Honey Sesame Ginger Soba Noodle Salad

Asian Sensation, not just a nickname of my Korean roommate in college, but also a good word to describe this easy cold salad dish. Soba noodle is an "O'tay" buckwheat noodle that cooks very fast, make sure not to over cook it. I'm hoping you got the O'tay as Buckwheat from the Little Rascals and not think its some part of China. The noodle definitely has a different/denser taste and therefore more filling I think. The flavors of the soy and honey and ginger go great with it. 

I originally had something like this at DeJohn's in Albany (try their martinis!) one summer outside on their patio. I was low on cash like more of my college life, and this was only like 8 bucks. I read the description and it sounded good, and out came a huge bowl of brownish cold noodles with fresh vegetables mixed throughout. Moving on, I was at Whole Foods for some strange reason and saw soba noodles on the shelf when I remembered the dish at DeJohn's. I bought the rest of the stuff to make it and checked DeJohn's menu to see what it was about again and tried to do a little spin-off of my own. It is a great salad and I brought the rest to work with me since it made so much, almost a whole pot, and the coworkers liked it also.

3 bundles of soba noodles (usually come in bundles of 3)
2 Tbsp sesame oil
2 Tbsp vinegar
2 Tbsp soy
3 Tbsp honey
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp chili flakes (optional)
1 Tbsp sesame seeds, toasted
4 scallions or small red onion, sliced finely
1 small carton of grape tomatoes, sliced in half
1/2 cup carrot, shredded
1 large cucumber, cubed

1. Bring a medium pot of water to boil. Add noodles and simmer for five minutes or until tender. Drain and rinse in cold water.
2. In a bowl, add the remaining ingredients, except for the sesame seeds and scallions. Mix to combine and pour over the noodles. Mix, taste, and adjust to your taste. Sprinkle over most of the sesame seeds and scallions, reserving a little for a garnish, if you like. Mix, garnish, and serve.

Tres Leche Cake (3 Milk Cake for non-believers)

Another dinner, another dessert. This was baked for the mexican dinner. I saw this cake originally in Whole Foods, they sell it by the square in the fancy dessert fridge section. I was intrigued by the half mexican name to this piece of cake sitting in a little puddle of milky substance in a small container. The ones at Whole Foods were just topped with whipped cream and cinnamon or nutmeg. I had bought a carton of strawberries at Publix and needed to use them so I figured I'd slice them up, I got creative with it and placed them in different directions and then another layer on top of that. I sprinkled a little powdered sugar over the final product to get the strawberry syrup . Overall, this dessert kicked ass and was liked by everyone. The creaminess (is that a word?) and the fluffy of the whipped cream with layers of strawberries -- f-ing awesome!!  It is a little different at first when you think about eating a cold soggy cake, but relax and eat it!

for the cake:

1-3/4 c flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 c unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 c sugar

5 large eggs

1-1/2 tsp vanilla

for the glaze:

1 12-oz can evaporated milk

1 14-oz can sweetened condensed milk

1 c half -and-half

for the topping:

2 c heavy cream

1/4 c powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

strawberries

Preheat the oven to 350°. Lightly grease and flour a 13x9 pan and set aside.Whisk together the cake flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt in a medium mixing bowl and set aside. Cream the butter and sugar in a bowl on medium speed until fluffy, about 2 minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, if necessary. Add the vanilla and eggs, one at a time, and mix to thoroughly combine. Add the flour mixture to the batter in three batches and mix until just combined. Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and spread evenly. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the cake is lightly golden. Allow the cake to cool and then poke the top of the cake all over with a fork. Whisk together the evaporated milk, sweetened condensed milk, and the half-and-half in a medium bowl. Once combined, pour the glaze over the cake. It will seem like a lot of glaze! The cake will not completely soak up the glaze until it has sat overnight. Place the heavy cream, powdered sugar, and vanilla into the bowl of a mixer. Beat/whisk together until stiff peaks are formed. Increase mixer to medium speed and whisk until thick. Spread the topping onto the cake. Slice strawberries and layer them across the whipped cream. Allow it to chill in the fridge until ready to serve.

Tex-Mex Baguette

For a "family dinner" this past Sunday, we had a Mexican themed dinner. Jen made carne asade pork tacos, lime quinoa and black bean salad, and a roasted corn and black bean salad. I made these (as I am dubbing them) Tex-Mex Baguettes and a Tres Leches Cake (recipe for the cake to follow). The baguette was very easy to make and took little time.

Either a soft baguette or I used a long thin loaf of French Bread (thanks Publix)
Pico de gallo (either store bought or I made my own, cut up 3 tomatoes, half and onion, cilantro, garlic powder, S&P)
Queso dip
Guacamole ( I used store bought since I hate cutting/scraping avocados)
can of re-fried beans

Preheat oven to 325F. Slice bread diagonally just less than an inch thick. Place bread slices on baking sheet and drizzle a little olive oil across the bread and place in open for about 5-7min or until just toasted. Next, spread the re-fried beans down on the bread (acts as a glue) and then put the Pico on that. Next (if you buy the Wholly Guacamole it comes in a small bag, cut the corner off) and squirt some guacamole across that and finally top it off with a dollop of queso. Put in over for 5-7 minutes until queso is melted nicely. Serve.

Sa-vee-chay? Ceviche!

If you watch Top Chef, or Hell's Kitchen, you often hear the term ceviche ... WTF?! Even this blog doesn't know what that word is and tries to correct it to crevices or cervical ... ???? Again I had a 'family dinner' to go to and always like to try new things so I found a recipe for an easy shrimp ceviche. Ceviche is a technique of 'cooking' a raw food in a citrus base for several hours, cooking is in quotes because you heat the raw food, it's cold. Some people may be turned off from the raw/cooked shrimp and not try but they truly are missing out on this great appetizer served with tortilla chips. Next time I think I'm going to add some jalapenos for a little heat.

1 pound of raw shrimp (medium size)
1 red onion, chopped
2 avocado, cubed
4 lemons
4 limes
3 tomatoes, chopped
1/2 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
salt and pepper

Chunk the shrimp into small pieces (about 3-4 chunks per shrimp) and place in large bowl. Juice the lemons and limes over the shrimp (try to make sure most of the shrimp are covered by the juice) and place bowl in fridge for 4 hours stirring the shrimp every hour or so. Add the onion, avocados, tomatoes, cilantro and s&p and stir all to mix up. Place in fridge for another half hour or so to let flavors mix. Place in serving dish and serve with tortilla chips.

Espresso Mocha Cupcakes with Whipped Caramel Cream Cheese Frosting

Just how good does the title sound?! Well it's pretty much as good as they were. A nurse on one of the floors mentioned to me that I should make mocha cupcakes, and I told her that I really don't like the taste of coffee and chocolate together. But I had just bought my Kitchenaid Stand Mixer and wanted to make something with it. So I thought of using my espresso maker (since I like how espresso tastes, not coffee for some reason, except Starbucks and the Dunkin Donuts I lived off of in college.. but anyways) and making a caramel espresso cupcake, but instead I made whipped caramel cream cheese frosting.

1-1/3 all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup milk
2 shots of espresso (about 1/2 cup)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup light brown sugar
1 egg


1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Make espresso and set aside to cool to room temperature.
2. Whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
3. Beat the butter and both sugars together on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes. Add the egg and beat until combined. In a measuring cup, combine the milk, espresso and vanilla. Slowly add the flour mixture, alternating with the coffee mixture, ending with the flour mixture.
4. Pour batter into cupcake liners about 2/3 full. Baking for 17-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean. Let cool.

I actually messed up my original plan for caramel cream cheese frosting but after I added the caramel flavoring to it, it was too runny for cupcakes so I made a batch of real whipped cream and folded that into it - a great decision by me.

1/2 stick butter unsalted, at room temperature
6 oz cream cheese (3/4 of a 8oz block), softened
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 tsp caramel syrup flavoring (I had some as a coffee flavorer, maybe ice cream caramel would work?)
10 oz heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 cup confectioners sugar

1. Mix together cream cheese, butter, caramel and vanilla until smooth. Slowly add confectioners sugar until a frosting is formed. Set a side.
2. Whip whipping cream and granulated sugar until stiff (tip the bowl over and it won't fall out)
3. Fold in caramel frosting into whipped cream, if still runny add more confectioners sugar and mix on low.

Root Beer Float-cakes

Have you ever really looked at the type of extracts and concentrates in the baking aisle? You know they have the regular vanilla and almond, then they get into lemon and orange, and then you see maple and then ROOT BEER???!!! I am a big fan of root beer vodka (courtesy of Three Olives) and figured what the hell, maybe I can add it to vodka and save me some money. Then since I started this whole cupcake thing, BAM! Root beer cupcakes. Makes ~12 cupcakes.

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1/4 cup dark cocoa powder

1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 teaspoons root beer concentrate

1/2 cup root beer soda

1/2 cup heavy cream

1/2 cup butter, melted

2 tablespoons sour cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a bowl, whisk egg and sugar until smooth and no lumps remain. Add cream, butter and vanilla, and mix until combined. Stir in sour cream. Sift dry ingredients together and add to wet mixture. Add root beer concentrate and root beer. Mix until batter is smooth. Line a muffin tin with liners, add batter to each cup about 3/4 the way up. Bake for 15-18 minutes. Let cool before frosting.                                              
Vanilla and Root Beer Frosting

1 1/2 sticks butter, softened

4 cups powdered sugar

1 1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract

2 tablespoons milk

1/2 teaspoon root beer extract

In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream butter until smooth. On low speed, add powdered sugar one cup at a time, increasing speed to bring the frosting together. Add milk, vanilla extract and root beer concentrate. Mix until uniform and smooth.

Hitch up your Bloomers!

I do not own a Fry-daddy or whatever they are called, but if I did .... then I would make Blooming Onions at least twice weekly. The best ones I have ever had were at the Great NYS Fair in Syracuse, NY. I would either go with my parents or siblings and set out for an entire day of eating, who gives a shit about the actual fair when there is fair food everywhere?! Since I don't own a fryer, I found an awesome recipe for Blooming Onion Bread, real easy, real good!

Blooming Onion Bread

1 large unsliced loaf sourdough bread 

1.5 - 2 pounds Monterey Jack cheese, thinly sliced

1.5 sticks butter, melted

1 cup finely diced green onion

2 teaspoons poppy seeds

1 teaspoon garlic salt

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cut the bread lengthwise and widthwise without cutting through the bottom crust. This can be a little tricky going the second way but the bread is very forgiving. Place on a foil-lined baking sheet. Insert cheese slices between cuts. Combine butter, onion, and poppy seeds in a mug and microwave until melted. Drizzle over bread and sprinkle garlic salt over the bread. Wrap in foil; place on a baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. Unwrap the bread and bake 10 more minutes, or until cheese is melted.