Hamantashen!

A's house = hamantashen paradise.
Seriously, we made probably 391 hamantaschens.
Don't believe me? Check these blurry images out [I didn't bring my camera so I used my phone... JB brought her pro camera and took a zillion photos, and each click had that awesome shutter noise... but I can't use her images because this is my blog and I believe there are some copyright issues at some print in the book. Anyway.]!

Apricot, strawberry, raspberry, chocolate chip hamantashens. Note the chocolate chip dough :D My favourite jams are apricot jam and cherry jam. I don't really have a predilection for strawberry jam... maybe because I've had it for all my life. Oh, and the secret to the "best" hamantashen dough? Orange juice!!!!

Random pictures from my phone.

I'm too tired to update much after shovelin' for two hours. 120 minutes. I actually wanted to make snow cream today but it was 5 when I was done and I just wasn't in the mood, and I made pretty crappy mocha today... :(

So here are just some pictures from my phone from around town.

Pumpkin Ravioli at the Ritz Diner... irregularly shaped [speaking of which, Mars hasn't emailed me back yet concering the mutant M&Ms], not very sweet, which was good because sweet ravioli with savour sauce would've been terrible. The sauce was awesome though. I don't think I'm obsessed over ravioli enough to order it again.

My first pretzel in the U.S... for free at Tom's River because we had Sectionals there. A and I just got back into the Bubble after going into the school to get water/bathroom, and there was this tray of pretzels [because the meet was nearly over] and people were taking them... so I took one. I chipped off all the salt though... it was really. Dry. But pretzelly. I was pretty happy about it... so I ate it prêtzelously ["haha!!!" - pretzel/zealously and "prêt" means "ready" en francais.]

First matzo ball of my life. In delicious vegetable soup made by A's mum.

Saw this at Target. Next to all that kiddy stuff - Hello Kitty notebooks, half toxic hand cream... etc.

M&M Premiums

I know it's been two months since Christmas, but [or, well, "Holiday", for Flying Spaghetti Monster believers a.k.a. me] but I still have some M&M Premiums left... approximately 1/5 of the bag is sitting in a plastic bag in my room, next to my desk. I decided to review this since I didn't eat anything remotely interesting today [but last night was the first time in my life in which I consumed a sourdough baguette. Actually, it was "Italian Bread", but I see it as a baguette because it was baguette shaped, and baguettey-textured]. Also, it's currently snowing outside. I'm hoping for a snow day tomorrow.

Anyway, these are so... "gourmet" in the sense that they make me feel like I'm not supposed to eat them. It's as though they're for display, not for consumption and digestion. Don't their shiny shells make them look.. ornamental? Seriously, the glaze-y shell is so. Pretty. Resplendent. It looks like someone threw glitter dust over it... And the different colours, ranging from a deep green to a beautiful pale mint green... has a chilling effect on me ["haha"; mint = cool = chilly]. I can stare at them for the whole day, the way I stare at falling snow.

Speaking of staring, I kinda had a bad day today.

Anyway, I really like these because the inside mint part isn't too minty, and nor is it ridiculously sweet like Peppermint Patties. The rather thick dark chocolate layer complements the mint, and the whole thing does not leave a clingy aftertaste. It's kind of like eating a mint-chocolate-ice-cube.

CHIPS!

Front.


Back.

I've fallen in love with a new food. TUSCAN HERB PITA CHIPS! By Stacy's. The company proclaims that it bakes the chips and has a "zesty blend of basil, oregano and garlic". In all honesty, I taste zero oregano, a pinch of garlic, and perhaps breathe a few fumes of basil through the back of my nose...
I'm kind of irked at the company, actually. Not really despise, but quite unhappy... because the back of the bag lauds: "The Art of Basic".
If by "basic", you mean "enriched wheat flour", "rosemary extract", "ascorbic acid" and "compressed yeast"... I mean, these are made out of basic ingredients, but they themselves aren't basic. It's like giving you a plastic bag and saying, "Hey, here's a puddle of petrol for you to start a fire!". It's not completely basic.

Another thing is that on its website, there is a recipe for making a vanilla smoothie. The ingredients and plating do not include any pita chips. I don't understand how that meshes with pita chips... It promotes vanilla, ice cream... fruit... milk... even ice! but not pita chips.

But without analysing them too much, they taste so light and crisp-bready and wonderful. I've fallen in love with these junky pita chips [okay, better than Fritolay can ever be].

Bagel CD...

Bagels.

Badge-alls.

Seriously, the first time I encountered this word was in HK when I was... 11? and I was at the Central Public Library, and I saw this logic puzzles book, and it posed this puzzle:

"Using three straight cuts, cut a bagel into 7 pieces." [At least, I think this is what it is. I've kinda forgotten.]

Before that, I had never heard of a bagel in my life. When I told SVC, she looked at me blankly, going "Badge-all???"

After I spelled it to her, she burst out laughing, in typical SVC fashion. "OHHHH BAYYY-GUL!!" In all honesty, the word "bagel" sounded so foreign to me.

The first time I tasted a bagel was ... my second day in the U.S., breakfast time at the Summerfield Suites in Parsippany [I think?]. It was so weird, because breakfast was so. Different.

So. Bagels now.

The cliche response is cream cheese.

Then it may be butter. Or bread. Or yeast. Flour. Cinnamon/raisin/"everything"/sesame etc. - all those cliche flavours.

Then PARMESAN! A didn't believe that they existed until I showed her this picture:

And I remember eating them [they're from Costco] a few years ago, but I don't eat them anymore due to the insipid fact that there is HFCS in them... makes me sad.

But I'm okay...because I somehow acquired a bagel CD. No kidding. I don't even know where I got it from, since when I play the CD, it is ... eh, not my type of music, and it's in a language that I do not understand. At all. There's this puppet show on it too [there's a video portion, too, on it].
So I think I'll use it as decoration now, since it has more visual appeal than audio.


Cute, hm?

A Letter to the M&Ms people

Hi,
I recently ate the M&M Holiday Mix from December. It was delicious, except for the fact that there were two mutant M&Ms. Not ONE, but TWO! In one bag! The first time in my life, and I've been eating M&Ms since even before the "3-years-old-choking-hazard" warning! The mutants actually look like two "normal" shaped M&Ms which are half merged together, and coated in the oh-so-artificial-candy shell.
Here are two images for you:

I personally don't mind the appearance of these, and they probably taste the same [I wouldn't know, since I still have them sitting in a bag for display :)] but I am sure that there are prissy people out there who would start suing you for "irregular" sized, or allegedly "sub-par quality" M&Ms. Do you have a machine that sorts out the "normal" shaped M&Ms from the "irregular" ones? Also, what do you do with the M&Ms that are "wrongly" shaped, or are too big, or are too sweet? Surely you don't throw them away?!?! I would like to let you know that I would adore receiving defective bags of M&Ms. I don't care what colour they are! Please email back.
-C

Fruit Jelly Candy

Back in 4th or 5th grade on the bus home from school, I saw a girl [who was in 1st or 2nd grade] eating a huge, [fakely] heart-shaped piece of candy. It was either red or green, I don't recall, but it looked a lot like jelly. It wasn't jelly though, because it wasn't falling to piece when she was holding. I figured that it was some kind of firm jelly candy that I definitely had never seen/tried before in my life.

Unfortunately, it took over half a decade for me to finally consume this jelly substance, which isn't even the exact same thing since it isn't fakely-heart-shaped. My mum bought a pack of strawberry/lemon/orange/green flavoured jelly gobs - I can't tell what the "green" flavour is, especially since the wrapper is blue. Can "green apple" flavouring have a sky-blue coloured wrapper?
The wrappers are gorgeous, by the way.

My mum threw away the bag it was in [typical] so I have no idea what these are called since I didn't check, but I did read the ingredients before hand. There was sugar, vegetable oil, gelatine, flavour and colour, apple juice.. I know this is the wrong order. I know that gelatine is basically boiled animal bones and joints and leftover pieces, but I still consume it once in a while in Centrum, this, and marshmallows. If I can find vegan marshmallows somewhere I think I will reverse this habit. [No, the ones that are $7 at Wholefoods does not count. I kinda despise Wholefoods.] But anyway. I disliked the fake pink ones, loved the blue and yellow ones, and I'm okay with the orange ones, since there is a gigantic whiff of orange flavouring. The green one was simply decaydent... mystery flavour anyone?
They were extremely chewy, sticky, sweet and long lasting if you didn't chew it [but who wouldn't?] They made me feel like a 6 year-old...

How to Cut.

Nectarines.

And I figure that apricots are easier, because the apricot flesh sticks more to itself than to the seed. Plums are harder to segment because they've a huge water content so when you pull it out you get mushy pieces and the membranes stick adhere to the seed better.

But hey I invented something - easy slicing. Nothing gets stuck in your teeth, plus you get nice wedges and a clean seed. No wasting :D

And if it's really fresh, the nectarine can be brought to lunch at some cafeteria where there are plastic knives. Though I personally recommend using re-usable knives [okay, you can reuse plastic knives], because that is less consumption = better for the planet.

Egg Tarts!

Here is a rare double post :D

Today I made egg tarts.

Yes. The almighty Hong Kong Egg Tart. The kind that costs 1HKD to get in HK, yet costs 1USD [7-8HKD] to obtain here in the U.S.

I made 25 of them today.

They did not fail.

And without further blabbering, I present: EGG TARTS!!!!!!!!!! :D

The sugar-butter-egg-flour shell. With vanilla.

The sugar-egg-egg-egg-egg-egg-egg-milk-water filling. With vanilla.

Add Heat. More Heat. Oooh it's sizzling. "It's hot, hot! So delicious... T-t-t-tasty-tasty." ... That's what she said.... Fergie, I mean.

Chinese New Year 2010

I haven't had time to update in the past two days, because I had to help my mum prepare for this Chinese New Year party that she wanted to have. Throughout the whole process, I was irked every single time I became aware of the fact that sexism is extremely prevalent in my family. Every time my mum was cooking or cleaning, my dad was sitting there chilling. Sure, my brother helped with the vacuuming, and my dad did go to buy some stuff for the party and took my sister to go to tennis and go swim, but he basically didn't help out with the preparation of the meals. I hate sexism.




Caramel and Nestle Butterfinger cookies. My mum bought a bag of Butterfinger candies and NO ONE in the house eats them. So I made them into cookies.
The night before, I made 50 vegetable spring rolls. No, they are not "egg rolls"! What the heck are "egg rolls" anyway? If spring rolls are considered "egg rolls" then I think we ought to call jelly [a.k.a. Jell-O] fresh organic fruit. In other words, IT IS FAR FROM THE TRUTH! [and that was an unintentional rhyme]. Anyway, I love rolling spring rolls, and making dumplings [even though I haven't made dumplings in about a year, because nowadays my mum just buys frozen dumplings, which I don't eat because of the animal components anyway...

My brother made sushi.
I used to love cured tofu but now I don't really have a predilection for it. Neither did the guests.