Rocky Road Cookies

Apparently, there are different versions of the "Rocky Road" flavour. Therefore, I don't think it's wrong calling these leftover-Halloween-candy-pieces cookies "Rocky Road" cookies. They have oatmeal, marshmallows, peanut M&Ms, rock-shaped chocolate with realistic rock-like sugar coating (I used to pass by a chocolatier at Penrith Plaza when  I was younger, in Australia, and they used to have golden and silver beads/sprinkles/candy balls on display. I don't remember if they had rock-like coating chocolate, though), one peanut butter bunny from April, 3 malt balls, and milk chocolate chunks.

My sister and I made half a batch of cookies using a recipe from a brand-name sponsored recipe book. Why did I buy a recipe book full of food company advertising? ...This was 4 years ago (wow...that long?) and I was in NY and the Strand was having a sale (closing sale?) and I got a thick hardcover recipe book for $1 with pages after pages of shiny, colourful pictures of scrumptious desserts!! So, I did it for the pictures.

Come on, why else -apart from the images- do recipe books sell nowadays, with millions of equally fancy (or, even better...like the recipes I have, which have comments on better technique and economical energy usage?) recipes online?

Half the batch ended up providing us with 31 cookies. Yummy.

By the way, the Australian version of "Rocky Road" is evidently superior to the American version (in my opinion, drawn from experience). According to Wikipedia (I know, not a completely correct source), the American version is just marshmallow, nuts, and milk chocolate--that is true. The Australian definition, however, includes things such as COCONUT, TURKISH DELIGHT and jelly!--that is true also.

Fake Mousse

Half-melted ice cream refrozen for a few hours or so makes 2 layers. One layer is chocolate mousse, and the other is sorta chocolate flavoured snow cone. No kidding. I suppose the water (being more dense than fat) sinks down, while the fat stays at the top. The water freezes because it's 0 degrees. The fat, however, is solid at room temperature (saturated!) so it makes this creamy mousse thingy...

Cupcake & Notes

A few things...
0. Penn has decided that they'll email about food events literally 4 hours before the event occurs. However, because I have my sources, I know about free food events months in advance. Not that it makes much of a difference... so Penn had a "Winterfest" thing wherein they gave out waffles, candy, ice cream, marshmallows, and nuts (run by SPEC). Although I have no right to criticise, they really should consider a better setup. Why bump all the tables next to the walls? Why not have people line up on BOTH SIDES of the table to obtain food? This would - what do you know?! - shorten the line by 50%!!

Got my waffle and ice cream.

1. TJ gave me a cupcake from the dining halls. I'm surprised Penn Dining made desserts that are really pretty-- I mean, look at the squiggly peppermint candy! It tasted like a normal cupcake. But it's pretty.

2. Applesauce tastes like chunky ketchup. I am not kidding. It's sour... it's sweet... it's ketchupy.

3. Another Penn event was Amy Gutmann's "Holiday" study break/party. I didn't bring my camera, which was rather stupid. The place was classic-game themed. Obtained lots of smoked cheese. TJ and I were about half an hour early for it, and I did it at the expense of studying for organic chemistry (haha...terrible class...), although in retrospect, I actually don't think that my grades were negatively affected.

4. We all know that my college house should've won the Power Down Challenge. Since the authorities say that we didn't win, we had a party anyway, and we raffled off a Kindle, scooters, water bottles, rechargeable batteries, and a recycling bin. Twenty pizzas.

5. I'm home. I open the fridge. What I see resembles what I saw when I opened the fridge when I came back at Thanksgiving...

6. JM, GM and I ran to Starbucks and they got the Caramel Apple Spice, which was basically creamy apple cider. I didn't try it though. I got a Green Tea Frappuccino. In the winter? I know right...reminds me of the time JM and I ran to Colaco's Creamery, got ice cream, and walked back home in the snow eating it. I've been wanting to try it for the past year, but I never got around to it...not really sure why. In any case, we walked back in the chilly weather while I was slurping on layers of fat and sugar (no picture of it though) -- it was a beautiful minty green colour, and it tasted like vanilla ice cream. Nothing bittery/tea-like about it. I suppose the colour made up for it though.

Fritatta Thing!!

EXAMS ARE OVER.

I can write about food now for a month (before school gets hectic again)!! TJ and I made some sorta frittata thing with broccoli and a LOT of smoked cheese and garlic. We also put in uncooked spaghetti, which was a good idea for the parts of the pasta that were smothered in egg/broccoli/water/cheese mixture, but was otherwise crunchy. The original disposable aluminium container had a hole in it, and in the oven, egg mixture started dripping out :( So I had to switch pans).
 CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESE.

Thanksgiving Lunch

Shoot (the turkeys). I'm a week behind in posting...while everyone else is posting about Christmas and other festivities, I'm still writing about last Thursday, Thanksgiving. I should've posted this 168 hours ago, since it happened that long ago.

I woke up from my 12-hour slumber (from midnight to noon...and let me tell you, that was roughly how much sleep I'd gotten in the past 3 days added together) to my mum telling me that we were leaving in 10 minutes.

"10 minutes?! Where are we going?"
"HM's family* invited us for lunch at a Chinese restaurant."

HM is my sister's friend, and is currently my sister's age.

So I lounge around, brush my teeth, and instead of having some toast (or congee, because that's no doubt what my mum would've made. Actually, that's what I had on Saturday and Sunday morning), I clamber into the car and feel content that I'm eating a full-out Chinese set meal for my Thanksgiving breakfast/lunch/dinner.

So, I've never had a legitimate American Thanksgiving dinner before, with family. No one in my extended family celebrates Thanksgiving since they're all in China (except for one cousin in Australia). Another year passes, and I've still yet to have a traditional "Amercian Thanksgiving". Actually, my brother and I went to my friend PL's church's Thanksgiving party in 2003, but I don't remember much at all (did I even eat much? Probably not...). Either way, like I said last year, I'm supposed to be thankful all the time,  not just one day in the year (on which we, as a family, argue, anyway).

 Since my parents ordered some set lunch (with a lot of dishes...), while we spent some 20 minutes waiting for the food, the kids (HM, HM's cousins & my sister) got impatient, so we ordered some dimsum. Delicious glutinous rice ball with peanut filling and coconut!! Delicious egg tart!! The kids devoured the spring rolls. My sister noticeably ate food with more zeal...I guess it's because that's what the other kids were doing. "Peer pressure", says my brother.

Note that I have two chopsticks initially, but in the egg tart picture I only have one chopstick. My other one rolled onto the floor :(

This restaurant likes to garish its plates with wafer-thin orange slices and cucumber slices. Here is a plate of  jellyfish, ham, and ...
"Hmm what's that?" - my brother.
"Squid." - I say.
"No it's not. Mum, what's that?" (getting my mum to eat more food)
"I don't know."
"Dad, what's that?"
"I don't know -- let me ask -- what's this?"
"It's squid." -- Waiter.

I was right all along and all I had to do was glance at the slices of white and orange.

 Fried glutinous rice with red bean paste and sesame!!
Still one chopstick.

 Note garnish.

 This one had cucumber garnish, and it was delicious!! The cashews were great, and the white cubes are water chestnut.
Note that I now have two chopsticks. Funnily enough, one of HM's cousins also lost a chopstick. They were trying to shoot a chopstick at a plate using a piece of elastic.

 Mushroom and vegetables. That spongy stuff is also apparently a sort of fungus. It was great.

 My brother ate lobster. I never knew that they gave mini 3-pronged forks with the lobster.

 A chicken (with head). My mentor told me today that she has a Korean friend who used a chicken for Thanksgiving instead of a turkey, which is pretty funny. However, by this time, there was so much food that no one actually ate the chicken.

 Note food. The noodles with mushrooms were nice.

China Gourmet
482 Eagle Rock Ave.
West Orange, NJ 07052