Category / food

by princesshotflash

I’m late

I hope your holidays were festive and fun. I did start off trying to post this before Christmas. But I got stuck and decided to stop. I started a new post about what I made and thought I could combine this post and my made post. Well, it didn’t happen. I’m back at it again. I wanted to share what I made.

I had a late start with my Christmas baking and spent a few days catching up. I initially thought I was going down the cookie route, but I turned to a few old favorites to share this year.

A Savory Bake

I used my favorite quiche recipe, Caramelized Onions and Zucchini Quiche. It was always a hit at my office parties. I had all the ingredients (well, almost) and had enough to make two. I used this quiche recipe from One Perfect Bite as my base. I tend to make it cheesier than the recipe calls for, and I ran out of milk, so I added heavy cream (how could that hurt it, haha).

Three Pears

I was going through old posts and realized I’ve been making this tart every year since we received a gift of Harry and David pears for the holidays. These were the last of the pears of this year’s gift. I kept them till they were very ripe and juicy. I found this recipe on the Chowhound forum years ago, but the link doesn’t take you to the recipe. I decided to add the recipe below the pictures. The tart is a combination of tart/cake. The juiciness of the pears creates a custard-like quality with the batter. Perfectly sweet.

Laurie’s Pear Tart

The recipe was originally found on the Chowhound forum from Gallery Girl

Ingredients:
4 or so ripe, juicy pears, peeled, cored, and cut into sixths or eighths
1 stick butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Spray an 8-inch (important) spring form pan with Pam.

In a large bowl, cream the butter, sugar, and vanilla with an electric mixer. Add the eggs one at a time. Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Incorporate it into the wet mixture.

Spread the batter into the pan. Now, in a pinwheel pattern, press the slices of pear, peeled side up, into the batter. Cram in as many as you can; since the batter rises and covers the pears, there are no points for style here. The more pears, the moister the cake will be.

Bake until a skewer comes out clean, about an hour. If you have any doubts, UNDERBAKE. This is a whole different animal if it dries out. Then it’s just a cake. Correctly done, you’ll love it. It’s just one of those recipes that is greater than the sum of its parts. really.

Sweet Potato Manju

Moving back home and becoming a caregiver for my parents made me want to make food that they loved, and I’m slowly learning to love, too. A lot of these foods are what I had as a kid. Probably, my taste palette wasn’t sophisticated enough to appreciate their deliciousness. Or what tell everyone, I didn’t like them before, I thought they were old lady food. But now that I’m an old lady, I love them. haha.

One of these foods that I now love is manju. Manju is a Japanese confection. It’s like a filled mochi or biscuit. Unlike mochi, the dough is made with wheat flour instead of rice. The filling is a sweetened paste made out of beans or sweet potato. I found this recipe for sweet potato manju from Keeping It Relle. And have kept it on the side waiting for the right moment to make it.

In my utter craze of holiday baking, I forgot to document one of the bakes (Sweet Potato Haupia pie) that led me to finally make this Manju recipe. I made too much potato and needed to do something with it. Ta Dah! I wish I could say what it tastes like, but my two roommates ate the last three pieces. But everyone I received it said it was good. The key to this recipe is to measure the filling and dough before you start. Both the dough and filling are very sticky. And it helps keep the manju clean and tidy.

by princesshotflash

What I made in 2022

I like to do these end-of-the-year recaps of what I finished in a year. It always makes me feel productive, and I even want to start more projects.

Knitting

Hats were my thing this year. They are my go-to project when I need something to do. Several were donation hats, and the rest were gifts for friends.

Left to right, top to bottom: tape yarn pouch with vintage cloth lining, Antler toques for donation, Feather and Fern wrap, Year of hats, March hat, Scrapy shawl, Felicity hat for donation, Jelka hat, Kaarre hat, Maize mitts

I’ve also been slowly getting rid of my yarn stash. Luckily I meet “L,” an amigurumi crocheter, at the thrift shop. I’ve been giving her yarn for projects.

Stitching

I’ve been using stitching in my upcycling project this past year. The stitching keeps me present as I usually don’t have a well-laid-out plan, and I’m letting the stitches inspire me on the subsequent placement.

Left to right, top to bottom: Stitching to cover up staining, bookmark, top stitching on the underside of the whale, stuffed whale out of a vintage dress, Hawaiian quilt pillow for donation, Aloha shirt patchwork, blanket stitch top of trivet, trivet made out denim scraps and hand stitching, cat toys made out of scraps of fabric from my cousins mask making venture.

Cooking

I’m breaking this section down to savory and sweet, and I’m not including the jam I made this year. I’ll say the strawberry guava is always a hit and the cherry jam is also a favorite.

Savory

I’ve been trying to be more healthy for dinners. I need to use a lighter hand on the salt. Ahh, signs of getting old. My recent favorite is Mapo eggplant. Here’s the link to the recipe I used from Just One Cookbook: https://www.justonecookbook.com/mapo-eggplant/

Left to right, top to bottom: roasted tomato salsa, zucchini and caramelized onion quiche for Julie, my attempt at pad see ew, cheesy biscuits, tuna and tofu patties, pickled veggie slaw, lemon and capers halibut (thank you, Dave, for the fish), mapo eggplant, ginger pork.

Sweet

I’ve been going through my mom’s recipe box, making my favorite recipes. One day, I’ll put them in a book for my family. I made several batches of Tanaka bars (a family favorite) for my holiday bake, and a few bakes came out too gooey. I googled “blondies too gooey” and found an article from food52 saying the batter needed more air. I need to return to my hand mixer to get the air into the batter. Here’s the link to the article: https://food52.com/blog/21928-why-your-blondies-are-raw-in-the-middle-the-stella-parks-cure

Left to right, top to bottom: Pumpkin bread, pineapple cookies, garbage cookies, lilikoi coconut pie, mixed berry creme fraiche scones, Nutella rice crispy treats, Tanaka bars, Laurie’s pear cake, cherry scones, lemon loaf cake, Tre Leche cake, apple crumb cake, apple vanilla pound cake, lemon blueberry cake with cream cheese frosting, chocolate birthday cupcakes for the birthday girls.

To my surprise, I worked on a lot of stuff. It didn’t feel like it. I’ve been struggling this year to find what I should be doing with my life since my freelance gig has dried up.

I’ve discovered myy stitching is good for my brain. It lets me move through the piece spontaneously, letting the stitches decide for me. So I decided 2023 would be my year to sell or show more of my works. I need to be brave and put it out there. So there will be more to come. I hope you stick around to join me on my journey.

by princesshotflash

Remember when . . .

I was a crazy baking lady. I was going through some old pictures and found these pictures when I made 100+ cupcakes for my office event. I think I did it twice. I don’t think I could do it again, especially without any ac.

Naked
Frosted

These days I’m not so much a crazy baking lady. I’m usually making something an occasion, birthdays, getting together with friends, or when I’m craving something. My last bake was for mom’s birthday, Lemon Blueberry Layer Cake from Sally’s Baking Addiction. I liked the cake, should have added zest and juice from one more lemon. (my bad habit not reading the recipe through before I start). It still have a nice lemony taste and good crumb.

The frosting was too sweet for me. But no one else thought so. If I adjusted this recipe for my taste, I would take out 1/2 c of powder sugar, add a teaspoon of lemon juice and some lemon zest to up the lemon taste. Note to anyone making frosting in hot and humid climate, it will be very soft and needs to be chilled before frosting or after frosted.

Or if I had lemon curd available, I’d add it as a filling between the layers.

cooling
frosted
sliced
by princesshotflash

What I’ve made so far

This is what I’ve made so far this first quarter of 2022. I wanted to keep track of what I’ve done. Trying to keep myself busy.

Food

Top to bottom, left to right: Laurie’s pear cake, chocolate cupcakes with sprinkles, cheese biscuits, pickled veggies, chichi dango, roasted sweet potato pudding, Costco rotisserie chicken broth, tuna tofu patties, fig and orange jam, caramelized onion and zucchini quiche, pad see ew, roasted tomato salsa

Craft

Top to bottom, left to right: stitch and mend sampler, denim whale with pleats, Feather and fan scarf, denim whale with topstitching, Hawaiian quilt pillow, Aloha shirt blanket, Year of Hat March hat, garment cover with upcycled aloha shirt

by princesshotflash

Fav Pics: Grilled Tomato Salsa

Veggies on the grill.

I haven’t posted one of these in a while. I’m still cleaning out my images. Lots of memories make it hard to eliminate. I decided to post this grouping as I just made this recipe and remembered how easy and delicious it was. This salsa is versatile. I made it for the chips that I bought, but it is also excellent on eggs, salads, fish . . . etc.

I can’t find the recipe initially used, but it is so easy and versatile to your taste. Here’s the list of ingredients and what I did for my recent batch.

  • Tomatoes, sliced in half–for the last batch I made I use about six medium size tomatoes, locally grown
  • Bell peppers, sliced in half, deseed–I use the mini peppers, about six, what I had in my refrigerator
  • Round onions, sliced in half–two large
  • Garlic–four cloves
  • Serrano peppers-two, could use more if like hot or use spicer peppers
  • Green onions-didn’t use because I didn’t have any in my fridge
  • Cilantro to taste
  • Lime–I use local lemon to taste
  • Salt and Pepper to taste

I placed all the ingredients, except cilantro and lime, on a baking sheet, cut side up. Placing them cut side up captures the juices they produce during the cooking process. I set the oven at 400º and cooked for about 30 minutes. Veggies should be charred but not burnt to a crisp. (my veggies were a bit more burnt than I wanted)

*Note: after grilling, remove the root from the scallions, seeds from the bell peppers, and stems and seeds from serranos (if you like it hot, leave the seed in)

Placed the grilled veggies in the food processor or blender and process till pureed. Depending on your food processor or blender, you may have to do it in two batches. Add coarsely chopped cilantro, lime (or lemon) juice, salt, and pepper to taste. The recent batch made about a quart and a half of salsa.

Four quarts from NJ tomatoes

If you use a grill, this salsa takes on a smokey quality. This recipe is worth trying, and it makes a lot to share. Enjoy!