Compost Cookie

Potato Chips, Pretzels, Coffee, Chocolate Chips... Amazing!

Compost Cookie Recipe (Oprah's website)

Cornflake-Chocolate Chip-Marshmallow Cookies

I spent the week making various cookies from the MILK bar cook book. 

Cha Gio

Special thanks to Phuong for being the cooking instructor.
As she is an intuitive cooker - we were eye balling ingredients & checking the amounts. So this is a guide. 

We made about 35-40 rolls. The extras will be frozen for another day.  

INGREDIENTS:

1 Pack of Bean thread 

Cut up black fungus, approximately 1/4 of bag (0.5 oz) 

4 small taros (These are better than the big taro, which are too dry for this dish) = we want about 1 cup shredded taro

1 cup shredded carrot

½ Onion, diced = approximately 1 cup

1 lb raw shrimp (deveined and chopped)

1/2 lb raw ground pork

1.5 head of garlic, minced

Approx 1/2 teaspoon of ground black pepper

1 tablespoon of sugar

1.5 tablespoons soy sauce

1.5 tablespoons oyster sauce

·      First, mix black fungus and 1 pack of bean thread in water to rehydrate. Let it sit while you make the rest of the filling.

·      Shred the carrot and the small taros, using the big hole grater

·      Mix the chopped shrimp, ground pork, taro, carrot, diced onions together.

·      By the time this is done, then the fungus and noodles should be rehydrated. Cut up the fungus into small pieces. Pick out the mushroom stems if present.

·      With the bean threads, cut at the bend , then make about thumb nail length.

·      Add the seasonings (pepper, sugar, soy sauce, oyster sauce) – to test the seasoning, you can microwave a small portion to taste it (15-30 seconds) 
The ingredients are all raw - they'll cook up when fried. 

·      Make sure to buy the right kinds of wrappers. If it has the multiple labels, then you've got the right one. Other kinds of wrappers would puff up. 

·      Here’s a video on how to roll them!

This was accompanied by a dipping sauce:
Our instructor recommends either fish sauce brands called flying horses or flying lions (pictured below). 

you mix approximately:

2 parts water:1 part sugar: 1 part fish sauce & lime juice. 

Pour fish sauce

Then just cover the sugar with sauce

We added the juice from about 1/4 of a lime

You want everything to dissolve together. You can use room temperature water or hot water to dissolve sugar faster
Add in some chili sauce to taste - which will add color and a little spice. 

Then you fry them, and they are all done! 

 

crack (pie) for thanksgiving

dessert for family thanksgiving will be: 

regular crack pie

crack pie with pecans 

No Knead Bread

Here's my first shot at the Lahey recipe seen in NYTIMES and various other blogs too.

It was crusty and warm. My dog jumped onto the counter & got a slice too.

cream cheese coffee cake

from America's Test Kitchen Recipes

Corn Cookies

from the Milk Bar Cook Book - There's a mix from Williams Sonoma that was good, so I got the ingredients to make this from scratch. 

fruity pebbles

like the cornflake cookie - minus the chocolate chips
add in fruity pebbles

also fr: Milk Bar Book

Crack Pie Again!

crack pie #2 - this is from a recipe in Bon Appetit

Fun-fetti - style

rainbow confetti cookies - recipe from milk bar

cornflake - chocolate chip - marshmallow cookie - fr MILK BAR Book

early christmas present: the Milk Bar Cookbook

we gave this recipe a try. salty and sweet!

cornflake crunch

christina tosi is my hero

We made "crack pie" an invention from the Momfuku Milk Bar restaurant

First you make a cookie batter

Which becomes the crust, like a graham cracker crust

the inside is like to gooey part of a pecan pie.

it's super rich, and definitely need to eat with a glass of milk.

coconut cupcakes

These are from Barefoot Contessa recipe from the Food Network.
They have coconut flakes, almond and vanilla extract.

We are taking them over to dinner at my brother's house.

Baking Saturday

Spent some time today baking to bring some treats to my niece's birthday party tomorrow

I made these turtle brownies from scratch, using a recipe from Cook's Illustrated

here's a mix of butter, unsweetened and bittersweet chocolates

I made caramel from scratch, and it was in a middle layer in the brownie mix, as well as swirled into the top layer.  then another layer of caramel at the end to give it a polished top. 

I also baked these, they are Bouchon chocolate corks, but it was a little bit of a cheat, because they are from a mix purchased from Williams Sonoma. 

I've had the silicone mold for almost a year, and haven't been able to get my act together enough to make the batter from scratch. They are tasty, and I am motivated to make them from scratch in the future! 

thanksgiving

Thanksgiving - credit to Collin for his work on the turkey and a majority of the cooking. We were busy eating, so this is the only food picture we took.

It was a special occasion b/c this was our niece's first Thanksgiving - here she is getting to know the cats!

hostess cupcake make over

My husband and I watched an episode of Cooks Country from PBS where they make these cupcakes.
They are a remake of the classic hostess cupcake. I really love Cooks Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen/and also Cooks Country. They are chefs and food scientists.

The recipe is called chocolate cream cupcakes and it's free on their  website (recipes from their shows are free, and there's also further archives access for a fee). for the free one, you need to register with your email address at http://www.cookscountrytv.com/

This recipe makes 12 cupcakes which is a perfect amount. Well maybe it could be a little bigger yield, since while the cupcakes were cooling, a few cupcakes were lost to taste testing...

cut out the top to make a space for the filling

the filling is a mixture of marshmallow cream, butter, and gelatin
and what would a cupcake be with out the curly Q frosting? still working on the uniformity! but they are quite delicious. Thanks, Test Kitchen!

popover pancake

also known as a dutch baby.

they get all their volume from steam!

the ingredients are simple - eggs, flour, milk, salt, butter.

from our trusty cast iron pan.

the recipe was from the book: The Good Egg by Marie Simmons

cake wreck?

I made a red velvet cake for a friend's birthday party this week.

The recipe is from Cook's Country website.

The frosting job was borderline for a cake wreck. I thought better than to attempt to spell something on the cake.


This was the same cake recipe from earlier in the year, but the choice of word candles turned out nicer!

from the garden

for dinner today, we grilled chicken, made fajitas. 

we tried to use a grill basket for peppers and onions. the slots in the basket were rather large, so i'll have to remember to cut the veggies a bit larger next time. 

also we ate some veggies from the garden courtesy of collin.  we ate these with salt, pepper, and a drizzle of sesame oil. 

we pulled up what we thought was a radish. it had a great concentric pattern! it was pretty sweet, so we think it may have been a beet.