Long beans

And now for the long beans... This recipe I found in Food and Wine years ago and I have modified it to suit my kids taste, for instance sometimes I add the black pepper after pulling my middlest's serving out, and I think the original calls for vinegar of some sort. This dish goes really well with anything Asian.

long beans, whole black pepper, and oil, ignore the rest

rinse your beans

cut into 2 inch slices

saute in a hot pan with oil and shallots

once brown spots appear, add a splash of water and a dash of sugar, cover and cook on low

now crack some whole black pepper

and toss in with soy sauce to finish

serve with spicy tofu and vermicelli

Xiang Shou!

Spicy tofu

Yes, it is another yummy Asian dish and another two-fer. I decided to make spicy tofu with the chinese long beans my middlest picked out. Did I mention how much stuff we bought at H-Mart? The long bean recipe is something I have been making for years and yes, I first saw it in Food and Wine. The spicy tofu, is all mine.

really just the tofu in this picture ignore the rest

rinse and drain your tofu

cut into moderately thick slices

make your sauce: kecap manis, olive oil, and gochujang
you can use any oil, soy based sauce, and spicy sauce for variations

grate in some ginger and mix it up

spread it liberally onto the tofu and then flip them

and coat the other side, I let them sit for an hour to marinate

slow bake at 325 turning every 15 minutes until crunchy on the edges

serve with long beans and vermicelli

Xiang Shou! (I think that is right if the translator worked)

Frittata

Sometimes you just need a quick dinner and you haven't done any pre-planning. This is when I bust out the frittata. Now I have to confess, I really don't like eggs. They creep me out and I never buy fertile eggs, but my husband and my kids love them. This is one of the few ways I can actually eat them. The other is wrapped in a breakfast burrito hiding behind salsa and crispy potatoes. My method for frittatas, is to not cook them at all on the stove, I am pretty sure I read about this method in a Thomas Keller recipe. You use a cold cast iron and a hot oven and it works really well.

eggs, mushroom, spinach, salt, pepper, and oil

wilt the spinach

dice and slice the onions and mushrooms

saute them in a dry pan until the mushrooms brown

beat eggs with oil, and salt

then add spinach and mushroom/onion mix

pour into cold pans, top one with cheese for the kids

place into a hot oven until they just puff

let rest 10 minutes

then serve with siracha or ketchup

Bon apetit!

Ttoekboki

My sister introduced me to this wonderful dish. She and her husband first had it in Korea when they were adopting my nephew. It is a keeper, hence why I even know how to make it now. Thankfully H-Mart has a website for anyone who doesn't live driving distance from a retail store. We actually have an awesome Asian grocery store close by, but it is a small storefront and while they have lots and lots of things they don't carry everything I like to keep in my larder. H-mart however does, so a bi-annual run is in order. H-mart also has the most extensive produce section you will ever see. Looking for curry leaves, bitter melon, sesame leaves, four types of bok choy, you can find it all there.

Ttoekboki can be prepared in many different ways. The name refers to the rice cakes which are either flat rounds or long cylinders. We like the cylinders. Some people use them in a broth with ramen, some with just soy and ginger, and some in the way we love it—super spicy with Korean gochujang. Note there are about 50 different types of commercial gochujang. For this recipe I used a spicy hot one that has wheat flour in it to help keep the sauce thick. You can always sub in others. The box has a spicy scale on it to help you choose the right one for your palate.

frozen ttoekboki, kecap manis, sesame oil, gochujang, garlic, scallions, and kimchi

chop scallions and garlic

remember that you also bought 6 different kinds of tofu and grab one to add

boil the ttoekboki for 5-10 minutes

drain and add scallions, garlic, tofu, and kecap manis to half of it  for the kids

add scallions, garlic, tofu, and a boatload of gochujang to the other

serve the grown ups with homemade kimchi, the kids without

remember after a few bites that you bought toasted black sesame seeds to garnish

Thanks Heather!

Chocolate cake

For my son's fifth birthday I decided to make a lego cake. He had requested chocolate cake with green frosting, but being a lego cake I could go anywhere with it. This is a recipe from Food and Wine called Mom's Chocolate Cake, and it is really, really, really good. I have another chocolate cake recipe that I pretty much have to throw away at this point.

The pan I used for this recipe is a half sheet pan, so everything you see is in double proportions from the original recipe. I also made four types of frosting for this cake and they were all good, but the chocolate frosting was causing fights amongst the adults who didn't get any. It almost got ugly, but fortunately I was able to split a few pieces further and placate everyone.

eggs, butter, flour, sugar, salt, vanilla, unsweetened chocolate, baking soda and powder

weigh your chocolate and sift your dry ingredient except sugar

this is where the moisture comes in, boil sugar in water until it dissolves

then stir in butter and chopped chocolate and let cool

once cool add eggs, then stir in dry ingredients

pour into buttered and floured pan and bake

it will be barely springy when done

now cut out rounds from the vegan cake you made yesterday

lego circles - activate

then begin to frost with a slightly runny frosting

that is the chocolate frosting that really should have been the whole cake

here is the green the birthday boy requested

and lastly vanilla for those who like the old standby

serve to happy boy

Happy birthday my middlest!

Chocolate cake (vegan/gf)

This is a vegan, gluten free chocolate cake that I made on the fly based on my gluten free pumpkin bread. It came out pretty good. Next time I might try less buckwheat and more oat flour. I tend to avoid rice flour in GF baking as I find the taste slightly bitter and the texture grainy. No one else notices it but me, but I don't like it, so I don't use it. I also used pumpkin in this recipe as a moisture maker, similar to using beets, but not as sweet. I like to use a little cinnamon to help balance the strong flavor of the buckwheat flour. This version was a little dry, which I thought I had fixed, but apparently not well enough.

oat and buckwheat flour, sugar, corn starch, vanilla, oil, chocolate, cinnamon, salt, and pumpkin

mix your dry ingredients except the sugar

and mix your wet

add sugar to wet ingredients

then add dry

add coconut milk as it is too lumpy (but use more than I did)

pour into 'floured' pan - I use my dry mix to 'flour' the pan

bake until springy

frost once with frosting and let dry

and frost again

The rest of the cake is featured in the other chocolate cake recipe.