Shrimp and Quinoa Salad

I used to be a fool and pronounced quinoa as kwi-no-ah because I didn't know that ki-nwa was the correct way. Anyway, I walked around like an idiot saying KWI-NO-AH for the longest time and no one corrected me until someone laughed at me. I'm glad those days belong to the past now.

Hopefully, I helped someone step into the light on the pronunciation of this seed with this post. Let's move on to the actual food part.

English Muffins (and Crab Benedict)

My favorite brunch place in the city is a little place called Town's End Restaurant, which we've nicknamed "the muffin place" because of their complementary muffins and scones. It's my favorite restaurant for three reasons: 1) delicious complementary baked goodies 2) it's a nice walking distance from my place and 3) their crab benedict. Trust me, whenever there is a crab benedict on a brunch menu, I've ordered it, and from all the places I've been, this restaurant has the best. I think a main reason for this is that they bake their own english muffins (they bake all their baked goods there). So I decided to make a little challenge for myself and make a crab benedict with everything from scratch.

Oatmeal Lemon Blueberry Scones

If you want to impress people, make them scones. They won't know how easy it actually is! Biscuits and scones are pretty easy, believe it or not. Making biscuits from scratch, from start to finish (minus the baking time) takes about 10 minutes. Scones take a little bit more time, but it's totally worth it if you want to eat a bunch of scones.

Lemon Bars

(Click on photos for larger images)

I actually made these lemon bars the day after I made the lemon strawberry cheesecake squares because I had so many lemons. Don't worry, I brought the lemon bars over to my friend's house along with the cheesecake squares.

Lemon & Strawberry Cheesecake Creme Brulee Bars

(Click on photos for larger images)

My mom has a lemon tree that grows a lot of lemons. The Chopping Block's mom has three lemon trees! Do you know how many lemons that means for us? A whole lot of delicious lemons! I saw these cute little lemon cheesecake squares on Lauren's Latest, and I thought what a good way to use up some of my lemons! I doubled her recipe to get 32 squares! Whoa! I bought them over to a friend's house to share, so don't judge!

Soon Dubu Jjigae (Korean Soft Tofu Soup)

At first I wanted to make a portabello mushroom and cabbage soup because I just happen to have those things and I wanted soup. It somehow evolved to watching Maangchi make this Soon Dubu Jjigae, and then I wanted it so badly!

Caramelized Onions, Mushroom, and Spinach Quiche

So you might think this is a break from the burger experiments, but I kid you not, I've been eating hamburgers non-stop. Last night I had a mushroom and caramelized onion burger. Yup. This morning I decided it would be a great idea to make a quiche with mushrooms and caramelized onions. This is my first quiche, and I didn't follow any recipes. Dave predicts that it will be disgusting. We'll show him!

Tomato Egg Cups

Nur sent me this recipe from La Casita Inspirada out of the blue. It's super easy and pretty so I made it.


Two beautiful and ripe tomatoes? Check.


Hollow out tomatoes' innards? Check.


Fill each tomato with an egg, some ground pepper, and salt? Check, check, and check!



Pop in preheated 425 degrees F oven for 20 minutes, then top with crispy bacon bits? Check! The recipe actually says to top it off with cheese but I think bacon is greater than cheese, so I went with bacon.

That's it. I actually switched to the broiler option for an additional 5 minutes because I do not like my eggs so runny. So easy and pretty even a LeTran can do it!

Almond Sponge Cake

Hi Kids! I'm going to let you in on another Lam secret family recipe: almond sponge cake. This is my aunt's specialty, and I've been eating it since I can remember. It's one of my favoritest cakes in the whole entire world, and she always brings me an entire cake when I go home! I love my aunt (and her cake) to death! So I've decided to share the joy; I hope you like it!

Poor Man's Korean Bimbimbap

Oh my god! It's my first "real" post since going to grad school! How exciting! I'm going to teach you how to make a poor man's bimbimbap. (Okay, just to warn you, it's sort of a "cheat" post because ... everything is prepackaged?). It's a poor man's bimbimbap because I don't have any bean sprouts, mushrooms, and etc. But who really needs them anyways?! So let's begin!

Chorizo and Egg Sandwiches

Brendan sent me a link to a recipe for Charlotte Tolhurst's Egg Sandwich from Design*Sponge because he's crafty and he reads crafty blogs. Then he requested that either Helen or I make it for him. Why did I accept this request? There are several reasons:

1. I love eggs.
2. The ingredient list is super short.
3. The pictures on the blog are really pretty.
4. I want to volunteer before Helen does because this recipe is easy. I do not want to have Helen volunteer and then have to make a super hard/complicate dish later. :( I am super selfish.
5. The ingredients are cheap.
6. It's super easy to make.

Let's see how I did on my lazy/selfish adventure.

Shakshouka

Shakshouka is a Northern African dish that none of my friends have ever heard of. Crazy, eh? It's very easy and delicious. Ready for the easy tomatoes and eggs dish ever?

Vegetable Frittata

I had my first frittata one day at a hospital cafeteria. How come I've never heard of frittata before? I don't know. But I am sure glad I got to try. So, what did I do after enjoying such a meal? I googled it and decided that I shall attempt it.

Here is the result of my Friday experiment.

I stopped by the market on the way home to pick up:

1 portobello mushroom (medium size), 1 yellow zucchini, and 1 green zucchini. To collect the rest of the vegetables, I raided my fridge and got some white button mushrooms, a few spears of asparagus, and frozen spinach.




After washing and scrubbing clean the vegetables, I sliced them all like mad. Check it out.







The slicing continued with 1/4 of a red onion.



Mince 3 cloves of garlic. I love fresh garlic.



Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a pan. Cook the onion slices until they become slightly translucent.



Add the rest of the vegetables, 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of ground black pepper.



Saute until vegetables are somewhat cooked, about 5 minutes.

In a bowl, whisk 9 eggs. Add to the whisked eggs 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of pepper.

In an oven safe pan, I use an 8x8 pan, layer on half of the vegetables. Pour on top of that half o the whisked eggs. Then layer on the rest of the vegetables and whisked eggs.





Pop the pan in the oven at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes.

While waiting for the frittata to finish, I have a few suggestions:
1. Clean up the mess that was made to prepare the food up to this part.
2. Read a magazine.
3. Finish that chapter of a book you started.
4. Dance around in your apron.
5. Watch an episode of The Office.
6. Play with your cat(s)/dog(s).
7. Do the crosswords.
8. Set the table?

Ding ding ding! 30 minutes wait period is up! Remove frittata from oven and serve with rice. Have you notice that I serve everything with rice? That's what you would do, too, if you have spent at least 23 years of your life eating rice at each meal.






Ingredients:
(Printable recipe)
1 yellow zucchini
1 green zucchini
1 medium portabello mushroom
4 oz of white button mushrooms
5-6 spears of asparagus
1/4 red onion
3 cloves of garlic
1 cup of spinach
9-10 eggs
salt
pepper
olive oil

Direction:

Slice the zucchinis, mushrooms and red onions.
Cut the asparagus in 1" pieces.
Mince the garlic.
Whisk the eggs in a bowl with 1 tsp of salt and 1 tsp of black ground pepper. Set aside.
Heat 2 tbsp of olive oil in a pan.
Cook the onion slices until they become slightly transparent.
Saute the rest of the vegetables.
Add 1 tsp of salt and 1 tsp of ground pepper to the vegetable mixture. Stir.
Cook vegetables for 5 minutes.
Layer half of the vegetables in an oven safe pan.
Pour half of the whisked eggs on top of the vegetables.
Layer on the rest of the vegetables.
Pour the rest of the eggs on top of the last vegetables.
Bake at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes.

Minced Beef With Egg

College was a time for food exploration for me. Before that, I rarely get to eat anything outside of home prepared food. The first time I encountered minced beef with egg was during one of those quick dinner after class in one of the restaurants at the "Asian Ghetto" on the south side of UC Berkeley. Of course, I was too chicken to order it because the dish came with a raw egg over some slimy beef! All of the boys I know love that dish and they all ordered it one time or another. Once, I managed to get a taste but then decided to stick to my own food. I finally overcame the look of the dish and decided to make it myself. It was very hard to find a recipe for this dish for some reasons. Perhaps because it is too simple...kinda like how it would be hard to find a recipe to fry an egg. I did have to use a recipe/direction from a cookbook the first time I attempted to fry an egg, mind you.

Ingredients:
(Printable recipe)

1 lb of boneless beef chuck
3 cloves of garlic
1 tsp of salt
ground black pepper
1 tsp baking soda
4 tbsp corn starch
1 cup green peas
2 eggs

So, on to the cooking:

Take about 1 lb of boneless beef chuck. Trim the fat. I have the piece somewhat frozen so that it'll be easier to slice.



Dice it up in approximately 1/4" cubes.

Pull the cubes together in a pile and roughly give it a nice chop. The end product doesn't need to be so fine, some rough pieces should be okay.

Put the minced beef in a bowl and set aside. Mince 3 cloves of garlic.


Combine the garlic with the beef in a bowl. Add about 1 tsp of salt and as much ground pepper as you'd like. Sprinkle in 1 tsp on baking soda (to tenderize the beef). Toss in 4 tbsp of corn starch or enough to cover all of the beef pieces with a thin layer of corn starch. As you can see in the picture below, I did not add enough corn starch (only 3 tbsp) which will not ensure a satisfying gravy-ish end product.



Use your super clean hand and give it a good mix.



Heat about 2 tbsp of vegetable oil in a pan. Add the beef mixture and proceed to push the beef around for 1 minute.



Turn the heat down to medium high. Add 1/4 cup of water. Let it cook until the beef is turning brown.



This is what it looks like if you don't have enough corn starch. No gravy. :(

No matter, I hope you learn from my mistake. Next up, throw in 1 cup of peas. I got mine frozen and had to run it under the tap for 30 seconds.



Another mistake! My hand got a little too happy and actually dumped in a lot more than 1 cup. Sad face again!

Cook for another 2 minutes or until the peas are nice and tendered. Scoop some steaming hot rice to a bowl. Top the rice with the minced beef and peas. Be sure to make a little well on top of the beef and peas. Why, you ask? Because your truly here darn forgot to do that and it resulted in unhappy end product as seen below. When I proceed to crack an egg over the dish, the egg just slid off the mountain of beef and peas and made a happy home at the SIDE of the bowl rather than perching at the center.



Serve IMMEDIATELY!

How to eat such a dish: Quickly use a spoon/fork to scoop up the steaming hot rice and beef mixture and drape it on top of the raw egg. Break the egg and use your eating utensil to let the egg mingle with its hot hot neighbors. Eat the gooey goodness.

If you do not want to entertain the idea of a raw egg, quickly fry an egg in your still hot pan.



Then transfer it to the mountain of rice, beef, and peas.



Lessons learned:

1. Add enough corn starch to cover beef with a thin layer.
2. Don't go trigger happy and add too much peas.
3. Remember to make a small well at the top of the mountain of beef so egg won't slide pathetically to the side of the bowl.