currently...

the first day of spring break (really? already?)

in a food coma from home-cooked deliciousness overload

mourning over tonight's duke-unc game

watching inception

browsing recipes with matcha green tea

i just bought some matcha green tea powder from the asian market today and already used it in the japanese cheesecake i made for dessert. (i think i like japanese cheesecake better than regular cheesecake. it's like...cake meets cheesecake, like a denser, moister version of sponge cake. light and airy, but also creamy at the same time. almost melts in your mouth. yum yum yum). so excited to use it in my collection of about a million recipes that i think would taste good infused with some green tea.

some inspiration by michelle...

death by chocolate

Yes...I realize that this is the third consecutive chocolate-related post in the past month...Given my incessant craving for chocolate, I should probably be diagnosed with addiction. I can't go a day without a dose of some form of chocolate. It's just...so good. 

(me on Valentine's day...yeah, it was bad...)

But ANYWAY, back to my intended subject...

In light of the recent NY Times article deeming Durham (surprisingly) as one of the top 41 places to go in 2011, I decided it was time to actually venture outside of campus and discover the mysterious unknown. Okay, not that dramatic. But in all seriousness, I knew of a few unique and worthwhile places in Durham and I'd occasionally go to the farmer's market but I had never really explored the "revitalized" Durham that supposedly has a bunch of outstanding restaurants and cafes scattered around downtown. Partly because I'm lazy and partly because...no, yeah that was my only excuse. Pathetic, I know. When I actually did get over my laziness, I thought I'd start out with one of the places mentioned in the article. Scratch bakery is this cute little bakery/dessert shop on some random, hard to find street (probably because I suck at directions) in downtown. Everything looked SO GOOD. How good? That sea salt sprinkled dark chocolate croustade good (see above pictures). It was half gone before I could take a picture of it. My friend also had their molten chocolate cake, which was also to-die-for. literally. almost. It was fudgy and molten-y on the inside and the edges had a slight crisp to it...basically the perfect combination. 

okay...must find some chocolate now...

the milk bread project

I've been playing around with different Taiwanese Milk Bread recipes for a while now but nothing has turned out comparable to the real thing that I get in Taiwan until this attempt. yay!! The bread was soft and fluffy and so so good. I was so excited about my success that I made another loaf the next day...and then another within the same week. The first time I braided the dough with nai su (milk powder..stuff) and chocolate in it. The second time I kind of went all out and made separate sections of naisu and raisin, chocolate, and ham and cheese. I made the third batch at home with whole wheat flour and naisu. Still soft and delicious. I can't wait to use this basic (but amazing) bread recipe to make different varieties of breads. next: green tea bread with red bean filling and pork floss bread with scallions.
It's times like these when I wish I had better photography skills.

"when in doubt, go all out"
-kickboxing class 2.14.11
for some reason i feel this could potentially be very dangerous in certain situations...like food.

brownie break...

oh hello second semester, you snuck up on me unexpectedly. why are you suffocating me with endless amounts of work already? 

must de-stress...

so I sort of played around with pattycake's original black bean recipe and turned it into a black bean cheesecake brownie bar with peanut butter, walnuts, chocolate chips, and a crumbly oatmeal crust. or something exactly like that but with a more creative name. definitely creamier than the original, and i love the additional overwhelming amount of other random add-ins. if i was skilled enough to make a decent oatmeal crust, then i could probably eat this everyday.

winter break

my winter break breakdown:

40% sleeping

30% cooking/baking

20% eating

10% food blog surfing

yeah...lots of food...

I literally spend hours upon hours drooling over mouthwatering pictures of food on foodgawking, tastespotting (thanks to nancy!), seriouseats, the wednesday chef, cannelle et vanille, livlife, david lebovitz, food52, the pioneer woman, pattycake, and other similar deliciouss sites...
oh how i wish i could be an amazing photographer and make delicious food and take hypnotizing food pictures..sighh..oh, and also have incredibly high metabolism so i can eat all of these foods without turning into a whale.
While I was in Washington, I also spent a lot of time learning traditional Taiwanese dishes from my grandmothers. pictures soon! (hopefully)


craving right now...

Grilled Goat Cheese Sandwiches with Fig and Honey 

chocolate peppermint cheesecake bars. (oh my goodness...*dies*)

oh yeah.. i want to try nutella brownies sometime when i have nutella. it's basically..pure nutella...YUM. seems to me like a college kid staple food.

polyvore addiction...

i really want an occasion to wear heels and a pretty dress. if only it wasn't so cold outside! (it's actually sleeting right now..the worst). this frightful weather calls for warm, chunky sweaters that i don't have. also want more feathery things! love.

currently reading...

A Clockwork Orange

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

...my goal was to finish these before break ended but that didn't really work out, of course. new goal. finish before..uh.. february?

stumble upon...

yes. i realize that i spend an unhealthy amount of time on the computer. should probably change that and go out and be active or something...tomorrow. 

for now, apparently english teachers across the country amuse themselves by making a collection of analogies from their students' papers. but these are actually hilarious...

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides 

gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

2. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever. 

3. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

4. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

5. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

6. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

movies watched...
salt. 
hm...i think that's it actually. 
ok...movies i want to watch...
black swan (even though it's scary...)
country song. because it has leighton meester and i've watched too many of its trailers to not watch the whole thing. 
morning glory.
tangled.
the tourist.

also officially finished all three seasons of greek and lots of csi.

what a productive break!

happy 2011! (10 days late)

(:

what i dream about...

Do you ever wish there was a rich, delicious dessert that was actually healthy for you and not just empty calories? I definitely do...all.the.time.

well, 

wish granted. 

I'm always perusing, trying, and altering different recipes to make them healthier. I finally found one that is simply to die for: black bean brownies by pattycake. It's rich, chocolatey, fudgy, moist, melt-in-your-mouth, everything you want in a brownie. It does have a little bit of a grainy texture due to the black beans but it's sort of concealed by the creaminess of the brownie...I actually kind of like it. My family and I finished almost all of it within a couple hours after it came out of the oven. Definitely going to be a staple dessert recipe. 

recipe

I altered Patty's recipe a little bit to accomodate the ingredients I had at home. basically just substituted the coconut oil for olive oil.

2 cups cooked black beans

2 large eggs

1/4 cups agave nectar

1/4 cups brewed coffee (or Kahlua liqueur)

2 tsp vanilla

1/3 cups olive oil

1/2 cups cocoa

2 tbsp corn starch

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt  

1/3 cups chopped dark chocolate

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Blend together black beans, eggs, agave nectar, coffee, vanilla and oil. In a separate bowl, sift together cocoa, corn starch, cinnamon, and salt. Mix dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Fold in chopped chocolate. Pour mixture into a greased 9" x 9" pan and bake in the oven for 20 minutes.

my mom calculated the nutritional information using this program that she has:  

One 55 gram (about 1/15 of the whole batch) serving contains

156 Kcal, 4.4 gram protein, 3.2 gram fiber, 4.3 gram sugars, 9.7 grams fat (mainly from the olive oil and 4 oz chocolate chunks)