A Mexican brunch

Tuesdays are nice because I don't have to get up early. Still, I woke up at 8 this morning. Instead of the usual granola bar breakfast, I get the luxury of making and having a nice relaxing sit-down breakfast brunch. I'm not sure if it's true, but my mom always told me that breakfast was the most important meal of the day. It's unfortunate that most people's schedule (mine included for the most part) does not allow enough time to make this happen. On the rare occasions that it does, I take advantage of it!

There just happen to be eggs, cilantro, pork chorizo, tomatoes, garlic, onions, Mexican cheese, flour tortillas, beans and jalapeños in the apartment. So, I decided to make huevos rancheros - something I've never made before. Most of the Mexican cooking fall under Tina's jurisdiction at the republic of 1201 - my former home. Tina's fiery hot enchiladas brought everyone (especially Chad) to tears, and her crispy beef tacos was unrivaled. I guess I felt like taking a risk today, so here goes.

Ingredients:

4 eggs

2 fresh tomatoes, diced

1/2 white onion, diced

2 jalapeños, finely diced

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 tbsp cilantro, chopped

1/2 package of pork chorizo

1/2 cup of mystery beans from el Salvador

2 flour tortillas

cumin and dried oregano

salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

1. Wash the beans and cook in pressure cooker for about 20 minutes with a dash of salt, vegetable oil, and 1.5 cups of water.

2. Cook and simmer tomatoes, onions, garlic, jalapeños over medium heat. Add cumin, salt, sugar, dried oregano, and black pepper and mix.

3. Saute jalapeños and onions in another pan and mix in the chorizo and pressure-cooked beans.

4. Fry the eggs sunny side up.

5. Heat flour tortilla over hot pan.

6. Assemble the huevos rancheros. I did it in this order: flour tortilla, eggs, salsa, beans, cheese, cilantro.

And ta da!

I'm really happy about the way it turned out. Not bad for my first time! Feel free to comment, Denise.

A makeshift lunch

My current apartmentmate is gone for the weekend. Normally, this means I'm going to eat my Honey Bunches of Oats cereal and/or whatever is leftover in the fridge (I know it's sad). It's just hard for me to be motivated to make food when I'm going to be eating it all by myself (Nancy breaks into a song). I guess, in my mind, I've made some sort of an association between cooking and company. When you eliminate the company part, the cooking part follows. Anyways, for some odd reason, I deviated from my usual patterns today (unusual being the creature of habit that I am). Maybe because it's sunny today after some dreary weeks here in San Diego.

A quick survey of the fridge gave me the idea to make this pasta. I simply added some fresh ingredients that I found in the fridge and around the apartment to some leftover plain linguini from a seafood pasta I made a couple days ago. The recipe for my delicious makeshift lunch is as follows:

Ingredients:

1 portion of leftover linguini

1 clove of garlic, minced

5-6 leaves of basil (from my poor basil plant)

1/4 of an onion, diced

6 med size shrimp, diced

5 stalks of asparagus

3 forkful of seasoned sundried tomatoes

olive oil

juice from 1/2 lime

salt and black pepper to taste

Instructions:

1. Saute the garlic, onion, basil, and sundried tomatoes in olive oil.

2. Add shrimp and asparagus to the pan and cook until the shrimp changes color and the asparagus is tender.

3. Squeeze the lime juice directly into the pan and stir.

4. Add in the linguini. Stir and season with salt and black pepper to taste.

It's been too long.

I actually have nothing new to add, but I just wanted to share my excitement about moving into the brand new graduate housing at UCSD. It's been and still is such a long wait. Just 38 MORE DAYS till Sept 14th! Once I'm there, I'm going to start cooking/baking and posting again hopefully. Well...for now, I'll continue to obsess over things I want for the new place. 'Till then!

Shun samurai knives & Mercedes-Benz of pressure cookers FTW. They look so good together. Hmm...my bday is coming up if you know what I mean ;P

Better pictures of Pie

Mini Pies & Pie shots

Whenever there's pie, there's Lai. We (as in mostly Lai) made these mini pies and pie shots. This time it's not just apple pies. One of them is blackberry. It all started out with me wanting pie and Lai being there. We had two Fuji apples, one jumbo-size and one regular-size. Thinking that there wouldn't be enough apples, we decided to utilize the blackberries in the fridge. Thinking that we don't have enough crust, we overcompensated and ended up with extra pie crust. As a result, the pie shots were born.

The crust this time was especially good, perfectly flaky and buttery. The last time we made pie, some corners were cut. We just used store-bought pie crust, and it had a weird after-taste. I guess with pies, it's all or nothing. Making the crust is time-consuming, but well-worth it. Nothing beats homemade crust from the Lai:

Hello, I'm Lai and I am Karen's pie-slave. Here's my recipe.

For the pie crust, do not be shy with the fats. After all, you are making pie for yourself. You might as well burn the ship you're sinking in and go down in blaze and glory.

For a 9'' pie round (multiply by two if you are making a covered pie with another 9'' round piece)

4 TBS butter, chilled

3 TBS shortening, chilled

1 cup flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup ice water

Chill the fats in the freezer for 15 minutes, then cut into small chunks.

Combine the flour and the salt, then add the chilled fats (butter and shortening) and crumble them together until it gets mealy-lookin.

Spritz the surface with the icy water, mix, spritz, mix, spritz, mix, until you get a doughy substance. Roll it up into a disk shape, wrap it in plastic, and refrigerate for 30 minutes. If you're making a covered pie, using this recipe x2, now divide your dough in half and wrap two disk-shaped doughs.

Make sure to keep it away from any Karens, who will come and nibble at it when you are not looking.

Roll your chilled disks out on a flour-dusted surface, and press into pie-tin. Poke the bottoms with a fork a couple of times. Filling time.

For the apple filling, find a couple of apples. Unfortunately apple sizes now go from the size of a baby's fist to the size of a baby's head. I would say aim for the middle. I like a combination of Fuji and Grannysmith, because I prefer a crunchier filling. Those who like mushier apples, Roma apples are pretty awesome. They also have a really deep crimson skin, the color almost resembling blood. Which is a plus, maybe?

3-5 tart apples, peeled

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 TBS flour

1 TBS lemon juice

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

Core and slice the apples. Mix sugars, flour, cinnamon and salt, and just right before you're going to put them into the pie crust, fold in the apple slices. Add the lemon juice, and mix one last time before you fill your pie.

Cover the pie however you like, but make sure you put some holes on top so the apples can breathe while they boil in their own juices. Delicious.

For the blackberry filling,

I don't have the recipe. I'm guessing you roll the blackberries in some magic concoction of lemon juice, sugar, cornstarch. Maybe lemon zest.

Find Karen.

Lai signing out.

Karrr, signing out.

Peppermint Mocha Cupcakes

I baked these last night. I thought they would be great for my last day of work of the year. They were. It definitely took the edge off of the usual Friday biology meetings, which have the reputation of lasting all morning and sometimes even digging into lunch.

As the name suggests, these irresistible cupcakes are a fusion of chocolate, peppermint, and coffee. I found that the sugar and caffeine were especially helpful in getting me through the day. This is only step one into my holiday baking, hopefully. The recipe is adapted from the two sites below.

For the cake,

http://annies-eats.com/2009/12/11/peppermint-mocha-cupcakes/

Dry ingredients:

2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2-3 tsp. espresso powder
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt

Liquid ingredients:

1 cup milk
1 cup strong brewed coffee (2 tbs. expresso powder + 1 c. boiling water)
1 tsp. peppermint extract

2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 2 cupcakes pan with liners. Combine dry ingredients in one bowl, and liquid ingredients in another. Lastly, mix the sugar and butter in a large bowl on medium speed for 2-3 minutes. After mixing in the egg one at a time, blend in the dry and liquid ingredients by alternating between the two and beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Divide batter into the cupcake pan. Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10 minutes, and then transfer to cooling rack to cool completely.

For the frosting,

http://www.dianasdesserts.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/recipes.recipeListing/filter/dianas/recipeID/3533/Recipe.cfm

9 oz. white chocolate, finely chopped

3 1/2 cups powder sugar

1/2 cup milk
1 1/2 tsp. peppermint extract
1 1/2 stick unsalted butter, softened

pinch of salt

Heat the white chocolate until smooth in a double broiler, and then let cool to room temperature. Mix powder sugar, milk, and peppermint extract in a mixing bowl, blend in the butter and salt, and beat until smooth. Then, stir in the melted white chocolate, and refrigerate for 30 minutes until firm enough to frost.

For the final touch, I broke some candy cane into pieces and used them for top the frosting.

That's it! Enjoy.

As for me, 2 weeks of vacation here we go~!

fall, finals, food, friends

monday: kar's seafood pasta seasoned with lemon and parsley


tuesday: halibut steak with cilantro by nancy


wednesday: tina's tomato soup and chicken basil pesto sandwich


thursday: steak and salad by guest cook bryce


friday: originally a four-people dinner, multiplied by two, plus two more later that evening. our small, intimate dinners have their own way of evolving to parties