I've come to realize that a food blog with no pictures is doomed. I also really don't have any interest in investing in good photography equipment -- or even the time! -- so this will serve as my own personal recipe book, just one open to the public for browsing.
The following recipe makes the most amazingly soft turkey meatballs you've ever had. It combines a secret ingredient that my mother first discovered when she was trying to cut out cholesterol-ladden foods from her cooking: tofu!
She started "hiding" tofu into all the baozi and dumpling stuffing, and the result was a moist, soft, and flavorful meatball. Chinese cooking also uses starch to soften meats, which this recipe incorporates as well... Belts and suspenders, as we say in the law!
The best part about having a mom who hails from a completely different tradition and culture is that you get to incorporate the tricks of other ethnic cuisines! Trust me: this is amazing.
The Best Turkey Meatballs
Servings: 4 to 6
Ingredients:
1 lb ground turkey
1/4 cup tofu, mashed
1/4 cup bread crumbs
1 large egg
1 tbsp tapioca starch
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp salt
shredded cheese (of whatever kind!)
thyme, oregano, basil, pepper
1. Combine the tofu, bread crumbs, egg, and starch with a fork or chopsticks.
2. Combine the ground turkey and seasonings with your hands.
3. Shape into meatballs. I like mine to be small, with a diameter of 3/4 of an inch.
4. Cook. There are two methods:
Option A: Bake on a baking sheet with olive oil at 360F for 20 - 25 min.
Option B: Cook in tomato sauce on simmer for 35 - 40 min.
Why you should make this:
#1. It's healthier than ground beef.
#2. Moist! Soft! Tasty! Meatballs!
Why you shouldn't make this:
#1. You are vegetarian.
#2. You don't like handling meat. It gets messy!
Sunday, October 20, 2013
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Summer Tacos
It's been a long hiatus from posting. I left New York City for a summer internship in DC, which kept me so busy that I hardly had any time to spare for my blog. Many friendships and memories were made, good food was eaten, and not much sleep was had. But I'm back now!
My best friend came to visit me for Labor Day. I took her to the Highline at Fourteenth Street, which was an ideal study spot. She is in medical school, and I am in law school; sadly, our fun visit consisted mostly of reading.
We did make time to visit Chelsea Market, where she made a beeline for Los Tacos No. 1. She had read about the place on Yelp -- "five stars with 62 reviews and one dollar sign are nothing to scoff at." Indeed! I can count on one hand the number of times I'd had tacos, and these were absolutely delicious. A day later, I felt I hadn't had enough and tried re-creating the magic.
I used leftover duck breast for the meat, and had I been more enterprising, I would definitely have marinaded it. I also made scrambled eggs with onions, spinach, and asparagus heads, but the winner of the night was the salsa. We hand-chopped every ingredient, but I wish that I owned a food processor.
This recipe is a keeper!
(I need to figure out how to download photos from my phone, eh.)
Mango Salsa
Serving size: 8
Ingredients:
1 mango, peeled and diced
6 or 7 plum tomatoes, diced
1 red onion, diced
1/2 cup of cilantro, finely chopped
4 cloves of garlic
Lime juice
Olive oil
Cumin
Cayenne pepper
Black pepper
Salt
1. Combine all the ingredients.
2. Enjoy! Or keep chilled in the fridge until consumption.
Why should I make this?
#1. Cheap ingredients.
#2. So many veggies. I ate them all, including the red onion, which I usually find too strong to like. I hardly recognized myself.
#3. No cooking involved. Perfect for the summer when no one wants to stand in front of a stove or turn on the oven!
Why should I not make this?
#1. You don't like to chop things finely and don't own a food processor.
My best friend came to visit me for Labor Day. I took her to the Highline at Fourteenth Street, which was an ideal study spot. She is in medical school, and I am in law school; sadly, our fun visit consisted mostly of reading.
We did make time to visit Chelsea Market, where she made a beeline for Los Tacos No. 1. She had read about the place on Yelp -- "five stars with 62 reviews and one dollar sign are nothing to scoff at." Indeed! I can count on one hand the number of times I'd had tacos, and these were absolutely delicious. A day later, I felt I hadn't had enough and tried re-creating the magic.
I used leftover duck breast for the meat, and had I been more enterprising, I would definitely have marinaded it. I also made scrambled eggs with onions, spinach, and asparagus heads, but the winner of the night was the salsa. We hand-chopped every ingredient, but I wish that I owned a food processor.
This recipe is a keeper!
(I need to figure out how to download photos from my phone, eh.)
Mango Salsa
Serving size: 8
Ingredients:
1 mango, peeled and diced
6 or 7 plum tomatoes, diced
1 red onion, diced
1/2 cup of cilantro, finely chopped
4 cloves of garlic
Lime juice
Olive oil
Cumin
Cayenne pepper
Black pepper
Salt
1. Combine all the ingredients.
2. Enjoy! Or keep chilled in the fridge until consumption.
Why should I make this?
#1. Cheap ingredients.
#2. So many veggies. I ate them all, including the red onion, which I usually find too strong to like. I hardly recognized myself.
#3. No cooking involved. Perfect for the summer when no one wants to stand in front of a stove or turn on the oven!
Why should I not make this?
#1. You don't like to chop things finely and don't own a food processor.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Pizza Supreme
This pizza never gets old. The key ingredients also keep very well, so you can easily stretch out making a second batch a week after the first.
Flatbread Pizza Supreme
For 5 servings
5 whole grain flat breads
1 red pepper, thinly sliced
1 box of mushrooms, sliced
1 can of tomato sauce or tomato paste
1/2 lb of prosciutto
or 2 cans of anchovies marinated in olive oil
arugula
mozzarella cheese, shredded
goat cheese, sliced
parmesan, shaved
1. Preheat oven to 400F.
2. Place the flatbread on a baking sheet. (No need to use oil. The bread will not stick.)
3. Spread tomato sauce (I prefer to use tomato paste that I thin out with water. I can better control the consistency and sodium levels).
4. Sprinkle with mozzarella, then arrange pepper, mushroom, and goat cheese slices. Make it pretty!
5. Tear prosciutto into strips, 1" by 2". Arrange onto pizza.
6. Place a small handful of arugula in the center. Sprinkle with parmesan.
7. Bake in the oven for 15 to 20 min, depending on desired crunchiness of the crust.
Tips:
-- This is an old trick: cut pizza with scissors.
-- Don't go overboard with any one of the ingredients because your pizza may become unmanageable. You have to be able to let it sit on a tiny piece of flatbread.
-- Also, when saving ingredients over the course of the week, use vegetable plastic bags instead of saran wrap or foil. I will write another post about the all-purpose vegetable plastic bag later. Suffice it to say that the can of tomato, goat cheese, and parmesan will fare especially well if you tie them up in one of those bags.
Why should you make this?
#1. It's super easy, healthy, and delicious. There is no oil in this recipe, except for the natural oils found in the ingredients. Pretty cheap, too, except for the prosciutto.
#2. This pizza is all about using a little of everything. So many flavors melding in your mouth!
#3. It's the best cooking project to do with kids. I made pizzas with my ex-boyfriend's 3-year-old nephew, and it was the most fun I'd ever had cooking with someone else. Just prepare the toppings in advance, like they do in those cooking shows, so the child has complete creative control over the sprinkling process. You can adapt the ingredients so that they are friendlier to children's tastes. For example, skip the prosciutto and use pepperoni slices instead.
The only thing I would change about that particular pizza-making-with-nephew experience is that I would have used flatbread instead of pizza dough. Toddlers and dough-work will go nowhere. Also, once you discover pita bread or flatbread, it's difficult to ever go back to manually stretching dough and all that mess...
Why should you not make this?
I cannot for the life of me think of any reason. Maybe you don't know how to turn on an oven. Or maybe you can't afford to buy a baking sheet, in which case, you should borrow one in order to make this pizza.
Flatbread Pizza Supreme
5 whole grain flat breads
1 red pepper, thinly sliced
1 box of mushrooms, sliced
1 can of tomato sauce or tomato paste
1/2 lb of prosciutto
or 2 cans of anchovies marinated in olive oil
arugula
mozzarella cheese, shredded
goat cheese, sliced
parmesan, shaved
1. Preheat oven to 400F.
2. Place the flatbread on a baking sheet. (No need to use oil. The bread will not stick.)
3. Spread tomato sauce (I prefer to use tomato paste that I thin out with water. I can better control the consistency and sodium levels).
4. Sprinkle with mozzarella, then arrange pepper, mushroom, and goat cheese slices. Make it pretty!
5. Tear prosciutto into strips, 1" by 2". Arrange onto pizza.
6. Place a small handful of arugula in the center. Sprinkle with parmesan.
7. Bake in the oven for 15 to 20 min, depending on desired crunchiness of the crust.
 |
| One more picture |
-- This is an old trick: cut pizza with scissors.
-- Don't go overboard with any one of the ingredients because your pizza may become unmanageable. You have to be able to let it sit on a tiny piece of flatbread.
-- Also, when saving ingredients over the course of the week, use vegetable plastic bags instead of saran wrap or foil. I will write another post about the all-purpose vegetable plastic bag later. Suffice it to say that the can of tomato, goat cheese, and parmesan will fare especially well if you tie them up in one of those bags.
Why should you make this?
#1. It's super easy, healthy, and delicious. There is no oil in this recipe, except for the natural oils found in the ingredients. Pretty cheap, too, except for the prosciutto.
#2. This pizza is all about using a little of everything. So many flavors melding in your mouth!
#3. It's the best cooking project to do with kids. I made pizzas with my ex-boyfriend's 3-year-old nephew, and it was the most fun I'd ever had cooking with someone else. Just prepare the toppings in advance, like they do in those cooking shows, so the child has complete creative control over the sprinkling process. You can adapt the ingredients so that they are friendlier to children's tastes. For example, skip the prosciutto and use pepperoni slices instead.
The only thing I would change about that particular pizza-making-with-nephew experience is that I would have used flatbread instead of pizza dough. Toddlers and dough-work will go nowhere. Also, once you discover pita bread or flatbread, it's difficult to ever go back to manually stretching dough and all that mess...
Why should you not make this?
I cannot for the life of me think of any reason. Maybe you don't know how to turn on an oven. Or maybe you can't afford to buy a baking sheet, in which case, you should borrow one in order to make this pizza.
Monday, April 22, 2013
Amour-Propre
How do you go about finding the matching sock, when you don't know even the color of the one you're holding?
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Hot News
Starting tonight, I will get to read the New York Times online to my big, slobbering heart's content. No more deleting all my cookies after every tenth article. No more parsing out which articles are worth clicking on and which to read on CNN (shudder). No more reminders of why I'm now running up against the NY Times paywall.
I got this awesome orange tote to boot. Laundry and groceries, here I come!
I got this awesome orange tote to boot. Laundry and groceries, here I come!
OH, AND FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE
Health Is Your Best Friend
It's the first time in a month that I have felt healthy. Though I'm still fighting remnants of my last cold, I feel as though I'm no longer treading water -- exhausted and scared, as more waves wash up and over my head. In mid-March, I had severe loss of appetite, followed by one of the most prolonged bouts of my chronic gastrointestinal disease. The pain lasted about two and half weeks, during which I lost ten pounds. Just as I was recovering, I caught a bad head cold that laid me low for another full week. My poor immune system probably tanked under all the emotional and physical strain.
But every part of me now seems back to normal. All the gears are turning, the pipes cleared, and the motors running. Hopefully, I will be returning to the gym soon.
Just in time for final exams!
But every part of me now seems back to normal. All the gears are turning, the pipes cleared, and the motors running. Hopefully, I will be returning to the gym soon.
Just in time for final exams!
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Second Celebrity Sighting!
During my second week in New York, I ran into a movie set on my way to Duane Reade for some Dayquil. I've always regretted not taking a picture of Adam Brody, and I promised myself, "Never again would I let propriety and discretion get in the way of documenting a celebrity sighting."
So my panties were put in a twist two days ago when I saw Harold Koh at Artopolis. I now need to work on my photography skills.
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