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Priscilla Tsai
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Recipe / Priscilla Tsai / Dinner Spaghetti and meatballs
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Sun, Dec 5, 2010 at 11:49 PM
Stick a fork in it. Dinner is ready.
With the help of a couple jars of store-bought tomato sauce, you can feed your family a hearty dinner of spaghetti and meatballs within 45 minutes or so.
These meatballs are bigger than golf balls, but smaller than tennis balls. They're not the kind that just fall apart when cut into, but they aren't the super compact kind either. You know ... the ones that look like processed meat? Well, I guess I'm trying to say they're just right. Serve them with whole wheat pasta if you want to be healthy.
Sure, there are many amazing recipes out there that require ground pork, veal, beef, fancy spices, and 5 hours of cooking. But this one is straight forward, fast, and still tasty. Perfect for a weekday meal.
I found the recipe on one of my favorite food blogs, The Amateur Gourmet. Instead of making my own sauce, I used two jars of Bertolli tomato sauce to save time. Get the recipe and check out the AG's step-by-step photos here.
Friday, December 3, 2010
Recipe / Priscilla Tsai / Dessert A ribbon-frosted chocolate cake
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Fri, Dec 3, 2010 at 9:57 AM
Happy retirement and birthday, Jan!
Creative Loafing's sales rep Jan Caldwell retired yesterday and her today is birthday. For such a grand occasion, a batch of cupcakes just wouldn't suffice. I needed to make something really special for her.
When I ran across a blog post online featuring a mile-high layered cake decorated with ribbons of frosting, I knew I had to try it.
For my cake, I made two layers of rich chocolate cake and then cut each in half to make 4 layers. For the frosting, I made a vanilla buttercream and tinted it a bright and fun pink. The ribboned look was created with a Wilton petal decorating tip (like this).
So, I practically gave myself carpal tunnel syndrome from piping all the frosting, but it was totally worth it.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Recipe / Priscilla Tsai / Breakfast / Side Dish Smoked salmon deviled eggs
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Wed, Dec 1, 2010 at 12:14 PM
Ina Garten's new book "How Easy is That?" is out on shelves at bookstores now.
I tried her recipe for smoked salmon deviled eggs for a brunch I helped host this past weekend. And you know what? It was pretty easy.
The eggs turned out tasting similar to lox, but a creamier and fluffier version. Guests all commented about how tasty they were, so I'd say this recipe is a keeper.
The trick to perfectly boiled eggs is to bring the eggs and cold water to a boil, then turn off heat and let them sit covered for 15 minutes. Then soak the eggs ice in cold water, and lightly tap the shells all around to break them so that cold water will run between the shell and the egg. The eggs will contract and the shells should peel off easily.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Recipe / Priscilla Tsai / Breakfast Sweet potato muffins
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Tue, Nov 23, 2010 at 5:25 PM
If you end up with some leftover sweet potato casserole after Thanksgiving, turn it into muffins.
This recipe for sweet potato muffins was converted from a pumpkin bread recipe I have. I subbed the pumpkin for sweet potato mash and added some other good stuff. Instead of buying canned mashed sweet potatoes, you can easily just use your leftover casserole. Just remember to cut down on the amount of sugar in the recipe. If your leftover sweet potatoes have streusel or marshmallows mixed in, even better!
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Recipe / Priscilla Tsai / Dinner Ultimate Spaghetti Sauce
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Tue, Nov 16, 2010 at 10:48 AM
For some reason, I always crave the same foods at any given time. It's always either ice cream, spaghetti with red sauce, pizza, or pad thai. Weird, right?
Well if you love yourself some pasta with red sauce too, you should try this Ultimate Spaghetti Sauce, from the blog Bell'alimento.
The sauce is kind of ridiculous because you simmer four (or five, in my case) whole links of Italian sausage in tomato sauce for four hours before chopping them up and throwing them back into the sauce. All the sausage juices, or as some like to call it, fat, simmer right into the sauce.
My only deviations from the original recipe were using one extra sausage (hey, it comes five to a pack at Harris Teeter), and pureeing some of the onions and carrots post simmering to make the sauce thicker and less chunky.
This stuff is so comforting on a cold, dark night.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Recipe / Priscilla Tsai / Dessert Mint chocolate truffles ... disguised as pumpkins
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Mon, Nov 8, 2010 at 1:33 PM
Mix together crushed Oreos and a block of cream cheese and what do you get? Bite-sized truffle balls of amazing awesomeness.
According to a co-worker, "this truffle is the most delicious thing I've ever put in my mouth!"
Making them is a snap. Instructions are as follows:
1. Grind up an entire package (yes, three whole sleeves) of Oreos.
2. Mix in a block of cream cheese (softened).
(3. Add in a teaspoon of peppermint extract, if you so choose.)
4. Roll into balls, place on wax paper, and chill in the freezer for 10 minutes. *I used a scale to measure out each one and made each 15 grams
5. Dip balls in melted white chocolate (the Almond Bark variety works great)
Here I've dressed them up for the season. I added a couple drops of food coloring (which I do not recommend*) to the white chocolate to make the truffles into little pumpkins. The stems and the tendrils were made with toothpicks and curled green ribbon.
You can make these truffles for any holiday by getting creative with the decorations. Sprinkle on green and red nonpareils over the chocolate before it sets for Christmas truffles, or you can even use black icing to draw faces on white truffles to turn them into snowmen.
* It's probably not a good idea to add water-based food coloring like I did because it messed up the chocolate's consistency. I was only able to make a few orange truffles before the chocolate got down-right funky and hard to work with. I ended up trashing the orange chocolate and made the rest of the truffles plain. If you want to color your chocolate, get the oil-based food coloring. Yes, I'm a dumdum.
Friday, November 5, 2010
Recipe / Priscilla Tsai / Dessert The Pioneer Woman's apple dumplings
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Fri, Nov 5, 2010 at 7:39 AM
I've made another Pioneer Woman recipe and I've gained another pound from it. That's how it goes.
This time I made her apple dumplings. They were embarrassingly easy to make for being so good.
To make these puppies, you just wrap crescent roll dough around slices of apple, pour a mixture of melted butter and sugar over them, empty out some Mountain Dew from the can on top of that, sprinkle with cinnamon, and bake. And ta-da! You've got yourself a crowd-pleasing dessert.
With such little effort for a praise-worthy dessert, this recipe has definitely got me rethinking all my complicated dessert recipes. What's the point in laboring in the kitchen for hours if something semi-homemade does the job?
I'll definitely be making these again. Perhaps a cream cheese and berry filling would be pretty good too. Or maybe peaches ...
If you are making these ahead of time, after baking, pour out as much of the sauce that's in the pan (there will be quite a bit) and save it in a separate container. This will keep the dumplings from getting soggy. When you're ready to serve, warm the dumplings in the oven for a few minutes and warm the sauce in the microwave. Serve it all with scoop of vanilla bean ice cream.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Recipe / Priscilla Tsai / Dessert Banana pudding fail ... again
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Fri, Oct 29, 2010 at 9:41 AM
If there is one thing I can't make in the kitchen, it's banana pudding. Every time I try, it turns out to be a failure.
You'd think I could master something as simple as banana pudding, which only requires one to layer a few simple ingredients — bananas, Nilla wafers, and pudding. Alas, I cannot.
Last time I made it with boxed banana-flavored pudding and it came out tasting like banana Runts candies. This time I tried making my own pudding, and it came out brown, grainy, and looking like apple sauce.
Though the pudding portion didn't look right after cooking on the stove top for 20 minutes, I forged ahead and assembled the banana pudding anyway – bananas, Nilla wafers and all. I believed something magical just might happen if I allowed the assembled banana pudding sit in the fridge.
Silly me. After a night in the refrigerator, the pudding was still a grainy mush with the texture of cooked squash. Arg. Just stamp me with a big, fat "FAIL" stamp. Nothing makes me angrier than a failed cooking project.
I got the recipe from the Charlotte Observer a few months ago. It's titled "The Best-Ever Banana Pudding." Mine turned out to be "The Worst-Ever Banana Pudding." What did I do wrong?
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Recipe / Priscilla Tsai / Dinner Braised short ribs
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 12:23 PM
These braised short ribs are good. Like so good.
The recipe comes from The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond. Like most of her recipes, this one was deeeeeeeelicious. Ree had named this recipe as one of the top dishes you must try before you die. She calls these short ribs "heaven on a plate." After eating these last night, I am in agreement.
Set aside a lazy weekend afternoon for this dish. From start to finish, it took me about 3-4 hours.
After checking at two Harris Teeter stores, I had to go to The Fresh Market (in Strawberry Hill) to pick up the beef short ribs, which sell for $5.99/lb. At The Fresh Market I was also able to acquire some beautiful Italian pancetta ($9.99/lb), a type of dry cured meat which is like the fattier and tastier cousin of bacon.
To start, the pancetta is cooked down and a good helping of fat is rendered, then the ribs are seared in the fat, and then the veggies are cooked in all that goodness along with red wine. Then after 2.5 hours in the oven, the short ribs come out oh-so-tender with the meat just falling off the bone. I served these over a bed of garlic mashed potatoes with a huge scoop of the juice from the ribs on top.
Make these. You won't regret it. Here's how...
(Sorry for the crap photos. I was too into cooking and devouring than my usual food styling and lighting.)
Friday, October 22, 2010
Priscilla Tsai Fancy pants sablé cookies (aka. French butter cookies)
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 3:39 PM
These cookies sound all fancy pants because they are called Sablé Cookies, but they are actually just butter cookies ... of French descent. "Sablés" is French for sand.
Despite their foreign fancy-sounding name, these cookies are quite plain Jane, but not to say they aren't extremely good.
The dough is rolled into logs and chilled for a few hours or overnight. When you are ready to bake, simply roll them in sugar before slicing and baking them.
Each round cookie is tender, slightly sandy, and delicate due to the use of confectioner's sugar. They are crisp and buttery too. Jazz them up with different flavor extracts and sugar coatings. Here I used almond extract and pink decorating sugar.
