Birthday Dinner!

Sorry for not posting in a while, it’s been crazy with finals and moving back home. But I’m all settled now, so there will be normal postings for now on!

I had a fantastic 21st Birthday!!! It was on mothers day, but I shared the celebration with my mom. And I got some really good food for dinner…but it was absolutely amazing!

The boyfriend took me to O’Connells in Old Town, Alexandria. Everywhere else was closed at 10pm on a Sunday, an I’m glad it was! I ordered an appetizer as dinner, and wow! It was good! I got the Beer Battered Bangers. They are deep fried sausages with a curry dipping sauce. Sounds weird, right? They are different, but just plain old good!

Sorry for the bad picture, I’m using my phone. But don’t let the bad picture fool you, so yummy!

I hope that if any of you come across a dish that sounds a little weird or different, you should try it! Honestly, you might not like it, but then again, it might be the best thing you’ve ever had! Take a chance on crazy food!

I will be back again soon, hopefully with another different food.

Stir-Fry it up!

I went to China last summer, and ever since I have been trying to recreate the amazing things I ate there. A staple of Chinese cuisine in the stir-fry. What I loved about China was all the different things that you could put into them. They had these weird leafy, gelatinous black vegetable that kind of sounds weird but tasted absolutely fantastic! They also had these green bean/pepper vegetables. They looked like green beans but tasted like they were mixed with green peppers. They were great in stir-frys. But my favorite thing they put in were lotus root! They were crispy and took on the flavor the sauce you put in. I need to find those in the states. This is what they look like…

Weird, right? But they really do taste amazing!

So today, I was feeling a little China-sick, so I thought I would make my own stir-fry becuase when I got back from China, I went and bought every Chinese ingrediant I could find.  So here is my take on a Chinese Chicken-Vegtable Stir-Fry! Make some sticky rice or rice noodles to serve with it!

Chinese Chicken-Vegetable Stir-Fry!

• 1 chicken breast – Cut into slices
• 1 clove chopped garlic
• 1/2 tablespoon fresh ginger, chopped
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 4 tablespoons oyster sauce
• Squirt of Sriracha sauce
• 1 teaspoon brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons sesame oil
• 2 stalks of Bok Choy
• 1 carrot, peeled and cut into thick slices
• handful of water chestnuts
• handful of bamboo shoots
• 1/2 a lime

1. Cut the chicken breast into strips and place them all in a bowl.
2. Pour half the soy sauce, 2 tablespoons oyster sauce, and a small squirt of Sriracha sauce in the bowl. Stir it all together so the chicken is coated. Leave to marinate for 10 minutes.
3. Take the unused oyster sauce, oyster sauce and brown sugar and stir together to use for later.
4. Chop the ginger and garlic.
5. Cut the carrots into thick slices. Cut the bok choy into thick strips.
6. Heat a frying pan to medium heat and add the sesame oil.
7. Saute the ginger and garlic.
8. Add the chicken and cook until done, about 2 and a half minutes on each side. Keep stirring it so it doesn’t stick to the bottom.
9. When the chicken is done, move it to a bowl to keep it warm.
10. Add the sliced carrots and a tablespoon of the extra sauce.
11. Saute that for a minute, then add the water chestnuts and bamboo shoots.
12. Saute for another minute then add the bok choy.
13. Saute for one more minute, then add the chicken back into it. Pour the rest of the sauce over the mixture.
14. Stir that all together so everything it coated, squeeze a bit of lime over top and serve with sticky rice or rice noodles!

I hope you all enjoy the stir-fry. Let me know how it turns out!

By the way, I never knew what bamboo shoots and water chestnuts were, so this is what they look like.

Bamboo Shoots

Water Chestnuts

Cookie Monster Loves Cookies!

Birthday Celebrations can bring out the kid in all of us. Sometimes there’s pizza, always cake, and great friends. I’ve always been one to bake cakes, but just normal flat sheet cakes. This time, I wanted to try something new. I decided to make a four layer birthday cake for a very special someone whose nickname is Cookie Monster!

 

Cookie Monster

 

 

I just used two box cake mixes (Chocolate fudge and white cake mix), and followed their directions with 8 inch pans.

For the icing, I made cream cheese icing. Now let me tell you, it was difficult!!! My mom gave me a hand mixer that is not very good, so it pretty much just got all the ingredients all over the walls. In the end, I just mixed it by hand.

Cookie Monster Cake

• 2 cake mixes of your choice
• 4 8 oz packages of cream cheese
• 2 tablespoons of vanilla
• 2 sticks of the butter
• Blue, red and yellow food dye,

 

1. I made the icing in advance, it saves a lot of time. Start by softening the cream cheese and the butter.
2. You can soften both of them by heating them in the microwave for about 10 seconds at a time, and keep checking it to make sure that it doesn’t melt.
3. Once they are softened use a hand mixer (or fork in my case) and cream it together.
4. Add the vanilla and mix together.
5. Put enough icing away for the white eye part.
6. Put an even smaller amount in a small bowl and put equal amounts of blue, red and yellow dye in and stir it all up. You should get a dark greyish-black color.
7. Now take the rest of the icing and just put blue food coloring in it. Stir it up until it’s the blue color you want.
8. You can store all of the icing in the fridge until you use it.
9. Make the cakes how the recipe says on the box, just use 8 in circle pans. that’ll make four different cakes.
10. When they are done, let them cool for two hours, our put them into the fridge to cool.
11. Take a plate or a platter (Wherever you plan on leaving your cake) and take some of the blue icing and put a dab in the middle of the plate so the cake will stay put.
12. Cut the tops of each cake off so they are flat.
13. Put your first layer on the plate and spread a layer of icing on the top.
14. Keep doing that with each layer.
15. Take a toothpick and outline the face of Cookie Monster on the cake. Use a long knife and cut off the excess cake.
16. Spread a very thin layer all over the cake. This is your crumb coat.
17. Put it into the fridge to harden for a couple of hours.
18. Spread a generous layer of blue frosting all over the cake. Here is a tutorial on frosting that helped me.
19. Now take your white frosting and put it into a plastic bag. Cut a tip off the bag, and squeeze out the frosting to make the white part of the eyes.
20. Do the same with the black frosting.
21. You just made a four layer Cookie Monster Cake!

It was delicious!!!

Arizona for Spring Break…Yes, please!

My roommate/best friends family just moved to Arizona, right out of Phoenix, and they graciously extended an invitation to let me stay with them over spring break. Heck yes I went! Just like I love trying new foods, I love going to new places…and trying new food there. So here are some of culinary adventures at a couple of fantasic restaurants in the Phoenix area.

So the morning after my roommate and I arrived in Arizona, her family took us to a restaurant called Z Tejas. They had a Sunday brunch….who can say no to brunch? Not me!

So what Z Tejas is known for is mainly their Mimosa and Bloody Mary bar. It is quite fantastic…

 

I

The Make-Your-Own Bloody Mary or Mimosa Bar!

Woohoo! That is almost ridiculous, but in a good way. There was beef jerky, garlic, pickles, jalapenos, baby corn, and so much more to make a Bloody Mary absolutely amazing.

 

 

Roommates Bloody Mary

 

It just looks pretty! Now on to the food part. I am a firm believer that brunch is possibly one of the most amazing meals of the day. Also, I just LOVE Eggs Benedict. Of course that is what I ordered.

It was a good Eggs Benedict, but not great. The Hollandaise sauce didn’t have a lot of flavor, which is one of the reason why its my favorite brunch item. I did finish my plate though, and before the waitress took my plate away she made sure to ask if I needed a picture of the cleaned off plate… Haha, very funny! I do kind of have an unusual hobby…

But one thing Z Tejas had that made me absolutely love the place was their corn bread.

I cannot even explain how amazing it tasted. The bread was moist and sweet; it even had little pieces of corn in it! The butter only complemented it, it had a rich sweetness that brought out the corns natural flavor. This was most definitely the best corn bread I have ever had!

 

Later on in the week, we went to a small-hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant. The little restaurants are almost always hidden treasures.

It was located in a small market square that looked like it belonged in Mexico. This beautiful painting was on the outside of the square.

I ordered chicken flautas and it came with rice and beans of course. The tortilla around the chicken was so crunchy and tasty, I could barely stop myself from ordering another plate! The rice and beans were probably the best I’ve had outside of Mexico. I’m not a big fan of rice and beans at Mexican restaurants in VA, but they were so authentic tasting that I finished them right up. The rice had a little bit of tomato in it, and that gave it so much flavor that I normally don’t see in this area.

 

I did absolutely LOVE Arizona and I think everyone should visit if they have the chance. It’s so different from the east coast, and its amazing to see all of the wildlife and food they offer there that is really so different from what you get used too.

I’ll leave you with one last picture, one of the favorites that I took..

Spicy, Crunchy Chick Peas!

Midterms hit last week. That means studying until the sun comes up, deactivation of your Facebook account, and salt and sweet snacks that will make you gain 5 pound in 2 days. Well, while I did do two of those things, I decided to made a spicy snack that is actually good for me too.

If you don’t like things extra spicy, you can just put less Cayenne pepper. Also my friend put them in his salad, it seemed like it was a good idea. So let me know what you think about these Spicy, Crunchy Chick Peas!

 

Something Sweet and Something Spicy

 

 

• 1 12 oz. can of chick peas
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon of Cayenne pepper (Or more if want it spicier)

 

1. Preheat the over to 375°F.
2. Drain and rinse the chick peas, and pat them dry.
3. Put the olive oil in a frying pan, and put the heat up to medium-high.
4. Saute the garlic, but make sure it doesn’t turn brown.
5. Mix in the salt and cayenne pepper.
6. Add the chick peas and keep cooking and it for 2-3 more minutes.
7. Spread out the chick peas on a baking sheet. Make sure that the baking sheet has a rim so the chick peas don’t roll off.
8. Bake them for 32 minutes, but check on the frequently during the last 10 minutes, because if they burn, they don’t taste good at all.
9. They are ready to eat when they are nice a crunchy!
10. Enjoy!

I hope you all liked this recipe to, let me know if you try it out on your own!

Bread for Everyone!

Growing up, my mom always made bread but from a bread maker. Personally, I think that bread is hard and tasteless and she would get mad because I never wanted to eat it. We got to travel to St. Maarten when I was young. The island is split into a French side and a Dutch side. I have never had bread as amazing as it was there! I would wake up in the morning, buy a whole baguette, and that would be my breakfast throughout the day. Yum! I could go live on that island just for the bread.

So I felt that now I was on my own in school, I should try to make bread on my own. I know that with my very limited skills, especially in the bread area, I needed to find a simple recipe. I found a great one, that requires no kneading and still tastes absolutely amazing! I hope you enjoy!

 

 

Easy Bread

• 3 cups of flour (A lot more for dusting)
• 1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups water
• Plastic wrap
• Cotton Towel(One you don’t mind getting a little floury)
• Covered pot that is oven safe

1. Add flour, yeast and salt to a large bowl.
2. Add the water and stir until it is shaggy and stringy. (It will turn shaggy as soon as everything is stirred together.)
3. Wrap up the bowl with plastic wrap.
4. Let it sit for 18-24 hours. The dough will be ready when there are little bubble holes in the top.
5. Flour a work area and put all the dough onto it.
6. Fold the dough over its self 1 or 2 times.
7. Take the cotton towel and generously flour a section of it to put the dough on.
8. Lay the dough on top of the floured area, and sprinkle more flour on top of it.
9. Wrap the towel just enough to cover the dough, and let it sit for 1-2 hours.
10. When you are about ready to bake the dough, preheat the oven to 450°F.
11. Place the pot inside the oven to let it heat up also.
12. When the oven is done preheating, take the covered put out and plop the dough into it. You can shape the dough however you like.
13. Bake, covered for 30 minutes.
14. Take the cover off and then bake for another 10-15 minutes.
15. Take out your beautiful bread, let it cool, then enjoy!

 

Bread and butter...

There is a large amount of water in the bread, so the crust gets less crispy over time. All you have to do to make it crispy again it pop it in the oven at 350°F for 10 minutes and you have a crispy crust again.

I hope you all enjoy!!!

Spring Fever!

The weather in my part of Virginia has been a little bipolar the past week. It was 75°F one day then 45°F the next. It’s becoming a tease that I am not very fond of and it confused me so much that I had to make something that reminds me of warm, sunny days! Or, maybe I’m anticipating my spring break in Arizona and wanted a little bit of a Southwestern preview.

 

 

Not the B.L.T but The B.A.T = Bacon, Avocado, Tomato!

For the Limey Mayonnaise:

• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 1/2 of a lime
• 1/4 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper (powdered pepper works too)
• A citrus zester (But a cheese grater or sharp knife will work too)

For the Sandwich:

• Your favorite kind of savory bagel ( I used the everything thin bagels, the thin ones get a really good crunch when you toast them!)
• 1 1/2 slices of bacon
• 1 tomato
• 1 avocado
• salt to taste

1. Start by cutting the bacon strip in half and cook them in a frying pan.
2. For the Limey Mayonnaise, stir together all the ingredients listed, (and add some lime zest too) until its nice a smooth.
3. Make sure you check the bacon!
4. Slice the tomato into  thin slices.
5. Slice the avocado into thin slices too. (And here’s a website on how to cut an avocado the right way, It helped me not cut myself!)
6. Toast the bagel to your desire, I usually put it on “2″ in the toaster.
7. When your bagel is toasted, spread the mayonnaise on each of the bagel slices. (I like to put a lot!)
8. Spread a couple of the tomato slices on the bottom bagel.
9. Do the same with the avocado.
10. Shake a pinch of salt on top of the tomato and avocado.
11. Place the bacon on top of that.
12. Put the top of the bagel on and you have an amazing B.A.T. ready to be eaten!

Limey Mayonnaise before I stirred it up.

Just so you know, this Mayonnaise is amazing! It almost tastes juicy on the sandwich. If you want any sandwich you make to have a really fresh flavor, use this!

The colors of warm and sunny days!

 

Yummy Goodness!

I hope you enjoy, and if you make it yourself, let me know how it turns out! Leave some comments if you like, I love hearing from everyone!