Chinese New Year Meal(s)

By now, I have not celebrated Chinese New Year with my family for more than a decade. So I am doing what I can, living just with my hubby. For the last 3 years, I made a hot pot (Asian-style fondue) with different flavors of broth. I made the tom yum flavored broth last year and the year before. This year I decided to try something different and simpler, as I was hosting my parents in-law who don't really like spicy food. I made the broth from miso paste and hon-dashi.

As you can see from the pictures below, I had some bok choy, fried tofu, regular fish cakes, lemongrass-flavored fish cakes, beef tendon balls, pork balls, enoki mushrooms, another kind of wild mushroom and some thinly sliced beef tenderloin. Yum!

Dinner at Topolobampo Chicago

We had been dying to try this restaurant. We had been to Frontera Grill three times before and had a very good experience every single time. So we wanted to try Topolobampo.

It took me more than 3 months to get this dinner reservation. Initially I wanted to surprise my new husband for our wedding celebration. Well, just think of this as 4 month anniversary celebration. =P The wait was well worth it as it was the best dinner we both ever had.

This is my appetizer - the sausage and cheese salad with green verde sauce.

And this is my husband's appetizer: muscle soup

This is my soup entree:

And this is my husband's soup entree:

This is my first entree: halibut with sauce and caper

And this is my husband's first entree: seafood mix - this is my second favorite dish of the evening

This is my second entree: braised pork with some kind of polenta - this is our favorite dish of the evening. The flavor was so complex. It was very tasty, it had some smokiness to it, ahh, indescribable.

This is my husband's second entree: steak with amazingly complex flavor

This is my dessert: shortcake with berries, some crumbs and ice cream.

This is totally my kind of dessert, light, fruity and airy. Delectable!

This is my husband's dessert: chocolate cake with caramel sauce and ice cream.

This is totally his kind of dessert: chocolatey, rich, and decadent!

This is not a cheap meal, by any means. However, it is worth the experience. Obviously we cannot afford to go back every year, but this one time was totally worth it.

My First Real Birthday Cake

OK, I am obviously not celebrating my first birthday. I just decorated my first birthday cake for my father-in-law who celebrated his birthday recently. His favorite cake was yellow cake with chocolate frosting. For practice and in class, we always used white frosting. Since I did not want to take a chance, I bought 2 jars of Duncan Hines chocolate frosting. It is tasty by all means (although a little too sweet for my taste), but it is really hard to smooth, unlike the white frosting.

I ran out of ideas and I just got back from traveling for work that night, so here it is. I had to do it that Friday night because his birthday was on Saturday. Here is the picture of my humble cake.



Oh, my husband also gave this to his dad as part of his birthday gift, the new Crown Royal Black. It tastes smooth. If you like whiskey, this is a good one for you. :)

Mexican Fiesta Dinner

My husband is a huge fan of Mexican food. Not just Tex-mex, but also real authentic Mexican food.
I gave him Mexican Everyday by Rick Bayless as a Christmas gift last year and we have tried a few recipes out of this book. Last weekend we decided to try new recipes. We tried to make Chicken in Oaxacan Yellow Mole with Green Beans and Potatoes. The recipe recommended using chayote and fresh hoja santa leaves, but we couldn't find it either of them in our regular grocery store. We followed the rest of the recipe. I have to admit that this recipe is not your typical 30-minute meal. The preps took a long time, from chopping the garlic, slicing the guajillo chiles, to cubing the chicken thighs and potatoes. The result was outstanding and well worth the effort. There are so many layers of flavors in the broth and it was really comforting.

We also tried making some corn tortillas from scratch. We used some masa harina (Mexican corn flour), water and salt. We haven't quite mastered how to do it yet. After putting them on the pan, they got crispy so quickly. I guess we just have to practice making this.

Apple Torte with Breadcrumb-Hazelnut Crust

When I saw the cover of the October edition of BonAppetit magazine, I was so excited to try the recipe for this seemingly delicious apple torte. It's not exactly a pie, it uses breadcrumbs instead of the regular butter / flour / sugar combination, so it might be less dense and less sweet. The recipe could be found here:

http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2010/10/apple_torte_with_breadcrumb_hazelnut_crust

I had so much trouble with this that I did not even bother taking a picture.

First of all, after toasting 8 cups of breadcrumbs for a little longer than recommended, they still didn't reduce down to 3 cups. After so much effort, the crust didn't taste that much different from the regular crust.

Cake Decorating Class

I like to learn, a new skills, new sports, anything. So I decided to take a cake decorating class at Jo-ann last month. I was very worried that since I don't have steady hands, my decoration would be such an epic disaster. I have to admit I was terrible, but after some practice, my skills improved steadily!

Week 1: decorating cookies
For the first time, I learned about the frosting/icing consistency, how to hold a bag, the different tips used for different decorations, etc.



Week 2: decorating a cake
For this session, we were supposed to bring a cake. During the class session, we would learn how to torte (split the cake into 2 layers) and fill it with some fillings like jam or more icing. I brought a small 9" cake into the class and my frosting did not set even after 20 minutes. You can tell that I have unsteady hands by looking at the uneven border piping in the picture here.



Week 3: decorating cupcakes
In this session, we learned how to make grass, pompom flowers, mum flowers, and shell borders.




Since I am an A-type who is competitive and does not like being at the bottom of the class, I decided to practice on another cake before going into the last class session. Here is the practice cake I did at home using some of the skills I had learned in the previous sessions.



Week 4: decorating a cake
In this last session, we were supposed to bring a completely frosted/iced cake, so that we could concentrate on the design during the class session. Since I was still pretty slow and I had to mix my frosting to the right consistency, I did not finish the cake during the class session. However, I was determined to finish it at home that day.



Detail view of the rosettes.

Pork Chop with Apple and Caramel Sauce

We went apple picking last weekend at Elegant Farmer at Mukwonago, WI. We picked about ten pounds worth of red delicious and spartan apples. Since my husband and I don't usually eat that much apple, I was thinking of creative, new ideas to incorporate apples in new forms other than apple pies. I have always known that apple goes well with pork, so I searched for a pork chop recipe using some apples. I found a pretty simple recipe at Allrecipes. This is my first attempt at making pork chop, so please be kind. :)

This is the first pork chop recipe I found that does not bread and fry the pork chop, which made me happy. I was eager to try it. Making the caramel sauce was the tricky part, because when the sauce was left a little bit too long on the fire, it crystalized and became hardened. Overall, I am very pleased with the result.