Roasted Sweet Potatoes Salad with Blue Cheese Plump Cranberries

This is the results of today shot, my second assignment for the foodstyling course that I am taking online. Its interesting actually how your eyes and camera see, and how you see it again on the screen an hour later. So different! I am really learning to take my time and be patient, really! But yes I was having so much fun and it was nerve wrecking ( although did not involve bungee jumping or any kind of extreme sports), silly me I think I was too  excited. Well well well. I think it would be a pretty damn good salad too:

So this is what I thought of thanksgiving salad:
Sweet potatoes roasted with olive oil with drizzled honey with various greens ( spinach, baby arugula, chicory), then the gooey blue cheese, plumped cranberries ( just normal dried cranberries taht I soaked in cranbery juice overnight), some toasted pecans, and berry vinegrate!

Its almost like thanksgiving without the turkey, and minus the 5 pounds gain because how much can you pigging out on salad?
But anyways  I know the picture is not perfect, any critique on the photo is welcomed.

Thank you: good eat!


Passion + Patience *Gastrobutterfly* A food to your soul.

Sliced ham sandwich with caramelized beets

First shot of sandwich after years ago.  This is a sliced ham sandwich with caramelized beets, mushroom and gouda cheese. Who needs the conventional normal ham and cheese? This is definetely a hearty meal. I love how the beets adds  sweetness and balance the salty ham. Seems like the mushroom and beets combo brings out the earthiness of this sandwich. Love it. What do you think of the styling of the sandwich? Its quite tricky to layer and make sure every different ingredients is showed off nicely.

Passion + Patience *Gastrobutterfly* A food to your soul.

10 Food to Shoot

I am so excited that my food styling course is almost here! In an effort to learn as a sponge, I decided to make a lists of food that I think would be substantial to shoot for my food styling practices and a staple for portfolio. If you are lucky, it might come with the recipe too. So here is the list:

1. Lobster panini
2. Ramen
3. Pancake
4. Pasta
5. Burger/ Sandwich
6. Egg any style
7. Homemade soup
8. Es campur/ Es teler
9. Traditional Food
10. Yoghurt Parfait

I am aiming to complete  this before the end of the year! So wait for the next blog for pictures!
Meanwhile have  a good eat everyone!



Passion + Patience *Gastrobutterfly* A food to your soul.

Fish and Shrimp Tofu

Bought some fresh Spanish Mackerel yesterday to make Pempek. But since the process of making one is quite rigorous, and everyone is already hungry,instead I decided to make the steam tofu with fish and shrimp paste for tonight dinner.I am learning about food all over again now that I am venturing into making my food styling hobby into a realization. I have lists of foods that I thought would be challenging and fun to shoot, mainly to give me a little push and feel good situation. Nevertheless I think this experience will be a humbling one for me to start over and reinvent the me.One of the food in the list is Lobster panini. The idea came random, and I can picture it exactly how I want it to look like. Sadly enough our grilling machine broke just few days ago, so this one might have to wait. But I am going to post the list later so I can share with you all.

Anyhow, making this steamed tofu is very easy. The ingredients is shrimp, fish, and egg and tapioca flour and green onion .If you are feeling fancy, you can always add fish roe for decoration and extra heavenly pops in your mouth.15 minutes on the steamer  and you are good for dinner!

Passion + Patience *Gastrobutterfly* A food to your soul.

How to make Yao Tiao- Chinese Doughnut

Normally Cakue / Cakweh/ Yao Tiao: which ever you call them, is a cheap food sold by street vendor.But here in Toronto, it means 15 minutes walk to subway and 30 minutes more ride when finally my taste bud can devour this crunchy doughnut. Last week I was craving for this crunchy salty bits after I saw bunch of posting on the blog about how to make them. I decided since it doesnt worth the travel to chinatown, I might as well try how to make them properly to gain some personal satisfaction!
So... so many blogs are talking about  how simple yet how  hard it is to make this doughnut. It is because the authentic ingredients require alum which is really hard to find(possible but hard) .  After reading lilyng2000 and resepcampur blog, which were experimenting on using yeast vs. baking soda, I decided to do the trial and error myself. So after 4 times trying, I came up with this yeast and baking soda combination which works best and work well without the alum. I got the holes in the fried dough and crunchier texture than the rest of the trials.

So here is the recipe if you want to try it yourself.

• 1 tbsp of sugar
• 3 tsp of yeast
• warm water ( see instant yeast instruction) approximately 1 cup
• 2 cups of flour
• 1tsp of baking soda
• 1tsp of salt
• 1 cup of oil for  frying

The first step is to make sure the yeast is done properly. In a bowl put the sugar and yeast, mix in a warm water . Stir until yeast dissolves and leave for about 10 minutes until the sugar is broken down. You can tell this by the gas bubbles appearing on the surface of the mixture.This is very important step to generate the holes and airiness of the doughnut. Once the yeast is reaedy, mix the flour , salt, and baking soda and pour it into the yeast mixture. Work the mixture until it forms a sticky dough. You can put a little oil in your hand to make the dough less sticky .You should spend enough time (5-8 min) to kneed and then cover them with moist towel and keep them in the warm place for an hour.Repeat the kneeding and leave in warm place for another few hours. Refrigerate the dough to stop the process and to make the shapes easier for half an hour. Flour your pastry board and start forming and cutting. This you need to practice and practice. The dough will expand width wise so you want your shape to be lean and long.Fry untill golden brown and serve however you like it!!

Important note:

 While you are working on this recipe it is super important  to keep the temprature of the dough warm all the time) I would normally turn my oven and work on top of the stove while kneeding and  turn off the oven wait for few minutes  untill the oven cool down a little. Then I will  put the dough covered with moist cloth in the oven with oven lights on, just to keep the warmth.

Good luck good eat:

Passion + Patience *Gastrobutterfly* A food to your soul.

Affair with Prata

The week was more eventful than normally since my brother is living with us now. Since my parents are here to visit for a while, we have been eating out a lot for the past couple weeks to show the food heavens in the GTA. Last week we were invited to eat the famous crab at Saigon Star .What very interesting about this always full seating restaurant,they presented pratha and french baguette for dipping the crab sauce, an unusual trade for a bowl of rice in a Vietnamese restaurant. 

Eversince I have been wanting to eat those delicious fluffy Prata. During his days in Malaysia, my brother said the norm is to eat Prata/ Roti Canai with sweet condensed milk. Although he did not get to satisfy his sweet tooth, he got a fair share of Prata for dinner ( maybe next time). I took out a bag of frozen Shana Paratha and toast it with a little butter in a pan untill those layers of flour and fat is bubbly and turned golden brown.

To accompany the Prata, chickpea dipping is the way to go. Some left over cherry tomatoes can serve the dipping well too. I bet its not the most authentic Indian style of eating prata with a dal , since my chickpea dipping is thicker almost like hummus. But it was faster to cook and bursting with flavor!

My husband is a carnivore, so does my brother. The meal is incomplete without a piece a meat on their   plate. I decided to make a simple pan seared garlic basa fillet ( if it counts as meat, since I already defroze them). So a meal is complete with a last touch of apricot syrup. I give the sweet portion for my brother sweet tooth ( part of it), well not really. It would be  a perfect marriage of sweet earthiness.

Chickpeas Dipping

A can of chickpeas

1/2 red onions diced

1 tbsp of olive oil

1 tbsp of turmeric

a handful of cherry tomatoes/ 1 tomatoes if you will

1/2 tbsp of cumin ( if you like more it more spicy you can add more)

salt and cracked pepper to taste

In a pan heat up the olive oil and throw in the red onions untill it softens, put in the spices, tomatoes ,add the chickpeas with the juice. Simmer untill the water is absorbed. You can use a fork to mash the chickpeas, and serve!

Pan Seared ( Garlic) Basa fillet

2 Basa fillet

2 garlic cloves minced,

1 tbsp of butter

Flour , cayene peper, and salt for coating

Make the basa fillet into 4 portions each. Pat dry the the fillet with towel. In a bowl mix flour, cayene pepper, and salt for coating. Coat the fish uniformly ,set aside. Warm the butter in a pan, if the heat gets too hot, add some canola oil so the butter will not get burned. Sautee the garlic so the oil is infused with flavor.Take out the garlic and pan fry the fish 3-5 minutes per side untill cooked. Assemble the meal, dont forget the apricot syrup!

and Have a good Eat!

wednesday awesomeness: birthday cake for the lover

It was a perfect scenario, he went for biking with his pals and there I was on Wednesday night , blasting my internet radio channel in the kitchen, and started making some birthday cake batter for the very first time. All is due to the Mayan Chocolate that my sister brought me from Mexico. Its been staring at me for weeks and I felt bad for not trying to make something good out of it.

 It was right for staring at me and put the thoughts in my brain.

Although I failed the suprise ( he opened the fridge before I attempted to secure and hide the cake), I am glad for the real good suprise:

Velvety.         Smooth    . Yummy.    Chocolatey.     Coffee.      Rich. Orange     . Love.         Creamy. Cheese    .  Dark Chocolate.  Soft.      Tangy.          Mocha.

                                       Love.       Love.  Over the Moon Lover~

So here I share with you my recipe for Wednesday night awesomeness, just in case you celebrate the birthday on Wednesday, or any other day will do!

Adapted from dark chocolate from Allrecipes

Cake:

• 2 cups boiling water

• 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

• 2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour

• 2 teaspoons baking soda

• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 3 tablespoon of instant coffee

• 1 cup butter, softened

• 1 ¾ cups white sugar

• 4 egg and don't  forget  1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract  for some heavenly goodness

1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease 2 - 9 inch round cake pans. In medium bowl, pour boiling water over cocoa , and whisk until smooth. Let mixture cool. Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt; set aside.

2. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at time, then stir in vanilla. Add the flour mixture alternately with the cocoa mixture. Last put in the instant coffee and mix batter gently and throw it into the 2 greased pans.

3. Bake in preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes. Allow to cool.

Icing:

• 2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened

• 1/2 cup butter, softened

• 2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 1 table spoon of orange rinds

• 2 table spoon of orange marmalade jam

• In a medium bowl, cream together the cream cheese and butter until creamy. Mix in the vanilla, then gradually stir in the powder sugar. Put in the orange rinds and marmalade jam the last.Store in the refrigerator after use.

Once you prepared the cake and the icing, take out the cake from the pans and flatten the uneven sides of the cake by carving the cake horizontally. Cover the top with cream cheese icing and put the other cake on top. Cover the whole cake with cream cheese icing and finish it off with shaved chocolate, orange rinds, and coffee!

Good luck : good Eat!

Passion + Patience *Gastrobutterfly* A food to your soul.