Lion's Head Cassarole and Potato and Cheese Pierogi

Sorry about the photo- I couldn't quite figure out how to make it look appetizing.

I don't particularly care for meatballs, especially Italian meatballs (sorry!), so I was surprised when I liked a lion's head. It's slightly crispy (if you don't steam it) on the outside and so juicy and soft, not the hardpacked Italian version. I made the version that's all meat because I didn't have tofu, but the tofu one is way better. It's a lot softer. I don't know how to cook Asian food, unless it's fried rice. I really have no idea what the spices look like or what they're called or what flavors go with what so I'm really thankful for Taiwanese bloggers who post recipes like this because without them I'd be lost.


Pierogi is like a dumpling and I love dumplings, all shapes and forms. I've only had them from Traktir, a great Russian restaurant in West Hollywood, CA. I looovveeee their pierogi, but it's pretty expensive for the amount they give you and I can probably eat two platefuls so I thought it'd be a good idea to make them at home. I got the recipe here. Again, the addition of sour cream is unexpected and thankfully I couldn't taste it in the dough. I am going to need to work on making pierogi. My dumplings were not the silken, plump half moons at Traktir, mine were lumpy HUGE ovals- some of which blew up while boiling. I didn't make the sauce- I couldn't bring myself to use all that butter and sour cream.

Potato filling. I added a LOT of dill to this after the photo because it was bland.

Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a day and Kale Chips

I've read about this no-knead/5 minutes a day bread for a long time and I decided that I finally had to do it. I love bread- my aunt had a bread machine and I remember when we visited her one summer we had fresh bread. It was my first time eating fresh bread and I remember how it tasted just completely different from sandwich bread, which was what I thought of when I thought of bread . My dad also made mantou one summer, a lot of mantous. It's a really easy steamed bread- my next purchase will have to be a steamer so I can make a green onion twisted mantou bread and taro mantou! Ah my favorite! There's nothing like fresh bread. This recipe is from the original source, trust. I'm still working on some quirks and variations I've found online (like no-knead pizza dough!).



My first few batches were strangely undercooked on the inside, but had a great crackley crust. This was so much better than my first attempt at making baguettes and I feel more confident about my bread baking abilities. I've made probably 2 dozen small boules using this recipe. I bake at a slight lower temperature and make really small loaves, just a bit bigger than a dinner roll- it's the only way to fully cook them. It might be my wonky oven though. I'm not sure if this is better than a regular bread recipe- I haven't made enough to really know, but it's nice to have a chunk of dough in the fridge ready to be made into delicious bread.


This next recipe is for kale chips, which was also extensively covered in the blogosphere. The only other time I've had kale is in Olive Garden's Zuppa Toscana. This dish is easy- just wash and dry the kale, rip off the leaves, toss in olive oil and salt and then bake. They come out light and crispy.... not quite potato chips, the texture is different. But if you're trying to wean yourself off chips and onto a healthier crunchy snack, then this is perfect for you.

Zucchini Cakes and Mushrom and Herb Polenta Triangles

I had leftover zucchini from the chocolate cake in the previous post so I made some zucchini cakes. It's basically like making latkes, but with zucchini instead. The parmesan was overwhelming, so I will use less of it next time. This is a great way to use up extra zucchini.


I'm enamored by polenta. It's amazing how delicious corn meal and water can be. This time I made mushroom and herb polenta squares. So. Tasty. If you don't like mushrooms, try substituting sundried tomatoes or just using herbs. This is also a good way to use up extra polenta and to experiment with textures. I tried to get fancy with the plating, but it's just on top of arugula, my current favorite salad.

smoothing it out into a flat sheet to rest in the fridge.

By the way I used my dad's Nikon D70 for these photos.... on auto because I don't know how to use it. Can you tell the difference?

Chocolate Zucchini Cake & Curried Potato Chips

This is a surprisingly good healthy(ish?) cake. There is shredded zucchini and I replaced the oil with unsweetened apple sauce- you really can't tell when you eat the cake. It's really moist and chocolatey, I even added walnuts to mine (still trying to use up all the nuts). I was really surprised I couldn't taste or feel the zucchini, I'm pretty skeptical of recipes like this that try to hide vegetables in desserts. The texture is a bit off compared to regular cake, this was softer, lighter.

soaking the potatoes to get rid of excess starch.

I saw a recipe for making potato chips in a microwave, but it looked too labor intensive. You can only make as many chips as fit in your microwave at at time. I saw this recipe for curried potato chips, which uses an oven. I made one batch with curry powder and one batch with cheddar bacon salt. The cheddar bacon salt turned out MUCH better- the curry chips tasted a tiny bit bitter towards the end. The author warns against this and I could probably avoid the problem by slicing the potatoes thinner. My kyocera mandolin is arriving in a week or two so I'll try making chips again with it.

Wrinkly Potatoes with a Cilantro Sauce and Sour Cream Dinner rolls

I chose this recipe for wrinkly potatoes (papas arrugadas) because of the way it's made. You boil small potatoes in extremely salty water until all of the water evaporates. The potatoes have a thin crust of salt on them. The cilantro sauce (mojo verde) that goes with it is really good- I loooovvve cilantro. Next up is baking fish in a crust of salt!

Before

After

I had leftover sour cream from some odd recipe a while back and found this recipe for sour cream dinner rolls in an attempt to be less wasteful. These were a lot softer than the other dinner rolls I've made and there was absolutely no trace of sour cream taste.

Sugar-crusted popovers and Daifuku

Sugar-crusted popovers, aka donuts you don't have to deep fry AND you can use your muffin pan! This recipe comes from David Lebovitz, again. Every recipe of his that I've tried has been amazing.

Right out of the oven, they're sort of bland (already deflating) popovers. Soft and fluffy, but otherwise not very flavorful. Brush them with a bit of butter and roll them in cinnamon and sugar and they are ready to be devoured. They were still good the next day- the butter kept them crisp.


Daifuku: otherwise known as filled mochi. I didn't realize that average home bakers could make daifuku! I always thought the process was complicated and involved top secret home equipment. I had fresh mochi when I went to Japan in spring and it was so good. This doesn't taste quite like the one I had in Japan- theirs was more sticky, pliable and liquid. Jenny showed me this recipe and it turn out you only need FIVE ingredients. And a microwave. Seriously, you can make this!

Blast the mochiko and water in the microwave and then roll it out- you will need a lot of corn starch! And you have to work quickly before the mochi gets cold and hard, but carefully since you just microwaved it for several minutes.

Trying to combine the strawberries and red bean paste (anko). Turns out they do not like to stick to each other.

Testing one out- so good! I made this lumpy, delicious blob!

For the second batch, we added some food coloring.

Look how pretty they are! These are Jenny's, mine did not turn out this pretty/smooth/rotund.

Sausage ragu and polenta and whole wheat pizza

This was my first time eating and making polenta and ragu. I wasn't too excited about polenta when I started making it- it looks like sand in water for the first few minutes. Then it plumped up into a creamy mass, sort of how I imagine aligot to look like in person. I loooveeee polenta now and it's so easy to make and really really cheap! I have the standard corn meal from Ralphs and it tastes great. I use chicken stock and some milk to have some extra flavor. I also made some polenta triangles with leftover polenta (a later post...). By the way rouxbe.com is a great site for beginning cooks who really don't know how to cook or chop. Their videos are really helpful and even if you don't get the paid subscription you can still access a good part of their website.


Whole wheat pizza! Surprisingly still pretty tasty, but definitely only for a Neapolitan style pizza. The dough was pretty good, but not great. Once it's baked to a crisp, it doesn't really matter if you use whole wheat or all purpose flour (to me at least), but if you want to have some chew to your crust I would skip it. I made a standard cheese pizza and topped it with arugula, my new favorite salad staple.