Thursday, July 30, 2009

Ma Po Tofu

My brother can't stand spiciness. After a few days of him over, all the regular residents of the apartment were clearly craving spicy. So, after he left, we broke out this recipe, and we made it pretty spicy.

Ma Po Tofu:
The amazing spicy rice topping dish that just gets spicier with time. Tonight's was great, especially due to spiciness withdrawals. Here's how it was (approximately done, courtesy of Shannon).
  • 1 1/2 lbs Ground Beef
  • 2 packs Silken Tofu
  • 1 head Garlic (minced)
  • 2 tbsp Ginger (minced)
  • 2 Serano Peppers (chopped, seeds removed)
  • 2 Green Onions (chopped)
  • 1/3 cup Beef Broth
  • 1/3 cup Soy Sauce
  • 1/3 cup Chili Sauce
  • 3 tbsp Chili Oil
  • 2 tbsp Sesame Oil
  • Salt and White Pepper
  • Cornstarch
Heat up oil in a large pan. Cook the ground beef with some white pepper and salt until brown. Remove from heat and place in a bowl. Without cleaning the pan, heat more oil. Saute the garlic and ginger until golden brown. Add broth, serano peppers, green onion, and tofu. Bring to boil. Mix soy sauce, chili sauce, chili oil, sesame oil, and cornstarch in a bowl. Add mixture and cooked beef. Bring to boil again and simmer until serving.

This recipe is great. Although it changes dependent on ingredients we have (ie spiced with red peppers, more garlic or scallions, or chili powder) it's a pretty consistent dish at our place. It's cheap too. Tofu and beef compromise the majority of the dish costing about $7 total for 4 people and lunch the next day. Serve over rice and with something to bind the capsaicin to. Enjoy.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Adobo Daze

If there's one dish I'm critical of, it's this one. When I think of home, I think of food. Being Filipino means I think of Adobo. It's done one way: home cooked, the way your grandmother makes it. Everything else feels fundamentally wrong. When we decided to make adobo though, I felt that maybe it was a chance to try something new. So we did...

Pork Adobo:
Drawn mostly from here (1). The dish was... ok. My brother and I agree that it was too vinegar-y and needed more soy sauce. The rest of the people eating said it was good, but then again they haven't had my grandmother's adobo. Next time I'll give her an international call to show them true adobo.
  • 4 lbs Pork Loin (1" cubes)
  • 2 heads Garlic (minced)
  • 1 Onion (minced)
  • 1 cup Soy Sauce
  • 2 cup White Vinegar
  • 4 cup Water
  • 12 Bay Leaves
  • 4 tbsp Cornstarch
In a large pot heat oil on medium-high. Saute the minced garlic and onion in the bottom of the pan until golden brown. Add the rest of the ingredients, stir, and bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 30 mins. Heat oil in a large pan on medium high. Remove the pork from the pot and fry in the pan for 5 minutes. Return to pot with the cornstarch (mixed first in water) and bring to boil again. Reduce heat and simmer for a few minutes before serving with rice.

If I were to do this recipe again, I would even out the amount of soy sauce and vinegar used (1 1/2 cups each) to cut the sour and increase the salt. I'd simmer it longer too and not quick fry the pork. The longer cook time would soften the pork more and let in more flavor. It was also a pain to remove all the pork just to put it back in. Total ingredients cost was $8 for 5 people and some lunch the next day. Took around 1+ hr to cook with preparations.

Cites:
(1) http://www.filipinofoodrecipes.net/adobo.htm

Monday, July 27, 2009

Pork and Cabbage

Hey All,

We had a large head of napa cabbage that's been in our fridge for a while and I decided it was about time that we cooked it. Considering the only thing I could think of when thinking of napa cabbage was kimchi - I had to consult a little bit of help and found a recipe here (1). Working off this we built a pretty yummy dish for way more than enough for 6 people for around $9.

Stir-Fried Pork and Napa Cabbage:
Mostly taken from here (1) but changed as usual as time went on.
  • 4 lbs Pork Loin (1/2" cubes)
  • 2 lbs Napa Cabbage (1 1/2" slices)
  • 12 cloves Garlic (minced)
  • 3 tbsp Ginger (minced)
  • 1 1/2 cups Soy Sauce
  • 1 cup Rice Vinegar
  • 2 tbsp Sesame Oil
  • 1/2 cup Sugar
  • 1/4 cup Corn Starch
  • 2 Green Onions (thin slices)
Cube the pork loin and toss in 1/2 cup soy sauce, 1/4 cup sugar, and corn starch. Heat vegetable oil in a large pan. Fry 3 cloves minced garlic until golden brown and remove from pan. Fry 1/3 pork in pan for 3 minutes each side. Remove pork into a bowl. Repeat with next 1/3 of pork. For last 1/3, fry 1 tbsp minced ginger until golden brown and remove from pan (add to fried garlic). Fry remaining pork same as before and add to rest of the pork.

Fry 3 cloves garlic and 1 tbsp ginger in the same pan (without cleaning) until golden brown. Add 1/4 of cut cabbage. Add 1/4 cup soy sauce, 1/4 cup rice vinegar, 1/2 tbsp sesame oil, and 1/4 of the remaining sugar (about 1/16 cup) to the cabbage and mix. Fry until slightly wilted, stirring occasionally (about 3 mins). Add another 1/4 of cabbage with the same mixture of liquid and sugar on top, mix and cover. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from pan, placing in a large pot, and cook the other 1/2 of the cabbage similarly.

Add all ingredients to the pot (cabbage, cooked pork, fried garlic and ginger, and cut green onions). Mix and let boil. Serve hot over a bowl of rice.

All the repitition was due simply to the lack of an extra large wok. If we had an industrial sized one, I'm sure we could've made it all in one go! It should be fine if you reduce the size of the recipe to around 1 lb (quartering this one ><).

Cheers,
---Chris

Cites:
(1) http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Stir-Fried-Pork-with-Napa-Cabbage-232797

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Ribs and Kai Sin Cai

Hey all,

In a less themed combination we had slow cooked ribs and kai sin cai (a leafy vegetable with hollow stems). Seems it was done well enough and fed 5 well with lots of left overs for the veggies. Anyways here was the menu:

Ribs:
I really like just slow cooked ribs on its own. We were going to prepare a glaze but then we got hungry and ate it plain ><.
  • 4 1/2 lbs Pork Spare Ribs
Preheat oven to 250 F on bake. Wrap the pork ribs in foil and place on a baking sheet. Bake for 2 1/2 hours. Remove, cut and serve. Glaze can be added at this point (many sauces work such as sweet chili sauce).

Kai Sin Cai:
We haven't cooked this vegetable before, but it was rather successful. It was nice and crunchy, and more than enough for 5 for $2.

  • 1 lbs Kai Sin Cai (On Choy)
  • 18 cloves Garlic (minced)
  • 1 cup Soy Sauce (separated)
  • 1/2 cup Rice Wine (separated)
  • 1 Green Onion (chopped)
  • 1 handful Parsley (minced)
Heat up oil in a large pan. Take 6 cloves of garlic and fry until brown. Remove from pan and fry the 1/3 of vegetables with 1/3 of total soy sauce and rice wine until soft (may turn brown but ok). Remove and repeat with the other 2/3. At the end fry all the vegetables (should fit in pan now that water has been heated off) with the fried garlic, green onion, and parsley for a minute. Remove from heat and serve.

Along with this we had steamed corn and rice. It was a pretty satisfying meal I feel. We ate all the ribs so we may be out of meat for tomorrow's lunch ><. Maybe we'll all just have veggies and rice.

Cheers,
---Chris

Friday, July 24, 2009

Too Much Food ><

Hey All,

So we've apparently have made way too much food this week and have spent yesterday and today mostly playing catch up on leftovers. We did however prepare the rest of our raw food so it wouldn't go bad ><. Here's how that went. London Broil: This is always a cheap, but tough cut of beef. For 6 dollars for nearly 4 lbs though - I'm not going to complain all that much. We prepared it quickly this time and, although tough due to the cut, it was still quite good.
  • 3-4 lbs London Broil
  • Salt and Pepper
  • 1/2 Onion
Set oven on high broil. Tenderize the broil with a fork (poking it all over). Salt and pepper as wanted. Place on a baking pan and place in the oven. Broil for 14 minutes. During this time, chop the onion. After 14 minutes, remove the broil and flip it over. Place the onions on top and let it broil for another 14 minutes. Check for doneness (we had it rare to medium rare) and serve.

Bok Choy:
This one's as simple as it gets, save for perhaps making salad. Cost is only the veggies and the oyster sause we used (totalling around $3).
  • 1 bag Bok Choy
  • Oyster Sauce
Broil water to boil in a pot with a steamer. Wash the bok choy and then place in the steamer. Steam for ~10-15 minutes (more if you want them softer). Remove from steamer and serve with oyster sauce.

Today's things were quite simple, but then again that was cause we had so much food left over from earlier this week ><. Hopefully we'll get through all that old food so more new things can be made.

Cheers,
---Chris

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Gluten and Cheese...

Hey All,

Tonight was for Italian food, a rarity since we generally cook asian-esque food here. It was still great though, albeit more filling than expected ><. It came out really well, despite a few slight mishaps (we forgot we had the garlic bread in the oven... it came out a little on the dark side...). Enough for introductions though - on with the recipes!

Chicken Parmesan:
We were looking for a way to burn through the rest of the cheese and panko we had left over from the weekend and figured this was a good way to do so. Followed this recipe here (1). Although we ended up buying more bread crumbs, it still ended up pretty cheap in the end. ~$11 went into it for 7 servings. As only 3 of us were eating... it was quite a bit. Here's how it went:
  • 7 Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts (cheaper to cut the bones out of half breasts)
  • 2 cups Flour
  • 5 Large Eggs
  • 3 1/2 cups Bread Crumbs (1 cup Panko + 2 1/2 cups Bread Crumbs in our case)
  • 1 cup Parmesan Cheese
  • Salt and Pepper
Mix flour, salt, and pepper in a bowl. In a separate bowl whisk the eggs together. In yet another bowl mix the cheese and bread crumbs. Take a chicken breast and dredge it in the flour. Next dip it in the egg, and then dredge through the cheese and crumbs mixture. Set aside. Do the same with the other breasts. Heat up vegetable oil in a pan on low heat so its not too hot. Place up to 3 breasts on the pan after the oil is hot. Keep there for 8 minutes and then flip. Wait another 8 minutes and then remove to a plate with paper towels on it to pat the breasts dry. Should be golden brown and cooked through (check!). Serve with Pasta Sauce.

Spaghetti:
For those of you who haven't made Spaghetti before, here's how we cooked the noodles:
  • Box of Spaghetti
  • Water
  • Salt
Bring enough water to boil in a large pot to completely contain all the noodles which are going to be made. Add some salt (this helps prevent the noodles from sticking to each other). Add the noodles let sit for 10-15 minutes (depending on whether you like it undercooked, just right, or over - today ours was undercooked but done so intentially). Don't forget to stir (like we did ><) else it will clump together and some noodles on the edge won't cook. Bring off heat and pour off water. Cool with warm water and drain with a collander (bowl with holes in the bottom) if you can. If you don't have one, then hold the cap on the pot on enough such that water comes out, but not the noodles. This portion is as expensive as the noodles: about $3 for enough for 6 for us.

Pasta Sauce:
Pasta sauce is always fun. Mostly you start with a tomato sauce you buy at the supermarket, and then you make it better by adding your own ingredients. Almost anything will do (depending on how much there is and you want to put in), but here's our version:
  • 1 medium jar or 1/2 large jar tomato sauce.
  • 6 cloves Garlic
  • 1 Onion
  • 1 Shallot
  • 1 box Mushrooms
  • 2 cups Red Wine
  • Garlic Salt
Bring sauce to boil in a pot on low heat. Mix in chopped mushrooms and minced garlic, onion, and shallot. Bring back to boil, add wine and let simmer. Garlic salt to taste. Serve warm. (Note: If I were to do this again, I would fry the garlic and shallot with olive oil in the bottom of the pot and then add the sauce everything else. The fried garlic would give a sweeter taste I feel.) End cost: ~$4.

Garlic Bread:
We always eat garlic at our place (can't recall the last meal with out it here) and this hits near the top of our one time garlic usage. What does this mean? Delicious is what. Would've been better slightly less burnt, but for $4 for a whole loaf of garlic bread I'd try it again. Anyhow this was the way it went down:
  • 1 loaf French Bread
  • 1 stick Butter
  • 18 cloves Garlic
  • Olive Oil
Preheat oven to high broil. Mince garlic and mix with butter. Drizzle a bit of olive oil over the loaf. Spread over bread cut in half. Place on a baking sheet covered with tin foil and place in oven. Broil for (less than!) 15 minutes, or when the top starts to turn golden brown.

All in all everything goes together well. Mix and match to find your own favorite combinations (I personally found a sandwich made of chicken parmesan and pasta sauce flanked by garlic bread pretty fantastic). Probably easiestly/most normally served with the chicken over a bed of spaghetti with sauce on top! In the end, way too much food for 3 people (maybe enough for 7?) for around $22. I hope you guys enjoy!

Cheers,
---Chris

Cites:
(1) http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Chicken-Parmesan-Heros-107587

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Flan

Hey All,

For once in a long time, we opted to go out to eat instead of cooking. It made me kind of sad that 4 of us could've ate for the price of one meal =(. Once we got home I decided to make some flan to eat up the many eggs we bought on super sale. It came out nice and soft, but a little bit curdled on the top as I didn't have a roasting pan large enough to set the baking pan in a water bath. In any case, following the recipe here (1), this is the flan I made:
  • 3/4 cup Sugar
  • 1/4 cup Water
Place the sugar and water to boil under high heat in a small sauce pan while swirling. Let the syrup sit on heat after boiling until browns. If you don't have it on high heat it won't brown quickly/at all, which is what happened to me, and so I had to turn it up to hight after a long time of waiting to brown. Pour while still hot into the bottom of a large round baking pan.
  • 1/2 + 1/2 cup Sugar
  • 2 cup Heavy Cream
  • 2 cup 2% Milk
  • 4 Large Eggs
  • 6 Egg Yolks
  • 2 tsp Vanilla
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Bring 1/2 cup sugar, cream, and milk to boil in a large saucepan while stirring over high heat. Reduce heat after boiling to low and let simmer for 3 minutes. Take off heat to cool to warm. Beat eggs in a mixer with other 1/2 cup of sugar until well combined and pale. Slowly add warm milk mixture to eggs while keeping the mixer on using a ladle. Add vanilla. Pour through a sieve into another bowl to remove chunks of cooked egg from the custard. Pour the custard into baking pan and set the baking pan into a water bath (larger bowl filled with water. (I could only use a pie pan and wasn't able to cover the entire height of the custard, which you should do if you can. A roasting pan as noted in the original recipe (1) would be recommended.)

Place the baking pan and water bath in the oven and bake for ~1 hr or until a knife comes out clean. Cool to room temperature and then place in the fridge, plastic wrapped, overnight. You can then either invert onto another plate or just eat it straight out of the baking pan, which you want.

I changed mostly the baking method from the original as I only had a large pyrex pan. Hence the need to baking longer. Also, since I had my syrup on low instead of high, I lost a bit of it through evaporation and couldn't coat the bottom. Costwise it was cheap. Cheap eggs and milk lessened the costs to around $4 for a large serving of flan. Hope you enjoy the recipe too!

Cheers,
---Chris

Cites:
(1) http://burntlumpia.typepad.com/burnt_lumpia/2007/05/leche_flan_less.html

Katsu Crazy

Hey All,

Last night was a Japanese food night for us. I thought it was pretty tasty and, for those who end up trying these recipes, I hope it turns out the same. So, here was the menu:

Tonkatsu:
Japanese breaded pork cutlet. I looked online in a search for a recipe, but didn't really follow anyone too strongly. I just followed the general trend and tested for doneness and it came out fine. This dish was slightly more pricy/lb as we bought the special pork cutlet for tonkatsu from a Japanese supermarket. I think next time I'm just going to cut my own meat from a boneless pork loin to make it cheaper. It ended up running around $7 for 6 cutlets in the end. Here's how it was done:
  • 6 Pork Cutlets
  • 6 Large Eggs
  • 1 bag Panko (bread crumbs)
  • Vegetable Oil
  • 1/4 Large Head Cabbage
In a bowl beat an egg with chopsticks. Dip the pork cutlet into the beaten egg and then into a second bowl with a good amount of panko inside. Since I didn't think it was breaded enough at this point, dip the the cutlet back into the egg bowl to soak up more egg and then again into the panko to bread it more. Heat about 1/2 inch oil in a saucepan. Place the cutlet into the pan. Flip after 2 minutes. Flip a total of 3 times. The cutlet should be brown at this time. Check for doneness by cutting off a slice and making sure the meat is no longer red or gelatenous. Pat down with paper towels to remove the grease and cut into strips to serve over shredded cabbage. Do the same for the other 5 cutlets. Goes well with tonkatsu (bulldog) sauce and/or Japanese mayonaise.

Curry (for Katsu Curry):
It's hard to go wrong with curry, and this time was no exception. We basically just followed the directions on the back of the curry mix box (we used Golden Curry). Katsu curry seems to be more watery than regular curry from my own experience and that was the consistency that was obtained. Since it was just a vegetable curry, it ended up pretty cheap, around $3 (cost coming mostly from the curry packet). Anyways, here's how we did it:
  • 1 Carrot
  • 2 Potatoes
  • 1 Onion
  • 5 cloves Garlic
  • 1 packet (Golden) Curry Mix
  • Water
  • Oil
Peal and cube the vegetables. Mince the garlic. In a pot or large pan, cook the vegetables and garlic in a little oil until browning. Add enough water to cover the vegetables and bring to boil. Add curry mix and stir. Bring off heat to thicken. Add water to gain the consistency wanted (watery in our case). Serve over rice and tonkatsu.

Katsudon:
I've been craving katsudon, so I found a recipe from here (1) and followed it. I followed it loosely however as I was only making one serving of katsudon and was too lazy to calculate the conversion I needed to use tablespoons. It ended up a little bit salty but still good (I'll add more sugar next time). Here's approximately how it went (I did it by eye, so approximately is the best I can do):
  • 1/4 cup Mirin (Cooking Rice Wine)
  • ~1/6 cup Soy Sauce
  • 1/4 Green Onion (green part only cut into long pieces)
  • ~1 tsp Brown Sugar
  • 1 Large Egg
On low heat, bring all ingredients but the egg to boil in a small saucepan. Beat the egg and add it to the middle of the sauce without mixing. When the egg is pretty much cooked, pour everything over a bowl of rice containing cut tonkatsu on top.

Miso Soup:
With Japanese food, miso soup is a must! This one was a rather simple soup as we didn't have many other ingredients appropriate to through in. For a total of 6 servings, the soup came out to be around $2 at most. Anyhow, here's the recipe:
  • 6 cups Water
  • ~1/3 cup Miso Paste (more if wanted)
  • 1 package Firm Tofu
  • 2 Green Onions
  • Cilantro
Bring the water to boil in a pot. Remove some water and added it to some of the miso paste to be added and mix and then mix it into the pot (this helps prevent clumping). Do this until all the miso paste wanted to be added is added (taste it to make sure!). Drain the tofu and then cut it into small cubes (easiest in box). Add to the soup. After another minute, bring the soup off heat. Add chopped green onions and minced cilantro.

On top of this, we had white (short grain) rice, japanese pickles (bought from a Japanese supermarket), and fruit for dessert. Together this was enough for 4 college students for dinner and 2 ervings of lunch the next day with a bit more curry left over. For around $12-13 dollars, this was a lot of food. Hope you enjoy making these dishes as I did.

Cheers,
---Chris

Cite:
(1) http://visualrecipes.com/recipe-details/recipe_id/414/Pork-Katsudon/

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Dinner Party

Hey All,

Tonight we had a bunch of people over for dinner and hence cooked quite a bit. From what I heard it was quite enjoyable (yay). Anyways - here was the menu:

Orange Soy Pork Ribs:
Slightly modified a recipe online (1) to be slow cooked and made a glaze out of the marinade. I like slow cooking as it lets the meat become extra tender and lets it fall right off the bones. (On the other hand, the melting fat can cause a problem if it falls to the bottom of the oven. Along with being a mess to clean, it may cause the oven to produce smoke from the burning oils, so use a baking sheet!) Since the ribs were bought on sale, the end product was pretty cheap for 13 college students worth of food (yay $2/lb). All together it probably ended up at $28. This was the recipe as performed.

  • 3 racks (~12 lbs) Pork Spare Ribs
  • 2 cups Orange Juice
  • 2 cups Soy Sauce
  • 9 cloves Garlic (minced)
  • 4 Green Onions (finely chopped)
  • Cumin
  • Corn Starch
  • Extra 1 cup Orange Juice
Mix the marinade (all but the corn starch and ribs) in a small bowl. Cut the racks of ribs in half and place into a ziplock bag with 1/6 (as there were 6 half slabs) of the marinade in each. Refrigerate for 3 hours (flip the bags halfway through). Preheat the oven to 225 F. Remove the ribs from the plastic bags (keeping the marinade) and wrap the ribs in foil and place in the oven on a baking sheet. Cook until serving (in this case 3-4 hours). Place the marinade in a saucepan and bring to boil. Add extra 1 cup Orange Juice (I also added a little bit of lemon juice to finish off a bottle of it in the fridge). Add cornstarch to thicken and cool. Coat the ribs with the sauce when serving.

Mixed Slaw with Orange and Cilantro Dressing:
I mostly followed a recipe I found (2). It may have come out a little on the sour side but it went well with the sweet orange ribs (I hope at least). Veggies were bought on sale (yay!). Totalled around $5 for everything. Here's how it was done.

  • 3/4 large head Cabbage (it was bigger than I thought ><)
  • 2/3 large Cucumber (accidently lost the other 1/3)
  • 3 Japanese Cucumbers
  • 1 large Carrot
  • 4 Green Onions
  • Handful Cilantro
  • 3 ears Corn (steamed)
  • 2/3 cup Orange Juice
  • 2/3 cup Rice Vinegar
  • 2/3 cup Vegetable Oil
Cut the cabbage into short, thin strips. Peel and grate the cucumber (I would actually chop into thin strips if I had to do it again). Cut the Japanese cucumber into thin strips. Peel and grate the carrot. Thinly slice the green onions and mince the cilantro. Place the veggies in a large bowl. Mix the wet ingredients and toss over salad. Cut the kernals off the corn and toss again after letting the slaw sit for a while (~15 mins).

Potatoes au Gratin:
This one was a tasty recipe which was based strongly off this recipe (3). It worked out really well, except for the fact that we over made this dish by quite a bit. I guess I need to learn how to gauge how much potatoes people eat XP. Anyways, this dish was slightly more expensive due to the cheeses and cream needed, amounting probably to around $15. Anyways, here's the dish as it was done.

  • 12 Russett Potatoes
  • 1 package Gruyere (block)
  • 1 package Parmesean (grated)
  • 1 pint Heavy Whipping Cream
  • Salt and Pepper
  • Red Pepper Powder
  • Margarine
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Margarine the baking pan (we used a pie pan and a bread pan). Peel the potatoes and chop into thin pieces. Grate the gruyere and mix with the parmesian. Organize potatoes as a layer and place a layer of mixed cheese over it. Interchange layers until running out of room. On the top layer pour whipping cream mixed with salt and pepper. Sprinkle red pepper powder on top. Bake for 75 minutes (when top begins to brown). Turn off oven and keep sealed within until ready to serve (sat for an hour inside before eating and it was still good!).

Steamed Sponge Cake:
In late celebration of my friends birthday, we had a cake. Based off this recipe (4), it was surprising light and not too sweet, a nice outcome as I hadn't actually made steamed cake before ><. Served with strawberries and cream. Don't know how much the entire dish costs as I used a lot of ingredients we already had (ie sugar, flour, etc). Anyways - here's the recipe as I ended up doing it (misread the recipe and ended up doing it in a different order ><).
  • 8 Large Eggs
  • 2 cup Flour
  • 1 cup Sugar
  • 2 tsp Baking Soda
  • 1 tsp Baking Powder
  • 2+ tsp Almond Extract
  • 1 cup 2% Milk
  • 8 tbsp Margarine (melted)
Mix dry ingredients in a bowl. Beat eggs in electric mixer. After eggs are well beaten, add melted margarine, milk, and almond extract (eye balled almond extract, was probably around 2 tsp though.) until combined. Add dry ingredients in thirds until well combined. Pour into a margarined baking pan and place into steamer. Steam for 45 minutes (until toothpick/chopstick comes out clean). Serve with strawberries, chocolate sauce, and cream (1 pint Heavy Whipping Cream, ~1/2 cup Powdered Sugar, and ~1 tbsp Almond Extract whipped until hard peaks. I accidentally missed soft peaks as I was doing the dishes ><).

That's all we had for dinner tonight. Fed 9 people present with 4 take servings being taken out for around $50-60. Finished everything but potatoes and slaw (not much of each left), and cream.

I know that today's post was really long, but that's cause of the party. Usually only 1 or 2 dishes are cooked along with rice so it shouldn't be this long again for a while. Hope you enjoy trying any of these dishes!

Cheers,
---Chris

Cites:
(1) http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Orange-Soy-Baby-Back-Ribs-231986
(2) http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Cabbage-and-Corn-Slaw-with-Cilantro-and-Orange-Dressing-238803
(3) http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/b.-smith/potatoes-au-gratin-recipe/index.html
(4) http://chowtimes.com/2006/02/17/chinese-sponge-cake/

First

Hey All,

So I just started this blog to keep a list of all the recipes that have been prepared over the summer, and to share it with anyone who is interested. Being a college student means I'm usually lazy, stingy, and hungry, so meals are designed around this. I'll try to give a gauge on how much was spent about on each meal we prepare and how we thought it was. Hopefully anyone following this would also be able to pick up some easy meals for cheap.

Cheers,
---Chris