Olfactory stimulation perfused by the process of creating food.
The scent of love.
The scent of joy.
The scent of satisfaction.
The beginning of a scented adventure..........
A lot of wonderful things happened in 2011! Life in 2011 was hectic, wonderful, busy, full of adventures!
I have been working hard, but also slacking hard in 2011. First and foremost, I have to apologizes to all my friends, especially those that live beyond the Tahoe basin. I am so bad with keeping in touch :(. Sorry for all the missed calls. Trust me, I really wanted to talk and catch up with you all but between the 900 roles that I am trying to maintain.....the perfect time is just never there....................excuses excuses eh? I will trying harder this year!!! I promise!!!
Life has been busy....Just realized that my last post was in June.......What have i been doing?
Well, let me think..............
Oh yes! Went to Hong Kong and Taiwan with my husband, opened a hostel with my husband, removed over 12,000 nonnative fish from the lake.........................not too too much, right :P
Anywaz, when i actually managed to find some free time, I have been obsessed with bread making.
With different styles!
French, Japanese, Chinese style....
And different techniques too!
Sour dough starters, Wet base starters, Low temp proofing, etc....
It is forth of July weekend and of course we need to make something RED WHITE and BLUE! Well here are the RED WHITE and BLUE cupcake, a.k.a Red velvet cupcake with creamcheese icing and blueberries toppers.
I made the red velvet with some of the beets we got from our CSA. We are really loving our CSA, fresh tasty vegetables almost delivered to our front door!!!
These were really good. I think the coffee adds alot to the flavor to the cupcakes. I think i am going to try to use a more concentrated coffee mixture next time. Aren't those mini oeros cute?
Made some of these a few weeks ago for our neighbor's kid two years old birthday. It was a big hit!!! I think I have finally mastered a pipable creamcheese icing. It held its shape really well. I guess the key is COLD creamcheese and ROOM TEMP butter.
The crumb and texture of this cupcake is awesome!!! I have never baked cakes with coconut milk before, but the richness of the coconut milk definitely shows in the cupcakes. I love it. However, it is not lemony enough to my liking. I think I am going to try to brush them with lemon syrup next time. I got the recipe from Love and Olive Oil, and modified the recipe to my elevation (@6200) by reducing the leavening by 1/4 and baked at a higher temperature.
The buttercream is a white chocolate buttercream with Mocha powder (Green tea powder) added to achieve that green mossy color. Yeah I needed a green mossy color icing without using food coloring.
The two components are great on their own, but I am not sure if they work well together.....Need to think about this a little more :)
Btw, I love those little cake topper :). They are made out of modeling chocolate. I needed to figure out some type of cake topper. I didn't want to use fondant or gum paste cause they are not very tasty. I love it....they are so cute :)
One of my favorite so far! I always love fruit cupcakes, not too sweet with a fruity tang. I had some pineapple and a big bottle of pomegranate juice in my fridge. I have been looking for a good vanilla based cupcake recipe for my HA project, and found this one from Love and Olive Oil. The tangyness from the pomegranate juice and the sweetness of the caramelized pineapples really go great with each other!!!
I just added 1/2 cup of caramelized pineapple (No sugar added or anything, just chop up the pineapple and caramelized it over the stove top).....And replaced the milk/cream in the icing with pomegranate juice.
Still need to practice my piping skill before July!
I know I have neglected my blog for a long long while.....but life has been busy....and what else can i say :P..........
But now I have a new project....and I want to document it, so my blog comes in handy again :)
A High Altitude Cupcake Project..............My quest to find a good cupcake recipe fit for high altitude baking. Recently a permanent residence at 6250 feet........I am troubled with tasty cupcakes like the ones from sea-level.....plus I have another reason to do this, but I will tell you all later :)
More later.....right now, studying "Pie in the Sky: Successful baking at high altitudes" to get some ideas on what i am dealing with........
This is what I am into lately!!! I had the opportunity to take an all women whitewater kayaking class a few weeks ago, with my friend Wendy Lautner as the wonderful instructor.....and now I am in an article in Tahoe Weekly :). Well read along, Christina is me.......YUP!!! Peeling out :P
I have always told people that my last two years in high school is one of the best times of my life, and people usually look at me weird........
But recently, I just stumbled upon an old video that our high school teachers made for us, well it was made for I believe our second year's graduation....but our year was part of it too
This is why i love my school so much!!! All the amazing teachers we had. They are truly great educators. Education can change lives and they made me believe that!
Back in the beginning of March was BTE's bday and I wanted to treat him to a nice dinner. However, with my slim wallet, limited choice of good restaurants at N. lake, and some nice gifts that I got him. I decided that I can only afford a nice dinner for the both of us if i made it......so that lead to the one night opening of DOT!
For those who knows me well should know that I want to run a little eatery one day and I will name it DOT.
Anywaz, so I spent like weeks to plan the dinner, getting all the ingredients that i need, setting a menu, and buying stuff to transfer the "smallest house in the world" to a little nice faux restaurant. Then came the big day and guess what happened? BTE got really sick.....the 24 hours stomach bug that was running wide in the area.......poor him, spent his bday laying in bed all day, could barely eat.........so we had to reschedule...............
Friday came......I got home early, cleaned the house, moved some furnitures around and started cooking in "the smallest kitchen in the world". The door was supposed to open at 6 but I was delayed so when BTE came home at 6, I had to send him to the neighbours :P
The meun items were as follow:
California Calamari Two Ways
Wild caught shrimp risotto stuffed calamari with cherry tomatoes puree
And
Crispy tentacles dusted with roasted sea salt and cayenne pepper
Roasted Rack of Lamb
Medley of winter vegetables and balsamic reduction
Sinfully Dark Chocolate Cake
Rich buttermilk black cocoa chocolate cake with raspberry coulis
We had a wonderful time and even BTE said that was his best bday ever!
I have to say, I was even impressed by myself that I was able to pull this together......I think I will make this a tradition and do that again next year.......a chance for me to make a nice meal and celebrate my beloved's biggest day :)
So we were gonna head to the Bay area for Thanksgiving 2009 and I thought it might be fun to spend a night in the City (San Francisco)....and so we did......deprived of good authentic Japanese food in Tahoe, I decided to take BTE to one for a treat!
After some serious research, i decided to go to Kiss Seafood, a tiny 11 seater located in Japan town. Since BTE had never been to a true Japanese restaurant before, I had to lay down some rules for him so he can fully enjoy the food without offending the mighty chef.......
After a long list of rules......BTE jokingly said: This is serious, isn't it? I feel like this is a test of our relationship. If i don't pass, you will leave me, won't you? I must pass this test......Can you remind me of the rules again???
Are you ready for this? We ordered the Omakase (which means chef specials, the master chef picks out what he thinks are the best of that day and serve in the order he sees fit)
From left to right
Salmon Roe Radish with scallops Persimmon and Japanese green salad
Sashimi
I can't remember all the fishes in there but there were giant clams, butterfish, Tuna (red, medium and Toro) and other delicious fish. Everything was so good, each and single fish has its own unique taste and texture (unlike "sushi" you can in the general sushi place)
Chawanmushi-Japanese Egg Custard
Inside of the dish
BTE can't have eggs so he got grill Marckeral instead (equally delicious)
In the middle of service, BTE spilled some soy sauce on the linens and he was worried that he won't pass his "test", so he attempted to cover them
Stains exposed!!!
Uni sushi......so sweet and creamy!!! I loved it, BTE doesn't like it..."a texture thing" he said (separate order)
Braised fish (can't remember what species) in a sweet soy broth
Red miso soup with a variety of mushrooms
* There was also a sushi dish but I was too excited and forgot to take a picture!!!*
The meal was wonderful.....it was on the pricy side (~$ 200 including 3 orders of sake for the two of us)...but well worth it I thought....and BTE passed the "test"!!!
We ended up in the Japanese Mall and got some crepes J-style for desserts!
I am just a girl who is trying to find happiness in life. I am just a girl who wants to contribute something to the world. I am just a girl who wants to share love and be loved. I am definitely a girl trying to figure out life......
