Thursday, March 11, 2010
Seriously...
I feel like a fat kid at fat camp who found the contraband locker and everyone is gone on a 4 hour hike... this brownie is amazing...
Weakness
Cake.. chocolate.. German...
Now imagine if there was a brownie version of this.. hot damn.. it is so fucking good. So my daughter picked one up for me from Sweet Jill's, which is a bakery in Seal Beach and Long Beach. She grabbed it at the SB location.
I haven't had anything this yummy in forever...
Speaking of sweet shops, LBC had one called Grandma Sugarplums.. I miss that place.
Now imagine if there was a brownie version of this.. hot damn.. it is so fucking good. So my daughter picked one up for me from Sweet Jill's, which is a bakery in Seal Beach and Long Beach. She grabbed it at the SB location.
I haven't had anything this yummy in forever...
Speaking of sweet shops, LBC had one called Grandma Sugarplums.. I miss that place.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Comida Yonke
First I do not speak Spanish at all... so don't let the title fool you. I have a very limited Spanglish vocabulary and get ridiculed by my wife all the time for my poor grammar and even "poorer" pronunciation.
So has the title says Junk Food... the items in question for the menu for this weekend. I've been wanting to make Sloppy Jose's and hot wings since before the Super Bowl. To add to this culinary antacid extravaganza, a new Mac n Cheese recipe I got from the LA Times.
To highlight the menu choices...
Less than 6 months ago I made hot wings from scratch. They turned out freaking great and I'm looking to recreate that. I need to refrain from "experimentation" as these were adequate and filled the craving and hot wing void that had accumulated over the months. Hooters was not in the budget and all in all one of my favorite wing places to go to. (I'm wondering if I could make a corn meal crust..... must... re..frain from.. experimentation...)
Second on the list is my experiment... Sloppy Jose's, the "Mexican" twist to Sloppy Joe's. Apparently loose meat sandwiches are a dime a dozen and this once could even well be nothing new, but for me it is.
As I love nachos.. l-o-v-e'em and love all things spicy. I was thinking about a attempted meal my wife made from a Pillsbury cookbook, basically it was a cheeseburger macaroni-esque loose meat sandwich. They were ok... something was missing. The meat was ehn and they just did not have enough cheese oomph to them. So I started thinking why not take the Sloppy Joe and make em a bit spicier and add nacho cheese sauce to it. Now that I think about it.. I'm torn... tortilla or a hamburger bun. I'll make 'em both ways. The nacho cheese aspect will be made from scratch, I just need to figure out what chilies to use. The meat will be more on the ground beef taco meat side, so this will be a total WT meal.
hhmm.. The mac n cheese recipe is yet again an attempt to confirm that the only MnC that I like, comes from a box. I may tweak the cheese a bit on this as it calls for Parmegiano and add some Romano and Asiago to it as well. Though for me.. I always have and always will love the blue box..
So has the title says Junk Food... the items in question for the menu for this weekend. I've been wanting to make Sloppy Jose's and hot wings since before the Super Bowl. To add to this culinary antacid extravaganza, a new Mac n Cheese recipe I got from the LA Times.
To highlight the menu choices...
Less than 6 months ago I made hot wings from scratch. They turned out freaking great and I'm looking to recreate that. I need to refrain from "experimentation" as these were adequate and filled the craving and hot wing void that had accumulated over the months. Hooters was not in the budget and all in all one of my favorite wing places to go to. (I'm wondering if I could make a corn meal crust..... must... re..frain from.. experimentation...)
Second on the list is my experiment... Sloppy Jose's, the "Mexican" twist to Sloppy Joe's. Apparently loose meat sandwiches are a dime a dozen and this once could even well be nothing new, but for me it is.
As I love nachos.. l-o-v-e'em and love all things spicy. I was thinking about a attempted meal my wife made from a Pillsbury cookbook, basically it was a cheeseburger macaroni-esque loose meat sandwich. They were ok... something was missing. The meat was ehn and they just did not have enough cheese oomph to them. So I started thinking why not take the Sloppy Joe and make em a bit spicier and add nacho cheese sauce to it. Now that I think about it.. I'm torn... tortilla or a hamburger bun. I'll make 'em both ways. The nacho cheese aspect will be made from scratch, I just need to figure out what chilies to use. The meat will be more on the ground beef taco meat side, so this will be a total WT meal.
hhmm.. The mac n cheese recipe is yet again an attempt to confirm that the only MnC that I like, comes from a box. I may tweak the cheese a bit on this as it calls for Parmegiano and add some Romano and Asiago to it as well. Though for me.. I always have and always will love the blue box..
Monday, March 8, 2010
Wed-nes-day
So my Pop is in town this week. Dinner is the agenda for Wednesday. I'm a bit torn on my options. While there are a number of restaurants near us that we could go to, I want to go somewhere new.
There is a Argentinian place near us, along with some Asian inspired Nawlins' style seafood. I found a review for a Chinese place as well. Decisions?!?!?!?
There is a Argentinian place near us, along with some Asian inspired Nawlins' style seafood. I found a review for a Chinese place as well. Decisions?!?!?!?
Ooo lay.. souffle!
Sunday, Williams Sonoma technical cooking class. Subject, souffles - savory and sweet.
I'd been wanting to (needing to) do something regarding cooking, though I find myself struggling with a bit of the uninspired melancholy funk as of late. My motivation has gone to shit on trying to lose weight as well, though I may find myself on the bike this evening.
So standing in the WS store on Sunday afternoon, to watch the technical demonstration on souffles was good. It's one of those things that you if you've watched any number of cooking shows or used any number of recipes and always had a nagging question afterwards. Salted or unsalted butter, what size eggs, cold or room temperature, how to melt chocolate properly, etc., etc. It's also a good class to confirm things you know, what are soft peaks vs stiff peaks on egg whites, folding in egg whites, and understanding that certain things just can't be rushed in making a meal.
The class consisted of a chocolate souffle and a leek & Gruyere souffle. I'm partial to the leek and Gruyere, the chocolate seemed a like a failed attempt at making a cake.
So needless to say we have souffle on the menu for the week, spinach & bacon. Also planned is a quiche, which is a hit and miss with me. I'm going to have to scan the souffle guide I got and post it up here soon.
Additionally I picked up a very nice heavy duty ricer, which I promptly used last night in my cream of broccoli soup (recipe courtesy of M Bittman - How to Cook Everything). Though I did not have stock on hand I used some Knoor Chicken bouillon and added some herbs, thyme, dill, and oregano, along with garlic salt.
Came out good, I didn't make it creamy smooth it was a bit on the rough side, but still good, I have about half a gallon.
I'd been wanting to (needing to) do something regarding cooking, though I find myself struggling with a bit of the uninspired melancholy funk as of late. My motivation has gone to shit on trying to lose weight as well, though I may find myself on the bike this evening.
So standing in the WS store on Sunday afternoon, to watch the technical demonstration on souffles was good. It's one of those things that you if you've watched any number of cooking shows or used any number of recipes and always had a nagging question afterwards. Salted or unsalted butter, what size eggs, cold or room temperature, how to melt chocolate properly, etc., etc. It's also a good class to confirm things you know, what are soft peaks vs stiff peaks on egg whites, folding in egg whites, and understanding that certain things just can't be rushed in making a meal.
The class consisted of a chocolate souffle and a leek & Gruyere souffle. I'm partial to the leek and Gruyere, the chocolate seemed a like a failed attempt at making a cake.
So needless to say we have souffle on the menu for the week, spinach & bacon. Also planned is a quiche, which is a hit and miss with me. I'm going to have to scan the souffle guide I got and post it up here soon.
Additionally I picked up a very nice heavy duty ricer, which I promptly used last night in my cream of broccoli soup (recipe courtesy of M Bittman - How to Cook Everything). Though I did not have stock on hand I used some Knoor Chicken bouillon and added some herbs, thyme, dill, and oregano, along with garlic salt.
Came out good, I didn't make it creamy smooth it was a bit on the rough side, but still good, I have about half a gallon.
Friday, March 5, 2010
O Top Thai BBQ - Review
Yum.. I love Thai Yellow Curry. Something about curry and rice that is probably one of the ultimate comfort foods for me, though I have come to find no two curries are a like.
O Top Thai BBQ, located in a little strip mall in Gardena, on Vermont North of Artesia. This is a little hole in the wall place, clean, minimally decorated and a large menu considering the size of the place.
Normally I frequent 3 Spice which is down the street from work, but in my search for somewhere to eat I decided to search for a new Thai place, I get bored easily. Now I haven't fully explored the menu at 3 Spice and it's not like it's nearly as large as O Top and generally my lunch time options are limited to the lunch time menu or specials.
So entering it looks like a couple of older ladies man the station here taking orders and waiting tables, so I'm not sure who is the cook. They were attentive and brought items to the table without my asking, aside from some chopsticks which is not fault there. I basically already knew what I wanted before walking in as I'd looked at the menu online, which is a lot smaller than what is in store.
The lunch specials go for $5.50... yes! With that you get a salad, fried rice (I had steamed), a couple of fried wontons and your selection. At first I felt the portion was a bit skimpy but I do not feel empty or left wanting for more. Additionally I had a Thai Iced Tea. All in all it came to $7.49, so I left a $2 tip.
There were some "weird" things with this experience. 1) I think at some point while taking my order she may have gotten the impression that I spoke Thai, which only gave a puzzled and confused response to her possible question. 2) The initial taste seemed, odd. It seemed like my main dish including the rice had a "Asian essence" to it. Sort of like when you walk into someone's house and it has that "cooking aroma" to it, and that aroma depends on the culture of the household. After about 1 minute into it it seemed to disappear, though I know I could eat that curry again. I did feel the internal "gorge" factor want more after I was done and found myself scraping what I could of what was left of the curry sauce.
I have a few items that I need to go back and try, the soups, the Pad Thai & other noodles dishes, the BBQ chicken and the appetizers. This place is dirt cheap even on the main course items, definitely would be worthwhile to bring a larger group.
Key things to know:
Cash Only!
There is a parking lot, though not many spots. Street parking is available.
Cheap lunch!!
O Top Thai BBQ, located in a little strip mall in Gardena, on Vermont North of Artesia. This is a little hole in the wall place, clean, minimally decorated and a large menu considering the size of the place.
Normally I frequent 3 Spice which is down the street from work, but in my search for somewhere to eat I decided to search for a new Thai place, I get bored easily. Now I haven't fully explored the menu at 3 Spice and it's not like it's nearly as large as O Top and generally my lunch time options are limited to the lunch time menu or specials.
So entering it looks like a couple of older ladies man the station here taking orders and waiting tables, so I'm not sure who is the cook. They were attentive and brought items to the table without my asking, aside from some chopsticks which is not fault there. I basically already knew what I wanted before walking in as I'd looked at the menu online, which is a lot smaller than what is in store.
The lunch specials go for $5.50... yes! With that you get a salad, fried rice (I had steamed), a couple of fried wontons and your selection. At first I felt the portion was a bit skimpy but I do not feel empty or left wanting for more. Additionally I had a Thai Iced Tea. All in all it came to $7.49, so I left a $2 tip.
There were some "weird" things with this experience. 1) I think at some point while taking my order she may have gotten the impression that I spoke Thai, which only gave a puzzled and confused response to her possible question. 2) The initial taste seemed, odd. It seemed like my main dish including the rice had a "Asian essence" to it. Sort of like when you walk into someone's house and it has that "cooking aroma" to it, and that aroma depends on the culture of the household. After about 1 minute into it it seemed to disappear, though I know I could eat that curry again. I did feel the internal "gorge" factor want more after I was done and found myself scraping what I could of what was left of the curry sauce.
I have a few items that I need to go back and try, the soups, the Pad Thai & other noodles dishes, the BBQ chicken and the appetizers. This place is dirt cheap even on the main course items, definitely would be worthwhile to bring a larger group.
Key things to know:
Cash Only!
There is a parking lot, though not many spots. Street parking is available.
Cheap lunch!!
....duck...duck....duck...goose!
So I'm slacking on this so called "foodie blog". I've been a bit emotional as of late and need to snap the hell out of it, my un-cat like senses have been on extreme red terrorist alert levels lately. In fact my stress levels have managed to block out all the wonderful things I've been wanting to talk about.
I've missed my King's Fish House review, I did one the other day on Noorami via my cell phone. If you look them up on Yelp you can view their menu. Good stuff!
I had some other things I wanted to blab about on here, I made a interesting rice/bean bowl dish this past weekend. It was missing something, while individually the items tasted great I don't think they worked well all together. The beans turned out good, the rice was fine, the salsa was not as spicy as I'd hope (add serrano's next time) and so it just sort of fell flat. The lime cilantro chicken was the best and gave me hope for more future chicken dishes. I wouldn't call the dish a failure, but unexpected discovery of something else. Sort of like the discovery for penicillin!
That was about the only thing that I have made, though I was talking about my salsa recipe (pico de gallo) and I've been slowly tweaking it each time I make it.
So 3 weeks ago I made it and had the complaint that it was not spicy enough. So this last time I used 3 jalapeno's and fire roasted them. Which did absolutely nothing.. no significant additional heat as expected. Additionally I discovered that I should not use Roma tomatoes for salsa, I've found them to no have a the appropriate tomato flavor needed.
Basically the recipe is as follows:
It's a 3 to .5 ratio for tomatoes vs onions. So for 3 med-lrg tomatoes I'd use half a med white onion. Then a whole bunch of cilantro, juice of one large lime and about 1-2 teaspoons of garlic salt. Now depending on how much heat you want add the peppers as needed, if you want Taco Bell hot add 1-2 jalapenos if you want more authentic use 1-2 serranos, this should make it fairly spicy.
Dice up all the vegetables, chop up the cilantro, mix in a container with juice and salt then put in the fridge till chilled. Stir again then serve.
It makes a great snack with some homemade tortilla chips.
Tonight my wife is supposed to make Palak Paneer/Saag Paneer (Spinach w/ cheese), it's a Indian dish that I love! Looks like baby crap, but one of my favorite vegetarian dishes. To which I think I could be a vegetarian if I had to eat Indian food as my only option!
Supposedly I'm should be making chicken tikka masala as well this weekend.. but it looks like the events that are planned may throw everything out the window. I do know lamb is on the menu however.
Now my dilemma for the day is what am I supposed to eat for lunch?? Japanese.. Vietnamese... Mexican... Mediterranean?
Tomorrow I have the Torrance Farmer's Market to go to... there is a guy there that sell plants (seedlings) on the cheap. Great place to go for starting a herb garden.
I've missed my King's Fish House review, I did one the other day on Noorami via my cell phone. If you look them up on Yelp you can view their menu. Good stuff!
I had some other things I wanted to blab about on here, I made a interesting rice/bean bowl dish this past weekend. It was missing something, while individually the items tasted great I don't think they worked well all together. The beans turned out good, the rice was fine, the salsa was not as spicy as I'd hope (add serrano's next time) and so it just sort of fell flat. The lime cilantro chicken was the best and gave me hope for more future chicken dishes. I wouldn't call the dish a failure, but unexpected discovery of something else. Sort of like the discovery for penicillin!
That was about the only thing that I have made, though I was talking about my salsa recipe (pico de gallo) and I've been slowly tweaking it each time I make it.
So 3 weeks ago I made it and had the complaint that it was not spicy enough. So this last time I used 3 jalapeno's and fire roasted them. Which did absolutely nothing.. no significant additional heat as expected. Additionally I discovered that I should not use Roma tomatoes for salsa, I've found them to no have a the appropriate tomato flavor needed.
Basically the recipe is as follows:
It's a 3 to .5 ratio for tomatoes vs onions. So for 3 med-lrg tomatoes I'd use half a med white onion. Then a whole bunch of cilantro, juice of one large lime and about 1-2 teaspoons of garlic salt. Now depending on how much heat you want add the peppers as needed, if you want Taco Bell hot add 1-2 jalapenos if you want more authentic use 1-2 serranos, this should make it fairly spicy.
Dice up all the vegetables, chop up the cilantro, mix in a container with juice and salt then put in the fridge till chilled. Stir again then serve.
It makes a great snack with some homemade tortilla chips.
Tonight my wife is supposed to make Palak Paneer/Saag Paneer (Spinach w/ cheese), it's a Indian dish that I love! Looks like baby crap, but one of my favorite vegetarian dishes. To which I think I could be a vegetarian if I had to eat Indian food as my only option!
Supposedly I'm should be making chicken tikka masala as well this weekend.. but it looks like the events that are planned may throw everything out the window. I do know lamb is on the menu however.
Now my dilemma for the day is what am I supposed to eat for lunch?? Japanese.. Vietnamese... Mexican... Mediterranean?
Tomorrow I have the Torrance Farmer's Market to go to... there is a guy there that sell plants (seedlings) on the cheap. Great place to go for starting a herb garden.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Noorami - Garden Grove - Review
Yum yum yum. Ok I love Indian food and especially like all things curry, Indian and non Indian alike.
Noorami Halal, a non typical restaurant situated in a strip mall smack down on the end of Brookhurst in Little Saigon, actually it is just South of Westminster.
This establishment is a conglomeration of Pakistani/Indian, and the menu shows it.
The restaurant is spartan on decor though is clean and presentable. The staff was courteous and attentive, even if just for take out.
Initially I was hoping to get some chicken tikka masal, but was overruled due to price ($10 - dollar extra if you want breast meat) and settled on the chicken qurma (qoorma), aloo palak (spinach w/ potatoes), mixed vegetable curry, rice, and a couple orders of garlic naan.
Oooohhh my gosh... This shit was sooo fucking good. Really I consider Indian food to be like crack for me, and one place in Lawndale (Al Noor) I can never get enough.
I liked the spice flavor overall, it was a tad bit greasey but that doesn't bother me all that much. I think over all it a good place and one of the better ones I have been to. The naan was loaded with fresh garlic, however it seemed to be reheated in a microwave as it was a bit chewy.
This place also has a weekend buffet for about $12. Also daily lunch and dinner combo deals.
Stress and cheating
Needless to say I haven't posted in afew days. I have a number of reviews (actually maybe a handful) that I'm sorely backlogged on.
This can all be attributed to my wonderfully craptastic job and fuckwad employers. As of which I have not felt like writing or anything of that nature, though I should.
As far as the cheating goes, apparently I am a stress eater. So not good. This has been written after consuming a Jr Whopper, perhaps if I can move past my apathy I would care and maybe feel guilty. Maybe.
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