Fresh Goji Berries

My grandma grows a goji berry plant in our front yard. There are plenty of fruits every year (the joys of planting!) and the taste is sweet with a punch of bitterness/spice.

I don't think I like fresh goji berries that much (because the spice leaves a funny aftertaste), but it's good for my eyes apparently, so I shall suffer through.

It's interesting how nature opts for complementary colors though, it feels so intentional.

Taste Test: Tarte Asian Yogurt

I was in a local grocery store (see Old MacDonald's Farmer's Market) and saw that there was a new locally made yogurt, so I decided to try it.

        

Even though there was less sugar in Tarte than regular yogurt, it had a weird aftertaste that stayed in your mouth for a long while. I don't think anything was that special about it other than the odd flavor. 

Note to self, probably won't buy it again, but it's fun to go out of my comfort zone and try different variations of products in the grocery store. I feel like I often end up buying the same thing over and over again, so as long as I make a conscious decision to diversify, I can experience a lot more flavors and each bite could be a new adventure.

Foodspiration: BacaroLA

My friend Karen (check out her food blog here) took me to this small restaurant near-ish her apartment in LA. It had some really crazy interesting ingredient combinations that somehow worked! I liked how the portions were small, but everything had really strong flavors, so it ended up being very satisfying. The place is sort of experimental, and there's definitely a lot to learn from from their entrees.

Buffalo Cheese - apparently made with buffalo milk? It's much creamier and slightly sweeter than cow milk cheeses, although the difference is very nuanced. 

Bacaro Burger - The bread is a piece of toast instead of regular burger bun bread, so maybe next time I make burgers I don't have to go out of my way to buy the bun especially... but I typically make bun-less burgers anyway, but still a cool flavor combination~

MY FAVORITE DISH OF THE NIGHT - lamb in eggplant. SO MUCH FLAVOR I can't even explain. They used a lot of citrus to probably balance out the lamb with this crunchy potato chip on the top. The eggplant on the outside contrasted with the super soft lamb on the inside. 

Bone marrow! Honestly I thought my family was weird for eating this, but now they just legitimized it...by serving it at a restaurant. Anyway, so they used some lemon-y flavors to make the bone marrow into like a paste to put on bread. I didn't know this could be a dish...

Dark on the inside for ambiance~

Thanks for taking me, Karen! I really enjoyed it. I think they were also able to price their dishes super fairly (3 for $21?!) because they're in a sketchy-ish part of town, but this place is definitely worth trying. I love restaurants that challenge what I thought was possible in cooking.

Easy Bulgogi Recipe

I love bulgogi, and turns out, it's much easier to make than I originally thought!

Ingredients (5-6 Servings)

2 pounds Rib-eye or other tender Beef (thinly sliced)

2 tablespoons Soy Sauce

2 teaspoons Asian Sesame Oil

1 tablespoon Sugar

1 bulb Garlic (minced)

Freshly Ground Black Pepper (to taste)

3 Green Onions (cut into 1 inch pieces)

Toasted Sesame Seeds (for garnish)

Optional: Oyster/Shiitake Mushrooms, Onions, Zucchini, Bell Pepper, Thinly Sliced Carrots

Prep

1. Marinate the beef in the soy sauce, sesame oil, sugar, and garlic for 30 minutes (or overnight)

Cook

1. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the beef and stir-fry completely until browned. (5-7 minutes)

2. Add the black pepper and green onions and cook until the green onions are slightly limp, but still retain their color. (1-2 minutes). 

3. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and serve.

I'm not sure when you should add the optional ingredients. I'm assuming you would put those in right after you add the beef and stir fry them all together. Or maybe I should put the onions in first, and then the beef to get the flavor.

Credits to Quick & Easy Korean Cooking by Cecilia Hae-Jin Lee

Easy Stir Fried Onions Chinese Recipe

Again, super accessible ingredients, and very similar to the previous green beans stir fry.

A colorful final product

Ingredients

1 Onion

1/2 cup Marinated Pork or Beef Slices

1 pinch of Salt

1/2 tablespoon Soy Sauce

1/4 tablespoon Sugar

1 tablespoon Water

1 tablespoon Oil

Optional: Picked Mustard (or Zha Cai)

Preparation

1. Onion: Cut the Onion into thin, curved slices. This is done by cutting the onion in half (by the flat way) and then putting the flat section faced down. Slice rainbow shapes from there.

2. Marinated Pork or Beef: Cut a piece of meat into small, thing slices. Add rice wine, oil, soy sauce, and salt. (If you do not have rice wine, you can add a bit of vinegar instead.) Put in fridge to marinate. Stir fry until brown and refrigerate to store. 

Cooking

1. Heat the wok. Add oil and wait for it to become hot.

2. Add the prepared Marinated meat. Stir fry. Then add the onion slices and continue to stir fry.

3. Add soy sauce, then add water (if it start sticking to the bottom of the wok). Add the salt and sugar. 

4. Stir fry until onion slices are bendable, but still crunchy and serve! 

Green Bean Stir Fry Simple Chinese Recipe

I love this super easy and delicious stir fry recipe because it uses super accessible ingredients and is fun to make!

Excuse the blurriness, it's the steam.

Ingredients

1 cup Green Beans

1/2 cup Shredded Carrots

1/4 cup Shredded and Marinated Pork (see below)

1 Tablespoon Oil (or even less)

1/4 Tablespoon Salt

3/4 Tablespoon Soy Sauce

1/2 Tablespoon Sugar
3 Tablespoon Water

Optional: 1 tablespoon pickled mustard (Zha cai)

Preparation

• Green Beans: Select small, straight, and fresh green beans from the supermarket. This is very important for optimal taste. Wash, cut off the two ends, and use your fingers to break the green beans into two or three small pieces each. (Do NOT chop, breaking retains taste)
• Shredded and Marinated Pork: Buy a piece of pork and chop into small, thin, long pieces. Add a bit of rice wine, salt, and soy sauce. Oil the wok and stir fry until the meat changes color from pink to light brown. Take out of wok and store in the refrigerator. 

Cooking

1. Turn cooktop to High. Heat the wok. Once the wok is heated, add the oil, and wait for the oil to heat up as well. 
2. First add the shredded carrots and start stirring until the carrots soak up most of the oil.
3. Then add the prepared pork into the wok. Keep stirring in the process. Finally, put in the green beans. Add water. Put the cap on the wok. Wait for a minute or two. Add the salt, soy sauce, and sugar and keep stirring until desired crispiness. When the green beans become more vibrant in color, they are ready. 
4. Optional: When the green beans are ready, add a little bit of pickled mustard into the wok and stir fry super quickly.
5. Pour contents onto a plate and serve!

Notes: My grandma likes to make a little hole in the middle of the dish for presentation purposes.

Foodspiration: Siggi's Icelandic Skyr

I was in Whole Foods dairy section, and I literally couldn't find any yogurt that had less than 20g of sugar in a serving. In my frustration, I finally stumbled upon Siggi's Icelandic Skyr, and decided to give it a try.

The first reaction I had upon trying this was WOW THIS IS SO THICK, and it's hard to eat in large quantities. You have to savor the flavors in your mouth. I tried the ginger orange (or orange ginger?) and loved the feel of real ingredients inside, but thought that the ginger was a little bit too overpowering (especially because I was consuming it on a hot summer's day).

I think I'm definitely going to keep going with Siggi's because of its low sugar content and all the health benefits (see here) of the different cultures in the yogurt. I was also super inspired by their beautiful story, starting out small in a farmers market and now taking over the world! Well, if not the world, my stomach at least. I really want to have a stand in farmer's market and influence healthy food culture someday, so this makes me hopeful. (:

The price is a little high, but it has the content to make up for it. I'm just wondering if plain yogurt with my own fruit toppings could match up with this lack of sugar?

Super Lean and Green Smoothie

Health Overload

Green everything!

Ingredients

1 Pear (Bartlett)

1/2 Cucumber

1/2 Avocado

1 cup Kale

3 leaves of Mint

1/2 cup Water

1/2 cup Apple Juice (not exactly green)

and blend her up!

For more sweetness, add more pear and apple juice. I would add probably 2 pears next time, just to neutralize the stronger flavor of the cucumber.

What to do with Leftover Almond Pulp (No Dehydrating)

...After making homemade almond milk WITHOUT DEHYDRATING because it is such a waste of energy with that oven usage for little return.

Ah, my mom refuses to make any more almond milk until I can find a good use for the almond pulp that I have accumulated.

So I've gathered a few recipes that I could potentially use, aggregated from easiest to hardest (but they're honestly all pretty easy, I'm just lazy); 

Easiest

• Put a few tablespoons in smoothies and blend, adding to the texture. You can add it in with fruit, or make a Chocolate Banana Smoothie (bananas, almond milk, almond pulp, and cocoa - Credit to The Mama's Girls)

Medium

• Banana Almond Bread: http://the-salty-tomato.com/2014/03/banana-almond-bread.html

• Almond Cake - 1/8 C sliced almonds, 1/2 C margarine or butter, softened to room temperature, 1 1/4 C sugar, 1 egg, 1 1/2 t. almond extract, 2/3 C milk, 3/4 C dry pulp, 1 1/4 C flour, 1/2 t. baking powder. Mix the sugar and butter first, then add in liquid ingredients, then mix the dry ingredients in. Grease and flour the pan, pour in and sprinkle with the sliced almonds. Bake at 350 for 40 minutes. (I don't see why the pulp needs to necessarily be dry at the point where you're adding watery ingredients like eggs and milk. Credit to The Mama's Girls)

Hard-ish

• Chocolate Chip Bars - http://thevegan8.com/2014/02/18/almond-pulp-makes-the-best-chocolate-chip-bars/
• Raw Carrot Cake - http://websta.me/p/466449715970575257_297930129#GXttKHliLsYFKGSw.32

Strawberry Smoothie I

Been experimenting with avocados in smoothies.

Ingredients

2 Cups Strawberries

1 Avocado

1 cup Apple Juice

1/2 Banana

The color is a little funky (since mix of complementary colors red of strawberries and green of avocados), and a little too creamy (1 whole avocado is a little intense, I would probably go with some ice or something next time), but the flavor is quite balanced and good! It's not overly sweet and tones down the sourness of the strawberries. 

How to Make Wontons

My grandma taught me how to make wontons the other day! They're a bit intricate, but also fun to make, especially as a bonding event with someone else.

Aren't they cute?

Making the Filling

Ingredients 

Ground Pork

Rice Wine

Salt

Ground Pepper

Sugar

萁菜 （Qi Cai）or Bok Choy

Mix the Ground Pork and Rice Wine together and let it sit for a while. Then add Salt, Ground Pepper, and Sugar for taste, mixing it all together. Chop the vegetable in miniscule pieces (as small as possible) and mix it in with the Ground Pork.

Wonton Folding

Ingredients

Pork Mixture

Wonton Skins (Store bought, but I'm sure there are some recipes online)

Water bowl

Put about a 2 teaspoons of the Pork Mixture in the middle of the Wonton Skin. Fold Wonton skin from bottom to top (hiding the Pork Mixture), leaving a little gap between the edges (bottom edge should be about 1/2 centimeter lower than the top. Fold the top edge down to the bottom again and join the bottom corners, using the water as a "paste" to glue the corners together.

Making the Soup

After freezing the wontons for a while, and then boiling them in water, add them to this soup mixture: 

Ingredients

Premium Soy Sauce

Sesame Oil

Salt

Ground Pepper

Zha Cai (Preserved Mustard Tuber?) 

Hot Water

Homemade Almond Milk

After reading the article "Lay Off the Almond Milk, You Ignorant Hipsters" by Tom Philpott (See the article here), I realized that I was also drawn to these supposed magical properties of almond milk, shelling out a good amount of money for a jug. I am partly lactose intolerant (being Asian...it's probably more unlikely that you're NOT lactose intolerant), so when my friend introduced me to almond milk, I was literally overjoyed to see its high calcium and low fat content.

I guess the main takeaway I got from the article is that I was paying too much for literally just crushed almonds and water (with some chemicals). So, I decided to try my hand at making almond milk myself.

soaked almonds

The milk is ready!

almond milk and some almond meal on the side (after straining)

Ingredients

1 cup almonds

5 cups water (1 for soaking, the rest for the milk)

I let to almonds soak for about 12 hours (but in other recipes, I saw that only about 4 hours is needed). I put the almonds into a soy milk maker (an oddly specific device, I know) and let her rip with additional water. It was all ready in about 15 minutes! I then poured the milk through a strainer which separated the milk from the crushed almond meal. The result is a slightly cleaner tasting version of almond milk (which my family finished within a day!).

There aren't any stabilizers in this homemade version, so the almond milk tends to separate really easily. I'm not completely sure what I want to do with the almond meal yet, but I'll probably find some recipes online.

Another takeaway from the article was the water wasting properties of producing almonds. Although it's good for me to be aware of its ecological harms, I don't think it's effective for me to give up almonds or something in protest. With these things, it's better for some government intervention to help curb California's forever impending drought.

I've become really interested in making super basic ingredients/foods at home! My friend really inspired me the other day by making homemade butter, which I have yet to try. The idea of being able to control all parts of the process appeals to me greatly. Off to obtaining some heavy cream!

Watermelon Smoothie

Summer is so great for refreshing watermelon smoothies! It's often hard to finish a whole watermelon, but this will make them go surprisingly fast.

Luckily they're so easy to make.

Ingredients: 

1/4 medium sized watermelon

1 cup water

Cut the watermelon into little squares (try to get a little bit of the light green part of the peel!) and refrigerate for an hour. Take out and add water & watermelon slices into blender and go for about 30 seconds on medium~

Foodspiration: Pample Mousse

I just passed my driving test in Redwood City, California yesterday, so I've been around the downtown area a lot. There is one cafe that my mom and I keep going to...and it's delicious! It's called PampleMousse and serves some really gourmet soups, sandwiches, coffees, and cakes.

 

Turkey Brie sandwich - with a touch of arugula and cranberry sauce for some healthy and delicious lunch fare. 

Fig and Almond Cheesecake - another unexpected and inspirational combination! My mom ordered the blackberry chocolate cake (one the side) but we both agreed that the cheesecake was better (even though she doesn't even like cheesecake!). It's lighter than most cheesecakes, so it makes it much easier to eat!

I also tried the salmon sandwich and potato leek soup, which were both very good, although I liked the turkey sandwich a little more (the dash of cranberry and generous slabs of brie cheese made it pop!). I love the mix of everyday ingredients in creative ways - makes me want to experiment! The price is also quite affordable - my mom and I usually share 1 sandwich and soup which adds up to around $15 for both of us. Cakes are around $6 a piece.

Green Smoothie

I've gotten addicted to making #greensmoothies! I think I freak out about half my friends by drinking this, but they actually are super healthy and taste delicious too. 

This is the current recipe I use: 

1.5 cups Kale

Half an Avocado

1.5 cups Apple Juice (Fresh Pressed - Don't use the fake stuff!)

1 Apple (sliced)

A Dash of Lemon

Put all these ingredients into a blender, and leave it in for about 1.5 minutes at the highest power. (If you don't do it for long enough, there will be a lot of yucky fibers, so your smoothie will be chewy). The end result will taste mostly like apple juice, with the texture of a smoothie. I find that the lemon really brings out the light flavor of the kale, making the smoothie taste much more complex. 

I want to explore more green smoothie recipes - do you know any good ones?