So, here's my little experiment with something called cookie cake pie that I tried out for a housewarming BBQ I had with friends this past weekend. I saw the idea on a website, and thought what a great idea it was. I mean, I love cake, I love cookies, and I love pie, so why not have a pie where the filling is made up of cookie and cake? Someone out there is truly a genius!
The cookie base that I used was my usual chocolate chip cookie dough, but minus the chocolate chips. One of my friends who would be partaking of the pie is allergic to caffeine. I frosted it with a cream cheese icing, and the whole thing was a huge sugar rush when eaten. You wind up with a lot of left over cookie dough and cake batter, so I ended up making some cupcakes and cookies with those. I added chocolate chips to the cookies since the hubby likes them better that way.
Our house is shoved full of sweets now though. A friend of mine brought at 5lb strawberry rhubarb pie to the party too. I love strawberry rhubarb pie, but sometimes there really IS such a thing as too much of a good thing.
About Me
Since we were on break from dance class, and I had a Friday off for the first time in a while, I decided to invite some friends over for some take-out Thai (thank you, Salad King), and hanging out. Flush with success from the chocolate class with Becky, I decided to get some supplies of my own and try my hand at making some chocolate-covered strawberries.
Here's the 'before' shot.
And now the 'after' shot.
Things I learned:
1) Strawberries that are too ripe are not good to use for this purpose. They get extremely hard to handle.
2) The digital thermometer that I use when roasting meat is not good for chocolate. I don't think the chocolate I used for the strawberries was tempered quite properly, and that proved to be the case when I found some blooming on the chocolate after I chilled the finished berries.
With the left-over chocolate, I decided to melt it again, and re-temper it. This time, I did it without the thermometer, and tried to go on what I remembered about how the chocolate felt when we had our class. I don't think I got it quite right, but it was better than the stuff I used on the berries. I used this chocolate to make chili pepper bark. Yum!
What would a party be without party games? Greg's gift of Rock Band has been great.
I think Richard wins the 'Best Rocker Face' award. Aaron got pretty creative, playing the drums like tom-toms. He and Jia were a pretty good team, playing the drums together.
A super fun evening! Thank everyone!!
My brother took me out for dinner tonight as a belated birthday present. We went to Hiro Sushi, which is on King, near Jarvis. We had the omakase meal, and the food was really great. We started with a sardine and veggie appetizer. Then came two soups - the first was a pumpkin miso soup, and the other was a sort of mushroom soup that came in a very cute teapot. The soup was poured into this little sake cup with a slice of yuzu in it. Very light and refreshing. then came a chilled duck and eggplant dish, and a quail and tofu roll. The duck was amazing. The quail tasted really good, but all the little bones in it were annoying. Then there was a boiled fish in sauce (very tasty), and this persimmon + black miso + seafood dish that was really amazing. Lastly was a big plate of sushi. At first, my brother asked me how come there wasn't any wasabi on the plate, and the reason is that you're supposed to trust that the chef will always put the right amount of wasabi on there for you. Needless to say, there were a few times when we got hit with wasabi bombs and felt like crying. But wow, did my sinuses feel better after that!!
All in all, I have to say that the meal was amazing, but the service was a bit slow at the start. Things got better, but it was a bit annoying to have to keep asking them to refill our teacups.
I know this is going to sound really weird, but I am ecstatic with my new rice cooker. Jamie and I went to Pacific Mall today to buy the cooker that I've been scoping out for 2 weeks now. Brought it home and tried it out, and IT'S AMAZING!!!
First of all, you have to understand that for the entire 28 year span of my life, I have only ever used one rice cooker. It belonged to my mother, and was a one button wonder. I mean, it's gotta be pretty hard-core to survive over 30 years of use and abuse. But as its one-button status would imply, it can only do one thing. However, I kept using it because it's nice and simple and is really a workhorse. Unfortunately, lately I've noticed that the pot of rice isn't getting cooked all the way through, leading to super-hard rice in the middle - not fun.
So, we decided to retire 'Old Faithful' and get a shiny new one: the Zojirushi NS-ZCC10. This puppy was expensive ($200 CAD), but comes with so many awesome features. Like re-heat; I never imagined that this would be something that I'd be really interested in, but it's going to make lunch prep so much better for me. I'd always wanted to make onigiri from left-over rice, but the problem was that I could never heat it up adequately in the morning in the little time I have. But now with this cooker, I can combine the use of the re-heat function with the timer, and voila! I can set everything up before I got to bed, and have it ready by the time I get up! I'm also looking forward to making congee with it too. But yes, the timer function is KEY. I see myself using it a lot.
Flush with our purchase at P-Mall, which included a quick stop-over at Market Village where I got some rice moulds, we headed to T&T. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, T&T is a Taiwanese chain of Asian grocery stores that has opened up in Canada over the past few years (though I think Ontario and BC are the only provinces with them. Please correct me if I'm wrong). The beauty of this store is that it's an Asian grocery that's clean like a Western grocery. Well lit, no offensive meat or dead fish smells, rotting veggies piled in the front - you know, all the things that usually turn you off an Asian grocery. And they have this huge section of cooked foods where you can buy stuff to take home. I wanted to buy a little of everything!
Anyway, back to my original story. Being surrounded by all the wonderful food-stuffs, I felt all inspired to make good use of all the different kitchen appliances and things that I have at home to make yummy, nutritious meals. About a year ago, Jamie's mom bought us a food steamer that we had never used. I pulled it out and made meatballs on one rack, and Chinese broccoli on the upper one. It's really easy to use, so I think I'm going to use it more often now, which I suppose is good because it means I'm frying less.
Sometime this week, I want to try my hand at making dango. And I think I'll make onigiri for lunch on Monday.
I'm going to let the pictures do that talking. But let's just say that I ate very, very well during this trip!
Tonkatsu with Miranda, Yen, and Naho
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| From 2006 - Japan ... |
Chanko Nabe (Sumo wrestler's hot pot)
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| From 2006 - Japan ... |
Sake served in bamboo flutes (Mt Takao)
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| From 2006 - Japan ... |
Yakiniku grill in sand pit (Mt. Takao)
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| From 2006 - Japan ... |
Fish skewers (Mt. Takao)
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| From 2006 - Japan ... |
Start of our kaiseki dinner (Nara)
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| From 2006 - Japan ... |
One kaiseki plate (Nara)
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| From 2006 - Japan ... |
The aftermath - glad I didn't have to do dishes (Nara)
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| From 2006 - Japan ... |
Kaiseki Sakura is an amazing, amazing, amazing place to eat. Jamie and I went there for dinner tonight and had the 6-course meal.
Course 1 - Appetizer plate
Seaweed; herring roe with seaweed; burdock with sesame dressing; Japanese asparagus and veggies with egg; sweet potato and chestnut paste; sweet black beans with gold leaf flakes
Course 2 - Soup
Zouni (which is a traditional Japanese New Year's soup) with fish cake, mochi, fish, and carrot and daikon
Course 3 - Sashimi
Aberjack to be dipped in soy sauce with grated chili-daikon; Grouper coated with crushed rice cake to be dipped in soy sauce with fermented soy beans and wasabi garnished with fresh water seaweed
Course 4 - Main Course
Lotus root with Japanese mustard; sake-marinated duck; shrimp wrapped in deep fried tofu skin; scallop sushi and shitake mushroom sushi wrapped in leaves; salmon slices filled with egg, seaweed, and carrot; deep fried potato with white miso sauce; lotus root chips made to look like snowflakes; lily root made to look like sakura petals; garnished with daikon cut to look like a crysanthyum flower
Course 5 - Meat Dish
Beef tongue stewed for three days in a miso sauce topped with green onion
Course 6 - Noodles
Fresh noodles infused with shiso in broth with green onion and shiso
Dessert
Sweet potato with caramel sauce; yuzu cake with whipped cream; sweet azuki beans wrapped in sticky rice cake topped with dried sakura petals
I totally recommend this place. It is quite pricy, but well worth it. The portion sizes, in my opinion, were perfect. The service was wonderful, as was the atmosphere. Simply amazing!