Dining in Kauai: Family Vacation

I think I told myself too many times that I need to indulge in food while on vacation this year. Sorry, did I say too many? I meant just enough times for the perfect vacation balance of just a hint too much ice cream everyday and glorious seafood (or should I say presidential?).

First up, some amazing pit...baked?...roasted?...cooked? yes, cooked, pig from a luau we went to. For half a second I considered, hm, maybe I shouldn't put this picture up first, or put a warning on it. But then I remembered my philosophy on food. If you can't handle knowing where it came from, then you shouldn't eat it. Things have to die and they sometimes die in unhappy ways to feed you. That aside, its a local pig (d'awww), so you can feel good about that wrt to your carbon footprint.

check out that pig. and those banana leaves soaking in pig juices. yum.

 For Christmas dinner, we went to Hukikau Lanai, restaurant on the eastern side of the island, literally less than 0.5 miles from one of the hotels we stayed at. It was definitely the best restaurant we ate at while in Kauai, for a very reasonable price given that everything is more expensive in Hawaii. They had a special Christmas menu going on, but I think most of the stuff we ordered probably shows up on their normal menu as well, like the nachos and delicious free bread!

Ahi Poke Nachos with fried wonton "chips"

Look at that bread. Just spend a good minute staring at it.

Mixed Grill Entree. Just a lot of delicious local seafood in a thai chili coconut sauce.

Macademia Nut Tart with Cinnamon Ice Cream for dessert!

Obviously, I did not just eat ice cream on Christmas. One of our favorite ice cream destinations on the island was a place called Lappert's, a Hawaiian ice cream chain. They had a huge variety of different "Hawaiian flavors" like Mauna Kea's Secret, Kauai Pie, Kona Coffee, Big Island Inspiration, Heavenly Hana ect ect. My favorite was Tutu's Anniversary, which was coconut ice cream mixed with raspberry and passion fruit sorbet. It was so delicious that on our last (5th!) trip to the place on our way to the airport, my siblings and I ALL got it (see image on the left below). Of course, the other classic tropical vacationing cold treat is shaved ice, seen in the image on the right below. It's surprising how delicious plain old ice and sugar syrups can be.

   

Maybe I'll look into a slideshow format for long picture posts like this in the future. But if you made it this far, here's some pictures of Kauai itself, not just its food. Bwahaha.

Apple Pie Ice Cream: Random Kitchen Appliance Adventures

A new 2 year tradition: buying a random kitchen appliance from Macy's during the Thanksgiving holiday sales. Last year, it was a waffle iron. We had just finished brunch on black Friday. I wanted a waffle, but my mom insisted I get something more, um, grown up? So I got Eggs Benedict's. They tasted awful. So we bought a waffle iron at a sale to make up for that. And I made delicious pumpkin waffles for dinner and all was good.
This year, it was an ice cream maker. Except instead of post-Thanksgiving sales, it was pre-Thanksgiving sales, on the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. My musings on the timing of American consumerism aside, this thing is a monstrous beautiful thing.

Technical ramblings: The ice cream machine surprisingly quite large, with the majority of its bulk occupied by a coolant-filled lining thats frozen to keep everything maximally chilled and freezing during an otherwise pretty simple and boring period of turning. Its basically just a really really really cold bucket and constant churning that makes for ice cream.

I've been pining for an ice cream machine for ages. The number of times I've stared on amazon at ice cream makers and the number of times I've gazed forlornly at an ice cream recipe is a little upsetting. For my first batch of what I'm sure will be many, I made apple pie ice cream. I had leftover apple filling from the apple pie cupcakes I made previously that sounded like would go great mixed in with a vanilla bean custard ice cream. The overall recipe with links to each part is below:

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Apple Pie Ice Cream

servings: ideally 1, but if you have to share, maybe 10?

time: wibbly wobbly timey wimey (prep 1 day in advance)

Things you need:

• for Vanilla Bean Ice Cream-- recipe from Cuisinart Recipe.
• for Apple Pie Filling--recipe from food fanatic. (literally the Apple Pie Filling Section)
• Optional: Walnuts
• Necessary: Bowl or another dessert as a vehicle for ice cream

Instructions:

1. Make vanilla bean ice cream base and chill in fridge according to recipe.
• generally between 6-24 hours depending on a) how well you plan ahead and b) patience
• make sure your ice cream machine bowl is chilled 24 hours or you'll be sad. :(
2. Make apple pie filling and allow to cool according to recipe before storing in fridge.
• generally--you want anything in your ice cream as cold as possible.
3. Before putting ice cream base into your machine bowl, mix apple pie filling into ice cream base.
4. Make according to your ice cream machine's manufacture instructions.
• In the last 5 minutes of churning, toss in walnuts.
• per instructions, you'll probably also have to store ice cream in the freezer for an addition 2 hours to allow it to further firm up.
5. Consume. On everything.

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Step 5 is particularly difficult, so I've added some photos below of some different ways to successfully approach it.

A la mode style on top of an apple pie cupcake.

Smashed and melting between 2 snickerdoodles

With yo favorite seasonal pie

Apple Pie Cupcakes: A Tribute

Some of you might recall an earlier post where I essential wrote my "how did you meet" story for my future wedding between myself and....a cupcake truck. One of those cupcakes that I particularly love from that cupcake truck happens to an apple pie cupcake.

Incase you forgot

While I can't make ~signature swirls~ nearly as adorable as Sugar Bakery, I do have an oven and an unhealthy twitch to bake over school breaks that are in theory more like take this time to catchup so you're not screwed for finals breaks. Wait, what? Finals? Sorry, the cupcakes are a little distracting. Yes, finals. No, I don't want to take about them. And you don't want to hear about them. Especially if you're me rereading this in a few months when finals are over (Hi future self!). So, instead, lets collectively stare at these cupcakes instead.

These apple pie cupcakes were super fun to make! (I'm being serious, no sarcasm at all!) I don't make pie fillings or fillings very often, so getting to use cornstarch and watch it thicken was oddly satisfying. The cupcake itself was a pretty simple recipe. While I wanted something maybe more spiced and flavorful, I decided that if I was going to endeavor on a filled cupcake for Thanksgiving dinner, I should keep it basic (pH> 7 anyone???)

Also, its a shame whipped cream melts, because its literally the easiest way to make a fancy swirly-do topping to your cupcake. Anyways, I'll stop acting like a 10 year old and go back to my final, which I failed, right future Helen?
Apple Pie Cupcake recipe from food fanatic. Only changes were assembling style which are as pictured.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts: Oh look something green

that isn't food coloring on this blog.

To kick-off the slowly drawing out everything I made over thanksgiving posts, we'll do it the way my mother taught me--green things first. This method of eating is somewhat of a problem in the dining hall because by the time I finish the gosh darn salad, the rest of my food is cold. And let's face it, dining hall food wasn't that amazing warm to begin with.
Funnily enough though, it was in the dining hall sophomore year when I first dared to try brussels sprouts. AND I LIKED THEM.
Except then the next 10 times they made them, they tasted terrible. So I started not liking them again.

And then it was Thanksgiving 2013. And my sister said she liked the dining hall brussels sprouts. So literally the thought process was like: "fine, I'll make brussels sprouts for Thanksgiving since I need to learn how to cook real food anyways and maybe I'll actually like them."

And guess what? I LIKED THEM! They were charmingly easy to make. Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Shallots with Balsamic Vinegar recipe from my number favorite Serious Eats. A few modifications:

• no shallots, so just diced up some onions.
• I didn't quite scale the balsamic vinegar correctly, so they ended up being a little on the sour side, which was a loss for my mother. But I like the taste of balsamic vinegar anyways, so I was ok with it. 

And my cousin who was also visiting? HE LIKED THEM TOO.

(sorry, this was a weird post filled with lots of caps. its finals)

Thanksgivukaah 2013: The random pictures

Well, its been less than an hour since I finished eating Thanksgivukaah dinner (though it was more just straight up Thanksgiving for my family since we're not Jewish). Of course, the necessary thing is to now relive the entire cooking, baking, and eating experience through pictures. I've cooked and baked enough to have several blog posts to tide this poor blog over till my next baking (and maybe cooking) opportunity, so ya'll will get to relive each bit and piece of Thanksgiving throughout the merriest time of year--finals bwahahaha.
But first, since words are lame, here are some general Thanksgiving pictures. Aka the random ones that don't fit nicely in a future post.

 One of the few "in action" cooking shots since, lets face it, messing with your phone while your hands are wet, sticky, floury, etc is hard. Some roasted garlic for what would become mashed potatoes. 1PM. Back when I thought it was tots feasible to get everything done by 5PM.

 Like seriously, our house has TWO ovens so we were able to cook the turkey while baking all the other necessary yams, crescents, cookies, sprouts ect. Even then, we didn't finish till like 5:45PM, almost an hour after our ETA (estimated time of arrival) to the dining table. How do you single oven households do it?

 Of course, if you leave me in charge of dessert, you'll basically get a second dinner spread of just desserts. Individual posts and recipes to come!

To finish, here's a messy picture of pumpkin pie and some very very special ice cream. My cousin accidentally crushed the pie a little while serving, but pumpkin pie is picture perfect no matter what in my opinion.

Vanilla and Vanilla: Cupcakes for a Belated Birthday

It's finally Thanksgiving break. It's finally home after 8 months. It's finally baking in a clean kitchen. It's finally time for belated birthday cakes.
While I'm personally not a fan of celebrating my own birthday (something off-putting about celebrating just turning an age older), I'm a fan of the excuse it brings to make cake. Thanksgiving break has over the past 3 years become my birthday-cake-baking-season to make up for all the birthdays I miss while away at school where kitchens don't lend themselves well to baking.

First off, vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream for a suddenly teenager little brother. Seriously, his voice was like an octave lower since the last time I saw him. He's always been a vanilla person. Like, to the point where he will eat an ice cream sandwich by eating the middle and throwing out the chocolate wafers (true story verified by the mother).



Vanilla beans are one of my favorite food obsessions. They just make everything vanilla or cake related 1000x times better. Plus, they're surprisingly satisfying to slice and scoop out. The empty pods can then be recycled and left to sit in sugar to make freaking amazing vanilla sugar. xx.

This past weekend was also the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary. While I found the episode to be quite disappointing (but not unexpectedly so), I kinda love the fact that Doctor Who has such long, deeply intertwined history across multiple generations. Since I couldn't make anything during the actual weekend, I wanted to add a little Doctor Who nod to the desserts I made this week. No one else in my family is a Doctor Who fan, but I'm willing to hijack their desserts to demonstrate my love. I originally wanted to do make mini-TARDIS to decorate the cupcakes, but that went a bit awry (think candy melts seizing thanks to the slightest amount of water getting mixed in). As an alternative, I tried decorating with white and blue swirls to represent time-vortex timey wimey things with some gold dust mixed in a well. It's a bit of a stretch, but A for effort? (lolz, jk, not in elementary school yo).



Vanilla cupcakes and buttercream recipes are from Cupcake Project, hands down my favorite food blog ever. I aspire to be as creative as she is in my life.

Dark and Stormy Cupcakes: 21st Birthdays

Ah 21. Its strange, but not unexpected, how many milestone birthdays you hit in your youth. 1st for obvious reasons. 5th because its probably around the age you start making big kid school friends. 10th because you get to says you're a decade old. 11th because its symmetric. 15th because heyyy permit time. 16th because heyyyyyyy drivers license. 18th because woot voting and democracy. 20th because congrats, you've survived teen pregnancy. And of course 21st, because heyyyy drinking.

The amusing thing is that all these age restrictions we have, 16 for driving, 18 for voting, 21 for drinking, don't really mean anything. Sure, the government says you can do something, but you as an individual are most likely somewhat different from the averaged out young adult that was used to set these age restrictions. Heck, there are probably 10 year olds who are more responsible voters than 35 year olds. Some 16 year olds may NEVER be responsible enough to drive a vehicle that kills around 30,000 people per year. Health and development wise, maybe at 21 you are still undergoing some of the important developmental changes that the averaged young adult may have gone through already. Plus, France and the UK seems to think you're done growing enough to have alcohol at 18 or 16 or whatever. So its not exactly like at the glorious age of 21 some switch flips in your body or some maturation cycle has ended that makes you bright and ready for alcohol. But we kinda celebrate it like it is. Not that most people actually abide by this rule either.

But regardless of whether its a milestone 21st, 30th, or 50th, or 75th or even 100th birthday, birthdays at any age equally deserve the same amount of cake, or in this case cupcakes. And in particular, boozy birthday cupcakes for the college-age student. I have a small obsession with making desserts with alcohol, though I'm not sure where it stems from. It's not like cakes baked with alcohol are actually alcoholic since it all burns off so no, I'm not trying to find more ways to incorporate alcohol into my 20s lifestyle. Since the birthday girl's favorite drink was a Dark and Stormy, my lovely suitemate and I baked these for her birthday party. Since she is also Canadian, and it was the night before Halloween, we attempted decorating skillz that ended up creating a spectrum of results from things that could pass off as a red and white canadian roses to things that probably resembled squished brains (mine were the squished brains obviously).

Overall I think they were fairly successful. I refrained from eating one myself to save more for the guests, but the bite I tried definitely had a rum-like bite to it thanks to the overnight rum soak I gave them cupcakes (which incidentally also made them moist). I had a small headache a little afterwards which I'm going to pretend was due to the cupcake so I can say that I had a cupcake hangover.

Recipe was from CAKE (RE)MIX with some adaptations inspired by Beantown Baker.

• Recipe based off of a box mix= necessary for short college hours.
• No one has time for fancy pineapple salsa fillings in college age kitchens.
• Buttercream was a surprising success. I'm thinking that maybe I've been making buttercream wrong all these years and need to start loving it.

Next time, I'd love to try to bake the cake from scratch using the recipe on Beantown Baker. I saw it on several other websites and it looks great!