Baby Shower

I remember at another baby shower in the past, my friend (who was born & raised in Taiwan but moved to the States for college) asked me why it was called a "baby shower" - I had to think about it for a minute since I really didn't know the answer either. I blurted out the first thing that came to mind: you get together with your friends & loved ones to shower the mama to-be & baby w/ love, affection & presents! =P I heard that in some areas of the country they do a sip 'n see: sip on tea or some more adult libations & see the baby (after it's born). *shrug* either way it's an excuse to have a party & have some bonding time w/ friends.

I decided for this latest baby shower I would make cupcakes. I made the buttercream frosting the night prior so I could concentrate on putting together the cupcakes on Saturday morning. I decided to use buttermilk in the cake recipes to give them a little something extra. I was going at a leisurely pace until I looked up at the clock - cutting it close!

The party was so much fun! Girlfriend who hosted did such a great job decorating & putting together games... She made pozole (spicy Mexican soup w. hominy & chicken) from scratch - so good. My other friend made hot dog buns (like the ones you find at the Asian bakeries). We made a point to skip lunch - hahaha. Hostess even provided sangria - the best I've ever had.

As one of the games we each wore a plastic diaper clothes pin on a ribbon around our necks & the point was not to say "baby" otherwise we forfeit our charm. Somehow, baby daddy to-be ended up with the most pins towards the end of the party (and he wasn't even really trying). We were all taking a shot trying to get him to say the b-word but to no avail. Baby mama to-be even stood over him, grabbed his collar & demanded that he say it! He gladly relinquished the charms. It was such a fun afternoon hanging with the girlfriends & the baby daddy to-be (it wasn't too painful for him to be surrounded by so much estrogen I think).

giftbox of cupcakes for the parents to-be to enjoy at home

chocolate cupcakes topped with vanilla buttercream, vanilla cupcakes topped with chocolate buttercream

Treats for a Prego Friend

As of late, I find myself volunteering to make something for a friend's baby shower when that time comes... I don't know why - I think it has to to with my innate need to feed people. And who else would appreciate food more than a pregnant woman?? Seriously, I can imagine how hectic it will be trying to put together a decent home-cooked meal after the baby is born so I guess I just feel the need to help in the food department? Anyhow, this weekend is my college girlfriend's baby shower & I'm making vanilla & chocolate cupcakes - from scratch. ( I just refuse to make anything that came out of a box but that story is for another day) Today's food story is actually from food I made for another friend's baby shower about a year and 1/2 ago - let's call her Mrs. P.

A little background on Mrs. P: I'm friends with her through her hubby. Her other 1/2 and I attended the same church until they got married... Went to the wedding: it was a weather questionable day but all in all it was a lovely ceremony & fun reception albeit a bit EARLY (it was a late morning ceremony w/ a lunch reception)... Ok before I go off on too much of a tangent, fast forward to the weeks leading up to baby shower. Her sister graciously put together her cute shower - such attention to detail. Anyhow, I decided I wanted to make something that both Mrs. P & Dr. P (but only if he deserved it - j/k) could enjoy with little effort on their part. I decided on lasagne - could easily be frozen but then reheated & maintain taste. I was on a cinnamon roll making binge so I made a batch of those as well.  

I made turkey & spinach lasagne to lighten it a bit... I do tend to cut down on the salt in the recipe though - you want the flavor of the food to come through but you don't want to feel like you're licking a salt brick... Some lasagne recipes call for a mornay sauce layer (scalded milk w. butter & flour whisked in and some cheese) but I find that sauce to be unnecessary - it tends to make an already substantial pasta dish too heavy in my opinion.

On to dessert - cinnamon rolls... My favorite part of cinnamon rolls is definitely the middle coil. Whenever my sister & I made the Pillsbury cinnamon rolls in can we would always fight over the center roll in the pan. Anyhow, I wanted to make the rolls for Mrs P airy with the right amount of chewy factor not a hockey puck. I let the dough rise once before rolling it out and then I let it rise again in the pan before popping them in the oven... Whenever I see a recipe I like I inevitably change it a little bit to give the end product a little something something. This time around when the recipe called for granulated sugar I swapped it with turbinado sugar (aka Sugar in the Raw) & I used good quality organic unsalted butter. For the frosting I added some ground cinnamon into the whipped cream cheese frosting - I did make a bit extra just in case Mrs P wanted to dip the  rolls into extra frosting.

I arrived to the shower with gift & food in hand... Mrs P asked me if it was ok if she shared the goods with the guests which of course I agreed to - both were a hit. =) I did make 2 square pans of each so Mrs P shared the rest w/ Dr P.

 cinnamon rolls ready to go in the oven

close up

it's like a bucket of frosting

 turkey spinach lasagne

closeup (I think the edges were a bit overdone but nonetheless it was enjoyed)

This weekend I hope girlfriend enjoys the cupcakes~ (I will share the story & pics soon)

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! My favorite memories of this day are back in elementary school times when I would drag my mom to the local pharmacy so I could pick the BEST tear-off Valentine's Day cards. I wanted Transformers but my mom thought Strawberry Shortcake would be better. Valentine's Day was so simple back then...

Anyhow, to celebrate the day i decided to make sugar cookies w/ royal icing. Now I'm still a newbie when it comes to decorating cookies with royal icing so it's all still a bit of a trial/error period for me... I don't really like the flavor of sugar cookies (for their name they tend to taste either like cardboard or salt) so I opted for a shortbread recipe. I found heart-shaped sprinkles on sale so I shrugged & said "why not?"

shortbread cookies waiting to cool down

all dressed & sprinkled

my royal icing flooding needs some work...

Jjajang Myun (짜장면) - Noodles in Black Bean Sauce

Jjajang myun consists of a thick black bean sauce served over chewy noodles; usually served with pickled radish , raw onions dressed with vinegar with a side of black bean paste. Black bean paste, chopped veggies (usually just as simple as onions & green squash) & ground meat (traditionally either beef or pork) are sauteed together then some stock is added to cut down the saltiness and some starch is added to thicken the sauce. The dish is finished with some julienned cucumbers. There are some variations on the sauce: omit the starch, instead of ground meat then chopped seafood. Basically it's a bowl of YUM.

In Korea it's a simple street food. You can have it delivered to your door like we in America have pizza delivery... It's not delivered in ugly styrofoam containers either - restaurants take the time to portion out each serving into the bowls they use at the tables & pack it into insulated stainless steel vertical hotboxes. The delivery person then secures the hotbox onto the back of a moped and in minutes you have jjajang myun at your door. What do you do with the dishes after you're done your meal? Well, you leave them outside by your door & the delivery person comes by to collect them.

As a child jjajang myun was one of my favorite foods - fun to eat, not unrecognizable nor complicated looking, not bland but not spicy... Much like getting a milk mustache, a badge of honor was getting a jjajang myun mustache & beard. One of the few times my mom would let us be messy with our food - one MUST slurp the noodles when eating jjajang myun or the experience is not complete. In Asian cultures you show your appreciation of the food/cook/host by eating noisily.

Anyhow, I used to get together with a couple girlfriends every couple of months for a cooking club of sorts... We would literally spend days bouncing emails back and forth brainstorming on food ideas. We take a traditional dish & try to lighten it. One day we settled on Jjajang myun. So I call this our modern Jjajang myun. We used a mixed of frozen chopped veggies & instead of ground beef/pork we used ground turkey. You can find the jjajang base at any Korean market.

So I came home from cooking club and I mentioned that we made jjajang myun so the craving set in my mom's mind... A few weeks later on a lazy Saturday I decided to make jjajang myun for dinner.

The food prep - diced onions & potatoes, dried noodles, mixed veggies, sliced steak (I used what we had at home) and the jjajang paste.

Ready for the sauce to get happy.

Bowl of jjajang myun piping hot ready to be eaten!

My dad

My mom

Mind you, it was a lazy Saturday at home so we were dressed in casual louge clothes - my mother would probably be mortified that I posted this picture... So shhh!

약밥 (Yahk Bap)

약밥 is a sweet rice "cake" with some sweetener, spice, dried fruit (usually jujube), chestnuts & pine nuts. It's one of my favorite snacks & it's usually saved for special occasions which makes it an even better treat. Some kids lived for ice cream, I would do anything for good 약밥. I used to bug my mom all the time to show me how to make it when I was growing up but she never did get around to it... Why? It's labor intensive... Fast forward some years to present day & I noticed a friend posted on facebook a picture of his mom's HOMEMADE 약밥 from the New Year's festivities. The craving sunk in & had to be quenched.


 Off to the Korean market to get the few ingredients I didn't have - mainly chestnuts. I was hoping to find the already roasted & peeled packaged chestnuts b/c I was really not in the mood to sit there in the kitchen to steam & peel them myself... I rinsed the sweet rice, put together the "sauce" & portioned out the raisins. I thought we had pine nuts so I didn't bother to buy them but when I looked for them they were nowhere to be found (then I found out my mom gave them to a friend so they could make porridge - but that's another story for another time). I mixed everything together & popped it into the rice cooker. So convenient - you set it & forget it!


While it was cooking, i prepped a baking dish w. some oil to give the 약밥 a home while it cooled...

So of course as it's cooling my dad walked into the kitchen. The man is on a see food diet - he sees food, he eats it. He attacked a corner & gave me a thumbs up. As my new food experiment was cooling, I quickly cleaned all evidence... (I wasn't too sure how my mom would react to my use of her precious rice cooker) She sampled some & then asked me how I made it. I went over the ingredients & steps then finally confessed that I used the rice cooker. I braced for a second but my mom didn't even bat an eye... (Either what I said didn't sink in or she was too distracted with thinking about the 약밥)

Overall, it was a success but it did come out a tad sweet. With the next batch, I'd definitely cut back on the sweetener. My friend suggested that I cook the rice first and then mix everything together & put it into the oven. (There was more liquid in the final product than I liked) So with those notes made, I wait for another day that the craving hits...

Waffles

Who doesn't love waffles? Growing up my mom bought the Eggo variety - plain, blueberry, multi-grain & every once in a while chocolate chip. Little did I know that there was more than Eggo's out there but with age came the discovery of the Belgian waffle. Getting maple syrup into every nook was a must!

Anyhow, I discovered this little coffee & waffle bar in LA by way of the many food blogs I peruse throughout the day... It's called Shaky Alibi (located 7401 Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036). They specialize in the Belgian street waffle - the Liege waffle. It's a yeast-based dough so the finished waffle is crisper & a bit more dense than the plate size waffle we Americans are used to... The bonus? Pearl sugar integrated into the dough itself...They make the waffles to order with a sprinkling of powdered sugar but you can add one of their spreads or fruit if you'd like... I always get the waffle with crunchy speculoos spread. Speculoos spread is like a spiced cookie in a peanut butter form... I stop by Shaky Alibi with friends in tow & usually at night so I shy away from their coffee offerings (but according to my mocha fiend friend it's spot on) but I do enjoy their tea... 

So if you ever find yourself in the West Hollywood area - please check it out! 

Cookie Monster

I've started an Etsy shop: www.kaajacookies.etsy.com. Pray that I sell lots & lots of yummy cookies to people around the continental US! ( I don't think the cookies would survive international shipping nor the slow boat to AK or HI). I can not take credit for the beautiful pictures of my goods though... A dear friend of mine graciously offered to photograph them (his payment was LOTS of cookies). Please check out his blog: keithkimphoto.tumblr.com - he does event photography as well.

The cookies pictured are my peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. I started with wanting to do more than just a basic chocolate chip cookie so I mixed in some good all natural peanut butter (peanut butter and chocolate are bosom buddies). Then I wanted the cookies to have a little more substance so I sprinkled in some oatmeal (to make you feel a little less guilty about eating a cookie or three). Lastly, I folded in quality chocolate chips. Why do all that work only to ruin it with subpar chocolate?

I got rave reviews from all my guinea pigs (my close friends) - the best cookie variety yet...

I know most people have made resolutions to eat better or work out etc etc etc but you know, you deserve a treat after doing all that hard work. Plus, depriving yourself is never a good way to eat better.