Happy Wednesday, Noshers! I’ve been a little MIA lately as I recover from a pretty awesome weekend trip (er…two weekends ago) to Sedona and Scottsdale. I’ll be posting a few photos, so keep your eyes peeled! In the meantime, I’m super excited to share a new project I’ve set up for myself – my very first cookbook cookthrough!
Ok, I’m not sure if that’s a real word, but much like the movie Julie and Julia, I plan to cook every recipe in one of my newest cookbooks. I’m going easy on myself to start – I don’t have a set time limit (yet…if I start lagging behind, I might set some rules in place), and I’m not cooking the recipes in order. Rather, I’m skimming through and picking recipes that most interest me (but I will try all of them), and more importantly, for which I can find the ingredients. And the cookbook I’ve chosen for my very first cookthrough is……the Lucky Rice cookbook!
I actually won this book a while back, and when browsing through it, I realized that I wanted to try making every single recipe. The cookbook features both classic and new takes on Asian dishes, and author Danielle Chang infuses the book with her own personal stories. It’s a fantastic read! I also chose this cookbook because I was super-spoiled in NYC with ethnic grocery stores galore, tons and tons of live seafood, and a bustling Chinatown from which to purchase ingredients. I might have to get a little creative in Kansas City, but it should be an interesting challenge! I’d love if you cooked along with me – it would be so fun for us to cook together and for me to see photos of your cooking! I’ll be tagging my posts/photos with #BigAppleNoshLuckyRice – tag yours as well so I make sure I see them 🙂
The very first recipe I wanted to try was for Japanese Pancakes, or okonomiyaki. Unlike American pancakes, the Japanese version is savory, with meat, scallions, ketchup, and Kewpie mayo. My challenges for this recipe was sourcing the Kewpie mayo (which is delish) – I wasn’t able to find it at my local grocery store, but Amazon saved the day (link here). Yay!
Happy Wednesday, Noshers! I recently partnered with Sprouts market for a 4th of July DIY project, where I was given free reign to come up with my own DIY activity related to the holiday. I thought and thought, but the answer was pretty obvious – patriotic CUPCAKES!! I love baking, decorating and most importantly eating sweets, so this was a perfect fit. Today I’ll be walking you through some cute and patriotic cupcake designs just in time for the holiday :).
But first, let me just rave about how awesome new-to-me Sprouts is – coming from the NYC/NJ area, I’d never been to a Sprouts before. When I made my way to my local Sprouts to purchase ingredients for this project, I was pleasantly surprised and super impressed with the store – high quality produce at amazing prices, hard-to-find fruit (including my favorite cotton candy grapes, which I could only find at Whole Foods in NYC), their own brand for staples such as cereal, granola, cocoa, and an awesome selection of organic ingredients. I admit I wasn’t familiar with Sprouts prior to this shopping trip, but I’ll definitely be returning.
Now onto the cupcakes!
Happy Wednesday, Noshers! Today I’m excited to share this super easy tutorial on making avocado roses. Avocado roses have been popping up all over lately, and I thought I’d try my hand at doing it – turns out it’s really quick and simple, and really brightens up your brunch or salad plate! All you need is half an avocado to make one rose. Let’s get started, shall we?
Happy Hump Day, Noshers! Even though we’re smack-dab in the middle of May, the weather has been a little ridiculous lately. What’s with the drab over cast sky and rain, rain (go away!)? While we have a few more dreary days ahead of us, I thought it would the perfect time to share a super easy way to make Hawaiian-style kalua pig with the good ol’ slow cooker! No, that’s not coffee-flavored pork; kalua refers to a Hawaiian cooking method where food is cooked in an underground oven, or imu. If you’ve been to a luau in Hawaii, you know what I’m talking about – that climactic moment when a whole pig is unearthed after cooking for hours, revealing tender, flavorful meat. Well, I’m in Missouri at the moment without ready access to an imu; however, I love Hawaiian food (and hope to live in Hawaii someday – how do I make that happen??). So, I used the next best thing in my kitchen arsenal – my trusty slow cooker.
There are a number of different kalua pig recipes out there, but I liked the simplicity of this one, that calls only for the pork, Hawaiian sea salt, and liquid smoke:
There are many things I’m enjoying about my adopted city of Kansas City since I moved here a few months ago – more space, excellent barbecue, and relearning how to drive again (sorry, fellow drivers!). However, one thing I definitely miss about NYC are the bagels! Growing up in the tri-state area, I didn’t realize until I moved away how amazingly awesome NYC bagels are, and how different they are elsewhere. Frozen supermarket bagels aren’t even in the same league. So, when I happened upon this recipe for homemade bagels on Serious Eats, I knew I had to try it.
My go-to bagel is always everything with low-fat scallion cream cheese. Amaaazing! So, I needed to first put together my own everything bagel spice
