Making it through Wednesday Hump Day

I had the hardest time getting myself out of bed yesterday morning, so when I got to the train station and I saw the sign for $3 coffee and a bagel w/ cream cheese, I thought to myself - yes. This is exactly what I need because bagels solve all problems. I think if world leaders should consider having more bagels in life and perhaps then, we would have world peace.

Coffee & everything bagel w/ cream cheese

Then when I wasn't even halfway through my bagel, a coworker drops by and drops off this beautiful Chinese pastry - a fried sesame ball with red bean paste inside. And it was all warm and fried and downright DELICIOUS! And I thought to myself, this is exactly the way to start hump day.

Fried sesame ball

I also had a great (early birthday) dinner to look forward to at Vice Versa, which I have been meaning to go to to try the Tagliatelle Al Caffe Con Salsa Ai Tartufi Neri which my sister has been raving about since she went last year. I should have done my research before I went, because much to my dismay, it was no longer on the menu! The waiter recommended instead that I try the Casoncelli filled with veal, raisin & amaretto cookies with sage butter and pancetta (whew! that was a lot of words...). I wouldn't normally go for a dish like that, I generally prefer dishes that are more on the savory than sweet side, but I figured since I had been wanting to try a coffee flavored pasta, that I might as well try one stuffed with amaretto cookies.

It was indeed a tad bit on the sweet side for me personally, and perhaps it was the texture of the veal that made it seem more mushy, but overall my impression was just OK. 

Their chocolate cake dessert however, was delicious. It was all warm and gooey on the inside (gooey is a silly word, but when describing chocolate cake is fantastic). I also asked to substitute the vanilla gelato for pistachio, which they kindly obliged and was definitely the right thing to do - I love me some pistachio gelato! And we spent time ooh-ing and ah-ing over the pretty "Happy Birthday" writing on the plate.

The dinner party - this was one out of 20 pictures that our enthusiastic actor-waiter took while we were getting into photo formation

Green Beans Attempt

I love ordering sauteed green beans in black bean sauce every time I'm at a Chinese restaurant, but for some reason, I've never tried to make the dish myself. But as I was left to my own devices for a few weeks with a bag of Chinese green beans in the fridge that would go bad and inevitably have to be thrown out if I didn't do anything with them, I thought I'd take a stab at cooking it..somehow...

The preparation part of it went well...I think where I went wrong was the sauce. To be quite honest, I Google'd a few recipes for Chinese String Beans, and since I can't really read many of the sauces that we have in our cabinets, I just experimented by throwing in a little bit of...well, I think I ended up throwing in a little bit of everything to try to get a similar flavor. It wasn't until the end that I realized I was missing a key ingredient - the black bean sauce. But I had no idea where that was hidden, so I had to settle with what I had, which ended up being edible, especially paired with some of the microwavable bao zhi (pork buns), that I had stashes of in the freezer, but I'll have to figure out how they really ought to be cooked at some point.

Intimidatingly long beans

chopped

Preparation

Slicing ginger

Into the pot we go...

Cooked

An afterthought...I was missing that kick in the flavor

Final dinner for uno

Smashed Potato Pizza

As one of my favorite pizzas, it's only natural that this get more than one mention on my blog. 

I came home early enough on Monday to make the dough while my sister went running, then started prepping the potatoes that she brought back and cutting up all the salad components. This dough turned out a lot better than the one I made with the pizza. I used a different recipe that didn't call for kosher salt...and somehow, I think that made a difference. The recipe also called to split the dough in 3 parts, so now I've got two more pizza pies that I can make, just waiting in the freezer to be rolled out. Will definitely save a lot of time!

So by 8 pm, aka, when NBC's The Voice was on, I had the mashed potatoes done, and the dough was just about done rising. Then for the next hour, I was running back and forth between the kitchen and the living room between commercials to put everything together.

it's steaming up...yeast working its magic!

Potatoes w/ clothes --> NEKKED POTATOES!!!

Potatoes: CHOPPED!

Potatoes: MASHED!

With all my potato captions, I'm starting to feel like I'm a character on Super Smash Brothers...instead of Falcon - PUNCH! I'm Captain Potato! Whoa, wait, lightbulb moment! If I were ever to be a super hero, I am totally claiming CAPTAIN POTATO!

Cheese & Tomatoes

Summary of all things complete before 8 pm

And here begins the semi-hectic process where I had my sister scream for me every time the show started up again (she probably lost some of her voice after watching The Voice...[insert *hearty guffaw* here])

separated dough

Rolled out pizza dough

Mashed potatoes on pizza with red pepper flakes! (the best, I love love love red pepper flakes!)

Entering the oven...

Finally topped with the salad, cheese & bacon ranch dressing

Slice 1

Making it "artsy" for social media

With a pizza pie for only 2 people, we actually had some leftovers, which I brought in to my coworkers the next day to try to convert more people to the magical deliciousness that is mashed potato pizza. They were skeptical at first, but I won them over! And it begins...first step pizza, next...THE WORLD.

Fruit Tarts & Hot Pot

My cousins visited us last week for their spring break, which meant a few things: I would inevitably gain 5 lbs, my liver would start crying by the end of the week, I would be exhausted, I would have had a lot of fun - and I would be making a fruit tart...or two.

I think the first time I stumbled upon this Nestle mini custard fruit tarts recipe was for Thanksgiving a few years back. I did do the mini version for that meal, but afterwards, figured it was too much of a pain in the butt to make so many mini pie shells, and decided to combine them all into one.  And it's so easy, that I have made it many times, especially when I am with my cousin (as shown in my post where I made a version of it in Berlin). As for the graham cracker crust, it's really so easy - mix melted butter, sugar, and crushed graham crackers together and press them into a pie plate. I don't remember where I read this tip, but to crush the crackers (and this applies to crushing of any cookies or crackers that are not too hard), I put them in a Ziplock baggie and crushed them with a rolling pin. Sometimes it gets a little tricky/messy if a jagged edge gets caught in the bag and makes a hole, but this time was pretty smooth sailing.

 

Had enough to make 2

While I baked the shells (for less than 10 minutes), it was time to start on the custard, which also takes about 10 minutes.

 

 

After filling in each pie shell with the custard, it was time to leave it in the fridge to congeal. Apparently the smell of the baking crust and the simmering custard woke up the sleepy nappers...who also woke up very hungry. As it was a rather cold March evening, we decided to have hot pot for dinner, where the troops were put to work for their own dinners.

very hungry squirrel

 

Heating up the spicy soup base

Hot Pot Spread!

After a brief digestion period watching the OSU NCAA semi-finals, which they lost =(, I topped the pies with were-frozen mixed berries, and we proceeded to finish both that night...we are quite the fatty family =)