Fall in New England + Savory Football Pockets

November 13, 2022

Fall is underway here in Massachusetts. The remnants of summer seem to have completely disappeared overnight as the chill air of November has taken over each inch of our home. With Z occupying most of our time, we did not even realize how much time has passed. In October, we finally brought Z out for longer strolls. We made our way through a couple local farms up north. On our first stop to Boston Hill Farm, we brought Z apple picking along with my parents. The moment we stepped foot into the apple orchard, we started excitedly filling up our bags with different varieties of apples. Macintosh, Honeycrisp, and Cortland were just a few of the varieties still available for picking. We filled our bags until they could no longer handle any more apples. Then, we swung by the farm stand to pick up some apple cider donuts and hand pies. These treats made for the perfect pick-me-up to round out a day’s worth of apple picking adventures. When Halloween approached toward the end of October, we dressed Z up in her first DIY costume, baby bubble tea! I could not resist dressing up as a mama bubble tea just to match her. Here are some photos from our fall adventures. Aside from the wonderful fruits of fall, I also love fall for (college) football season. In our house, we anxiously watch Michigan football year after year. Kev and I both met at Michigan, so the school holds a special place in our hearts. Watching Michigan football annually still brings back fond memories of our time there – studying in the libraries, connecting with friends over delicious food, and witnessing the ups and downs of Michigan football. After Michigan’s performance last year, Kev and I have been glued to the television every Saturday as Michigan faces a new opponent on its schedule. To distract myself from the anxiety I often feel while watching Michigan play, I would pop over to the kitchen to prepare game day snacks for the family. My latest creation this month has been a version of my savory pockets filled with thinly sliced black forest ham and pepper jack cheese tucked into football shaped pastry dough. Served alongside these pockets is a simple dip made with one part honey to two parts grainy Dijon mustard. My fall football pockets are a variation of my favorite pastry pockets packed with a variety of sweet and savory fillings. Pastry pockets are one of my favorite snacks. I never go too long without baking up a batch of these treats to share with family and friends. When Kev and I moved from Ohio to Massachusetts, I baked up the most marvelous Ohio-shaped pastry pockets featuring a combination of my favorite flavors from a well-known Ohio-based ice cream shop. The Ohio-shaped pastry pockets were my way of bidding farewell to a place Kev and I called home for so many years. Fast forward to this year and the pastry pockets have been transformed into savory fall football pockets as a nod to our love of Michigan football. The part I love most about these savory football pockets is the perfect balance of savory ham and spicy pepper jack cheese packed into the most adorable football shapes. These fall football pockets make for such a simple and portable game day snack. To speed up the time it takes to make these pockets, I often prepare the pastry dough the night before or a few hours prior. Letting the dough chill in the refrigerator for a couple hours is essential to helping the pockets maintain their shape and their perfectly flaky, crumbly layers. Kev and I enjoyed these football pockets as we watched Michigan play over the weekend. Z is still too small to enjoy these football pockets, but we cannot wait for her to get a little older so she can enjoy these treats while watching Michigan football with us.

Celebration Pizza + Updates on Baby Z

September 05, 2022

September 5, 2022

Having a baby in the house sure does make time fly right by. As I’m typing up this post, I still can’t believe September is already here. One moment Z is a tiny baby and the next she has grown into a tiny human. Yes, she’s still relatively tiny, but she’s definitely longer and heavier than she was just a month ago. It has become increasingly more difficult to hold Z for long periods of time. Looking back on the past month, Z already had two milestones. One was turning three months old. The other was reaching one hundred days. Reaching one hundred days is a big deal in our family and thus we had to celebrate in a special way. Everyone knows how much I love pizza. It’s often my go-to party food. So, why not bake up a colorful pie to celebrate Z’s one hundred days? My latest creation is a colorful pizza comprised of an assortment of diced meats and veggies. I named this latest creation celebration pizza because of all the wonderful colors spread out evenly across the pie. The pizza looks almost like artwork once it comes together – colorful like confetti, perfectly round, and beautiful in every way. Aside from looks, the pizza also tastes really good. The foundation for a delectable pizza begins with the dough. For a truly good pizza, the dough must be prepped in advance. I usually like to prepare pizza dough the night before, but if I’m crunched on time, I like to give the pizza at least two hours to rise in a warm place and swap out active dry yeast for instant yeast. Leaving the pizza dough to rise in a warm spot allows the yeast to work its magic and the dough to develop all the lovely bubbles which in turn yields a fluffy, chewy pizza. Unlike traditional pizza, this version doesn’t have a sauce. I know pizza purists would argue pizza has to have sauce for it to be called pizza, but I promise this version still tastes very good without tomato sauce. Quartered tomatoes replace the typical tomato puree I would often use as a base for the pizza sauce. Parm rounds out the cheese component of the pizza. The celebration part of the pizza comes in the form of diced ham (browned on a skillet ahead of time), cooked and chopped bacon, diced red pepper, quartered rainbow cherry tomatoes, thinly sliced scallions (for topping before cooking in the oven and for topping at the end), tons of freshly grated parm, and multiple grinds of freshly cracked black pepper. All of these ingredients are gently tossed evenly over the stretched-out pizza dough and popped into an oven preheated with a pizza stone. I set a timer for ten minutes and walk away to let the oven work its magic. In ten minutes flat, I have a steaming hot pizza ready to go. I also cooked up some corn on the cob directly in the oven to serve alongside the celebration pizza as a side. The corn is topped with some sriracha mayo, thinly sliced scallions, freshly chopped cilantro, and a gentle shake of smoked paprika. The rest of the meal is rounded out with some lemon iced tea. This simple meal for Z’s one-hundred-day celebration is finally ready. My parents took turns snapping pictures with Z while I finished up the decorations for her special day. Z was decked out in her all-pink outfit complete with a pink headband. We had to take photos quickly in between her awake windows. Otherwise, when she gets tired, she becomes fussy. Luckily for us, we were able to capture quite a few photos of her when she was smiling. After our quick photo session, Z let us know she was tired by yawning a couple times. We quickly placed her gently to sleep in her bassinet and enjoyed the celebration pizza, loaded corn, and lemon iced tea for lunch.

Browned Butter Confetti Chocolate Chip Cookies + Celebrating Baby Z

July 04, 2022

July 4, 2022

It has been a little while since I last posted a new recipe. Between my last post and this post, Kev and I welcomed a baby to the world. Baby Z was born last month and weighed just over six pounds. The first few weeks were a complete blur as we adjusted to life as new parents. In a blink of an eye though, a month has already gone by. It brings us so much joy to watch baby Z grow bigger day after day. Looking back at photos we’ve taken over the last few weeks, I still can’t believe how tiny she was when we first brought her home. My days have been filled with feeding, nursing, and changing Z’s diapers every couple of hours. Learning to care for a baby has been the most challenging experience I’ve ever had. Luckily, my parents have been able to help me with taking care of Z. This gave me some time back to resume some of my favorite activities including recipe development, cooking, and baking. A couple weeks ago, we approached the one-month mark of Z’s birthday. To celebrate the occasion, I baked up a batch of browned butter confetti chocolate chip cookies. I’ve been testing out the ratio of ingredients for this twist on the classic chocolate chip cookie even before Z was born. My version features browned butter, sprinkles, and a mixture of both semisweet chocolate chips and dark chocolate chips to really up the flavors in the classic chocolate chip cookie. These cookies came about towards the end of my pregnancy when I was obsessively experimenting with the flavors of browned butter in treats. Browned butter is one of those flavors where once added to a dish, it gives the dish a distinctly nutty and almost caramel-like flavor. These flavor notes work exceptionally well in baked treats, so I incorporated them into a classic treat like chocolate chip cookies. The nuttiness of the browned butter pairs beautifully with the other flavors in the cookies. The trick to these delicious cookies is the addition of both semisweet and dark chocolate chips. I found folding in a mixture of semisweet and dark chocolate chips really helps to offset some of the sweetness already present in the cookies. The balance of chocolate chips also gives the cookies a more intense chocolate flavor. For Z’s one-month birthday celebration, I had to bake up a small batch of these cookies as a way to celebrate. The cookies are for the adults of course, but I still wanted to differentiate these cookies from other cookies I usually make. Thus, I added lots of colorful sprinkles to the cookie dough right before baking to make these cookies extra special. I still can’t believe Z is already one month old. It seems like just yesterday she was born and placed into my arms. My mom, dad, Kev, and I showered Z with tons of love as we celebrated her one-month birthday. These browned butter confetti chocolate chip cookies will forever be associated with celebrating Z. When she gets much older and can eat cookies, I will definitely bake these again as a way to celebrate her. For now, we will stick with treating the adults in the house to these delectable cookies.

Celebrating Our Birthdays with A Confetti Sponge Roll

May 15, 2022

This year, Kev and I celebrated our birthdays with a spin on a classic birthday treat. Birthdays are synonymous with colorful cakes and sprinkles. The typical traditional birthday celebratory dessert I remember eating year after year for birthdays is a sprinkle cake also known as confetti or funfetti cake. These cakes come in many varieties and often seem to be the go-to cake for celebrations. Instead of a traditional layered confetti cake, I decided to bake up a confetti sponge roll packed with colorful sprinkles. The sponge cake is rolled and filled with a lightly sweetened cream of course! Although I could have added more sprinkles to the filling to make it even more festive, I decided to top each slice with additional sprinkles right before serving. Sponge cakes are one of my family’s favorite treats. They absolutely love swinging by the local Asian bakeries in Brooklyn to get their fix of sponge cakes. It didn’t matter the time of day – they would enjoy a slice for breakfast, lunch, and even a pre or post dinner treat. The springy light texture of the cake leavened with eggs paired perfectly with a slightly sweet cream filling. Sponge cakes always made for an easy yet delicious treat to close out a meal. Throughout my childhood, my parents almost always defaulted to a version of sponge cake to celebrate birthdays. It was either a sponge cake or a chiffon cake, depending on bakery availability and mood. Occasionally, they would opt for a Carvel ice cream cake, one of my absolute favorite cakes. I always seem to go for the ice cream cake with a cone topping (usually in the decoration of a clown). The more chocolate crunchies packed into the center of the ice cream cake the better – that’s a story for another day though. Since my parents are staying with Kev and I over the next few weeks to help us prepare for the arrival of our little one, it was only fit to thank them through homemade treats. My confetti sponge roll cake was the perfect treat to thank my parents and celebrate both Kev and my birthday. I usually make a slightly more decadent version of a sponge roll cake during the holidays. Two years ago, I opted for a matcha chocolate sponge roll featuring alternating layers of regular and chocolate cream and designed to look like a holiday log with a festive touch. For a birthday version, I omitted the matcha and chocolate and tossed in colorful sprinkles into the batter right before baking. I tried to evenly distribute the colorful sprinkles throughout the cake and bake it for just a few minutes in a high temperature oven. I would then set the cake aside to cool slightly before pre-rolling the cake, letting it completely cool, and filling it with a super easy lightly sweetened cream. Right before serving, I would slice up pieces of the cake and top it with more sprinkles for the special birthday touch. To make the birthday celebration even sweeter, I brewed up some birthday tea from Harney & Sons and served the tea alongside slices of the confetti cake. This simple dessert was the perfect nostalgic birthday treat (with a twist) to celebrate our birthdays with my parents.

Welcoming Warmer Weather with Malted Milk Chocolate Chip Pancakes

April 10, 2022

Warmer weather is finally upon us! Kev and I are knee deep in preparing our home to welcome our bundle of joy in just under two months. We’ve already set up the nursery furniture and the car seat, the two most important steps. My next goal was to make sure we get enough clothes for our little one before the arrival date. Preparations for baby aside, I have shifted my focus back to recipe development – letting the flavors of the seasons guide me in my recipe development as much as possible. I took a slight detour for this recipe and found inspiration in one of Kev’s favorite candies, Whoppers. Kev and I have different ways of enjoying our Whoppers. Kev loves to pop them into his mouth like popcorn and chew on them. He loves the crunch from the candy. I prefer to just let the milk chocolate coated malted milk balls melt slowly in my mouth. The chocolate and the malted milk powder melts in perfect unison and makes for just the right balance of chocolate and malted milk flavor. For both of us, the best part of Whoppers is definitely the malted milk center. Whoppers are known for their nutty, milky flavor from the malted milk center and the melt-in-your-mouth delicious chocolate exterior. It’s the one candy Kev looks forward to eagerly throughout the year. He usually gets to indulge in these treats during Halloween, Valentine’s Day, and his birthday. Being able to enjoy the flavors of Whoppers outside of those holidays is a true treat for Kev. The candies inspired me to recreate those flavors in another breakfast treat, pancakes. I started playing around with my recipe for malted milk chocolate chip pancakes right around January in preparation for Valentine’s Day. I made the pancakes over and over again for brunch over the last couple of months. After multiple trials, I am finally excited to share my recipe for malted milk chocolate chip pancakes. Lately, I’ve been having strong cravings for carbs throughout the day. The cravings are even stronger than my usual cravings for carbs. I could blame it on the pregnancy cravings, but the truth is I pretty much crave carbs all the time. Pancakes are no exception. There is something so satisfying about the nutty, milky flavor of malted milk paired with the delicious, sweet, and creamy chocolate. I tried to keep these elements in mind as I developed my recipe for malted milk chocolate chip pancakes. When I thought about the perfect malted milk chocolate chip pancakes, I thought about the pancakes having a distinct malted milk flavor weaved throughout the stack of pancakes and tons of chocolate chips sprinkled evenly throughout the pancakes. To achieve this, I folded in malted milk powder directly into the pancake batter and added enough chocolate chips to still allow the malted milk flavor to shine through the pancakes. Finding the perfect balance of ingredients and ratios is the key to perfect pancakes. These pancakes are also super fluffy without the addition of eggs all thanks to the leavening power of baking powder. Who would’ve thought pancakes without eggs could still be so fluffy? My malted milk chocolate chip pancakes were able to accomplish the fluffiness Kev and I both love in our favorite pancakes. We have to be careful with enjoying these pancakes in our household because they are truly addicting. It’s easy to indulge in one too many of these pancakes if we aren’t paying attention just like the candies themselves.

Baking Up a Simple Carrot Cake to Celebrate New Beginnings

March 13, 2022

Over the last six months, Kev and I have been keeping some exciting news quiet from the world (and even some of our family and friends). It never quite seemed like the right time to share the news, but with spring around the corner, we are finally ready to share with everyone that we are expanding our family. Our family of two will soon grow to a family of three. While I haven’t shared much about my pregnancy, I’ve been actively preparing for the arrival of our little one. Kev and I have been slowly preparing all of the necessities for our little one as much in advance as we could. Just this weekend, we finally put together the pieces for the nursery in our home. So far, we have the crib, mattress, and clothes prepared. We are still working on putting together the rest of the furniture. All the while, I’ve been riding the rollercoaster of pregnancy over the last several months. Pregnancy itself has had its ups and downs. No matter how much I read online about pregnancy, I wasn’t fully aware of all of the challenges and changes my body would go through. There were days where I felt extremely nauseous, exhausted, and just uncomfortable. Despite these challenges, the overall joy both Kev and I feel for the upcoming arrival of our little one definitely makes the journey well worth it. As my due date gets closer and closer, I decided to bake up a simple single layer golden raisin carrot cake topped with a cream cheese frosting to celebrate the upcoming momentous occasion. Growing up, I didn’t typically eat carrot cakes. My family’s cake of choice was usually a sponge cake topped with a light cream frosting and fresh fruits. It wasn’t until I got older and started working that I finally experienced the joy of carrot cakes for the first time. Colleagues I worked with would bring in carrot cakes topped with cream cheese frosting to office celebrations and birthday parties. I remember taking a bite into a carrot cake and finding the texture very different from the cakes I was used to eating growing up. The carrot cakes I remember eating were usually on the denser side and had a perfect balance of spices. There was something so satisfying and almost magical about a carrot cake. It seemed to have the perfect balance of tangy, sweet, and spice all folded into a dense cake. Carrot cakes were also very popular desserts of choice for office celebrations and birthday parties, and thus I never found a need to learn to make my own version until a couple years ago. Right when the pandemic started, I began experimenting with making my own version of a carrot cake because I suddenly missed the dessert. I thought back to all of the elements I loved in the carrot cakes I would eat during celebrations to help me in developing my version. I wanted my take on carrot cake to be dense, packed with shredded carrots, and have the perfect balance of flavors and colors just like the ones I remember eating at office gatherings. With spring coming very soon and our bundle of joy arriving shortly after, it was only natural to bake up a carrot cake to celebrate the joyous occasion. My version of carrot cake features a blend of spices, golden raisins, and tons of shredded carrots (two cups to be exact). The cake batter comes together quickly in one mixing bowl and is then poured into a cake pan and baked until golden perfection. Unlike more traditional cakes, my favorite carrot cakes were dense, moist, filled with the perfect balance of spices, and had the right amount of sweetness weaved throughout the cake. The cream cheese frosting pairs beautifully with the carrot cake as it lends a sweetness, tanginess, and creaminess to the cake. Plus, since the cake is packed with shredded carrots, I can convince myself I’m getting my serving of veggies for both myself and my baby.

Celebrating Lunar New Year with Assorted Steamed Buns

February 21, 2022

This post is a bit late, but Happy Lunar New Year! 2022 is the year of the tiger and all I keep thinking about lately is steamed buns and bubble tea. More specifically, I’m craving fluffy steamed buns filled with meat and veggies served alongside a brown sugar milk-based bubble tea à la Tiger Sugar. Is there a better time of year than the year of the tiger to enjoy bubble tea with tiger stripes? Since we live too far away from a Tiger Sugar shop, I’ve been attempting to make my own version at home. I watched a ton of YouTube videos online on how the brown sugar bubble tea are made in a variety of tea shops and then experimented with making my own version at home. Bubble tea and steamed buns are one of my favorite food combinations. To celebrate, I steamed up two different types of steamed buns – one filled with mushroom and veggies and another packed with Asian style BBQ chicken. Kev and I both love steamed buns immensely. Kev’s favorite is the BBQ pork steamed buns he would eat at tea houses throughout Hong Kong where he grew up. I took a slightly different approach and made him some BBQ chicken steamed buns instead. I swapped in chicken thighs for the usual pork filling to yield an ultra-tender filling. For my preferred version, I made a vegetarian filling featuring chopped shiitake mushrooms and bok choy. This veggie version is super simple to make and requires just a few ingredients to prepare. Kev and I both grew up eating steamed buns on opposite sides of the world. Kev, who grew up in Hong Kong, has had his fair share of authentic steamed buns in restaurants throughout Hong Kong. I grew up in New York and have also had my fair share of truly delicious steamed buns. My favorite versions, aside from the classic BBQ pork steamed buns, is definitely the veggie buns. The ones I remember eating growing up were packed with a variety of veggies and aromatics ranging from bok choy to chives. I like to fold in shiitake mushrooms whenever I can to add a deeper, more intense umami flavor to any dish I make. The steamed buns are the perfect addition to the Lunar New Year menu alongside my mom’s turnip cakes, sweet and savory tang yuan, and pork and cabbage dumplings. This year, we added my version of BBQ chicken steamed buns and mushroom bok choy steamed buns to the menu as well. When making steamed buns, I started by making the dough. A trick I figured out over the years is to use a combination of all-purpose flour and cake flour to help the buns achieve the fluffy yet firm texture. If I use just cake flour, the buns will be too soft and not form properly once steamed. If I use just all-purpose flour, the buns will tend to be hard and just slightly chewy once steamed. The combination of the two flours though yields buns with a fluffy texture yet holds a beautiful shape when folded (or pleated) together. Since we eat with our eyes as much as our mouths, having beautiful looking buns results in a much more enjoyable eating experience. Kev and I ended up having a super low key Lunar New Year this year. We both had to work, so we just celebrated by having video calls with our family. We spent a day Zooming with Kev’s family in Hong Kong and another day FaceTiming with my family in New York. Aside from a variety of steamed buns, we also enjoyed some crumbled Asian beef tacos (not exactly a traditional dish for Lunar New Year), spicy, sweet, and savory veggie noodles, and tons of my mom’s sweet tang yuan. Hopefully, by next year, we will be able to gather with our families in person and enjoy all of our favorite dishes for Lunar New Year as a family.

Preparing for Lunar New Year with Mom's Turnip Cakes

January 23, 2022

Lunar New Year is around the corner again. This year, we are approaching the year of the tiger. Kev and I are especially excited for this upcoming year. In our family, Lunar New Year is the one holiday each year my entire family looks forward to with joy even more than any other holiday throughout the year. Each person in my family prepares for Lunar New Year in his or her own way. My dad would plan out the feast we would all gather to enjoy throughout the holidays. My mom would come up with a solid game plan for deep cleaning and decorating the house. My brothers would plan all the ways they would spend their red envelopes throughout our childhood. I would eagerly await all the amazing food we would enjoy in the days to come. Some of my favorite foods to enjoy during Lunar New Year definitely include my mom’s sweet and savory tang yuan. It’s a super easy dish my mom would whip up on a whim as a way to celebrate all major occasions and milestones. Whether it was graduation, landing a new job, or accomplishing personal or professional goals, mom’s celebratory tang yuan would find its way to the table. Dad, on the other hand, often opted for whole cooked foods. We’ve been lucky to enjoy whole cooked chickens, whole steamed fishes, whole prepared lobsters, and whole roasted pigs throughout our childhood. Of all the foods my dad prepares, his whole steamed fish reigns supreme. He always seems to pick out the perfect fish in which he steams to absolute perfection with a simple ginger-scallion soy sauce. (I’m working on learning how to perfect his steamed fish recipe to share in a future post.) For Kev and I, we usually look forward to enjoying some good dumplings. Kev would always vote for soup dumplings. I usually prefer a simple pork and cabbage or mushroom and chicken variety. While we will definitely feature these family favorite dishes throughout our Lunar New Year celebrations, we also needed to share another family favorite dish, my mom’s turnip cakes (with a slight spin). I say my mom’s turnip cakes loosely since I did make some slight alterations when refining her recipe. Turnip cakes (also known as radish cakes or Lo Bak Go) is usually served as a staple during dim sum. Whenever my family and I go for dim sum, we almost always order turnip cakes off of the dim sum menu. My favorite turnip cakes are often crispy all around the edges, and packed with a variety of fillings. Turnip cakes are traditionally served around the new year as a way to welcome the new year with luck. I had initially planned to make turnip cakes with mom during the Christmas holidays, but since she was not able to visit in person, I made turnip cakes with her over FaceTime. Cooking with my mom is usually a challenge because she doesn’t use exact measurements – everything is made by eyeballing. She would just suggest for me to adjust measurements as I go, or check the viscosity/texture of whatever I’m making. Making turnip cakes with my mom was no different. I had to take care to jot down notes as I was cooking to make sure I noted the right ratio of ingredients. Once you get the technique down for making the turnip cakes, they are actually pretty easy to make. Traditional turnip cakes are usually filled with just lap cheung and dried baby shrimp and topped with scallions. I decided to take it up a notch by packing in even more flavors. I generously added minced garlic and chopped reconstituted dried shiitake mushrooms as a way to further enhance the flavors in the turnip cakes. When all the ingredients are added together into the turnip cakes, you have a medley of complementary flavors in each and every bite. The fillings for the turnip cakes are cooked first to release all the flavors. A blend of rice flour and water creates the binder for the turnip cakes. I used a medium-sized daikon radish, grated most of it, and diced about a third of it. The grated and diced radish makes for a good balance of textures within the turnip cakes. Everything is combined together, poured into a springform cake pan and steamed until cooked through. The turnip cake is then cooled, cut into rectangular slices, and fried to golden perfection. Usually, the turnip cake is chilled for several hours to overnight before frying and serving, but I couldn’t resist and ended up frying up some turnip cakes after only allowing the steamed turnip cake to chill in the refrigerator for about 2 hours. When frying up the turnip cakes, I fried them just a bit longer to allow for the turnip cakes to be on the crispier side (just the way Kev prefers them). These turnip cakes made for the perfect start to the Lunar New Year celebrations.

Celebrating the Holidays with A Matcha Cookie Tree

December 31, 2021

The holidays are upon us again this year. Originally, the plan was for my family to visit Kev and I in Mass, but due to the ongoing pandemic, my family decided to postpone until the future. This means the holidays this year will be just Kev and I again. Kev usually requests some form of Chinese food during the holidays. His favorite are obviously soup dumplings, which I made plenty of for the holiday season last year. We simplified Christmas this year with a much simpler meal consisting of my mom’s rice cakes featuring lap cheung, dried baby shrimps, scallions, and minced garlic. For dessert, instead of the matcha chocolate log roll I made last year for Christmas, I scaled back on baking and made a simple matcha cookie tree decorated with vanilla buttercream and some festive gold sprinkles. More to come on the matcha cookie tree in a little bit. Going back to our Christmas celebration, we had to scale back on desserts this year because of all the holiday treats we’ve been indulging in lately. Kev and I have been snacking on chocolate biscuits, over-the-top hot chocolate, and savory holiday snacks. The pre-pandemic holidays are usually a time where we head back to New York City to visit family. Kev always looks forward to the trip because he knows we typically make a trip out to Manhattan or Queens just so he could get his fix of soup dumplings. It’s his absolute favorite food in the entire world and he requests it all the time for special occasions. I started making soup dumplings back when I lived in Ohio because of how difficult it was to access legit soup dumplings in Ohio. The soup dumplings do take some effort to prepare at home, but it’s usually worth the effort just to see the joy on Kev’s face as he enjoys the soup dumplings. This year, for our simplified Christmas celebration, I spent the morning FaceTiming mom to learn how to prepare her rice cakes. I had initially planned on making turnip cakes, but somehow, I forgot to pick up turnips at the Asian grocery store earlier in the week. My mom’s solution was to make rice cakes instead, another savory dish I ate a ton of growing up in Brooklyn. I followed my mom’s instructions for the rice cakes to the best of my ability and they turned out pretty well given the instructions from my mom often lack measurements. (I’m currently working on refining the recipe to share in a later post.) While I was preparing the rice cakes, I set out the ingredients I would use to make my matcha cookie tree. I first developed these matcha cookies last year when trying to create a matcha version of a butter cookie. When testing out the recipe last year in the days leading up to the holiday season, I played around with different types of flours and ratios of ingredients until I came up with the ideal combination of an all-purpose flour and cake flour blend. The all-purpose flour allowed the cookies to maintain a firmer structure, while the cake flour helped the cookies achieve the perfect tenderness. When combined together, I was able to get a cookie with the perfect balance of tenderness and structure. Instead of just matcha cookies, I divided the batter in half and made a raspberry version featuring freeze-dried raspberries grounded into a powder form. The raspberry version ended up developing a deeper purplish color rather than a vibrant red. The matcha cookies came out a perfect shade of light green. As I was piping out the cookies, I took care to pipe out different sizes for my vision of a stacked holiday cookie tree. The cookies did not take long to bake at all. Ten minutes in the oven was all the cookies needed to reach the perfect consistency. The cookies are amazing straight out of the oven, but they also stay perfectly tender as they cool to room temperature. Letting the cookies cool before decorating them is essential for building the holiday cookie tree. When the cookies have cooled sufficiently, I whipped together the simplest vanilla buttercream using just unsalted butter, confectioners’ sugar, heavy cream, and vanilla extract. I even brought out my festive gold sprinkles for decorating the holiday cookie tree. Building the holiday cookie tree was the fun part. I started by dabbing on some buttercream frosting and placing the largest cookie at the bottom of a small cake stand. Then, I started layering on smaller cookies and adding layers of buttercream frosting in between each of the cookies. When I finished building the tree, I moved onto decorating the tree with gold sprinkles to ensure the frosting did not harden before the sprinkles have adhered to the tree. Once I finished decorating the tree, I had to set it out to snap some photos before serving it up as the centerpiece dessert for our dinner. The holiday cookie tree was so pretty, neither Kev nor I wanted to cut into it. We wanted to soak in the lovely dessert for just a bit longer before enjoying it. As we rounded out our dinner with a simple stir-fried rice noodle and yu choy, we sat around our Christmas tree just a while longer to enjoy the final moments of Christmas before the clock struck midnight. Our Christmas holiday was finally complete. Hopefully, by next year, we will be able to gather with family once more. Happy Holidays from our family to yours!

Thanksgiving in Massachusetts, Holiday Festivities, and Aged Gouda Herb Biscuits

December 05, 2021

December 5, 2021

Hello from Massachusetts! Kev and I have finally settled into our new home in Massachusetts. We are approaching our second full month of living in our new home out in the quiet-ish suburbs. It took a bit of time for both Kev and I to adjust to our new home, a new state, and two new roles. My family in particular has been super excited for us to move back to the East Coast since we will only be a few hours away by car. When the holidays started to inch closer this year, Kev and I invited my parents to stay with us for a week and celebrate Thanksgiving with us. Thanksgiving in our family is an important time to gather, enjoy good food, and celebrate all the things we are thankful for throughout the year. It is one of the few holidays throughout the year where we spend almost the entire day cooking up a feast in the kitchen. Even though we just settled into our new home, there was no way we were going to skip the tradition this year. With my parents visiting this year, I was even more excited to roast up a whole turkey and some succulent side dishes. I absolutely love Thanksgiving weekend because of all the festivities packed into one weekend no matter the year. The festivities start on Wednesday night as we prep as much as we could before Thanksgiving Day. For me, it’s usually brining the turkey in vegetable broth seasoned generously with kosher salt, black paper, and a few squeezes of fresh orange juice from a whole orange. When the turkey is brined, I move onto cubing the loaf of bread and setting it out to dry out on the counter before I use it for dressing the next day. The final prep work I like to do before Thanksgiving Day is to prepare the pie crust dough using my trusty food processor. With just a handful of ingredients and a few pulses, the pie dough comes together in almost no time. The next day, I can transfer the pie dough from the fridge to the kitchen island and let it rest for 10 minutes before I begin rolling it out for my pie. Any leftover pie dough on Thanksgiving Day is cut into small triangles and used to make pigs in a blanket for an easy afternoon appetizer before the evening feast. Once those three tasks are crossed off my prep list, I can calmly go to bed. The next day, I wake up early to prepare my aged Gouda herb biscuits with a simple mushroom gravy. My take on biscuits and gravy is a great way to start off Thanksgiving Day with a filling breakfast. Mom and I wake up early to prepare the biscuit dough for the Gouda herb biscuits. Usually, when I make biscuits, I only prepare one batch of biscuits, which yields 8 biscuits. This time though, I decide to double the batch just to ensure we have enough for both breakfast and dinner. The Gouda herb biscuits are super easy to make and come together fairly quickly in the oven. The base of the biscuits starts with all-purpose flour, baking powder, kosher salt, granulated sugar, and unsalted butter. We use our hands to crumble the ingredients together until we form coarse crumbs. Mom then tosses in the Gouda cheese directly into a large bowl as I toss in the oregano and crack in tons of freshly cracked black pepper. We pour in enough milk (¾ cup) to allow the biscuit dough to come together. I use a flower shaped cookie cutter roughly the size of a biscuit cutter to cut out floral shaped biscuits from the biscuit dough. Mom arranges the biscuits neatly across two large baking sheets lined with parchment paper, brushes on some whole milk, and grates additional cheese on top of the unbaked biscuits. I top the biscuits with additional herb and kosher salt before carefully transferring the baking sheets into the oven to allow the biscuits to bake for about 13 minutes at 425°F. Once the biscuits were puffed up and golden brown around the edges, they were ready. While the biscuits were baking away in the oven, I made a quick mushroom gravy using unsalted butter, ap flour, diced onion, minced garlic, thinly sliced baby portabella mushrooms, kosher salt, and whole milk. In about ten minutes, the mushroom gravy was ready for serving. Mom, Dad, Kev, and I gathered across the dining table and ate breakfast together for the first time in a few months. We filled our bellies with the fluffiest cheesy biscuits and shroom gravy before moving on to prepare the rest of our Thanksgiving dinner menu. Mom assisted me with making my cheddar apple pie and roasting a whole turkey rubbed with rosemary olive oil butter. To round out the rest of our menu, we whipped together a sausage dressing, layered on the green bean casserole, tossed together some roasted potatoes, stirred up the fresh orange cinnamon cranberry sauce, and scraped together the turkey drippings for a simple pan gravy. By 6:00 p.m., Thanksgiving dinner was finally ready. We invited one of Kev’s friends, Clay, to join us for dinner. The five of us ate and chatted into the evening. When dinner ended, dad carved up as much of the turkey meat as he could before mom transferred the bones of the turkey into a slow cooker to make turkey soup. Clay brought home some of the leftovers while we saved the rest for the next few days. With another Thanksgiving dinner successfully done, we retired to bed early to enjoy the rest of our weekend festivities – exploring downtown Boston on Friday afternoon and watching the one and only game on Saturday. The win on Saturday was the cherry on top of a truly wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. Now, I can’t wait until Christmas festivities begin.

Hello! My name is Jia Pan and I love to experiment with food. My site is a collection of recipes and stories chronicling my adventures in the kitchen and around the world.
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