Homemad Fettucini Two Ways

I have been addicted to making pasta these days. The color of adding vegetable into the pasta makes it look so pretty. I love the orange-yellow by adding butternut squash into the dough, now I tried beets and collard green, they are great natural coloring! The other night I made two batches of fettuccine and cooked them differently. The collard fettuccine was used in mushroom carbonara, and the beet fettuccine was cooked to make shrimp scampi. The vibrant color makes the dish tasted even better!

8/25/2011

In the bento: quinoa, shirmp, cucumber, stir-fried cabbage, kelp with enoki mushroom, braised pork.

8/30/2011

In the bento: homemade beet fettuccine, kelp with enoki mushroom, stir-fried cabbage, pork liver with carrots, braised pork. 

Homemade Butternut Squash Fettuccine

I love homemade pasta. And I like to make my own pasta. My nice neighbor lent me a pasta machine that I have always been eyeing for in the store. So it's pasta time! This time I add butternut squash into the pasta dough. I like the yellow/orange color when the noodle is cooked. It's so pretty with tomato sauce or just simply with green onion oil. Yum!!!

Homemade Tomato Sauce

I had some really good organic tomatoes. And it is the perfect season to make tomato sauce. This was my first try and actually it turned out beautifully. It packed fully with tomato, garlic and basil, just as what I want.
There is no recipe. I just made a basic tomato sauce and add garlic and basil. Man, it is delicious! 

8/17/2011

In the bentoa: pan-fried salmon, fried gyoza, brown rice with cabbage.

8/16/2011

In the bento: mayonnaise baked Chilean sea bass  cabbage, broccoli, brown rice.  

Cornmeal Cranberry Cookies

The pictures caught my eyes first when I saw these cookies. What makes me like them more than the pretty presentation is the fact that they can be made ahead of time and be stored in the fridge waiting to be baked. This is great for portion control. So I don't have to bake a big batch of cookies and eat a lot. This is a simple recipe while has great flavor. The recipe is here and the website is cool!

8/16/2011

In the bento: elbow pasta with baba ganoush, pan-fried duck, cabbage, broccoli, salt marinaded duck egg.

8/12/2011

In this bento: fresh corn with basil, stirfried cabbage, pan fried butternut dumpling, summer squash with mushroom.

Butternut Squash Gnocchi

 After a dinner at an Italian restaurant serving the baked gnocchi, I decided to make my own. To make it more special, I decided to use the butternut squash instead of potato. Thanks for the help, though I completely ran out of patience when forming the gnocchi, they finally made their way. I especially like the orange color of the gnocchi, topped with my basil béchamel sauce, it's beautiful. My friend claimed not hungry but can't stop eating after the first bite. Seems it's obvious enough to say the gnocchi is good :) The recipe I referenced is here.

Apple Pound Cake

I baked this cake for a dumpling party. When the cake came out from the oven, I was asked how come the apple slices on the top were dried out. I didn't know but this is what the recipe asked for. But actually, the top slices were not dry, after being glazed with maple syrup and sitting overnight in the fridge. The cake tasted very good though I don't like the presentation. The caramelized apple mixed in to the batter complied well with the buttery taste of the cake. The recipe is here.

Lime Cheesecake with Lime Curd Topping and Oreo Crust

The lemon cheesecake I made the other day was very good, and that inspired me to use lime make another cake. This time I used the Oreo cookie for the crust and a lot lime juice in both the filling and curd topping. It came out very tangy, like a key lime pie. However, I prefer the tart crust in the last cake, oreo doesn't go well with the lime taste though.

2011/8/2

In the bento: miso glazed salmon, shrimps, stir-fried green pepper, stir-fried eggplant with tomato, brown rice.

Butter Twist

This is a by-product from the cheesecake. The egg white left from the baking is required in this butter twist recipe. While the cheesecake was in the oven, I make those buttery twist. They are cute in shape, but not satisfy my taste. I didn't mean they are bad, but for me they lack the depth in flavor. Simply buttery and sweet is less than enough for me.

Lemon Cheesecake with Lemon Curd Topping

This cake was baked because my friend can't eat chocolate. For me, dessert without chocolate is impossible. So I had to search Internet and find something doable. Luckily, my friend does love cheesecake, so I came across this recipe and believe it's the perfect fit. The picture on the site caught my eyes first and I hope to have my cake as pretty as it. However, you can see the picture here, not pretty at all, even messy. But the taste is good. I did twist a bit to use a tart crust rather than the graham cracker bottom.

7/22/2011

In the bento: tomato fried egg with woodear, kelp with mushrooms, tuna salad, cucumber, quinoa.

7/21/2011

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In the bento: baby bok choy, cherry tomato, butternut squash wonton, burger, cucumber, kelp with mushrooms, quinoa.

Lime Cornmeal Biscotti

Even though biscotti is not quite my kind of food, this recipe looks interesting enough to try. The baked biscotti has the crunch texture because of the cornmeal. Not like most biscotti made entirely by flour, the cornmeal does make it crispy but not too hard to bite. The lime gives a fresh taste which I like a lot. My only complain about this recipe is that I can definitely taste the baking soda. Next time I might try to use egg white as the leavening. 

7/6/2011

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In this bento: quinoa, carrots with shiitake, falafel, kelp with assorted mushroom, cherry tomato, fake burger (iceberg lettuce, burger, parrano cheese)

Wonton with Boiled Burger

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The Fourth of July weekend was busy, in a fun way. This was filled with hiking, party, movie, church and of course, eating. This is a quick lunch I put together using the bento stash. I made a big batch of wonto ravioli and burger the other day and froze some. In this way, a healthy and flavorful meal can be cooked in no time. I served the side with some boiled baby bok choy. And to give more color, the burger was topped with some sesame oil marinade green onion.

Woodear with Pineapple

I love fungus (woodear or 木耳). There is no way not trying this dish when I passed by the recipe one day. The combination of pineapple and woodear is not what I grow up eating so I was curious how this dish will taste like. I made this dish at the Independence weekend. Well...it was an okay dish. My issue with it is that because woodear doesn't absorb flavor from others, it doesn't go well with pineapple. I have much better way of eating woodear,  probably this is my first but also the last time of cooking the dish.

Bean Noodle with Ground Pork

I have been cooking this dish a lot recently. It's simple and quick to make. A time saver without sacrificing the taste. The bean noodle is available from most Asian markets. All I need to do is to stir-fry the ground pork until it releases the juice. Then, add the soaked noodle with broth, soysauce, sugar and chili flakes into the pot mixing together with the ground meat. The noodle will continue absorbing the liquid until done. To finalize the dish, sprinkle some green onion on the top to garnish.

Maple Yogurt Pound Cake

This is the cake I baked for the 4th of July hiking. Regardless the taste, the house smells sweet like maple while the cake was baked in the oven. The cake recipe is from here. Though it says this is a pound cake, the texture isn't. And if you read the recipe, the oil was added in the last and mixed in a non-typical way, which results the separate of oil and cake batter. The taste is not bad though. 

7/1/2011

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In the bento: kelp with assorted mushroom, strifried cabbage, beet soybean hummus, duck, quinoa.