Category Archives: food

Almond Joy

Almond Milk

In spite of my love for baking and an incurable sweet tooth, I generally tend to stick to a pretty strict, no-sugar, low-carb diet (…that went totally awry during the holidays, but let’s forget about that).

It’s actually pretty easy to eat nourishing, healthy meals, but when I find myself in the mood to snack, the choices can be pretty limiting. (Who wants to munch on a pork rind?) There is, however, a perfect snack food that fits my low-carb diet and satisfies my need to crunch on something: almonds.
Continue reading →

Chocolate Cocoa Nib Pecan Bread

Chocolate Cocoa Nib Pecan Bread

I have a few confessions to make.

  1. I recently stopped washing my hair with shampoo, and now I just use conditioner. My hair looks a frillion times better as a result.
  2. I am pretty neat in all areas of my life except my workspace. My workspace is a hopelessly cluttered mess, full of objects that do not have any meaningful relevance to each other save for the fact that I had, at one time, placed them there. For example, my workspace (which is to say, my bedroom) currently has, on the bed: A bunch of empty boxes I want to recycle for gifts, some full boxes of things I’ve received in the mail from Birchbox (Have you gotten one of these subscriptions? Delightful!), piles of unopened letters, Michael Rulhman’s Ratio, my Nikon D80 with USB cord still attached, a book on learning Korean, a menu for an Ethiopian restaurant, a half-finished baby blanket, some expired Loft coupons, the Verizon information packet to my iPhone, Amnesty International address labels, a cutting board, cupcake wrappers, black onyx cocoa powder, some Valrhona chocolates, and so many other things.
  3. Sometimes all I will eat for dinner is a spinach and mushroom omelet. EVERY DAY. FOR A WEEK. SOMETIMES TWO. This often happens because I am so doggone exhausted from work and don’t want to spend a lot of energy in putting something fancier together. Also, I really love eggs. A lot. They are nutritious and filling. I can’t seem to get sick of them. Omelets are the perfect food for us low-carb eaters. Sometimes I have an omelet for breakfast AND dinner. So there.

Continue reading →

Banana Nut Bread

Banana Nut Bread

There comes a point in your baking experiences where you loosen your tight clutch on a recipe and learn to relax. Maybe even take a slightly-out-of-focus photo (see above).

You begin to experiment a bit. Substitute ingredients. Sometimes it all turns out disastrously wrong. Sometimes you create a pleasant new recipe. Sometimes you decide, on a whim, to bake something and are just too lazy to go to the grocery store to buy all the ingredients a recipe calls for.

Continue reading →

Rich’n’Charlie’s Salad

Rich'n'Charlie's Salad

So, the holidays are over.

Are your pants a little…tight?

Mine are. It sucks.

Why can’t eating bread and cookies and rice cake soup be slimming? Alas. I’m going into damage-control mode post-holidays, which means no carbs, no sugar, lots of protein and lots of veggies. Fortunately, I have a salad recipe that is awesomely delicious and perfectly slimming. Sometimes good things do happen.

In my family, there is a particular dish that traditionally makes its appearance at holiday dinners. In fact, it’s such a huge favorite that it often makes its way into many ordinary meals throughout the year as well.

Continue reading →

Korean Rice Cake Soup

Korean Rice Cake Soup

New Year’s is sort of, kind of one of my favorite holidays. Though I suspect this is not a unique line of thinking, everything just feels like a new start. Tabula rasa. New Year’s resolutions and all that.

(I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions anymore–I’ve been down that road too many times before.)

When I was little, holidays always meant presents, presents, presents, materialistic little creature that I was (and still, just a little bit, am). These days, holidays are all about food, food, food, and New Year’s just so happens to serve up my favorite holiday meal.

All of my best food memories seem to involve my mother, who is still the best cook I know. Growing up with a mixed Korean-American heritage, I got to sample flavors and spices that most of my peers did not, so the most memorable dish of my mother’s that stands out to me is, naturally, a Korean one: ddeokguk, or, simply translated, “rice cake soup.”

Continue reading →

The NYT’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

NYT Chocolate Chip Cookies

I am ten minutes late to every party, trend, fad, etc.

So of course I would only cotton on to this recipe 3.5 years after the New York Times published a cookie recipe that took the food blogger world by storm. Forget your grandmother’s tried and true Betty Crocker cookbook. These cookies were frequently touted to be the “best chocolate chip cookies you will ever make.”

Well, natural skeptic that I am, this was something I’d have to see for myself.
Continue reading →

Homemade Marshmallows

DSC_0048

I am becoming plumper.

Pleasantly plump, if we are being kind, but if we are being honest, it’s not a good kind of plump. It’s not the pretty plumpness-that-is-really-more-like-normal-sized-because-English-people-are-all-tiny-tiny-people-plumpness of Nigella Lawson.

And these last two weeks haven’t helped.

Continue reading →

Bittersweet Chocolate and Roasted Pear Tarts

chocolatepeartarts1

Recipe from Not Without Salt.

These don’t look nearly as professional nor as well done as Alison’s tarts, but for my first attempt (and for several mistakes made in haste along the way), not bad. My tart molds must have been larger than what was used in the recipe, because I found myself having to made more dough for the shortbread crust.

I used edible gold dust, which resulted in much suspicion.

“Is this real gold?”

“No. I just thought I’d shellac them to be pretty.”

Nevertheless, these went down a smashing success, even if the sheer size of the tart seemed to intimidate all but the tallest and most food-keen.