sushi cake – live action!

Super easy delicious salad.

My friend soma introduced me to this totally awesome salad dressing. She put oranges in it, and I’ve been making it ever since i had it the first time.

You require:

Sesame seed vinaigrette. this is described on the website for it as a “Japanese wafu style dressing” A lot of stores run out of this stuff pretty fast, they say its from Italy BUT ITS FROM CONCORD ONTARIO , so they like to tell lies. Anyways, one Asian grocery store around here has it, and if they ever run out I found a recipe to make it here: http://www.recipezaar.com/28865

Salad. Baby romaine is awesome, but if you don’t use enough it can be bitter if you don’t compensate with enough dressing. There are other mixes that have a combination of interesting stuff. Don’t use lettuce, it lames it up.

NUTS. Soma and Alex used weed seeds. hehe I put in some pistachios. You can put in anything pretty much, I think sunflower seeds might taste interesting.

Fruits. I’ve made this with grapefruit, You can use strawberries, and lately I’ve been using honey tangerines. I think this is what soma used when she made it that time. The salad dressing tastes really good with fruit in it. But some peeps don’t like the fruit part. (Andrew is the only one I know that doesn’t like the tangerine in it)

Vegetable. I just put cucumber in this one, but if you want to be pro you can put in tomatoes and red pepper as well. Also grated carrots would make it look awesome.

Wash your salad thoroughly. If you get the one the comes in the box wash it real well cause they put lots of preservative or pesticide or whatever in it and it tastes like soap if you don’t.
Cut the fruit up into little pieces and put the dressing on. Then sprinkle NUTS on top. The only thing to be wary of is not to put dressing on til right before you eat/serve it. This particular dressing becomes watery pretty fast so you can’t leave it sitting around. Here’s what it looks like:

The dressing looks weird but its like heroine.

Food made by Accident

I have been experimenting with some Indian food and have realized something. A lot of food is made by accident. So i made something by accident today and I was so happy, especially because it tasted good. It’s dahl, but I used it as sambaar with my masala Dosa!

So here’s the deal. Maslaa dosa is this potato thing you eat with a salty not sweet crepe. It is very delicious and the best part that it comes with is a variety of ‘dips’ you get to eat with the crepe and potato. Think of the crepe as naan.

So there are a couple things you can eat it with. One is a mix of yogurt. This can be green or white and is the ‘cool’ dip. It usually consists of coriander, green chille and coconut and yogurt. Then there is the ‘hot’ dip which is sambaar. The closest thing this comes to in white people food is soup. Sambaar is pretty good, but the thing I made is technically not sambaar because I didn’t use sambaar mix and it wasn’t watery enough.

So let’s just call it dahl. haha. I used this red dahl.

Almost looks toxic eh? muahahaha  You take this orange dahl, and you wash it. Cooking it just like rice,, you stick it in a pot and let it cook. The dahl becomes very soft and almost yellow when its done.

Looks delicious.  I obviously didn’t rinse this enough but I used it anyways. It’s boiling and I go about my other business. I come back to it like ten minutes later and it looks like this.

The ones in the middle haven’t cooked. See the difference? i’m all like – let’s try this and see what it tastes like. It tasted like water. I let it keep cooking and it looked like this:

To me this seemed done. But its not sambaar! It wasn’t watery like sambaar and I was pretty sure I was using the wrong kind of dahl. I put in two cups of water. THIS IS NOT A GOOD IDEA. ITS COOKING TABOO. My grandma says never put water in food, it always fucks it up. (Not her exact words.) Anyways, since I think i’m so badass in the kitchen I figured I could get away with it. I let the water heat up and it still tasted pretty bad. More like water now than before, because of the water. I put in some other stuff to see if I could salvage it and it looked like this:

This has curry leaves, 1/2 a tomato, and coriander. At this point I’m winging it and tasting the concoction as I go. Its still tasting like water. Especially cause I added two cups of water. I left it alone for a while and came back to it and it was like this: Exactly the same. At this point i’m pretty upset cause I expected something magical to happen. Instead I channel my inner indianess. I figure I should probably add something spicy, I put in 1/2 a teaspoon of red powder. I also don’t want it to be bland. I put in some garlic. Then i thought about it and figured that whenever things go wrong I usually add salt, which I threw in at this point. I also added some cumin and black mustard seed since that seems to go in everything for some reason.I left it alone for a while came back and it still tasted like water. I added lime juice as a last ditch effort, tried it again and nothing. At this point I abandoned the sambaar and put it on the back burner to soak in its own uncooperativeness. I finish making everything else and I return to the oven to throw out the dahl/sambaar attempt and it looks like this:

Wtf? I tried it and it actually tasted PRETTY GOOD. So I dont know what I made but it looks and tastes like indian food. BAM FIRST TRY WHAT

Masala Dosa!!!!!

Check it out

If theyre too small – click on them to make them bigger!!!!!

A tip from Agee

Curry leaves last a long time. One way to ensure that they last is to stick them all in a bowl after plucking them from the branch they come with and microwave them for like 20 seconds to get all the moisture out. You can then keep these in a ziploc bag or airtight container and they wont go bad!!

Video Games!

So my friend John comes online the other day and says Jen, his girlfriend is really into this game called ‘hot dish.’ And i’m like – what is all this about? SO i go to the website and its a COOKING GAME and you make multiple dishes. You start out as a chef in this Italian restaurant and then move into the bushido restaurant and finally in a French hardcore restaurant. It is wicked and addictive – I suggest you try it.

http://www.bigfishgames.com/download-games/2580/hot-dish/index.html

its very cute

ARGH PIRATE CAKE

Heres the deal – with cool cakes its all about the decoration and being creative. Thus, the pirate cake is super bad ass. This is how you make it.

Ingredients:

Blue powder candy – pixie sticks

skewers, two or three – these become your masts

some pieces of paper for your flags

gummi fish – blue whales too

cake mix supermoist from the store

3 eggs

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 1/4 cup milk or water

4 whoppers (tiny choclate milk balls)

The masts:

For the pirate masts take small pieces of paper skewers and tape. You can decorate these however you desire. (“I desire macaroni pictures” epic lulz)

The flags are your pieces of tape, cut them in the shape that you want them stick them on the skewers, puncturing both the top and bottom if the flag. Because we wanted to look pro, andrew used guash paint and painted the flags. This made the ship look kind of creepy and was pretty sweet.

The cake:

For the cake itself mix your cake mix, eggs, milk or water, and vegetable oil and make it a smooth batter. We used the sprinkle one.

Oil the pan you are using to bake your cake. It MUST be oiled. put on a thicker layer of oil than you woudl otherwise use if you want. This is an important step. Pour in your batter.

Bake your cake according the box instructions. Set it to 350 on bake for approximately 20 – 25 minutes. Once your cake is done you should be able to slide a butter knife in and out of it without anything sticking to the blade. Also, the top will be a little brown.

The reason oiling the pan is important is shown here. Once you remove your cake from the oven and allow it to cool you will see that it is not sticking to the side of the pan. This is important because it is easier to handle the cake this way. The baked cake is like your building block. I made a very simple pirate ship foundation here, but you can get more complex by building one onto the other and using icing as the glue. (as you will see in my future FIRETRUCK CAKE) Anyways, this cake is super easy because now all you do it cut the shape of a boat out using a sharp knife.

You can see the cuts I made here.

These are the outside pieces I gently pried away.

Now, once you are confident in your abilities, you want to slowly and carefully lift your boat cake out of the pan and onto the plate you will ice it an eat it from. Dont worry if the icing gets messy and sticks to the plate, we have plans to cover this up. Because the bottom of the pan has been oiled only a little bit of the cake will stick to it. It should come away fairly clean and easy.

Now, ice your boat cake with brown icing. This is the wood of your pirate ship.

The next step is to put out your fish. It is at your discretion if you would like to place your fish on top or underneath the sugar. We opted for on top because otherwise it woudl look like all the dead fish had floated to the surface.

Put the blue powder as your water.The great part here is that any mess you made with your icing will be covered up by your fish and powdered sugar.

Place three whoppers in a triangular formation and the fourth on the top so you have a small pyramid. These are canons.

Now stick your masts in the center.

Its all about the little details……

When you light the cake, stick the candles in sideways. This gives the illusion of cannons and wont start a massive fire by burning the masts.

This cake is pretty awesomezaurs. I guarantee it will blow the recipients mind.

Happy birthday Lauren!!!!!!!

Western Omelet!

Want to be a cowboy?

You need some omelet!

You need:

2 Eggs

butter

ham, slices, can be thin or thick

Cheddar cheese

Mushrooms

Tomatoes

onions

Cut up your vegetables, make the mushrooms thin slices and some small chunks of tomato  and onion

Butter your pan up real nice and keep it on the middle notch between medium and high

Place your vegetables in the pan somewhat in the middle, let them cook a little bit

Mix two eggs in a small bowl and when you feel the vegetables are cooked to your liking pour it over them

Let this guy fry a bit. Flip it over at some point to get the other side cooking. While it is doing things, rip or cut up your ham, place as many or as little pieces you want on the side of the omelet that cooked first.

Now comes the funnest part. Fold half your omelet over the ham and cheddar cheese. Let this get nice and warm and get your cheese melted. It gets messy – but it tastes AWESOME.

Serve with some kind of fruit and bacon if you like!!!!!!

GUESS WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT

Guess whose family rocked the house?

Masala Dosa was a complicated dish which i took on Prematurely…..BUT NOW…….

 

 

Fully stocked and ready to bring the PAIN – MASALA DOSA WONT KNOW WHAT HIT IT!

  Destroyed this wknd…..!

MANGO SALAD!!

Feel liek something tropical? Thinking about soaking in the midday summer sun – when your highest priority is getting that just right bronze skin? Low in mango supplement? Its a required supplement you know.

The answer to your problems is MANGO SALAD!

Heres what you need:

Mangoes – they can be slightly raw

avacado

kiwi

red pepper AND ONLY RED PEPPER

honey tangerines

hot sauce

lime juice

Cut up all your stuff EXCEPT THE AVOCADO. Keep in mind that cutting things in cool shapes will add to the awesomeness of your salad. The whole point of this type of salad is that the differnt tastes compliment each other. For example, the red pepper spicyness is not spicy as much as it is delectable when combined with the sweetness of the other fruits. Also the textures work well together. The mango is slimy and sweet and the red pepper is crunchy and refreshing. Your mouth will be tantalized by all the exoticness. So anyways, i opted to cut the red pepper in thin slices so it wouldn’t interfere too much with other stuff. And the mango is a bit chunkier but also looks cool if you cut it into sticks.

Mix all these in a tray or a big bowl.

Now comes the hard part. When making the coating for your salad, you want to be very careful. The hot sauce can easily become overpowering. I found that two drops of hot sauce to two  teaspoons of lemon juice worked out pretty well. Throw your coating on your salad. Mix it all up. try a mango. You know you got it right if the mango is sweet with just a hint of  HOT SAUCE. the hot sauce is most dominant on the mango, which makes mango salad such a unique mix of flavors.

Now bust out your avocado. When serving, take bit of avocado and GARNISH your salad with them. Sounds weird? Just trust me. It tastes SPECTACULAR.

YOU ARE NOW PRO.