Gingerbread Men Invade – Food Porn Quicky

Gingerbread men overtook my counter yesterday. Okay, Already Been Chewed gingerbread men…. Thanks Martha Stewart – recipe is taken from her Martha Stewart Baking Handbook. Royal Icing also a la Martha.

Fall Hiking, Part II – Benign Canyon

Fall hiking is best suited for quick canyon jaunts – especially in our my case (I like to snap lots of photos). So, after getting back much earlier than anticipated from Angel Slot – we chowed down with nothing but nature and friends at our side.

Oh, we also drank lots… you may think that bag is filled with chips…. but you’d be mistaken!

It was filled with chips! And now… empty beer cans.

Well, anyway… with early snacking, we did not finish the cobbler we planned on for dessert (s’mores were more desirable in their chocolate-y goodness and smaller portions).

No fear! That’s why there’s always tomorrow… BREAKFAST!

Weekend Homemade Cream Puffs – Food Porn Quicky

Inspired by a sale at Target on organic heavy whipping cream, I decided to make some cream puffs this weekend. Um, yes, it was totally successful unlike my last cream puff blog.

Yum, yum, yum. Touch of Frangelico. The rest? Oky doke. Here’s a quick rundown of how the recipe went…

Flour, butter, water, sugar, salt, eggs – choux pastry.
Sift the flour (about 1 cup), sugar (about a teaspoon?), salt (just a pinch) into a mixing bowl. Heat the stick of butter with about a cup of water in a heavy saucepan until it boils. Remove from heat, add the dry ingredients and mix. Put it back onto the heat and mix until it started forming a ball. At this stage, remove from heat and place into a big mixing bowl (or your Kitchenaid mixer bowl). Beat it up to release the steam then add four eggs one at a time as you whip it into a thick pancake-like mixture. Spoonfuls into the oven at 400 degrees for about 10-15 minutes then lower to 350 degrees for about 20-30 minutes depending on how soft you like them. Brush on an eggwash before the oven for that shiny glossy look.

Heaving whipping cream, sugar, vanilla – whipped cream.
Whip it all together until soft peaks. I like more than just a little vanilla and not as much sugar in this. Put in fridge until ready.

Eggs, sugar, Frangelico, milk, flour and/or cornstarch – custard.
Egg and one egg yolk mixed into the sugar. Heat the milk with a touch of flour (and/or cornstarch) until it’s warmed over – feel free to add other flavors (cinnamon stick, cardamom pods, etc.) that work in here. When the milk is just nearing that boil, grab your whisk and slowly pour it into the egg mixture while you whisk a fine frenzy. This is so it doesn’t turn into scrambled eggs. Put it back into the heavy saucepan onto the heat and mad whisk until you can’t taste a starchy texture anymore. Add the Frangelico towards the end – whisk a bit more. Put it in the fridge until it’s cool.

When you’re ready, add the custard into the whipped cream. Whisk it until it blends together as one. Mix to taste. Cut the cream puff in half when it’s cooled and lather it up with the mixture. Or be fancy and pipe it in. Be even more fancy and dust with powdered sugar. There you go!

Victorian Inspired Tres Leches Sponge Cake

Cinco de Mayo – Booze and chips and desserts. That’s how I like to celebrate. Okay, okay… maybe something more sustainable as well – tacos, taquitos, nachos, anything along that deliciousness. But dessert, that is the most precious…

So, flan and tres leches! Thanks to David Lebovitz, there were recipes in his book, Ready for Dessert: My Best Recipes, for both desserts that I could utilize.

*Butterscotch Flan (or in the closest online variation I found: Chocolate-Dulce de Leche Flan)

*Victorian Sponge Cake (which I could transform into tres leches)

Office Potluck: Pumpkin Pie Atop Cheesecake

Last week, we had a Thanksgiving potluck at work. No. No. No. This time, we did not get all buzzed after work and go home then pass out. Honest.

From the hat (or leftover from the pieces of paper I shook about in my hand), I pulled the dessert assignment. Pumpkin pie. Done. Except… Heather doesn’t like pumpkin pie so I needed to be creative.

Surfing recipes, I decide to go with the go-to classic American dessert chef… Paula Deen. I wanted pumpkin pie. And to get it in Heather’s mouth, I disguised it with pumpkin cheesecake. Pumpkin pie atop pumpkin cheesecake! Individual servings — created by the use of a cupcake tin.

Super Fast Homemade Ricotta Cheese!

Thanksgiving potluck… ahh, the ultimate feast of the office luncheons. While scouring the web for something pumpkin to impress my fellow co-workers, I found David Lebovitz’s gallery of goods: his recipe collection.

Amongst a sea of candies and sweets, I found a recipe for homemade ricotta! *Cheese is dairy crack!! I love it. It’s over here at Simply Recipes. Who knew it’d be so simple?! It took maybe 2 active minutes to cook ‘er up after work today. See it manifest through photos…

Celebrating Cheap Potatoes!! Homemade Gnocchi.

$0.78 for a five-pound bag of Idaho Russett potatoes. I’d say that’s cause for making some gnocchi! Well, that and my craving after seeing a photo of them in a food magazine…

After work on Thursday, I swung by the market and grabbed a bag of potatoes. I decided to make them over the weekend. The overall process takes about 1.5 to 2 hours. Here’s how it went…

Best BBQ Ever – Crumb Brothers, Gossner Cheese and Epic Amber Ale Chicken Paninis

It’s summer – barbecue season. Burgers. Hot dogs. Ugh. Tired! I wanted something nicer, fancier, more to tingle the taste buds.

A bunch of us went to Bear Lake this weekend and barbecued it up for the night we stayed at Harbor Village. After a long day of fun, easy was key. And since we did a few food tours through Logan, we had access to fresh, local-made products. It was probably the best BBQ I’ve ever had before.

THE MENU:

Chicken Paninis –
Epic Cross Fever Amber Ale marinated chicken breasts spiced with paprika and mesquite spices and grilled on cedar planks — Epic beer purchased straight from the brewery in downtown Salt Lake.
Fresh muenster, garlic jack, provolone and hot pepper cheeses from Gossner Foods in Logan, Utah melted onto garlic and sunflower oat loaves fresh from the Crumb Brothers Bakery also in Logan.

Pesto Pasta Salad — pasta tossed in pesto with pine nuts.

Garlic Bread — garlic spread on fresh baguettes from Crumb Brothers Bakery toasted in the oven.

Bacon-wrapped shrimp skewers with basil — just like they sound, then grilled up on the ‘que.

Grilled (and boiled, in the interest of time) corn with butter and smoked paprika.

Grilled zucchini with garlic butter and paprika, fresh local produce from a farmer’s market in Logan.

Grapes for dessert. Champagne and beer for accompaniment.

Yum. I apologize for not taking more photos… *sad face*

Makeshift Dou Hua with Peanut Soup

It’s hard living in Utah sometimes… I get on the internet… I get hungry… I surf the food blogs… I crave the food… I reminisce all the good eats I’ve had… And I crave.

But, I can’t get most of it here!

Okay, okay — truthfully, I can get “dou hua” here, but it’s still not the same as the street vendors in Taiwan. I tried a quick makeshift experiment the other night, a “Sandra Lee dou hua,” if you will… You know, cause she does that semi-homemade cooking schtick!

Meet Fresh Sweets Shop Copycat Attempt: Taiwanese Grass Jelly and Taro Ball Shaved Ice

If you don’t know what grass jelly and taro are, the words themselves may not strike any sort of appeal to your palette… If you do know what they are, you will know why my craving for this delightfully, refreshing dessert forced me to attempt this copycat recipe.

Meet Fresh is a Taiwanese sweet shop that specializes in handmade, fresh taro balls. They also have a variety of other mouth-watering products.

A few years ago, I first experienced taro ball desserts at 龍門客棧 (“Dragon Inn”) in Taichung. I believe they have since closed down… although I’m not positive. If you see it, you must try their house special!

Basically, there is red bean (sometimes know as azuki bean), taro balls (the slightly purple balls), sweet potato balls (yellow ones), congee (white bean-like things), cream, grass jelly and other items! It’s f*cking AMAZING.

More –but not by much– recently (and the last time I was in Taiwan, a couple years or so ago), Meet Fresh (鮮芋仙) dominated through great products and the power of chain stores. In my opinion, the “Dragon Inn” had so many more levels to it’s yumminess that it’s a bit different from Meet Fresh’s most likely equivalent, the 鮮芋仙招牌 (sorry, I honestly don’t read that much Chinese, so I’m not sure what that says). And since that is the easier recipe…