Saturday, April 30, 2011

Xan and Catherine: Pasta Carbonara with risotto meatballs

T E R R I _ _ _

How you finish this word probably says a lot about your attitude.  Indeed, depending on your attitude toward healthiness, you are guaranteed to either think today's idea is terrific or terrible.

First, a little culinary math lesson.  Pasta carbonara, on its own, is already awesome.  Risotto, on its own, is already awesome.  It turns out that awesomeness is not necessarily additive; mix these two together, and you'll end up with a mess that's considerably less awesome than either of the parts alone. No, if you want to amp up the awesomeness, you need a way of adding them together without actually mixing them.  The solution is to encase the risotto in a protective shell of deep-friedness.  I give you Pasta Carbonara with Risotto Meatballs:

Putting leftover risotto to good use!

Catherine also likes to encase blocks of cheese in the risotto.

T E R R I _ _ _!

Kathleen's Pizza and Macaroons



This afternoon I cooked a pizza, not because I'm a copycat but because it's one of the recipes my Weight Watchers recommended, and I've had the ingredients for a while. It didn't turn out so well, though. Too much dough and pizza sauce for too little cheese (recipe's proportions), and soggy in the middle. Plus, because of the sogginess I had to cook it extra long, which meant the cheese and basil were a bit crisped up. The peppers were still good, though!

I'm definitely having tomato sauce challenges. I tried Linden's suggestion of putting a bit of sugar into the pasta sauce I made yesterday. First 1/2 tsp, but it didn't make a difference, so then another half, but then it was too sweet and I had a devil of a time trying to mask that taste. If anyone has any good pasta sauce recipes, please send them to me!



Next I made macaroons, which was far easier than I had been led to believe. I did a bit of fiddling to try to figure out how to make them moister in the middle, but I was doing better by the end. Yum yum!

Friday, April 29, 2011

Xan: Mangosteen from a can?!?

Well I discovered canned mangosteen -- which we Vongsas are used to calling mong-koot...but apparently americans call it mangosteen -- in a Chinese grocery store.  So of course I bought it, since it's only like the second greatest fruit ever (after mango-nosteen), and I had never seen it outside of Thailand.  



But then the question was what to do with it.  I didn't want to eat them out of the can (pale shadow of the fresh version, etc), and I didn't want to lose them as an ingredient in something complicated.  It took me about half an hour of fruitless (ha!) searching on the interwebs to realize that the answer wasn't on the interwebs.  No, the answer would have to come from within.

The question, it turns out, is not what food mangosteen belongs in, it's what vongsafood mangosteen belongs in. Well, when we put it like that, isn't the answer obvious?



Unfortunately I didn't have a rabbit mold...but it was still pretty darn good.  Hey, this one could be an advertisement:




Mangosteen in lime jello.  Actually, this is just an application of a more general principle: putting things in jello makes them at least 500 times more awesome.  Really I can't think of a better way of awesomizing canned fruit.

Xan: Pizza dough variety show

Actually I have been making a lot of pizza dough lately, because it's so versatile.  I like to make a triple batch of dough and freeze most of it for future use.  Here are some things I have made so far:

Flatbread:


The simplest possible thing to do with pizza dough is to just fry it in a little olive oil.

Pizza bianca (Italian for Bianca's pizza):


Ooh let's get a close-up on that one:

It's basically just pizza dough treated as bread.  This one is slightly overcooked but I've made at least 3 more of them since they're so easy (and yummy).

Puffed up dough ball thingies:


Mind, I don't actually know how I got this all puffed up, but it was good.

Lemon pizza:
Not bad. It was...interesting.

Calzones:

Didn't get these to properly seal, but they were okay.

Actual pizza: On a couple occasions when we had guests over, we made personal pizzas so everyone could put what they wanted on.  You may notice this fine specimen is considerably rounder than Linden's first attempt:
Catherine's personal pepperoni pizza
But don't worry Lin, it was definitely not my doing.  Here is my cheeseless sacrilege:

Actually I think I have the roundness down by now, but I don't have the pics to prove it.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Linden's First Pizza

I think pizza is one of the more delicious foods in the world. And since I don't really go out much, I decided to learn to do it myself. (This also may have to do with the fact that Epicurious did a pizza roundup a few weeks ago, and I have been craving it for a while but am currently super resistant to eating out.) But, there is this idea in my head that pizza is very difficult and time-consuming to make, possibly because I have a vague memory of Mama making it once or twice and then saying, "never again!" or at least never repeating the experiment. So I didn't want to do it in the middle of hardworking.

Fortunately, I took a week off (during which I went to Newbury, London, Lyme Regis and Brighton) but I was home for two days in the middle, so I spent a day reading up on my pizza techniques and making one. It was very easy! Slightly time-consuming - the dough needs two hours to rise, so planning must be planned - and other than the initial ten minutes of dough-mixing, it's about an hour's work and ten minutes cooking in the oven. (So, more time-consuming than my normal 30-minute dinners, but not as bad as I was expecting.)



I went traditional, with tomato sauce, mozzarella, basil, and a little bit of parmesan flaked on top.

And then, I cooked it! It was super good. The next day, I made garlic knots with the leftover dough, but alas forgot to take pictures.

I made another round of pizzas while the parents were staying in my room, and they said they were delicious and that I have now beaten Xan, no matter what he cooks.

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Xan, Catherine: Happy Birthday Tammy!

To balance out the last post, I've gotta share our recent culinary celebration of Tammy's birthday.  Cupcakes!


Why polar bears? Because...they're cute!  Like Tammy!

"Really, isn't this the cutest picture ever?" -Catherine
Let's have a couple more pictures.  The best bear is obviously the fellow in the back row, second from the left.  Here's a close-up:



And Tammy just can't help herself:


Like the poor turkey at Thanksgiving, this majestic polar bear's face faces extinction at Tammy's hands.  The face is always the first to go, charity masked as cruelty: Tammy wants to make sure it cannot hear or see the horrible things that are being done to it.  Not my gumdrop legs!

Happy Birthday, Tammy!

Xan: Chianking Vinegar and the World's Longest Shortening

Today I made these Scallion Pancakes (from Serious Eats):


Needless to say they were delicious.  But that's not why I'm writing this.  I'm writing this because the dipping sauce...



...actually called for Chinkiang Vinegar.  "What is Chinkiang Vinegar and why should I care?" I hear you asking. And I didn't know or care either, until Tammy gave me some as a gift!

I occasionally splash it on vegetables, although until now I never actually saw a recipe that called for it.

Wait.  That's not true at all.  Actually, the vinegar came with some recipes, courtesy of Tammy.  I haven't made any of these but I just can't wait to share them with you!  Because...there's never been a better window into Tammy's brain: 




Now, I've seen tablespoon abbreviated as tbsp, tbs, tb, or even just T.  But for reasons that have only recently become clear to me, Tammy consistently abbreviates it as "tblespn."  Surely you are scratching your head, so let me explain:
  1. Abbreviations are supposed to be shortened versions of the original word which nevertheless retain enough of the original to remind us what they refer to.  
  2. The less you take away from the original word, the less room there is for confusion.
  3. Hypothesis: Could it then be that Tammy is just trying to compensate for being easily confused?  
  4. General empirical observations confirm that Tammy is, indeed, easily confused.  
  5. Furthermore, even restricting ourselves to this specific case, I refer you to Recipe #1. Indeed, Tammy seems to momentarily forget that "spn" is already an abbreviation of "spoon," indicating that even tblespn is not quite enough to forestall her confusion.
  6. The theory is confirmed, and I therefore recommend that in the future she use "tblespoon".
I am also slightly troubled by the idea that 2 tablespoons is a "splash" of vinegar.  But in any case, I encourage my readers to try these recipes out and report back here.  The idea of "crabby eggs" does not appeal to me, but I'm sure that's just a matter of personal preference.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Linden's Linden-sized zucchini galette

So I don't know what other people do with leftover pie crust, but I have this enduring problem where when I make pies and tarts and quiches, there's always a bit of crust left, sometimes lots. So I have to make something to use it up, which is tragic. This time, to use up the edges of my quiche crust, I rolled out the scraps and made an individual-sized zucchini galette:



 Now my camera has forgotten taking a picture of the inside of this, so alas you cannot see its multiple layers. Beneath the zucchini is a layer of basil, beneath which is a layer of cheeeeses. Basically, you combine ricotta, parmesan, and mozzarella (adding in lemon, salt, pepper, garlic, and what have you to taste), spread that on a rolled out pie/tart crust, leaving 1-2" empty all around. Then you add fresh basil, if you are feeling extravagant, and shingle zucchini on top. Fold up the edges of the dough. You're supposed to drizzle olive oil and garlic on top of that, and perhaps glaze the dough top, but that's a bit twiddly for a quick lunch.

Kathleen's Pasta



The other weekend I made some pasta sauce with canned tomatoes and vegetable stock, and a bit of spices and onion, in order to eliminate sauce-related points from my pasta meals. This was the first meal I had with that sauce.

With tortellini, the sauce is quite good, because the cheesy stuff inside the pasta is enough to mask any undesirable flavors. But with regular pasta, it's not very tasty. I've never liked that tinny taste that comes with tomato sauce. When I make chili, I mask it with lots of chili powder, but I'm not sure how to get rid of it in pasta sauce.

Sunday, April 3, 2011

A second look

Google has introduced a new feature for how you can view this blog.  Feel free to peruse:

http://vongsafood.blogspot.com/view/snapshot
http://vongsafood.blogspot.com/view/timeslide
http://vongsafood.blogspot.com/view/mosaic

You may want to bookmark one of these, if you like the layout or find it easier to locate old posts.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Kathleen's Pataks Curry



This is one of my main staple dishes, easy to make and lasting for four or five meals, so perfect to cook on a Sunday night and have for lunch all week. Healthy, too! I just use potatoes, chickpeas, cauliflower, onion, and a wee bit of oil and Pataks Madras curry paste.