I need a study break...

A sporadic post of eats from the past few weeks. I really need to start being more diligent about taking more pictures. Last week, my friend insisted that we travel to some unknown restaurant to sample Ramen which his mother had read about in a Philadelphia newspaper. I was in no mood for an adventure but I thought fine and took my handy dandy camera with me. Then I realized: I forgot the memory card. Sigh. Moral of the story is no ramen pictures. BUT, there are these pictures of Birthday eats, Restaurant week eats and good old brunch eats.

Restaurant Week at Alma De Cuba 

Definitely enjoyed the more simple decor of this place compared to other Starr restaurants.

Arugala salad with goat cheese. Ate every bite even though I don't like goat cheese. Hm, might have to reconsider my cheese preferences.

LOVE the presentation of this bowl. I think it was a curry vegetarian dish but I can't find it on the menu.

Vaca Frita "Fried Cow"
Twice cooked crispy skirt steak with onions and Cuban oregano with black beans, white rice and tomato escabeche.

Grilled Berkshire Pork Chop: maple pumpkin seed mojo and pickled red onions. Definitely the best course of the meal and the pork chops were cooked to perfection

Rice pudding with roasted coconut shreds. The dessert was good but I don't think I'm a very big fan of rice pudding in general.

Traditional Caramel Flan: Creamy caramel custard served with honey-pecan ice cream, apple ceviche and tamarind puree. The flan was definitely too sweet for us. It made everything else after it taste either too bitter or sour.

All in all I think Alma is a great restaurant but the restaurant week menu is definitely lacking. The options were not very diverse and the courses didn't seem to complement each other very well.


Ethiopian Birthday Dinner (No I don't remember the name of the place but it was located on 45th and Locust...I think). Ethiopian food is definitely one those cuisines that is an acquired taste. I love the numerous use of spices but sometimes, I even find the dishes to be overpowering. All of the dishes are served stew style and eaten and everything is eaten with injera, a sourdough flat bread (which is kind of like mushy nan..at least that's what I think). 

A galore of vegetarian dishes.

Beef tartar.

More side dishes? I think?

Still a very lovely dinner with friends and (a very belated) Happy Birthday wishes to Jeff!

Brunch at RX
Since this is literally my millionth post on RX. I'm just going to post some delicious looking pictures and move on :). Also, finally tried their fresh squeezed orange juice (yum!).

Hm I know these two pictures look the same but I promise their different (can't recall why...) but the both involved poached eggs, spinach, hollandaise sauce and toasted english muffins.

Still have yet to successfully recreate this. Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure I cut the bread way to thick when I tried making it at home.

Mexican Birthday Dinner
Traveled to Northern Liberties to celebrate another wonderful friend's birthday. Of course, I forgot the name of this place as well but I'm pretty sure it started with a C....The pictures definitely turned out darker than I would have liked so I'll limit them to the few ok ones.

The entire Mexican feast was kind of a blur after we all devoured the nachos within 5 minutes but I do remember something about pork tacos, ceviche, soup and melted cheese. Speaking of Mexican food, there will hopefully be lots more to come in the following week when I journey south for break.

Happy eating!

An Ode to the Asian Bakeries

In light of the New Lunar New Year (which is finally the Year of the Rabbit, Yay Mom!), I thought I would share these pictures I took of a random Asian bakery from NY back in the fall.

I think my favorite part about Chinatown since I was six years old was always the Chinese Bakery. And it is still true. Yum.

And I'm back!

Wow I can't even remember the last time I posted, this semester has been absolutely ridiculously crazy. Fortunately, things are finally settling down which means I can get back to blogging! I think I must have 10 posts worth of pictures sitting in my camera right now. Here's a treat I actually made over break and did not even realize I had not posted yet!

Soo the story behind phyllo dough and apple strudels (not really a story but I'll tell it anyways) is that the first time I tried making apple strudels, it was with my grandmother. She used to make them for my dad from scratch and it was a crazy Austrian recipe she had perfected over the years. When we tried making the ridiculously thin layers of strudel goodness, the flour kept ripping apart on us  (apparently we didn't have the right brand of flour). Anyways, it still ended up being delicious but ever since then I've been terrified of making strudels.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I always thought I should just use phyllo dough but for some reason I could never find it in the grocery store (of course I've probably only tried looking for it twice in my life). Since I finally bought a box over break and was on a crazy baking spree, I decided to make apple strudels on my last day at home.  I had also just seen Inglorious Bastard probably for the third time in three days and wanted to make a strudel so I could dollop a big spoonful of cream on top. (Turns out we didn't actually have any cream, but the greek yogurt worked nicely :).

I'm actually very particular about my apples. The only kind I like to eat and cook with are Figi apples. The reason for this is that they never get uncrispy. Mushy apples are gross. Seriously. (5 medium apples used here).

I also don't think you can ever go wrong when baking with apples. Every homey spice you can think of goes well with apples. I used: 1 tsp of vanilla, 1/2 tsp of lemon extract, 1 tsp of crushed cloves and all spice, 2 tbs of cinnamon, 1/2 tsp of nutmeg. (I think this was for two big strudels).

We're also very big on using mortar and pestles for some reason.

Mix apples, previous spices, 1/2 cup of brown sugar and 1/2 cup of white sugar.

I want to say I used 5 sheets of phyllo here but you really can't go wrong. Brush a thin layer of butter in between each layer and pour apples on the top layer. Fold the sides in and roll to form a log. Brush more layer over the whole thing.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool for 15 minutes before cutting. (or not).

Garnish with powdered sugar and cream (or yogurt in my case).

Random aside: Wegman's has really really delicious thick Greek Yogurt.

its a pie...or tart...or something

I've never made anything with puff pastry before. Not because I have anything against it but because I've never been able to find it in the freezer section (ok I've never looked that hard) but still, every time the thought crossed my mind I could never track the buttery layer-y dough thing down. Anyways, I finally found some in the grocery store and decided to make a little onion/mushroom tart with it.

Two problems. 1) We went to go pick up some produce from the produce junction and they were out of mushrooms (how do you run out of mushrooms??) 2) I went to open the puff pastry and realized that it wasn't a sheet like I was expecting but little circle-y things.

By then I had already caramelized way more onions then I needed and shredded a massive bowl of Jarlsberg cheese (a Swiss cheese my dad buys in big 5lb chunks). So that meant time for some improvisation. Well, I've never been the biggest fan of recipes anyways ha.

3 white onions, salt, pepper and 1 big heap of thyme on medium high for 20 minutes.

I've never been the biggest fan of onions, but these were really tasty since cooking them for so long got rid of their usual sharp odor and taste.

Bake the puff pastry for 20 minutes. Take out of the oven and let cool for 5. Fill with the onions and shredded cheese and bake for an additional 5. Garnish with more thyme.

Ta-da! They remind of horderves a really classy house wife would serve at a dinner party in the '50s. Such are the thoughts that go through my head...

a taste of home (and a belated happy new years!)

I’m pretty sure I still dated the form I signed yesterday as 2010, oops.

**disclaimer** abnormally long intro this time so feel to skip my irrelevant ramblings...unless you're actually interested in cooking the food I show in which case read away

So much for my promise to post again before the new years, but in the words of my friend “I’m pretty sure your readers will live”. Yea well I knew that but still….

Anyways, a random interlude: for some reason, I’ve never liked odd numbered years. Maybe it’s because I was born in an even year or because I’ve always liked the divisibility of even numbers, but either way I’ve always been superstitious and apprehensive of the 1-3-5’s. I was really worried as this new year started.... fortunately, 2011has proven to be quite fortuitous (although I think that’s just some because I still have some of the luck from 2010 left over) and (unsurprisingly) the eating has been just as scrumptious. 

Since my promise to cook more at the beginning of last semester pretty much dissipated 3 weeks in (along with my sanity), I figured the best thing to do is to make it up over break (or what’s left of it). And considering all I’ve been doing is espousing the glorious goodness of brunch, I realized it was time to actually blog about something that has a much longer food history in my life: home-cooking mom style.  

The only things to really know about Chinese cooking (at least the way I learned it) is to use a lot of garlic (but don’t burn it), cook everything on high (but don’t over-cook it) and just throw in the same spices and ingredients for almost all vegetable dishes. 

"The List"

chili peppers

green peppers (ok these two are technically optional but in my family, they're kind of not)

garlic

soy sauce

garlic powder (we like our garlic)

cooking wine

sesame oil

salt & pepper (obviously.

My current list of vegetables (man I feel kind of odd doing this...it reminds me of the fashion blogs I follow where the writers post their five favorite items of the week and here I am listing my favorite vegetables...) eggplant, bok choy, mushrooms and tofu (not really a vegetable I know but whatever, leave me alone).  I swear half of the people I met have never eaten an eggplant which I find completely baffling since I think it is the most delicious vegetable on the planet. But then again, that is just me. 

Right. I forgot to mention scallions and ginger (well that’s mostly my mom’s doing, I never thought they were absolutely necessary unless you’re making meat). Anyways, this is basically how the beginning of every dish looks: garlic (onion/scallion), pepper flakes and oil.

Drop in your vegetables (in order of how long they take to cook).  We have some lovely  Oyster mushrooms here. ( I’ve never been a big fan of button mushrooms…too slimy. )

Cook on medium-high for a few minutes (don’t you love how exact I am?). Add in soysauce, salt, garlic powder and the rest of the staples

This mushroom dish also has some tomatoes and chives added in as well.  Since chives cook so much faster (and tomatoes are practically cooked already), definitely want to put them in after the mushrooms are almost done.

A note on eggplants. They take an annoyingly long time to cook compared to other vegetables. If you don’t cook them until they’re soft enough, a lot of times it comes out rubbery (probably a reason why many people are not fond of eggplants).

Another thing to do especially for really watery vegetables is to add starch at the end to turn the watery/soy sauce mixture more sauce-like. We use tapioca starch which you can buy in a pretty hefty bag for 79 cents in Chinatown. Cornstarch works just as well though.

When I cook silken tofu, I don’t even cut it, I dump the whole square in the pan and break it up with a spoon. Eventually, through the cooking process – it naturally breaks into nice small (but not tiny) pieces.

I am particularly fond of silk tofu because I find the texture a lot more palletable. My dad likes the firm kind because he complains silken is too difficult to handle and to eat…Well so are lobsters but everyone still eats them!

Firm tofu on the other hand stays neat and tidy in sliced pieces but I ind the texture to be a little too dry.

A vegetable we have been eating quite frequently lately. Green squash. It’s actually pretty funny because usually what happens in my family is we’ll get hooked on 2 or 3 dishes and eat those repetitively until we get tired of it and then move on to something else.  Don’t know if that’s normal but at least it means you get to get really good at cooking something.

Whoo this is a long post. Guess I’ve been snapping more pictures than I realized.  We had another roasted leg of lamb on New Year’s and my mom found a really ingenious (and delicious) way of cooking the leftover. Ingredients: garlic, green chilli peppers, carrots, seasoned salt and all of the stuff mentioned above. Since lamb is really game-y this was really yummy since it kept the tenderness of the meat and got rid of some of the gameyness through the use of the veggies and spices.

Only one more day until I go back to Penn (and I have to spend tomorrow working at my new internship so technically I guess I only have have half a day left). Man this week sure flew by! I also recently discovered the magic that is Picasa3 which means no more awkward collages from Photoshop! Get excited for the upcoming post. (part of it will probably be a cliche reminiscence of the past (1/2) year of eats). Waking up at 6am again tomorrow...joy.

Happy eating :)