Burrata Cheese & Heirloom Tomatoes

From my understanding, burrata cheese is mozzarella cheese that had been injected with milk churds and young mozzo. Tim heard about this cheese after his brother and friend BT were raving about having it at restaurants. We had to give it a try, so Tim put his name on the AG Ferrari waitlist for this specialty Italian import. We got call, picked up our order, and grabbed a few heirlooms at farmer's market. We slitted all of the seeds out and stuffed the cheese in with fresh pieces of basil. Invited D&N over and ate it with a sprinkle of salt & pepper. If you're wondering how it taste, I would describe as an extra buttery (think triple cream) smooth mozzo with creamy bits that gave a nice texture contrast to the stringy outside layer.

Fish Tacos

I've had Mexican four meals in a row this week so it reminded me of a pic I have on my iPhone of Fish Tacos! Here's some pan-seared cod fish fillets that we had with lettuce, wheat tortillas and homemade guac, corn relish, and pico de gallo. The wheat tortillas were a brand that we don't normally buy and wouldn't ever touch again but the rest of the meal was tasty and healthy!

FaJeeta!

Do you like fajita's? Cuz we sure do. Ying did it again and made some shrimp fajitas which were excellent. In addition, she made some delicous corn.

Tim/Ying's Corn Recipe
PAPPY"S!!
Parsley
garlic Powder
EVOO

 

Ravioli

More from Italian Dinner night! So Ying made some freah mushroom ravioli from scratch!!!!!!! j/k... But it sure did taste good. She sauteed some mushrooms and grape tomatoes with the mushroom ravioli. The entire dish was finished off with some truffle oil. Good!

 

Sea Scallops with Watercress

So Ying and I are infatuated with Watercress salads. About a year ago, i made her this dish for an anniversary dinner. Since then she has been hooked on this!

So in general this dish includes a watercress salad on the bottom with a lime/champagne orange viniagrette. Some hot crispy bacon is mixed into the salad to add some bacon fat and some flava. Seared Sea Scallops are put on top, then finally a lil more dressing is put onto the dish. I love this dish!

 

Bruschetta for da soul

Although I try to claim the fame for this bruschetta recipe, Ying has learned the tricks of the trade and can produce the same reults.

I originally learned how to make bruschetta from my brother when i was 18 years old. Then Danny introduced me to roasted garlic and my relationship with garlic has absolutely grown.

My Bruschetta recipe includes
Fresh vine ripe tomatoes(must be good quality and sweet). Dice the tomatoes and leave the seeds/juice in! The juice binds veerything together.

Roasted Garlic
Fresh Garlic
Great olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Fresh Basil
Good brea toasted(grillled on the bbq with some evoo and some roasted garlic paste makes it near phenomenal)

Enjoy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Beef Stew with Parmesan Crusted Breead

Yes my friends, this one did taste as good as it looks. Beef stew with roasted garlic/parmesan crusted bread. The beef stew wa good and hearty, the only problem is that we didn't use beef stew meat so it did not hold the typical beefy texture. There were mushrooms, onions, carrots etc.... It was delicious!

 

Midnight Mac and Cheese

So......... It's 11:00 P.M on a sunday night. Dinner= Chicken noodle soup....

Stomach starts to grumble and you feel a bit of dissatisfaction from the lack of carbohydrates only a bowl of noodle soup provides. What to do???

Triple Cheese Mac and CHeese!!!!!!!!!!! So Yingers asked me if i was hungree, and my response was no i can eat a banaana or fruit. She insisted on making some mac and cheese instead =).

It was delicious. She made some type of rue first with butter and flour/garlic, then added hella chese. Put them in these small ramicans and then baked them with some fresh breadcrumbs(She messed up and put parsley though.. we found to be a no no). Overall the mac and cheese underneath the breacrumb mixture was delicious and satisfied that late night urge. I filled that void.





I would recommend all of my friends and family to indulge in the guiltiest pleasure at midnight occassionally. It provides that saisfaction that exceeds the guiltiness. Check it out.

 

Sunday Brunch

I sure do love sunday brunch. But how about sunday brunch with Mimosa's! Duy and Nghi came over this sunday. Here's what was on the menu...

Strawberry Pancakes (We suck at making pancakes. I think we will retire form these)
Mexican Eggs (Scrambled eggs with ham and tortilla bits wit a lil bit of cheese.... and wait some tapatio!) Good
Home Fried Potatoes with Onions and Green Peppers (This was the bombdizlle!)

Does your milkshake bring all the boys to the yard?

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Snap Crackle Pop Cheese Chicken - Guest Spot by B.L.

Hi internets~! I’ll be guest blogging on this, the dopest blog on this side Mars, Spoontini. Well, being a blog about foods and the journey of food, I present to the internets: Blue Cheese Baked Chicken aka Snap Crackle Pop Cheese Chicken with a Balsamic vinegar bok choy side. The original recipe called for parmesan cheese and a sautee’d bok choy tomato side; but eh, I had to make due.

Raws:
Rice Krispies
Blue Cheese
Salt and Pepper
Eggs
Chicken
Bok Choy
Balsamic Vinegar



Finely mash/crush the rice krispies and mix in the salt and pepper and blue cheese and mix it together until the cheese is fairly dispersed with the cereal. Beat eggs into separate bowl.

Action:
Dip the chicken into the cereal mix then into eggs and then back to cereal mix. Pan fry the chicken on medium-low for 2 mins. both sides. Heat up the oven, and pop it in there (@ 350) for 10 mins or until cooked.

Bok choy- I boiled them then sautee’d them in the balsamic vinegar.



Finished product:
Pictures say a thousand words



The wine is there because I wanted some alcohol. It is Nathalie & Gilles 2006 Chablis, whatever that is. Overall, the chicken was really moist. Searing it for the initial four mins not only made the cereal mix (the eggs held it together) crisp but locked the natural juices of the chicken trapped inside as it baked. But I did notice that the stinky cheese, in some bites, overpowered the dish. The wine was tart and spicy which was not an ideal match with the dish; I think something less tart would have been more appropriate. The bok choy was eh; it worked but I think something like a mild-low power salsa would have been a nice complement to the protein. Also, can’t go wrong with potatoes.


Finished product #2:



So, I had all this leftover egg batter. Exo Facto, I made some eggs and added in the dish. I think the egg brought a different texture to the overall dish. Additionally, this is why I brought up the idea of a salsa as the egg and salsa combine greatly as a complement to the chicken and I added Tapatio to it and it taste goooooood : ). Lightly salt and peppering the finished product is another after thought. But overall, it was good and it actually looked nice. Props to my eldest sister for basically “requesting” this after she ripped the OG recipe from a magazine.

Now for the fun “Did you know” facts:
Did you know that the European Union only recognizes Vodka if the vodka contain 37.9% alcohol (aka 75.8 proof). Why do I mention this? Because in the Vietnam episode of Three Sheets, Zane had Vietnamese vodka that was only 20% thus it would not meet the standards of the European Union.

Tada~!

Bye Bye Internets.

Bill likes food that invigorates unami, sour, spicy, a little sweet, a little bitter, and salty (because Bill loves salt) senses of the tongue. When he is not cooking up a storm or eating, he can be found on Madden09, memorizing facts from Three Sheets, listening to Linkin Park, screaming on Rock Band, trying to find an appropriate occasion to wear his “Steve McKenna’d” shirt, whistling to Young Folks by Peter, Bjorn and John, and just sitting down. Also, he wishes he could tell the differences between a woodsy and spicy wine. He would like some mochi/ice cream from Tanto right about now.

India

I'm often asked about my experience in India and what I did over there. In August, I stayed in Hyderabad, IN for about 6 days. It wasn't long enough to experience the true India, but I would have to argue that it was close enough. So here's the skinny -

Most shocking:
- Traffic - there were no traffic signals or stop signs yet the road were packed with cars, buses (stuffed to the max with people hanging off the sides), motor scooters (with entire families in a two seat scooter), auto rickshaws, people & cows. The beeping was constant and used as a way to signal that you were arriving up to another car. So crazy! I couldn't bear to sit in the front seat and always fell asleep in the back b/c the road was so rocky.
- Cast system - it was clear who made up the upper and lower casts. There were 10 story tech buildings that neighbored an adjunct shelter made of tarp and sticks.
- Cheap labor - There was literally a woman who's soul job was fold triangle points in the toilet paper role. huh?

Most memorable:
- Golkondra Fort - an old castle on top of several hills. We hiked up to the top of the castle. It was a great way to see the city.





- Hyderabadi Biryani - it's like an Indian spiced rice pilaf. Famous to Hyderabad and oh so delicious
- Surveys - they will survey you for every service you receive. Expect to comment on their ambiance (they try really hard to get full points for this)

Catch up Post

So I know that we don't post often, but it doesn't mean that we aren't gathering material. Although we work at tech companies, we don't really spend much time on the computer outside of work. I actually prefer to leave my computer in my work bag until the next day. So here's a make-up post to share some of the memorable dishes that we've had.

We had R pop over for dinner one night and didn't prepare anything fancy. We had planned to have clam soup for dinner and I added some egg & pork to it to add more depth to the soup.



With left over cornbread from K&D's Ragin' Cajun party, I made a corn, jalapeno & cornbread casserole. The picture doesn't look very appetizing, but it was actually pretty tasty, even when cold the next day!



Have you ever made fried rice with brown rice? You should totally do it! It offers a nutty taste that you can't get with white rice and separates a lot better. We add spam to it of course ;)



I like making my own wontons because I hate the overdose of sesame oil that most restaurants add to their horrendous wontons. This is the fried version of the wontons but I also made soup wontons (wrapped differently) that we added to egg noodles for homemade wonton noodle soup for dinner.



When I was in India, Tim hosted a dinner party for some friends at the pad. They feasted on grilled salmon, fingerling potatoes, sugar snap peas, and vanilla ice cream with berries and fried wonton wrappers drizzled with honey & salt.

Todong...To Love!

I got this recommendation from my co-worker to check out this Korean restaurant called Todong. It sounded so good by what she recommended that I heavily suggested that we go there for dinner. We got there a bit late b/c I had a meeting that lasted until 8pm, but it was totally worth the wait! We got combo #1 - beef, bacon (fat pork), steamed egg, soup, panchan (which included 2 small fried fish) AND soju (came w/ combo) for $42. It was a total steal and so delicious! What's different about this place is that they have different wraps besides just the usual lettuce. There's also rice roll wrappers and wasabi marinated daikon wrappers. Along with the wrappers there's 4 different dipping sauces they offer, soy, spicy miso, sesame, and spicy hot sauce. Add this with garlic and jalapeno in the wrap and it's freakin' delicious. Needless to say, I can't wait until we go back! With a larger party next time tho, so we can try out more menu items and so I won't have to drink 2/3 of the soju on my own ;)