would you like some cheese with your whine? or in that case, spinach and dragees?

gah, just when you think all is fine with the food world...the spinach was taken away now...those pretty silvery dragees bit the bullet. An Dec 2003 SFGate story reports that stores, wholesalers, and internet suppliers will not sell the shiny decorations to customers in California no longer carrying dragees due to the fact a Napa lawyer's lawsuit is stating that they are allegedly toxic.

read the true article: Bay Area faces holidays without little silver balls on baked goods.


link via notmartha for
The Dragee Report @ apartment therapy: the kitchen.

:) boy is it cold outside!! brrrr!

here's a pattern you might like, it's knitted flat and then seamed:

grandma's gloves.

ahhh, i want these flash drives at mimoco! they're soo cute!

Happy Holidays!

i hope the holidays have been great thus far for all.

my husband celebrated his 29th at king wah in daly city. we had hot & sour soup, honey walnut prawns,steamed bean curd with minced shrimp, sauteed shrimp with preserved eggs, steamed jasmine rice, and
sweet red bean tapioca soup for dessert. food good, service bad...notice a theme here. haha.

for x-mas, we stayed at home. the kids had a ball unwrapping their gifts! my little boy saying "wow!" and my daughter clapping her chubby little hands were a joy to behold! my mother was there and enjoying her time with her grandchildren.

we received a cuisinart sandwich grill from my mom. thank you mom~ :*

i hope the holidays so far for you are decent ones. our littlest ones had a blast opening up their presents under our so last minute purchase tree bought at walmart on hubby's birthday. lol. my mom and the babies' grandma came over and dropped off presents. i can see that she's misses my dad so much this holiday. he's pretty much half way across the world handling some loose ends and won't be back until next year. (sigh) miss him too. kids got clothes and toys. hubby got a cuisinart sandwich maker and i got a cute track suit from my mom. thank you mom. thank you everyone. again we didn't get much chance to go christmas shopping, since my husband works soo late. :/ maybe next year i hope.

months ago, one of my favorite places at great mall in san jose, kyun closed up. which totally sucked for me, but now i can buy from them online : japagoods.

i have been posting on my other blog, spatula-girl...but i am not neglecting this one. :P

there is this pattern for snowflakes on berroco.com:

http://berroco.com/exclusives/snowflake/snowflake_lg.html

and holiday ornaments!

http://berroco.com/exclusives/decorate/decorate.html

i've been in a sort of hiatus from knitting, but i haven't stopped loving it. having a two year-old and an almost one-year old is flummoxing, especially when you are trying to maneuver knitting needles out their chubby grip. lol. since it is getting chilly, i have been wearing a scarf i did knit sometime last year! will post a picture here!

Menu For Hope III

a positive light for this holiday season and the end of the year, menu for hope iii hosted by christine at chez pim has finally reached its end...raising over $50 K for the UN World Food Programme! that's awesome. last year i read $17 K was donated to UNICEF and the year before for UNICEF's Tsunami Relief. THIS time the donations quadrupled! thank you so much for the joy you bring to the people who need the help.

being late in the game for this year's menu for hope, i had wished to participate in the drawings, but i hope to try for the next one. i will donate though to the cause.

The Good Home Cookbook and Old School Memories!

got my copy of the good home cookbook!

looking inside it... this is a definitely a user-friendly cookbook! with straight-forward directions and no fancy jargon! :) i look forward to using the recipes in this!

my mom visited today and was sooo excited about learning that there is a bakery in japantown that has her beloved blum's coffee crunch cake...yasukochi's sweet stop! blum's was a san franciscan standard where a lot of my mom's generation had fond memories. Fortunately, I was able to find several recipes for the coffee crunch cake and there is also a cookbook! :)

The Kitchen and Dou Miao

went to have christmas dinner and a reunion of sorts with my husband's family on sunday at the kitchen in millbrae. the kitchen was formally known as seafood harbor not too long ago. we used to frequent this restaurant quite a lot when we lived in daly city, ca. good food, bad service. haha.

we had several dishes:

cold plate ( char siu sliced, pork, etc)
shark fin soup
lobster in garlic sauce
roasted squab
fried rice
bok choy
scallops, squid with snap peas

for dessert:
coconut milk with honeydew and tapioca

now, a recipe:

sauteed dou miao ( snow pea shoots) with garlic

3 tablespoons of vegetable oil
6-8 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced
1 lb. or more of dou miao, rinsed and drained
salt to taste about 1 tsp. should do

using a wok or saute pan, heat oil to high temperature. add garlic and toss until garlic has softened and is fragrant. add about half of the dou miao and salt, cook until slightly wilted. toss in the remaining batch of dou miao. stir fry until done.

It's Omaha.

just recieved our order from http://www.omahasteaks.com on tuesday!

we got the fantastic family feast:

2 4.5 oz stuffed sole with scallops and crabmeat
2 5 oz filet mignon
2 5 oz top sirloin steaks
4 4 oz omaha steaks burgers
6 5.75 oz baked stuffed potatoes
1 6 in chocolate cake

it came with a free cutlery set and cutting board...cookbook. for about 49.99.

can't wait to grill 'em!

updated: we grilled for x-mas, made the steaks too dry. too bad. baked potatoes were good. lol. we still have the sole and the burgers.

Am, Stram, Gram, Pique, Pique...wishing I was in Paris.

i've been following the blogs, the girl who ate everything and davidlebovitz.com...et moi, je suis jalouse parce qu'ils peuvent manger d'une telle nourriture magnifique ! (translation:yeah i'm jealous cuz they're eating such magnificent food, k? :P hehe.) roboppy went to laduree and pierre herme. and god, you have to see the pictures of the desserts and food she's had there. and david, he lives there.

i'm drooling...now i want to go to paris and break out the old dictionnaire française and try, note try to parlez français. okay so i'm being a little facetious.

en l'honneur de roboppy et david, je vous donne des recettes du jour:

http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archives/2005/08/long_live_the_k.html
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/231583

this are recipes from brittany/bretagne/briton, a french province known for their fleur de sel and butter. i'll be working on these as well. wish me luck!

Senseo, Attack of The Coffee Pod.

i got a senseo machine for free not too long ago through an invitation by the manufacturer for word of mouth advertisement. i really do like the way the machine looks. its simple design is pleasing to the eye and makes an interesting conversation piece. i received the machine in the senseo blue. the idea of the senseo is appealing, but the coffee pods recieved free were very blah. the look of the coffee as it pours out with its lovely crema is appetizing, but the taste is like drinking soaked cigarettes in coffee flavored water and gargling with them. i do not recommend the medium roast at all. i do however recommend the cappucino pods. my only complaint is that they only last maybe about 4-5 cups, since i like drinking my coffee in a large mug.

i got a senseo machine for free not too long ago through an invitation by the manufacturer for word of mouth advertisement. i really do like the way the machine looks. its simple design is pleasing to the eye and makes an interesting conversation piece. i received the machine in the senseo blue. the idea of the senseo is appealing, but the coffee pods recieved free were very blah. the look of the coffee as it pours out with its lovely crema is appetizing, but the taste is like drinking soaked cigarettes in coffee flavored water and gargling with them. i do not recommend the medium roast at all. i do however recommend the cappucino pods. my only complaint is that they only last maybe about 4-5 cups, since i like drinking my coffee in a large mug.

this will be also cross-posted in my food blog.

hey all! i hope your turkey or non-turkey day and the following have been great!

i had drama...who doesn't have some kind of drama during the holidays?! anyhoo, don't want to get into details 'cuz it's stupid. haha.

i know for one thing, my husband knows yummy turkey! we had gotten a 14 lb this year. not to brag, but my husband's turkey ever since i've met him has been delish!i made all the fixings except for the cranberry sauce which came out of a can and the stuffing a.k.a. stove top. just two shortcuts this year! made pumpkin pies with homemade crust too. first pie was okay, the second much better.

this year, it was just my husband, i, and our two little ones enjoying thanksgiving! the food which we slaved on was awesome...but hearing my son's screeching during the dinner was not.

remind me to invest in industrial strength ear plugs. @_@

ugh. it's december already?? -_-;;; the malls are a madhouse. i'm scared to go out. aren't you?

Chocoholism and Dulce de Leche

i am admittedly a hardcore chocoholic :P

hence i spam you with recipes about chocolate:

david lebovitz's dulce de leche brownies with his homemade
dulce de leche! i am soo going to make this~ :D:::

and make this:

Korova Cookiesfrom dessert first~ :D:::

baby update!!

button's being cruising and pulling herself up, sitting down,dancing to blue's clues, crawling really fast, and 4 brand new teeth.

boo-boo's creating havoc and counting to five, all the while yelling, "MAMA!"

hmm what have i been up to?

a toddler and a 10 month old have been crawling all over me. two piles of laundry: one clean and the other not--both the size of mount everest. an enmasse of toys which i constantly trip on and pick up day in and day out. not that i am complaining. lol. i also have been willingly trapped into playing the sims2. following up on BSG and Heroes. how was your week?

and now the quiz: "What American Accent Do You Have?"

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
The West
The Inland North
Philadelphia
The South
Boston
North Central
The Northeast
What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

Temporary Layout and Banana Bread.

finally got this blog to work. using a temporary template until i can come up with my own. i'm very rusty at designing and coding right now. my plans for this blog will be completely about my attempts at cooking and baking. my other blog tanpopo craft will now be just about my escapades in knitting and other crafty endeavours.

soooo without further ado, onto the recipe:

i love this banana bread recipe from baking illustrated by the editors of cook's illustrated (america's test kitchen, 2004), posted by leite's culinaria . It is by far the best banana bread recipe i have ever made and has become my all-time favorite. moist, tender crumb, great out of the oven...or even a day later...delicious!


Banana Bread

unfortunately, it was so good...i ate the whole thing and didn't take a picture. :P

i made banana bread and now it is allllll gone. i ate most of it. :P

http://www.leitesculinaria.com/recipes/cookbook/banana_bread.html

this banana bread rocks!

gawd, haven't been blogging for almost two months. :( i have been getting a lot of crap happening on my computer. :/ frakkin' a. i've been popping in and out of livejournal and here.

anyhoo has anyone been watching heroes on NBC? that's a damned good series. and don't even get me started on BSG!! *is dizzy from all the excitement*

and you get the excitement twice heroes is on before BSG on scifi on fridays. *is a drooling mad puppy* i love my parents that have brought me cable. my parents moved in with my family and i in past two months. gurrr.

i got sims 2 and got addicted to that too.

that's it...i'm an addict. :O

uh i think i will do a redesign too.

life gets in the way. :( construction gets in the way. i'm sorry i haven't been blogging lately. not that anyone is really reading this. LOL.

i'm 34 and boo-boo's 2 now. how time flies. button's almost 8 months. :O

i just got a spam comment. i hate spam. word verification and moderated comments in effect now.

it has been too hot to do anything here in san jose! over a hundred degrees here with a 85% humidity. and our new air conditioner is leaking water all over our carpet.

hello this is my cooking and baking blog.

haapppy july 4th!

sorry no posting...all of june, there has been renovations on the house i'm renting.

button's been busy though: she can roll over and sit up. of course, she can't really balance for long and just plops over. yes, i'm making sure that she plops over safely. :)

having no internet for almost a month sucks...having a computer suddenly start crashing on you constantly sucks. well i'm back. :P

went japanese cheesecake crazy again - except with chocolate! yum. there are no pictures because i ate it all. seriously.

here's my recipe for chocolate japanese cheesecake:

1 cup ( 8 oz. package) Philadelphia Cream Cheese
1/4 cup milk
3 eggs, separated
1/2 cup super-fine sugar ( I used C & H's Baker's Sugar)
1/4 cup cornstarch
2 tablespoons Ghirardelli Sweet Ground Chocolate & Cocoa (if you can't find this product, you can use regular cocoa with some added sugar or melted chocolate. or you can visit their site and find their substitutions.
1 tbsp vanilla
1/2 tsp cream of tartar

for the water bath:
2 1/2 cups boiling water


Preheat oven to 350°F (175° C). Line and grease an 8-in cake pan or springform pan with parchment paper or wax paper. if you are using a springform pan, line the outside with foil, so that batter does not leak out during the baking.

Combine the cream cheese and milk together in a large bowl and mix until softened. Add half of the sugar, egg yolks, and vanilla. Sift in cornstarch and cocoa. Mix until throughly combined and smooth.

In another bowl, whisk the egg whites with the cream of tartar until they form soft peaks. Sprinkle the remaining sugar in 2 - 3 times and then continue to whisk the egg whites until they reach stiff peaks.

using a spatula, fold half of the egg whites into the cream cheese mixture as gently as possible. the mixture will start to puff up a bit. then, fold the remaining egg white mixture in gently but throughly with no white streaks.

spoon or gently pour the batter into the prepared pan and level the surface. put the pan into a larger roasting pan to make a bain-marie or water bath and place in lower shelf of oven. pour the boiling water in the larger pan to come up half-way to the side of the cake pan.

bake for 35-45 minutes until set. let cool then remove the cake pan from the bath. refrigerate.

Baker's Notes for those making this for the first time:

hints from baking911.com :
how to beat egg whites) i used an electric hand mixer for this recipe...my whisking skills are still not up to par. ;P
how to fold egg whites, because i can overfold and overbeat my eggs.

feeling retro. :P for all you 80's kids.

http://www.crowncombo.com/index.html

http://www.x-entertainment.com/

http://www.retrojunk.com/

japanese cheesecake...souffle cheesecake...

not your standard n.y. style cheesecake. it's very fluffy in a melt in your mouth kinda way.



recipe from sugoodeats

this recipe was adapted by jessica of sugoodeats from this recipe: dianasdesserts.com - cotton soft japanese cheesecake.

my version came out more cakey on top because i ran out of cake flour and substituted a all-purpose flour/cornstarch homemade cake flour mixture.

The recipe for cake flour is a follows: For each cup of cake flour use 7/8 cup all-purpose flour (1 cup minus 2 tablespoons) PLUS 2 tablespoons of corn starch. The addition of corn starch helps to make cakes light and tender.
~ from argo and kingsford's cornstarch

i also added a little bit more flour than the recipe called for, which caused the cheesecake to be a little bit more dense in texture. it still turned out yummy! :d





this japanese cheesecake slice was made in a 9-in. square cake pan from this recipe by Betty Shimabukuro of Honolulu Star-Bulletin - japanese cheesecake. the texture of this cheesecake was sooo airy. i felt that i needed to eat more to satisfy my sweet tooth but who am i to complain about eating and making desserts!

another recipe i've tried is similar to betty's:

kyoko's kitchen - japanese souffle cheesecake

i'm addicted.

the last couple of days i have been baking:

genoise! the recipe is here:
baking911.com -basic genoise . this recipe by flo braker is also in Baking with Julia by Julia Child.

genoise is a delicious french sponge cake much like an American sponge cake; the difference being that genoise has less sugar, uses clarified melted butter, and whole eggs are brought to triple the volume. In American sponge cakes, the eggs are separated...the whites being folded into the yolk flour sugar mixture. And when doing folding, one must use a light touch while being thorough.

folding info here:
baking911.com - how to fold.

my first try went totally flat, because i had overworked the egg mixture too long and i was totally not following the directions. :P the whole cake deflated and had two yucky layers. it tasted like crap and of course went into the garbage. of course, i had also used my last cup of cake flour. *blah*

but i didn't give up...i really wanted to make genoise.

having no cake flour, i used all purpose flour minus two tablespoons. i timed how long i had whipped the egg mixture according to the recipe about 4-5 minutes. and voilà, i had a decent genoise. all cake, no yucky layers! i made two. need to post pictures of course!

note to self, need to get more cake flour!

family stuff:

my children's pediatrician wants button to start solids. good news is that she likes them. :)

i've been trying to make up for all the sleep i missed since my little girl came home. nope, ain't gonna happen. :P

i feel broken. lol. i think i could lie on the floor. i think i've even repeated this for the homecoming of my little boy practically two years ago.

they grow up so fast...you don't know until it hits you when they start talking and running away from you naked after having a bath. or smiling their first smile with a loaded diaper.

my son is getting most of his baby teeth. he sees his sister with a paci he wants one too. he's using it as teething soother. he is also screaming out his displeasure at the top of his lungs.

joys of motherhood.

martha stewart vs. cookie monster!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=nDpYTNYQH-U

here's something weird from hello!project soloist, aya matsuura. it's a commercial for pretz. it's uhh odd.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=KDsAe8hYTGk

button is starting to fill out more, getting bigger slowly but surely. boo-boo loves his little sister.

LOL

anime news/j-pop news...umm, happy valentine's day!

haaa...

on the anime front, one piece got dropped from cartoon network's lineup in lieu of another yu-gi-oh. boooo haha...

full metal alchemist movie kicks ass!!

on the j-pop front, ai kago aka aibon got caught smoking and will be suspended from performing her concert and releasing her latest W single by hello project. *shakes head*

happy valentine's day if i don't post tomorrow. much love and peace and of course, yummy food and desserts!

nifty!

folding a shirt japanese style

ways to dress up a hot dog...japanese style. from the nippon ham company.

nippon ham company - winny crafts

on the new baby front, my little girl is so tiny. about 4 lbs. or so. like a little doll. and she always has a little smile on her face, even though most people would say babies can't smile at 1 month.

haven't posted here in a while...

here's why...

on the 18th went into the hospital for some labor pains...sent me home to rest and drink lots of fluids...

on the 22nd mucus plug fell out, bloody show, no contractions felt, and dilated 1.5 cm. observed and sent home. went to stay at parents' house with hardly any access to internet. doc wanted me to bed rest.

the 25th, merry christmas ensued.

on the 28th, some large clots and bloody show did not subside...doc told me to go the hospital. observed...dilated some more to 2-3 cm. told doctor abdomen harden. doc tells me i'm going through contractions, but not feeling the pain. doc makes me stay in...dilated some more to 4 cm and bag of waters is poking out. doc decides to induce the birth and give pitocin. felt the contractions intensify then. asked for epidural. my husband was a wonderful coach and helped me stay calm and relaxed. the rest...

On 12.28.2005:

Our little Button was born @ 845pm, 3 lbs. 12 oz.
Too early, but still beautiful. As cute as a button, but a fighter...just like her brother born at 33 weeks gestation. Please help us to support the March of Dimes to help babies like Button and Boo-boo who were born before they were really ready. Thanks. God Bless and We love you all.

we spent most of the holiday season going back and forth from home to the hospital. my son and i ended up with some terrible cold. got over it, but missed our little girl terribly.

on the 15th of jan, the nurses at NICU told me Button could come home and that they were telling me that they had called. my cell phone had been out of commission for about a few weeks. i thought that they were joking...but no, she was going home the following day.

she came home on 16th @ 3pm...

all in all she's doing well and at home now after spending 10 days in the NICU.

*very sad and upset*

this article about someone leaving their newborn in a garbage can at a fast food place, that i visit when i see my parents.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/01/12/MNGRFGM7A521.DTL

if you don't want your child, please just take them to the hospital or fire station...do not just leave the poor thing to die of exposure. that's a really sad way to go.

:(