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Today is the Chinese New Year’s Eve and I’m not posting anything related to the foods eaten on Chinese New Year We’re not so strict of keeping the tradition at home though my mom made some ananas tart, the popular pineapple cookies eaten during this time of the year, which we ate in one [...]
This was a dish that passed my family’s taste test. It was an easy enough and delicious dish, perfect for weeknight’s dinner. Fettuccine with Sausage and Mushrooms Serves 4 Kosher salt 12 ounces fettuccine 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil 1/2 pound sweet Italian sausage, casings removed 1 small onion, chopped 1 stalk celery, [...]
Hello and Happy New Year! It was a beautiful morning when I woke up today. The sun shone bright and not a cloud could be found in the sky, but the air was cold and crisp. Last night we spent at home watching the ball drop at New York’s Times Square. Sounded boring, huh? We’re [...]
Have to try this rolls whenever I see the recipe for Parker House rolls. I’m imagining soft and fluffy rolls, warm and buttery. And I’m not disappointed with this recipe. It’s a bit time-consuming forming this small pillows but of course, any shape will do. The addition of sea salt at the end is necessary [...]
Merry Christmas dear readers! This is the second Christmas cookie I made with the help of my son. He actually picked it out about a month ago because it looked so cute. Making this type of cookies was like playing with playdough Snowball Trees Makes about 36 cookies 1 cup unsalted butter, softened [...]
I don’t have a bake-a-thon this Christmas but I managed to bake two extra cookies today. The first one is this Cream Cheese Shortbread with Toasted Kenari Nuts. The inspiration was from a book I borrowed from the library, One Girl Cookies by Dawn Casale and David Crofton. Their book has good reviews everywhere and [...]
To my readers: I just discovered yesterday that new & old post links from my food blog are being directed to adult content websites when seen on mobile devices. The same thing will happen if you’re to search my blog’s name using mobile devices, you’re going to be redirected to those same websites. But if [...]
This summer I once again had to do articles for Zupan’s Indulge magazine. The articles were for fall/winter edition of the magazine and let’s just say I had a lot to tackle I had to cover in-season produce and also an article about food and travel in Indonesia. Now, this wasn’t as easy as people [...]
Entering a blustery first day of November, the rain was relentless today. But towards the late afternoon, the sun peeked for a few hours among the black clouds. The color of changing leaves looks so pretty. I’ve been observing the red, yellow, and brown of the scenery and I felt that autumn is a [...]
I’ve always loved Italian plums ever since I ate a handful of them off of someone’s homegrown tree. They were ripe on the tree and that’s when it’s the best time to eat them. I plucked one and bit into it, instantly I love how firm and sweet was the flesh. Since then I’m [...]
I read the other day about the summer days being over; what that meant was we’d say goodbye to barbecues, picnics, beach outings, tank tops, long vacation, and lazy days. The list is certainly long, isn’t it? But I get it and I’m certainly sad about leaving summer as well. Yet a few days ago [...]
I have stock photos of some recipes that I made this summer; one of the is this glutinous rice cake cooked in coconut milk with palm sugar or wajik. This diamond-shaped cake is known as “wajik” in Bahasa Indonesia because it refers to the shape of it, and it’s traditionally made with lots of palm [...]
I found these zucchini in my parents’ garden Monday afternoon. Two plants grew healthy this summer in the sunny patch and they’re starting to produce yields big enough to enjoy. My mom couldn’t contain her excitement when she saw these babies in her garden, she could hardly wait to pick more of them. The day [...]
So here’s the recipe for the strawberry pops. Made with mint simple syrup and fresh Oregon strawberries, the pops look so bloody red! They taste amazing though, the mint is very subtle, the strawberries really shine. To mix two different flavors, freeze half of the first mixture about 1 hour, then add the second mixture. [...]
Okay, so when a grocery store had a sale on pineapples, what do you do? If you’re like me, you’d run to the store and bought more than one pineapple for sure. Fred Meyer had $1/pineapple this week so I had to have it; in my household, pineapple is a favorite fruit. I bought [...]
Where has the sun gone today? It was drizzling, the sky turned grey, and it was cold this morning that it dampened our spirits a bit. My son and I were to go on a bike ride right after breakfast but since it was drizzling, we decided that we would bake cookies first. My son [...]
Strawberry season is officially here! From my parents’ garden, we harvested small but big in taste strawberries. The plants are still producing quite a big yield every summer, enough for a week’s consumption. Every day my mom would be in the backyard harvesting the berries. I have a box of strawberry plants as well in [...]
There are days that I will definitely bake a cake, and those are birthdays and wedding anniversary. Last week we celebrated our anniversary and my hubby’s birthday’s on dates that were only a day apart. When I asked what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday, he asked for a cake with pineapple. Pineapple [...]
As I’m looking outside my window, I see that the sun has finally come out on this late afternoon. It does lift my mood seriously since this morning started with gloom and grey; sigh, that’s the beauty of living in Oregon. In a few days there’ll be a lot going on in my schedule, [...]
I can’t believe I sailed through two months without any writing here! Honestly, I had all the intentions but time run faster than I could catch. I have been back in the kitchen cooking since the end of March, but I haven’t cared too much for baking surprisingly. My work assignment was endless; it seemed [...]
The day started somewhat cloudy. As I opened my bedroom windows, I doubted the sun would come out; but it did a little later. While I was busy working, the kitchen windows were opened slightly, letting the fresh air in. I suddenly thought of how close spring will be, it seemed like it’s already in [...]
Chinese New Year is today, Monday, January 23, 2012; and it will be the beginning of the year of the Dragon. I’m pretty excited this year because my parents are here and we get to celebrate it together for the first time after a long time being apart. This type of celebration is truly felt [...]
The darkness of winter is closing in and with that, the Christmas of 2011 is almost over. Last night we had dinner with a family friend; their kids played with mine, the adults talked in front of the fireplace. It’s the most peaceful moment during the week leading to Christmas. The food was superb, the [...]
Eating sweetened tangyuan or onde-onde (in Bahasa Indonesia) during Chinese Winter Solstice Festival may become a yearly occurrence now. Before my parents moved close to me, I didn’t always remember to make onde-onde in the month of December; or sometimes I was too lazy to make some. But now, my mom is my motivation to [...]
I finally had a time to bake sweets for Christmas…ah, the joy of having two-week break from work. It gave me a motivation to bake, it prepared me to be ready for Christmas. Thus the sweet is aptly named Christmas almond truffle bars. I’ve made this actually years before, don’t remember anymore if I’ve ever [...]
I shared this tart with my Bunco friends a few weeks ago. Rich, chocolaty, and creamy; those three words pretty much summed up the end result. There’s so much to write but I’m still finding the time; it’s been a long week and busy month. I’ll leave with a recipe to share, though. Until later. [...]
My son has been begging for me to make chicken pot pies for dinner this weekend. His list of dishes to be served for the dinner was quite long; from the main dish, side dishes, to dessert and drink but I wasn’t too keen to make all of them since I had a full and [...]
Hello again blog; hello falling leaves. The last time I spent time writing seemed ages ago; I had my moment of not taking notes. Frankly, I felt liberated to not have to write posts for the sake of audience. I can come and go as I please, nobody seems to notice. Lots of things have [...]
Rain has started; the summer is over, but I think I still has a bit of it here in this cake. My last bowl of blackberries was transformed into a rich, chocolaty cake. Adorned with fresh blackberries and dusted with cocoa powder, each slice is meant to be savored slowly. Just as I hope that [...]
I had an unexpected gifts from my friend last week; her son came up to me and handed me fresh Calimyrna figs in a plastic container. ”From my grandma’s garden,” that’s all he said. That instant I gushed out thank-yous. His mom definitely knows my taste and I’m happier to receive these than if she’d [...]
I guess it’s time for the blackberry to shine. As we’re moving forward to fall season, the blackberries are ripening everywhere. Here in Oregon, the wild ones are very prolific and people develop a love-hate relationship; they certainly don’t want those thorny vines in their backyard, but they welcome the arrival of juicy-sweet blackberries ripened [...]
One of happy moments in the month of August came in a box full of treats. My birthday fell on the second week of last month and I went to Seattle with my family for a small celebration. In the beginning of the year I was so stoked to have it somewhere warm and sandy; [...]
Yesterday I just got back from my short vacation to Eastern Oregon for five days. I had an amazing time there, the scenery is so beautiful, it’s worth driving the long miles. Even though I’m tempted to write the story here, I usually write it down on my personal blog. I also am taking a [...]
I hope you haven’t gotten bored with another strawberry related post. I promise to move on once my strawberry supply has become nil To make this milkshake more interesting, I added a layer of freshly blended strawberries with sugar at the bottom of the glass and then topped it with the milkshake. Add whipped [...]
Now is the right time to enjoy pops, especially homemade strawberry pops. They are not hard to make, in fact, I don’t have a specific recipe of how to make it. Just blend fresh strawberries with sugar and some milk. Pour it into a popsicle mold and there you have it! Perfect for a Fourth [...]
Strawberry season is in full swing in Oregon. I was not planning to go u-picking this summer for strawberry because my parents have a little patch of evergreen strawberry in their garden. Even though their strawberry is small in size but they are prolific plants. Each week either my mom or dad can be found [...]
I used to cook beet dish only for myself; now I have partners in crime, my parents. They will try my food as well, though I’m not quite sure if they like all of it. Sometimes what I cook will be too radically different than what they are accustomed to eat. Take this beet cheese [...]
Boy, these past few weeks were thrown at me at full force. Between two rounds of antibiotics–though not consecutively–to combat awful bacterial infection, I was invited to a friend’s graduation picnic and I had to show up for orientation & training for a new job. The graduation picnic left me momentously happy since it marked [...]
One day I went to my parents’ home and they were baking something in the oven. I smelled some smokiness coming out of it and decided to wait until it was done. It turned out to be just several sweet potatoes that they were baking. ”Here, have a piece, ” offered my dad. I was [...]
Kit Kat in blancmange is not a bad idea after all. It needs not be perfect, it personally just need to be comforting. I once saw this combination in a Taiwanese baking website, though when I went back recently the site was not available anymore. I could not decipher the whole message since the announcement [...]
I’m sharing a glimpse of some of the foods I ate when I was back in Jakarta, Indonesia last summer. The photos aren’t that great but boy, those were the best memories I’ve ever tasted again. Rambutan, a close cousin to lychee with hair surrounding the outer skin. My most loved tropical fruits, I miss [...]
So I was presented with a question: what type of satay do you want to eat? My answer was: all of the three. I will have the basic chicken satay, the most flavorful one that is sweet pork satay, and let’s not forget tempe satay, a tried-and-true recipe that is simple to make with typical [...]
Surely the summer will come. Slowly yet surely. Fireworks, sleeping in, sitting outdoors, picking berries, road trip. The list is endless though the summer is short. It’s going to be a great summer. Just last week, I got into a conversation with someone I work with. We were discussing how fortunate of us to be working [...]
There is no stopping my mom from cooking. She is continually recreating familiar dishes after another, essentially flooding my palate with taste of childhood memories. A spoonful of a particular dish could transport me back to my grandparents’s house where I roamed in the yard, clad in tank top and shorts, playing in a hot [...]
Let me not forget what my parents ask for the breakfast; yes, waffles as well. For them I made these ham and cheese, it sure pleased their appetite. Ham and Cheese Waffles Makes 6 to 8 waffles 2 cups all-purpose flour 1 tablespoon sugar 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 teaspoon salt 1 3/4 cups buttermlk 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled 1 large [...]
In my house, breakfast on Sundays doesn’t start until nine or ten o’clock. We like to loll around in bed as long as possible, savoring each sleepy moment. Not wanting to let it flee too quickly. Then, my son would soon beg me to make him breakfast because he obviously is getting hungry. Most of [...]
Maybe I spoke too soon last week when I said that I lost my baking skills. Good thing I didn’t hang my mittens up quickly after the flop; in fact it fueled me to making it again. The second attempt was a success, I was quite pleased because if it was to fail again, I [...]
I wasn’t going to complain, but I felt down. I haven’t been baking for maybe more than a month and I’m afraid I’m going to lose my skills. The old adage of practice makes perfect should’ve been like a mantra to me, yet I perfectly ignored it. Yesterday I was making genoise cake for my [...]
I admit it’s getting harder to write a new and meaningful post every week; the intention to write is always there but the time is somewhat harder to find. I’ve always told myself that I keep this blog for myself, I write a post for myself, not for seeking an audience; thus I don’t need [...]
My first time trying out whoopie pie; the prediction? I like this combo, banana-pecan with salted peanut butter filing. Don’t expect crunchy cookies, these are soft cookies, more like cake than cookies. The book that I refer to is an excellent book for whoopie pies. Banana Pecan Whoopie Pie with Salty Peanut Butter Filling Makes about [...]
