sensory spoils

It's both wonderful and dangerous living with a fellow foodie/food scientist/lover of all things edible.  We only encourage each other to think about food in our spare time.  I mean, mainly it's Jules/Jared gently mentioning some sort of meal, and it enters my head like a disease that can only be cured by making that meal for myself.  It's already happened several times and kind of puts a whole new spin on my already out of control cravings.

gr8

I'm not sure what possessed me to purchase a 10lb bag of potatoes for just myself, but it happened and contrary to what I always like to think, they do not last forever.  And the only way to reasonably consume pounds of potatoes at a time before the sprouts get out of hand and the flesh turns green, is to grate 'em.

Grate them raw.  For bacon, avocado, and egg hash brown slider as inspired by here.   Except mine were too browned, and I only made one at a time, sort of a made to order kind of thing for myself on a Saturday afternoon after dealing with my flat tire (sometimes often I don't think I'm fit to drive...).  It was an ordeal of soaking and rinsing and draining and squeezing and frying and having patience and setting off the smoke detector 3-4 times... and so much eating.  And napping in the cloud of potato smoke I created.

Grate them cooked.  Boiled to be exact.  For gnocchi the next day.  Not the most common summer BBQ food, I suppose, but I needed a shareable dish and to get rid of much potatoes.  And I've been wanting to attempt gnocchi one more time.

Also an ordeal that involved slowly using up too much of Audrey's flour even though I had an unopened bag hidden in the cabinet (damn my forgetful nature).  Potato dough is not the easiest thing to deal with.  Especially in a hot and humid kitchen.  But evidently people liked the result and that's all that really matters.

With a tomato-y, fishy, Asian-y sauce inspired by here.  I would've been all over this particular marinara sauce had I had some anchovies in my possession, but after moping while opening/closing cabinet and fridge doors several times, I ended up with...
-onions and garlic, red pepper flakes
-a couple glugs of white wine
-can of tomato sauce
-spoon of shrimp paste
-drops of fish sauce
-splash of mirin
-handful of dried black beans
-salt and pepper all the way through
-lots of scallions over top

I had to resist eating all of it before indulging on Jared's delicious pulled pork and ribs.
Napping happened after this too.

day

Throwing this in from wayyyy back.

Got some Peruvian while thinking about Megan.  Daren's birthday dinner at Inka Heritage when we discovered you can make reservations for 30 at a small restaurant and where I indulged in ceviche because I don't eat nearly enough fish in Madison.  It's even plated like a fish - a hungry fish with no fins.  Needed more carb than sweet potatoes and giant corn kernels because it was super sour like a loaf of bread to soak it all up.

And I snuck in a bag of cinnamon sugar baked donut holes with this random chocolate sauce I made with some leftover chocolate chips.

only an idiot would

I'm so annoyed at myself.  Because I can now add "can't keep track of her food" to my list of flaws and issues.  This is like a subcategory of "food regret" (the kind you experience after eating something less-than-satisfying.

It all started when I decided to bring a half dozen donuts to Julia's to watch Amazing Race.  I should preface this story by saying I got no sleep Thursday, drank no coffee Friday, and feel the symptoms of a cold coming on.  Going to bed early was priority number one on Friday night...  And that's when I got on the bus with the leftover half-eaten donuts (hoping to eat them for breakfast over the weekend)...and promptly left them on the seat when I got off.  So much sadness.  I came home and whined to my roommates about it.  Because I don't even like donuts.  The last time I ate one was at Monuts, and that was because I look Alfred with me.  But Audrey promised me that Greenbush Bakery is the "best in the world," so I went for it and happily ate my Fruity Pebble one at the bus stop, while Oreo, peanut, mint, coconut, and the old fashioned (which I never tried, sad) sat in their white paper bag, so patiently next to me.  These are the memories I'll mourn.

Then Audrey brought home a bunch of homegrown kale (along with the bright flowers pictured below), which made me super excited to try out a kale chip recipe I had on reserve.  So on this beautiful morning, I very excitedly went grocery shopping because I came in under my food budget last week.  And then as I was unpacking the mere two bags of groceries, I was baffled by the whereabouts of my much needed (and most expensive purchase) of raw cashews.  What the fuck, Amelia?  Where could they have possibly disappeared to along the three minute walk from Fresh and my apartment?  I checked all cabinets, the fridge, and the area under the sink where we keep recycling.  I was and still am so confused.  Especially after running back to Fresh to ask my cashier if she happened to find my bag of cashews - nope.  The alternative is that I dropped them, and they were promptly stolen.  But who sees a sketchy bag of raw cashews and thinks, "Score!"?

I tried to console myself with breakfast for lunch.  Breakfast potatoes, roasted with yellow peppers and onions, with mozzarella.  Tomatoes tossed with scallions.  And of course, a fried egg.

It helped... until I finished it.  And now I'm back to being upset with myself.  I've started a list of "Things to avoid buying for the time being" because it'd just make me too upset.  A new kind of food regret.
The vegan kale chips will no longer be vegan.

this shit is

B-A-N-A-N-A-S

This is what I was referring to when I mentioned our 'baked goods board.'
My most productive Saturday to date was when I got up early to wander the farmer's market for cucumbers (three huge suckers for $1!) and potatoes before making some chocolate chip banana bread with my overripe bananas.
Currently reading Cooking for Geeks (this is me using my free time wisely), which provides an interesting perspective of food from a computer geek's point of view.  Cute reminder of the differences of geeks and nerds and such.  I also understand none of his coding references.  Porter talks about the different approaches different kinds of people take when preparing food, most notably, how closely, or not, one adheres to a recipe.  I feel like it seems obvious that a 'geek' or 'nerd' or 'scientifically inclined person' would follow a recipe like a technical procedure, but I never thought of recipes as analogous to procedures until after my dad got me my first gig in research.  He was commenting on the way I was trying to make tapioca pearls and said something about how the way I worked in the kitchen is a good indication of how I would work in a lab.  I guess it's actually his own fault that I eventually found food science.  Sorry, Dad, you're the reason why I don't want to do exactly what you do.  We can stop arguing about it now.

Anywaysssss, Jeff Porter and what is my current bible.  He did this thing where he collected many different recipes for pancakes and analyzed the proportions of ingredients, determining an average of sorts, and then developing a new recipe.  I thought this was a more organized way of doing what I usually do (i.e. look up two or three and kinda pick and tweak what sounds good).  I spent some time in a random med school-related building (which had a balcony study area that reminded me a lot of CIEMAS) and while the people around me were talking about medical things, I was trying to verbalize what I like in a good piece of banana bread whilst looking up eight recipes for comparison.  I must admit that I'm a little bit bias toward pretty pictures.  And there are certain sources I trust more than others aka I always take Alton Brown's wisdom into account.  So I was a little bit lax about my calculations, leaving out some ingredients in the total weight and rounding and such.

This is what I came up with:

based on 260g self rising flour (because it's what I have)

171.8g sugar

416g bananas

93.6g eggs

93.6g butter

Well, I didn't like it because it came out to be very similar to the Cook's Illustrated version, except with more sugar... and you know how I feel about too much sugar.

So in the end, my work kind of went to waste when I basically followed the Cook's Illustrated version (with 1/4c soy milk instead of the called for yogurt), cutting the sugar by a third, and the above result is what happened.  Not bad, I think.  What you can't see is that the bottom was slightly burnt because I'm still messing with my new oven.

By the afternoon, I finished half of a half, and Kasia added a free-from-the-market Almond Joy loaf.  I loved the coconut, but we all agreed it was too dry.  Maybe I'll make my own version.

As a side note, the last time I tried to utilize some past-their-prime bananas was when I thought I could finally master at-home frying with banana beignets.   Nope.  Once again, I have the problem of a too-dark outer crust and too-runny batter on the inside.  (Oh, yeah, the first time was when I tried to make chocolate donut holes).  You know what my problem is?  I'm hesitant to use up a bunch of oil, and I don't have a thermometer.  And I probably need a dutch oven.  No more at-home frying for me.

twins

Question of the day: how often do chickens have twin chicks?  We had a dozen of these out-of-the-ordinary eggs - I thought the first one was a fluke, but they were all like this.  It's a shame I didn't take more advantage of this.  What I should've done is pull up all the recipes I've saved that call for "1 large egg and 1 egg yolk" and churned them out.  Separating egg is one of my least favorite prep activities.  Good thing the extra yolk didn't affect my waffles much.
Daily tidbit: DMV people in the Midwest are more cheery than DMV people in the Mid-Atlantic... or is it just that Madison folk (at the DMV) are generally more happy than Chapel Hill folk (at the DMV)?  Either way, getting a new [horizontal, finally] license that doesn't have the annoying "Turns 21 on" strip down the side of my face was quicker and easier than expected.  [And yet, even with that glaring red strip, bouncers still take an extra fifteen seconds to search for my birthday at the bottom right corner.]  I even witnessed some exchange of banter.  My impression of the DMV is no longer as dreary as the gross downpour of today.

Anyways.... the meal I've been constantly skipping because my pantry is still too sad: breakfast.
Yet another way to finish off Megan's tart.  Alton Brown's waffles with fresh blueberries.  Really nothing else to say... it's waffles with cream and fruit.  Yum.

Errand week is over.  The most upsetting thing that happened is my choice of debit card background.  Apparently the only pretty blue one with wolves is representative of Madison College.  Now I'm just the failure who doesn't know what school she goes to.  Well won't be pulling that out around campus.
Need to start stashing the fridge with fruits and veggies and real human food.
Last night I ate a grilled cheese while watching Aladdin and drawing calendars into my notebook.  You could say it's about time for classes to start.

like home

Making myself at home at pit stop #1 and home #2.  Baby Kevin has a lot to say these days (except when he's watching The Lego Movie).  And so does 奶奶.  I've already sat through endless lectures about how to find a boyfriend and the dangers of being a girl and the dangers of being a girl in a quiet family neighborhood, etc etc etcetcetcetc...ahhhhhhh.  All of which I only half understand - the Chinese vocab is a little under used.  And my patience for ridiculous lectures is wearing thin.

The last time we were all gathered in NC, Dad brought home pound cake because he can't control himself, so I made French toast for the kids.  Pound cake French toast is probably the most delicate thing I've ever eaten for breakfast.  If you're gonna be lazy about French toast... just use pound cake.  It doesn't even have to be dry or stale.

That peach and coconut tart carried on through quite a few more meals.  After I had picked all the peach slices off, it got too boring to eat it as it was.  (i.e. The crust was what I stuffed into my breads.)

I liked the way the coconut cream slowly melted over the stack of hot toasts like butter.  Watching it was food porn as food porn is meant to be seen.  It's the sweet equivalent of runny yolk.  And what goes better with coconut milk than lime and ginger.  So tropical, right?  And French toast must have some element of fruit.  Since the pound cake itself almost hurts my sweet-sensitive teeth, I passed on jam or compote or the like and made a stone fruit (minus cherries... sad... cherries weren't $1.99/lb at this point yet) and blackberry salad with homemade ginger simple syrup and lime juice.
I'm wildly obsessed with white peaches.  So's Alfred - he'll actually venture to the basement by himself, retrieve a peach, and wash and eat it all on his own.  Wanna know a little quirk of my baby cousin, too?  He eats a peach until the first sight of the pit and stops immediately.  "I've reached the black part!"  Why don't you slice it up and take out the pit?  He doesn't like the sight of the flesh around the pit either.  So cute.

And there is the perfect bite.

Fresh and tart and light and creamy and fruity and three kinds of sweetness all at once.  Fantastic.

fun to say

Shakshouka.

shakshoukashakshoukashakshouka

At the end of it all, it still gets my heart racing.

Too familiar, but I could never get tired of it.
Lying to myself when I think I might want something different this time.
Awake into the night thinking about the next time - there must always be a next time.
How many colors and tastes can I force into one memory?

Omelets for days.

What did you think I was talking about?

drowning in tea

Last week of classes.

And I'm sick.
Typical.
Spent the whole day lying in bed and now I'm on the final season of Six Feet Under.
Nothing like a sibling smoke sesh scene.

As I'm sucking down my four hundredth bottle of water and sixth hundredth cup of peppermint tea, I'm wishing I had more colour, more variety in my diet.

homemade burgers on ciabatta with brie, avocado, mushrooms - so essential
berry soup with almond milk and cookie crumble
scrambled duck egg with leek and pork sausage from the farmer's market


Three and a half weeks before I'm done with uni.
Three more weeks after that before I'm back in the States popping pills for depression and  obsessively stalking the girls here.
Cue hyperventilating... after LDOC.

most important meal of the day

Number of classes I skip for free breakfast = too many.

Number of bowls of muesli eaten per day (breakfast or not) = much more than too many.

Mashed banana + nutino + peanut butter + soy milk + cinnamon + muesli balls.
Best eaten with yogurt.

Working my way through Week 10 of 12.  Freaking out is becoming a daily process.

 Pretty excited to go home though.  I have a list of places I want to eat the minute I get back, and it may or may not be sad that Subway is at the top.
 Most missed might be my queen sized bed and comforter.
Second most missed might be driving on the highway.

Officially returning to NZ (will update about Auckland soon) in a camper van.  Many years and many first-world amenities later, I'm finally going camping-ish.  Let's see if I'm really low maintenance like I like to think I am...

carrots, apples, peanut butter

As I wait for my article about olive fermentation to load, I am going to be super unproductive and blog instead of familiarising myself with proteins and lipids.

This is the final result of having too many carrots and apples to eat before they go bad.
My dollar kg bag of carrots had been growing hairs in the bottom shelf of the fridge for the week that I neglected to eat them (mainly because I was out of hummus).
So I boiled them and mashed them (with the random potato masher that came in our study abroad pack... of all things to include), mixed in some raw sugar, cinnamon, and just a tad of ginger.
And then came the contemplating of how to consume it because eating carrot puree with a spoon didn't totally appeal to me.
...
Pancakes.
Because, as mentioned before, I constantly crave pancakes while I'm here (thankful for free breakfast on Wednesday, but it's not enough).  And because people were talking about it earlier.
It was kind of a science experiment given that I didn't have measuring cups (used the lines on one of the two glasses we have) or large bowls (used a pot).
The result was a lovely stack of burnt (because our stove is a piece of shit) whilst undercooked (because our stove is, again, a piece of shit) carrot pancakes for dinner.
Reduced some sliced apples (thank god for that knife our neighbors to the left forgot about) in cinnamon and brown sugar to top it off.
Add globs of peanut butter [not pictured] just for good measure because I have a serious problem.

Free postcards, free postcards all around Melbourne.  I've taken to collecting them for no reason other than that I like nonsensical things//free souvenirs.

This damn olives article really refuses to be seen...

baked oatmeal

 Do you ever feel like you've wasted your life once you discovered something too late into the school year?

I went to breakfast at the Refectory for the first time before my physics final and ordered nearly everything.  But... baked oatmeal.

Breakfast perfection.

[Blackberry baked oatmeal at the law school refectory - go, go fast.]

Naturally I asked for a larger vessel to mix the oatmeal, the rest of my soy yogurt parfait, banana slices, honey, and cinnamon into a giant hodgepodge of goodness.

I sort of had this ritual in the mornings of scouring Great Hall, the lobby shop, and Alpine in search of mix ins for my oatmeal (or grits) before finding an ideal location to eat it - and sadly that was as good as my day was gonna get...until dinner.

 So when I got home (and needing to finish the leftover sweet potatoes), I made baked oatmeal for lunch

being sure to load it with mashed sweet potatoes, craisins, spices, brown sugar, and chocolate chips.

Mmm fall in summer.

And keeps you full for a longggggg timeeee.

(but didn't quite resolve the universal "eat when bored" problem)

berries and things

I think I have this mild obsession with coffee shops - what better setting for a hint-of-romance fiction piece?

Also reigniting my previous obsession with names, finding the perfect name, googling origins and meanings.

Settled on Aiden and Ellie as my protagonists.

Break time because this memoir is stressing me out.

I think I want to develop an Australian accent.

Still counting down those days.

And fantasizing my own Lizzie McGuire-esque story.

Ha... yeah right.

But better than fantasizing about the selection we have here, I suppose.

I think I am going to fail this semester.

And I do mean fail.

Wtf Weather, only people are supposed to be bipolar.

I think I love cheesy songs.

Taylor Swift-esque songs but for boys.

"But I see you with him slow dancing, tearing me apart 'cause you don't see."

 Berries and crepes on a weekend afternoon.

Sliced up some strawberries.

Reduced some blackberries in balsamic vinegar and sugar.

Brewed a cup of thai tea with milk.

Reminds me of a coffee shop.

I think Spring Break can't come too soon.

bird's nest frittata

 Frittata baked in a potato nest :)

filled with scallions, bacon, corn; topped with caramelized onions; drizzled with honey mustard and sriracha.

1. shred potatoes, enough to cover tart pan

2. whisk desired amount of eggs with desired amount of milk and add desired amount of whatever you want

3. I think I baked this at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes.  It would obviously depend on the pan shape and amount of egg.

Andrew and I finished it off before it even had time to cool.

magic bullet crepes

Finally perfected the art of crepes... in the comfort of my cramped college dorm room.  Thank you phallic shaped electric cookware.  I think it was a matter of not adding enough water.

Not surprisingly, I was the first to utilize the Christmas present I got for Jeanette (crepe-making set complete with pan, spatula, and mix) because during first semester, we made crepes at 3 in the morning... just because we could.

Went with cinnamon apple filling because apples are always in abundance at the Marketplace - but there are assorted berries now :) [berry clafouti to post soon].

mango papaya watermelon

bubble tea :)

Unfortunately I have $0.11 on foodpoints as of a month ago, so I had to sacrifice my weekly bubble tea habit :(

Why is it that college meal plans make it so difficult to obtain food, but everyone gets fat anyways?

At the same time, I feel forced to eat when I'm not hungry because I was required to prepay for $15 meals.  I understand that it's all you can eat, but you can't seriously believe someone could consume $15 worth of subpar food... unless he's high out of his mind.

A wave of tourists just passed by me in the library, all of which I made awkward eye contact with.