Let's Make Roasted Tomato Soup!

Hi all! So it's been a minute since I last posted...almost two years in fact. I thought that I'd revisit this old blog on a whim. I've forgotten how cathartic it is to ramble on about life in a public space where I have a captive audience. :P

All kidding aside, I decided that my next post would be something fit for this wintery weather we've been having in California. It's been raining cats and dogs as of late, and this chilly, wet weather is perfect soup weather. In accordance with that, I've prepared for you a roasted tomato soup recipe for you. It's super simple, and super tasty. I hope you have the opportunity to try this recipe out for yourself! Let me know what you think of this - I'd be eager to see how this turns out for you and if you enjoyed it as much as me. :)

Here we go!

Ingredients:

1-2lbs tomatoes
2 cans of chicken broth
1 yellow onion
2 tbs cornstarch
1/4 cup lukewarm water
4 tbs butter, salted
1/2 cup of grated parmesan cheese
salt, pepper, basil, and bay leaves, to taste
olive oil

Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
2) Wash, core, and halve tomatoes. Place on baking sheet.
3) Peel and clean onion. Place on baking sheet over the tomatoes.
4) Generously drizzle olive oil on tomatoes and onions. Salt and pepper, around one tbs each.

5) Bake tomatoes and onion for 15-20 minutes, or until tomatoes begin to weep and the onions begin to brown.

6) Transfer tomatoes and onions to a cast iron pot (any heavy duty pot will do). Add two cans of chicken broth. Bring to a gentle boil. Season with basil, around one tablespoon.

7) Remove vegetables from heat. Using an immersion blender, blend the tomatoes until smooth. Alternatively, use a stand blender and blend the tomatoes until smooth.

8) Place the soup back on the stove at a low simmer and add two bay leaves. Add two tablespoons of cornstarch to a quarter cup of lukewarm water. Add a ladle of soup to the roux. Mix well, then pour slowly into the soup, stirring constantly.

9) Add butter to soup, stirring constantly until melted and fully mixed.

10) Add half of the parmesan cheese to the soup, stirring constantly until melted and fully mixed. Bring to a gentle boil, then reduce the heat once again to a simmer. Season to taste.

11) Ladle soup into individual bowls and garnish with remaining parmesan cheese. And voila! Tomato soup :) Tastes best when served with your favourite crusty bread.

Let's Make Tae Tae!

Tae tae, tae tae…my childhood in thick dumpling skin. Tae (or tae tae as youngsters call it) is a wheat starch-based dumpling that’s filled with char siu, mushrooms, shrimp, and scallions. It’s then steamed until perfection (aka a translucent dough) and can then be enjoyed hot or at room temperature. I’ve been eating these for as long as I can remember, with my Pau Pau making them hot and fresh whenever we’d come to visit and always sending us home with a package or two. Now just a heads up, I am nowhere near the kind of cook my Pau Pau is (neither is my mom…she nearly burned down the house steaming these puppies), so they don’t look as pretty as hers do, but it’s a time honoured tradition that I want to share with all of you. So with that said, let’s get started!

Ingredients:

• roughly 2 cups of finely chopped Chinese BBQ pork 
• roughly 12-15 large shrimp, cleaned and deveined 
• 1 cup shiitake mushrooms 
• scallions (to your taste) 
• 1-2 packages of wheat starch (depending on how much dough you’re making) 
• 1/2-1 cup boiling water
• 3-5 tablespoons olive oil, with additional oil for the steamer

Directions:

1. Chop all ingredients into fine pieces and mix in a large glass bowl. 
2. Empty the entire contents of a package of wheat starch into a pot. Add just enough hot water to form a moist but not sticky dough. Add a few tablespoons of olive oil to prevent stickiness. (for example, this dough is too sticky and lacks oil)
3. Take a golf-ball sized piece of dough and flatten it out on a greased surface as thin as you can (A/N – I used a spatula to push the edges out from the centre). 
4. Working carefully, form scalloped edges along one half of the dough, creating something similar to a conch shell. Fill with the filling, leaving enough dough to fold over and seal. 
5. Fold over the other edge and pinch the two sides closed, keeping the scalloped edge if possible (it’s a lot trickier than it looks, trust me). 
6. Place in a circle on a greased steamer and steam for 10-15 minutes, depending on the thickness of your dumpling skin (A/N – ignore that ball of dough and filling in the centre. I got a little carried away and that was the result of my frustration kekeke). 
7. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE ENOUGH WATER TO STEAM! This may sound silly, but my mom nearly burned our house down when she neglected the pan and didn’t realise it had run out of water. Needless to say, there were several burned tae, burned metal, and a terrible smell in our house for days.
8. After the 10-15 minutes are up and the skins are translucent, remove the taes and place them on a plate to cool (it’s ok if they touch, they won’t stick). When cooled to your liking, pick one up and enjoy! Nom nom nom! >.< 

Let's Make Char Siu (Chinese BBQ Pork)!

Annyeong internet! To continue celebrating Chinese New Year/the Lunar New Year, we will be making Chinese BBQ pork, also known as char siu. This is a simple recipe for a tasty marinade that yields delicious char siu. So here we go!

Ingredients:

• 2-3 lbs boneless pork shoulder (not pictured)
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup ketchup
• 2 tbs thin soy sauce (regular works just as well too)
• 2 tbs hoisin sauce
• 1 tbs Chinese rice wine or dry sherry (I substitute rice wine vinegar for extra tang)
• 4 cloves of garlic, mashed or minced
• 1 tsp Chinese five-spice powder (optional but highly recommended)

Directions:

1. Wash and trim excess fat from pork. Place in a large baking dish or a large plastic bag. Set aside.
2. Mix remaining ingredients in a bowl. Pour over pork or into the bag. Make sure pork is thoroughly coated in marinade. 
3. Cover/seal and refrigerate at least 2 hours to as long overnight, depending on how intense you want the flavours.
4. When marinading time is up, remove from dish/bag and place on grill set on medium heat. 
5. Grill on each side for 7-10 minutes or until a nice char appears and a glaze is formed. 
6. Remove from heat when pork is fully cooked (145 degrees F). Place on dish and let rest for 3-5 minutes before slicing thinly across the grain. 

 

And there you go! This pork is great served with rice and Chinese vegetables, or it can be put in soups or cut into small pieces to be made into dumpling fillings. The possibilities are endless! What will you do with your char siu? Let me know in the comments below! :)

Happy Lunar New Year/Let's Make 떡국 (tteokguk)!

Gung Hay Fat Choy everyone! Chinese New Year was just a few days ago, and in honour of that I made a traditional dish that’s enjoyed throughout all of East Asia in celebration of the lunar new year. This particular version hails from South Korea (no surprise there) and is called tteokguk, or rice cake soup. It’s made from yummy rice cakes in a delicious beef broth with egg and scallions. So enough talking and let’s get cooking!

Ingredients:

• 1 lb of flank steak
• 1 package of tteok (or you can make your own. I was too lazy so I just went grocery shopping kekeke)
• green onions plus extra for garnish
• 1 egg
• 2 tbs fish sauce (A/N – I didn’t have fish sauce so I substituted oyster sauce, which worked just fine)
• roasted seaweed for garnish

Directions:

1. Soak the tteok in cold water for 30 minutes. Drain when time is up and set aside. 
2. Cut the flank steak into small cubes (it’s ok if they stick together). Set aside. 
3. Wash and dice three green onions. Set aside. 
4. Bring a large pot of water to boil. Add the meat and scallions and let boil for roughly 20 minutes. 
5. While the meat is boiling, separate the egg with the white in one bowl and the yolk in a hot pan. Spread the yolk out as thing as possible (like an egg yolk pancake). Cook thoroughly and remove from heat. Slice into thin slices (this will be a garnish).
6. After the meat has been boiling for 20 minutes add the tteok and cook for an additional 10 minutes or until the tteok is thoroughly soft and separated from each other. 
7. Add the egg white into the pot and let it cook without stirring.
8. Once egg is cooked, remove pot from heat. Ladle into bowls and garnish with egg yolk slices and additional scallions. (A/N – I forgot to take pictures of the finished product, so you’ll just have to try it out for yourself to see what it looks like! >.<). Enjoy and happy lunar new year!

Let's Make Ratatouille!

So when it comes to European cuisine, nothing beats that of France (in my humble opinion). And while there’s so many different exquisite dishes that hail from that country, I find that the most delicious and comforting hails from the provencal territories. It’s full of healthy veggies and even has a movie named after it. Guessed it yet? You’ve got it – it’s ratatouille! The yummy eggplant, zucchini, tomato, pepper dish means home to France as much as meat loaf and mac ‘n cheese do to us. There are many ways to make this dish, from stovetop to the oven, the latter method of which I’m using. It’s a great summer vegetable recipe but can be made year-round with whatever vegetables you have on hand. Here’s my quirky spin on the beloved recipe – tell me what you think!

Ingredients:

• 1 medium sized eggplant, thinly sliced
• 2 small to medium zucchini, thinly sliced
• 1 6oz can tomato paste
• 1 16oz can diced tomatoes (usually I’d used fresh ones but I didn’t have any)
• olive oil (roughly 2 tbs)
• salt, pepper, and herbs de provence to taste (if you don’t have herbs de provence, a combination of oregano and rosemary works just fine)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Wash and thinly slice both the eggplant and zucchini. Set aside. [A/N – I sliced my zucchini into rectangles instead of circles to keep them more uniform in size with the eggplant, but any shape works just fine as long as the thickness is uniform] 
2. Drizzle 1 tbs olive oil on the bottom of a baking dish. Spread out the tomato paste as best as you can (you may have to use your hands and get a bit messy!) and then spread the canned tomatoes on top. 
3. Alternate slices of eggplant and zucchini (if you have peppers or fresh tomatoes, alternate those now too) until you’ve completed the dish. Drizzle with remaining olive oil and season with salt, pepper, and herbs de provence.  
4. Bake ratatouille in the oven for 15-20 minutes, or until vegetables are soft and beginning to appear translucent and the sauce is slowly bubbling.
5. Remove from oven and serve warm.

Voilà! Bon appetit mes amis. Feel free to make this recipe your own and let me know how it all goes!

Let's Make Chicken and Mushrooms in a White Wine Sauce!

So pardon the erratic posting here. I had to copy all my posts from another platform *cough* Wordpress *cough* because my account over there was hacked. I still haven't regained access to it, but no worries, because ta da! Blogger to the rescue. But enough about that stuff. Let's get to the more important things, like delicious chicken in a white wine sauce. It's a simple recipe I adapted from Cooking Light that allows for lots of exploration of other ingredients and flavours. Feel free to adapt it to suit your own taste just like I did.

Ingredients:

• 1 package pasta of your choice (I used orecchiette)
• 3lbs chicken thighs (the best part of the chicken if you ask me)
• 1 package pre-c0oked chicken sausage (usually four to a package)
• 1 tablespoon flour
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• half a pound of mushrooms
• 1 hearty bunch of spinach
• 1/2 cup dry white white (I used sauvignon blanc)
• 1/2 cup chicken broth
• tarragon, salt, and pepper to taste
• parmesan cheese (if desired)

Directions:

1. Boil pasta according to directions and keep warm.
2. Wash spinach and trim the ends. Drain and set aside.
3. Wash and slice mushrooms into 1/2 cm slices. Set aside.
4. Slice sausages into roughly 1cm thick slices and sauté in 1 tablespoon of oil on medium to medium-high heat until lightly browned. Remove from pan and pat away excess oil.
5. On medium heat, add mushrooms to pan and sauté for 3-5 minutes, or until browned and liquid is almost entirely evaporated.
6. Add white wine to the pan; stir and cook for one minute.
7. In a small bowl, mix some of the sauce with 1 tablespoon of flour to form a roux. Mix back into the sauce and stir for one minute to thicken.
8. Add chicken broth and continue to stir until sauce is reduced by half. Add tarragon, salt, and pepper to taste. 

    9. Add spinach and reduce heat to low. Cover and let simmer until spinach is wilted.

    10. Return sausages to the pan. Mix everything together so that the flavours are completely integrated.

Serve with the warm pasta and parmesan cheese (and a glass of that white wine too!). Enjoy! >.<

Recipe adapted from Cooking Light

Insomnia

So hey there internet…for those of you on the west coast like I am, it’s just shy of 4:30 in the morning and I have yet to fall asleep. Why? Heck if I knew, I’d do something about it.

Strike that. I do know what’s been bothering me. And it comes in two words that I’m sure many of you are familiar with.

Body image.

Those two words alone are like the scariest of threats wrapped in a death sentence. For someone who doesn’t struggle with it, it can be hard to explain why body image is such an issue. But for those who do struggle, it is a daily battle just to stay on the road of recovery. Body image is more than just being dissatisfied with how you look. It’s having pervasive thoughts intrude in your life constantly and relentlessly, and it often feels like there’s nothing you can do to combat it. It’s all-consuming, and often results in things like nights (er, mornings) like these where sleep is nonexistent.

*pauses to go back and read writing*

Gah I really wish that I had more poignant and inspirational things to offer on this subject, but as I said I am extremely sleep deprived and in the midst of a battle myself. I don’t even know why I’m writing this post…I just felt compelled to do so so that if there’s just one person out there who’s also struggling, s/he will know that s/he is not alone and that I am right with him/her fighting the good fight.  So with that all said, I’ll let one of my icons wrap this post up for me.

Goodnight/good morning world. I wish you the sweetest of dreams and never forget that I’m here rooting for you. Together we can do this. ♥