So, I love cheese. LOVE CHEESE. And I’ve recently acquired a lot of free time (much like one acquires wealth from a recently deceased uncle), which I have decided to use to further cultivate my love for cheese. Also I happened to have a lot of eggs and some heavy cream that I meant to use for something else, but it neared expiration date before I could. So what do I do with this random assortment of ingredients? Make quiche of course!

As much as I love cheese, I’m not the worlds biggest fan of exorbitant quantities of egg, so I decided to maximize cheese and crust (who doesn’t love crust) and minimize egg intake per serving and make little cupcake sized quiches.

I used heavy cream instead of milk and the quiches turned out really rich and creamy. Too creamy for my taste (I’m currently eating slices of bread to balance out the taste), so next time I will use milk, but maybe you’ll like it with heavy cream? Anyway, here are the recipes for the crust and the filling (with milk instead of heavy cream).

Crust:

Ingredients (Fills 12 3-in cupcake holders):

1 c Flour                   8 Tbs Butter

4-5 tsp Water          1/3 c Parmesan cheese

Method:

1. Mix flour and butter with hands or two knives until it resembles coarse meal.

2. Add the Parmesan cheese.

3.  Add the water one tsp at a time until the dough comes together.

4. Chill for 15 minutes before rolling out.

5. Cut with a cookie cutter to make circles and place it inside the cupcake holders. Gently push the dough against the edges of the holders.

Filling:

6 Eggs                                     1 c Milk

4 tsp Flour                            3 medium slices Swiss cheese

1 small Onion                       1/4 lb Spinach

2 Tbs Parmesan Cheese   4 slices Turkey

2 Tbs chopped Parsley    1/4 tsp Nutmeg

1/2 tsp Salt                           1/4 tsp Pepper

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.

2. Whisk together milk, eggs, flour, parsley, salt, pepper and nutmeg.

3. Finely dice the onions.

4. Caramelize the onions.

5. Blanche or steam the spinach and then drain it.

6. Add the onions, spinach, part of a slice of turkey and part of a slice of Swiss in order in each cup.

7. Carefully pour the egg mixture in each cup almost to the top.

8. Bake for 15-20 minutes.

9. Remove from oven and let cool for 5 minutes.

10. Serve and enjoy!

The crust can be made without cheese if you’re not as much of a cheese lover as I am. Everything can be substituted to your liking, so test out some variations and let me know how they turn out.

Enticing isn’t it? These are delicious Cinnamon Doughnut Muffins filled with Nutella, adapted from The Noble Pig and were made about a year ago. They were quite delicious.

However, this post is about something a bit more recent. To support my school and the clubs at school and give those of you who are bored a little something to read and maybe try to make and eat, here’s a short story.

Last semester, the Chinese Mei Society at NYU and the CHEFs for Schools – NYU Chapter collaborated to put together a cooking class about healthy Chinese food. I taught two very simple and quite delicious dishes. You can read about them here or on the CHEFs for Schools Cookbook Blog!

Photo Credit: CHEFs for Schools

Cucumber Salad:

Ingredients:

1 cucumber

1 tsp Sesame Seeds

2 Tbs Sesame Oil

1 Tbs Soy Sauce

1 Tbs Salt

1 tsp Sugar
Method:
1. Slice the cucumbers  thinly.

2. Mix all ingredients.

3. Serve and Enjoy!

Photo Credit: CHEFs for Schools

Fried Rice:

Ingredients:

2 c of Cooked Rice
5 leaves of Napa
1 c of frozen Edamame Beans
1-2 Carrots
3 Stalks of Green Onion
1/2 lbs of Ground Pork
1/2 lbs of Chicken
2 Eggs
2 Cloves of Garlic
1 c of Soy Sauce                   2 Tbs of Rice Wine
2 Tbs of Sesame Oil             Vegetable Oil
Salt and Pepper

Method:

1. Julienne the carrots. Cut the napa into 1 inch squares. Finely chop the green onion and garlic.
2. Cut the chicken into 1 inch squares. Marinate with 2 tsp of chopped green onion, 2 Tbs of Soy Sauce, 1 Tbs of Sesame Oil, 1 Tbs of Rice Wine and 1 tsp of Salt.
3. Marinate the ground pork with the same proportions of green onion, soy sauce, sesame oil, rice wine, and salt.
4. Beat eggs and at 1 tsp salt.
5. In a frying pan or wok, pour 1 Tbs of vegetable oil. Heat the edamame beans on medium heat until thoroughly cooked. Remove from pan.
6. Add garlic to the pan. When the garlic browns, add carrots, green onion, and napa. Cover for two minutes. Stir the mixture, add 1 tsp of salt and continue cooking until the napa becomes see through and the carrots are soft. Remove from pan.
7. Pour 1 Tbs of vegetable oil into the pan. Add ground pork. Stir and cook until all meat browns. Remove from pan.
8. Pour 1 Tbs of vegetable oil into the pan. Add chicken. Cook until brown on all sides (approximately 5 minutes). Remove from pan.
9. Pour 1/2 Tbs of vegetable oil into the pan. Add eggs. Stir and cook until scrambled. Remove from pan.
10. Pour 1 Tbs of vegetable oil into the pan. Add cooked rice. Stir and cook until rice is loosened. Add one by one all previous cooked ingredients and the remaining soy sauce. Add salt and pepper to taste. Remove from heat.
11. Serve and enjoy!

I wish I had gotten a chance to take some pictures of the finished products in closer detail, but teaching a cooking class is exhausting and extremely busy work! As always, I appreciate any comments especially if you have any variations to these recipes!

Taken with my phone. Good, yeah?

The worst part about summer is getting bitten by mosquitoes and finding out ten minutes later when the bites are itchy as heck and the mosquito has probably already had its fill and is concentrating on making its eggs. Even if you find it then, the moral consequences of killing it become higher as you would be killing hundreds or mosquitoes rather than just one. Of course, if you’re already intent on killing this one, what’s going to stop you from killing its babies?

I heard spinach is good for keeping the mosquitoes away.

This recipe can take you 20 minutes or an hour depending on how well you multi-task. It’s good cold or hot, so if you make it tonight you could have a hot dinner and a cold lunch for tomorrow. But be careful about the noodles. They’ll stick together if they’re cold and there’s no liquid, so loosen them up with some water beforehand if you’re consuming them cold.

Ingredients:

1 lb Spinach                                1 Tbs Sesame Seeds

2 Tbs Sesame Oil                       1 Tbs Rice Vinegar

2 Tbs Soy Sauce                         16 oz (1pkg) Tofu (cubed)

7 oz Dried Somen                      4 c Water

Salt and Pepper to taste

Method:

1. Wash and drain spinach.

2. Boil the water in a medium pot and submerge the spinach in batches for 30-60 seconds. Remove and drain spinach (leave the water).

3. In a small sauce pan, heat the sesame oil. Saute the sesame seeds until slightly browned. Add the drained spinach, soy sauce, rice wine and salt and pepper. Stir for 2-3 minutes and remove from heat.

4.  Add tofu and salt to the water and cook on medium high heat for 7 minutes. Remove and drain tofu.

5. In the remaining water, add the somen and salt and cook on medium high heat for 10 minutes. Remove and drain.

6. Mix together the somen, salt and seasoned spinach. Add soy sauce or Somen/Soba sauce for more flavor.

7. Serve and Enjoy!

Really simple. You can start heating up the sesame oil and sesame seeds as you boil/blanche the spinach and add the spinach a little at a time. The soy/Somen/Soba sauce at the end keeps things from tasting too much like just salt and also keep the Somen noodles from sticking. The noodles can also be mixed with some sesame oil after draining to keep from sticking. Minced garlic can be added to the sesame oil at the beginning for additional flavor. Don’t be afraid to mix it up! My recipe is only this simple because I don’t have that many ingredients in the fridge…

Also I lied about the spinach. I just wanted to relate the topic.

I admit, I cheated and used instant cake mix, but only because we ran out of flour and butter at home. If you want to be more original than I, then you can follow the instructions for chocolate cake found here. Overall, it’s really simple to make, but does take some time because the cake needs to be frozen before the ice cream can be added.

Ingredients:

1 Box of Chocolate Cake mix/9-in cake         1 Carton Cookies and Cream Ice Cream

3 Tbs Powdered Sugar

Method:

1. Bake cake according to instructions. Let cool for 10 minutes. Remove cake from pan and cut in half. Move onto wax paper or freezer paper and freeze for at least 2 hours.

2. Line the cake pan with wax paper and spoon out 3/4 of the ice cream into the pan. Pack it down and make sure that it is level and conforms to the shape of the pan. Freeze for at least 2 hours.

3. Remove the cake halves and ice cream from the freezer. Put the ice cream in between the cake layers and freeze for 1 hour.

4. Mix the remaining ice cream with the powdered sugar and freeze for 1 hour.

5. Remove the cake and icing from the freezer and ice the cake. The icing might be a little runny, but that’s okay. Try to get it all around the cake before freezing again for at least another hour.

6. Serve and enjoy quickly before it melts in the summer heat!

Very simple. The icing I made was a little runny, so it was not conducive to decoration. I have heard that using just vanilla ice cream for icing works as well. Just stir the ice cream until it becomes the consistency of frosting. Then frost the cake quickly and freeze it until the ice cream regains its original firmness.

Next time I want to make my own cake and ice cream! Or…A rainbow sorbet cake! That would be so fun…and look awesome in a jar!

Recently, I’ve become a huge fan of jars. I’ve actually always loved jars, because of their simple appeal (think back to strawberry jam in a mason jar with a checkered cloth on top). I also love the style of the 50s dresses and such.

So I’ve also recently become enthralled with Ikea, especially as it is only 20 minutes away from where I live and the way there and back is free. I was hoping for some mason jars, but I wasn’t sure if the ones in Ikea were mason jars, nor was a positive if they were heat tempered to be oven safe. So instead, I got these four spice jars (only $3.99) and decided to make a no-bake cheesecake.

Ingredients:

4 spice jars (5 oz. jars)

Cheesecake:

8 oz. Light Cream Cheese                           1/3 c Powdered Sugar

1/4 c Heavy Whipping Cream                   1 tsp Vanilla Extract

1/2 tsp Cinnamon

Crust:

2 Tbs Butter                                  4 oz Crushed Three Ginger Snaps

Topping:

12 oz Frozen Strawberries      1/2 c Water

1/4 c Sugar                                     2 Tbs Honey

Method:

1. Mix well the cream cheese and powdered sugar.

2. Add in the vanilla and cinnamon.

3. Add in the heavy whipping cream and lightly mix. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 10 minutes.

4. Melt the butter and gradually add the crushed ginger snaps until the mixture looks dry but is still moist enough to stick together. Add this into the jar, dividing it evenly between 4 jars.

5. Remove the cheesecake from the refrigerator and mix again. Divide this evenly as well. Cover and refrigerate.

6. In a saucepan, add 10 oz of the frozen strawberries and add water until covered. Add sugar and honey. Bring to a boil. Then lower to a simmer. Keep on heat until the mixture becomes syrupy. Stir constantly A thick syrup is best, but if you don’t have patience, a light syrup is just as delicious.

7. Remove the jars from the refrigerator and divide the remaining frozen strawberry chunks on cheesecake. Then divide the strawberry syrup evenly. Be careful not to spill over. Let it cool for about 10 minutes before putting the lid on the jars. Refrigerate for at least an hour.

8. Serve and enjoy! 

Best if eaten with a small spoon.

The cheesecake was very rich, so to make it a little less so, more heavy cream could be added. This was just enough for four jars, which was rather surprising. This was also my first time making a syrup/jam, so it took some patience to get it to work. I spent maybe half an hour getting the syrup right, but I don’t think it will take you as long. I didn’t use so much sugar, so the final product wasn’t very sweet, but if you have a big sweet tooth, it’s better to add more sugar to the syrup than the cheesecake, otherwise the cheesecake might not solidify very well. The crust can also be a regular graham cracker crust, but Trader Joe’s didn’t have any graham crackers, so I used their Triple Ginger Snap, which was quite tasty.

I wish I had more jars….so I could make more at a time. Luckily I ordered 12 mason jars from amazon.com, and I’m looking forward to using them! Going to make some cakes and pies and baked cheesecakes in jars… Maybe try making jam too! And butter and buttermilk… So excited!

Smoke detector update: I cleaned the oven today and my roommate baked some bruschetta, but our oven heat is hotter than most ovens, so they were a little brunt and unfortunately our smoke detector went off again…but only after we realized the bruschetta was burning. Hmm…

On the same night I roasted that chicken, I also wanted dessert and I had wanted to make chocolate cookies for the longest time. I finally used my Nestle chocolate powder, which I had also finally bought as a replacement for the Trader Joe’s chocolate powder, and made this recipe which I had stumbled upon recently for Homemade Oreos.

I’m not a huge fan of the filling for Oreos, so skipped that part, but the cookies turned out really well. I added an extra tablespoon of vanilla and a teaspoon of cinnamon. If you don’t have an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugar, then add the vanilla and egg, and then the dry ingredients. Be sure to bake for no longer than 9 minutes, as even a minute more will cause these cookies to be too hard, but a minute less won’t hurt them.

The cookies really are wonderful to dip in milk and even keep their crunchy outside chewy inside texture for at least a day (they disappeared within 24 hours). To be fair, I probably ate about half of them. And, so I don’t seem like such a pig, I really earned them as I spent the entire baking time waving around a cutting board to keep our smoke detector from going off. I really hope we fix it soon, because I have two potatoes just waiting to be baked.

I have been craving roast or fried chicken for the longest time. Unfortunately, there’s no fried chicken in NYC that can really compare to that of Chicago (at least none that I’ve found thus far) and, well let’s be honest, I can roast my own chicken for a cheaper price (not to mention just as delicious or even better) than most roast chickens out there.

I’m not sure yet how this compares with the Engagement Chicken, about which I recently heard, but I do think that this one is pretty delicious.

Just as a warning, my smoke detector was being a pain in the neck and went off several times during the hour and twenty minutes that the chicken was roasting. So if you have a sensitive detector, you may want to clean out your oven before, somehow disable the detector for a brief period of time or stand underneath your detector with a fan ready to fan as soon as you hear it go off (I opted for the third choice and really earned eating that chicken by fanning).

Ingredients:

1 Whole Chicken (3-4lbs)                             1 Lemon

1 Tbs Olive Oil                                                   3 Tbs Rice Wine

3 Tbs Lemon Juice                                         4 Tbs Salt

3 Tbs Ground Black Pepper                        1 Tbs Basil

1 Tbs Oregano                                                  1 Tbs Rosemary

1 Tbs Minced Garlic

Method:

1. In a large bowl, mix together the olive oil, rice wine, lemon juice, salt, black pepper, basil, oregano, rosemary and minced garlic.

2. Roll the lemon on a counter top while pressing it with your palm (to get the juices flowing) then cut it in half.

2. Prepare the chicken. It’s best to have a sharp knife and preferably one that you’re used to using while doing this. Place the chicken on a cutting board breast-side down (belly-side up). Reach into the cavity and remove the giblets. They can be discarded or saved for later use. At the end of the cavity, near the drumsticks, tends to be two chunks of fat. Carefully slice them off and any other fat near the drumsticks. They can also be discarded. It is important to leave some fat on the chicken as this acts as a tenderizer, but if you’re trying to cut back on calories then feel free to slice away at the fat. If the neck is still attached to the chicken, it can easily be cut off. When cutting joints on a chicken, don’t just cut into the bone, as this is damaging to the knife, instead find the part where the bones are attached and slide your knife into that opening and pry the two parts apart.

4. Take some of the olive oil mixture and rub it in the cavity of the chicken. Make sure it is well covered inside. Stuff the lemon in the cavity, then proceed to slather the rest of the chicken in the mixture. When the chicken is nice and covered, place it inside the bowl. Cover with plastic and let marinade in the refrigerator for 1 hour.

5. Preheat oven to 400.

6. Take out the chicken and place on a baking pan. Pour the remaining marinade over the chicken and bake for about 1 hour and 20 minutes. The exact time will depend on the weight of your chicken and how accurate your oven is. The best way to measure is by using a thermometer. The internal temperature of the chicken should be at 165 before you can take it out of the oven. However, I have also heard that each pound should take about 15-20 minutes with an extra 15 minutes. The juices should run clear and the leg should separate from the body easily.

7. Let rest for 15-20 minutes before carving.

8. Serve and Enjoy!

In the 15-20 minutes you let the chicken rest, you can steam some vegetables or toast some bread. The chicken tastes delicious over rice and the juices are great when soaked up with bread. One of these chickens can last me about a week or so, depending on how often I eat it. Discard the lemon after cooking. Last time I roasted a chicken, I also put green onions inside the cavity. A teacher once told me about a roast duck with an apple inside the cavity and that sounded delicious.

If only the smoke detector would decide to stop going off whenever I decided to bake…I’m a little worried about roasting chicken again….

When storing the chicken, store it with the juices. When reheating the chicken, make sure that the white meat has some of the juices with it. This way the white meat will be just as juicy as it was when it first came out of the oven.

Mmmm…Chocolate… So I actually made these for Valentine’s Day (a really long time ago, I know), but only just had the time to make a post for it.

This recipe is adopted from joyofbaking.com, my favorite baking site ever.

Ingredients:

8 oz Semisweet Chocolate                    1/4 c Grated Orange Peel

1/2 c Heavy Whipping Cream              2 Tbs Butter (chilled and cut into small pieces)

2 Tbs Vanilla                                           Cocoa Powder, Powdered Sugar, or other coatings

Method:

1. Chop the chocolate into small pieces and set aside in a medium bowl.

2. Heat the cream, butter and grated orange peel in a small saucepan. Let simmer for 10-15 minutes. Strain out the orange peel (unless it has been grated finely), and bring the remaining mixture to a boil.

3. Pour the cream and butter over the chocolate pieces and stir with a rubber spatula until the chocolate becomes smooth. Add the vanilla and mix well.

4. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm, about 2 or 3 hours.

5. Place the coating in a small bowl. Remove the chocolate from the refrigerator.

6. Using a spoon, scoop out 1 tsp of the chocolate and roll it into a ball. Place it in the bowl and coat completely with the coating of choice.

7. Place on parchment paper. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm.

8. Serve and enjoy!

When I made it, the orange flavor wasn’t very strong, but people still enjoyed them. For one of my coatings, I used Trader Joe’s Chai Latte Powder. People liked it, but I thought it tasted kind of funny. The other one was candy sprinkles. That one was better but was crunchy and didn’t really go with the smooth taste of truffles. In a previous trial, I used Trader Joe’s Cocoa Powder, which was alright, but their cocoa powder isn’t very flavorful, and so left a slightly bitter taste. Powdered Sugar would be good if you used bittersweet chocolate, but next time I think I’ll use toasted nuts or better cocoa powder.

So I recently moved into an apartment. It’s awesome, but also extremely costly – meaning it’s time to raid the pantry for dinner. Unfortunately, I had been relying on club meetings for food for so long that there was practically nothing left in the pantry. Fortunately, I still had some flour left, and flat bread requires little more.

This recipe is adopted from Epicurious.com

Ingredients:

1 c Lukewarm Water                     4 1/2 tsp Active Dry Yeast (2 1/4 oz Packages)

2 1/2 c Flour (approx.)                  3 Tbs Olive Oil

3 oz Shredded Cheese                    Salt, Pepper and Oregano to taste

Method:

1. In a small bowl, add the water and yeast. Let sit for approximately 10 minutes until the yeast has dissolved.

2. In a larger bowl, add the flour. Create a well in flour and pour the yeast and water mixture. Stir until the dough comes together. Knead in bowl and add flour 1/4 cup at a time until the dough becomes slightly sticky.

3. Transfer the dough to a floured surface and continue kneading until it becomes smooth and elastic, but not too tough.

4. Coat the bowl with 1 Tbs of olive oil. Cover the dough in oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let sit in a warm place until it has doubled in size, about 1 1/2 hours.

5. Grease a cookie sheet in 1 Tbs of olive oil.

6. Shape 6 12 in strips on the cookie sheet. Cover in plastic wrap and let sit for about 30 min.

7. Preheat oven to 400.

7. Uncover and flatten each strip. Place shredded cheese lengthwise along the middle of each strip. Fold the dough lengthwise around the cheese and roll the strips into a spiral (much like a cinnamon bun). Gently flatten each spiral.

8. Brush the buns with olive oil and sprinkle salt, pepper and oregano to taste.

9. Bake until golden brown, about 20-30 minutes depending on the size of the bun.

10. Remove from oven and let cool for 5-10 min.

11. Serve and enjoy!

A cheese that can withstand heat is the best. I used Trader Joe’s three cheese mix, which is delicious, but not very good at disappearing. It melted much too quickly and disappeared into the bread, leaving not a very cheesy flavor. Something like asiago or mozzerella would do better. These are pretty delicious and not extremely time consuming. Plus they make the home smell cozy.

Depending on how many you plan on making, you’ll have to alter the recipe. A recipe for an average 9′ cake will fill maybe 48 or more regular sized eggs. The recipe given here is good for approximately 24 eggs.

Egg Shells:

Ingredients:

24 eggs

Method:

1. Gently tap the tip of the bottom (fat side) of the egg with the end of a spoon until the shell begins to crack, but not so hard that the skin underneath the shell breaks. Aim for a hole about the size of a dime for a regular to large egg.If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you’ll find out once you try.

2. Carefully peel away the shell bits from the cracked region and rinse the egg under water to ensure that all the bits are gone. This will only work well if the skin underneath the shell is unbroken.

3. Using a chopstick, break the skin and, over a container, empty out the egg. Stir the chopstick inside the egg if parts of it are unwilling to leave.

4. Rinse the inside of the egg with water and set aside to dry.

This part is really tedious and depending on how good you are at this, it might take a really long time. For me to do about a dozen of these it took about 30 minutes. You can set aside one of these eggs for the cake batter. As for the rest of them…stay tuned for some eggy recipes.

Cake:

Ingredients:

1/2 c Sugar                            3/4 c Flour

1/4 c Butter                          1 tsp Baking Powder

1 Egg                                      1/4 c Milk

1 tsp Vanilla Extract           1/4 c Chocolate Powder

2 tsp Instant Coffee Powder

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350.

2. Cream butter and sugar. Beat eggs in one at a time. Add milk. Stir in vanilla and instant coffee. Add flour, baking powder, and chocolate powder. Mix until smooth.

3. Fill a pastry bag with the cake mix (be cautious as it is very runny). If lacking a pastry bag, a ziplock bag will do.

4. Carefully fill each empty egg shell about half way with cake mix.

5. Arrange the eggs meticulously either in a cupcake pan or a regular pan and bake for 15-20 minutes.

Rupert the Hand

6. Remove from oven and let cool. Decorate the shells, share and enjoy!

Here are some tips. They were kind of difficult to peel, so maybe before adding the cake mix to the shells, put some oil in and make sure it covers all the surfaces of the inside of the egg. That might make it easier to remove. It’s kind of messy and can take awhile, so have patience while you make it. You’ll also probably have cake mix left over, so you can make some cupcakes too. If the batter spills out while baking, just let it happen and once the eggs cool, soak the outside in some warm water and use a paper towel to remove the excess cake. Just be careful not to let the opening of the egg get wet. It’s well worth the effort, and a cute and enjoyable gift. Plus, you can personalize the outside of the egg to whatever you want! (If you want to dye the eggs, it’s probably best to do that before filling them with cake batter.)