Mini Pizza

A perfect snack/mini lunch: Whole Wheat English Muffin Pizza. Nothing fancy, but quite fun and easy to make and pleasing to the eyes! It's a no brainer really, but here's the recipe:

Ingredients

1 Whole Wheat English Muffin

2 Tbl of spaghetti sauce (I used Prego's mushrooms, garlic and onions)

2 Tbl of shredded Mozzarella

4 Cherry tomatoes

Dash of Oregano

Dash of Pizza Seasoning

Instructions

1. Slice English muffin into 2 and toast.

2. Spread a Tbl of sauce and cheese on each slice.

3. Slice tomatoes into halves and place on top of slices.

4. Season with herbs.

5. Microwave for a minute.

Bon Appetite!

Life Doesn't Go the Way You Plan It: Oatmeal Pancake

Woke up at 6am this morning togo for a run. Yeah, didn't happen. What did happen: oatmeal pancakes! I got this recipe from bicycle Built for Two - A Blog About Food, Healthy Living,… http://www.abicyclebuiltfor2.com/. Modified it for myself since I didn't want that much. I lovely start to the day! Enjoy!

Ingredients

1/4 cup oat flour (just process 1/4 cup of old fashion oatmeal in a food processor or blender)

1/2 cup cooked oatmeal (cook 1/4 cup old fashion oatmeal)

1/2 Whole Wheat Flour

1 Tbl sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1 egg

1/2 cup milk (I used skim)

1 Tbl melted butter/margarine

Makes 2 serving of 4 small pancakes

Instructions:

1. Set large frying pan on stove and turn on high. When pan is heated, turn off heat and remove pan. Allow to completely cool.

2. In bowl, mix dry ingredients (oat flour, wheat flour, sugar, baking powder). In another bowl whisk together cooked oatmeal, egg, milk and butter. After whisking, transfer wet ingredients into bowl of dry ingredients. Mix well.

3. Reheat pan on med-high heat. Pour preferred amount of batter onto pan and let cook. After about 3-4min's, you should see the pancakes start to bubble. Flip and cook for another 3mins.

4. Serve and eat! I drizzled some honey and chopped toasted pecans on my pancakes. Agave nectar, cinnamon, peanut butter, berries, bananas, etc are also pretty yummers :) Bon appetite!

Lunch at Damon and Pythias

Back in school (-_-)

But what's the best way of starting another daunting school week? Grabbing lunch with a good friend! As much as I despise the Westwood Bubble, this quaint village does have a good handful of places to eat. For instance: Damon and Pythias Food for the Gods. I fully agree with "Food for the Gods."

I've been here once a year ago and had their Kobe burger with garlic and sweet potato fries. I don't recall any negative feelings, only positive :)

Since my friend wanted to try somewhere new in Westwood, I took him to this little treasure trove. With the help of a very good waiter, we ordered the LA Cheesesteak and the Wild

Strawberries Steak Salad, both their most popular item on the menu. On top of that, we split a 12oz beer and Chocolate mousse cake. Behold the feast:

Most satisfying meal (^^). And it's only lunch time on a Monday.

Goma-Shu

Recently, I was in Torrance and went to a La Patisserie called Chantilly's. Here at Chantilly's, they serve Goma-Shu, or Black Sesame Cream Puffs, among many other goodies! Food Critic Jonathan Gold actually mention this place and its Goma-Shu on his 99 Things to Eat in LA Before You Die. http://www.laweekly.com/2010-02-26/eat-drink/99-things-to-eat-in-l-a-before-you-die/

It was delish and made me miss Japan so much! I also had a black sesame macaron (I'm a bit

obsessed with kuro-goma/black sesame these days).

Some history about cream puffs.

Inspired, I decided to make my very own Goma-Shu's! I also made white sesame and luckily, they were a success!

Here's the recipe! Enjoy!

Ingredients

Cream Puffs (about 12 shells):

1/2 unsalted butter

1/4 cup milk

1/4 cup water

1 cup flour

3 eggs

1 Tbl Black Sesame grounds

a pinch of sugar

Cream Puff instruction

1. Preheat oven to 400 F and line cookie sheet with parchment paper.

2. Boil butter, milk, and water in a sauce pan. Once boiled, lower heat and add flour at once. Mixture should thicken.

3. Once flour is well mixed, remove sauce pan from heat. Add 1 egg and mix. Add second egg and mix. Mixture should be thick and slowly runs and breaks off spoon. Add half of last egg if needed.

4. Pipe onto cookie sheet and bake for 20min. Reduce heat to 350 F and bake for another 20min.

5. Let cool and cut open to fill.

Custard Cream:

3 egg yolks

1 cup milk

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/8 cup flour

half vanilla bean stick

Custard Instruction

1. In a saucepan, combine milk, a 1/3 of the sugar and vanialla beans and mix over med heat.

2. In another bowl, beat remaining sugar and yolks till white and frothy. Mix in sifted flour.

3. Combine egg mix with mixture in saucepan and cook till thick and lumpy.

4. Remove from heat. Prepare a dish lined with plastic wrap and pour custard into contained and wrap. Put in fridge for about 30min to an hour.

Sesame Ingredients

1.5 cup Heavy Cream

1 Tbl granulated sugar

1 Tbl Black sesame paste

1.5 White sesame paste (I used grounds)

1. Beat cream and sugar till whipped and set aside.

2. Take out custard and place half of it in a bowl. Beat with black sesame paste and pipe into 6 puff shells.

3. Pipe half of whip cream on top. Place shell top on top.

4. Mix remaining whip cream and white sesame paste/ground into remaining custard. Pipe into remaining shells and top off with shell caps.

5. Dust with sesame seeds and powdered sugar if desired.

(Black sesame up front and white sesame in the back)

La Provence Cafe on San Vicente

Went to a new cafe for a change! Still love Urth, but I should really take in all that LA has to offer. La Provence is a French style cafe that is primarily known for their macarons. Definitely had to try this place! They were apparently in Cupcake wars and are considered one of the best cafe's in Beverly Hills.

So one of my partners in crime tagged along and we had tea. We both ordered Rose tea and split two macarons (rose and salted caramel) and a chocolate raspberry mousse.

The rose tea was nice. I liked how I had my own pot, but then again, that's typical at cafes. I just don't drink a lot of tea when I go to cafes, I guess. The mousse was light, not too heavy, with a nice hint of raspberry. The macarons were amazing! The cookies were probably the one of the best I've had! Perfectly crunchy on the outside (but not too crunchy! Phew!) and soft and moist on the inside. The rose flavor was nice and buttery and produced a cool feeling in the mouth like mint would. It's hard to explain, really. The salted caramel was a bit chewy. It was good, but I definitely prefer the rose more! Will definitely make a trip back!

Thai Lunar/Curry Festival

Second time going to Thai Town's New Year's Day Songkran Festival! Actually ate food this time around :P The event is also called Los Angeles Curry Festival, but I did not see any curry at all this time... I'm not sure if the curry comes out/ends at a certain time?

Regardless, it is a very beautiful festival! So much color, food, people-- it is definitely an overload to the senses! Parking is ridiculous, but I guess the gods were somehow pleased with me and allowed me to find a randomly open spot that was literally a walking distance of a minute to the festival! A good start!

So, we start out by walking down the street, scoping out what there is to do. There was a Singha Beer garden full of drunken men watching the kick boxing event right across from them.

Walked past a plethora of beautiful art work such as carved fruit/vegetables, silk flowers and dessert displays. Very intricate works.

Now for the food! Definitely started off well with a nice plate of Mango and Sticky Rice. I have been dying to try this for a well and I was pleasantly surprised at how yummy a simple dish can be! The texture, sweetness, visual were all wonderful! Following this are the BBQ Beef, BBQ

Chicken and Fish Ball Skewers. Yum yum :)

And lastly, I got a "Today's Special" plate that consisted of BBQ Beef, Egg roll, fried rice and stir fry noodles. A.k.a. a plate of happiness. Definitely did some grocery shopping after since the

food at the markets here are so much cheaper than the grocery stores!

Overall, it was a fun event, I just wish there was curry, as the name insinuates. Guess you can't have it all. Happy Thai New Year!

White Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies that need to be guarded...

Before....

The fridge was way crowded and there was pumpkin puree that had to be used. Hence, I decided to make these DELICIOUS white chocolate pumpkin cookies I made last October. The batch yielded 27 cookies. I decided to give them out to friends since I love to share such GOODNESS with good people :)

Just after I pulled out the cookies from the oven, my roommate came home and immediately without asking just grabbed a cookie and ate it! "Ok," I thought, I would've offered her some anyway so whatever. I left to meet up with a friend and came back a few hours later. I noticed three cookies I set aside on a separate plate all disappeared (along with the plate actually). "Oh man, " I thought, "Better wrap these babies up!" So I wrapped 13 cookies in one foil and 3 more for myself.

Next day, I took them to class and they were a hit! Not a single one left over and many compliments came haha. All day, I dreamed about the cookies I set aside for myself in the aluminum foil.

After a long day, I come home, I open the foil expecting to find 3 cookies. Lo' and behold, there was only one! My roommates mooched my cookies from me! Out of the 27 cookies I had only two cookies while between my two roommates they had seven! A very sad day for me. But they're popular.

After....

• Ingredients
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
• 1 cup unsalted butter
• 1 1/2 cups dark brown sugar
• 1 cup solid pack pumpkin puree
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 10 ounces white chocolate pieces

Instructions

1. Preheat oven 300 F. Grease cookie sheet

2. Mix brown sugar and butter in a large bowl until smooth. Beat in egg and vanilla and then stir in pumpkin puree. Combine dry ingredients together and then add to pumpkin mixture. Mix well. Stir in chocolate chips.

3. Spoon cookies onto sheet, leaving 2 in of space in between.

4. Bake for about 20 min and then allow to cool.

There you have it folks! Make sure to hide 'em or eat them before others get to them!

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