Bubble Tea Cookies!

I know that this sounds really cheesy, but I had a dream in which I was making bubble tea cake. I remember considering the logistics of the cake - how would it stand? Where do the bubbles go? How much does it have to look like a container of bubble tea? Straw? Do the bubbles stay at the bottom or are they distributed evenly throughout the (tea) cake? I remember applying bright orange icing to a cake shaped like a bubble tea container in the dream; in fact, it looked like this, except it was standing vertically and lacked the bottom and top. The rest of the dream seemed to be slightly morose, but I don't remember. 

Note: Throughout this post, I will refer to these tapioca pearls/bubble tea bubbles as "tapioca pearls" for consistency.

It turns out that no one has yet BAKED a tapioca pearl cake (or at least, I REALLY hope no one has ever done it). So, it's a race against time: I need to bake tapioca pearls into some sort of attractive cake thing, and post it on here. It will be an original product. When some famous celebrity chef finally does it in the future, people will search for recipes. MINE WILL SHOW UP and I WILL BE KNOWN AS THE ONE WHO DID IT BEFORE IT WAS COOL.

But first, what happens when you bake tapioca pearls?  Do they shrivel up? Or, do they get hot and steamy? Swell up and go hard? Explode? Pop like cherries? (Okay, I'll stop the jokes...)

So, here's a pilot test!

First, I made some cookie dough. I made half a batch of this vegan recipe, but I substituted the baking powder and water with baking soda and balsamic vinegar. There are also no chocolate chips or marshmallows. I added the balsamic vinegar right before adding the tapioca pearls, because the vinegar reacts with the baking soda.

Rehydrating "5-minute" tapioca pearls! A few months ago, they were $1.68, but now they are $1.98 at the underground Chinese grocery store in Chinatown :(. Throughout the semester, I would do this by boiling water using the electric kettle, pouring this water into my loose tea leaves in a tea strainer, sugar, and pearls, and cover my mug with a lid. After stirring about every 3 minutes for 10 minutes or so, the pearls would be chewy and edible.

However, I think that the pearls taste much better and are plumper when heated in boiling sweet tea on the stove.

For heating these instant tapioca pearls, I used about 1/4 of a saucepan of water, a handful of tapioca pearls and a tablespoon of brown sugar. There wasn't any tea in this rehydration, but I did use the leftover sugar mixture for tea.

After the pearls were cooked, I fished them out with a tea strainer and plonked them into the cookie dough. Leaving them in hot water for too long renders the whole pearl to taste uniform and starchy (well, it happened once, and I do not want to risk it happening again). After a quick mix, I scooped out the dough and baked the cookies according to that recipe. The mixture was really crumbly (think sand-like), so what I did was scoop up a tablespoon, squeeze my hand against the spoon, and keep squeezing until a ball was formed. The dough was kind of spongy.

AND THEY WORKED! They harden as they cool, so I ended up with crispy (but delicious) cookies that were devoured by my friends and SP. SP ate 5/12ths of the batch (of 12 cookies). The cookie recipe produced cookies that remind me of the almond cookies, like these, I used to get for 2 HKD  in HK near my piano exam place.
The tapioca pearls were chewy, not dry, and delicious! So, I will make a cake next time!

On the 18th day of the 6th month of the 2012th year of our wholesome flying spaghetti monster, I, PIE-314, OFFICIALLY MADE THE FIRST TAPIOCA PEARL COOKIES. EVER.

Hot Diggity

So! I haven't had an animal-filled hot dog since something like 2006. (Hmm. That's actually kinda scary). Sure, I make vegetarian hot dogs at home every once in a while, but it's not the same as biting into a slightly charred barbecue hot dog at a friend's place, or trying an overpriced hot dog at a fair. For some reason, everyone remembers the veggie burgers, but no one remembers the hot dogs. In all honesty, though, I've never had a super delicious veggie burger or hot dog; they all lack that meaty zing.

My most important hot dog memory is that of when I was really young in Australia (so maybe I was 5?), and my brother, dad, and I were probably at a town fair. It was a cloudy, possibly rainy, day, and there was a food truck on some sports field. My dad got a hot dog, asked the person in the truck to cut it in half, and my brother and I each had half of a delicious hot dog with tomato sauce. Other hot dog memories include consuming them at rugby games. I'm not sure why I absolutely LOVED rugby as a kid, but I know that I stopped liking once I realised that it was a "boys" sport and that others would make fun of me for it.

I don't think I've had many super hot dog memories since then, except that there was this brand in Hong Kong that sold cheese-filled sausages. If someone could tell me what the name of the company is, I'd be super grateful. They even sold cocktail hot dogs the size of baby carrots!

Anyway, my friend J and I went to Hot Diggity, which is on South St., because they have vegetarian (and vegan) hot dogs. I was super excited! They have multifarious flavours, a zillion cute posters lining the walls, and a warm atmosphere (with 3 long tall benches with holes cut into the middle so that one can plop the cone of fries into the holes--unfortunately, as both J and I got the "small" fries, we both feared that the cone would fall through).

I got the Desert Dog while J got the Big Kahuna (I think?). The sausage was much longer (5 cm?) than the bun, which was a little odd, as the sausages were also really skinny. The vegetarian sausage was a little bland, not really charred, and didn't have the juicy, squeaky, sausage texture. It was alright, though. The bread was nicely grilled, and the toppings were... dry. Despite there being a chili sauce spread on the bun, the whole hot dog was as dry as a plain slice o' cheese on a piece of bread. It lacked juiciness. Although some people may love the vegetarian hot dogs here, I was not a fan.

The fries were nice (when are non trans-fat fries NOT nice? They're even yummy frozen!) and they even had the skins on them. They aren't the best I've ever had, and they're thick cut (while I prefer thin). Each dipping sauce costs 25c, and the guy gave us the House flavour for free. It has horseradish and ginger, and tastes really similar to the salad dressing from Samurai Sushi. In the end, the best part was just hanging out with J and being... "social" with someone other than my boyfriend and/or 2 close friends.

This episode culminates in me wondering, again, why I am a vegetarian. Sure, it's easy to do, environmentally better, provided I don't eat a ton of other imported processed food (read: candy), possibly more ethical, and healthier (except for the lack of vitamin B12 and iron). However, I now miss eating animals a little. I miss being ignorant about the ingredients of burgers, miss contributing to abusive cattle farms in the Amazon rainforest, and miss devouring umami by the truckload.

However, what I really wish to be, and more for environmental than economical reasons, is a freegan. You know, forage for food, obtain food from dumpsters that have only expired by half a day, eating friends' leftovers etc. This way, I could eat pretty much anything (animal or plant or fungi) I want without guilt of ruining the environment, since all the energy used in producing said food would not be wasted (and energy to transport these expired/unwanted foods to the landfill would be saved! Better for all!). As I'm in a city, I feel like this should be easy to accomplish. I guess I'm just scared of going alone and/or being labelled as a weirdo.

2 Days in Philadelphia

I hung out for 2 days with SP before the semester begins (tomorrow)! We ate a bunch of food (no surprises there...):

1. Falafel food truck on 35th and Market St.

Thought I had escaped from rice since I'm not going to be home until at least March. Guess I was wrong. At least it isn't plain ol' steamed white rice (actually, the older I get, the more and more I appreciate eating plain ol' rice. Maybe it's because I have just grown to love food/carbohydrates, in general).
The falafel was kinda dry and crumbly and uniform in texture.

2. Ramune (Japanese drink with the marble that seals it until you push it down).

3. Singapore Chinese Vegetarian Restaurant 1029 Race St. (six stars out of five)

 Dim lighting (how utterly romantic!), cool tablecloth*, light green tea, and multiple utensils (fork, spoon, and chopsticks that seemed to be made out of a really absorbent wood). When passing me a fork, the owner (?) of the restaurant jokingly asked me, "Do you know how to use this?", and I replied "I'll try...he'll teach me [referring to SP]." (because SP isn't ethnically Chinese, but I am). Since moving to the US over five years ago, I've used chopsticks maybe 20 times in total, usually at restaurants that don't offer alternatives. My favourite eating utensil is probably the metal teaspoon.

 Stuffed tofu with amazing chunky ginger-peanut sauce. Dude. I could drink this sauce! I realise that I would probably be terrible at getting a guy via a dinner date. Especially with the picture-taking and my indecision. Particularly if there is a vegetarian menu with sections labelled "Beef", "Poultry", "Pork", and "Tofu" (all made with soy or gluten, of course).

 VEGGIES!! I am going to make stuffed tofu one day. I think they stuff the tofu AFTER stir-frying it, else the veggies would fall out.

 We also got dumplings. I want to drag SP here for dim sum one day, just because I love dim sum, and every time my family and I go to some dim sum place, most of the stuff has animal pieces. I didn't particularly love the dumplings because the filling was kinda mushy, and there was a lot of extra space inside the dumpling. SP liked them though.

 SP got a curry hotpot, and the veggies at the bottom were still tongue-burning-hot by the time the meal was over. It was pretty amazing, although I got my tongue burned a bit. I was going to get curry with gluten (read on the menu as "Curry with Beef") but I ended up getting Crispy Sweet and Sour Spare Ribs (gluten). I was debating between that and Sweet and Sour Pork Loin (soy), but the owner (?) recommended the gluten, so I got it. I mean, what do vegetarian chefs substitute animal bones with, right?

The sauce was really sweet. There were chunks of pineapple, tomato, pepper, carrot, and broccoli in the dish. I'm glad that this restaurant uses sundry vegetables in all its dishes (unlike other Chinese restaurants that pair broccoli with EVERYTHING) -- well, duh, it's a vegetarian restaurant.

The gluten ball tasted a bit like potato, a bit like gluten, and sort of had the appearance and texture of pig flesh. It obviously didn't taste like pig flesh. The sauce masked everything, though, which was neat. I'm going to believe that the "bone" part is just a potato fry, because that's what it tasted like. It was odd chewing the "bone". Seriously. It's like having an edible popsicle stick.
Note the brown rice.

At the end, we got 2 orange slices, 2 fortune cookies (grr) and 2 fried sesame balls with custard filling. My fortune was "The weather is nice". Great.
I think that for a sit-in vegetarian restaurant in the city, the meal was reasonably priced. With presumably fresh ingredients and a lot of veggies in the dishes, dim sum at night-time, a regular customer sitting in the corner reading a book (who ate a meal and also ordered take-out before leaving), and pretty tablecloths*, Singapore Chinese Vegetarian Restaurant is quite charming. SO BRING YOUR SIGNIFICANT OTHER(S) THERE!

*In looking at pictures of this restaurant online, I realised that they also have pink tablecloths. I prefer the paisley blue ones more)

4. Lotte Koala's March (cookies) - not a huge fan of them but SP loves them.

5. Lovash Indian Cuisine on 37th and Spruce St.

 More rice (long grain, rather cold -- but that may have been due to the weather, but the peas and paneer cheese were still warm). Some of the peas were still a bit hard, which means that they use dried peas, and not frozen ones. I love frozen peas and frozen corn. I eat frozen corn while it's still frozen, and I intend to do that with peas too, in the future (for other frozen things I eat, read here). The panner was less plasticky/smooth compared to paneer I've had before, and I'm not sure if that makes it more/less authentic.

 SP got chicken with something...It looked good because it was in a plastic container while mine was in a styrofoam one.

6. The Crepewalk, 36th and Spruce
Nutella crepe. Obviously better than the crepes that I made (which SP said were too thick). These are pretty much translucent!

Beijing Restaurant & Spherification

I have been here to get bubble tea, twice, and this time, I was here for lunch with my Advanced Genetics/Molecular Bio professor and 4 other students, at Beijing Restaurant. Penn has some sort of program that dishes out money to professors so that they can take students out to lunch, in order to know students better. It's pretty nice because in a class of 6, 40, or 200, it's really difficult to actually know your professor (and vice versa) if you only get to see him/her for 3 hours a week for some 14 weeks. Since I've been busy for the whole semester so far, I chose to have lunch after class on Tuesday (before the Thanksgiving break) since the only homework I have is programming (well, okay I have studying... but I'm not thinking about that right now)

So, I got a brown rice + vegetables + mushroom + tofu dish which had the name "Buddha" in it (I forgot the name on the menu) and we all talked about biology classes, graduate school, and hobbies. Quite pertinent to me, as I'm interested in grad school... and I never knew that the Rockefeller University was top-notch in the biological sciences! There are just so many possibilities in "food science"...

1. Research genetics of flavour/taste/receptors

2. Molecular gastronomy

3. Food engineering

4. Flavour creating

5. Food safety

6. Food policy

7. Nutrition/research/obesity...

8. Food-related diseases

9. Food companies.

Um, anyway, the rice and shiny glutinous vegetables were pretty nice.

In addition, I found out what the bubbles-filled-with-mango-goo is, in the "poppy soda"  from the Cube Cafe, where I visited this summer. There is a process called "spherification" in molecular gastronomy... in which sodium alginate is mixed with the liquid (mango pulp/juice in this case?) and calcium carbonate or calcium chloride is added to it, to form some sort of outer membrane. Alginate comes from brown algae, and calcium, chloride, and sodium ions are pretty safe at this amount, so I don't see anything wrong with poppy soda at the moment. Either way, I haven't researched this enough and this is a reason for pursuing food science. Not sure where the computer science falls in, though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherification

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alginic_acid

Vegetarian?

I'm not sure why I'm a vegetarian anymore.

Every reason I have can be argued against.

I eat chicken/quail/duck eggs (fish eggs? I don't know). I consume cow and goat milk products. I ingest gelatine every time I eat gummies and marshmallows. I guess I'm not really a strict vegetarian.

1. The environmental reason - the one I guess I believe in the most. Less energy is used to produce grain than it is to produce a chicken. I eat eggs though, which take a lot of energy to make (by the chicken). The environmental reason also doesn't hold when a piece of food gets thrown away. For example, if I happen to have a slice of sausage pizza, and I throw away the sausage, I'm wasting all the energy it took to grow corn, grow the cow, process the cow into sausage, transport the sausage, and cook the sausage on the pizza. Also, I eat a lot of processed foods (chips, chocolate) that take a ton of energy to process, transport, and package. Finally, the most environmentally friendly thing to do is to eat the minimum number of Calories needed to be a vegetable. A.k.a. not waste Calories by exercising. Fundamentally, the best way to be environmentally friendly is to die and decay in a forest somewhere.

2. Cost/convenience reasons. Being a vegetarian seems to be cheaper (unless you're really into buying vegan cheese and fake processed soy pepperoni that sells at some $13/lb) if you live on dairy, beans, nuts, and soy. Also, I don't know how to cook animals.

3. The "disgust" factor. Factory farms, squishy chicken butts being mashed into nuggets, fecal pieces in ground animal flesh...it's gross, yes, but it's also something that is easily avoided by being ignorant, or buying dead animals from a different company.

4. The "moral" reason which I haven't been believing in ever since I read on Wikipedia that lions eat animals. Well, duh, I knew that, but in the context of "Why can other animals eat animals, yet we can't?", it makes perfect sense that we, as animals, are able to eat animals. I guess I don't have much compassion for animals.

5. The health reason, which I never ever took into consideration, really. I know that I'm not protein deficient but sometimes I worry that I'm iron and vitamin B12 deficient. I'm not obese or overweight. However, I'm a living example that "vegetarian=healthy" is false, and I dislike that stereotype. Dude, I eat so much candy.

Apr 2005 - no chicken nuggets

Oct 2005 - no chicken, no gelatine.

Apr 2006 - no animals except fish/seafood, no gelatine.

Jan 2009 - no fish, no animals, gelatine okay.

Jul 2011 - I dunno.

I think it's just that I've been a vegetarian for so long (okay, not really that long) that it's just become habit. So now, if you asked me why I'm a vegetarian, I say "I just feel like it."

Maybe I should be a flexitarian-freegan-vegetarian-freeloader.

A Walk Down South (St)

The weather site stated that there would be a 100% chance of rain at 5pm.

There wasn't.

It didn't rain at all in Philadelphia the past week, even though rain was forecast for every single day of the week.

It doesn't interfere much with my life, though, because I've decided to start swimming more and running less, since my knees are kinda shot and I do want to be able to walk properly in another 60 years (hopefully!)

TJ and I walked from 41st all the way to Penn's Landing on South St. Of course, we stopped primarily at food stores and we did glance around some clothes stores but I'm not interested in clothes that much. One lady did comment on the skirt I was wearing, which is pretty funny (okay, digression: Some five years ago, my mum and I were walking to the bus stop after my

piano exam/practice in HK, and I saw a really small shop and they had a box of clothes outside for 20HKD; ~3USD. That's where I got this lovely skirt from...I wonder what else was in that box, because I don't remember anymore).

I forgot to bring my camera, which was extremely unfortunate because we went to Govinda's Vegetarian Restaurant, Phileo Froyo, and Wholefoods. The bright side is that I'm going to Govinda's again soon so I can actually write a real review of it. I probably won't go back to Phileo's just because I'm not a froyo fanatic.

I got the Pepper Steak Cheesesteak made with soy protein, green peppers, mozzarella cheese and oil, on a whole wheat bun. It was hot, umami, and the bread was nicely toasted. There was a LOT of filling, and the texture was phenomenal. Although more pricey than "real" steak cheesesteaks, it was still delicious, juicy, and worth the walk. I'll do a real review in a week or so, when I get to take pictures. In short, I'm probably going to Govinda's at least another 3 times in order to try the Chicken Cheesesteak, the Sloppy Joe, and the Kofka/meatball sub (not to mention the desserts!). Maybe Govinda's is my favourite restaurant now. Yeah, actually, I think I've decided that my favourite restaurant is Govinda's To Go.

Phileo Froyo: Philadelpia, Phila = love, "Fill-y-oh", "Philly-Yo"; it's an awesome shop name. I tried a sample of tart kiwi froyo, which was extremely delicious!! For actual froyo, I got the peach, the cookies and cream, and the lychee. I also tried a bit of TJ's coconut, which had actual shredded coconut pieces in it. The lychee flavour is simply the best; it tastes light and watery, just the way real lychees taste! The flavour is exact! (Okay, a bit creamier) The peach flavour was ... peachy. Mild. Cookies and Cream tasted more like ice cream than light froyo, and reminded me of this time I got chocolate gelato, which didn't taste as good as rose gelato... so, I suppose if I want to enjoy froyo for being "froyo", I should get the fruity flavours instead. Still, nice experience.

At Wholefoods, TJ and I each got a sample of Fage Greek Yoghurt with honey, because they were having a sale of $1/150g container - BUT ONLY THE 0% fat honey, 2.5% fat honey, 2.5% fat cherry, 2.5% fat strawberry, and 2.5% blueberry. No plain flavour :(. No 0% fat cherry :( WHY!! I love 0% fat [real] cherry yoghurt.

I ended up buying a box of twelve 0% fat honey because

0. I enjoy eating yoghurt, especially Greek yoghurt.

1. $10.80 vs. $21.48

2. 12 days of high-protein/calcium breakfast covered! 13 g protein! 0g fat!

3. Now I have something sweet for dipping my 100% unsweetened baking chocolate.

Spring Fling 2011!

Spring Fling 2011. The yearly event that everyone loves, because of the blatant alcoholism and horde of people wavering around drunk. The event in which alcohol is in every bottle and cup. The event in which wearing neon is purely acceptable, and wearing those huge sunglasses and no pants is classy snazzy.

Despite missing the Fling concert, my friends and I did have a lot of fun with a lightsaber fight with glowsticks, and walking around, eating food, and watching movies. We went to the Burger Fling, an event right before the Fling concert. It was advertised as a huge barbecue, but it was nothing of the sort; all we did was stand in line indoors, get a plate of food, and disperse. Because I asked for a veggie burger, I had to wait an extra 11 minutes for them to cook it :( but it was pretty good, and I got an extra slice of cheese with it. I also got a pretty fresh and yeasty pretzel. It wasn't bland, airy, and untextured.

Tonight, I present you with the carnival! The carnival was supposed to be on College Green, but since It's been raining for the past 12 hours, it was moved into Houston Hall. Somehow, they managed to stick in a whole bunch of food samples, a jumping castle, two mechanical bulls, and over the fire-hazard-limit number of people&umbrellas onto two floors, and everyone actually seemed happy about it!! I had arrived a bit early, and there were already lines forming. I got some key lime water ice, and the best part was that it was a full container of it! It was delicious, although I think that the cookies and cream flavour was way better (I tried some of CC's. He actually preferred the fruity ones since mixing cream and water didn't seem to be his thing).

I also got some Chipotle, but they didn't really offer what I wanted; it was just a flour tortilla with cheese, tomato, and lettuce. Dude. Where're the beans? The guacamole? The salsa? Where are all the things that make a Chipotle burrito a Chipotle burrito? Yes, I understand that they had to feed some 1000 or so of us with a limited budget, but this gave TJ a bad impression of Chiptole. As I am already biased towards Chipotle, I don't really mind but now TJ will value Qdoba over Chipotle :(

Actually, I did try some Qdoba tortilla chip dip. It was pretty good-cheesy, spicy, drinkable like soup, so I ended up chugging most of it since we ran out of chips. My friend took a picture of me drinking it, and that's the closest picture I have to the cliche plastic-red-cup-filled-with-vodka image. Haha.

Boxes of...

Costco churros! This is the second (?) Costco churro of my life, and although it tasted rather stale and dry, the inside was quite delicious and spongy!

Samosas from...someone, filled with potato and peas and spicy stuff- Amazing! (still vegetarian although it looks like there's cow mince in there)

...And the grand finale...THE MAGIC CARPET MEATBALL PITA! Delicious mustardy cheesy something light kinda sauce (Not sure what it is), seedy nutty delicious falafelish smooshed non-meat meatballs with crunchy lettuce and a crusty pita - AMAZING! I really have to advertise Magic Carpet now! Next year... Gonna buy from this food truck!

Vegan Whoopie Pie!

So at one of those late night events there was a Vegetarian society meeting thingy and there were these cakes and stuff and a "make-your-own" whoopie pie table. I have never had a legitimate whoopie pie before. Honestly... is the stuff inside supposed to be marshmallow fluff? Cream? Whipped cream? PHOs? Meringue?...

These cupcakes were amazing though... especially as they were vegan.

This is a vat of peanut butter whoopie pie filling. It was actually tasty. Notice the marker nearby... just for size comparison. It was a HUGE vat of... sugary fat.

The pillow-sized vats of plain whoopie pie filling and cookies and cream [and I didn't think that more cream was possible] whoopie pie filling. Huge vat of gooey creamy white stuff... ring a bell? Get this in a bank? [Okay, that was a terrible joke. Or, reference. So, I'm not going to underline it.]

Since I am a neophyte at making whoopie pies, I put way too much creamy stuff on the chocolate cookie-cake thingy [which was really dry and bland. And baking-soda-y. I didn't like it.] It was way too oily. The cupcake below, on the other hand, was ridiculously moist and delicious. I didn't consume any of the other stuff [pumpkin, and vanilla, I believe.] since I, for once, didn't feel hungry.

Soy Butter

When we were in Weymouth, MA, I bought some soy nut butter because it was on sale. It was $1.43 for 425g, and this was only because its sell-by date was in two months. I, however, consume nut butters at a rate greater than 212.5 grams/month. Actually, I long to consume a jar of peanut butter within 24 hours, but I think that might kill me, or I might end up regretting it after going through seven rounds of liposuction. Anyway.

If I had to choose, I would always choose peanut butter over any other nut butter [okay, soybeans are legumes... not nuts...so it's technically out of the count. So, let's just say, out of all butters, I'd pick peanut butter]. However, the past few days, I have been utterly obsessed with this crunchy soy butter. Jar appearances aside, this stuff. Is. Creamy. With a nice random crunch, once in a while. Unlike crunchy peanut butter [which I haven't had in at least five years], the crunchy soy parts do not get stuck in my teeth, and nor do they make the butter hard to spread. It's a win-win situation! It's quite neutral tasting, so even people who don't like toasted soy beans will probably enjoy this, although it does not in any way taste like peanut butter. The jar is actually kinda cheesy in both appearance and company name/logo [haha... I.M. Healthy...]. It is not completely healthy though, in my perspective, since there are 15 grams of fat per serving. "Good" fat, yes, but "bad" in the sense that it's, well, fat. As a vegetarian, 90% or more of my fat comes from the monounsaturated or polyunsaturated variety, yet I am not skinny. So, it really depends on how MUCH one consumes. In which case I lose. Every day. So, they should instead name themselves SoyJoy, if that name hadn't already been taken by a granola bar company. This is literally Soy Joy.

The last time I tried soy butter was the creamy one from Trader Joe's... two years ago. It didn't leave that much of an impression on me, and I preferred almond butter to it [Have you noticed how THICK and CREAMY almond butter is? It is literally the densest [read: oiliest] butter out there.

So, this is a completely biased and laudatory post, but I do blog about what I consume, and I basically have been chugging through the jar the past week or so.

My first meal at Penn

I know that I should've updated this a LONG time ago [read: April] but I was so caught up in school and stuff... plus, the quality isn't great, due to the fact that I was using my camera phone, which does not have flash. On the other hand, my camera phone has served me really well, and is the most useful function on my phone. Honest. [I don't use text messaging]. So, for the Penn Preview Day, we all had lunch at the 1925 Commons place. I'm definitely going to be blogging about this cafeteria a LOT during the next... wow... four years [unless I get expelled or drop out or something...] so this post technically shouldn't be a big deal. It was a Friday, and the garlic bread/toast was really crunchy.

These are vegan wraps, filled with lettuce, tomato, onion, and tofu. The grilled tofu wasn't that great in my opinion, and the wrap itself was really dry. And bland. I suppose this is the cliche "diet" or "vegetarian" dish. It was sorta mediocre... I don't mind eating it, but its lack of flavour is rather disappointing.

The chocolate cookie was dry. I like chewy, soft cookies, so I can't really vouch for them... I suppose those who like dry, crispy cookies would like these, though. I also learned that I don't like pretzel Goldfish crackers. The tortilla chips, were very crunchy and aesthetically pleasing. I wonder if they actually make these from scratch?

Okay. The marshmallow and rice cereal square is amazing! As you have noticed...I ate at least three of them. [I actually ate more than that. This reminds me of a day two summers ago, when I ate at least 10 packets of Kellogg's Rice Krispie Treats. In one day. Yes, I was obsessed that one day. I've yet to do such a thing again...] They were soft and gooey, and NOT stale, even though they'd been sitting there for ages...[trust me, stale marshmallow squares, like the ones at Borders, are dry. And not sticky. And lack the marshmallow texture]. These ones were really moist and I could literally "sink" my teeth into them and have them stuck there perpetually... except that sugar is polar and my saliva is polar.

I don't think anyone knows what I'm talking about when I mention the pizza crust from the Pizza Hut pizza [mini, cut into 4 pieces] at Penrith Plaza in 1999, or 2000. However, if you consume the pizza crust at 1920 Commons... you get a nearly identical taste. And texture. And smell. Oh nostalgia...This would be the only reason I'm going to be consuming pizza at Penn. Well, the topping was nice, too :), but the crust was a reminder of childhood. Which is ironic, since I haven't had "American" Pizza Hut pizza, ever.

CHILI SIN CARNE!

CHILI sans la viande - without animal pieces...instead, there are roman beans and lima beans and TVP and pickles and artichokes and tomato and parmesan and onion and crushed up tortilla chips [the leftovers].

A.k.a., awesome-everything-I-love-chili!

In fact, this chili even looks better than these here! YAY! This is just to prove to my brother that my plating, in fact, is not substandard [I've never really liked the idea of plating though, because it makes food appear more as an ornament than as a food].

Onions, artichokes, pickles, getting "gently browned"

Rehydrated TVP with dried chili and tomato paste marinade.

Adding the lima beans!

Ingredients:

1. A LOT of water. Keep adding cups of water throughout the.... 3-4 hours it takes to cook. I was initially going to make tomato/chili soup but that would mean that I used twice the amount of water. Which would've required a larger pot. Which I do not possess.

2. Lots of tomato paste!

3. Garlic

4. Onions! LOTS!

5. Pickles

6. Artichokes in oil - we have a jar of them. I don't know why, since no one in the family except for me and my brother has actually ever heard of the term "artichoke" before. I don't know who bought these... just that they've been sitting in the fridge for a while. Well, at least it covers the "oil" part of the chili.

7. Two cups of Roman beans. Soak these for a few hours. They take AGES to cook.

8. Half a cup of lima beans. They swell TREMENDOUSLY when soaked for a few hours. Literally 2.3 times their original sizes.

9. Half a cup of dried TVP, mixed with two cups of water and one scoop of tomato paste and two packets of dried chili. This way, the flavour gets "infused". Supposedly.

10. One cut up Boca burger since I dislike eating them grilled.

11. Leftover tortilla chips with the salt at the bottom.

12. Herbs - oregano, basil.

13. Quinoa, just because.

Method:

Cook everything on low heat for a few hours in a giant pot. Cook for an hour, turn off the heat, and go to XC practice for three hours. Come back later at around 9:30pm and continue letting the stuff simmer on low heat, adding water every now and then. When the roman beans are done, the chili is ready. The roman beans determine the cooking time!!

I wonder who else makes chili at 10:41 pm.

I ended up with a lot of chili. Look at that! Three boxes of chili. BUT IT'S AWESOME BECAUSE I LOVE CHILI!

The last time I made chili was the first day of school last September. It wasn't as great as this one. This one is "awesome-sauce"ly thick and beany and protein-filled! And it DOES NOT taste bland... for those of you who think vegetarian stuff is "rabbit food". It is NOT.

Hunan Manor

Hello Doctor State, a.k.a MD, Maryland!
After being in the car from 3:45pm to 8:15pm, we finally arrived at my parents' friends' house. They then drove us to dinner at Hunan Manor, which - surprise surprise - is a Chinese restaurant. I personally didn't have a great impression of it when I went in, because of this:
Dude, it's nearly mid 2010. And, "dungenese" isn't that great to advertise to people who speak English.
They actually, though, had a ton of vegetarian stuff that was, well, DELICIOUS.
The weird fried flour thing:
Napkin roses; the one on the right is mine, the one on the left is my brother's:
Fried tofu with mushrooms:
Sweet and Sour "Pig" [a.k.a gluten]. Actually, I was gonna get Sweet and Sour "Chicken" [a.k.a gluten], but the waitress literally said, "That one doesn't taste good." Then again, the "pig" dish cost more, so I guess that was their marketing ploy. Either way, it looks like the real thing, and the sauce was really good! The "pig/gluten" part itself though was really dense so I suppose it depends on people's preferences. I don't think I really like dense stuff, except fudge and brownies and toffee [you get the picture].