Favorite Photo Of The Day!!

Look whose picture made it to www.allrecipes.com Photo of The Day with 121 votes??????

MINE!!! MINE!! MINE!!

It’s probably no big deal to some of you, but it surely is one heck of a deal to me! I did not even know there’s a voting going on until I went to the site to look for recipes for my NYE dinner. Apparently once you submitted a photo, other readers/viewers will have a chance to vote on their favorite photo. The top 4 most “liked”/ voted pictures will be featured on www.allrecipes.com homepage the following day! Thanks to all who voted!

I think the picture will only be there till 11.59pm tonight….Boo! I wished I saw it earlier!!

Well, I’m surely thrilled my picture was featured on the website even though I was clueless about it as I was new to this food recipe website! What a wonderful way to end 2009!

PS: Thanks, hubby for getting me the dslr for X’mas! =)

Spanish Flan

Flan is another dessert I really love……..wait what am I talking about? I love desserts…PERIOD! Anyway, I’ve always thought this dessert is a toughie! And it wasn’t until my friend Chris made some a few weeks back that I found out it was super easy to make this. Chris did a good job making that dessert and told me that he used eggs, condensed milk, evaporated milk and sugar. So, based on what he told me….I googled for a recipe!

I found a recipe using the ingredients Chris described on www.allrecipes.com. I modified the recipe and the method a little after reading a few reviews/suggestions. The changes turned out great. Here’s the modified recipe, the original one can be found HERE. The Spanish Flan is and will be sweet. So, if you’re not a fan of sweet things…you might need to stay away from this dessert or change the proportion of the condensed milk or sugar I guess! =)

SPANISH FLAN RECIPE

Ingredients:

• 1 Cup Granulated Sugar
• 4 Large Eggs
• 1 (14 Oz) Can Sweetened Condensed Milk
• 1 (12 Fl Oz) Can Evaporated Milk
• 1 Tbsp Vanilla Extract

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a medium saucepan over medium-low heat, melt sugar until liquidized and golden in color and runny. Carefully pour hot syrup into a 9 inch round warm glass baking dish, turning the dish to evenly coat the bottom and sides. Set aside.

In a large bowl, beat eggs. Beat in condensed milk, evaporated milk and vanilla until smooth. Sieve egg mixture and pour it into baking dish. Place baking dish into a baking pan filled some some hot water. You want to make sure the hot water fills about half way up the sides of the baking dish. Cover with aluminum foil.

Bake in preheated oven 60 minutes or until center of flan is set. Let cool completely. To serve, carefully run a knife along the edges of the flan and invert on serving plate when completely cool.

June’s Comments: When cooking/melting the sugar, it will first turn very very clumpy before slowly turning into liquid. Don’t let this scare you to think that you’ve done something wrong and throw away the sugar.

To make your baking dish warm, either microwave it for a couple seconds or stick it in the oven when you’re pre-heating it. A warm dish will let you coat the bottom of the dish the caramel easier. Caramel does harden quickly when it cools down, you work quickly when you swivel the caramel around the baking dish. You do want the caramel to harden before you pour in the custard to bake.

Some sugar/caramel will remain the dish which is ok. To clean up, just soak the baking dish in  water and the sugar will dissolve.

I actually made the Spanish Flan in 6 (7 oz) ramekins. I did not use all the melted sugar and saved some to make sugar art. Making simple sugar art was easy (although it took me several tries). Simply drizzle some melted sugar onto the outside of a bowl and let it cool down. You have to make sure that the melted sugar strands are not to thick or thin and make plenty of strands so that they hold together better. Making it too thin or too thick will make the art harder to remove when it’s cooled. Remember to watch those fingers…..the sugar is hot when you drizzle them!!

2009 X’mas Celebration…

How was your X’mas this year?? Did Santa get you what you wanted? Were you on Santa’s lil’ nice list this year? I know I was! =)

This year’s X’mas celebration was a small family event. It was just the us plus my brother and his gf. All of our closer friends were celebrating X’mas in a foreign country…HOW FUN!!

Anyways, we did not do a fancy X’mas eve dinner this year. Hubby and I had a X’mas party to go to, so I did not plan for a fancy home cooked meal on the eve. We had store bought rotisserie chicken and take-out Thai food for dinner after we got back from the X’mas party. That night all 4 of us played the new Super Mario game on the Wii and stayed up till 4am on X’mas day. We ended up opening our presents at 2 - 3am in the morning! =) We had so many presents to open and I really felt like a little kid again! Haha! But now, there’re no longer presents under the tree….=(

On X’mas day, I planned out a 4 course meal dinner for the 4 of us. Appetizer, soup, entree and of course a dessert!! Table setting was simple (and my usual) with a red, black and white theme. Candy canes and also lottery tickets were the “party favors”. But no…no one hit the jackpot for the lottery ticket. =(.

I made some Deviled Eggs for appetizer and a cuppa French Onion Soup each for soup. Grilled Chicken with some Mushroom Marsala sauce (Bottom Left) was for entree. I seasoned and roasted some Yukon Gold Potatoes in some salt and olive oil which turned out super yummy to accompany the chicken. There was also some Garlic Butter Sprouts to got with the entree. =) I made so much food, we barely had room for the grand finale; dessert! Spanish Flan (Bottom right) turned out excellent and nobody of course said no to dessert!! =) I will share this wonderful recipe later!

Now………..off to plan my next holiday meal….New Year’s Eve Dinner..which will be another low key celebration….with some bubbly champagne perhaps! =)

Gingerbread Man Cookies

I made Gingerbread Man again! Although, I was a little late this year (baked them on X’mas eve)…..it’s their “presence” that counts! Haha.. I’ve mentioned last year that I love Gingerbread Man and I would usually get one (or two) when I see them! With my homemade Gingerbread Man cookies, I have almost unlimited supply of them! =)

I made these yummy cookies with the recipe I extracted from www.Joyofbaking.com. The recipe can be found HERE.

GINGERBREAD MAN RECIPE

Ingredients:

• 3 Cups All Purpose Flour
• 1/4 Tsp Salt
• 3/4 Tsp Baking Soda
• 2 Tsp Ground Ginger
• 1 Tsp Ground Cinnamon
• 1/4 Tsp Ground Nutmeg
• 1/4 Tsp Ground Cloves
• 1/2 Cup Unsalted Butter, room temperature
• 1/2 Cup Granulated Sugar
• 1 Large Egg
• 2/3 Cup Unsulphured Molasses

Method:

In a large bowl, sift or whisk together the flour, salt, baking soda, and spices. Set aside. In the bowl of your stand mixer with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and molasses and beat until well combined. Gradually add the flour mixture beating until incorporated.

Divide the dough in half, and wrap each half in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least two hours or overnight.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and place rack in center of oven. Line 2 baking pans with parchment paper and set aside while you roll out the dough.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to a thickness of about 1/4 inch. Use a gingerbread cutter to cut out the cookies.  With an offset spatula lift the cut out cookies onto the baking sheet, placing the cookies about 1 inch apart. If you are hanging the cookies or using as gift tags, make a hole at the top of the cookies with a straw or end of a wooden skewer.

Bake for about 8 - 12 minutes depending on the size of the cookies. Small ones will take about 8 minutes, larger cookies will take about 12 minutes. They are done when they are firm and the edges are just beginning to brown.

Remove the cookies from the oven and cool on the baking sheet for about 1 minutes. When they are firm enough to move, transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Let the Gingerbread Man cool completely before decorating them with some royal icing!

June’s Comments: I did not have some of the ground spices required in the recipe. I therefore made a slight change to the grounded spices. The cookies still turned out great. Here’s what I used : 2 Tsp Ground Ginger, 1 Tsp Ground Cinnamon, and 1 Tsp Pumpkin Spice. After refrigeration, the cookie dough was tough to rolled out, so I left it at room temperature for 5 minutes or so for the cookie dough to soften a little being rolling it out flat. Cookies turned out great!!

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What are Gingerbread Man without some sugary sweet white icing on it?? I did not use the frosting recipe for the Gingerbread Man as provided by www.joyofbaking.com as I did not have anymore butter at home. I used the royal icing recipe I found on www.simplyrecipes.com which I have used last year (both the cookies and the icing) to make my Gingerbread Man cookies.

Here’s the Royal Icing recipe extracted from www.simplyrecipes.com. The original recipe can be found HERE.

ROYAL ICING RECIPE

Ingredients:

• 1 Egg White
• 1/2 Tsp Lemon Juice
• 1 3/4 Cup Powdered Sugar

Method:

The traditional way to make Royal Icing is to beat egg whites and lemon juice together, adding the powdered sugar until the mixture holds stiff peaks. With modern concerns about salmonella from raw eggs, you can either use powdered egg whites or heat the egg whites first to kill any bacteria. With the heating method, mix the egg white and lemon juice with a third of the sugar, heat in a microwave until the mixture's temperature is 160°F. Then remove from microwave, and beat in the remaining sugar until stiff peaks form. Using the powdered egg whites method, combine 1 Tbsp egg white powder with 2 Tbsp water. Proceed as you would otherwise. (Raw egg white alternatives from the 2006 Joy of Cooking)

If the icing is too runny, add more powdered sugar until you get the desired consistency. Fill a piping bag with the icing to pipe out into different shapes. (Or use a plastic sandwich bag, with the tip of one corner of the bag cut off.) Keep the icing covered while you work with it or it will dry out.

Fish Bones @ Chelmsford, MA

 When our friends, Siaw Lay and Alan was in town, we brought them to our favorite seafood restaurant in Chelmsford. Fish Bones offer a selection of fresh and yummy seafood dishes as well as a selection of fresh & raw seafood. Yes, it’s got a little fish market inside! It probably felt weird to some, eating at the fish market….but hey just imagine that’s a whole display of desserts! Haha!

The first time we were there, the place was small, tables were limited and it was quite a wait during dinner time. They have expanded since and offer more seating within the premises. We brought our guests there during lunch on a week day. There weren’t much patrons, hence we were seated immediately. The interior was quite tastefully decorated and the new wing even had a gorgeous (faux?) fireplace.

 

Here’s what we ordered that day:

1) Seafood Chowder (Bottom Left) @ $3.99/per cup. I ordered this yummy creamy cup of satisfaction which was the soup of the day! I believe the soup was a cream base, filled with chunks of scallops, clams?, fish and shrimp. I would definitely order this the next time I’m there!

2) Clam Chowder (Bottom Right) @ $3.99/per cup. Hubby and Alan ordered this. It was filled with clams and potatoes. I did not like this very much as I think they added a lil’ too much dill (I assume)in the soup. The dill was a bit overpowering.

3) Calamari Basket (Bottom Left) @ $8.99. Point Judith Calamari, deep fried to golden brown served with a side of their spicy Chipotle sauce. This was very good! The calamari were very fresh and lightly coated in the batter, which was fried to a golden perfection. I forgot how the Citpotle sauce tasted, though. Not sure if I even had it. I might have eaten the fried calamari plain.

4) Lobster Roll (Bottom Right) @ $14.99. A toasted roll filled with lobster salad, served with fries and coleslaw. The price was quite decent for a lobster roll plus 2 sides. I’ve seen lobster rolls (no sides, nothing) being priced at $14.99. Alan ordered this dish and commented that it was decent and the lobster meat was chopped a bit too finely. I think he said that wasn’t the best lobster roll he had.

5) Maryland Crab Cake Sandwich (Bottom Left) @ $11.99. Two homemade Maryland style crab cakes served on a freshly made Brioche burger roll with lettuce, tomato, pickles, fries and homemade coleslaw. Siaw Lay ordered this and I forgot what was her comment on it. They surely looked delicious! It was however, one of my first? time seeing a deep fried crab cake. I’ve usually eaten crab cakes, pan fried style only.

6) Luncheon Grill Mix (Bottom Right) @ $10.99. Grilled swordfish tips, tuna tips and two large shrimp served over a bed of rice pilaf with grilled assorted vegetables. Hubby ordere this and he loved it! He cleaned the plate so fast!!!

 

7) Sesame Steak Tuna Sandwich (Bottom) @ $9.99. Grilled Sushi Grade #1 yellow fin tuna, marinated in sesame oil and coated in sesame seeds and grilled to temperature, served on a freshly baked brioche burger roll with seaweed salad, lettuce, tomato, pickles, homemade coleslaw and fries. This was mine, mine, MINE!! I ordered the tuna cooked rare, but it came to me almost like medium rare. I was surely disappointed as I prefer my tuna just lightly seared on the outside and very very rare in the inside. The tuna however was surprisingly still very moist and flavorful in the inside  and I still enjoyed it despite the tuna being “overcooked” to me. When the waitress came around and asked how was everyone’s food, I told her about mine. She was nice to apologize and mentioned she could bring us a dessert on the house (which was a nice gesture). She also said to order the tuna steak sandwich, sushi style so that it will be cooked rare to my preference. Tips, noted!

We unfortunately did not have any room left in our tummy…….So, we actually had to pass on the free dessert!! Haha! Service and food were all good!!! And that was why it’s one of our favorite seafood places!

If you’re in town, or if you’re willing to drive to Chelmsford….give Fish Bones a try! Lunch would probably be less busy and you most likely need not wait. There are plenty of parking behind the premises…you would have to drive slower as you approach the address as you might miss the entrance into the parking lots. During the summer, Fish Bones also offer some outdoor seating for those who want to get a bit of sunshine. And if you want to see the chefs busy in action, there are also some bar seats overlooking the kitchen!

Check out Fish Bone’s restaurant HERE and their Fish Market HERE.