Mexican Flan

I. Love. Flan. This recipe I got off of Recipezaar and it's better than some flans I've had at restaurants. Very simple and easy to make. The recipe can be found here: http://www.recipezaar.com/Mexican-Flan-Baked-caramel-Custard-12354

Slight adjustments: You WANT to put 1-2 tablespoons of water into the caramelized layer (heated sugar), or the top will come out like a hard glass sheet! I also did not put orange rind and added a little extra vanilla extract. Actually, thinking about making this one again tonight with MEXICAN vanilla extract. (Real yummy Mexican flan calls for authentic ingredients!) I just bought some in Mexico and it's so much more aromatic than the American vanilla extracts...

Char Siu Stir Fried Rice Noodles

Hiatus. Over. Time to get serious with more food. To start, let's catch up with what I've been cooking up the last few months.

I don't really know the name of this one, so I kind of just made it up. It's a not-so-common Chinese dish, perhaps exclusively Cantonese, and it has always made a yummy meal for my family. This recipe is adapted from my mother, but of course I spruced it up quite a bit for flavor and enjoyment. :)


Ingredients

4 eggs, scrambled with 1 tsp salt, or to taste
2 packets of the Banh Boc Loc noodles
¼ cup canola oil
1 lb char siu meat, chopped (can substitute with shrimp)
(everything below is “or to taste”)
1 bag or 3 handfuls of soy bean sprouts
¼ cup soy sauce
4 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp seasame oil*
a pinch of white pepper*
1 tsp ginger powder*
3 cloves minced garlic*

Directions
1. I starred* the ingredients you probably can go without and it will taste relatively the same.
2. Heat oil in pan at medium to medium-high heat until it is less viscous/can move around easily.
3. Add garlic; when it starts browning throw in noodles and sprouts. Cook for 2 mins.
4. Add char siu. Continue adding the rest of the ingredients in no particular order, and stir well as you go.
5. Total cooking time should be about 10-15 minutes. Taste the noodles--when they are soft then the dish is about ready.
6. Lastly add in the pre-scrambled eggs and oyster sauce. Stir for a minute before turning off heat.

Makes about 6 servings. It's really good. So my question is: why hasn't AllRecipes.com accepted my recipe? Maybe because they haven't tasted it yet...

Margherita Pizza

This pizza is so freaking good- I made it three days in a row! Thank you Ms Kapser! I'm glad I joined KPCC now- this recipe is amazing. It doesn't make Pizza Hut type dough- it's Neopolitan style, aka cracker thin crust. When Jojo and I were in Rome, our hostel was a block from an amazing delicious and cheap pizza shop. They had their pizzas laid out like this:

Huge rectangles of crunchy deliciousness. They sliced it according to how much you were willing to pay. I think it was 3 euros for a pretty big slice.


And this recipe is FAST. Make the dough and let it rest for an hour or so, then roll it out until it's very very thin. I sprayed Pam on the tray before hand and used a wine bottle since I don't have a rolling pin.

I used my favorite tomato sauce- Trader Joe's marinara. I use this in everything, even as the base for soups.

Add mozzarella cheese.


Add some julienned basil (save the rest for later), sliced raw garlic, tomatoes and some olive oil. I based the toppings off of one of my favorite pizzas at Palomino's, especially the thin slices of raw garlic. SO GOOD!

When it's done and the cheese is nice and brown, throw some more basil on top. I like the basil slightly fried on the pizza with the fresh basil on top.

The next few days I made it with artichoke and salami. I'm going to try and find a good recipe for a dough-y pizza now, with cornmeal on the bottom.

Shrimp Creole & White Chocolate Chip cookies

One of my favorite things to eat is the jambalaya at Disneyland. I don't remember the name of the "cafe," but it's so freaking good. I love the seasonings and oh yeah, the cream. This is kinda like that, minus the cream, so I'm going to call it healthy. Here's the recipe. I agree with the reviewers- this would taste better with rice. It's not very soup-y so it doesn't really flavor the noodles enough. (Although if you added cream it'd probably be awesome as a pasta dish)

I ended up buying "cajun seasoning" and I'm not sure what's in it, but it's good. I put it on fries and chicken too. I omitted the mushrooms- that just didn't seem right. And even though I followed the recipe, it wasn't "super-hot," I think I'll add more red pepper flakes next time or some Tabasco.


I was also craving white chocolate macadamia nuts. There's a store in Westwood called Diddy Riese and it's famous for its cheap cookies and ice cream sandwiches (and hot dogs too). As much as I love cheap and ice cream sandwiches, I am not in love with their white chocolate chip and macadamia nut cookie- it's not chewy or crunchy. It has this perma-stale texture to it. BLEGH. I was so happy to find this recipe. This is truth in advertising- you will make chewy, buttery cookies.

And the recipe makes a TON. You probably notice dark brown specks? This is what happens when I mix by hand and get lazy. Yep... I decreased the amount of white chocolate chips + macadamia nuts because I like more dough in my cookies. Also I chopped up my macadamia nuts to sort of match the size of the chips.

Macaroons are coming! I'm determined to make macaroons this month.

Frittata

I love eggs, I think I've already used up a dozen and I just bought them on Sunday. This is a great recipe to use up some eggs in case yours are going bad. This is delicious fresh out of the oven, or at room temperature the next day. I used asparagus, potatoes (a la spanish tortilla), green onions and BACON. I thought it was kinda weird using ricotta cheese- I thought the recipe would call for heavy cream, but I think this is healthier?


Anyways, this is the recipe. I used my cast iron skillet, hurray! I've had it for a few months now but I keep forgetting to use it. Also I've never used a cast iron skillet ever so I'm always nervous I'm going to break it. It's a 10 inch one and weighs a ton.


The hardest part was keeping the flame low. I'm always in a hurry, it's hard for me to keep the flame low and slowly stir. agghhh I overcooked a little bit because I couldn't help myself- I hope you're more patient... It was still delicious though.

Honey Yeast Rolls

I haven't made bread in awhile, but the weather was unusually warm these past couple days so I thought I'd take advantage of it. I've had this recipe bookmarked for awhile, I LOVE dinner rolls almost as much as I love crunchy breads. These are slighty sweet because of the honey. They came out perfectly and were still soft two days later.

This recipe is also great because the mixer does the kneading for me.

Resting. Thanks to the warm weather, it actually rose a good amount.

Resting again. By now it's dark and the pictures are fuzzy )= Bread takes awhile to make because of all the resting- not a good recipe for busy weekdays.

Fresh out of the oven. (Mine aren't as brown as the original author's for some reason.. not enough butter/egg wash?)