Fresh Pesto

My basil plant which I partially sacrificed for this dish:
Mortar and pestling my pesto which I then mixed into an alfredo sauce.

Father's Day

We had strawberries and kiwis on hand so once again I opted for a fruit tart. This recipe is heavy on egg yolks but light on butter. I used Ina's pastry cream recipe. Since I didn't use butter or heavy cream, the custard came out a bit too thick.


For the tart, I modified this recipe by replacing 1 cup of the flour with ground walnuts and using whole wheat flour for the rest. Butter was reduced to 3 tablespoons and 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg and a dash of cinnamon were added. I really liked using the ground walnuts. Not only are they healthier, but their fat content enables you to cut the butter.

Batches of Biscotti

I've slowed down on the baking since my mom's cholesterol is up and honestly, I don't really have a sweet tooth. Anyways, traditional biscotti doesn't have any fat in it so I figured it was a safe bet. The first recipe I tried was from here except I replaced almonds with walnuts.


The spices were good but they were really crunchy....like you have to soak them in coffee to eat them. The second batch were chocolate ones adapted from here. I halved the recipe and used 2 eggs, 50% whole wheat flour, 1/3 cup agave, 1 tablespoon molasses and added 1/4 tsp of instant coffee to enhance the chocolate flavor. These were crunchy without fear of tooth chipping.

Make sure to bake them twice as the name suggests. And now I want to use molasses and agave in everything.

Since I can't go to Chez Panisse....

I'm usually a fan of things that are spiced and so I loved these gingersnaps. I've been wanting to make these for awhile since I'm fond of David Lebovitz's blog and Alice Waters.


I used this recipe and added nutmeg and allspice. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough turbinado sugar to coat the cookies. These and basic chocolate chip cookies are probably my fave.

Happy Chinese New Year

I was baking a dessert to take to my aunt's house, but we are staying in thanks to the snow/ice. It's better this way since I feel bad feeding my uncle butter. Due to the lack of good fruits for a tart, I made Thomas Keller's Almond Cake. Thomas Keller can do no wrong. I prefer this recipe over the Amateur Gourmet one I posted earlier because it's less dense and has honey and amaretto.


Unfortunately, our oven is broken, so I had to use the toaster oven resulting in uneven cupcakes. As usual, I reduced the sugar from 1/2 to 1/3 cup. My substitution for 7 ounces of almond paste is 1 cup almond flour plus 1 egg white.

B-day Tart

For my mother's birthday, I decided to make the Chez Panisse Almond Tart. Those fluted edges are thanks to my new tart pan.

If you like almonds and caramel, then you'll love this tart. It's a little on the sweet side, which makes it great paired with a cup of tea. I reduced the sugar by 1/4 which may have affected the end results. The filling was on the watery side and was sucked into the crust. Therefore, it didn't caramelize as much as it should have. Nevertheless, the sugars still hardened, making this an easily transported tart.

Quicheness

I used a frozen crust when I made my first quiche with Emeril's filling. I forgot to put in the cheese, and it was still good. Bacon makes everything better. Yes, I cheated, but someone needed to use it.
So I have one pie pan, and it's not even a legit pan. It's a tin from some Harry's dessert we bought way back in the day. It was bad because butter would drip from the holes in the bottom of the pan...maybe I should've chilled the crust for longer. Anyways, I got a tart pan for x-mas and can't wait to use it!

Once again I used a Dorie Greenspan recipe. I modified the filling by using what we had on hand (mushrooms, bacon, onions, spinach, and parmesean cheese). It definitely took longer than 25 minutes to set, more like 40 minutes. As you can see, I probably should have rolled the dough out better, but it was still delicious!

A Tale of Two Tarts

Asians are big on fruits (and red bean) in their desserts, which is why my family tends to request fruit tarts. I made the first one using random food blogs from foodgawker.


The second time around I used Dorie Greenspan's tart recipe and Julia Child's pastry cream recipe, and the results were better. For the tart, I used ground almonds for half the flour since I like the flavor more. The crust was more crisp and the custard was a little thicker. Next time around, maybe I'll see how Ina's recipe matches up.

Holiday foods

Since we had hot pot for Thanksgiving, we decided to go American for Christmas.


We glazed a ham, stir fried green beans, mashed potatoes, and baked stuffing, mac n cheese, and biscuits. As usual, I referenced Ina for the stuffing and mac n cheese. Oy so many carbs!

Also, I randomly bought a kabocha (Japanese pumpkin) at Super H and made it into a soup.

I steamed the kabocha and then blended it with chicken stock and sauteed onions. Finally, I added curry powder and whatever else we had on hand.