Pi Day!

I like to make a pie for Pi day every year but this year I sort of forgot until it was 8 pm and I was starving for dinner. So I improvised. I used some roti dough that my mom had given me for a crust and topped it with mozzarella and some really delicious tomato paste from Greece that I had been saving for a good occasion and what better occasion is there than Pi day??










I kind of had to eat it like a taco but it was delicious!

King Cake!

In honor of Fat Tuesday, we made a bit of a feast with red beans and rice, andouille sausage, cornbread, and of course king cake!  In past years I've gotten this excellent New Orleans king cake mix from World Market (weirdly enough). In fact I made one last month from that mix to take to a super bowl party. We didn't end up going to the party and ate the whole cake ourselves, oy. But when I went to go buy another box of mix for Fat Tuesday, they were all sold out! What to do now, especially since I had promised our guests a king cake? Well I decided to try make a homemade one - a real legitimate recipe with yeast and everything!

This is the recipe I used: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/mardi-gras-king-cake/. 

First the yeast, mix with water and sugar and let bubble up. This took about 10 minutes I think.

Hot milk and butter

Pile of measured out flour ready to be mixed in

The premade mix came with a ziplock bag to help with the kneading so I stole that idea and used a ziplock for my kneading process too. Way less mess!

After you knead it, you let it sit for awhile in a warm place to rise. Then I dumped it out on the board to roll it out.

Rolled out and waiting for the filling

Filling made of butter, brown sugar, crushed pecans and cinnamon.

For the icing. I didn't have powdered sugar but I learned from an old college friend of mine that you can just put sugar in the blender to make powdered sugar! I used our fake Magic Bullet thing and it worked great!  I didn't really follow the recipe for the frosting, just added a little milk and water and a bit of vanilla and lemon juice. 

The final product!  I had some leftover colored sugar from the mix I used before which worked perfectly! I had also saved the plastic baby and stuffed it under the cake before icing it.

Turned out great and we all had a good time! My cousin's wife ended up with the baby so she'll be having the party next year (if we remember...)

Cheese?

I I think this is cheese but maybe not. This actually came about from a batch of failed yogurt where it didn't set up properly. We tried to heat it up a second time around but the curd separated from the whey. So in attempts to save it, we strained it and this was the result.


I think its cheese?

It was actually pretty tasty! Served with some sauteed multicolored peppers, spinach, and mushrooms.

Pig ears and jellyfish!

In honor of Chinese New Year, we went to a party where everyone had to bring an authentic Chinese dish.  Well on the RSVPs, everyone responded with things like Kung Pao chicken, stir fry, and even chicken satay (??).  So Ruch wanted to be actually authentic and decided to make this dish.

Pig Ears pre-cooking

Boiled in lots of random spices for a couple hours

Sliced into thin strips. That white in the middle is cartilage.

There aren't prep pictures of the rest of the process but the salad is made from strips of jellyfish, cabbage, carrots, and cucumbers which were all quickly cooked in a pan. The pigs ear slices were dredged in flour and shallow fried and put on top of the salad. The salad had a delicious dressing made from soy sauce, sriracha, seasome seeds, and a bunch of other random junk that R threw in.

You can see the other nonauthentic dishes in the back :)

All in all, I was surprised how decent the dish was. The salad with dressing was awesome! The pig ears were slightly weird, an odd texture but mostly just tasted like pork. We are taking a trip to China in a couple weeks so this was a great way to whet our appetite. Stay tuned for those food adventures as I'm sure there will be plenty!

Patriotic Brownies

Brownies with a patriotic topping!  It's just cream cheese whipped with sugar and a little vanilla and then artfully arranged strawberries and blueberries.  It was a huge hit - the brownies turned out the perfect consistency, a little chewy on the edges, a bit soft in the center.  Mmmm, too bad they were gobbled up so fast, no leftovers  :(

3rd Annual Anniversary Cook Off!

So my previous post about the 1st and 2nd Anniversary Cook Offs probably foreshadowed this one, and here it finally is! We did the 3rd Cook Off about 2 weeks ago and it's time to reveal the results here.  Some basics rules about the cook off:

Strict 1 hour time limit
Make as many dishes as you want
All dishes must contain the central theme ingredient
No recipes or preparation
$20 grocery budget, all pantry items are considered free
Points scored on taste, plating, and originality

Now about the secret ingredient...it's actually not a secret.  We mutually agree on the ingredient based on whatever we have a surplus off.  The first year we had just gone to a horseradish festival and the second year we had a large abundance of strawberries from a farmer's market sale.  And this year, well we had recently gone to a "sugar shack" which is where pure maple syrup gets made.  So yes, being the East Coasters that we are now, the secret ingredient was Maple Syrup! We actually ended up having a lot of similarities in our menus but remember there's no preparation beforehand and we don't tell each other what we are making so it was basically just random coincidence.  Or maybe we are more alike than we care to admit!

Anyway. without further ado, let's get to the pictures!

Kitchen Aftermath (it's a small kitchen and we were both scrambling for space!)

The Menus (any idea which is mine and which is Ruchir's?)

Spinach salad (Menu A)

Maple Lemonade (Menu A)

Maple glazed steak with brussel sprouts (Menu A)

Maple Rice Tea (Menu A)

Maple salmon with maple cauliflower puree (Menu A)

Reconstructed deconstructed doughnut (Menu A)

Maple carrot halwa (Menu A)

Maple caramelized onion jam and goat cheese (Menu B)

Maple butter roasted brussel sprouts with cayenne pepper (Menu B)

Soy maple salmon (Menu B)

Maple Lemonade (Menu B)

Coconut maple beef sliders with maple mustard (Menu B)

Maple mashed sweet potatoes with maple marshmallow topping (Menu B)

Also not pictured for Menu B was vanilla ice cream with maple topping which became a soup because it was crazy hot inside after all the cooking.

Let the judging begin!

All smiles before the reveal...

 And who came out victorious?? Well let's just say it wasn't me :(  But Ruchir and his Menu A definitely deserved to win.  We both were pretty tied on taste, I had a tiny edge on plating, but Ruchir killed on the originality front.  I mean reconstructed deconstructed doughnut??  And yeah, it was delicious.  So well deserved dear husband, well deserved.

Now the official score count is me ahead 2-1.  Looking forward to next year!!

Banofee Pie for Pi Day!

Ok so I came across this can of homemade "dulce de leche" in the pantry and it brought me back to the reason that I made it - for this delicious Banofee Pie made for Pi Day!  Nerdy, I know.  But I can't believe I never posted about it!  Anyway here's the low down on this delicious treat.

First, a crust of crushed vanilla wafers.  I mixed some melted butter in here and then pressed it down into a pie pan.

Now this next part uses an ingredient that was prepared a couple days earlier.  To make this dulce de leche caramel, you take a can of condensed milk, put it in a large pan, and cover it completely with water.  I put two cans in, one was used for this recipe, and one I just discovered in the pantry, huzzah!  Anyway, you have to make sure the water is completely covering the tops of the cans.  Then put a lid with ventilation on the pot and start the water boiling.  Keep it boiling for about 2 hours  adding water if needed to make sure the cans are completely submerged at all times, let it cool, and that's it!  The condensed milk will have turned into this delicious caramel.  Now for a disclaimer:  this method can have some dangerous outcomes.  Apparently some people have had the can explode on them!  This is probably because the water level dipped below the tops of the cans, but this is why I put a lid on the pot (and actually rubberbanded it to the handles to keep in in place) although make sure it has a ventilation hole.  That way, if the can did explode, everything would be mostly contained by the lid.  Yeah, there'd still be a mess, but not as bad as if the exploding can's contents went straight up to the ceiling!

Anyway, after you've boiled it, let it cool completely!  I mean totally and completely - like wait a day or so.  That way there's no chance of explosion when you open it.  And man the wait is worth it!  Open it up, scoop out all the goodness, and then spread it on your crust!

All gone!

Now for the banana part.  Layer sliced bananas on top of the caramelized condensed milk. No need to make a fancy design - not sure why I did that actually!

Now you just have to top it with whipped cream....

...and add a nerdy decoration!

This was seriously good.  Basically the only bad thing was using the pre-made spray whipped cream which started to collapse after a few minutes.  Some stiff peak homemade whipped cream would stand up better and probably be tastier but I didn't have any on hand that day. Now I'm thinking about what to make with the other can of condensed milk that was boiled....I'll let you know if inspiration ever strikes!

Our Anniversary!

If you've been reading this since when I started it, you may remember our first annual Anniversary Cook Off.  If not, go back and remind yourself!

http://anjalisfood.blogspot.com/2010/09/1st-anniversary-cook-off.html

Basically, we do an Iron Chef style cook off every year.  The above link was from our first year.  Today is our third year!  But we aren't doing the cook off until this weekend due to some logistical issues. So instead for today, I'll recap last year's cook off (since that was during my year long blogging hiatus!)

Without further ado - 2nd Annual Anniversary Cook Off: Secret Ingredient Strawberries.

Here we are at the beginning, all smiles!

Whew the cooking is done!  Way too much chaos (and a large grease fire) to take pictures during!  But here are the menus - this was after the eating and judging so that's why they are a little beat up.

Strawberry Cornbread (Menu 2)

Flank Steak (Menu 2)

Chicken Legs (Menu 2)

Salad (Menu 2)

Steak (Menu 1)

Pork (Menu 1)

Smoothie and Mousse (Menu 1)

Gazpacho in the upper left and Strawberry tea in the mug (Menu 1), Chocolate and candied ginger strawberries (Menu 2)

I'm predicting the results here!  You can also see the sangria (Menu 2) in the right back.

So could you tell which menu was mine and which was Ruchir's?  Mine was #2!  And yes, I won again this year!  Ruchir looks so dejected :) Once again, we'll see what happens next year - or actually, since this really happened last year, we'll see what happens in just a few short days!