A super Super Bowl

V has hosted a Super Bowl party for at least six years in a row now. I consider most of our parties joint parties but I think of the Superbowl as his party. He looks forward to it all year, it’s pretty much his favorite day of the year.

The menu has stayed consistent over the years: chicken wings and veggie tempura. Veggies go into the deep fryer first so vegetarians can have their food cooked in untainted oil. Then at halftime, the chicken wings start to come out. I don’t like buffalo wings (or sauce in general) so V always serves the chicken with and without the sauce.

Notice how the two kinds are completely segregated? V accommodates my prejudice against sauce. He is awesome like that.

But I also reciprocate the awesomeness. Each year, I create a football-themed dessert to cap off the food fest. The first year, I made Nutella macarons dyed Indy blue. Last year, I made Oreo cookie truffles shaped like footballs. This year, I made chocolate-dipped strawberries made to look like footballs. It’s my favorite Super Bowl dessert so far. It took some time to make and I had a little bit of a claw-hand after I finished piping the “laces” on but I enjoyed making it.

My inspiration was Shari’s Berries. Theirs look much better than mine but mine also cost much less. I was actually surprised at how easy it was to make these considering chocolate-dipped strawberries are always so expensive. But perhaps it was easy for me because I have several years of fruit-dipping experience. My sister and I worked at Novakovich Orchards dipping dried apricots in chocolate during Christmas time while we were in college.

Nevertheless, here’s the recipe:

Ingredients

• thoroughly washed strawberries with leaves attached. The leaves will serve as your handle when you dip into the chocolate
• melted semi-sweet chocolate. You can melt it on a double boiler or in the microwave. I put it in for 30 seconds, mix it, put in for another 30 seconds, mix, repeat until thoroughly melted.
• melted white chocolate. Use same melting process above. Don’t melt the white chocolate until you’re ready to pipe the lacing on

Equipment Needed

• tray
• parchment paper or wax paper
• fine piping tip
• piping bag or sandwich bag with a corner cut off to fit the piping tip

Directions

1. Line the tray with parchment or wax paper.

2. Pick a up a strawberry from the top and dip into the melted chocolate. Rotate the surface of the strawberry on the chocolate to coat as much of the surface as possible without getting chocolate on the leaves.

3. Gently shake off excess chocolate, carefully flip the strawberry 45 degrees up so the chocolate doesn’t drip down en route to the tray.

4. Place strawberry on tray.

5. Repeat until all your strawberries have been dipped.

6. Refrigerate the chocolate-dipped strawberries for an hour or two until chocolate is completely hardened.

7. Melt white chocolate and begin piping any design you want. You can even skip the piping and just use a fork to drizzle white stripes. If you were so inclined, you could pipe a skull and crossbones design. Your friends won’t know whether to beware or devour the strawberries.

Must resist!

Our love of chocolate is widely known so we often receive chocolate as gifts. Here’s what’s in our refrigerator at the moment. This doesn’t even include the sipping chocolate mixes in our pantry and the Filipino cacao tablets in the freezer. Friends and family, please don’t give us any more! We’re drowning in sugary goodness!

Our chocolate stash

Christmas 2011

We hosted Christmas at our place for the very first time last year. My mom and sister came over on Christmas afternoon and we had a simple  meal together. It was a meal of firsts, we served dishes that neither of us had made before. Thankfully, it turned out well.

Christmas tablescape. I'm trying to let the wax build up gracefully on the candlesticks but that's not going so well.

As an appetizer, we served roasted Brussels sprouts and beet salad with fried goat cheese. I only started liking Brussels sprouts this year so I was a bit hesitant to make it. I might have overcooked it a smidge but it was still good. Confession, I baked the loose leaves separately to make Brussels sprouts chips and I ate it all before the guests arrived.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts

The salad was good but the cheese didn’t hold its shape. We’re going to have to read up on the proper method for frying goat cheese.

Salad with Roasted Beets and Fried Goat Cheese

As an entree, V made squash risotto. This turned out nicely too but V and I disagreed about the garnish. He’s in a sprinkle-everything-with-chopped-herbs phase and I’m in a make-it-look-modern phase.

Squash Risotto

For dessert, we served my second attempt at Brazo de Mercedes. I modified the recipe a bit and we were able to roll it this time!  We didn’t quite achieve the log shape but I think it’s close enough.

Brazo de Mercedes

After the meal, we opened gifts and took a siesta. Then we woke up to a Christmas miracle — all the dishes had been washed while we were asleep! It was a good Christmas.

Baking fail

The goal: Brazo de Mercedes, a traditional Filipino dessert

My reality.

What’s in your freezer?

For a household of two, we have a surprising amount of food (among other stuff). I have a love/hate relationship with  our freezer. It’s always stocked with goodies but it’s so well-stocked, it’s tough to find specific items.  It’s arranged like a tetris-jenga pile and I don’t have the patience to dismantle and put it back together.   I leave that task to V.

We try to eat through our frozen supply but we always end up filling it back up again. Last night, as I took pesto out of the freezer, I took a mental note of what’s in our freezer so we can share and compare.

What’s in our freezer?

• fruit for smoothies – strawberries, blueberries, pineapple, banana, peaches
• flax seed – also for smoothies

We always have smoothie ingredients on hand.

Eating less

As I mentioned before, I lost weight by eating less and exercising more. Surprisingly, increasing exercise turned out to be the easier part of the equation. I am still struggling with eating less. In fact, this past weekend was filled with gluttony.

Food, and frankly, overeating, is a big part of my lifestyle and culture. In a typical Filipino household, eating only one serving is an insult. You show appreciation for the food and the person who cooked it by eating a lot of the food they prepared. And bottom line, I love food. If something tastes good, I want to (and will) keep eating it and eating it.

Thankfully, I’ve never had a serious weight problem. But I know that my metabolism is slowing down so it’s important that I adjust my lifestyle now before it turns into a real problem.

It’s a constant challenge but here’s what has worked for me so far:

• Getting buy-in from V. He cooks most of the meals so he usually picks the recipes. He makes an effort to select lighter recipes and he also remembers to put less food on my plate.
• Stepping away from the food. This isn’t proper behavior if dining with other people, but if it’s just the two of us, I try to leave the dining table after I’ve had one serving of food. By stepping away from the food, I prevent mindless overeating.
• Keeping junk food out of the house. If junk food is in the house, I will eat it. My area of weakness though is ice cream and cheese. I’ve been able to eat less of it, but we still keep it in stock.

Figs and roasted beets salad prepared by V

Now don’t get the idea that I do all of these all the time. I certainly don’t. But every time I do, it means one less instance of overeating. By taking it one meal at a time, I can still enjoy food while working towards a better diet.

Smoothie Wednesday?

Where did my smoothie Wednesday posts go, you ask? I still have smoothies on an almost daily basis, but I haven’t tried out new combinations in a while. I have my standard favorites and honestly, I’ve lost track of which recipes I’ve posted.

My basic recipe goes something like this:
- overripe banana (I know some people are anti banana, I can’t help you if you are)
- strawberries
- pineapple
- any other fruit

I might need a new blender soon though. We broke one of the two cups that came with the blender and apparently, the company that makes it doesn’t sell replacement parts. If we break the last one, we’ll have to get another one. Maybe something like this one. I briefly considered a Blendtec but decided it was overkill for what I do.

Vik’s Chaat Corner

V and I “discovered” a new restaurant this weekend. Vik’s Chaat Corner has been around for years and I’ve known about it for a while but never seemed to get around to it.

But this weekend was THE weekend.

Vik’s offers foods that are typically found by street vendors in India so it was different from all the Indian food I have had in the past. But it was really good! I love street food. I feel like I got to see a whole new side of Indian cuisine. I can’t wait to go back and try the other dishes.

This was called “uttapam.” When I first saw it, I thought it would be pizza like in taste with the tomato and onions. But the “crust” wasn’t naan-like as I expected, it was actually made with a rice batter.

Of course, I had to order samosas. Mmmmmm.

V ordered the lamb roti, that was good too.

I really enjoyed the different sauces that came with the food. I can’t wait to go to India and eat the authentic stuff! Maybe in the next three years I’ll be able to make it there.

What’s for dinner?

V and I braved the elements this weekend and went to Chinatown to pick up some grub.

I like quail eggs because the egg yolk to white ratio is high. And I like that each egg is bite sized.

We also picked up some mushrooms.

The mushrooms multiplied in size after getting soaked in water.

And we also picked up some edible leaves. I think these are bittermelon leaves. But I’m not 100% sure.

All these ingredients (plus lemongrass, lemon, thyme and vegetable stock) went into a soup for our dinner.

Oops, I went nutso

I started planning my NYC trip in detail. And I think I have my itinerary pretty much set. When I said I counted time in meals, I really wasn’t kidding. My itinerary is all about the food.

click for the full image

This is how I’m going to spend my time in NYC. I did ask a couple of locals for recommendations so if they come back with more interesting recommendations, I’ll make changes as needed.

I scheduled a combination of fine dining and cheap eats since I already splurged a lot during my birthday month.