Moving!

I'm moving my blog over to WordPress! This comes on high recommendation from a few good friends, and I'll be able to manage my monthly munchie program from WordPress, and all that good stuff.

Please follow me over here:
notesoforchid.wordpress.com

Happy eating!

Food adventures: Maple Bacon Cupcakes

This is my second attempt at baking, and I have to admit, it's getting easier as time goes on! I'd eventually like to invest in a standing mixer; I've always wanted one, and if I'm going to start baking at least once a month (for a 'munchies of the month club') I should probably get some better baking tools and whatnot.

I sadly did not come up with this recipe myself - I instead took this recipe and doubled it. When looking for my bacon chocolate chip cookie recipes, I stumbled across some maple & bacon combinations, which is pretty much breakfast on a plate. So I decided to give it a try, and share the love with my Philadelphia + out of town friends at a dance event. (On a side note, if you'd like to see why I spend so much time in Philadelphia, go here).

The recipe was pretty simple - it called for self-rising flour, which I'm still not sure the difference between that and regular flour, and maple syrup, and I have plenty of ingredients leftover that I can make this recipe at least twice more. I doubled the recipe for the cupcake batter and the cream as well. I also didn't really measure how much bacon I used, since I made bacon chocolate chip cookies at the same time and just used the leftover bacon after the cookies for the cupcakes. I wished there was more bacon in the cupcakes, although those who got some said the flavor was great.

The maple cream frosting was very sweet, but with the bacon and sea salt on top it was a wonderful contrast. I ended up with 17 cupcakes and this time got to enjoy a cupcake! I love sharing my goods with others so much I rarely get to enjoy them for myself. A special shout out to Laura, who was my baking assistant for the evening and helped me with all the cookies and cupcakes that we made. Thanks for all your help!

Here are the finished products and byproducts:
Slow cooked bacon bits and the rendered bacon fat. I saved the bacon fat for use with eggs, cooking, etc. It's wonderful!


Me in action!


Baking with Laura yields the following:


Cupcakes tightly packed and ready to be enjoyed by many dancers and friends!


Happy eating!

Food adventures: Pan-seared tilapia part 2

So I had more tilapia in the freezer, so I decided to try the recipe again, but this time follow as instructed and use flour like the original recipe called for. I actually ended up liking the taste of the bread crumbs better, and since this dish went directly into tupperware to be eaten another day, I think I would have preferred the bread crumbs since they heat up better as well.

This time around, I served the tilapia and accompanying lemon sauce over a bed of steamed green beans. I'm actually not supposed to eat green beans, so after they started to bother me when I was eating the dish, I only ended up eating about half of them.. but for those of you that like green beans, it was a really good vegetable to go along with the lemon sauce.

I also roasted some sweet potatoes that I got from the local farmer's market (Trenton Farmer's Market, if you're curious). I had written down a recipe from an older issue of Real Simple which combined some rosemary, olive oil, and brown sugar. The sweet potatoes turned out just right and the brown sugar really brought out the flavor.

Here it is!


Happy eating!

Food adventures: Pan-seared tilapia, part 1

I made this dish twice within a two-week period, but with slight alterations. I got the recipe for the tilapia from FoodNetwork.com - it was a Bobby Flay recipe for a simple pan-seared tilapia. The original recipe called for flour, but since I didn't have any the first go-around, I used bread crumbs, and actually think I liked that version better.

I tossed some potatoes with onion soup mix and olive oil which gave a great coating and great flavor to the potatoes. The roasted potatoes came out great and were a good compliment to the fish. I paired the potatoes with steamed broccoli (one of the only vegetables I can eat without having many issues) and the tilapia recipe had a small lemon juice sauce that I poured over the tilapia and broccoli.

It ended up being a really flavorful dish and the tilapia was lightly browned, flaky, and delicious. The lemon sauce wasn't too strong and was a great sauce for the broccoli as well.

And, here it is!



Part 2 will be posted soon.. same recipe, slight modifications. Happy eating!

Food adventures: Quick Fix

The hardest thing about cooking for one is figuring out to do with leftover ingredients. I made the following pasta dish with leftover ingredients from my pasta with roasted tomatoes.



I had an extra package of grape tomatoes so I tossed them with some olive oil, salt and pepper, and roasted them in the convection oven. I took two packages of "Pasta Sides" and made those, and also cooked up some white onions and mushrooms as well, and a can of green beans. The pasta side (packaged pasta, and a very easy quick fix for me) was an Alfredo flavor, which complimented the rest of the vegetables quite nicely.

Above all else, I love making things from scratch, not using things like 'pasta sides' and canned green beans, but sometimes, in a time crunch, I'd rather be eating something like this than getting fast food or something that's even worse. I love to follow recipes and experiment with what I can eat, so throwing this together is more out of necessity.

Also, thanks for reading! I'm trying to start blogging at least twice a week, so thanks for keeping up with the blog!

Food adventures: Bacon chocolate chip cookies

Ah, these have been my favorite cooking adventure of the past few months. I did not come up with this recipe, sadly, but over the past year or two my love and obsession for bacon has grown pretty out of proportion, so why not make cookies? I got the original recipe idea from my friend Michael's sister, Laurain (check out her food blog here). Since the summer, I've made three batches. The first batch included candied bacon, shown here:

Candied bacon isn't actually too hard to make, just baking bacon with a lot of brown sugar, and baking it. The result is delicious, crispy, and sweet bacon. This I chopped into pieces and rolled into the cookies.

The first batch also included rendered bacon fat. I slow cooked chopped up pieces of bacon, then removed the bacon bits (to be put in the cookies, of course) and put the bacon fat in the freezer. It turned out like this:



It pretty much has the consistency of butter and it substituted about half of the butter that the recipe originally called for.

The pictures of the cookies below are the third batch, where I actually cheated a little bit. I took a package of frozen cookie dough, added bacon, and rolled out cookies from there. I'm a big of "semi-homemade" things, and since I have limited time to cook, I figure any shortcuts I can take for now are okay. When I made this batch, I picked 4-5 bacon bits to roll into each cookie, and then one big one on the top of each cookie so you could tell it was bacon. My two other batches had uneven amounts of bacon - some people complained they had too much bacon, and some not enough. Doing it this way proved useful since everyone had just the right amount of bacon to chocolate chips.

Here's cookies before they baked:



And here they are after!



From the three batches (more than 30 cookies each batch) I think I only had one or two of these cookies. They're too good not to share! I brought them to Johnson & Johnson to share with co-workers, my friend's graduation party, my parents, friends at the rock gym, ResLife training, made a whole batch just for the Philly dance community, and even sent them to Washington D.C., Boston, Nashville and Astoria, NY. They're simple, delicious, and satisfies my love for bacon and chocolate.

Food adventures: Planning ahead

I'm a college student on a budget. I am also a college student with multiple food allergies and the list of foods I cannot eat is slowly becoming longer than the foods that I can eat. Since I've been living in my house in June, I average about $150-200 a month on groceries. Most people are pretty impressed with this, and I do it through a variety of ways.

I am a born bargain shopper. My mom has always been one, and since I was a young adult I helped her find sales and cut coupons from the circulars on Sundays. When she stopped cutting coupons (I was probably in high school), I started cutting coupons for her so I could get food that I wanted because they were on sale. At my most recent shopping trip to Stop and Shop, every item in my cart, besides two boxes of store-brand cereal, a necessity, was on sale. I saved $30 in just one trip.

This isn't to say that I don't eat well. I eat the veggies that I can and am not stuck eating ramen and eggs; on the contrary, I am quite pleased with the amount of meals I can come up with with my limited diet. I actually find it pretty fun to see what kind of meals I can come up with for the least amount of money.

To organize my thoughts, I keep a recipe binder with any recipes that I've found. I find a number of recipes online, jot some down, and most recently found a recipe from the magazine Real Simple. I keep track of everything I've made, and on the front of the recipe binder, I have the following post-its:




I got the idea of meal planning from my parents - they've been doing it for over a year, or maybe even longer than that. Another great meal planner is my friend Tina, who does her meal planning electronically. I'm a little more old fashioned and since I already had these post-its, this is what I use. I fill in my schedule for the week, plan out when I can actually eat my meals throughout the week, and try to have at least two or three different entrees per week, and two or three different lunch options. Lately, I've even been planning how many servings each meal I cook will get, and that way I can keep track of how much food I actually need to cook.

Some say this is boring, but this is what works for me. The hardest thing about living on a tight budget is not letting any food go to waste. Making sure to portion meals correctly and having a detailed grocery list helps me keep track of all my food while still being able to enjoy it all.

Food adventures: salmon in a brown sugar bourbon glaze

Ah, seafood! I mentioned in a previous post that salmon is my favorite fish, and after my teriyaki salmon, I still had two fillets left in the freezer pack I bought. I found this recipe (can't recall where, but I think either allrecipes.com or the Food Network) and don't really cook stuff like this, so I decided to give it a try.

The recipe started out with melting butter with brown sugar, so it looked like this:



Then I added the salmon, let it cook, turned, and added the bourbon and let it cook some more:



I paired it with some rice (also one of my staple foods) and some green beans that I had in the freezer. It's not that I'm a HUGE fan of freezer food, but I can't seem to make it to the grocery store often enough to always get vegetables when they're fresh. With such a tight schedule it's difficult to grocery shop more than once a month right now. Once I get settled with school and my multiple jobs maybe I can work some more time in and get fresh vegetables because they're cheaper, but for now, freezer vegetables will have to do.

The end product looked like this:




I enjoyed it, though I will admit I didn't get too much of the bourbon glaze and it had more of a brown sugar taste. Maybe next time I'll add a little more bourbon to get more of the flavor. The brown sugar also burned a little easier than I thought it would, so next time I will certainly experiment so I can figure out how to not get that.

Since I just returned from a trip, I have some thoughts going on in my head about difficulties going out to eat with all my food allergies. It's becoming increasingly difficult, and although I may joke about it, it's become a thorn in my side and it's most of the reason that I don't go out to eat, but on trips, it's a necessity. Others' jokes and whatnot sometimes help, and sometimes they don't. But I'll save those thoughts for another post.

Happy eating!

Food adventures: Teriyaki salmon

Salmon is my favorite fish, both cooked and uncooked. Here's another one of my mom's recipes, which was probably one of my favorite 'quick meals' when I was in high school. (I'll post some other quick recipes here too, eventually.)

It's simple really - just some rice, salmon filets, olive oil, and teriyaki marinade. Cooked in the oven until the salmon is tender and the sauce that remains is mildly sweet and a perfect complement to whatever vegetables you have at the moment. At my parent's house we always seemed to have corn; this time around, I had some mixed vegetables in the freezer and popped those in the microwave.

While I made this meal, I was on a cooking kick so I was cooking a few other meals at the same time. I boiled some potatoes (description to follow in another blog) and made some mashed potatoes in an experiment, so those went on this plate for dinner too.

So here's my (my mom's, really) simple 20-minute dinner:

Food adventures: lemon chicken

My dad got me a cookbook pretty recently, so I've been trying out a bunch of the recipes (if I can eat them, that is) and this was the first dish, besides the pho, that I made for other people. It was somewhat of a mini dinner party with my friends Matt and Ethan, and my housemate Julie. I was actually super worried when I was cooking because lately, I only cook for myself, and cooking for other people scares me. I can deal with my own failings as a cook but when cooking for other people I feel a lot of pressure. All my woes disappeared, though, when my dish was very well received, especially with Matt's apparent love for lemons and chicken, as well as the parsley that was included in the dish.

Here's what it ended up looking like.




The original recipe called for orecchiette, which I didn't have, so I used medium shells instead. The recipe itself is pretty simple, just some pan-fried chicken cooked in a sauce of lemon juice, oil, and parsley. I added more lemon juice than the recipe called for and it worked out great because then I had a little more leftover sauce for the pasta. I ended up cooking the chicken for longer than I had thought it would take so some of the parsley was burnt, but I still think it tasted great (and so did Matt, who loved the parsley). Next time I'll go for smaller pieces of chicken and pound them down a little bit more so they're thinner and cook faster.

I also had a decent amount of pasta leftover (I cooked a whole pound) - not really a big deal, since I'm a pro at eating leftovers, but I could probably only cook half a pound next time and be fine with that amount of pasta. I microwaved some frozen vegetables so I could have a little color, and because no matter what recipe I'm making, I still feel a need to balance my starches with meat and vegetables. All in all, first dinner for multiple people = great success!

Food Adventures: Penne with roasted tomatoes

In case you haven't noticed, I get most recipes from my mom, who I think is one of the best cooks out there. She puts together these great meals, using recipes and tweaking them, and has always made something that I like. I only hope that when I'm a mom I can cook as great as she does.

This most recent dish I made for my friend Tamra when she came to visit. I forgot to take pictures while actually cooking, so all I have is the end result, and here it is: Penne with roasted tomatoes and bacon.



The recipe involves some roasted grape tomatoes, and then some bacon (original recipe calls for pancetta), chili pepper flakes, onions, garlic, basil, and penne of course. My parents have served it as a "light pasta dish" at family parties we've had, with a small portion on an appetizer plate, and it's not too heavy but really flavorful. It made about 6 portions, plenty of leftovers for me to take to work for lunch with me.

I didn't like how burnt my tomatoes got, so next time I'll roast them for less time or maybe at a lower temperature. I also didn't like how spicy it got (I don't really do spicy food, not my thing) so I'll use a little less chili pepper next time.


In other news, I've started a recipe binder so I have all my recipes in one place. I'm putting all my sheet protectors to good use, finally! I find recipes everywhere so I figured it's a good place to keep them all organized. I put a post-it on the back of each recipe so I remember when I made it, and add general comments about the recipe or what I liked or didn't like. That way the next time I want to make it, I know what to do!

Food adventures: Fried Rice

I don't have pictures to share this time, unfortunately, because I spent so much time cooking that I completely forgot that I wanted to do this food blogging business.

Last night, with a few clarifying text instructions from my mom, I set out to make her fried rice. She always surprises me with this dish when I least expect it, and it's so much better than fried rice you'll find anywhere else.

I took a trip to the Hamilton Filam Food store (what Filam means is beyond me) and luckily, they had the Chinese sausage that I was looking for. I got a package bigger than I expected on buying, but it worked out since I burned the first batch of sausage.

Once I burned the first slices of sausage (four links went to waste, so sad), I cooked up another batch and was pleased with the result. I scrambled some eggs and microwaved the freezer 'vegetable medley' (peas, carrots, corn, green beans).

Then I got to use the enormous wok that my mother so generously gave to me - it's big, heavy, and really hard for me to maneuver. I sauteed some chopped onions and ginger (I forgot the scallions, whoops), and then dumped in 3 cups of rice. The rest of the ingredients went in - the sausage, egg, and vegetables, plus some salt for flavor. Lots of stirring and attempting to move the wok around later, I had fried rice! It made about five servings, which I'm really pleased with - I shared some with a friend of mine and he loved it!

Even though I could probably eat fried rice all day long at PF Chang's, it's so much more satisfying knowing that I can make it myself, and that it's not even that hard! Next time I'll try a little harder to not let my ingredients get stuck to the bottom of the wok, not burn my sausage, put in even more eggs and onions, and not forget the scallions. I'll be making this soon for sure, since it's so easy!

Food Adventures: Pho

So I recently moved into a house of my own (living with four other people) and will totally admit that I have been spoiled by campus life for the past four years. Cooking has never been my strong point, mainly because I'm picky, and because I'm so limited in what I can eat because of all my food allergies. When I did cook it was probably once every two weeks, because I got used to having mediocre food from dining halls for the convenience factor.

So this summer has been about getting a little creative about what I make for myself, figuring out what I can eat AND cook, and making every dollar stretch so I can eat healthy on a tight budget. Most recently, I made pho, a popular Vietnamese noodle dish. In Viet Nam, you can find pho sold on carts on the street (so I'm told), and in Vietnamese restaurants, my family and I judge their pho very seriously, because my mom makes the best pho in the world.

So with some help from my mom, she told me the recipe (I didn't have time to watch her make anything, so I had to try and remember watching her years ago in the kitchen) and gave me some the harder-to-find ingredients (the asian spices) so that I wouldn't have to search too hard. All I needed was a big pot and some beef and I would be all set. So here's what came out of it:


First I had to boil the beef ... for 3 hours. Mind you, this was early July and it was about 95 degrees in my kitchen (horrible ventilation) and I had to watch beef and skim the fat off for a painstakingly long time. However, this is the short version of the recipe - other recipes you'll find call for 6-8 hours of cooking the meat, so I was happy this didn't take as long as my mom normally does it.



Once the beef was done, it was nice and tender, and the broth was already ready flavorful. I sliced the beef to add back to the soup later.



Then came all the other stuff - star anise, ginger root, onion, black pepper, and cinnamon. Plus chicken stock too. I let that simmer for a while, and at the same time soaked my rice noodles (vermicelli) in cold water for an hour to get it ready for the soup. I added some fish sauce to taste, and voila.. four and half hours later .. PHO!


So I brought the broth back up to boiling, boiled some water in a separate pot and boiled bunches of the noodles for about 20-30 seconds each, enough to cook but not make them too slimy. The noodles went into the bowl, along with the beef, raw beef eye rounds, and onions. I ladled the broth over the noodles and meat, added some cilantro, green onions, and lime, and I had my bowl of pho!




All in all it was a great experience and I would totally do it all over again, with the exception of the horrible heat. Now that I have the recipe down I can play around a little more with the spices, meat, and overall flavor of the broth and how I can change it. I shared the soup with two of my friends, and they both seemed to like it. I even impressed myself! I didn't think it would be so easy. My mom bought me pre-packaged spices for the next time I make soup which is a great help, since the Asian food store around my house is about 30 minutes out of the way and it's hard to find time to get there.

I'll continue to blog about my food adventures as much as I can - today I used the wok my mom gave me and her recipe to make homemade fried rice - with peas, carrots, egg, onion, garlic, and chinese sausage. It came out pretty good and I can't wait to make it again - unfortunately I forgot to take pictures so I'll just have to share those next time I make the dish.

For someone who doesn't think they can really cook, this summer has really been about teaching myself how to do it all. Let's hope I can keep it up once school starts!

A little give and take

Over the past year I've found myself with some new hobbies, and am continuing to collect hobbies like one collects stamps, or limited edition coins.

There comes a point, however, when you need to assess what you actually have time for, what you're actually dedicated to, and what you can let go. And I'm at a hard point in my life right now where I don't have time for everything, but I also don't want to give anything up. So how do I choose? How do I convince myself that one hobby is more important than the other when I have two great hobbies that challenge me mentally, physically, and emotionally? Each of them has their own physical and social aspect of it (I'm talking about dancing and rock clibming) and each requires a similar time commitment.

In my head and my planning for the future, I guess I've already made somewhat of a decision. By registering for weekend events and committing to travel with friends to dance events, I've chosen dance. But even with that, I can't give up climbing. My wallet can't afford it, and I certainly don't have the time for it. But it's a sport that requires constant effort to improve, and if I stop, I'll lose everything I've been working for in the past year. And I'm not one to waste my time.

So what do I do? Struggle even more than I am, attempt to make time, sacrifice something else, like a relaxing night at home with my housemates? Do I sacrifice a night of schoolwork or actual work so that I can have one night of climbing? I'm not sure what the answer is yet. It'll take some trial and error. Because, as much as I tell myself that I don't have the time or the money, it's something I just can't give up; the people, the place, the exercise, everything. It's become part of how I define myself, and how can I take that away?

Forgiveness

It's an interesting concept. But what is forgiveness? Moving past something that hurt you? Trying to forget that someone hurt you? Or doing all that with the thought in the back of your mind to be more cautious that it would all happen again.

Is it unhealthy, then, to live on the cautious side? Is it bad that 'forgive and forget' doesn't exist in my vocabulary of relationships? Maybe I expect too much out of people. Or maybe I don't expect enough out of them. People can change, I can change.

There is something, though, that always gets in my mind if I'm losing a friendship, relationship, whatever. I tell myself that I survived without that person in my life, and if they leave my life now, I can go back to the same person I was before. Is that even possible? Some people change your lives so much and connect with you like no other. And losing them sometimes isn't an option, no matter how much it hurts. But how much more hurt am I willing to suffer? It's all in the ebb and flow of life, I guess. I need to learn how to take the good with the bad better, and embrace the bad for what it is and how it changes me. Everything happens for a reason, I just need to keep telling myself that.

My favorite part of Easter.

I do not celebrate Easter. My family does not celebrate Easter. I do, however, celebrate Easter Egg hunts. Especially ones at PF Chang's.

Each year, the opening crew (kitchen staff and then one bartender, take-out, host, and 2 servers) get to take part in an Easter egg hunt in the restaurant. There's eggs with $1 bills, $5 bills, $10 bills, and this year, there were two eggs with $20 bills. Some just have chocolate, and I have no problem with that either. This year was my fourth year doing the Easter egg hunt, and it is one of my favorite parts about working there. I've gotten so good at the hunt I know all the good places that the managers hide eggs. Next year my goal is to come in early and help them hide eggs in the morning.

So during the hunt I collected 10 eggs in about 5 minutes. Counted it all up and have $19. Not bad for ten minutes of work!

My manager Kevin mentioned that only one person had found a $20 egg, and so there was still one out there! I thought I had looked everywhere and for a while gave up. But 45 minutes after the hunt had 'ended' (when we opened the restaurant) I was looking behind the bar in hopes of catching something, then checked the service printer.. and there it was. A golden egg with a $20 bill. So I made an extra $39 .. just for being at work about an hour before most people. Not a bad day at work after all.

The Easter egg hunt is just one part of the reasons I love working at PF Chang's. It gets everyone excited to do something other than serve/make Chinese food, and brings together our front and back of house staff for at least a brief moment in time. It makes it a little more bearable to work on a holiday and plus, who doesn't love chocolate? If only we could do things like this on every holiday that we work...

finding time

..to get back on the blogging train.

For now, a poem I wrote in class.




An empty shell
is anybody home?
You're at a standstill
nowhere to go but nowhere to hide.
Why keep running?
It's time to face your fears.
Life isn't easy
and you need to work a little harder
If you could turn it all around
would you?
It's almost too late
until the ties are severed.
Can't you realize
we're just trying to help?
Please...