Chocolate Covered Strawberries!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

yum =)

L loves D. And chocolate covered strawberries on Valentine’s Day!

They were delicious! I’m too lazy to write anymore, except that they were quite excellent! Just stare at the pictures and start drooling. =)

-Shu

Word of the Day: Succulent

I love to simply read about food. I could spend hours poring over recipe books, especially ones with amazing pictures of food! I was standing in Costco the other day (shopping with my mom) exclaiming over the Williams-Sonoma: Essentials of Baking. I want this book!

Reading descriptions of food is quite therapeutic! I was browsing through baby back rib recipes, and I just got hungrier and hungrier! I’m caught by words like “ZESTY”, “marinated”, “pUnGent”, “falling-off-the-bone TENDER”, “slow-cooked”, “siMMered”, “sLATHERED with bbq sauce”- I can keep going on and on. Food words are a hobby .

I’m suppose to continue the series on reviewing restaurants we’ve been to, and next is Jade Garden. We bussed downtown Chinatown for dim sum on Naader’s birthday! It was a lot of fun. Dim sum is not just about the food, it’s an experience! (Though the food is quite good too!) With such a large group, we were able to try a lot of different dishes. The most popular, as usual, are the shrimp dumplings, bbq buns, shumai, and, my personal favorite, chicken feet! And of course, dim sum isn’t dim sum without tea. We had the chrysanthemum tea, and it was quite good, though some still preferred the regular jasmine tea. I had lots of fun ordering dishes for everyone to try! (I’m kinda bossy like that )

All in all, I didn’t consider Jade Garden to be an extraordinary dim sum place. It had the usual dishes, and service was fast. However, the restaurant was VERY crowded during lunch on Saturday, so I would advise making reservations, unless you want to wait 30 minutes for a table! The prices were reasonable, and for a group of 8, we each ended up pitching in 6 or 7 bucks. Since I don’t know any other dim sum restaurants in Seattle, I’ll probably end up going to Jade Garden again when I’m craving dim sum!

Restaurant Score (based on the purely subjective Shu-and-Lydia scale!): 7.5

Coming up next: Mama Melina’s: a quaint retreat to Italy!

Brain Freeze

I’m sipping a Tropical Smoothie on a cold rainy day- yet I’m happy, happy, happy! Finals are finally over! Now… to the important things of life, like updating this neglected blog! I’m still plowing through my list of restaurants to review. In retrospective, we ate out A LOT this quarter! Probably more than I should’ve. Going out to eat is always delightful with friends, but bad for my bank account.

Food + Friends = Memories.

Little Thai was a treasure we found this quarter. Just like how Naader loves pho, I love Thai. I could eat it meals on end! I love Thai food, even though I usually get the minimal spice level! Little Thai, a bit secluded from the busyness of the Ave, is a down-to-earth Thai place focused on simply good food. I strongly recommend the pad-see-ew, which I get almost every time I go! The portion size is decent- leaving just enough room for dessert. I want to try the black sticky rice with coconuts milk next time! A friend got it last time, and devoured it all by himself. The service at the restaurant is prompt and friendly. The hostess is quite personable and considerate (and apparently looks like Brian F.’s mom… Asian-style). One positive of being located in a basement is that the restaurant has spacious seating.

If you love Thai food you must try this place out! Out of the numerous other Thai places on the Ave (Thai-ger Room, Thai 65, Thai Tom), this place has the wonderful combination of cheap price, fast service, and good food. I would return to this place again and again.

End of the Quarter

“I don’t LIKE food, I LOVE it. If I don’t LOVE it, I don’t SWALLOW”- Anton Ego

The end of the quarter comes at you fast. Shu and I haven’t been making ANYTHING (edible, that is) recently. We’re too caught with the fear of failure . Well I am that is. However, to tide you over till our next baking triumph, we’re going to review a few of the restaurants that we discovered, enjoyed, and went back to again and again.

Portage Bay

I’ve been there twice. The first time was an experience of food in all its freshness. The fruit bar was stocked with fresh strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, peaches, nuts, and heaps and heaps of fresh cream. It was a delight to simply eat there. Known for its organic fare, Portage Bay is a luxurious change from The Eight downstairs. (You can have the Belgian waffles topped with overly sweet strawberries only so many times…) In the wintertime, the choice of fresh fruit dwindles, and canned fruits take their place. However, it’s still good, I recommend the Rancher’s Breakfast, which is enough for two! Take advantage of the fruit bar- it’s the best thing in the house!

In a world where a 5 is average (think: 1-3 being fast food and 8-10 being that unbelievable restaurant you’ve gotta go again and again and again…), Portage Bay scores a 7. It’s a bit on the pricey side, so I would advise NOT indulging every weekend. It might bankrupt us poor college students too quickly. However, it’s the perfect antidote after finals!

Home Sweet Home

My mother shows me her love through food. It’s probably true in many families- when you go home to visit from college, your mom cooks your favorite foods. Believe me, any home-cooked meal is better than the 8 down at McMahon!

My mother does go a bit overboard though. (She is the reason why I refuse to eat fruit unless its washed, peeled, and set before me!) I love pomegranates! My mother bought 18 (you gotta love Costco, buy in bulk!). Here’s the transformation of 3 pomegranates- a labor of love.

Deja Vu

A friend told me this hobby of making delectable desserts very soon will become an expensive endeavor. Perhaps we should start a fund…

This week was Take Two of the Jello No-Bake dessert series. The cheesecake version was, personally, not one of my favorites. However, we created a lovely presentation with tin-foil muffin cups and a easy crust made of Nilla wafers. The preparation time clocked in around 20 minutes. And I must give a shout-out to Suzanne, without whom I would not have succeeded in this week’s episode of fantastic dorm desserts. She was the manpower in place of an electrical mixer, and donated strawberries for the topping.

Ingredients:

1 Package Jell-O No Bake Real Cheesecake Dessert (filling package)
1 1/2 Cups Cold Milk
12 Nilla Wafers
12 Tin-foil Baking Cups
Strawberries/Fruit For Topping

Directions:

1. Follow the directions on the Jell-O No Bake box for making the filling. Mix well by hand until the mixture is thick and creamy, if an electrical mixer is not available.
2 . Place a Nilla Wafer at the bottom of each tin-foil baking cup.
3. Spoon the cheesecake mixture into the tin-foil cups.
4. Refrigerate or freeze for at least an hour.
5. Before serving, top with sliced strawberries.

-Lydia

Autumn

Hi all!

I realized just how COLD Seattle autumns this week! It’s beautiful out with the red and orange and yellow leaves, but brrr…. bring a jacket whenever you go out!

I got a lot of baking in this week, quite surprisingly. We’re heading into my favorite baking season! The holidays are synonymous with home and baking to me! Cupcakes, cookies, breads, cakes… yummy!

Here’s a peek at my endeavor on Saturday night. (I know I cheated a little bit… I baked the cupcakes at a friend’s house.)

These were straight from the box- with a twist! Dark chocolate cake mix, store-bought frosting, and candies for autumn-theme decoration!

As for our in-dorm baking activity, Shu and I made a pumpkin pie! No joke- We tried the Jello No Bake Pumpkin Style Pie Dessert and it turned out better than expected. We expected a gelatinous mess, but instead, the dessert actually met the box’s promise of “Quick & Easy 15 minute Dessert”! The put-together was even more simplified by a store-bought graham crust. The creation was more than enjoyed after a rousing episode of Heroes! Go Hiros!

As a added side note, besides being the easiest and unmessiest dorm dessert ever, one package of Jello (enough to make one full pie plus crust) was under 3 bucks!

I know, for the genuine bakers out there, a box mix seems so… non-authentic! At first we were wary of using cake mixes and boxed desserts, too. But sometimes, some things just have to be sacrificed for the greater good… The pie was definitely IT for my sweet-tooth craving!

-Lydia

so much for that cheesecake…

So much for that no-bake cheesecake…this week’s delight turned into cookies and cream…for real! On these cold, wet days Lyd and I have little motivation to take that long trek down to U-Village for cheesecake, so we decided to make do with the resources from Ian’s and our generous friend Kyle–ice cream and Nilla wafers! Ten cookies and 1/4 a pint of ice cream (in our stomachs) later, we bring to you our mini ice cream sandwiches.

Ice Cream Sandwiches

Preparation time: 10 minutes Ready In: 1.5 hours

Ingredients:

1-pint ice cream (we used Haagen Dazs Dulce de Leche)

Lots of cookies (we used Nilla Wafers and Fudge Shoppe Grasshoppers, though bigger cookies would probably have worked better)

1-6 oz package of chocolate chips or mini M&Ms

A willingness to get messy!

Directions (like directions are even necessary):

Scoop ice cream onto cookie, put another cookie on top. Repeat multiple times (for multiple cookies). Freeze for 1 hour (probably more though, if you want them to actually turn out well). Trim edges, roll in chocolate chips. Freeze again for until hard. Voila! It’s that easy!

Actually…not really–it’s deceptively difficult, mainly due to the fact that ice cream melts. It’s quite unfortunate. Make sure you have a easily-cleanable counter to work on, and work fast! If possible, don’t keep the ice cream out of the fridge for more than…1 minute. As we found out, that’s nearly impossible, but you can try. We definitely had more failures than successes, but since you really can’t go wrong with cookies and ice cream, it was okay anyway.

Oh yes…one more thing–make sure you actually CLOSE the freezer door. Our freezer door pops open, and I found this out after a batch melted on us. It was depressing, but luckily, even melted ice cream and cookies taste pretty good, so it was a good comfort food.

Let’s hope it works out better next week. =P

-Shu

Stay tuned…

Hi all!

I’m so thankful to be done for the week- the school week that is! It’s definitely been a up-and-down week. Hopefully it’ll be more on the upside this weekend! We’re excited to try a cheesecake recipe tomorrow… stay tuned for our no-bake cheesecake masterpiece!

Thinking with our stomachs…

We love beautiful autumn days: jewel-blue skies and red and yellow fall leaves with the sun beating down. We couldn’t resist the wonderful weather, so we made an excursion to U-Village today.

On the trip down to U-Village, we stopped by QFC to restock our fridge. Besides our absolute food necessities (Shu’s yogurt, which was on sale! and fresh fruit) we picked up some ingredients for an easy and delicious banana cream pie (a much better alternative than the plasticky pies sold in the dorms)!

Banana Cream Pie

Preparation Time: 20 minutes Ready In: 3 hours and 20 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 (9-inch) ready-made graham crust
• 4 bananas
• 2 cups cold milk
• 1 (5.1 oz) package instant vanilla pudding mix
• 8 oz. frozen cooled whipped topping, thawed

Directions:

1. Slice bananas. Layer half of sliced bananas on the bottom of the pie crust.
2. Combine instant vanilla pudding mix with milk. Mix until thoroughly combined. Mix in half of the whipped topping.
3. Pour pudding mixture into pie crust. Layer the rest of the sliced bananas on top.
4. Spread the rest of the whipped topping on top of the pie.
5. Chill for at least 3 hours before serving.

We ran into some basic problems… and came up with several ingenious solutions! Not many of us living in the dorms own a mixing bowl, much less a mixer! So for the mixing bowl, we used a large round tupperware container. A spoon and some arm power more than made up the lack of a electric mixer! Oh, and for a measuring cup, we used a Nalgene water bottle, which had fluid ounce measurements on the side!

This has got to be the easiest pie for the best taste! Our friends thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated the pie through a Huskies football game and several rounds of Super Smash Melee! (A note: college students are VERY appreciative to any offerings of food!)

Well it’s definitely back to homework and school and reality now- but hopefully we’ll be back to baking soon!

-Lydia