I made up this recipe to serve at my daughter's eighteenth birthday party which is being held this Sunday. She wanted Thai food for her birthday, so I am serving plenty of traditional dishes, like tom kha gai, yum woon sen, spicy basil chicken and massamun beef curry, but I also wanted to do a dish of my own featuring her favorite vegetable, gai lan.. Gai lan is often called Chinese broccoli, but I think it tastes like a combination of broccoli, kale and chard. It is delicious, and it goes beautifully in this dish which is a balance between spicy (from the bird chilies,) sweet (palm sugar), sour (lime juice) and salty (fish sauce).

It is surprisingly simple to do once you have the Thai pantry items available to you: Thai sweet soy sauce, fish sauce, palm sugar (you can sub brown or raw sugar if you want), fresh limes, bird chilies and oyster sauce. It took me less time to prep and cook this dish than it took my rice cooker to make the rice to go with it! (A batch of rice in my cooker takes about forty two minutes, start to finish.)

Anyway, photographs, story and recipe here.

Called "Nilagang Baka" in the Philippines, this is one of my favorite dishes and go-to comfort food.  Perfect for the cold weather.


It's basically pressure-cooked beef soup bones and beef brisket, and vegetables [anywhere from cabbage, bok choy, potatoes, to plantains].  I used cabbage and spinach for a change.  I love spinach.  [The recipe is here, if you're interested.]

I've been waiting at least 4 weeks to get my Borner V Slicer Plus. (I considered shelling out for the de Buyer mandoline, but I'm getting married in October, and that's the kind of thing I can wait and register for) Getting this thing has been quite an ordeal. Since it began, I have vowed to never order from Amazon again, and I now have a personal vendetta against my local post office.

...but the wait was worth it. Oh so worth it. I adapted this recipe to create CHEESY POTATO GOODNESS. Official name. I took pictures, but they're kind of useless without a card reader.

( here's what I did )

Let me tell you, if there is a potato heaven, I have found it. My house still smells amazing. I'm tempted to cut out a square, wrap it in bacon dredge it and deep fry it.

I'm working on an entry for a cake competition in the "tasting" category. The particular category is for groom's cakes and must be chocolate.

I know what I like but I'm curious what men would prefer so this poll is directed at the fellas.
( Fill out poll )

I've photographed a few things lately that I thought I would share. I apologize for the heavy post, but I figured one post with everything would be better than individual posts for each one - this community is busy enough!

First, I recently made up a recipe for a pseudo-Chinese favorite of mine - Black Pepper Chicken. It isn't complicated, but it tastes better than most of the versions I've had at the cheapo Chinese restaurants where I used to get it. I served it with jasmine rice, just because I love jasmine rice.


( Pie, macaroons, bread, and lasagna follow )

Vanilla gets a bad rap. We describe something boring as being "vanilla". How could we downplay the importance of vanilla? Or its mysterious gorgeous scent? It's something we put in nearly every baked good without thinking twice. It's universal and important. To me it will never be boring. That said...

I had quite a few way too dry vanilla beans and a half a bottle of already very vanilla tasting mellow rum. I can't drink hard liquor, and this stuff is too good to "waste" on a party. What to do, what to do? Let's make some extract!



( what it looks like after two weeks )

Tonight's dinner: tomato-basil lamb shoulder chops with mixed greens and roasted baby potatoes with herbs.

and i thought of everyone here....


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B78rrwSQB24&feature=related

it's pretty food porny if you ask me!

I made this fabulous chicken parmesan recipe I found on youtube a few weeks ago. I just discovered this community and thought I should share. I love baking, but I am very new to cooking so I am learning a lot of simple dishes (youtube is awesome for that). I am a huge fan of photography, so if you are interested, I have a photoset on flickr devoted to food porn. Check it out sometime. :)