Vanilla Bean Creme Brulee French Toast Waffles

I'll make this sort to quick and to the point...
   Vanilla Bean Creme Brulee French Toast Waffles.  Yes that's what I made this morning for breakfast.  I made a homemade vanilla bean batter to make the waffles, and then coated them with a egg mixture that included cinnamon and nutmeg and then put them on a griddle.  I served them with some English style scrambled eggs and that was that.

   If you want the exact recipe that I created, let me know and I'll type it out for you.
Until next time, I wish y'all happy eating.
-Henry

Pork Sui Mai (Shui Mai/燒賣)

Chinese New Year was this past Sunday (February 10, 2013) and I was really craving some dim sum.  Since Henry was doing a rotation Saturday and I was still sick, I decided to make some instead of going out.  I went with one of my favorites/a dim sum favorite...Sui Mai (Cantonese pronunciation, Shu mai if you're mandarin).  If you read my Wonton blog before this, then you pretty much know how to make this, you just need a few more ingredients and equipment. =)

Extra Equipment:

• Steamer baskets, I used bamboo, but metal works too
• Wax paper, punched with holes to line the steamer basket
• A steamer, I actually have one, but you can use a pot with a lid

Ingredients:

• Ground Pork, 1 lbs
• Shaoxing wine (pretty much just rice wine)
• Light Soy Sauce
• Ginger (about an inch, I just broke off one of the "branches"), diced 
• 1 Green onion, diced
• Salt and Pepper,
• Sugar, about 1 tbsp
• Wonton Wrappers
• Frozen Peas and Carrots (optional)

 Directions:

1. Mix first 7 ingredients together.  I put a splash of wine and soy sauce, probably about one tablespoon each. Just judge it by the color, you don't want it to be too dark and smell too much like wine or soy sauce.  
2. You can form the Sui Mai, two ways.  The first way is just placing the wonton wrapper on top of your four fingers/palm, add a little bit of the pork mixture in the middle and using your four fingers, form a square like basket.  The second way is to make an OK symbol with just your thumb and forefinger.  Place the wonton wrapper on the circle and stuff the pork mixture down into the wrapper.  Shape as needed. 
3. I put four sui mai in the bamboo steamer and place in a steamer or a large pot with a stand and steam for about 5-7 minutes. 
4. You can add the thawed frozen pea or carrot on top like they do in the Chinese restaurants

 And there you have it. Homemade Sui Mai :)

Wonton Soup with Noodles

So I've been sick the past few days and because of that I've been craving comfort food.  Yesterday I decided to make Wontons, which of course means soup, and just to make it more of a meal, I added egg noodles too.

Wontons are super easy.
Ingredients:

• 1 lb Ground Pork
• 2 - Green Onions, diced
• Two garlic cloves, diced
• Salt and Pepper
• Onion powder
• Red Pepper Flakes for kick
• Wonton Skins/wrappers (squares)
• Chicken broth
• Egg Noodles

 Directions:

1. Combine ground pork, salt, pepper, onion powder, red pepper flakes, garlic, and one of the green onions, mix well. Should look like the above picture
2. Place a spoonful of the mixture into the wrapper and seal edges.  My mom always made it with the top gathered at the top, so that's how I did it. You can just fold it and seal the edges if you want.
3. You can cook this in the broth, in fact I would recommend this. Just drop the wonton in the bowling water when they pop up to the top, they're done. 
4. For the broth:  Just add water and chicken broth (however much you want, I probably had 6 cups or so) and add half of the remaining green onion into it
5. Noodles: Just cook according to the package

Put the noodles, broth, and wontons in a bowl, top with some green onions and tada you're good to go

Yummy :)  Bet you didn't realize it was super easy. 

Enjoy!
Julia

Pull Porked with BBQ Sauce

This will be quick...and without pictures.

So Henry and I went out to eat yesterday (as you can see from the review) so by the time I got home I didn't want to cook anything but I knew I needed something for lunch.  I decided to bust out the slow cooker and throw things in there.  Pretty simple.

I bought a boneless pork butt, seasoned it with salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, paprika, a little cayenne, some cajun seasoning, garlic, and onion powder.  I let that sit for a bit while I cut up the veggies.  I cut up some potatoes, carrots, and an onion.  I put that in the bottom of the slow cooker so that the pork can sit on it.  I seared off all sides of the pork and put that in the slow cooker.  In a small bowl, I added about 2 cups of water, some ketchup, brown sugar, and paprika.  Mixed that together then poured into the slow cooker.  I set it for about 8 hours on low and went to bed.

In the morning I grabbed the pork from the slow cooker and shredded it with two forks.  It was delicious.  I decided to give a go at making some BBQ sauce.  I started with a little roux, added juice from the slow cooker, paprika, cayenne, a little more ketchup, and some Crown.  Yep Crown =)  I let that cook for a while and add more salt and pepper as needed. 

And there you have it.  I made some pulled pork, which I put on toasted sourdough and added a little bit of sauce and tada!  I had myself a lunch.

Gotta love the slow cooker =)

Enjoy!
-Julia

Lemon Cake Balls with Lemon Curd.

   So yesterday during lunch, my friend Jason mentioned wanting to pick up some cake balls for his wife.  And he proceeded to say that they are ridiculously over priced.  The next couple of minutes of conversation ended with me saying, "Challenge....EXCEPTED!!!"
   I'm not really going to lay out the recipes or procedures for making these cake balls, because it would make this blog pretty darn long so I'll just post pictures.  :)  But if you really want the recipes that I used, just e-mail me and I'll get them to you.  So here goes...

Lemon cake...

Lemon Custard...

 Forming the Cake...

Melting chocolate...

Final Product...

  Well there you go....I actually made quite a few variations.  Some with the lemon custard as the binding agent, some with icing as the binding agent, some with the lemon custard as the binding agent with a filling of lemon custard pipped inside.  Anyway, this all took about 1½ hours.  I've never made them before and to tell you the absolute truth, I don't really like baking.  But Jason and I'm guessing his wife liked them, so I guess they were a success.

Until next time....I wish y'all happy eating.
-Henry

Salt and Pepper Fried Pork Chops

   I haven't feeling well these past couple of days and I haven't really wanted to eat anything until a few hours ago.  Most people when they don't feel well, revert to their childhood foods that their parents made for them to make them feel better.  Well for me, its not chicken soup, its deep fried salt and pepper pork chops...yeah weird I know.  But the saltiness of the chop and the little spice of the jalapenos and the juiciness of the pork hits home with me.  So after about 48 hours of not really eating this is what I decided to make :)

   I portioned the pork chops to 1 oz (28 gram) portions (give or take 2 grams), lightly floured them with a mixture of all-purpose flour, baking powder, salt and fresh ground black pepper and then deep fried them until golden.  I then seasoned them in a mixing bowl with a little more salt and tossed to coat evenly.

   In a wok, I poured a little olive oil and let it heat it for just a couple of minutes over medium heat, sauteed some freshly minced garlic and added one thinly sliced jalapeno and let it saute for about a minute to bring out the heat into the oil.  I toss in the pork chop portions with the garlic and jalapenos and tossed to coat.

   They're great with rice; or roughly chopped added with some sauteed or grilled vegetables and rolled up in a tortilla (or rice paper); or thinly sliced wrapped in rice paper with some thin rice noodles, some fresh vegetables and some Sriaracha mayo dipping sauce...you get the idea very versatile.

Enjoy
-Henry

Pan Seared Scallops on a Broccoli Puree with Cilantro Lime Rice

Alright, so for a long time I use to not be a fan of seafood but the past few years I have slowly developed a taste for it.  I bought some frozen scallops about a week ago, so today when I was deciding on what to make I decided to give these a go (plus they defrost faster than chicken or beef).  The result was pretty healthy and pretty delicious :)

I made Pan Seared Scallops on a Broccoli Puree with Cilantro Lime Rice and it was all pretty simple.

Ingredients:

• 1 pound of frozen scallops, defrosted and dried off with a paper towel 
• Olive oil or cooking spray
• salt and ground black pepper for taste
• 2 cups of broccoli 
• 1/4 cup of skim milk
• 1/4 cup of chicken broth 
• 2 tbsp of Parmesan (optional...I left this out because I forgot but this would give the puree some more flavor)
• 2 cups of jasmine rice (or whatever rice you want to use) 
• 1/4 cup of cilantro - chopped 
• 1-2 limes - juiced

Directions:

Broccoli Puree:

1. Steam two cups of broccoli until tender
2. Add to food processor and pulse until smooth
3. Slowly add the milk and chicken broth until everything is combined
4. Taste, add salt, pepper, and parmasan until desired taste

Cilantro Lime Rice:

1. Cook rice as directed - I used a rice cooker because let's face it I'm Asian and I own one =)
2. When rice is done transfer to a big mixing bowl and add juice from 1 lime and the cilantro
3. Taste, if it is not lime-y enough for you then add more lime, I used juice from one and a half limes
4. Add salt, ground pepper, and red pepper flakes and combine

Pan Seared Scallops

1. Make sure the scallops are dry.  I kept mine on a paper towel 
2. Season with salt and fresh ground pepper on one side
3. In a pan (I used a 6") over medium high heat, add about 1 to 2 tsp of oil, only enough to coat the bottom of the pan, you do not want to add too much or you will end up boiling the scallops in oil 
4. When a drop of water sizzles in the pan, you are ready to add the scallops
5. Add scallops in a clockwise direction (starting with 12), since I had a 6" pan I only cooked 4 at a time
6. Allow the scallops to sit in the pan for about a minute or until golden brown then flip and and allow that side to cook about a minute as well
7. Transfer scallops to a paper towel to drain off the excess oil

3 scallops, 2 tsps of puree, and 1/2 cup of cooked rice equals about 5 WW pts. =)

Enjoy! I know I'll be having some for lunch tomorrow too

-Julia

Crepes

Hey there,

So dinner tonight was an experiment for me.  I've never made crepes but I always see them on the Food Network and I decided tonight...sure why not? Let's give it a go.  I was pretty impressed with the end result.

Recipe adapted from the Weight Watchers cookbook I have...soo if you do make these at least they're healthy =) 

Ingredients:

Crepes:

• 1/2 cup of flour
• 1 cup of milk 
• Dash of Nutmeg
• Dash of Salt
• 2 Eggs

Filling:

• Whipped cream cheese (about half cup)
• 1 tbsp of milk
• Peanut butter (if you're feeling adventurous)
• Arugula or Herb mix (about 1 cup)
• Black Forest Ham, deli cut
• Garlic Salt for Taste

Directions:

1. Whisk all the crepe ingredients together in a bowl until batter is smooth (little to no lumps)
2. Pour mixture into a measuring cup for easy pouring and let sit for about 10ish minutes
3. Over medium heat, spray a 6" nonstick skillet/omelet pan with Pam and allow pan to heat until a drop of water sizzles (you can use whatever size pan I just used the smallest one we had)
4. Pour about a 1/4th of a cup into the pan and move pan around until batter coats the bottom.  Allow this to cook about a minute or until the crepe is easy to move around then flip.
5. Cook the other side about 30 seconds

For the cream cheese filling:

1. Mix the cream cheese, garlic salt and milk together until smooth

So since I had a smaller pan I made about 10-11 crepes. For each crepe I spooned a little bit of the cream cheese mixture, then a slice of black forest ham and some herb mix (from HEB, has arugula, spinach and some other greens) and folded it into thirds into a delicious crepe.

Henry had the brilliant idea to add peanut butter then the cream cheese and all the other ingredients...it was pretty awesome but if you are not a fan of peanut butter or you aren't a fan of peanut butter and cheese then don't try this.

Over all a nice dinner. Yum

-Julia

Healthy Pizza Appetizer

So anyone who knows me (Henry), knows that my all time favorite food is pizza.  I could eat pizza breakfast, lunch, dinner and for the two snacks throughout the day.  But of course I did that, I would weigh even more than I do now (insert your own imaginary really heavy weight here because I'm not tell you how much I weight), so I decided to make a pizza appetizer that was a bit healthier.

Ingredients
  12 inch flour tortilla
   1 frozen triangle of mozzarella sun-dried roasted tomato basil laughing cow cheese
   6 basil leaves
   6 cherry tomatoes halved

Sauce:
   1 small tomato, diced
   2 teaspoons of freshly diced garlic
   1/2 Tbsp butter
   1 Tbsp of extra virgin olive oil
   1/2 tea dried basil
   1/2 tea dried oregeno
   1/2 tea dried rosemary
   1/2 tea dried thyme
   1/2 tea cayenne pepper
   1/2 tea paprika
   1/2 tea fresh ground black pepper
   1 pinch of kosher salt
   1 tea local honey

Procedure
- Preheat oven 405 degrees F
- In a small sauce pan, over medium heat add melt butter and add olive oil
- add garlic and saute until just slightly brown
- add diced tomato, mix and bring to slight broil
- add all rest of the dry ingredients, mix
- turn down heat to low to med-low and reduce to sauce to by 2/3
- add honey and stir to incorporate
- On the tortilla, ladle just enough sauce to cover
- quickly shred frozen laughing cow cheese to just cover the sauce
- add basil leaves and top each leaf with two halves of tomatoes
- bake in over for 5 minutes.
- Enjoy.

Omelet and Clam Chowder

My Sundays are always my lazy days.  I didn't really go anywhere I sat at home and just watched the playoff games.  Though I knew Atlanta was probably win, I wanted the Seahawks to pull it off...they were so close but at least it was a great game.  It looks like this weekend all of my picks for the playoffs were at 50%.  I totally thought Aaron Rodgers and Peyton Manning would push their teams through but alas they didn't.  I do feel good that Justin Tucker kicked the game winning field goal in double OT.  Hook 'Em!   I didn't think the Texans would win against the Patriots but I definitely didn't think they would let Brady win by that much...oh well what can you do?

Anyway, since Friday night, Saturday lunch and dinner are my "cheat" times...I had to eat a little healthy today.  Nothing too crazy here's what I made. 

Brunch was just a regular Mushroom Gouda Omelet

Ingredients:

• 1 Extra large egg
• Dash of milk
• 2-4 oz of white mushrooms (about 4 mushrooms)
• 1 Green Onion
• Salt and pepper for taste
• Mini babybel Gouda cheese, grated

Directions: 

1. Spray a 6 inch omelet pan with Pam and saute the mushrooms and green onions.  
2. Meanwhile, in a small prep bowl mix the egg, dash of milk, salt and pepper and whisk lightly with a fork. 
3. When mushrooms look tender pour the egg mixture over the omelet and let set until most of the egg white/yolk has stopped running. 
4. Grate part of the gouda into the middle of the omelet and flip over
5. Cook on both sides
6. Move omelet to a plate and grate a little bit more Gouda on top

And there you have it, brunch is served!  I didn't grate all of the Gouda but you guys can if you want.

For dinner I decided to try out Weight Watcher's Manhattan Clam Chowder 

• 2 Bottles of Clam Juice (8 oz)
• 1 can of chopped clams (6.5oz)
• 1 Can of diced tomatoes (14.5 oz)
• 1 Celery Stalk, diced
• 1 Carrot, diced
• 1 Zucchini, diced 
• 1/2lb of potatoes diced
• 1/2 an onion, diced
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• Salt and Pepper for Taste
• 1/2 Teaspoon of Oregano 
• 1/2 cup of water
• 2 teaspoons of olive oil 

1.  Heat oil in a saucepan over medium heat
2. Add the onions and garlic until onions are translucent
3. Add the rest of the veggies and cook until tender
4. Next add the clam juice, tomatoes, and water, along with all seasonings and bring to a boil.
5. After bowling for 5 minutes, lower temperature and simmer until potatoes are done.  Taste and add salt and pepper as needed
6. Finally add the clams and allow the soup to heat but not boil.
7. Remove from heat and serve hot

This serves about four, each serving is about a cup and a half.  Enjoy!

-Julia

New Blog

Hi there!

Julia here...we (as in me and the brother) have decided to start a food blog.  We figured we cook, bake, and eat out a lot...why not share?  This will be filled with random musings, recipes, and food reviews of restaurants mainly in the Austin, Texas area. 

Enjoy!
Julia