A Wonderfuly Costco weekend!

I luuurve Costco! I'm a huge sucker for cheap stuff and good deals and that's why I love Costco! For the benefit of those who have been living in a cave for the last decade or so (though, if one has been living in a cave, I suppose internet access isn't likely), Costco is an American-based warehouse supermarket for the members. The basic membership costs a little more than $30 a year and membership benefits include purchasing groceries in insanely huuuge quantities for very cheap. I had not shopped for groceries in more than 2 weeks so this Costco trip was waaay overdue. Can you believe I spent over $200? I can't either. But anyway, we did get a lot of stuff (including liquor) so it wasn't too bad.

The highlight of my splurge was the frozen Maryland crabcakes. For the past few months, I have been having a seafood withdrawal symptoms due to the shortage of good, fresh seafood in my diet! Living in the Midwest, it's quite a challenge to get reasonably-priced fresh seafood. Recently, I have been craving for crab in particular. I think those scintillating Ruby Tuesday commercials featuring the new crab cake appetizer dish helps to fire a lot of the seafood withdrawal neurons in my brain. Being the suckah that I am, I did go to Ruby Tuesday (RT) and tried their crabcake. It was quite tasty but at $9 per pop (only one pathetic crabcake per order), it was a bit too rich for my blood. The RT crabcake was a little overcooked (charred) but there were quite sizeable crab meat chunks visible. It was served with a spicy mayo sauce and a mini baby green salad.

Since then, I've just been wanting to eat some seafood all the time. It doesn't help that my one and only sushi-eating friend was out of town for a whole month! Solution: Costco crabcakes. We immediately made some as soon as we got home. There were a few ways to heat them up: (1) microwave, ech(!), (2) pan-fry, or (3) bake and then broil. I chose the third option because I was a bit occupied (which I will get to later) and so, couldn't labor over my pwetty crabcakes the whole time. The turned out beautiful and delicious! I had mine with some Indonesian Cap Jempol chili sauce and it was perfect!



As you can see for yourself, the crabcakes didn't have gigantic chunks of meat (which I would've preferred) but it was very well-seasoned and is really, really good considering they ARE frozen! I mean, really, us beggars in the Midwest cannot be choosers. Fortunately, I bought two boxes of these yummy crabcakes at Costco. It'll have to last me until I visit a place with access to the sea.

Besides a whole lot of frozen seafood and unhealthy stuff, I managed to squeeze in a lot of wonderful fresh fruit. I bought a whole pound of Chilean-imported blueberries. Not only are they nice and plump, they pop and ooze fresh, sweet yet tart goodness when you bite into them. I especially luuurve a handful of blueberries with my morning cereal. Also, I can just eat blueberries naked, all them themselves. Now, THAT is perfection.


However, I have also been in the mood to bake muffins. There's nothing better than a warm blueberry muffin with a cup of hot tea on a cold winter day while you're knitting or reading or just watching TV. But, I restrained myself from degrading my fresh blueberries and made oatmeal cookies with dried fruit instead. It was horribly cold yesterday and the the wind never stopped blowing! I flipped open one of my favorite cookbooks, The Best Light Recipe, and used the oatmeal cookie recipe. Before adding the raisins, I halved the dough into two portions. Into one, I added the classic, traditional raisins. To the other batch, I added some dried cranberries and white chocolate chunks.

BEFORE


AFTER


The cookies turned out delicious and were crisp on the outside while it was chewy in the middle. Now that they have been sitting around for a day in the tupperware, they have crisped up more. I personally like chewy cookies so I probably should've underbaked them even more but the flavor is good. The oatmeal raisin cookies are simple and you can't go wrong with them. The oatmeal white chocolate cranberry cookies were quite exciting to me. It has a refreshing combination of sweetness and tartness that I really enjoy. I gave some to my colleagues and they remarked how they couldn't believe the cookies were "light" and that's pretty cool. So far, the light recipe cookbook hasn't disappointed. Even though all the recipes call for lower-fat or lighter substitutes, the flavor and taste is never compromised.

Another thing I tried out this weekend (I sure did a lot of stuff, huh?) was to make mochi. Not really "make" because I just basically heated one dried mochi in the toaster oven. It was pretty cool because the mochi transformed from this flat disc to a puffed-up ball of chewy goodness. I had it with some soy sauce and sugar, but it wasn't as delicious as some other mochi I had with peanuts and sugar. Hmmm... I think I need to get a pack of kinako (soybean powder) that the Japanese traditionally sprinkle on mochi.



Ok, one last thing I did (the activity that kept me from pan-frying my crabcakes) was I (FINALLY!) finished my second knit bag, lining and all! If you remember, a while ago, I made a knit bag for my sister. Since I had so much leftover yarn, I decided to make another one for myself. The second bag is considerably bigger and the main difference is the lining. Instead of a pretty, flowery pink lining, I chose a green tea-ish shade of cotton that matches the green color of the yarn. It turned out pretty awesome and I'm so glad I finally finished this project. And hey, it doesn't hurt that I can use the bag and show my creation off the world. Yippee!

New Year, New Adventures

Man! Has it been forever since I last posted! It sure has been a pretty hectic new year indeed. I now have a new part-time job in another lab that works with human subjects. So now, instead of just tinkering cells in petri dishes and mice, I mess around with people. Haha! So far it's not too bad. I wanted a part-time job for 2 main reasons: (1) the extra money (d'oh!) and (2) the experience doing "clinical" or translational research might just benefit me in the future if I decide to continue a research career. So anyhoo, that's it with the boring stuff!

It was the boyf's birthday in January and I baked a birthday cake of course! It's a basic yellow butter cake recipe with chocolate frosting. I cheated with the cake, I used boxed Duncan Hines mix (hey! It was only 99 cents a box! I couldn't resist cheap, easy stuff), but I made the frosting from scratch with my new pwecious Kitchenaid stand mixer (it worked soooo well!). The cake turned out fragrant, moist and delicious. The frosting was good on the day I made it but somehow the taste deteriorated as the days passed (we couldn't in good sense finish the cake in a day!). Part of the reason might have been the fact that I used Dutch-processed cocoa instead of plain cocoa. Maybe I just didn't use enough butter! Anywayz, it looked pretty good, right?



Besides the cake, I was also inspired to make beef stew last week. The cold, blustery weather outside made a perfect accompaniment for a comforting stew dinner. The recipe was very simple and consisted of the standards: meat, potatoes, celery and carrots. It turned out delicious and was awesome for dunking sliced, toasted Italian bread! What made it really special was the tomato sauce that was added in the stew, making it tastier and appear redder than normal stews.


Talk about red, did you know that Florida now grows strawberries? I know that California has always grown strawberries all year round but Florida?!?! The strawberries below were grown in Florida and they're pretty juicy and yummy. The boyf and I have been having a pound of strawberries per day because I bought about 4 or 5 boxes of them when they were on sale at our local grocery store. So, I've been stuffing them down our throats so we'll have finished them before they go bad. I mean, really! There are worse things to stuff down your throat!


The highlight of my week is tasting wagashi, a traditional Japanese sweet, that my sister's boyfriend brought back from Japan for me (Arigato gozaimashta, Motoi-san!). I was just browsing on Amazon.com and encountered wagashi in their grocery section. Many reviewers really liked it and that got me really curious. Having done some research on Wikipedia and Google, I found out that it is a category of Japanese sweets that are traditionally served in the Japanese tea ceremony. They're usually made of rice flour and red bean (anko). Although I'm a big chocolate and ice cream fan, I also like subtler desserts that are not as sweet or overpowering. My kind sister e-mailed his boyf about it and he brought back a box of them! Joy! Check it out! Isn't the packaging simply adorable?


This kimono-clad cartoon girl is soo cuuute and the drawing of the wagashi is pretty accurate!


So anyway, I had these triangular goodies with green tea and it was perfect. Lightly sweet, delicate, chewy and oh-so Japanese! It would have been good with other light teas too, eg. ginger, herbal, etc. There are two different flavors. The first is black bean, which tastes very similar to red bean (or azuki) but is slightly stronger. I don't know what the second kind is but I'm guessing something along the line of persimmon. Both are tasty but I prefer the black bean one just because I know what it is and less bland. If you look at the pictures below, the one I suspect to be persimmon appears to have a less amount of stuffing.







That's all the new adventures so far this year but 2007 sure looks like it promises way more to come! Ciao!

Chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate!

I had a blast in SF hanging out with the cousins and trying out the SF food scene. What I didn't realize was what a big chocolate city San Fran is. I mean, SF really likes its chocolates! Everywhere we went, there would be specialty/artisan chocolates sold in all sorts of stores. I suppose I should've expected it because after all, Ghirardelli started in SF!

There was a chocolate store we chanced upon in the North Beach (or Little Italy) neighbourhood that offers a huge variety of chocolates, most of them made in California. I have been a bit of a chocolate junkie, like my mother, and I have been getting into dark chocolate. I find its complexity and mouth feel to be very rich and enjoyable. Hey, I like the occasional Hershey too but recently I've been finding milk (or even semisweet) chocolate to be a tad cloying on the tongue. I've also been inspired by a recent posting on a Chicago-based food forum that I belong to about a chocolate tasting party. Wouldn't that just be perfect for the holidays? Hmmm... I might cross that with a knitting session too! Hooray! So, anywayz, I bought a lot of chocolate in SF and they're all pretty good. The shop we encountered is "Z. Cioccolato", very Italian-ish, since it's in SF's Little Italy.


One of the chocolate bars I purchased there was a dark chocolate bar made in Boulder, Colorado for about $3.50. It contains 70% cocoa and tastes just heavenly! Unlike many other dark chocolate bars, this is smooth, creamy and rich without the slightly waxy mouth feel. The bar is not too thick and not too thin and has a nice surface area exposed for optimal tasting! There's also a love poem (awww!) in the inner side of the wrapper (which I haven't bothered reading ... yet). It would make the perfect gift for your sweetheart! Besides 70% cocoa bar, the same company also makes chocolates with other exotic flavors. They offer various cocoa percentages of dark chocolate bar in addition to raspberry-filled, espresso-infused and orange-flavored chocolate bars.

Also, at 160 calories for a third of the sizeable bar, it is a pretty good dessert or snack! Check out the other flavors they have and if you're interested, go to www.chocolove.com. They're available in select grocery stores but I found none in the Midwest. Sigh~


The other chocolate bar I got at the chocolate boutique is this 65% bittersweet chocolate by Charles Chocolates. I was too blinded by the prospect of hazelnuts in this dark chocolate and didn't realize that it also contains candied orange peels until I was about to open it and have some a few days ago. Part of the reason that I bought it was it's made in California. I mean, really, when in California, buy Californian stuff to bring home! However, this chocolate was a bit of a disappointment because to me, it doesn't have enough hazelnut flavor and the orange peel taste is too strong for me. The chocolate bar is also pretty thick (I like my chocolates thinner). Overall, it's not too bad but I wouldn't get this again. I would try the other bars this company makes but this wasn't really worth the $3.99 I paid. You can find the rest of the collection at www.charleschocolates.com.


I'm so happy that we had the chance to go to Little Osaka (SF's Japantown) for dinner and that we stopped by one of the grocery stores there! I luuurve grocery stores and I like to just even walk around and see what's available although I might not buy anything. Naturally, this grocery store has so many more Japanese products than the one I go to in Chicago. I was so excited at the sight of new, cute Japanese snacks I've never seen before that I just had to have a picture!


Okay, back to business! And of course, I bought a couple of snacks to tide myself over on the plane ride home and for times when I need some Jap goodness back home *sniff* *sniff* The first item I got was this box of milk chocolate bars called "Ghana". It's pretty dang good for milk chocolate and it has portion-controlled packaging for snacking at work. I had the impression that it was dark chocolate (which is why I bought it) but I think I was just too excited at the sight of so much Japanese snacks that I didn't read the box too carefully. But that's cool because this is one of the darkest-tasting milk chocolate I've had. Yay! I'm guessing that by naming it Ghana, the company's trying to tell us that the cacao beans they use to make it is from Ghana? Hmm, I need to learn Japanese!


Another Japanese chocolate snack I got was a box of "Meltyblend", which is basically individually-wrapped square truffle-like chocolate bites that has a strawberry-flavored center. The chocolate coating is very delicious and dark-tasting, and the individual wrapping is, again, a great portion control.


My favorite Jap snack from SF are these green tea wafer-ish cookies that has a light green tea mousse sandwiched between a thin shortbread-y cookie and a thin wafer-like cracker. It is not too sweet and you know me, I luuurve green tea!


Another huuuge favorite are these black sesame Pockys! The sesame flavor is delicious but I wish it was stronger and more potent, but that's just the sesame but in me talking.


And now, for the worst Jap snack ever, is this green tea-flavored protein-y energy bar. I thought it looked interesting and I checked out the nutrition info and it sounded really good. Since it's green tea-flavored, I thought I'd give it a shot. What could be better than a green tea power bar? ... A lot, apparently! The bars are shaped like shortbread but it does NOT taste or feel like shortbread AT ALL! It was brittle and dry and tasted like cardboard. I could make out some green tea essence but it was mild and it was just not delicious. Although I'm not one to waste food or money, I threw the whole box out after one bite. Fortunately, I only got one!


I bought a bar of the new 72% cacao bar from a Ghirardelli boutique. They had a special promotion and since my cousins and I combined our purchase, we got two additional 72% free of charge (score!). Overall, I liked the taste, it sure was intensely dark, though still not as intense as the 70% Chocolove bar above. I also liked that the bar is thin and this exposes more chocolate surface area for my tongue. However, it is a little ... what's the word ... kinda, waxy, I guess. It's not as smooth as some of the other dark chocolates I tried. At $3.50 for a big bar, it's not too bad. I'll definitely be getting more of those if they're not too expensive. Well, that's all for m forays into the rich, dark world of chocolate in SF! Have a great weekend!