That time I made my husband work for his birthday gift... [Pok Pok Satay and Peanut sauce kit]

The satay pork skewers a la Pok Pok

"Baby it's your birthday, cook for me!"

That time I bought my husband a Pok Pok ingredient kit to make thai food for his birthday and thought it was a great idea but it turned out to be a lot of work! This kit included authentic thai ingredients used by chef Andy Ricker to recreate dishes that taste just like it does at Pok Pok. We absolutely loved Pok Pok the last time we went (here).

Valentine's Day made me do it! Sweet tooth treats!

Lindt milk chocolate

It's Valentine's Day tomorrow and seeing all these chocolates and sweets being sold in stores has inspired me to create my own..ok not true. I have been wanting to re-create choco-covered gummies since I bought a pack from Miette in SF last year!... I thought it couldn't be that hard right? Melt chocolate and dip away! Sounds fun to me!So I hop into the nearest grocery store on my way home and buy two bars of Lindt and Ghirardellis milk chocolate, Ghirardelli's white chocolate chips, some fancy brand sugar free marshmallows, Haribou gummy bears and Snyder's pretzel sticks. I stopped myself from buying strawberries only because they were too expensive!

After dinner, I anxiously get the stove ready and start melting chocolate and dipping one gummy bear at a time hoping I can make them look all nice. That quickly became impossible as the chocolate was not consistently smooth and it was too time consuming to drip each bear to make sure the right layer of chocolate got on. I don't have that kind of time! As long as the bear is covered with chocolate, I am content. Dipping one bear at a time seem to take the fun out of the whole process so I threw a bunch of gummies in the pot and realized it was not a good idea as they started melting and make the chocolate gunky! So I was back to one bear at a time but switched it up with marshmellows and pretzels.When I was out of milk chocolate, I start adding white chocolate which made it a nice mocha color and slowly whiter and whiter as I used more white chocolate...I dipped gummies, marshmellows and pretzels...also my fingers, hair and face..chocolate was everywhere!

 It took me more than an hour to finish all the chocolate and dipping and had Dave finished off (by licking the spoon) so I could go shower.

Bear goes skinny dipping!

Drying out in the sun..

After Lindt, I melt the Ghirardelli chocolate and dip more gummies and mashmellows

Time to add the white chocolate

Doesn't look so appetizing...the chocolate is not as gooey as I'd like..

I finally got the hang of it and the pretzel began to look more appetizing .

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Let cool for an hour or so and pack away...To be honest, I only had a couple of gummies and that's it! I was actually too tired to enjoy it...I hope others will :)

Final packaging..

"Ingredients"

  Happy Valentine's Day y'all. What will you be doing for Vday?

Zha Jiang Mian noodles à la Keiko

When you have nothing in your fridge and you’re hungry, you improvise.

I bought a $1.99 cucumber for dinner and I was lucky I had a box of tofu in the fridge to work with and made this… Zha Jiang mian à la Keiko. I like to add "à la Keiko" because that’s when I improvise on a recipe and it can only be re-created once..taste wise anyways.

There are no real quantities or anything but that’s okay and is what makes it fun! The sauce goes really well with rice too! mmmm

This is what you will need:
-For the Noodles: With the cooked noodles blend in some olive oil (not very AZN), Sa Cha sauce (Find in Chinatown), scallions, Guilin hot sauce (recipe from my sister).
Add some freshly chopped cucumber to garnish and offset the salty flavor from the sauce.

-For the sauce: Use porc (or tofu like I did), on a pan simmer in with bean sauce, onions, scallions, garlic, water, sesame oil, sugar and oyster sauce. Add anything else you’d like: shitake mushrooms, cucumber, carrots…Of course using meat will enhance ze flavor.

Enjoy!

I had Vanillekipferln craze over the holidayzz..

I had a German butter vanilla sugar cookie craze over the holidays...

This is the most I've baked in my whole lifetime I think.






Ingredients:

210 g unbleached flour
1 egg (just the egg white)
150 g of unsalted cream butter
80 g of cane sugar
pinch of salt
1 vanilla bean (big!)

You can also add ground almond mix (60 g), it makes the cookies taste even better!

I just mix/mend/pound everything together with my hands until it becomes a dough and refrigerate overnight or just 1-2 hours if you're in a hurry!

For the icing:
lemon or lime juice and add sifted powdered sugar until it becomes gooey wooey and add a dash of vanilla extract!

My recipe doesn't give complete instructions but I trust most of you have more backing experience and know how to make better cookies than I can.

nykeiko eats: Bobby Flay's steamed mussels with white wine lalala and lalala and lalala

We wanted to cook mussels the other night. This recipe is the first thing that pops up when you search steamed mussels white wine. Recipe is so easy it hurts. I learned something new because I didn't even know what tarragon or shallots looked like.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/bobby-flay/steamed-mussels-with-white-wine-tarragon-shallots-butter-and-grilled-french-bread-recipe/index.htm