Loaded Twice Baked Potatoes and Dragon Fruit Raspberry Hot Chocolate

March 25, 2021

March Madness has commenced. Two rounds in and Michigan is still going strong. Kevin and I have been cheering on our team by enjoying maize and blue layered cookies featuring layers of maize and blue almond cakes adhered together with apricot jam, a treat I started making in anticipation of March Madness. In just a few days, Michigan will be facing yet another team in the Sweet 16. With game day just a few days away, I’ve been remaking two of my favorite game day foods – loaded twice baked potatoes and dragon fruit raspberry white hot chocolate. I first started making these two treats a couple months ago when the temp in Ohio dipped way low. Despite our best efforts to stay warm, the cold winter air just keeps creeping into our home. To help stay warm, I like to bake up tons of goodies in the oven. Twice baked loaded potatoes are just one of many treats I often make during colder days. These stuffed potatoes are super easy to make, packed with flavor, and helps keep me satisfied for most of the day. My current favorite version of loaded baked potatoes feature crispy bacon, gooey cheese, bright green peas, finely chopped fresh parsley and tons of freshly cracked black pepper. The combination of the smokey, salty bacon, melty, creamy cheese, and sweet, bright green peas pairs beautifully with a sprinkle of fresh parsley and black pepper. The potatoes are baked first for just under an hour to help them cook through and soften. Then, they are halved, scooped out leaving the potato skins intact, tossed with the goodies, repacked and re-baked. The second time the potatoes are baked is where the magic happens. The cheese begins to melt together with the rest of the packed ingredients and makes for the most delightful loaded baked potatoes. One half of the loaded baked potatoes is perfect for a snack or a side. Two halves are enough for a light meal. These flavor-packed loaded potatoes are the perfect fuel for game day. It provides the fuel we need to cheer on our team. To balance the savory treats, I also whipped up my fruity spin on hot chocolate – a version featuring pureed dragon fruit and raspberries blended with melted white chocolate, and warmed soy milk. I used white chocolate instead of the usual cocoa/semisweet/dark/milk variety to help enhance the beautiful red hues of the fruits. Pureed dragon fruit and raspberries add not only a fruity touch, but also a beautiful bright pink hue to the hot chocolate. The hot chocolate comes together rather quickly and makes for the perfect slightly sweet, warm, and toasty beverage to help keep us warm throughout the day. I first started making the dragon fruit raspberry white chocolate a couple months ago on a whim. I had some pureed frozen dragon fruit stored in the fridge and some leftover frozen raspberries, and thought why not blend the fruits together into a hot chocolate. The experimental drink turned out so good, I made it a few more times throughout the last few weeks. When I ran out of raspberries, I swapped in strawberries for another delightful spin. Pureed strawberries worked just as well as pureed raspberries. Once the drink passed both Kevin and my taste test, I tested it out on a couple of our friends. Kevin and I brought over the ingredients needed to whip it up during game night at our friends’ home. When the drink also passed their taste test, I was ready to share it. With the cold weather fluctuating week after week in Ohio, I just had to make the warm, toasty drink once more just in time for the madness about to ensue during the NCAA tournament this month. We still have our fingers crossed for Michigan going into the next round.

Making Bubbles From Scratch for Homemade Bubble Tea

January 17, 2021

The start of a new year means the beginning of exciting possibilities. Whenever a new year begins, I like to tell myself I will learn more, cook more, eat healthier, and spend less. I usually do a good job of staying on track with my goals until the first holiday of the year comes around. Usually, the holiday is Chinese New Year. Holidays always give me an excuse to indulge in my favorite foods. I like to plan holiday menus a few weeks in advance by brainstorming some of my favorite foods to eat around the holidays. During the past Thanksgiving, Kevin and I celebrated at home by recreating some of my favorite traditional thanksgiving dishes. When Christmas rolled around, I decided to put new twists on some of my favorite Chinese dishes. My drink of choice during the holidays is no doubt bubble tea. I always get my fix of bubble tea when I visit family in New York or in Hong Kong. Whenever Kevin and I travel to either New York City or Hong Kong, I like to load up on the endless varieties of bubble tea available to enjoy. Since we did not get to travel during the holidays this year, I opted to recreate the bubble tea experience by making my own at home complete with homemade bubbles. My version of homemade bubbles features the first three ingredients found in the instant bubbles I like to pick up at the Asian grocery store. Those three ingredients are tapioca flour, corn starch, and water. To get a natural color with a fruity touch, I experimented with folding in fruit jams into the dough. The experiments turned out even better than I expected. The bubbles flavored with jam not only added a beautiful hue to the bubbles, the jam also added a wonderful fruity flavor to the bubbles. By using fruit jams to add the color and fruitiness to the bubbles, I can enjoy homemade bubble tea and still stick to my goals of cooking more and eating healthier. I started testing out my homemade jam bubbles a few weeks back using a blend of tapioca flour, corn starch, warm water, and jam. The dough was tricky to get just right at first. If too much liquid is added, the dough becomes the consistency of quicksand. If too little water is added, the dough becomes too crumbly to work with. Finding the right balance of liquid to flour to make sure the dough was soft enough to mold yet firm enough to hold its shape once rolled out into tiny balls was key. Making sure the consistency for the bubbles is just right is super important for helping the bubbles achieve the perfect chewy consistency. After a few trials of too large bubbles, stiff bubbles, and too soft dough, I was finally able to produce bubbles with the right texture and consistency. For the milk tea itself, I like to prepare a batch of concentrated black tea, sweeten it up with maple syrup, and top it off with a couple dashes of evaporated milk. The sweet woodiness of the maple syrup pairs beautifully with the creaminess of the evaporated milk. The colorful, fruity bubbles add the perfect touch to the bubble tea. Sipping bubble tea brings back memories of my travels home to New York City and abroad to Hong Kong every single time. To round out our lunch, I prepared bowls of veggie packed rice bowls featuring Kevin’s absolute favorite preserved Chinese sausages and pork belly. We enjoyed the homemade bubble tea and rice bowls as we took trips down memory lane of our travel adventures in New York City and Hong Kong. I await the day when we can safely travel to see family and friends across the globe once again.

Minty Chocolate, Blueberry, and Coconut Smoothie

August 01, 2019

It’s official! I’ve completed all of my exams and final projects for my two summer classes. When I started taking classes again earlier this year, I was a bit nervous. I had been out of school since I completed my master’s degree in 2015 and shifted my focus to working. In 2019, I decided to go back to school again. This time around, I took classes in subjects I was more interested in learning about for self-improvement. During the spring semester, I took an introductory baking course, safety and sanitation course, and two leadership courses. It was a bit tough to balance work and school at first, but after a month of classes, it felt as if I hadn’t skipped a beat. All of those courses ended in May. I took a break from work and school and traveled to Italy with Kevin to finally have our honeymoon. You can read more about our adventures in Italy here. Once I returned back from my travels throughout Italy, I was ready to begin my summer photography courses. I’ve been working diligently through all of the photography projects, quizzes, and exams. Fast forward to today, and I’m done with both classes. I love the process of learning and growing. I just wish I could skip the exams portion of learning. To celebrate the completion of my two courses, I decided to make myself a treat. I was craving something minty, fruity, and chocolatey all at the same time, so I whipped up a minty chocolate, blueberry, and coconut smoothie for an early evening pick-me-up. The combination of the fresh mint, delectable chocolate, sweet blueberries, and creamy coconut milk blended together makes for the perfect indulgent and refreshing summer drink. I love whipping up smoothies throughout the year and especially during the summer when I want to cool off with a satisfying drink. The best part about a smoothie is how quickly the smoothie comes together. I layer some fresh mint, coconut milk, blueberries, chocolate syrup, and some chocolate chips, then blend everything together for about a minute, pour the contents into a mason jar, and top with some additional mint leaves. In less than five minutes, I had a satisfying smoothie to sip on.

Minty Matcha Chocolate Milkshakes

February 21, 2019

March is quickly approaching. The months after February tend to be tougher for me as there aren’t any holidays off from work in March or April. Towards the end of May is when I get to have another long weekend. While there aren’t days off from now until May, there are still some wonderful holidays to celebrate in between. Earlier this week, I started brainstorming ideas for a St. Patrick’s Day celebration in March. I always see advertisements for Shamrock shakes around this time of the year. I’ve only had a Shamrock shake once many years ago, so I don’t have a very good memory of all of the flavors within the shake. Instead of picking up a shake from a fast food restaurant, I decided to make my own. I wanted to create a version of a green milkshake without using food coloring. I thought about which ingredients will give food a nice green color and realized matcha powder could do the trick. I use matcha a lot in baking and thought it would be a good addition to a milkshake. I started brainstorming different flavor combinations and decided to make a minty matcha chocolate milkshake using mint extract, matcha powder, and chocolate syrup.

Orange Milkshakes

February 05, 2019

Today is Chinese New Year. There are a few traditions (more like superstitions) for Chinese New Year my family instilled in me since I was a child. Over the years, I often forget about the actions I should avoid on this holiday and end up taking one or more of those actions. A couple years ago, I challenged myself not to get to three strikes. Well, today, I got to two strikes. First, I totally forgot not to wash my hair as washing hair is associated with washing away luck and good fortune. Kevin did remind me not to wash my hair, but out of my autopilot habit, I ended up washing my hair when I got home. That was the first strike. For dinner, I was craving an apple and cherry tomatoes for my salad and ended up cutting a whole apple and halving some cherry tomatoes. Whoops! I should avoid cutting anything on New Year’s day. That was my second strike. I vowed not to get a third strike today. So far, so good.

Coconut Milk Bubble Tea

January 17, 2019

Bubble tea and I go way back to my childhood. I crave it all the time. When I lived in New York, I had easy access to bubble tea. I could get bubble tea on my way home to Brooklyn, on my way to meet friends in Manhattan, or on my way to visit my brother, Peter and sister-in-law, Steph in Queens. I am a huge fan of using green tea and black tea for my bubble tea, but I am also open to pretty much any type of tea. My favorite bubble tea spot to frequent when I visit my family in New York is Kung Fu Tea.

Almond, Coconut, and Chocolate Iced Coffee

January 11, 2019

I have been obsessed with coffee and coffee infused treats lately. Earlier this week, I made some chocolate and coffee scones, and throughout the week, I have been snacking on chocolate bites with brewed coffee in the center of the chocolates. I recently discovered these chocolate treats when Kevin brought home a jar of chocolates. The jar of chocolates was given to him from one of his colleagues as a holiday gift. Inside the jar was a chocolate candy I had never seen or tasted before.

Kale and Spinach Green Smoothie

January 05, 2019

Happy New Year! On my trip back from New York to Ohio earlier this week, I had the most amazing green smoothie at LaGuardia Airport. Kevin and I were hungry as we were waiting for our return flight back to Ohio and decided to order breakfast at one of the restaurants. I had eaten a lot of heavy foods during my trip to New York, so I wanted to balance the heavy meals I had with a clean, green smoothie.

Blackberry Lemonade

November 12, 2018

After making an icebox cake for dessert last weekend, I still had some leftover blackberries and a lemon. I was craving a refreshing drink so I mashed up the blackberries, squeezed out all of the juice of the lemon, added some sugar and water, and made blackberry lemonade. The blackberry lemonade featured sweetness from the blackberries balanced with tartness from the lemon.

Matcha Green Tea Latte

November 10, 2018

I try not to buy a lot of drinks at coffee shops throughout the year, but occasionally, I do like to treat myself to one of two lattes at Starbucks – either a peppermint mocha or a green tea latte. Today was one of those mornings where I was especially craving a matcha green tea latte.