Sunday, December 2, 2012

Shepherd's Pie

I think of shepherd's pie as the perfect winter food. Maybe it's the potatoes or the fact that it's called a pie. 

One day, I was thinking about shepherd's pie, and I thought, What if the crust was made of scalloped potatoes. I thought about this idea for a long time but never tried it until now.

I wasn't quite sure how it would turn out, so I was really excited at the outcome!





















Definitely the ultimate winter dinner.

Recipe
 Ingredients:
  • 3-4 medium sized potatoes
  • 1lb ground lamb
  • 4 carrots
  • 3/4 cup of peas (fresh or frozen)
  • 1 small onion
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 2 Tablespoons flour
  • 4-5 Tablespoons butter


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter or oil your pan. Slice your potatoes with a mandoline (I used a peeler because I don't have a mandoline but be warned, it takes a long time.)  Line the potatoes in your pan. You may want to have several layers of potatoes. 
In a pot, melt butter and put in chopped onions and diced garlic. Cook until golden brown. Add flour and stir. Add lamb and cook until brown. Mix in peas and chopped carrots and pour into the potato crust. Top with about 2 more layers of thinly sliced potatoes. Pour some olive oil or melted butter over the top and cook for 30 minutes or until the top appears golden. Enjoy!




In other news, Carolyn is growing up and is learning lots!



Friday, September 28, 2012

Pictures from SF Adventure

So here are the pictures:

Delicious calamari at The Fish Tank
 

Amazing lamb dosa's at The Dosa Republic. Look at the salsa looking thing. It was crazy good. And you'll never guess, it had quinoa in it!
 

Falafel's at Sunrise Deli



 
 These mouth-watering bundles of delicious at The Slider Shack

Belgian waffles with strawberries at the Waffle Mobile.
 

 As you can see, my sister and brother-in-law got really excited and broke their utensils. 

 
We got The Asian Asada at Kung Fu Tacos and it was really, truly incredible. We also got the Roast duck taco and that disappeared quick.


We got another one.
 
 
    My sister took some artistic shots.

                    Also something I didn't tell you about. We went to Tartine Bakery which is so crisp, fresh, and                     delicious.
 
 

 Cute little label


And La Palma! Which has handmade tortillas and the best guacamole ever.


 
 
And Bi-rite Creamery where we got a Banana Split

Dainty Genlemen 
 
 
 And Sam's Sundae
And a big surprise!!

My new Guide Dog Puppy, Caroline!



She's very cute, sweet, and spunky. Can't wait to tell more about my adventures in raising my third Guide Dog Puppy!

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Horray!

Surprise! My birthday happened, so my family took me on a San Francisco adventure. I had a really great time and it was really fun. Thank you family. Here are some pictures from the trip.

We went to Soma SrEat food park http://somastreatfoodpark.com/ And the first place we checked out was...

Thefishtanktruck.com

http://www.facebook.com/TheDosaRepublic
 


http://www.facebook.com/TheWaffleMobile
 
And last and most defiantly my favorite...


http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kung-Fu-Tacos/122815922690

 
 
I had a really great time and all the food was super incredible! I have another surprise coming and more pictures of the actual food but something is wrong with my blogging account. So, goodbye for now but I hope to post soon!


Friday, August 24, 2012

Surprises!

Tommorrow something exciting is happening! In the meantime, here's what I've been baking.
 
 
 Blackberry Tarts
                                             Kentucky Butter Cake
   Snickerdoodles.
 
 
Hope to post my exciting news tommorrow!

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Celebrations

It's a little late, but the 8th was my niece's dedication and my brother-in-law's birthday. We had a family BBQ and I made German chocolate cake. It's really yummy and fairly easy (Or maybe that's because I make it a lot.)


Also, here is the cake the first time I ever made it.

I based it off of this cake but I tweaked it a bit. Also, instead of adding shredded coconut to the frosting, I added shaved coconut from Whole Foods.

We had a really fun and delicious day!

Monday, July 16, 2012

Love and Lavender Shortbread

My sister's getting married!!!
Her Bridal Shower was a bright and flowery theme so I thought ice cream sandwiches would be fun. I had been dooling over Tartlelette's Lavender Shortbread Cookies Sorbet Sandwiches for a long time and finally had the chance to make them.





Lavender Shortbread Cookies:

Makes 12 cookies for sandwiches

1& 3/4 cups all-purpose flour or
Jeanne's Gluten Free All Purpose Mix
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup yellow cornmeal
1/2 cup butter
2 teaspoons fresh edible lavender
3 tablespoons milk

Preheat oven to 350F. Position a rack in the middle.
In a bowl stir together flour, sugar, and cornmeal. Using pastry blender, cut in butter until mixture resembles fine crumbs. Stir in lavender. Add milk. Stir with fork to combine and form into ball. Knead until smooth and divide in half.
On lightly floured surface, roll half the dough at a time to 1/4-inch thickness. Using 2-inch square cookie cutter, cut out dough.
Place cutouts 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake about 10 minutes or until edges are firm and bottoms are very lightly browned. Transfer cookies to wire rack. Cool.
To store: Place in layers separated by waxed paper in an airtight container; cover. Store at room temperature up to 3 days. Or freeze unfilled cookies up to 3 months.

Instead of making my own sorbet, I bought some Talenti brand. The flavor was Roman Raspberry and it was really delicious. Also, it came in these nice little plastic jars with screw-on lids.
We used a spoon to put the sorbet in-between the cookies, which was a bit messy, but really fun. In the end, it was all worth it.




Thursday, June 21, 2012

Honeyed Apricots and French Toast


My family is big on honey. Especially local, raw honey. I decided to try tartelette's Honey apricots (Her pictures are stunning and far better than mine.). I have no idea why, because 1. I don't really like apricots, and 2. The apricots we had were sour.




 They were not my favorite, but my mom liked them so it was all good. Probably if they had been riper, they would have been tastier.



The honey was delicious though. It had a really nice apricot flavor.

And since I can't just eat apricots for breakfast, I made french toast.
I usually eat my french toast with syrup, jam, or powdered sugar but french toast with honey is incredible. I feel like I've never tried it with honey before, but I know I have. Maybe it was the apricotness.


I'm not quite sure of the ratio of eggs to milk but I used Challah bread. But here's the recipe for the apricots:
  • 1 tablespoon butter
  • six apricots, cut in half, pit removed
  • 1/3 cup honey
Melt the butter in a pan until it starts to sizzle, put in the apricots, cut side down, cook for 2 minutes, flip and cook for another 2 minutes. remove them from pan and place on a serving plate. Add honey to the hot pan and swirl around until hot. Pour over apricots and serve.


Sunday, June 17, 2012

Happy Father's Day!

My Dad's favorite cake is carrot cake packed with pineapple, and raisins. This year I made just that.




It was delicious. Right down to the sweet, carroty end.
It's was pretty hot, so the frosting was very creamy. I tried to stir it long enough to get it fluffier, but I think it was too busy melting.



Carrot Cake

Ingredients
  • 1 1/2 c. Sugar
  • 1 c. Vegetable oil
  • 3 large eggs
  • 2 c. flour
  • 2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 3 c. shredded carrots (about 5-6 large)
  • 18oz can or 1 c. chopped or crushed pineapple 
  • 1/2 c.- 1 c. golden raisins 
Heat oven to 350. Grease bottom and sides of 13 x 9 or 2 round (8") pans and lightly flour.
Beat sugar, oil, and eggs in a large bowl with mixer on low speed about 30 seconds or until well blended. Add remaining ingredients except carrots, pineapples and raisins. Beat on low speed for 1 minute. Stir in carrots, pineapples and raisins. Pour into pan(s)

Bake 13 x 9 for 40-45 minutes, rounds for 30-35 or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pan or on wire rack. Frost and store covered in fridge.


Cream Cheese

Ingredients
  • 1 pkg (8oz) Cream cheese, softened
  • 1/4 c. butter or stick margarine
  • 2-3 tsp milk
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 4 c. powdered sugar

Beat cream cheese, butter, milk and vanilla until smooth. Gradually beat in powdered sugar 1 cup at a time, on low speed until smooth.


P.S. Sorry my pictures have a pixely haze. It's because I used the video camera instead of a regular one.
 


Saturday, June 16, 2012

The Hole Story

- Doughnut hole that is


Little hoops of deep fried delicious.

And it gets better...
 

 With nutella and lemon curd with blueberries.


I probably ate 3. They were Delicious and I had a lot of fun. Plus, now I have my own candy thermometer!
Unfortunately, I made a mess.

 

Oh well, it was worth it.


Cake Doughnuts

Ingredients
  • 2 cups flour
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • 1 quart oil for frying

Preparation

Heat oil in a deep fryer or large pot to 375 degrees F. For draining doughnuts, prepare a place with paper towels. For powdered sugar doughnuts fill a pan with some powdered sugar.

Sift flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and cinnamon. Mix in butter until crumbly. Stir in milk and egg. With floured hands, lightly knead the dough. Turn onto an area prepared with flour. Pat dough into 1/4 inch thickness. Dip a biscuit cutter and a 1 inch round cutter in flour. Use to cut-out doughnuts.

Carefully drop doughnuts into hot oil, only a few at a time. Fry, turning once, for about 3 minutes or until golden brown.
For powdered sugar doughnuts, dry on a paper towel quickly and dump in the pan of confectioner sugar.

Spread on nutella, or the frosting of your choice and enjoy!