Biscoff Stuffed Chocolate Cookies: Jetlag Cookies

Despite my ridiculously easy schedule that I have given myself for maintaining this blog, I forgot to take pictures of the most recent thing I have made that may deserve a post. So I'm stuck in a conundrum to either post a short and nonsubstantial post about chocolate cookies that lack any particularly good photos, or post a long winded introspection revolving around my bad luck with galettes and the cherry/green tea flavor combo. Currently I am chillaxing at an airport in front of a women who I witnessed consume several small bottles of Wild Turkey, and am now mildly worried about her. On a side note, there's the usual jetlag and trying to keep myself from falling asleep too early.

So instead of writing about a failure in baking, I'll keep this short with two questionable pictures of something I think all of us want/need when we're just a little bit tired and just want to take things a little easy. Mainly- soft baked cookies. Especially those that are warm, rich and with just a little bit ginger and cinnamon thanks to biscoff spread stuffed and melty in the center. No one wants a hard crunchy cookie when they seek a comfort food cookie. Well, at least I don't. Hard, crunchy cookies are for festive moments and tea. Or maybe I'm just getting cookie textures mixed up with actual emotions. Go figure.



Recipe adapted from Sally's Baking Addiction. The only different was rather than caramel candies in the center, I used biscoff spread. Chilling the biscoff in the fridge made it much easier to work with. You can easily substitute biscoff for peanut butter if you're into the whole dark chocolate peanut butter combo. And face it, who isn't?
Side note: the women across from me is now either taking odd pictures of the general airport, or more likely, selfies.

Cannoli Ice Cream: Toppings Megabus

If only pistachios were $5. Not that Megabus is even $5 dollars these days. Sorry Boston friends. You are definitely worth the $35 or whatever they charge these days though. Friendships are worth above money. Though there is a certain element of responsiveness and genuine communication that seems to falter despite all the forms of "talking" we seem to have these days.

quality photo right there. the makings of a true food photographer.

Anyways, to break the 4th or whatever wall I seem to avoid by trying to make my posts timeless, its already Friday at midnight, I'm rather sleepy and running on 22% battery-life, so I'll have to make this fast and not-so-cute. Basically, banana loaf lasagnas means left over ricotta. Which means cannoli ice cream. Which means an abundance of toppings. Probably a little too much-pistachio, chocolate chips, and crushed sugar cones. The original recipe called for actual homemade cannoli shells, but I don't have that kind of time, so sugar cones it was. The beauty of ice cream toppings is that you can add or subtract whatever you want without a major recipe make over.



 Unfortunately, I forgot that sugar cones get soggy. While the crunchy was great when the ice cream was freshly churned, it wasn't so awesome on the 3rd day or so. Not sure if homemade cannoli shells would have that same effect, but I'm curious now since that wasn't really a disclaimer in the original recipe. The ice cream itself is absurdly easy since all the richness derives from the ricotta and your typical mixture of milk and cream rather than cooking a custard. I was a bit skeptical about whether it would actually taste like a cannoli both because 1) There was a lack of mascarpone which seems like a necessary staple for most real cannolis, 2) I've only had 2-3 cannolis in my current existing life so can I really recognize cannoli in ice cream form?, and 3) My last few ice creams have been kind of a miss on the full flavor side.

This time around though, it was obvious that the ice cream base was creamy in that cannoli sort of way. I've never been a big fan of chocolate chips in ice cream, but added them in just to try it out. Still don't really like chocolate chips, but loved the ice cream anyways, especially the pistachios and sugar cones in their non-soggy state. Maybe next time I'll try chocolate flakes because chocolate is still delicious. Just not in crunchy rock hard chip form. Gosh, imagine if I used full sized chips and not mini ones. That would have been a disaster.

As a general update, I ended up running to reserve battery power at the beginning of that last paragraph, so I had to grab my charger. I could re-edit this so that you would never know that I was in the midst of a battery crisis, but I like adding an edge of danger to my posts. Sorry that was a bit too hyperbolic even for me.

Recipe from Cooking Classy (yay alliterations!). I used a hand mixer with a whisk to blend the base since my blender was a bit occupied by pesto. I was concerned I would make whipped cream, but mixing with a spoon when it got too foamy seemed to resolve this. The final base was a little grainy from the ricotta, but the final product was still creamy.

Red Bean Ice Cream: Summer Vacays to the Homeland

I want to say that this is the first time I've had red bean ice cream while in the US, but I feel like that isn't true. It's not like red bean is a super absurd flavor these days. Regardless of the accuracy of my memory, red bean ice cream is something I tend to affiliate with hot, dusty, humid summer days in China visiting family. Every 4ish years or so, we go back to China and, if you have any sense of what Chinese family reunions are like, its a big old time. So much food. So much nice dining. So much one uncle insisting over the other to pay. So much fish oil to bring from the US (and chocolate of course). So much cutesy mechanical pencils and stationary to bring back. It's great.

One of the memories I have from these visits is the reasonable, yet possibly absurd amount of ice cream my siblings and I would consume on a daily basis while being shuttled from one monument to the next. Sure there were some normal flavors, like drumsticks and plain vanillas, but there were also some (at first) fascinating flavors that we probably only tried after the insistence of our mother. Some classic flavors include red bean, green bean, and one that we called "green tongue jello," whose actual name still evades me as a semi-adult.

I'm not sure if this ice cream was a strongly red bean flavored as I would have liked. The super DIY-er in me bought red beans rather than just pre-cooked, sweetened red beans--definitely the easier route. In my defense, I was not deliberately trying to be a hipster or snob. I literally did not realize that pre-made red bean paste exists. This is probably also pretty telling of how terrible I am at grocery shopping if I didn't notice the red bean paste sitting a few shelves away from the dry red beans.

Thankfully, making your own red bean paste is not that difficult- and probably even better if you're particularly picking about the texture or sweetness of your paste. My stove is unnecessarily hot at times, so I did accidentally burn some of the beans when the water got dangerously low while "simmering." Its unclear if this is a placebo effect, but I do feel like after a few days, the ice cream has gotten richer in red bean flavor compared to when it was freshly churned. Orrrrr, I just have really really messed up taste buds from all that sugar.
Regardless, it may not be my best ice cream yet, but its definitely one I plan to try making again at some point. And as a side note, happy belated mid-autumn festival! Go eat some mooncakes!
Ice cream and red bean paste recipe from food52.

Conflict Kitchen: A Different Kind of Socially Conscious Eatery

I usually reserve the "eating out," and "flashback friday"-like posts to busy school times and family vacation times. However Conflict Kitchen, a little take-out eatery I visited in Pittsburgh, PA was just too cool for me to not write a post about it. Located along literally some of the most pristine outdoor open-space grass I have ever seen, Conflict Kitchen is a food stand that changes its menu every 6 months. Each half year, the eatery picks a nation that the US is currently in political conflict with and serves food from only that nation. Not only does the menu change up, but the entire stand goes through a makeover, with its decor and colors to match the nation, and a new name. Currently, its Venezuela. 

Now, there are plenty of socially conscious, politically active food eateries, restaurants, and general dining choices around the world. The ones I've visited, though, tend to circle around concepts like, sustainability, or locally sourced, organic, grass-fed, ect ect. You know, the things you think about when you think of a Californian hipster. Sometimes there's an occasional coffee shop that'll donate x percentage of profits to a local charity. They might even make a contest out of it if they're super into it! All of that rambling is to basically emphasize that none of these restaurants literally remake themselves twice a year to achieve their social activism ~twist~.

My Pabellon Criolos

Of course, as a food blog, I should probably comment on the food. I tried to get a picture of the menu (below), but the glare from the picture perfect park really makes it a bit hard to read. The menu for Venezuela was largely small eateries, like plantains, empanadas, arepas, and then two "large plates." I was super hungry, so I ordered the pabellon criolos, which basically consisted of really delicious shredded beef, beans, rice, and some perfectly sweet and not too soft, not too firm plantains. There were so many other things I wanted to try though too-like the arepas! If only I wasn't traveling alone that day. But kudos to an excellent combination of good food, good design, and really creative concept. Not that they needed or wanted my approval.

I will be the first to admit, sadly, that I don't think I actually learned a whole lot about Venezuela by visiting Conflict Kitchen. The eatery does do exhibitions and presentations with the public, but they seem to be few and far in between. There's a lot of small, cutesy, interesting stories about Venezuela on the website. However, I get the impression some basic background on the on-going conflict would be important, which I sadly lack. Then again, as a food eatery that serves ethnic cuisine, perhaps the point isn't to educate the eaters on the political puzzle, but rather to share the social and cultural experiences of each of the nations it features in a rather literal way.

Anyways, I'll end this post with a quote from an  NPR article that I think nicely summarizes Conflict Kitchen (written back in 2012 when the nation was Iran and I guess they were serving wraps):

"The eatery is an experimental public art project — and the medium is the sandwich wrap."

Doctor Who Cookies: No Jammie Dodgers Required

Ah yes. Fall. The peak of summer humidity has finally come to an end. The sleepy, lazy days of August are shaking off to the start of the new school year. But oh wait. For the first time in forever (since like I was 3 years old), I don't have school this fall or rather, year. And yes, you were supposed to read "for the first time in forever" with the melody of said song from Frozen. So, rather than celebrate the non-existent return of school, lets celebrate something more exciting-the return of Doctor Who to TVs all across ponds in the world!

Yes its been a rather long hiatus since December, with hardly any episodes last year-aside from the 50th anniversary special and Matt Smith's farewell. Doctor Who is a strange show. Or rather, my continued dedication to it is a bit strange. David Tennant will always be my favorite doctor (all the angst!). Matt Smith, and the show over the past few years under Moffat? Eh, lets just say it leaves a lot to be desired in terms of meaningful storytelling, and positive representations of women. Honestly, the combined terribleness that was Matt Smith's Christmas goodbye, the 50th anniversary, and plain shoddy writing last year made me embarrassed to say that I watched Doctor Who.

Since the premier last weekend, I've gained a small glimmer of hope that this season, Doctor Who will return to some of its roots in meaningful, angst-filled, morally challenging stories that aren't solved with buttons or quick resets. Peter Capaldi has taken on the role now as the Doctor, and word has it that he's been resisting some of Moffat's less than savory story directions, such as any flirty boyfriend-girlfriend interactions with his companion, the young, oh-so-horribly characterized Clara. Seriously, I think I learned more about her personality in this first episode than in all of last season. Maybe its a commentary on just how bad Doctor Who had gotten, but this new episode has breathed new life into my enthusiasm for Doctor Who (haha ged it? no you probably don't).

I realize that this "food" blog post, that probably should be detailing more about the process of making sugar cookies and decorating them using awesome food color dyes and food markers has been completely hijacked by a rambling story about how I lost my faith in Doctor Who and am slowly hoping it will return. But like the long storied history of Doctor Who, sometimes episodes just don't make sense and you have to roll with it. So for non-Doctor Who fans, bear with me, as I promise there will likely be a ~holiday~ sugar cookie post at some point in the distant future.

Some quick comments about sugar cookies. The recipe I used tasted great, but I found that it helped to freeze the cookie dough for a quick 3-4 minutes after cutting out shapes to facilitate their movement to a baking sheet.

Sugar cookie recipe from The Kitchn. Royal icing and pro-decorating tips from Bake at 350. Doctor Who cookie cutters from We the Sciencey.

Lasagna for Deux: If the Pan Fits

When I think about loaf pans, I think exclusively of banana bread. Whole-wheat banana bread with walnuts and occasionally chocolate chips to be exact. To blog as a stereotype, my mother is well known amongst our little community of family and friends for her banana bread. She always makes two loafs at a time-- one to share, one to keep at home. The one that is kept at home is usually on a wooden cutting board, quickly consumed till the last piece sits sadly around for two or three days. Then, someone honorable soul always makes it his or her duty to pop it into the toaster and get on with eating the last piece. I know, its an unbearable burden, but must be done.

See, that story was literally a text-book food/family blog narrative. Sure, food is obviously strongly tied to family and identity in a way that makes it pretty clear why everyone tells stories about their mamma's and father's home cooking and the childhood memories that go along. However, it really does seem like after the 100th Chopped episode or 500th ~best homemade shortbread (now vegan!)~ that everyone has the same story. It's like dreams and conversations. You find your dream fascinating and deep, but others find it just to be their down sleep and consequently dream inducer.
Perhaps unlike a normal, rational, well-thought out blog, this post is not actually about banana bread. No, I am not going to share my mother's recipe. One, because it is printed in a cookbook we bought at Costco. Two, it's pretty obvious that this is a post about lasagna by now. Unless you're using the speech-to-text feature to listen to my blog as your eyes focus elsewhere.

So technically this is out of order- should be noodle, ricotta cheese mix, then turkey-tomato sauce.

This little loafpan turkey lasagna was from my The Complete Cooking for Two Cookbook by America's Test Kitchen. Lasagna noodles really do fit quite perfectly into a loaf pan. While this lasagna is mini in size, it isn't so mini in prep time. However, it's hard to resist the beautiful, delicious layers of noodles, cheese, turkey and tomato sauce. Oh the cheese. This was my first time buying parmesan by the block and grating it myself, but it was so easy. I'm happy to spend half my groceries on cheese if I can eat like this all the time. Seriously, you just throw a chunk of parmesan into your food processor and you have powdery parmesan in seconds. It's a beautiful thing. 

As I alluded to earlier, despite all the work that goes into making a lasagna and the bubbling burnt goop that makes your oven want to cry, I was so elated by my first lasagna, that I made another a week later. Plus, I have like a gazillion no boil lasagna noodles I need to get rid of (#cookingforone). This time, I made a chicken pesto lasagna. Winging a few things, it turned out less flavorful, but the extra veggies and basil made me happy. Plus, I added a cookie tray to keep the bubbling goop from hissing onto my oven, which saved me from the stress of worrying about my fire alarm. Lasagna may not be an easy weeknight meal, but sometimes you gotta do the right thing in the name of bubbly, melty cheese.

Recipe from The Complete Cooking for Two Cookbook by America's Test Kitchen.

Marble Bundt Cake: Fancy Shapes Eh

I learned a few things about bundt pans through this little project. One, when they say grease well, they really really mean grease well. Oh, PAM will probably be ok you think? Nope, its gonna have to be like a quarter to half a stick of butter next time. Two, all those nooks and crannies make a beautiful cake, but cleaning that? Why have they not invented disposable bundt pans?



I'm not entirely sure if I'm jesting about all of the above. The little motivated part of me is inclined to bake this cake again sucessfully, but the other part of me that hates dishes is more....meh. I do like that frosting is optional for bundt cakes given its shape. Unfortunately, the beautiful shape is kinda defeated when you fail to grease and flour your pan enough so that when you try to pry it out, only half plops out, and the remaining bits kinda crumble into a misfitting puzzle.

Being the go-getter that I am, it wasn't enough to attempt to make just a single flavored bundt cake apparently. No, I had to make a marbled bundt cake with pretty swirls of vanilla and chocolate instead. This of course led to a little adventure in learning about cocoa powder and spending a solid 10 minutes starting at the baking aisle. Given that I'll probably be in CT for only one more year, it seems excessive to buy both dutch processed powder and normal cocoa powder. However, after reading several pages about cocoa power from David Lebovitz and Joy the Baker, it seems clear that many baking blogs that call for "cocoa powder" without really specifying, may actually mean dutch processed in their recipe.

I ended up going with normal cocoa powder, though I get a feeling the semi-insane part of me will end up forcing me to also buy dutch processed just to try it out (unclear why I've decided to describe my personality as separate entities in this post). If anyone is too lazy to read the links I've posted, basically dutch processed powder neutralizes the acidity found in cocoa powder, which can change affect your cake's final texture and rise depending on if you are correctly using baking powder or baking soda. The mnemonic that someone mentioned in a comment was "dutch-processed = baking powder."

Doing all of this googling also came to highlight, yet again, the lack of basic science education in our society. Several Yahoo! Answers questions popped up where frantic people asked if "chocolate processed with alkali" was bad for you or had toxins. And unfortunately, people again fell to the fallacy that processed equals evil big agro/unhealthy and unprocessed equals more "natural" and better for you. And the classic, "if you can't pronounce it, its probably bad for you!" trope. Maybe even worse, or as a result, several of the super fancy cocoa powders I was examining at the grocery store used this as an advertisement point (ie our powder is ~natural~ and 100% unprocessed for full on maximal chocolate without the chemicals!)

Sorry if that bitterness is a turn off. I just had my hair cut by a nice woman who also seemed to believe that people who touch certain parts of their heads or lose hair at specific random spots are somehow activating different parts of their brain for personality traits like motivation or confidence. Just. Whyyyyy.
Well, while my mood is now a bit sour, this cake certainly was not bitter. Despite the problems getting it out the pan, the bundt shape also meant it had a nice crust that I personally enjoyed. The chocolate and vanilla swirling could have probably been more distributed, but that is likely again my fault for not alternating the different batters well. Additionally, I found my baking time was a bit less than what was called for in the recipe. I image that this and a combination of how it took to get the cake out of the pan resulted in the cake's slight dryness. I'm not entirely sure if this a pound cake, but my cake definitely seemed a bit too dry and not buttery enough to truly be ~pound cake~.

Recipe from Sailus Food.
TL;DR:

• Bundt Pans need to be very very well greased
• Dutch processed cocoa = baked goods with baking powder as the main leavener
• Processed does not equal "bad for you"