萍水相逢的遇見

As promised, this week I used my Uncommon Goods Japanese earthenware cooker, also called a donabe, to make this delicious seafood soup. It’s been cold and rainy here all week, and over plaintive moans from my kids of “WHERE DID THE SUN GO,” I thought that a colorful soup made in my little Japanese donabe might be just what the doctor ordered.

Donabe cookers come in all shapes and sizes, and the one I have can best be described as the perfect cooker for two people to get a nice, hearty meal. For the five of us, though (au pair included), the size of this cooker is now known as our “snack cooker.” It’s about ten inches in diameter, which is big enough to give everyone a little taste of the tasty morsels inside, but definitely not enough to fill us up. In order to have enough food for dinner, I had to make a “side dish” of ramen noodle soup with pork belly and other veggies. I HAD TO. Otherwise, I’d still be dealing with children laying on the floor of my kitchen, crying and yelling “I’M SO HUNGRY I CAN’T WALK.” These are the theatrics I deal with when I’m trying to cook dinner.

The best part of a seafood soup made in a Japanese donabe is that I think the earthenware imparts a certain quality that makes the broth have more depth of flavor. I tested this theory by making a second batch of soup in a regular, All Clad stainless steel pot, and we all definitely noticed a difference between the two soups. Of course, the Japanese donabe is best known for its ability to make perfect, fluffy rice with a layer of crisped, golden-brown rice at the bottom. I’m so excited to try making this rice in my donabe that I can hardly sit still right now.

Today was one of those days where keeping the oven light on, was truly a great source of comfort.

I attended the funeral of a very young boy, whose father is a friend and colleague.

The one and only time I ever met this sweet little angel was about two months ago and just a few weeks before Christmas. My colleague had brought his little boy to work. They visited me briefly in my office and I was so excited and happy. The little boy was understandably shy, having never met me, so his dad told him to give me a high five.

And he did.

I’ve been thinking about that high five ever since.

After the funeral, I came home and immediately set about baking. As I baked, I took the time to reflect on the day’s events and on the lessons to walk away with. While it was far too brief, I am so grateful that I had the chance to meet my friend’s son.

I was reminded that our loved ones are the greatest gift we have, and we shouldn’t waste a single moment. Ever.

I was reminded that love and faith will see us through.

I was reminded of the best high five I ever got, and that I will never ever forget.

Christmas is over and I’m playing with candy canes! Always late to the party, as usual… But hey, if you’re looking for ways to use up those left over candy canes, I have to suggest these peppermint chocolate dipped madeleines. Actually I used peppermint snow on these, which is pretty much just crushed up peppermint candy cane with a fancy name, that comes in a fancy jar. But you could just put a few candy canes in a ziploc bag and crush them with a mallet Karson Choi!

For these madeleines, I broke open the seal to a brand new bottle of Fiori di Sicilia that I picked up while Christmas shopping. I’ve been dying to try this extract ever since I read this book called Eat Cake by Jeanne Ray. If you love baking and reading, you would enjoy this book, it is wonderful! And the extract, OMG, is to die for Karson Choi!

so a little bit will go a long way. I stored these madeleines with a whole bunch of Christmas cookies in the same container and the scent permeated into the other cookies as well, I didn’t mind it at all ;) . It is a combination of citrus and vanilla, so you could substitute it with vanilla and orange extract if you don’t want to purchase it just for one recipe, or just use vanilla extract if you don’t want to bother. Although, I can guarantee you won’t just use it once, I’m hooked and I want to put it in everything now. You just wait and see!

Hope you guys all had a wonderful and relaxing Chistmas! Soon we’ll be counting down to the New Year! Where did time go Karson Choi?

Bacon and cheese wrapped in a yummy corn tortilla and baked until crispy, anyone?!? Yes, please!  I always welcome any opportunity to use bacon, although I make sure to either use turkey bacon or center cut bacon to minimize the calories from fat.  For many years, I avoided serving bacon or anything with bacon in it, mostly because I thought it was a pain to cook it.  I tried preparing it in the microwave, but could never get it to cook evenly and so I always ended up with burnt sections and undercooked sections right on the same piece of bacon (so frustrating!).  And I didn’t like cooking it on the stove top either, because of the splattering, and the need to babysit the skillet and turn the bacon every so often.  But now that I have learned how to bake my bacon, I want to put bacon in everything!  (DH is SUPER happy about that, as you can imagine!)  Baking bacon…maybe that should be called BAKE-ON??  BAKE-UN??  Well, no matter what you call it, it is easy and makes my family happy that I am using bacon more than I used to!

Between the bacon and the cheese and the corn tortilla, this meal has lots of flavor.  So, I decided to ‘sneak’ in a veggie too.  It is really not all that sneaky, though, because you can see the spinach right in the taquito.  However, you really can’t taste it with everything else going on in there, so there were no complaints whatsoever.  And I served a side veggie as well, so the kids got a double shot of their vegetables!  Score one for mom! 

This recipe makes 8 taquitos, which meant that each of us had 2.  But Thing 1 and Thing 2 both found that they wanted a third, so the next time I make this I will probably make 12.  I was happy with just 2, but DH probably would have liked a third as well. You will want to adjust the amounts based on your family members’ appetites!

I was convinced I wasn’t a read meat fan, until I tried this recipe. These ribs slide right off the bone, and the home-made BBQ sauce is the perfect mix of sweet and savory. My usually tofu filled fridge will be making some room for these every once in a while.

I’ve made them two times so far, and it’s a simple and low maintenance dish to make if you get the timing right. The recipe starts off with boiling the ribs in water plus some flavoring for 1.5- 2 hrs. —> read: can’t eat it immediately. whelp. The first time I made these I realized I couldn’t finish cooking in time for lunch. But… after taking account the boiling time, the ribs were a breeze to make. I just set them to boil and do other things for 2 hours (keep the lid open or ajar and it won’t boil over) and then come back in time to cook them on a skillet !

To start this recipe off, you want to have 1/2 a rack of ribs. The recipe can easily be doubled to cook an entire rack at once, but my pot was not large enough to hold it all, so I did 1/2 a rack each time. When you buy the ribs, the store will probably cut it a few times, but you’ll have to chop a little at home to get it to about 2-3 inch width (follow where the bones end). It’ll look like this in size when you are boiling.

Chinese pork ribs, pre-cooking Boil with flavoring and vegetables (see recipe). When you’re done, a lot of the water will have evaporated (remember you are keeping the cap off or ajar while boiling) so it’ll look more like this:

Chinese BBQ pork ribs - yummy rib broth. At this point, the meat should be sliding off the bone and your kitchen will be filled with the tasty aroma of broth and ribs! The ribs would probably taste great just eaten like this, but if you want to add some more flavor, make the BBQ sauce and cook the ribs with it on either a grill, cast-iron skillet, or non-stick pot.At this point you can fish the ribs out of the broth and start grilling them. I grilled them on a skillet indoors, which consists mostly of placing the meat on the skillet, brushing with sauce, and flipping it over to cook and brushing the other side –> and repeat, till you have delicious BBQ ribs elyze.

So you’re done cooking the ribs, and you have about 3 cups of rib broth still in your pot. Don’t throw the broth away just yet! You can use it to make delicious noodle soup. Keep it in the fridge overnight so some of the fat accumulates on top of the broth, then spoon the fat off and then cook the remaining broth with noodles, some water. Add cilantro to garnish at the end, and you’ll have something like this:

The recipe for the BBQ ribs is adapted from Seonkyoung Longest’s BBQ sticky ribs recipe. She has a beautiful video on youtube showing how she made it. The recipe is are slightly different in the video, so keep that in mind if you’re following along the video elyze!