Happy cooking all!
All that talk of cupcakes yesterday got me craving some! *LOL* I have happily discovered a red velvet cupcake recipe in my cupcake recipe book, titled Cupcakes Galore by Gail Wagman. So...I made some! They're not as bright red as the ones that I've found in bakeries, but they are pretty darn good, if I do say so myself. Happy cooking all! Yup, you read right. It is still technically "winter" down here (it certainly has been feeling like it with the sub-zero temperatures we've been having the past few days), but I dun care. I want me some satays, and I'm gonna get 'em! Besides, hubby is fine with doing some BBQ outside, so it's all good. :D This determination to get me some satays got me thinking about cravings, and the means by which we take to make them happen. Truth be told, most of my cooking when I started was driven by whatever I was craving. I wanted chicken strips? Then I made sure I had chicken, bread crumbs, flour and eggs. I wanted mac & cheese? I made sure I had macaroni, cheese, flour, butter and milk. I always made sure my kitchen was stocked with the ingredients needed to satisfy said cravings. If not, then it meant doing an extra grocery trip. ;) Even when hubby and I were first dating, I would make whatever I was craving whenever he was over for the weekend. Our meal plans can, to a certain extent, be driven by whatever craving we have (as long as it's been the appropriate amount of time since we've had it, of course). I've actually been wanting to make satay for a while; the craving just reached it's limit I guess. ;) The worst is when I get cravings for junk food or fast food. They don't happen too often, but every once and a while, I'll get a real hankering for some Oreos or some chips (speaking of chips, I'm really liking PopChips; low-cal, low fat, but all the taste and satisfaction of regular chips). So I'll get whatever it is that I'm craving, and it only take a little to be satisfied (which is weird, considering how much junk food I used to down when I was growing up...it's a wonder that I didn't ruin my teeth). It can turn into a pretty vicious cycle where I'll get all these random cravings, and then I eventually end up with a bunch of junk food in the cupboard. Luckily, I now have hubby to help me with the junk food, so I don't feel as guilty. With the fast food cravings? Well, we live right by a mall. Quite literally a hop, skip and jump away. So very bad for us and our wallets. I can only think of a couple of times since we've been living together where I would get mad cravings for something really specific, like nuggets from McDonald's or onion rings from A&W. Since we do on occasion head to the mall for some lunch on the weekends, the fast food craving tends to be not be as bad. Lately? It's been the chocolate cupcakes from Starbucks. I ADORE those cupcakes. I have made cupcakes for myself at home, but I can't seem to get mine as light & fluffy as the ones at Starbucks. Or even better, the ones from Cupcakes by Heather and Lori. Hubby, for some insane reason, doesn't like the mound of sinfully rich buttercream on their regular-sized cupcakes (but is okay when it's the mini ones), but it's my FAVORITE part. Their cake is incredibly light and fluffy, and they have some pretty fantastic flavor combinations. I discovered last year that they now make red velvet cupcakes, SO very good. :D I kept hearing about red velvet through Ellen's show, as this is the cake she has every year for her birthday show (I'm pretty sure that's what they had at their wedding too). We first tried some red velvet cake at a California Pizza Kitchen restaurant in Hollywood...seriously, best cake ever. Crap. I shouldn't have mentioned it. Now I really want me some red velvet cake! Hubby has claimed time and time again that he's looking forward to seeing me pregnant and getting to run around to satisfy whatever wacky cravings I have. Me? I'm thinking he'll get tired of trying to meet my demands pretty quickly. ;) Obviously, I can't predict what kind of food I'll crave while with child, but I can definitely imagine myself being fairly unreasonable. Hell, my mother told me that she craved frog legs once while pregnant with me. Once it was in front of her though, she didn't want it any more. Hehehe... Here's the meal plan for the upcoming week. Just one new recipe, and I'll be experimenting with the French onion soup recipe that I had tried once before. Hopefully all goes well with it! Happy cooking all, and have a fantastic week. February 27-March 4 Sunday: Beef satays with peanut sauce, rice, sliced cucumbers & peanuts Monday: Greek chicken, lemon potatoes, greek salad Tuesday: Grilled cheese & soup Wednesday: Shepard's pie, salad Thursday: Beer-braised chicken, rice Friday: French onion soup, cheese croutes So, did anybody see Lady Gaga exit her egg at the Grammys? Or Cee Lo Green looking like a weird Muppet mutation? Those two are the only ones I really cared about. Music award shows just aren't as fun to watch as they used to be. :( As I started getting more into cooking and meal planning, there are a few ingredients that are pretty much always in my cupboards. There are a few things that one has to keep an eye on in terms of freshness (flavored oils come to mind), but otherwise, these are things that are used fairly frequently. 1. Beef or chicken stock cubes/powder: More so in the winter, I quite frequently use this ingredient to make stock for soups. I just have to boil water and add half a cube or a full cube, depending on the amount of stock needed. There are a few recipes that call for stock in powder form (such as brisket or cheese soup), so I make sure to have those handy as well. I like the McCormick brand stock cubes; they are low salt and are supposedly vegan friendly (kind of like those beef balls you can buy at the Chinese stores for hot pot soup). For powder, I like the Oxo brand low sodium varieties. 2. Olive oil: I've been finding more and more that I use olive oil for greasing, especially if it's for some kind of pasta dish. I have a bottle that I keep on the counter for drizzling and greasing, and I have another bottle in the cupboard that I use for recipes such as pesto, where it will call for more than just a drizzle. 3. Worcestershire sauce: This ingredient is used in most of our beef dishes, such as Shepard's pie, Tex-Mex cobbler and meatloaf. When I was first living on my own, it was pretty much my go-to ingredient to give that extra layer of flavor. It is also used to flavor most of the sauces in my recipes, such as pot roast with tomato gravy, BBQ chicken or honey & beer ribs. 4. Tomato paste: I've always preferred using tomato paste whenever I make sauce because I like thick sauces. It has that great concentrated tomato flavor. It is also used in recipes such as roasted red pepper meatballs and lasagne. 5. Vinegars: We currently have six different kinds of vinegar in our cupboard. They each serve a specific purpose when it comes to our different recipes. Red wine vinegar (used for marinating or flavoring sauces), white wine vinegar (used for flavoring sauces), apple cider vinegar (used for recipes such as this week's sweet n' sour meatballs or any BBQ-type sauce), balsamic vinegar (used for flavoring sauces or dressings), rice vinegar (used for flavoring sauces, more so for Asian dishes such as the sesame noodles) and regular vinegar. 7. Brown sugar: Surprisingly, brown sugar features in quite a few of our dishes. It's more in sauces than anything, and it's something that I've tended to always have for baking purposes. 8. Bread crumbs: This is an ingredient that has always been in my cupboard, as I used to be all about making my own chicken strips and nuggets. Now, it features in several dishes that call for some kind of bread crust, such as tuna mornay or mac & cheese. 9. Cornmeal: This is an ingredient that joined my cupboard staples only a few years ago. It's always used for my pizzas, and I love how it gives that extra crunch to the pizza dough. It is also used in the cornbread for Tex-Mex cobbler. 10. Rice: Rice is easily our most used side dish. We have a large jar of long-grain rice that has yet to be empty, and that's used whenever we have a curry dish or any dish that has a sauce that accompanies it (like pork with maple sauce). It took me a while to get used to long grain, as I grew up in a house that used a mix of short and long grain rice. I now also have arborio rice, which is the rice used to make risotto. Here is the meal plan for the upcoming week. Just two brand new recipes this week, the rest are repeats. All are linked, as always. I've also linked recipes mentioned in the above post. Happy cooking all! February 20-25 Sunday: Pork chop bake with sweet potato & apple, potato gratin Monday: Lemon alfredo with chicken Tuesday: Mini pizzas Wednesday: Sweet n' sour meatballs with rice Thursday: Thai chicken soup Friday: Burritos I met up with hubby yesterday at Waterfront station for our mystery Valentine's dinner. We took the train to Granville station and hubby lead me down a few different streets before we finally arrived at our destination: Hidden Restauant at the Westin Grand.
The name is very well chosen, as there are no clear signs on the outside (at least until nightfall) that there is a restaurant at the hotel. It is located upstairs and has a great view of the library. The restaurant is small and intimate with very low lighting. Very romantic indeed. The first thing offered to us was a choice between a rose or chocolates. I chose a rose, hubby chose chocolates (and I pilfered his dark chocolate). We were also given some bubbly with a hbiscus bud sitting at the bottom of the glass. The flower actually added a slight sweetness and somehow created extra bubbles as well. Our first dish was an amuse-bouche of foie gras au torchon (which means that it was wrapped in a towel, then slow-cooked in a bain-marie), pink peppercorn belinis (tiny pancakes), shaved green apples and pickled shallots. The foie gras was much creamier than I've had before (which is only one other time, but hey, it works), but it went very well with the apple, belini and shallot. It was also surprisingly light, not too rich at all. Our appetizer was three peppercorn lamb carpaccio with arugula leaves and mint pesto. The mint pesto was EXCELLENT, the mint was very subtle and the parmesan was very strong. The carpaccio went quite well with the pesto, and the dish was very refreshing overall. For our mains, we chose different dishes. I chose the rack of lamb with apple & parmesan gnocchi, pickled cippolini onions and fresh watercress; hubby chose the seared sturgeon with dungenese crab stuffed celeriac beignets, roasted pearl onions and Tabasco vinagrette. My lamb was excellent, very tender and cooked to perfection. The apple & parmesan gnocchi were divine; so soft and tender, and the flavors combined well with each other. I tried a small bite of hubby's sturgeon and a small bite of beignet as well. The sturgeon has the same kind of consistency as salmon minus the strong fish taste, and the beignet was full of crab flavor with a very crisp outside. For dessert, we both had the raspberry tart with cardamon frozen yogurt. The frozen yogurt was quite the surprise, as I was afraid the cardamon would be too overpowering, but it went very well with the tartness of the yogurt. The raspberry filling in the tart was quite lovely, and tasted fantastic with the yogurt. Our final offering was a petit fours of chocolate chip & bacon cookies with a tall glass of cereal steeped organic milk. Yup, bacon in cookies. The bacon went shockingly well with the chocolate in the cookies, and wasn't overpowering at all. It was more like a salt alternative to balance the sweet of the chocolate. Hubby didn't like the milk, but I really enjoyed it. The wheat taste was very pleasant and the milk itself had a nice sweetness to it as well. Overall? A lovely dining experience at Hidden. Definitely a place to try! Happy cooking all! I used to loathe Valentine's Day, as any single person would. Or, most people, if you're a cynic. ;) While in university, I prefered to celebrate my friendships and drown my single sorrows away at whatever event was at the Highland Pub (ah, the days of being able to stumble back home to the townhouses in the wee hours of the morning). There was always that teeny part inside me that wished and wanted to make a big deal of the holiday, and have the fancy four or five-course dinner, but it would take until the end of my university years for that to happen. Enter: boyfriend/future hubby. We were each other's first long-term relationships, and having never been in a relationship that lasted long enough to celebrate Valentine's Day, I was quite thrilled that boyfriend/future hubby wanted to make a big fuss of it too. We have gone out almost every year, and I leave hubby in charge of figuring out Valentine's (except last year with the Olympics being in town). Following are the restaurants that we've dined at for Valentine's. Cafe de Paris: For our first Valentine's in 2006, hubby chose this French restaurant. I had visited the restaurant once before because a girlfriend and I did an interview with the owner of the restaurant for a French project in university. Something to do with having to talk to someone within the Francophone community in Vancouver. We had a good time flaunting our French prowess at the time. ;) Like most restaurants around Valentine's, the restaurant had a special menu which included an appetizer, a main, pommes frites (a specialty of the restaurant), and dessert. I remember that it was quite busy, and we chose a Red Bicyclette wine to go with our meal. Last I saw, the restaurant has recently undergone new ownership and seems to be having a revival of sorts. La Terrazza: Hubby and I went here for our second Valentine's. It was a very rainy night, and I had to meet up with hubby at the restaurant. The restaurant ambiance and decor is simply stunning. It feels like you've been transported to Italy. The meal was a four-course meal that included two starters, a main and a dessert. The only thing that I remember from the meal was one of our starters; a large heart-shaped ravioli filled with lobster and served over a delicate tomato sauce. In 2008, we decided to have a low-key Valentine's and I made dinner for the two of us. I made these great little lava cakes for dessert (it was a decent recipe that I found, in all places, a Cosmopolitan magazine). It turned out to be our last Valentine's as boyfriend and girlfriend because he proposed a month later when we went to Disneyland for spring break. OPUS: Hubby and I were in the process of moving out of our apartment and into our brand-new condo. By this point, there was a tower of boxes in the one corner of our apartment and we were going to take possession of the condo in a few days time. The restaurant is in Yaletown, and is found in the same-named hotel. OPUS had a four-course meal, one of which included a scotch shot that I had difficulty getting down (I think it was a cheese course of sort, just before our dessert). That was probably the stiffest drink I've ever had Cactus Club : This particular Valentine's was a very busy one. As well as the Olympics being in town, it was the Chinese New Year Parade and our school marching band was in it. I first spent the morning with the band, following behind them and marching around Chinatown. Hubby then met up with me and we explored the different Olympic houses and sights that have been set up around downtown. We went to Ontario house and Socchi house, then headed downtown to see the torch, the Canadian Mint, and did some general wandering and sight-seeing. We were hoping to go to one of the houses for dinner, but after discovering how late most of the houses were starting dinner, we decided to head home and hit our local Cactus Club. We got there just in time to see our first Canadian gold won by Alex Bilodeau. The Cactus Club is easily one of our favorite restaurants, and it has been getting even better since the addition of Rob Feenie as food conceptionist. I recently went to the Cactus Club for dinner with a co-worker and discovered that it has undergone a renovation. It's GORGEOUS and not as noisy as it used to be. The booths seem to be more private and they've done away with the kitchy decor. No more moose or creepy gargoyles. ;) This year? I have no clue where we are going. I actually told hubby: "I want to be surprised". So, I'll be meeting up with him downtown and I will discover whatever restaurant he has chosen for us. Here is the meal plan for the upcoming week. I've added some extra recipes under Breakfast and Baking (the gloomy weather has me thinking it's time for some cookies). Happy cooking all! I should be back after Valentine's with pics and a review of the mystery restaurant. Februrary 13-18 Sunday: Three-cheese stuffed shells (new recipe), salad Monday: Mystery restaurant for Valentine's Tuesday: Perogies and sausage Wednesday: Chili con carne Thursday: Cornmeal crumbed chicken, salad Friday: Creamy bowties, steak, salad Le sigh. Under normal circumstances, I would be out supporting our school marching band (Go Vikings!) at the Chinese New Year Parade today, but today is also my SIL's belated birthday brunch (yes, brunch; she requested that for her birthday meal). At this rate, the only parade I'll get to join the band with is Hats Off Day in June!
Hubby and I went to the Red Door Pan Asian grill yesterday for their $18 DineOut Vancouver menu. The restaurant is located in the South Granville area, which we used to frequent when we first started dating and hubby was still living in the area. Lots of neat little shops and restaurants around there (Vij's, a FANTASTIC Indian restaurant, is found here). Our first courses were indonesian chicken satays with peanut sauce (hubby's) and sichuan style potstickers (me). My potstickers were much bigger than I'm used to (at least compared to the ones we get from our sushi takeout place), but they had a perfect balance of pork, ginger and scallions, and the outside of the dumpling was nice and crispy. The sauce that accompanied it was tangy and sweet, definitely not the usual salty soy-based sauce. It was a very pleasant change. I tried a small bite of hubby's chicken satay...yum! Makes me want to make satays at home again! Our main courses were spicy ginger beef (hubby) and crispy pan seared snapper (me). The first thing that struck both of us when our mains arrived was the quantity: so much food! Had we just gone to the restaurant on a normal day, our mains would likely be around $16-18, so we were getting a pretty amazing deal for all our food. My snapper came with rice, green beans and red pepper, and the fish and veggies were topped with a sweet and spicy chili-garlic sauce. I was surprised at how well the sauce went with the fish and it didn't overpower it at all. It was also the kind of sauce that slowly creeps up on your taste buds and start to make them burn by the end. The fish itself was very tender and flaky, but not greasy despite being fried. I tried a few small bites of hubby's ginger beef, and it was very tasty; good balance of ginger flavor along with the beef itself and there were some yummy sauce-soaked mushrooms that I was able to pilfer from his plate as well. Dessert was the same for both of us: a curry-butterscotch pot de creme. It was topped with these fantastic little rice pearls, (which were like Rice Crispies, but ten times better) and a chocolate ganache. The curry really gave some great dimension to the flavor of the butterscotch and matched surprisingly well with it. Overall, a very good deal for the amount of food that we got, possibly a place we may visit again. Enjoy the Superbowl if you're watching it today and happy cooking all! I am writing today's post on my new Dell! I received it last week, and have now been happily surfing, listening to music and whatnot since then. Needless to say, I am quite in love with it. Especially once I discovered the killer sound system it has! Tomorrow is the Superbowl: the official day of chicken wings, nachos, chips, dips, beer and pretty much everything that is bad for you in large quantities. To tell the truth, I was never into football until I met hubby. I still get all confused while watching the game (and "watching" usually consists of me tolling around the interwebs, marking or doing chores around the house), but I now know who the different players are AND their teams, and I more or less know that the team has only so many tries to get to the opposing end (which I think is pretty good progress, considering I used to be completely lost whenever hubby would suddenly be jumping up and down or scream at the TV). I'm still not a superfan like hubby, but I like looking at it as an excuse to make fun food. ;) My first Superbowl was at hubby's first place on his own in 2007. I made a chicken casserole of sort for dinner and I spent most of the Superbowl painting the pieces of my trebuchet model (Warhammer fantasy Bretonnian model, thank you very much). At this time, I really didn't know much about the game at all. I knew that if you made it to the other team's end that you score and then you get to kick for the extra point (which I suppose isn't too bad), but I didn't know about the logistics of making that happen. Superbowl 2008 was at hubby's second place on his own. Unfortunately, I have very little recollection of the food that day (though it's probably a safe bet to say pizza from Panago), but I do know that this was the year that I decided to make predictions on the game. I made predictions on the coin toss (tails), who will receive the ball first (The Giants), who will lead after the half (The Patriots) and who will win (The Giants). Had I actually tried to wager money, I would've made a killing because every prediction I made was correct. :) Superbowl 2009 was in our first apartment together (and we then moved into our condo a few weeks later). We also got to watch the game on our new flat-screen TV that hubby found on an uber deal with Future Shop. I made predictions again (they are on a little index card somewhere), and we decided to go with ultimate comfort food: burgers and fries. Last year's Superbowl was the first in our condo. For this particular season, I started to get into watching the boys on Fox for the morning pregame shows on Sundays. I was getting better in terms of who's on what team, and I could almost say that I cared about who won or lost in the different games. I decided that I wanted to make a big deal with the food (and I also had my first issue of Food Network Magazine with some pretty fantastic Superbowl recipes). I made a roasted garlic-bacon dip for our chips, and I made potato skins topped with chipotle mayo, fried pork cutlet pieces, chopped tomato and chopped red onion (the magazine had a section dedicated to potato skins with a different topped skin for each NFL team; the recipe I chose was for the Colts). We also ordered pizza from Panago. I can legitimately say that I was pretty excited for this game because I wanted Payton Manning to win another Superbowl, but I also wanted New Orleans to win their first. It was very confused cheering indeed. This season? Well, Sunday with the boys is pretty much a requirement to accompany whatever we're having for Sunday brunch. I'll actually watch most of hubby's Seahawks games (you know, provided they are winning and hubby's not yelling profanities at the TV or has turned it off all together in disgust) and other games if I'm interested in who wins. It'll be a slightly dialed down Superbowl, since we're having lunch with the in-laws to belatedly celebrate my SIL's birthday, but I'm still going to make a big deal with the food anyways. Here is meal plan for the upcoming week. Hubby and I are going to another DineOut restaurant tonight, the Red Door Pan Asian grill, before checking out the Lunar Aquarium and skating at Robson square in the evening. I figured it's Chinese New Year, so we may as well go to an Asian restaurant! I'll probably be back tomorrow with pics and a review of the restaurant. Happy cooking all! Oh yeah...and Go Packs Go! (I really want Ellen to win her bet with DJ Tony; he has to wear these tiny little green Packers shorts if the Packers win) February 6-11 Sunday: Honey-garlic wings, blue cheese dip, assorted veggies Monday: Easy pot roast with rich tomato gravy, mashed potatoes Tuesday: KD & weiners Wednesday: Oven BBQ chicken, rice, veggies Thursday: Winter pizza with sausage, provolone & spinach Friday: Sesame peanut noodles |
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