bucket list of things to bake (this doesn't really exist - it's just a mental list of things I'd want to try baking one day in my life), thinking I would make them some time in the future, especially since the custard layer required an odd ingredient like pudding or custard powder, of which I've never really worked with before.  But lo and behold, one day there was a brand new can of custard powder sitting on our kitchen table.

Nanaimo bars

My mom so happened to buy it (actually, I don't know what she really bought it for; I never asked) on some random day.  But I didn't put two and two together until a few days later when I was brainstorming what to bake next and saw those nanaimo bars.  As I glanced through the ingredients, I spotted the custard powder and realized I had recently seen a can of it in our kitchen.  I called my mom up to ask if I could use it, and she said, "Sure!"

I was able to make all three baked goods at the same time because after I'd make one layer of the nanaimo bars, I'd have to stick them in the fridge to chill and then scoop kitchen sink cookies onto baking sheets, and while I'd stick those in the oven, I'd prep all the ingredients that needed to go into the s'more granola bars and then pull out the fresh-baked cookies, make the next layer of the nanaimo bars while the cookies cooled, stick that back in the refrigerator, and then work on the next batch of cookies or work on the s'more granola bars.  

The kitchen was hopping, I must say.  It was quite a rhythm I had gotten into.

Well, the only thing that bothered me about making these bars was that when I poured the melted chocolate onto the custard layer, I think it melted the custard a little so that the bar ended up being not very sturdy.  

And, it's interesting because...I don't think I'd make them again.  I mean, they're easy to make and they taste okay-ish, but they're super sweet (which, I know, is usually awesome because I love sweets), and I feel like they wouldn't be a winner with the majority.  

Hahaha I was just thinking of an analogy and I'd hate to compare it to this, but they're kind of...like people.  They remind me of snobby, materialistic rich girls that wear too much make-up and heels the size of two pencils stacked on top of each other, that expect to be treated like spoiled princesses.  It's as if the nanaimo bars act like they're so special because they've got special ingredients and have specific instructions that no other baked good requires.  They're really high maintenance (you can't keep them out for too long because they'll get melty so you have to keep them in the fridge), they expect the world to drop at their feet when really, who's ever heard of a nanaimo bar?  And they're sweet, but they're too sweet, so they're sappy and not enjoyable to be around -- I mean...eat.

Wow, I'm giving my baked goods their own personalities.  I spend way too much alone time with my oven.

Snickerdoodles and S'more granola bars.

Snickerdoodles

These cookies can be such a great conversation starter:  why are they called snickerdoodles?  Where did that name come from?  Why are they so darn delicious?

I'm not sure if anyone actually knows the answers to those questions.  It's part of its mystique.  But they're pretty significant to me because when I made my first batch I believe they were the first kinds of sugar cookies I'd ever successfully created.  I usually stayed away from sugar cookies because I wasn't usually a fan of the crispiness.  I'm a soft-cookie fan myself.  And I just really liked chocolate and chunks in my cookies.

But I fell in love when I first made these because they were so simple to make and essentially had no mess.  And they if I baked them just right, they'd have a slightly crispy bite to the exterior of the cookie while having a super soft and chewy interior.  And everyone just loved the hint of cinnamon sugar with every bite.

This particular batch was a different recipe than the one I normally use - it uses baking powder instead of cream of tartar and baking soda, and I didn't necessarily have to refrigerate the dough for two hours if the dough was firm enough (which this time it was not because I let the butter sit out so it got a little softer than usual).  But I think they turned out just as good as the first time I made them.

I made these cookies to bring to a dinner that Nathan and I went to at the Gabourys' apartment.  The cookies didn't have the crisp bite that I wanted, but they were a hit nonetheless!  They're so much fun to make.

Graham cracker crumbs and homemade granola

Ah, s'more granola bars!  These were an accidental discovery while I was looking for the snickerdoodles recipe on the joyofbaking website.  They have video demonstrations on the side column and I saw this one and was intrigued.

Layering the ingredients

So the recipe calls for mini marshmallows, and the lady in the video demonstration said that you could use pieces of homemade marshmallows (who the heck makes homemade marshmallows?!).  I had mini marshmallows, but they were fruity flavored ones (they're really not as bad as they sound in my opinion, but I know many who would disagree) and there weren't enough, so I decided to open a new bag of big marshmallows and chop them into pieces.

Bad idea.

They're really annoying because when you chop them up they get all sticky - they stick to your fingers and don't come off, and they clump together instead of distributing evenly.  Really, really annoying.  Don't try this at home, kids.  You're only setting yourself up for trouble.  Stick to the mini marshmallows.

Delicious s'more granola bars

The recipe said the granola bars would come out crispy but if you keep them in an airtight container they'll get chewy after a few days.  But actually, it was really difficult to cut them after they cooled because they were still so soft (even after I put them back in the oven!), and I really wanted to cut them in a shape just like the Quakers chewy granola bars, but it just wasn't working out.  So I had to cut them into squares.  They bars do get chewy, too!

Oh my goodness, they things were very tasty and super easy to make.  Definitely a recipe to keep and repeat to share with others.  I think it's the maple syrup and cinnamon mixed into the oats that really make the granola-y part taste so good.  And they're super fun to eat!

In addition to all of that, the recipe uses less than a stick of butter, no eggs, and doesn't really require an electric mixer because there's not much to mix.  It's as easy as pie.  Except it's not pie.  And making pies isn't easy.  Haha :]

They were so easy and tasty to make that I made a fresh batch today and gave some to Libby because she wasn't having a great morning so I thought these would cheer her up after a long day.  Just an excuse to bake some more!

Last of my summer food endeavors.

As summer has drawn to a close (not officially, but you know), my journey as someone practicing her survival skills of learning how to "fish" has not.

Grilling chicken on my mom's George Foreman grill

George Foreman grills always remind me of Ali, my apartment housemate from when I stayed in Binghamton for the summer of 2009.  She loves her George Foreman grill.  We'd make dinner together using that thing quite often.

My mom asked me to make this chicken - it was super easy.  Just mix in some ingredients for the sauce for the chicken to marinade in for a few hours, and then pop 'em on the grill for about 3 minutes each side.

I made some string beans and rice to go with it, and since I'm not a huge fan of eating or making a salad (for some reason I really dread the idea of putting together a salad, even though it's super easy and you can get really creative with them), my mom had some extra tomatoes and cucumber slices leftover that we used as an almost-caprese (there's supposed to be slices of mozzarella cheese instead of cucumbers) instead of a regular lettuce salad.

Love it - super simple, good flavors, super quick.  Too bad I don't actually own a George Foreman grill to make food with.
   

Chocolate caramel cookies for my favorite driving teacher

These cookies were definitely an endeavor - I had never made any cookies with a filling before, nor have I ever baked with caramel.  But I've been meaning to bake something for my awesome friend Michelle, who, besides being super wonderful and super talented in general, also allowed me to have her as the first person to ever teach me to drive.

It's a cool recipe - you mix walnuts into the batter and refrigerate it before covering a caramel candy into a ball of dough.  I actually made a mistake and found that I was supposed to buy chocolate covered caramel candies instead of plain old caramel candies, so I was worried it was going to mess things up.  Michelle loves caramel!  But alas, it was too late and so I figured I'd try it and see if they'd make any big difference.

The first batch of cookies ended up giving a sticky birth to the caramels out of the bottom of the cookies, so I cut the caramel pieces in half and tried to do a better job of covering the caramels and that seemed to work a little better for the last few batches.  I think they turned out pretty well!

Unfortunately I made these cookies the weekend big, fat, Hurricane Irene came through town, scaring the heck out of NYC and NJ.  I took a risk of baking during the brink of the storm, using the oven with the chance that the power could go out, but they survived, so I feel like I should actually call these babies hurricane cookies.

And since I was moving just after the storm hit, I didn't get to send these out to her until a few days after I'd made them.  Sorry they weren't as fresh as they could've been, Michelle!  

Irish soda bread for my 'last meal' at home

I love my mom's corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, carrots, and soda bread dinners that we usually have every year on St. Patrick's Day.  She decided to make it this past weekend, though, thinking that since I wouldn't be around, we'd share our St. Patrick's meal together before I left.  She asked me, though, to make the soda bread.  And I told her it was my honor and pleasure :]

I actually made soda bread for the first time up at Binghamton last semester during my senior year.  It was made with whole wheat flour, though...so cool.  I didn't use whole wheat flour for this loaf, though.  So I think it's called soda bread because when you make the dough, you add baking soda to the flour mixture so that it reacts with the ingredients and bubbles before adding it to the rest of the ingredients.  So cool.

Also, while this was baking I was watching Gilmore Girls with Pam and about 30 minutes into the episode I jump out of her bed saying, "Oh no, oh no, oh no!  I forgot to scour the bread!" panicking to my mom, hoping the soda bread would turn out all right.  In a teasing tone my mom said, "Oh no, you forgot to let the Devil out!"

As you can see from the picture, the soda bread turned out all right.  My mom thinks I probably should have baked it a few minutes longer so it's a little firmer, but other than that, it was pretty delightful.  I would have included a picture of my full St. Patrick's Day last supper, but I didn't arrange the plate in a way that looked appealing at all, so I decided to leave it out.  Maybe next time I'll share a picture of my own St. Patrick's Day meal!

In case you couldn't tell, the experimenting won't stop here.  It's been a good summer and I'm looking forward to cooking more!

More summer food endeavors.

There are some food pics I haven't posted from earlier this summer, and since I recently baked a successful chocolate cake, thought I'd update with these:

Earlier this summer I made these pumpkin cookies and brought some when I went on a picnic adventure with Will, Kat and Nathan.  I also gave some to Thomas for his birthday that we went to celebrate later that day.  People always say baking pumpkin-flavored things is good for the autumn season, but who says you can't have any during the summer?  It's like eating ice cream in the winter time :]

Pumpkin iced cookies

Earlier in July I went to visit Grace Faith Church in Chinatown because I was sharing about my ministry with InterVarsity and inviting people from that church to partner with me.  I hosted a little info table afterwards and offered these madeleine cookies that I made especially for them.  These brought back memories for a lot of them as they remembered my mom used to love baking these beauties all the time.  I love baking these - they're simple but tasty and great to give out - they're my default go-to cookies when I know someone may be allergic to something else I'd normally bake.

Madeleine cookies

I cooked spaghetti one night for dinner a couple of weeks ago.  I had a recipe for a simple marinara sauce my mom got from my pastor (who's Italian and makes his own "gravy" all the time) and decided to throw in some veggies because they're delicious and nutritious.  It was a little frustrating that day, as it was one of those super humid/hot summer days and my mom had told me that adding the veggies would make the sauce longer to cook.  I tend to get crabby/flustered/impatient on particularly hot days :\  The spaghetti turned out okay, though!  One of my favorites :]

Mmm spaghetti!

Since we have had a number of hot & humid days, some black outs, and with me in and out of the house, I haven't really been able to bake or cook much until recently.  During most of that time, most of my family and close friends have been away, and since some of them have returned, we got together for our usual dinner & sharing pictures night.  Usually it's for my dad and whoever else from my family returns from the AZ short-term missions trip, but this summer the Yees also returned from their trip to Spain, with Kenzie returning from studying abroad there.  

Making chocolate ganache

Since the weather has been better and we were having dinner together, it was the perfect excuse to get baking.  I asked for special requests, and with Auntie Di saying anything chocolate and Kenzie suggesting a chocolate cake with chocolate ganache, that's exactly what I made.  I pulled a recipe that I had seen on the Joy of Baking website, which I love using the recipes from, and put myself to work.  I had to make a trip to Waldbaum's for heavy cream and when I got home and found our new-ish bag of flour infested with little bugs, my dad also went out to get a new bag of flour.

Chocolate cake with chocolate ganache really hit the spot

I actually thought I had maybe made the ganache wrong, but I kept stirring and stirring and soon it came out to the consistency it needed to be.  And do you like the little topper I made to celebrate everyone's homecoming?

I told him he wouldn't be sorry, and he wasn't!  The cake was a hit, so I definitely think the recipe is a keeper :]

Rollin' out the sushi Chan-style.

Jehoshaphat (until writing this post I realize I didn't actually know how to spell Jehoshaphat properly off the top of my head) was an interesting king.  My family and I are reading through the Bible (in three years, not one...yeah, I know, it's a long time.  Us Chans gotta set our own pace, though - and we've successfully been making it through our second year!), and we're currently reading through 2 Kings, but I noticed in today's reading that the author mentions that Jehoshaphat asks for a prophet "through whom we may inquire of the LORD" before making a huge decision of going into battle.  I remembered he said that previously in 1 Kings, and when I looked back for it, I found that he actually does that two other times.

Dang.  He really wants to make sure he is doing what is right in the eyes of the Lord.

It's something simple I picked up on, but how many times do we often make decisions without "inquiring of the Lord"?  No wonder why Jehoshaphat's considered a good king of Judah.  And good kings are a rare find in the Old Testament.

On a different note, I finally finished reading Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes yesterday.  It's a good book.  Really depressing, but written really well.  It got slow for me right smack in the middle, but I pushed my way through it.  I got used to McCourt's style of writing after a while.  I'm glad I got to finish it.  I was supposed to finish it for my Creative Nonfiction class from Fall semester last year, but didn't get a chance to (shh...don't tell!).  Hm...now I want to look back at it to analyze the techniques and style a little more.  I'm not one of those English majors that can poke and prod too much at the literary aspects of a book while reading.  I like to just read through and perform an autopsy on it later.

Also, I made sushi last night.  Now, it's not your normal sushi with raw fish, or like California rolls or kim bap.  This is the sushi I grew up with in my house - Fay Chan style.  Essentially, you can put whatever you want in a  sushi roll, and this is how my mom taught me.  

Apparently I read my mom's recipe wrong.  I thought it said that I needed to make six cups of cooked sushi rice and that the vinegar dressing was only for two cups of uncooked sushi rice, so I tripled the recipe.  Which was the correct ratio, but when my mom came home, she looked at my bowl of rice and said, "That's just two cups of rice?"  Oops.  Let's just say...I had to make a lot of sushi.

From dull sushi rice to shiny sushi rice!

I do not enjoy using my mom's mandoline slicer thing.  I cannot julienne carrots to save my life.  I cut up strips of scrambled eggs, cucumbers, and julienned carrots for the sushi filling.  These are what my mom has always used whenever she's made sushi as I was growing up.  I was going to slice up some zucchini just for the heck of it (my touch of experimentation/novelty), but got so fed up with julienning the carrots that I forgot about the zucchini.  Oh well!

The carrots may look okay in the picture,
but they really are terrible when you look closer

I always forget if the shiny side of the nori (Japanese seaweed) should be face up or down.  I had to look it up on my computer (shh!) and found out that it's the shiny side up, and the lines should be horizontal.  

Getting ready to roll

Don't forget to have a cup of water on hand when you're preparing to roll sushi.  It gets really annoying when you have all this rice sticking to your fingers.  

When put rice on the nori, I use the rice paddle and try to put a little at a time and spread it out as evenly as possible across the whole nori.  I also try to make sure there is rice on the left, right, and bottom edges because I hate when the end pieces have so little rice in them.  After I lay down the rice, I lay out the strips of egg, cucumber and julienned (I probably made that word up) carrots at the bottom.  The bottom edge of your nori should be at the bottom edge of the bamboo sheet thing (I didn't exactly do that in this picture).  The bamboo sheet thing helps roll the sushi better and evenly.  I cover it in plastic wrap so the bamboo stays clean.

And...roll!

The first part of the roll is probably the most important.  You don't want to make it too tight, but you have to press it enough so that the rice stays firm and doesn't fall apart when you cut the rolls.  My mom taught me to leave the top edge empty of rice, so that it's a little easier to seal the roll with a little water (I needed both hands for that so I couldn't take a picture of me actually sealing the roll).  She says if you put rice all the way to the top edge, it's harder for the seaweed to stick and gets all messy and falls apart when you cut it.  Just use two fingers to dip into your cup of water and run your fingers along the fat part of the roll on the nori.  And then seal it like glue!

I'm not the greatest at cutting the rolls

When my mom taught me how to make sushi when I was younger, she also told me that when I was done sealing the roll, to set it aside with the sealed edge side down, so that the weight of the roll could help keep the roll sealed.  I'd start making the second roll before cutting the first one.

To cut the sushi, I found a tall glass and filled it with water.  I thought I was supposed to use a cleaver, but the weight of the cleaver was too heavy and smushed the roll too easily, so I just switched to a regular knife.  Make sure it's sharp, though.  I had to get the hang of cutting the sushi, though, because it's tricky to figure out how gentle or firm to hold the roll (too light and it won't cut, too much and you'll squish), and then how much to saw or slice right through.  I think I figured out to saw slightly at the top and then try to just cut smoothly halfway through so that the filling doesn't cut unevenly or mess up the rest of the roll.  I also didn't cut from one end of the roll to the other.  I kept cutting halves so that the weight of the roll is always even on both sides of the knife when you cut.

Don't forget to dip your knife in the water after every cut so that the rice doesn't stick to it!  It makes it harder to cut if your knife is all sticky, and you can really mess up cutting the roll.

Yummm!

It was kind of gross cleaning the bento boxes my mom had.  She keeps them on a shelf in our living room above the piano, so a layer of dust had collected on the cover that I had to clean before putting food inside.  And I definitely made too much sushi.  There are three bento box layers, and two of them I had to fill with two layers!

My mom had made chicken teriyaki the night before on the George Foreman grill because we were supposed to have sushi on Saturday night but no one was going to be home.  So we broke out the chicken teriyaki, Sam made some bok choy because I was taking forever making the sushi, and dished out the pickled ginger and wasabi.

And if you ever wonder why sushi is so expensive, it's not just about the ingredients - I spent all afternoon in the dense humidity making those things.  Hours.  They are definitely a lot of work for like, one bite of food...and they're gone so quickly!  Well, except this time because I made so many...

I told Charles I made sushi and he's like, "Did you actually make them with raw fish, or are they California rolls?" and when I told him they were just veggie ones, he said, "Gross!!"

Charles, vegetables are good for you.  And I know you hate cucumbers (though I can't understand why, they're so refreshing, especially on summer days like these), but you're not getting any sushi out there in Philly anyway, so chill out buddy.  More sushi for the rest of us!