Kinder Happy Hippo

He he he! This has got to be one of the cutest things ever! Look at that hippo face! I had fun eating these biscuits. The package describes these as crispy wafer biscuits with cocoa and milky creamy filling, and sprinkled with tasty meringue chips. These were made in Germany by the Kinder company which apparently was "invented for Kids" according to the package. Anyway, I also noticed the name Ferrero UK Ltd. on there, so that would explain why the filling tasted similar to Nutella. Too bad these were 120 Kcals a pop!

Vanilla Saffron Risotto

My posts are out of order... I actually made this risotto before the basmati (hence the references to this risotto in the basmati post) but whatever...

So I wanted to try making risotto via the risotto method, and boy did this take forever! I sauteed onions in butter, then added the risotto and stirred it around. Little by little, I kept adding chicken broth which got absorbed by the rice. I also threw in some vanilla then the saffron at the very end. It took forever for the starch to exude out of the grains-- I must have been doing something wrong. And I was also disappointed by the saffron threads not coloring the rice any deeper than it did. Oh well. The result was ok... not worth doing again.

Mâche (lamb's lettuce) With Caramelized Vegetables, Feta, and Pinenuts

Sigh... I can't seem to get good lighting in these photos sometimes. So this salad was actually a lot prettier than it appears on the left. The colors were more vibrant and fresh and definitely made the salad look more appetizing than this sorry image...

I saw this bag of mâche (pronounced "mosh") greens at Trader Joes and wanted to try it out as the bed for my caramelized peppers and onions. I actually wanted to top the greens with roasted or grilled veggies (eggplant, zucchini, summer squash, carrots) but was too lazy to move all the stuff out of my oven (I use it for storage due to lack of space in the condo), and we don't have a grill. So... I had to settle for stovetop!

The mâche was very impressive, to say the least. The leaves were very pretty in little danity rosettes, the feel was a bit like spinach but more tender (apparently mâche has more iron than spinach, also!), and the taste was very mild, or even sweet and nutty as some would describe it. It was a huge contrast to the more bitter and peppery greens like arugula. I think I've found a new favorite salad green, which ranks up there with Bibb lettuce, which is similar in taste and texture but has larger leaves.

I like those greens because they are very easy to eat (no sharp peppery bite), and along with the caramelized veggies, feta, and pinenuts, this salad was something I'd definitely serve to people. Well I guess I'd have to figure out a dressing for people, since I was fine eating it without dressing. Oh and by the way, the feta was the Pastures of Eden feta from Israel (sold at Trader Joes). It was excellent!

Lamb Rogan Josh Over Cinnamon Saffron Basmati Rice

I was much more impressed by this Kashmir saffron from World Market than the Spanish saffron from Trader Joes. To be fair, the recipe for this cinnamon saffron basmati rice used the saffron threads differently than the recipe for the saffron risotto. This recipe asked me to steep the threads with cardamom in hot milk, whereas the risotto recipe only asked me to throw in the threads during the last 10 minutes of cooking. I basically dumped the saffron/cardamom mix along with extra cinnamon and the basmati, with water, into the rice cooker. Easy!

Anyway I prefer the taste and feel of this basmati (over the risotto). The basmati matched very well with both the fall-apart meat and flavorful sauce from this lamb rogan josh that I made with the slow cooker. I used a rogan josh spice blend from Penzey's which contains paprika, garlic, ginger, cumin, coriander, black pepper, cayenne pepper, Korintje cassia cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and saffron. I think I went a bit heavy on the cinnamon on the rice but otherwise I think this Northern Indian / Pakistani dish was a success!

Raw Qephor

From the same makers as the raw skim milk that I love comes this cultured raw colostrum qephor. Now we've all seen and heard of "kefir" which tastes just like yogurt drink in my opinion, but the two are different. Kefir is fermented with both bacteria and yeast whereas yogurt uses only bacteria. Kefir contains more types of bacteria than yogurt, and kefir can colonize the intestinal tract, whereas yogurt cannot. A batch of yogurt can be used to produce another batch, but the same cannot be said of kefir (you must have the kefir grains). There are probably other differences, but that's what I gathered from a quick google search.

Now kefir vs. qephor? I think it's just a difference in spelling, kind of like yogurt vs. yoghurt. If the kefir/qephor is RAW though, I guess that means the grains are still there floating around, as in this bottle of raw qephor. And not only that, but the grains were added to colostrum, rather than plain milk. Apparently colostrum is the "first milk" or the first stuff that comes out of the udder, containing a bunch of antibodies and other good stuff.

In terms of taste, this thing tasted just like yogurt. But the texture was not something I cared for though, with the random grains. I had to TRY to ignore the texture in order to concentrate on the flavor itself. That's how distracting it was! It wasn't gross, but I ended up making an acai banana smoothie, a mango banana smoothie, and a cacao agave shake with this bottle of qephor. As interesting as it was, I probably won't be buying this again.

Framboise Lambic Braised Pork Shoulder

So I bought pork shoulder, smeared the outside with cranberry sauce, and then doused it with Lindeman's Framboise Lambic (raspberry beer). Then it sat in that liquor for 10 hours in the slow cooker. The meat was awesomely tender, and one could definitely make out the raspberry (but not so much the cranberry, although it added a pretty shine). I really liked it, and was surprised that Kevin did too. The raspberry flavor reminded me of one of my favorite restaurant dishes, which is a raspberry crispy duck. Maybe next time I can try to make duck with framboise lambic and throw in a few fresh raspberries.

Slow Cooked Baby Back Ribs

I attempted baby back ribs with a dry rub in the slow cooker. The rub was from Penzey's Spices (their BBQ 3000). All in all it was okay but I decided that I prefer making ribs with BBQ sauce. While the tenderness was about the same using the dry rub, the BBQ sauce definitely means more moisture. And it's also just plain easier... Pour in the sauce and go, as opposed to standing there rubbing the thing.

Pesto Spelt Angel Hair With Egg and Toasted Pinenuts

I julienned zucchini and carrots and boiled them with spelt angel hair, then tossed this in pesto sauce and topped it with egg and pinenuts. Yum! When pasta is made with interesting ingredients such as spelt, Jerusalem artichoke, quinoa, corn, etc. I actually prefer to eat it without any sauce so that I can experience its pure taste. But this time I really just wanted to use up some Peruvian pesto sauce I had just to compare it with the usual Italian ones. They were pretty much comparable. I think I like pesto best on toasted ciabatta bread.

Pumpkin Corn Muffins

This is essentially the same thing as the previous post except that I baked these in the toaster oven instead of steaming them in the rice cooker. These little guys came out much more yellow and gritty, and less fluffy, than the steamed version even though both came from the same batter. Furthermore, the pumpkin taste was more faint using this method. I wonder why. Oh well. I like these just the same. I love how the paper liners are for Saint Patrick's Day and it's nowhere near that date. Haha.

Steamed Pumpkin Cornbread

Yay for cornbread mix and substituting pumpkin butter for the oil. It rose just the same and was pretty moist. You can definitely make out the pumpkin spice in the midst of the cornbread grit. I'd call it 50/50 as far as which flavor is more dominant. I was too impatient to wait for the slow cooker and too lazy to move stuff out of the oven in order to use it. So yay for the rice cooker. I love how it "browns" more evenly than if it had been in the oven. And it's definitely more uniform than if I had used the slow cooker, which tends to burn the edges.

Apple Walnut Microgreen Salad With Greek Yogurt and Raw Honey

I have learned that microgreens are not the same as sprouts. Some of the major differences include the fact that sprouts are much more susceptible to dangerous pathogens than microgreens are, and the method of cultivation differs drastically, with sprouts being grown in water and microgreens in soil. Microgreens are described as delicate, flavorful, and densely packed with nutrition.

So anyway, once again we see the creamy thickness of the Greek yogurt. I almost always eat my salad without any dressing, unless the dressing is nutritious in its own right, such as this yogurt. This yogurt (FAGE 2%) was so thick that from certain angles, it actually looked like vanilla ice cream with caramel sauce!

Conclusion? This was sooo wonderfully refreshing! I loved it!

Broccoli With Purple, Orange, and White Cauliflower

After a day of overeating dairy and carbs, I welcomed this veggie tray from Trader Joe's. A quick Google search indicates that apparently the purple and orange cauliflower are NOT genetically modified but rather are naturally occuring mutant versions of the white cauliflower. That's relieving! These came lightly seasoned with salt, pepper, and olive oil. You just microwave it and before you know it, there's this pretty and colorful (and healthy) dish before your eyes! Yum...

Beach City Baked Donuts

I've driven by Beach City Baked Donuts enough times for it to pique my curioisity. I finally went and bought myself four flavors: the plain Honey Drip, the Golden Soy, the Japanese Sweet Potato, and the Uji-kin (green tea with red bean). Consistent with all the Yelp reviews, these were basically cakes in the shape of donuts. The plain honey was essentially a dense sponge cake, not any better than the awesome dense sponge cake that my friend's mom made for us in Chicago. The soy was interesting. You can definitely smell the soy powder, which provides a delicate crunch (there's probably sugar in that soy powder coating). The sweet potato actually had chunks of sweet potato and also black sesame. The flavor of the sweet potato together with the sesame were subtle but one could still make it out, and sweet potato chunks served to make the donut more moist in my opinion. This sweet potato one would probably be my favorite of the four. The green tea / red bean one was interesting but not as impressive as other green tea / red bean desserts I've come across. All in all, BCBD isn't bad but not good enough for me to go back. If I want donuts, I'd rather go to King's Hawaiian and get their blueberry donut!

Blueberries and Greek Yogurt

I love Greek yogurt! It's so thick and creamy, even though it's lowfat or nonfat. My favorite must be FAGE (pronounced Fa-yeh!), the 2% plain type. The nonfat is not bad but I prefer the taste of the 2% (surprise surprise... who wouldn't?). Visit here to learn more. A close second place might be TJ's nonfat vanilla Greek yogurt. Anyway here you see some of that 2% plain atop some fresh blueberries. Mmmmm... It's a healthy indulgence and a much better deal (healthwise) than going with ice cream, whipped cream, sour cream, cream cheese, etc. And... due to its thickness, it's way prettier than regular (non-Greek) yogurt.

Greek Fries

This was an appetizer off the menu of the Redondo Beach Café. It's Greek fries and I guess what makes it Greek is the lemon and oregano seasoning and crumbled feta. It was okay... not impressive enough to rave about.

Greek Salt

Went to Redondo Beach Café for lunch... Is it just me, or does this container look like it's soap or detergent? Upon closer inspection, one will find that it's actually natural iodized table salt from Greece! I used some on my eggs just for the sake of using some... Not a big difference from regular salt in my opinion. The name reminds me of Kahless, the legendary Klingon warrior.

Oyakodon

Yes this is oyakodon yet again. This time it was a collective effort as we cooked at a friend's house. I must admit there were way too many vegetables and again, the eggs did not come out right. And it was a bit harder to do since the stuff barely fit in the pan (my monster 14" pan would have been nice). But it still tasted right. I love the flavor! It's simple and subtle, but still complex enough to be different from flavors like straight soy or teriyaki. There's some moscato on the side there but of course sake would have gone better with the meal.

Venison Fried Rice

So same deal as the last post, except I threw in the leftover venison and omitted the extra corn. This wasn't as good as the rabbit fried rice. I wonder if it's because the venison wasn't as good as the rabbit, or if TJ's vegetable fried rice wasn't as good as TJ's chicken fried rice. Yay for using up leftovers.

Rabbit Fried Rice

Yay I used up the leftover rabbit by throwing the meat into this fried rice. I gotta admit this was pretty good, but I'm not sure if I'll ever buy another rabbit to cook again (the prep was traumatizing). Kevin praised this dish. Not counting the handling and stewing of the bunny beforehand, this was pretty easy. All I did was throw some fried rice (yes I cheated and used TJ's frozen fried rice), corn, and shredded rabbit into the rice cooker and away it went!

Giordano's Stuffed Pizza

We opted for Giordano's as the pizza joint to try, and waited 90 minutes for this baby. While it was thick, delicious, and satisfying, I must say that Chicago pizza did not blow me away. Supposedly, another famous pizza joint there called Gino's East is about the same as Giordano's but with a more oily crust.

Maybe I've fallen too much in love with the non-traditional toppings and ingredients found more often in California pizzas. I would probably opt for something like a cornmeal crust or a herbed spelt crust with flaxseed, and with some combination of ingredients like pesto, roasted vegetables, arugula, pear, fontina, fig...

Grilled Portobello Sandwich

This wasn't just ANY portobello sandwich, but it was a grilled portobello sandwich with ricotta salata and garlic spinach on a pretzel roll, served from the Signature Room at the 95th floor of the Hancock Center, with a lovely view of the Chicago skyline. This was $10, which I think is a pretty good price, since you get the awesome view with just the price of the food. And this comes with some really tasty cheese flatbread. Dinner is a lot more expensive, but the lines were already really starting to form at 4pm which was about the time we left our late lunch.

Alligator Soup

We were having dinner with friends at a Chinatown (in Chicago, actually) and apparently got talked into ordering this. The soup itself was tasty. I guess you're not supposed to or expected to eat the solid stuff since they were going to take it away, but Kevin and I wanted to taste it. Conclusion: the meat tasted like pork.

Mathilde Poire (Pear) Liqueur

Saw this at Bevmo and gave in... It was made in France, and the label suggests serving it on the rocks, over ice cream, or with champagne. At 18% alcohol by volume, this thing was too strong for me to enjoy on the rocks. It was not syrupy, which was slightly disappointing. I had expected something pretty sweet, like Trader Joe's raspberry wine or even what's that called... Chambord raspberry liqueur, both of which taste like jam (the former more so than the latter). I might want to redeem this experience and pick up a bottle of that raspberry jam next time. We'll see.