white chocolate + macadamia nuts= the best cookies I wish I never made (because now I can't stop eating them)

So I troll around the web looking for recipes all day long and usually gravitate towards cookies and the like and this morning was no exception. My pantry is always stocked with the basics: all-purpose flour, baking soda/powder, sugar, butter and Guittard chocolate chips (these are the best if you're ever in need of chips and were on-sale 2/$5.00 at Safeway...score!) However this morning I found this recipe http://www.handletheheat.com/2010/03/white-chocolate-macadmia-nut-cookies.html for white chocolate chip macadamia cookies and found myself walking a mile from my house to Safeway to buy white chips and macadamia nuts. Thank god I walked because these cookies turned out so good that if I hadn't done some kind of physical activity today, I would be feeling guilty about having a second (or a third) and so now I must drop the rest of these cookies off with friends and neighbors because if they remain in my house any longer, I might be tempted to eat them all.

My Wanton Desire...

For some comfort food is a rich bowl of beef stew or creamy, cheesy lasagna, but in my case its a big bowl of wanton soup with egg noodles. Usually I would head into the city and pay a visit to my favorite hole in the wall Chinese restaurant with plastic flowers and live seafood in the back but not today; instead I decided to make my own wanton soup. The concept sounds complicated, and it does require one to run a mini sweatshop in your kitchen in order to wrap wantons but it is well worth the effort when you realize that you can now have a bowl of comfort anytime of day.

The recipe is pretty simple:
-1/2 cup of lean ground pork
-1/2 cup of prawns, minced
-2tsp of salt
-1tsp of pepper
-1tsp of sesame oil
-wanton skins

Soup stock:
-1 head of cabbage, slice into quarters
-2 carrots
-2 daikon (found at asian markets)
-1 to 2 tbs of preserved cabbage
-1 onion, grilled over the stovetop
-salt and pepper to taste

extra:
-egg noodles
-napa cabbage
-green onions

combine all the ingredients and fill the wanton skins with about 1tsp of filling; rub two of the four edges of the wrapper with some egg yolk+water (egg wash) and pull up the opposite edges to form a triangle, now crimp the edges so that you form a purse like dumpling. You can either drop the wantons into boiling water (they are done when they float to the surface) or you can steam them in a bamboo steamer. Bring some water to a boil, dunk some egg noodles until soft (just a few minutes) place in a bowl with some napa cabbage and sliced greens onions. Finish bowl with 4-5 wantons and lots of steamy hot soup...done and done!

Gyudon- Japanese rice bowl with sliced beef and onions

For lunch today I decided to make Gyudon, one of my favorite Japanese dishes. It is so simple to make that you might think twice about driving into the city late at night when you're hungry and just run to the store instead (although I did have to find beef that is "shabu-cut" so it did require some pre-planning but if you like this kind of thing then just have a pack stashed in the fridge and when a craving strikes, you're good to go. I found this recipe on tastespotting.com which btw happens to be my favorite food blog, where people post recipes and there's new stuff everyday ( I read this before reading the news!) and so here is the link, enjoy kiddies! http://www.noobcook.com/2009/08/28/gyudon-japanese-beef-on-rice-bowl/

Oh also a word of advice:
double the recipe in terms of liquids ie wine, water, soy sauce and mirin so that you have enough delicious soup to pour over your rice and cook the meat as instructed but remove from the stock once cooked through and simmer the onions separately, then add the meat back in so that your beef doesn't get tough and then onions get a chance to get really soft.

The little dutchie that could...

The topic today is Dutch Ovens and why I think everyone should have one. I always thought one could cook in whatever pot or pan they had lying around when really there's a reason why there is a stock pot, saute pan etc. Now with that being said, not everyone, including myself, can afford a cupboard full of quality pots and pans and so I suggest the next best thing: a dutch oven. A dutch oven is a cast-iron vessel that can be used over a stove, in the oven or on a grille making it the perfect multitasker. I purchased mine from Costco, which I have to admit was a little disappointing since I can be a label-whore even in the kitchen and would've preferred a Le Creuset or Staub but at $250.00 for a small sized pot, I was forced to look elsewhere. Now that I've had my "dutchie" I am proud to say that it is the best $50.00, yup ya heard right, $50 bucks that I've ever spent. Its 6qt size is 2qts larger than the smallest Le Creuset and has contributed to many a great meal. I've fried chicken in it, french fries are perfect every time and pastas and stews are perfectly cooked with no burning or scorching. The reason dutchies are so great is because the cast iron maintains an even cooking temperature with less heat spikes.

If you're planning of getting a dutch oven here are some things to look for:

1) heavy design: it should weigh a ton or at least feel like it

2) choose one between 4-7qts as this is the perfect size for stews or roasting a chicken

3) choose one with a self-basting lid: the lid will have these bumps on the inside that force the steam (all the flavor) back down onto whatever you're cooking

4) look for one that has a removable handle so you can stick your dutchie in the the oven, the one I own does not but I just remove a rack, so this is not a big deal if you can't find one

Lots of companies have dutch ovens so do your research and shop around, I highly recommend my dutch oven from Kirkland Signature at Costco, but you can always gets Martha Stewart's (found at Macys) or Giada De Laurentiis has a collection of them for Target as well.

My Daily Dilemma

My daily dilemma is "what am I gonna eat today?" My mom is constantly complaining that I concern myself with food and the act of eating way too much but I just like being prepared, I hate being at work and having to settle for whatever I can find, why not think ahead and have something that I really like? So starting last night, I begin to think about lunch, I realize that all the things I have in the fridge don't amount to an amazing meal, so what's a girl to do? Well I forage through my pink folder of recipes and pull out one for tortellini pesto soup, seems easy enough, just a matter of waking up way earlier than I would like to make soup. Now I used store bought tortellini as I haven't made it to home-made pasta yet so it was really a matter of chopping veggies and adding stock...done and done! The final result was a hearty bowl of soup that made me appreciate the act of thinking ahead...now what am I gonna eat for dinner?

gelato in the park

So after doing a Costco run for the restaurant today (btw its Lanna Thai, which I failed to mention earlier) I felt I deserved a cup of gelato and so I walked the 1/2 mile from Lanna Thai to Classic Gelato on San Anselmo Avenue. Yes, this place is a chain, with the red and green logo, but this particular location feels anything but; The same sweet man has been working there since I first stepped inside and he still asks about my dad. I've been coming here for gelato ever since I was a little girl, usually following a breakfast of chicken apple sausage from Comforts down the street (for another post) and ever since then, I've been an avid fan of a small cup of 1/2 bavarian mint and 1/2 raspberry sorbet. I've never ventured too far from those choices although occasionally I'll go simple with vanilla bean & dark chocolate or with my new favorite 1/2 mint chip and 1/2 raspberry (I know, not too adventurous) Anyways on the topic of gelato, I have a few key criteria:
1- it must be served with a spatula, no ice cream scoops
2- it needs to be stored in shallow metal trays
These are non-negotiables for me as I've been known to get in line at a gelateria, see an ice cream scoop, and proceed to get out of line.

Cook Books

So my first official post will be about cookbooks. I never thought that I would be one of those people that devoted a major section of my kitchen counter-top to cookbooks but in-fact I have. I started out my collection with Thomas Keller's The French Laundry Cookbook, which is a beautiful book that I merely stare at because the recipes are beyond my grasp at this point. From there I had to get Keller's Ad Hoc at Home following a successful run with his fried chicken. This cookbook is amazing, filled with complex, sophisticated recipes that are written in such a way that they are approachable at the same time. I learn some thing new every time I read this book. Now a book that I consider a must-have in every kitchen is James Paterson's What's a Cook to Do? which is more than just a collection of recipes, its the bible when it comes to questions in the kitchen whether it be "what knife should I use to to de-bone a chicken?" or "what the heck is the difference between a quiche and a souffle?" Next I have The Balthazar Cookbook which is from Balthazar in New York City, I have never been but have heard nothing but great things, one of which is the Pom Frites which there is a recipe for and for which I can attest is so good. The last two cookbooks I have here are vegetarian ones which I think every cook should have because meats are easy to season, most are perfect with just salt and pepper, but vegetables on the other hand don't taste like very much to begin with and learning to season them is the true test of a cook.
All of these cookbooks can be found at your local bookstore but I always check amazon.com first for the best deals and with that said, I'm off to amazon to add Thomas Keller's Bouchon, Julia Child's The Art of French Cooking I and II and David Chang's Momofuku to my collection.

Salt and Sugar

Welcome to Salt and Sugar, a blog about my adventures (and misadventures) in the kitchen. Here I will chronicle my love of all things food and share with you my passion for the sweet and the savory. I hope this blog inspires others who consider the kitchen a no-go to get in there and start mixing stuff together because really that's all it takes, granted there are correct proportions and measurements required but the more you do it, the more you realize that it's not rocket science...like the lady at the ice cream shop once said to me "honey if you can read, then you can cook"