Chocolate chip cookie art

Before I went back to Ohio for thanksgiving, I baked chocolate chip cookies. Since we don't have baking sheets, I needed the shelves wrapped with alminum foil for my cookies. I accidentally heated the oven with the shelves left inside. So, instead, I used cake and muffin pans. It was a bad move, considering that cookies DO get bigger by baking powder, lol. What amused me was that the shapes varied depending on where I put the cookie dough. The muffin hole ones were perfectly round but the bottom was more brown than the top surface and interesting. Two placed on top of the pan looked like Dali's clocks, very artistic in a way, lol. The cake pan ones made a shape of a bow tie and flower. The glass pan one became a big piece of cookie. I used a toothpick to articulate the lines of each cookie. Despite the unique looks, the cookies were crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, mmmmmmmm. I left one bag at the apartment, gave another bag of it to my drunk friends and shared the other bag with Ian. I wanna bake more cookies!!!!!

Chubby baguette

Cocoya baked bread again! This time he tried to bake two baguettes.
The attempt produced delicious bread for all the roommates but the shape was a bit different from what we expected. It was like Luigi turned into Mario.
I haven't made bread from scratch but it seems baguette is relatively simple to make. Making the dough takes a bit of an effort but it didn't involve that many ingredients. The dough leavened did not get bigger but it looked very smooth:). Naoya said it was very moist. He folded one half and didn't the other half. We thought the un-folded one would be longer than the other but the result was opposite. It may be because the dough got too dry or we didn't use any mold to keep the bread long in the oven. Ohya and Cocoya both found some tips to fix it for the next time. There is nothing you can't find on the Internet it seems. I can't wait for Naoya's next bread!

Well, just so you know, he made this bread a while ago... I just never had time to post a story.

phooooooooooooo

I went to a pho place called Pho 32 in Koreantown today. People at work talked about the place and I had to check it out. Plus, Akiko seemed interested in going there too. We have been planning on going there but last time, I totally forgot that we were gonna go there so I went back home straight from work and missed the opportunity... Anyhow, today was my first day at the new place. I didn't really know the area around my office but I just wanted to do something before I go home. Getting out of work a lit later than the last place, I was sooo ready to eat dinner. In this kind of cold weather, noodle soup seemed like the best choice. Luckily I got a hold of Akiko after work and we planned to meet up in front of the restaurant. When I was about to walk into the restaurant, Akiko came out of the door. I guess she had been waiting in line for us and unexpectedly they called her twice in a row before I got there. She thought of calling me again but that was when I just got there. Since I saw her right away, I didn't pay attention to how the store looked from the outside. It was crowded and I knew the reason when I sat down. The tables were so narrow that the chair would hit the table legs when moved towards the table. The set-up is very interesting. Each person has this hole on the table for individual hot pot or shabu shabu, which is covered by a lid if not needed. I considered doing my own mini hot pot like the girls at the next table but I was in the mood for pho. Pho's semi-transparent rice noodle was occupying my mind, lol. Mmm... The beef brisket pho was nothing special but the cold vermicelli noodles with chicken was kinda different. You pick your own sauce from the counter in addition to fish sauce (of course, you can get rid of the fish sauce if you like). Your choices are peanut sauce, hot pepper sauce, and sweet brown sauce... I didn't try them all but Akiko really liked the peanut one out of all they had. She offered me a piece of the grilled chicken. It was tender and tasty with its subtle charcoal flavor. There was a couple who ordred steak with rice. I felt my stomach reacting to it even if I was full from the pho. It seems like there is more to explore at this restaurant and I like it! There is more than pho at Pho 32...mmm..... Sorry for not having any pictures... but I promise to take a picture of something goooood at this restauarnt.

do you believe in ketchap magic?

Ketchap magic happened again in my kitchen. I don't know why but whenever I use ketchep, any ingredients seem to taste more delicious than I expect! I have had this fatty pork in the freezer. I just had no idea of how to cook it right... And I found this pork chop recipe, which was basically to cook pork, mushrooms, and onions with ketchap, wuster sauce, and chicken broth. I had all the ingredients so it was a piece of cake! The only problem is that the bones make it hard to separate the meat part. I'm gonna make it again with different parts of pork.

Lotus root

Lotus root is crispy even if it's cooked. Some people like the texture. Others hate it. I like it sometimes. Landlord has been saying she wants to eat lotus root. She is good at cooking Japanese dishes so she decided to share this dish with us. I'm sure you are curious how it is cooked. Lotus root was boiled and seasoned, whose cooking style is, so-to-speak, nimono in Japan. She spiced it up with some hot peppers--you can see red spots in the picture. It was so good that I wanna have it everyday;P. I'm thinking of making nimono with chicken, taro, snow peas and shitake mushrooms.

Cocoya's Croissant

Cocoya is in his new baking challenge given by Landlord aka my roommate. For two weekends in a row, he has been baking croissants. As people say about croissants, it seems to be pretty hard to create multiple layers and realize the perfect crunchiness in his home-made bread. His first attempt turned out good I say. The shape of each croissant was made evenly with Cocoya's skills. But the texture was a bit too chewy being croissants and unfortunately some parts were burnt. Cocoya worked on the crunchy texture at the second attempt and the layers seemed to be more visible. It was a great idea to brush maple syrup on top as an extra flavor. It added pleasant sweetness in the croissants. The inside is still a bit chewy but we enjoyed croissants more than last time. We requested chocolate croissants as a next challenge. My apartment never gets boring with three of us cooking different things.

Oystered beef!

It feels like I haven't posted in a while, actually I just haven't eaten anything worth talking about. I tried something new again today though! I ordered randomly from a menu today and ended up eating beef with oyster sauce.
I don't think I've ever had oyster sauce before so I thought it would be quite a new taste, but really it didn't taste very different to me than the other sauces that are used at most American Chinese restaraunts, it just seemed a little salty, like soy sauce. All in all the food was ok, but nothing amazing, probably because I went to a not very good place to get it (Not much is open late at night by my work. I'll try and eat something worthy of a longer story and better review soon!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAMECO!!! (A bit late on the blog, but I already told you on the right day =)