A Three Course Meal.

Sometimes I wonder where I got my food-loving genes from.. because no one in the family seems to be as crazy as me when it comes to food.. especially sweets. I can always find room in my stomach for sweets even after a big meal. Can I call that a talent? Haha. Anyways, today I cooked dinner for the family. A three course meal consisting of a starter, an entrée and dessert!

First on the menu: Potato Latkes



Potato Latkes
recipe from White on Rice Couple
-makes about 12 4″ pancakes

4 medium Potatoes, peeled
1/2 lrg Sweet Onion, diced into 1/4″ pieces
3 cloves Garlic, crushed or finely minced
1/3 c Flour
3/4 T Sea Salt
fresh cracked Black Pepper, to taste
2 lrg Eggs, beaten
1/4 c + Oil, preferably peanut oil, grape seed oil, or other high flash point oil

1. Line a bowl with several paper towels, then grate potatoes into bowl. Using more paper towels, squeeze out as much water from the potatoes as you can. After potatoes are as dry as you can get them, discard paper towels.
2. Add the onion, garlic, flour, salt, pepper, and eggs then stir to combine.
3. Heat a saute pan over medium to med.-high heat, add oil, then when oil is hot place large spoonfuls of potato mix into the pan. Flatten each pancake to approx. 1/2″ thick. Cook to a golden brown on one side (approx. 2-3 min.) then brown the other side. Remove and pat dry with paper towels. May be kept warm covered in a 300° oven.
4. As you cook each batch, stir the potato mix before spooning into pan and add more oil to pan if needed. Serve warm.

These pancakes were real good. They were flavorful and CHEWY! I thought I screwed up on this fairly easy batter when the batter turned out sort of liquid-y.. Next time, I will dry the potatoes more thoroughly and maybe substitute the potato with turnip (an Asian twist?). Hehe.

Following the pancakes, we have the main course- a no-name pasta dish.



I am not sure what it really is. It's a fusion of alfredo and tomato sauce. What?! Do they even go together? Yup! Surprisingly, they sort of compliments each other. Haha.. I should have been more generous on the sauce. No recipe for now. I just whipped up everything spontaneously :p



Last but not least, my love- DESSERT!



Japanese Cotton Cheese Cake
recipe adapted from Heart Bakes
-makes one 8" round pan

(A)
100g Cream Cheese
25g Butter
120g Milk

(B)
40g Flour
30g Corn flour

(C)
4 Yolks

(D)
4 Whites
1/8 tsp Cream of tartar
70g Sugar
pinch of salt

1. Preheat oven 325F.
2. Grease and line bottom of 8" round pan. Wrap foil on the outside.
3. Place (A) in mixing bowl and stir over double-boiler until thick. Remove from double-boiler.
4. Add (B) and mix until well combined. Add (C) and mix until well blended.
5. Whip the egg whites in (D) ingredients. Continue whipping until soft peaks. Add it into the cheese mixture from step (4). Mix until well incorporated.
6. Pour the cheese filling onto the prepared pans. Bake in water bath for about 40-45 minutes or until firm and golden brown.
7. Remove cake from oven. (Leave oven door ajar from a couple minutes before removing cake from oven prevents the cake from collapsing!)
8. Set aside to cool.

The original recipe of this cake calls for 160g cream cheese. I reduced it to 100g and got a cake that has a more prominent egg taste, which everyone in the family liked better. I myself also prefer this soft and somewhat cheesecake and sponge like cake. (:

Happy 4th of July Everyone!

Alfredo Farfalle

Smoked ham and corn go so well with this Alfredo sauce. It was kind of a spur of the moment that I decided to replace the frozen mixed vegetables that I normally use with corn. The sweetness of the corn brilliantly diluted the creamy and somewhat greasy texture of the (store-bought) sauce and made the sauce taste ten times better (if not more). There is nothing fancy in making this dish-- cook pasta, drain, mix, season (with lots and lots of black pepper) &serve. Perfect dorm food.

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Look out for the influx of posts in the coming week because I am baking till I drop this weekend! Woohoo.. I shall be experimenting with sponge cake, swiss roll, egg tart, puff pastry .. and more if time permits(:

cooking for forty

This weekend was my trip with FIMRC to Los Angelitos Orphanage in Tijuana, Mexico. (Whee!) Just the weekend before, we had a pre-meeting about the tasks we are doing. And guess what? My obsession with food got me into the food group! So the day before the trip, I met up with the other girls/guys to prepare for the lunch and dessert for the kids and us (around 40 people?). They had already decided on making pasta and chocolate covered bananas, and the girl who was in charge went to costco and bought all the ingredients.

We started off the night by chopping 6 big onions for the pasta. Thanks to my contacts, I was the only one who wasn't tearing. After spending a good 2 minutes on my first onion, I thought of the little trick that the "cooking with the dog" lady uses to cut her onions in all her videos. Unfortunately, it didn't quite work out for me simply because I forgot how she did it exactly. I sliced the onion in half.. then sideway? and straight?

Anyways, then all the chopped onions went into a pot, seasoned and cooked till translucent. A huge pack of ground beef went into another pot. After everything was cooked thoroughly, we just simply mixed the beef, onion and marinara sauce. Then we boiled pasta, poured onto the three trays we had prepared. Mixed the sauce with the pasta and finished off with layers of mozzarella cheese.


We baked them again on the site to melt the cheese. They came out delicious.. honestly wayyy more than what I had expected. (:

After spending a good hour on the main dish, we moved on to making the dessert, chocolate dipped bananas. It was a disaster! Not only was it a mess .. they also didn't store them properly for the next day (Wrapping in foil= don't). It was my first time making chocolate dip so I just went with the flow.



The girl who made chocolate dip before took the lead and poured a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chip along with some half&half in the pot.. Stirred on low heat till everything melted. Up to this point, the chocolate dip was okay.. but UH-OH! she added in the store-brought chocolate dip pouches. They were pretty gross in my opinion. There was a thick layer of oil in each pouches (she added three. oilx3!).



The consistency of the dip got thinner and thinner toward the last few bananas. In my mind, they weren't even chocolate covered.. more like OIL-covered.



Oh! And moreover, the lack of preparation (wax paper) led to PAM covered foil. I mean.. it makes sense to add oil to foil so things do not stick. But chocolate covered banana on pam! Seriously? Oil times infinity.

I think we should've just bought the chocolate rice krispy treats that the girl made for herself. Even though I didn't see how she made them, I am sure is much more pleasing than the oil infused bananas.





The night was so long and uh.. interesting. It reminded me so much of the food show I recently started watching- Jamie Oliver Food Revolution! I think I won't mind catering for people as my career. It's both tiring and rewarding.

At the end of the day, I confirmed that I hate working with others in the kitchen. If I was the lead or doing this by myself, I would do things so much different, such as washing the onions prior to cutting. My OCD is definitely kicking in. It is just frustrating when people don't do things the way I want. Alright alright alright.

On a lighter note, my friend asked me to make a birthday cake for his sister next week. We'll see how that goes(: