Category Archives: Sweets/Bakeries/Desserts

Hello Kitty (and others) Gingerbread Cookies

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http://www.foodnetwork.co…cipe/index.html

So I baked my gingerbread cookies to bring to work tomorrow. After refrigerating overnight, the dough was really hard to roll out. Ron helped me a bit to flatten out the dough as my arms were really getting tired. Plus I miss having a granite counter top to directly roll out the dough. Instead I had to use a large cutting board, first covered with plastic wrap and when that got irritating, parchment paper taped down (worked better).

The cookies turned out a bit hard but the thinner more crispy ones tasted yummy. I think they’ll be good with some tea or coffee, like a dipping cookie.

I used my very cute Hello Kitty cookie cutters. I think we’ve had these for almost 20 years, I remember using them when I was little and making sugar cookies with my mom and aunts.

I also made bears, baby bears, and gingerbread men. I bought some yummy toffee sugar crystals at Target the other day so used them to accent the cookies.

There were also stars.

Guess I’ll see how they go over tomorrow at work. The recipe makes a ton!

Hungry Kitties and Baking

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The kitties ran out of food this morning so there wasn’t quite enough to go around so I went out to buy them some food. I picked up some Iams Weight Control for them at Petco. When I brought the bag home, there was still food in their bowls that they didn’t finish but all three of them came sniffing around the new bag. As I opened it they started meowing and when I went to fill their bowls, they all hurried over to eat.

I’ve never seen them all eating at the same time (and definitely never Maxwell sitting next to Misu).

Their tails are content, lying quietly on the floor.

Been doing some baking again. Last night I made these chocolate chip peanut butter cookies.

Tonight I am making gingerbread cookie dough and it requires 6 cups of flour! I’m using the bowl of my Kitchenaid mixer and I don’t think I’ve ever used that much flour for any recipe.

I’ll let you know how it turns out when I bake them tomorrow. For now the dough will go in the refrigerator.

Thanksgiving

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Ah, a good eating weekend.

We had Thanksgiving dinner at Ron’s parents’ home in Millbrae. My family came and also some of our “homeless” friends so we had a pretty big group.

Ron did quite a bit of the food preparation on Thanksgiving day but thank goodness Ron’s mom did most of the grocery shopping the few days before.

He prepared ribs and a beef roast.

Our friends brought over the turkey fryer. It took about an hour to cook our ~15 lb turkey.

While the cooking was still being done, we just hung out and play Wii. We got the new game Raving Rabbids TV Party. It’s a pretty fun game but your arms would be very tired after playing for too long.

Our beef roast.

Our Coca-Cola spicy ribs.

Our deep fried turkey. Yummy and juicy!

Pork tempura.

Marinated cucumbers. One of Ron’s mom’s best dishes.

I prepared these lemon tarts for dessert. I used Splenda to make the crust and part of the lemon cream. The Splenda gave the crust a very dry texture so I don’t think I’ll be doing that again.

Our big dinner party ready to eat!

After dinner Texas Hold’em game.

Enjoying a cup of tea after a big meal.

I miss living in a home to host a Thanksgiving but at least it’s good our parents will let us use their homes 🙂

Can’t wait to use my turkey bones to make porridge!

Thanksgiving Potluck

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So I’ve been baking quite a bit lately. I borrowed this great cookbook from my friends that’s written by the owner of Tartine Bakery in SF. I’ve never been there but their recipes are very good.

So far I’ve made pumpkin tea cake and shortbread. I also baked this chocolate madeleines from the October Martha Stewart Living magazine along with Peanut Butter Rice Krispy Treats.

So at work we had the pharmacy dept Thanksgiving potluck and I said I would bring “finger foods” so I didn’t really know what to make. I didn’t just want to make a dessert so decided on something savory and something sweet.

These are the sesame cheese onion mini muffins. Not quite salty enough since I substituted the recommended cheddar cheese for smoked gouda instead, less intense flavors.

Then I also decided to make mango buttermilk scones. These tasted really good right out of the oven when the bottoms and sides were still really crispy. I think they taste better microwaved a bit or else toasted again lightly. I substituted mangoes for currants in this recipe.

We had a lot of food today: Honey Baked ham, mac ‘n’ cheese, pear candied walnut salad, fried rice, fried chicken legs, veggie platter with spinach dip, pumpkin pie, flan, etc… so stuffed but so yummy!

Can’t wait for Thanksgiving with the family on Thursday… looking forward to a 4-day weekend!

Halloween Treats and San Wang Restaurant

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I haven’t baked in a while so I wanted to make some Halloween treats for my co-workers. A few weeks ago, I bought the Halloween edition of Martha Stewart Living magazine and there were these really cool chocolate madeleines with skull marshmallows. I got a madeleine pan from V last year so thought this it’d be a good time to break it out… I think this may only be the 2nd time I used it.

While I was at it, I made peanut butter rice crispy treats made in a shape of a pumpkin, using Twix for stems and chocolate Skittles for eyes.

Turned out pretty cute, don’t you think? I think everyone at worked enjoyed them, they went pretty fast 🙂

We didn’t know anyone having a party tonight so we just went out to dinner with a few friends. My co-worker recommended this restaurant in Japantown called San Wang for good jia jiang noodles. I had mentioned to her that I really liked ZaZang Noodles on Geary and she said this one was good too.

I looked on Yelp for other recommendations for dishes. From Yelp, the restaurant had mixed reviews but I thought it’d be worth a try anyways.

We ordered the spicy noodle soup which wasn’t very spicy but the hand pulled noodles were good.

The jia jiang noodles were only okay. I was a bit disappointed so probably won’t go back. The onions and pork were in big chunks instead of small pieces like I think they should be. The noodles were good though.

To round out our meal, we also had the pea sprouts. It has garlic and mushrooms, this I actually really liked.

Lastly, their dried fried chicken. I think people would like it if they like it salt and with garlic and onions. I think our palates prefer the sweet and spicy of San Tung Restaurant on Irving.

So a quiet Halloween evening. Just as well since I’ll be working tomorrow in Oakland Chinatown.