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Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Recipe Bacardi's Halloween punch recipe
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 12:47 PM
Bacardi shared this Halloween drink recipe with me, so I'm sharing it with y'all.
Hope you have a safe and "Spooki-licious" Halloween!
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.)
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Recipe / Priscilla Tsai / Dessert / Breakfast This cake tastes like fall
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Thu, Oct 21, 2010 at 3:22 PM
What does fall taste like? It tastes like apples and spice, and everything nice. Which is exactly what this Double Apple Bundt Cake is.
This recipe comes from my Baking: From My Home to Yours book by Dorie Greenspan. It's called "double" apple because it calls for both fresh grated apples and apple butter.
Each slice of cake is moist and dense, studded with raisins and chopped pecans. Though it contains no carrots, a few people commented that it tastes similar to carrot cake.
The cake is easy to make, but like all bundt cakes, it takes 50 minutes or so to bake. You have the option to glaze the finished cake with a simple confectioner's sugar and lemon juice glaze, but I thought the cake was plenty sweet by itself. It beautify it though, I just dusted it with just a tad of confectioner's sugar.
Serve it for breakfast or dessert. Or both. It makes for a good snack too.
I made a few edits to the recipe: I used whole wheat flour for half of the flour content. I also used cranberry apple butter instead of regular apple butter because that's all Trader Joe's had. The cranberry flavor wasn't noticeable. It turned the batter a bit pink, but the color was gone after baking. You can find the original recipe below (as well as nutrition facts).
Friday, October 15, 2010
Recipe / Priscilla Tsai / Dessert Piped butter cookies
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 4:07 PM
These cookies are the result of a bout of procrastination.
When I don't feel like doing something, I'll skirt the duty and bake instead.
I made these piped butter cookies last weekend when I was supposed to be doing something else. Inspired by the bag of Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies I had been eating all week, I decided to make my own.
The dough is simple to make, but the it is a major pain in the butt to pipe out because it's so stiff. Use a heavy-duty piping bag for this because my Zip-Lock bag busted half way though.
I made "S" shaped swirl cookies with a small star tip, as well as rosettes with a 1M tip. Remember, the larger the piping tip, the easier it will be to pipe out.
You can leave them plain after baking, spread the bottom with melted chocolate, or you double them up and sandwich them together with some melted chocolate.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Recipe / Priscilla Tsai / Side Dish / Dinner Dinner: Gorgonzola Penne with Shrimp ... and a salad
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 4:59 PM
This Gorgonzola Penne with Chicken dish won $25,000 in a recipe contest through Taste of Home. $25K? Dang.
Since it was deemed worthy of the hefty monetary prize, I had to try it.
I'm not a big fan of chunks of chicken in my pasta, so I subbed in shrimp instead. The prep was simple and the cooking was easy. I'd say it turned out pretty freakin' tasty. Even my lactose-intolerant friend scarfed it down, knowing full well what the consequences would be.
Penne pasta and shrimp are tossed with in pungent Gorgonzola cream sauce, made of cream, white wine, sage, and garlic. Thanks to the addition of the light orange shrimp, the dish wasn't completely a monochromatic and bland white.
Here's my version:
Lacking greens, the rich and creamy pasta pairs well with a fresh salad with tart flavors. I made an Spinach Apple Salad to go with it. You can do it too. It's easy! Just a cup of diced apple, a few raisins, chopped red onion, and spinach. Toss it with a simple dressing, and voila:
Read on to get the recipes...
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Recipe / Priscilla Tsai / Breakfast Let's call these donuts "don't-nuts"
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 1:57 PM
Seems like donuts are all the rage on the blogosphere nowadays. After seeing a plethora of posts on apple cider donuts, caramel donuts, baked cinnamon donuts and more, I caved and purchased a donut pan to make baked donuts.
The pan arrived in the mail with a recipe for Spiced Donuts on the back of the packaging. I decided to give it a whirl figuring that if the recipe is featured on the product packaging, it's gotta be good, right?
Wrong.
These donuts are a big "don't."
They came out like donut-shaped muffins. Bread-like and slightly rubbery, they didn't even have a cinnamony spiced flavor. Perhaps if I had dunked them in melted butter and then rolled them in cinnamon sugar after baking like these donut muffins, they would have tasted better.
At least they looked attractive.
I won't post the recipe because I don't want to subject you to the temptation to make these, seeing how rainbow-colored and cute they are, you might not be able to resist.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Recipe / Priscilla Tsai / Side Dish Super simple Blue Ribbon-Worthy Chili
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Fri, Oct 1, 2010 at 1:00 AM
Chilly weather calls for chili.
I like my chili basic – just beans and meat. No bell peppers, cheese, nachos, corn meal, celery, beer or anything else please. Here's an exceptionally easy recipe for some blue ribbon-worthy simple chili.
The meat and onions are browned on the stove top first before being added to the remaining ingredients in a crock pot. Just set that pot on low and let it simmer for 1 to 6 hours. The longer it sits, the better it gets.
The chili turns out thick and chunky. With such a short list of ingredients, you'll be surprised how flavorful (and spicy) it is. No thin, tomato soupy chili here, that's for sure.
Blue Ribbon-Worthy Chili
Ingredients
2 pounds ground beef
1 small onion, chopped
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 clove minced garlic
2 1/2 cups tomato sauce
1 (8 ounce) jar Pace Picante Sauce (I used "hot")
1 packet chili or taco seasoning mix
1 (15 ounce) can light red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 (15 ounce) can dark red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
Directions
In a large saucepan over medium heat, combine the ground beef, onion and half of the seasoning mix. Saute for 10 minutes, or until meat is browned and onion is tender. Drain grease.
Add the meat mixture, along with the ground black pepper, garlic, tomato sauce, picante sauce, the rest of the seasoning mix and kidney beans to crock pot. Mix well, simmer on low for at least an hour. (I let mine simmer for 5 hours)
Monday, September 27, 2010
Recipe / Priscilla Tsai / Dessert Pink cupcakes for the birthday girl
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 2:48 PM
Our CL Operations Editor Kim Lawson celebrated her birthday yesterday sans cake. Whaaaaaaat? That's unacceptable!
Today we are celebrating with cupcakes in the office. The birthday girl requested chocolate cupcakes, so here we have chocolate cupcakes filled with creamy ganache, and topped with a girly pink buttercream frosting. The chocolate cupcake recipe is the same one I used for the Mint Oreo Cupcakes I made back in June.
To pipe the flower-like pattern of frosting, I used a Wilton teardrop tip.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Recipe / Priscilla Tsai Homemade Lara Bars
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 3:23 PM
* Warning: This may be the ugliest food I've ever made for this blog.
After discovering Lara Bars a few days ago, I've been obsessed. Most of the Lara Bars only have three ingredients or so and contain no preservatives. And they are gluten free. It's amazing!
Unlike other energy bars that try to pass themselves off as "all natural" and "healthy," these don't contain those ingredients that you can't pronounce, added sugar, or grain fillers. They definitely have that "healthy" taste, but if you like that kind of food, you'll like these bars. Each has roughly 200 calories.
The only ingredients listed for the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Lara Bar are dates, cashews, and chocolate chips (yes, I know, chocolate chips do contain more ingredients within).
At $1.29 a pop from Trader Joe's, these bars aren't cheap. But with only 3 ingredients, how hard could it be to make yourself? I went on a mission to make my own.
I researched homemade Lara Bars on other blogs and came up with my own conglomeration. It took me two tries though. Who knew dates would be so hard to find? On my first attempt, I tried using prunes instead of dates because I was too lazy to search for dates. Big mistake. The bars turned out pretty nasty. Think prune juice. (See photo below)
For my second attempt, off to Trader Joe's I went in search of dates. Their Medjool dates cost $4.49 per 16 oz. package and can be found in the "wet grocery" section.
Here's my second attempt:
Much better! I split the dough into two batches and added two blocks of chopped dark chocolate to one, to make the Chocolate Chip Cooke Dough flavor bar. The plain dough tastes like the Cashew Cookie bar.
To form each bar, I weighed out 1.75 oz of dough and patted it between plastic wrap.
I've crunched the numbers and figured out each bar has about 224 calories (without chocolate). It's not low cal, but it's it's got healthy fats and will give you energy. Now I've got a stash of bars in my fridge ready to go whenever I am.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Recipe / Priscilla Tsai / Dessert Crazy king cake
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Tue, Sep 14, 2010 at 11:43 AM
After spending five days in New Orleans, LA, eating my way through town, noshing on oysters, bbq shrimp, pralines, muffulettas and more, the only NOLA food I didn't get to sink my teeth into was the traditional Mardi Gras king cake. I guess they only have the green, purple and gold cake/bread during Mardi Gras time.
I've only had king cake once in my life, so I'm not even sure if I like it. The little plastic baby buried inside king cakes is kind of creepy. But if it's tasty, I'm willing to overlook the baby in my food.
To make my NOLA food experience complete, I came home and experimented making my own king cake from a recipe I found in a Southern Living Magazine cookbook. The cake isn't really a cake, but a yeasted dough that is similar to cinnamon buns. The dough is rolled out, smothered in softened butter, and dusted with cinnamon sugar before it's rolled up jelly-roll style and formed into a ring.
I only had green, pink, and rainbow sprinkles on hand, so I used those instead of the traditional colors. My crazy looking "cake" tasted pretty good fresh out of the oven and covered in icing, but it was not so tasty a few hours later when it was cold and hard.
So, experiment competed. Results: I probably wouldn't make it again.
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Crockpot Arsenal: Teriyaki Sesame Pork with Asian Slaw 1
If you like sweet and smoky barbecue sauce, this will be right up your alley, but also a nice change of pace.
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Restaurant owner Tela Loli talks business
She makes it her goal that everyone who enters Le Peep’s doors has a pleasing, and filling, food experience.
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Charlotte chefs hit the road to help flood victims
Piedmont Culinary Guild is on its way to South Carolina today.
