at-home take-out.

yesterday was a stay-at-home kind of day. after spending the weekend with the parents, i just wanted to relax and do nothing. unfortunately, we didn't have any ready-made food at the house so i decided to delve into my cook books and see if i could make anything tasty.

this recipe caught my eye.

it looked quick and easy and i had mostly all the ingredients. some substitutions had to be made as i didn't have the chili paste but surprisingly the ketchup, chili flake, and garlic paste method didn't turn out too bad. i had to fiddle with the recipe a little, though, because it was initially kind of bland when i finished making it. after tinkering around with it for a minute, i ended up with something that's a little bit more flavorful with the added chinese five-spice blend and help from boosting the spices and seasonings. also, since i didn't have any rice, i decided to use the rest of my squid ink pasta to make it a noodle stir-fry. yay for add-ins! :D

 

Stir-Fried Ginger Shrimp Noodles
(barely adapted from Cooking Light)

1 pound medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
2 teaspoon chopped peeled fresh ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt, plus more for pasta
Dash of white pepper
1/2 cup water
1 tablespoon mirin (sweet rice wine)
2 teaspoons low-sodium soy sauce
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon dark sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon chile paste with garlic (such as sambal oelek or make a substitute)
1 tablespoon canola oil, divided plus more for pasta
1 cup thinly vertically sliced onion
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup diagonally cut celery
1/4 tsp chinese five-spice blend (or make your own)
4 portions squid ink spaghetti
sliced green onions for garnish

1. In a large pot, heat salted water to boiling (water should taste like the sea). Add canola oil to the water to prevent pasta from sticking then add the pasta. Let cook until al dente, drain, then set aside.

2. Place shrimp in a medium bowl. Sprinkle with ginger, salt, and pepper; toss well. Let stand 5 minutes.

3. Combine 1/2 cup water and next 6 ingredients (through chile paste) in a small bowl, stirring with a whisk.

4. Heat 1 teaspoon canola oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add shrimp mixture to pan; stir-fry 2 minutes. Remove shrimp mixture from pan; set aside. Wipe pan dry with a paper towel. Heat remaining 2 teaspoons canola oil in pan over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic; stir-fry 1 minute. Add celery; stir-fry 1 minute. Return shrimp mixture to pan; stir-fry 1 minute or until shrimp are done.

5. Add water mixture to pan along with chinese five spice. Bring to a boil; cook 1 minute or until thick, stirring constantly. Add the pasta to the pan and stir to coat. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Remove from heat and top with sliced green onions. Serve immediately.

Makes four servings.

hummus say, haven't we met before?

oh hummus...my favorite dip evar. :D this time around, decided to make a slow-roasted red pepper version. i probably could've done the peppers faster but i didn't think about it and i was multi-tasking so it worked out. :) this was awesome with the second round of pita chips i made. enjoy!

 
Smokey Slow-Roasted Red Pepper Hummus
(makes about 2-3 cups)

2 cans garbanzo beans, rinsed with half can of the liquid reserved
1 can cannellini beans, rinsed
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves
1 medium red bell pepper
2-3 tbsp lime juice
2-3 tbsp tahini
2 tsp smoked paprika
a couple dashes of onion powder
a couple dashes of garlic powder
water
salt and pepper to taste
sumac and parsley for garnish (optional)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Take the bell pepper and cut in half. Remove core, stem, and seeds and place skin-side up on a foil lined baking sheet. Roast for 55 minutes then remove from the oven. Carefully, bring up the foil from the corners and make a sealed tent over the peppers and let sit for ten minutes. Afterwards, remove and discard the skin and then place peppers in the blender/food processor.

Add the rest of the ingredients in the blender/food processor and pulse to combine. If needed, adjust consistency with water. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Garnish with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, sprinkle with a little sumac, and a little bit of chopped Italian parsley. Serve!

making my roots.

it'll be my older brother's birthday tomorrow and one of his favorite filipino desserts is maja blanca. so, as a surprise, i decided to make a couple of batches for him. :D maja blanca is sort of a cold soft-set pudding/panna cotta that's got a coconut base and flavored with sweet corn. it's a very traditional dessert that's also surprisingly easy to make. when i did some research on it, the variance in the recipes were very little. so, i took some notes from this recipe and tweaked it to more my liking. in other words: a slightly less guilty dessert with more creamy coconut and sweet corn!

 
Maja Blanca
(slightly adapted from Lemon and Anchovies)

1 (14oz.) can coconut milk (Aroy-D or Chaokoh brand)
1 can coconut cream (Savoy brand)
1 can cream style sweet corn
1 (11oz.) can extra sweet corn niblets or 2/3 (15oz.) can of whole sweet corn
1 can fat free condensed milk (or plain if you can't find it)
1 pint (16oz.) fat free half and half
1/2 cup sugar (use less if you don't want it that sweet)
3/4 cup corn starch
1/2 cup of shredded sweetened coconut

In a large saucepan, heat together the coconut milk, coconut cream, canned corn, niblets, and sugar over medium heat. Cook for about 10 minutes, stirring constantly to incorporate. Add the condensed milk and continue over medium heat for about five minutes.

In a large glass measuring cup, stir together the half and half and corn starch until smooth.

Add the corn starch/milk mixture to the saucepan and cook for another 8-12 minutes, stirring constantly. The mixture should thicken slowly towards the end of the cooking time.

Once the mxture is at your desired consisentcy, take off the heat and pour into a 8x8 baking dish or into separate glasses (I decded to put it in two seperate containers). Leave to cool to room temperature.

Meanwhile, in a small shallow pan, toast the flaked coconut over low heat. Cool completely then garnish the maja blanca with the toasted coconut. Chill for a few hours (or overnight) in the refrigerator to set then serve cold. (You can also chill the maja blanca first then top with the garnish right before serving.)

chowder on this!

it has been getting sooo chilly! i've said this before but after a week of almost summer-like weather, the random cold day just really makes a sharp contrast in temperature...the kind that makes you go "brrrr!". i usually like cold weather...the bundling up, the chill in the air...just not when i'm dressed for the beach. so, when i got home, i decided to make some corn chowder to get nice and toasty. i just followed this recipe loosely and ended up with something that was reminiscent of a similar soup i had at mimi's cafe except it had a lot more veggies in it. definitely hit the spot along with some crusty bread and perfect for what i was looking for. :)

 
Thick and Creamy Corn Chowder
(adapted from A Culinary Journey with Chef Dennis)

4 tbsp butter
1 cup celery, roughly diced
1 cup red onion, roughly diced
1 cup carrots, roughly diced
1 1/2 cups red potatoes, unpeeled and roughly diced
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp white pepper
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/8 tsp sweet paprika
1 tsp dried parsley
7 springs fresh italian parsley, chopped with some reserved
2 green onions, sliced with some reserved
1 cup flour*
1 qt chicken stock
2 cup fat free half and half or milk
1 (150z.) sweet corn, drained
1 1/2 (15oz plus) can creamed corn
1 tsp soy sauce
salt and pepper to taste

*or 2 tsp constarch with 1/2 cup or so water for thickening

Prepare your veggies then separate into two bowls: one bowl with the celery and onions, the other with the carrots and potatoes. In a large pot, melt the butter over medium heat.

Add the bowl of celery and onions to the pot and saute in the butter until onion is slightly transluscent. Add the bowl of carrots and potatoes and saute again for another 10 minutes. Once the veggies start to slightly brown, add the fresh parsley (reserve about 1/8 cup), salt, pepper, seasonings, and the dried parsley. Saute an additional minute or two then add the flour. Turn down the heat and allow to simmer for 5-7 minutes to let the flour cook. Add in the hot chicken stock and mix well to get all of the roux incorporated. Add the half and half or milk, corn, creamed corn, green onions (reserve about 1/8 cup), and soy sauce. Stir to combine. (i actually originally forgot to add the flour. so, to add a thickener, i used the cornstarch method and added about 2 tsp cornstarch with 1/2 cup or so of water and added it at this point.)

Cover slightly then reduce heat and allow to simmer for 30-45 minutes or until desired thickness. If the chowder appears too thick, thin it out with additional milk, stock or water. Season with salt and peper to taste then serve topped with the reserved parsley and green onion.

the elusive torrini sundae.

so here's an interesting dessert: the torrini sundae.

i fist came across this when i was flipping through a magazine in my doctor's office about a year or so ago. it was in a summer issue of a family-type magazine highlighting things that you could do with tomatoes. i remember looking at the pictures and wondering what the heck it would taste like. so i jotted down the main things it had right in the nick of time before i got called in.

months later, after forgetting about it, i'd go through my phone and occasionally stumble on the little note i made to myself. the same curiosity came and every single time i would search throughout every corner of the internet i could find looking for the recipe: roasted grape tomatoes, simple syrup, vanilla ice cream. no recipe in sight. i tried using different search engines, word combinations, key words...you name it i used it. the only recipe that came close was a parisian-inspiried cherry tomato sundae from the vegetable gardener website that used cherry tomatoes but was peeled and stewed in a liquored simple syrup. close but not quite what i remembered (it had said it was of italian descent). so i would get frustrated with the search and put the note away.

today, i stumbled on the note again and the same words jumped out at me from the screen: roasted grape tomatoes, simple syrup, vanilla ice cream. then suddenly it dawned on me....i could totally *make* that dessert. the ingredients were already there and all i had to do was put it together. so after work, i went to my local grocery store and decided on combining two types of tomatoes to use: grape tomatoes and yellow sunbursts. both were midly tart and should sweeten nicely when roasted. i also boought a quality vanilla bean ice cream as a base for the syrup hoping that it would make the experiment worthwhile.

after researching tomato roasting, i went to work and started on the experiment. the ending result was interesting: the roasted tomatoes (even though they were a bit more crispier than i intended them to be) gave the syrup that familiar intense tomato tang but was mellowed by the simple syrup. the vanilla was also prominent but it somehow melded together to this sort of wierd, pleasant aftertaste. definitely interesting but not bad. i certainly enjoyed it and so did test subjects who tried a couple of bites. so the final verdict? thumbs way up for this savory-sweet treat!!

 
Torrini Sundae
(makes about 2 cups of syrup)

1 clamshell grape tomatoes, cut in halves
1 clamshell yellow sunburst tomatoes, cut in halves
2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 cup plus 1/2 tsp sugar
1 cup water
pure vanilla bean ice cream
fresh mint leaves for garnish (optional)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Toss the tomatoes with the olive oil, salt, and 1/2 tsp of sugar. Spread evenly on a foil lined baking sheet and roast for about an hour or until juices release and the tomatoes are caramelized. Set aside.

Meanwhile as the tomatoes roast, prepare the simple syrup by stirring the water and the rest of the sugar together in a small sauce pan. Heat to a rapid boil, stirring constantly, for about 5 minutes then reduce heat to low. Simmer for an additional 10 to 15 minutes and remove from heat.

When the tomatoes are finished roasting, add them to the simple syrup and bring to a boil. Cook for just a couple of minutes to infuse the syrup and then remove from heat. Let cool slightly then serve a few spoonfuls of the tomatoes atop vanilla bean ice cream, drizzled with some extra infused syrup from the mixture. Garnish with a couple mint leaves if desired.

Alternatively, you can also cool the syrup completely and top the ice cream...your preference completely. I opted for topping my ice cream right away since I was super curious about the taste. For any leftover syrup, store in a sealed container in the fridge for up to two to three weeks max. Enjoy!