Banh Mi, and Thit Nuong

Banh Mi is the Vietnamese fast food staple. Americans have fast food burgers, this is the Vietnamese version. Banh Mi is really simple. Using the thit nuong recipe with sliced pork, you've got your meat filling. There are way too many fillings that go in a Banh Mi, that I haven't tried yet. The ones I like happen to have pate, grilled pork or chicken and veggies in them. Vietnamese sandwich shops have the best demi baguettes. The rolls have a thin crisp crust and sweet and tender crumb. The rolls are sliced halfway through, mayo is spread on the bread, the meat is placed along with pickled daikon, and carrots, matchstick cucumbers, thin slivers of onion, cilantro, and jalapenos. I know there has to be more in them, but I never pay too much attention to what as I'm too busy stuffing my face. When I first started eating them, I would buy 5 and get one free, and they were only $1! Gee, that was 10 years ago. Now they go for as low as $2.50 upwards to $4 depending on where you are. Oh and you will need breath mints when you are done eating.
I haven't found any decent Vietnamese bakeries close to me, so I'm stuck with sub par baguettes from my local Kroger or Publix. One of my next projects will be to make demi baguettes.

Pot Stickers

I grew up making these from scratch. Even the wrappers. Well, I didn't mix up the flour to make the wrappers, but I certainly helped my mom wrap these suckers. My brother's task was to flatten each round and then come back when they were cooked to eat. He was a bit overweight until puberty. Lucky for me, a noodle shop opened in Chinatown, and they made fresh wonton, and pot sticker wrappers besides twenty different kinds of noodles. I miss the convenience of a decent Chinatown, but I still make my pot stickers. You can make these using ground pork, chicken or turkey. Just be aware that if using chicken or turkey, you must get the ground dark meat, as you need some fat in the meat. If you are really lucky, even with fresh dungeness crab. (I don't remember those, what a shame) I usually make them with pork, well, because, I like my pig.

A Vietnamese dinner

I totally have a craving for Vietnamese food. Now this is a shameful story to tell you. I grew up eating Cantonese, and plain American fare. Typical American fare would be spaghetti, pizza, lasagna, and hamburgers. I branched out when I got married and worked on my french bistro, Tuscan, and Northern Italian dishes. I have enjoyed Indian food, but alas curry is not something my husband likes. In the past 6 years we've expanded our palate to Thai, and Vietnamese food. The shame of it all is that I didn't experiment with these cuisines until I was in my 30's, and now I find living in the suburbs of Atlanta, there isn't a large variety of Asian cuisine. (The ubiquitous brown or white sauced entrees were never in my Mom's repertoire.) Oh and by the way, what the heck is the big deal about the white sauce at the hibachi restaurants out here?

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

La Fhéile Phadraig Sona Duit!  In honor of St. Patty's Day my daughter's kindergarden class is having a small party with treats.  Sadly (for me) the class went with a decorate-your-own cookie activity.  As I was eager to test out some decorating ideas from the book I just bought Hello Cupcake I offered to bring in treats for the pre-K class as well.  That is the best way to test any decorating technique--because even if you totally mess up, as long as it tastes good the kids are happy.  I made green iced shamrocks and round leprechaun decorated cookies.

(note to self: next time allocate more than an hour to decorating 60 cookies, the beards were rather rushed and didn't come out as good as they could have)

Left: cookies drying. I used colored fondant for the faces, spearmint gummies for the hats, orange gummy slices for the beards and decorator's gel icing for the details.  

Right: Treat/activity bags packed and ready to go.  Each bag contains two undecorated shamrock cookies, a bag each of green icing and a mix of colored (two different greens, yellow, black, white) sprinkles, Smarties, and chocolate kisses

Tonight's dinner is a very Irish meal of Dublin Coddle and Soda bread.  I will post the results later.  

Sweet and Spicy Marinade Part II: Fall Off the Bone Spareribs

Jo and I got talking about marinades the other day after her post.  My usual marinade is different (I'll get around to posting it one of these days) and after comparing she got me in the mood for some ribs.  BabyBella and I absolutely love, love ribs.  However, to make them truly fall-off-the-bone that takes time and preplanning (two things I'm horrible at finding and doing).  But, the stars aligned and for once I did both.  Yesterday I swung by the meat department and picked up 1 3/4 lbs of spareribs--I know that's too much for the both of us but I'm planning on having them for lunch during the week--and checked my work calendar and voila! had the time to step away from my desk for a few minutes in the middle of the day.  Happy.

Shortcut Japanese: Miso and Rolls

Disclaimer: What I'm about to do is probably ten kinds of incorrect.  There are correct ways of making sushi rolls but I don't know them.  Yet it works and if you're fiending for a bit of yummy goodness without a trip to a restaurant then read on....

Sweet & Spicy Marinade

This one of my go to marinades for chicken and pork. In fact it's absolutely wonderful used on the grilled items. I've adjusted the spice factor several times for the tastes of guests. It requires a specific ingredient which you should be able to find in the ethnic foods section of your grocery store.



I always buy this brand and no, I haven't a clue how to pronounce the name of the company, I just call it Rooster brand. This is not the same thing as the Chili sauce with the dispensing spout. This sauce has actual red chili seeds in it. It's thicker, more like a paste. Now on with the recipe....


1c brown sugar
1/4c ketchup
1/4c soy sauce
1/4c rum
1/2c chili sauce (I've used as little as 2 Tbs)
2 cloves garlic, crushed or minced
1 tsp dry mustard
dash of black pepper

I use a 2c pyrex measuring cup for all the liquid ingredients first then dump them into a bowl and then add the remaining ingredients. Once this is mixed well, place 3lbs mixed bone in chicken parts in a ziptop bag, pour half of the marinade into bag, close bag and massage to cover each piece of chicken in marinade. Place in refrigerator for 1 hour. Simmer remaining marinade in a small pot on low heat until thickened to preferred consistency, and let cool off heat.

Preheat oven to 425*
Empty bag of chicken and marinade into a 9 x 11 baking pan, arrange chicken in one layer skin side up. Bake for 25 min. Remove from oven and baste chicken with marinade in pan, return to oven for another 20-25 min. Remove from oven and let rest 5-10 min. Serve chicken with cooked marinade alongside.

Yes you have to cook the marinade down as it's really not a good dipping sauce otherwise. You can also cook the sauce down and use it as a wing sauce too.

Five Minute Chocolate Ricotta Pears

Thankfully Jo has been a busy tasty bee and has kept you entertained because I haven't cooked worth mentioning in over a week.  I swear I have a good reason!  Really!  OK, maybe I don't and it's kind of embarrassing, but I'll tell you about it anyway.  Here we were last week, BabyBella and I, playing around, she's in my arms being carried and I'm leaning in one direction, when suddenly she flings herself in the other direction then starts slipping out of my arms (she's a big girl!), so I quickly swing back around toward her and RRRRIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPP! something gives out in my back.  Holy moly, Jiminey Crickets, wowza and crikey, that hurt.  Whatever it was I did, the pain radiated from my knees to my shoulders and literally made my vision swim for hours. Thankfully, Jo gave me some excellent advice what to do to help manage it so I was able to grit my teeth and kept going.  Since I still had to work and take care of kiddo, I cut myself a break by keeping dinners easy this week.  We even *gasp* ordered pizza one night.

In other words, it was the perfect week to make a homemade dessert that barely takes longer than scooping out some icecream--chocolate ricotta pears.

(Recipe after the break)

Macaroni and Cheese

No photos, but a bit of a rant. We went to the store today, as I had no clue what to make for dinner. As the three of us walked through the store, we scratched our heads and Stinky saw something. He wanted Kraft macaroni and cheese. Excuse me? You want noodles with orange food coloring? Not happening. Now I don't make mac n cheese very often. Usually when I make it, it's the baked kind with the four to six different cheeses, milk and eggs, and baked. But since he was craving it, we headed over to the cheeses and grabbed a chunk of mild cheddar and monterey jack.

Macaroni and cheese is a really simple dish, why do people buy Kraft? I don't understand it. From start to finish it takes about 20 min to make it from scratch and it's comparable timing to the boxed fake stuff. Boil macaroni, while the noodles are cooking grab another small pan and heat 1/2 to 3/4 cup of milk with 8 oz of shredded cheese of your choice over medium low heat. When the cheese is melted, the noodles should be ready, drain then put the noodles back in the pot and pour the melted cheese over the noodles and stir to mix. Gee how hard can that be? Yea there are two pots to wash instead of one, but it's so much better this way.

Stinky was happy. Oh what did we have for dinner? Fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, and green beans. It was easy and didn't take a lot of thought.

Momofuku Milk Bar Compost Cookie

Amateur Gourmet posted about Momofuku Milk Bar's Compost Cookie. Seems the recipe was posted on the Regis and Kelly site. Wohoo! I have yet to run across a terrible recipe from David Chang and his crew of insanely genius chefs. The first time I made one of his recipes was Thanksgiving 2008. My SIL brought the recipe for his roasted brussel sprouts with Japanese marinade. I now love brussel sprouts and in fact will only roast them or cabbage now.

Lately my son has been asking for cookies and well I get lazy, and I worry that he will eat 6 dozen cookies in one day. Hey, it's happened between my son and husband depending on which cookie is made. I like to make a batch, scoop and freeze, so we can maintain some semblance of portion control when it comes to sweets. The same goes for cookies I like too.

Now this cookie is insane. A chocolate chip cookie with pretzels and POTATO CHIPS! I told Bella and she thought that was insane. It is insane, but I can't imagine life without it. I did skip the potato chips, but used pretzels, mini chocolate chips, and crushed heath toffee bars. This cookie requires a Kitchenaid. The mixing time is quite long.



Because of the long mixing time, the dough is really light. I don't make big cookies. I like little ones, you get to eat more for the same amount of calories. I use a 1oz cookie scoop and froze most of the cookies. So I froze the cookies instead of putting them in the fridge for 30 min. It worked just fine. These cookies are out of this world! Next time I make them I'm putting more stuff in them. These cover just about every craving a girl may have.

Fast and easy Empanadas

Everything is still frozen! I looked in my refrigerator and found only ground beef ready for usage. Sheesh, what to make that isn't meatloaf, meat sauce, or something that hasn't been created a few times already this year. So looking at everything in the fridge, I decided to try empanadas. I haven't made them in years, literally. The problem is that I don't have the dough made, and I don't want to fry. So I went the lazy route and used ready made pie crust. (recipe after the break)

Stuffed Peppers

Some of my earliest memories involve watching my Mom make dinner.  Growing up, no matter the occasion, the whole family always ended up hanging out in the kitchen chatting, laughing, playing, picking on each other and snitching bits from the cook pot.  The scents of Mom's recipes are inextricably linked to the feelings of being surrounded by those I love.  After a wonderful week of seeing two of my three siblings and both parents, I was really missing the only sibling I hadn't seen (and won't for awhile since she lives abroad)--my sister.  That rather missing, whimsical, family-oriented mood inspired me to make an old family favorite and Mom specialty--stuffed peppers.

(Recipe after the break)

Autumn Stuffed Pork Loin

This is one of my very own recipes.  Oh, I'm guessing there are plenty of recipes out there that are similar, but this one was born out of an especially nostalgic afternoon's shopping.  You see, I was raised in Upstate NY in the Hudson Valley where Autumn was my favorite season.  By mid-October everything turns a thousand shades of red and gold with amazingly crisp mornings that smell like a combination of apple cider and that utterly undefinable but unmistakable aroma of fallen leaves that is more like touch than scent. Being in the foothills of the mountains during that season is one of the most glorious experiences you could imagine.

West Bank of the Hudson River (Image courtesy The Poughkeepsie Journal)

However, when I moved south I discovered that there really isn't a such thing as Autumn.  We go pretty much from summer to winter with a brief two or three weeks where everything turns brown and drops.  And it rains. A lot. Blech.

So here I was one rainy afternoon in October being incredibly homesick for a season while grocery shopping and had the inspiration to make something decidedly "fall-like" so I grabbed cranberries, apples, and cider and went from there.  If I couldn't have golden trees and smoky leaf-scented air then I would taste it.  (Recipe after the break)

Things You Don't Do: Explosion Avoided

With my work day, sometimes I can step away from my desk and get dinner started in the early afternoon and others...well, let's say I'm scrambling at 5 or 5:30 trying to get something on the table before BabyBella is hollering that she's starving: now.  Problem is, I rarely have any sorts of heads-up and know when work is going to be crazy so between that and BabyBella's weird food habits (this week she suddenly hates PB&J after asking for it daily for lunch for the past six months...really child?) any sort of pre-planning of meals is out the window. This entire week has been like that--running like the idiomatic chicken at dinnertime.

Side note and warning: cooking is an art form. And like any art, there are proper tools, techniques, and rulesets that should be followed as you exercise your creativity.  Have I mentioned I'm not so good at following rules?

So BabyBella has been asking for roast chicken all week and here I am last night, standing in the middle of my kitchen at 5:45 pm staring dejectedly at my still-mostly-frozen cornish hen.  I had taken it out of the freezer and put it in the fridge overnight, then it sat on the counter all afternoon, but the stupid thing was barely thawed.  I dropped it in a cold water bath to hasten the process and turned to the internet to find a solution (yeah...at this point I should've just ordered a pizza or made something else, but I was on a mission dangit).  Bingo!  I find three recipes (here, here, and here) for deep-friend cornish hen which only takes twelve minutes!   More after the break...

Pizza!

My son had a friend over for a sleepover. This friend is a vegetarian, and well my kid is definitely a meat eater. I told him I was getting him a shirt that said, "Powered by Bacon" He's all for it. Most kids have a love of pizza. Well unless you are a teenager working at a pizza parlor, and see it daily. I was that teen. I worked at a Round Table Pizza when I was 16. What skill did I take away from that after school job? I can still weigh a pound of cheese in my hand. Of course I'm going to make pizzas from scratch!  More after the break.

Monkey Balls!

As usual I check my favorite food blogs and one of my favorite bloggers never fails to deliver. Deb from smittenkitchen.com has a recipe called Monkeybread.  One of the reasons I'm following her also is that she has an adorable little baby boy, and she posts photos of the darling. Another reason why I follow Deb, my wonderful sister in law loves her recipes too and has a darling baby girl, who's just a few months younger. Plus they live in the same city! lol

Now, I don't have a sweet little boy. When the finished product was placed in front of him, and told what the dessert was called, he decided that the name didn't fit, but "Monkey Balls" did. So we will now refer to them as such.  (More after the break)

Busy snow day! Two recipes accomplished in one day

Last week the Eastern Seaboard was inundated with snow. What was it called? Snowmageddon. WTH? Yea, well some nut decided to call the snow system that hit the deep south, Snowplosion. Another WTH? Atlanta doesn't get high volumes of snow. More like 4 inches the whole winter, not in one day. We get wintry mix, which is really just icy rain. So in preparation of the snow fall, I planned on two recipes. Chicken soup and snow cream. Yea, I had to make snow cream when I found out I would actually have a decent amount of snow.

(More after the break)

Valentine's Day Cookies

Recently, I got this wild notion that I will learn how to bake and to decorate.  I don't mean just throw some icing or sprinkles on something, I mean fancy-schmancy, wow-gee-whiz that's so cool kind of decorating.  I guess this is what happens when you watch too many episodes of Ace of Cakes.  Problem is, I've never really tackled anything more difficult than drop cookies and the annual birthday cake for BabyBella.  Thus, when I was asked by my daughter's teacher to bring in something sweet for their Valentine's Day party I decided that this was the perfect time to learn how to use fondant. Seriously, even if I royally mess up, a bunch of kindergardeners won't mind.  Talk about low-pressure.

So, off I go to the local craft store where I grabbed a bunch of stuff I thought I'd need and merrily went home, excited to tackle this.  Yeah...maybe I should do some research first.  Seems I forgot the right extracts, rollers, cutters, etc.  Ah well, so I made due.  Here's the result after the break:

Snow Cream

Jo is much better than I on keeping up on various food blogs.  So, when she heard about the vicious snow storms we have been getting Jo, being an awesome friend, sent me a recipe for Snow Cream.

Out of curiosity, I Googled for other versions and found a ton!  I found that a lot of the recipes use either evaporated milk, such as Paula Deen's version or beaten egg.  Although according to the American Egg Board (really, there is one) the chances of getting salmonella from raw eggs is very low, as this was a project for my 6 year-old daughter BabyBella and 5 year-old niece, I went with the simplest milk version. Recipe after the break.

Chicken Casserole

For the last week we've been getting totally pounded by snowstorms.  Two blizzards!  Growing up in upstate NY we were much more prepared for getting buried.  We had snowsuits and thermal underwear (not exactly fashionable, but when it's -20 degrees F, you need it), firewood stocked, snowblowers and BIG plows.  Here in the mid-Atlantic, they close schools for an inch of white stuff and since I've lived here, usually they see about 4 inches of snow in total over the course of the entire winter.  This is what my town looks like today:

So, to say the least, getting over three feet of snow in the last few days has completely shut down the area.  BabyBella hasn't been to school since last week and a State of Emergency has been declared twice.  Thankfully, we still have power and the kitchen is well-stocked.  Yet, after a week of this we're both getting a little stir crazy and had to get out to stretch our legs during a lull in the storms.

Since its ridiculously cold outside, to help keep the house warm (have I mentioned that my house is over 100 years old and doesn't have insulation?) I've been doing a lot of comfort-food cooking that involves either long simmer times or baking.  One of my favorite comfort foods is an adaptation of a chicken casserole recipe that a friend brought me as a welcome home gift after having BabyBella. Recipe after the break...

Ruhlman's Buttermilk Dinner Rolls

I'm at a loss for dinner ideas. Instead, I spent my afternoon making Buttermilk dinner rolls.

Rulhman's recipe is here.

So the family will have chicken soup for dinner at least the rolls will go in hand.

His recipe and my results after the break.

Three Ingredient Tomato Sauce

I'm so over Winter. I want days in the mid 60's, with warm breezes, not blustery cold winds that cut through clothing and freezes your toes even with 2 pairs of socks and Uggs on. I am craving spring and summer veggies, more variety than what is available now.

Running across two different recipes for a basic tomato sauce, made me happy. I found the Scarpetta recipe at Steamy Kitchen, but that was a bit more than I wanted, not that a garlic basil oil isn't tasty, I just wanted a simple recipe I could throw together while cleaning house. A few weeks later I run across Smitten Kitchen and her quick tomato sauce recipe. Now I'm more in tune with her recipe since she's got her hands full with a really cute little baby.


This was my lunch for two days, and it was totally yummy. When one thinks about it, what does a basic sauce need? Tomatoes, onions, and butter. Life can be fantastic with just those three?


One can of tomatoes, I have used San Marzano style, regular whole peeled, diced, and no salt kinds. They all work. Since it's a side dish, I use only 14oz cans of tomatoes, not the 28oz. It requires half a onion and 3 tablespoons of butter. Just put it all in a sturdy pot and put it on low heat to simmer for 40 min to 1 hour. Stir occasionally.

This is what it looks like when it's been simmering for a while. I like to puree the sauce when I'm done, so I used my hand immersion blender. I do admit I enjoy basil so I chiffonade a few leaves and toss them in after the immersion blender, then salt if needed. So if you need something warm and sunny give this a try. Right now I'm trying to keep a basil plant alive in this cold. Hopefully it will make it to Spring and I'll be able to plant it.

BBQ beef sandwiches

I was trying to find something that was simple and filling and ran across this recipe on Simply Recipes. This looked good, something different and tasty, and a bit of a warm weather reminder in the freezing cold. The ingredients were fairly inexpensive and made enough to serve 12. That's two meals in this house.

(more after the break)

Kiddie Food--Corndogs and Mac and Cheese

As previously mentioned, BabyBella hates eating vegetables.  This is not at all unusual in children her age.  I've read countless articles and books on how to deal with this from the "try one bite" to "hiding the veggies."  My problem with these two approaches is the first won't get enough vegetables into my kid and the second is, quite frankly, lying to her.  Thus, I have gone with a blended approach.  I often serve vegetables as a side dish, have her try at least one bite (she inevitably says she hates it) and fortify the meal with vegetables I've blended into other foods.  As BabyBella is my #1 kitchen helper (menu planner and sous chef) she's fully aware of what I'm doing.

Today BabyBella chose for dinner a school cafeteria favorite--corn dogs with macaroni and cheese.  Now, before you get all "that's not a healthy meal!" on me, know that it is not the traditional carnival treats.

Recipe and more after the break...

Jumuk Bap

This recipe was something I found on Serious Eats. http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/01/jumuk-bap-korean-rice-balls-beef-pears-seaweed-recipe.html In retrospect it seemed like a great comfort recipe, reminding me of something my mom made when I was a toddler and for my son when he was young. I think every ethnicity has some type of comfort easy to chew type food. Call it baby mush. Not that I remember from my childhood, but when I tasted it, I had a sensory recall. Mom would take lean beef, flank steak or flap meat, or lean pork, using two cleavers she would chop the meat finely and marinate it. While the meat marinated she would prep the vegetable of choice (for my son it was green beans fresh from her garden, or squash from mine) In a 3 or 4 qt pot she would cook rice on the stove top and add the meat and veggie at just the right time to gently steam on top of the rice, the flavor soaking through out the dish. She would make this every day for my son as a lunch. One of my friends loved it when her son would come over for play dates and he would be given a little margarine tub of this concoction to take home for her son's dinner. She had difficulty deciding if she could justify eating it all herself and not sharing.

Then something went wrong.  More after the break.