April 26, 2020

In the upcoming two weeks, Kevin and I will be celebrating our birthdays. This birthday is an especially important birthday for me because it marks the end of one decade and a start of another. I will be celebrating with family and friends virtually instead of in person and have already been brainstorming dishes to make using mostly pantry ingredients I have at home. Last week, I made the most marvelous baked bread filled with raisins to serve for brunch. The bread turned out beyond beautiful, extremely fluffy, and perfectly golden. I thought why not use the dough as a base to make one of my all-time favorite snacks, baked pork buns. Yesterday, I made some light tweaks to the ratios in the dough and had the perfect base to work with for my pork buns. My baked pork buns are a loose adaptation of char siu baos, one of my favorite bakery breads. It is the one baked good I always order during dim sum no matter where I am. Earlier this year, Kevin and I traveled to Hong Kong to visit family. The very next day of our arrival in Hong Kong, we enjoyed dim sum at a restaurant in Pacific Place. The first dish off the menu I ordered was char siu baos. Kevin didn’t mind at all because he also loved char siu baos — especially the baked ones. I love both the baked and steamed char siu baos. I even tested out a steamed version using chicken a few months ago. With both of our birthdays coming up soon, I thought why not recreate one of our favorite baked goods at home. I prepared a dough similar to the dough I used for my raisin bread for the buns and pork chops I had on hand for the filling. After preparing the dough, I left it to rise undisturbed for an hour as I moved onto the filling. The filling featured some cooked pork chops, diced onion, garlic, and my mom’s ever so popular all-purpose sauce. Combine the cooked ingredients with a simple slurry and the filling came together rather quickly. I left the filling to cool as I waited for the dough to finish rising. Once the dough was ready, I got right to work to create the most magical homemade pork buns in the kitchen. The moment the baos came out of the oven, both Kevin and I had the widest grins on our face. One bite into the baos and we tasted success. My pork buns had a perfectly golden exterior, fluffy interior, and the most delicious filling. The meal, of course, was not complete unless we had some milk tea on the side. Instead of traditional milk tea, I prepared some milk tea floats. They’re actually just tea floats, but milk tea floats sounded better. My milk tea floats are a loose interpretation of the milk tea shakes Kevin and I both had at Shake Shack on our trip to Hong Kong earlier this year. The moment I saw this drink on the menu at Shake Shack in Hong Kong, I just knew I had to have one. It was such a simple, yet delicious drink, I can’t believe I haven’t thought of the idea before. My version features a concentrated hot tea poured over scoops of vanilla ice cream (kind of like affogato). Baked pork buns and milk tea floats were the perfect early birthday celebration meal for Kevin and I.

It has been a few weeks since I last stepped foot into a grocery store. I have been trying to use up all of the produce and pantry ingredients I have on hand before heading to the supermarket to restock on ingredients. During these few weeks, I have been trying my best to extend the life of the ingredients I do have on hand in order to reduce the number of times I have to pick up ingredients at the store. One ingredient I always have on hand is cherry tomatoes. They are perfect for topping on pizzas, tossing in salads, folding into frittatas, and pressing into focaccia. Whenever I’m close to running low, I like to replenish the tomatoes. During my last grocery trip, I purchased two large containers of rainbow cherry tomatoes. Almost three weeks later, I still have a ton of cherry tomatoes left. I’m surprised I haven’t used up all of the cherry tomatoes yet. Just this weekend, I noticed the skin on the cherry tomatoes beginning to wrinkle. This was my cue to make blistered cherry tomatoes soup as a way to use up the cherry tomatoes. Tomato soup is one of my favorite soups to make for a quick lunch or dinner. Before I started cooking, back in my early college years, I used to stock up on cans upon cans of tomato soup. Tomato soup was a cheap and convenient way to satisfy my hunger between classes. Pair the tomato soup with a grilled cheese sandwich and I was all set. I never thought I needed to learn how to make my own tomato soup until I actually made some from scratch. My experiments with crafting the perfect tomato soup evolved over time until I came across the perfect, wonderfully aromatic tomato soup. Versions of my tomato soup got progressively better and better after each attempt until I stopped buying canned tomato soup altogether. Making tomato soup from scratch was much better than buying canned. This weekend, I made a variation of my basic tomato soup by combining some garlic, onion, cherry tomatoes, stock, wine, and fresh basil in a pot. I trimmed part of the basil plant Kevin and I have been growing in our home to use in the soup. Just having soup was not enough. I had to have some sort of bread to serve alongside my soup. Since I didn’t have bread on hand, I took some time Sunday morning to bake a couple loaves of braided bread — one plain and one filled with raisins. The freshly baked fluffy bread was the perfect accompaniment to a warming soup. To complete the meal, I whizzed up two strawberry watermelon smoothies for a sweet treat. Homemade tomato soup, freshly baked bread, and fruity smoothies brightened up our weekend morning.

We are in the midst of spring season here in Ohio. Spring in Ohio has felt a lot like fall the last few days. We had some days filled with warmth and sunshine last week before transitioning to cooler days reminiscent of fall this week. I’ve found myself cooking a lot, baking a ton, and exchanging recipes and ideas with family, friends, and friends of friends in between. There has been a surge of recipes shared online for simple meals featuring as little ingredients as possible. Last month, dalgona coffee was popping up on social media everywhere. With all of the rave reviews for the drink, I found myself making one too many cups of dalgona coffee in the morning. I, of course, had to test out different spins to the drink by making a minty mocha version. This week, I came across a recipe for Dole Whip, a classic dessert served at Disney parks. I’ve never had it before, but I was intrigued and bookmarked the recipe to try out once I’m able to stop by the local supermarket. I’ve been trying to use up the ingredients in my pantry and refrigerator before heading to the local supermarket to restock on produce, protein, and pantry items. My ingredients in each of these categories are dwindling, which means a trip to the grocery store in the near future is inevitable. The last couple of times I stopped by the local supermarket, I noticed a lot of essential pantry ingredients out of stock. Fortunately, I can still count on getting access to fresh produce. The spring season is my favorite time of the year to toss together lighter pastas for a quick meal throughout the week. Earlier this week, I played around with throwing together a simple pasta featuring seasonal produce. My minty Asiago, bacon, and greens pasta features fresh mint and arugula with pieces of bacon, a handful of frozen peas, and a couple ounces of Asiago cheese left over from when I made soft pretzels. I had purchased some mint almost three weeks ago and have been able to extend the shelf life of the mint by keeping it stored in a zipped-up storage bag filled with some water. Storing the mint on the side door storage area probably helped a lot. When I pulled out a couple sprigs of mint to use for this pasta dish, I was pleasantly surprised by how well the mint maintained its freshness, body, and integrity even after almost three weeks. Mint is a great herb to toss into pastas during the spring season because of its freshness and brightness. It adds a pop of color and flavor to any dish it touches. My minty Asiago, Bacon, and Greens pasta combines my favorite aspects of cacio e pepe, carbonara, and spring flavors. Best of all, my pasta dish takes almost no time to pull together and makes for a filling, light spring meal.

We are approaching the fourth week of staying at home. The only social interactions I’ve had with family, friends, and the outside world are through video chat. While I miss seeing friends, holidays gatherings, and checking out the festivities Ohio has to offer around this time of the year, I have definitely appreciated the quality time at home. Kevin and I both work full days, so we don’t often see one another a lot during the week. These few weeks have allowed us to spend more time at home enjoying one another’s company. Recently, outside of teleworking, I’ve found myself watching countless hours of television shows and YouTube videos. I’ve even found myself trying some of the trendiest recipes the web has to offer. One such trendy recipe is Dalgona coffee. It’s made with instant coffee whipped together with some sugar and water to create a foamy whipped coffee. The whipped coffee is layered on top of some milk. I’m usually not the biggest coffee drinker, but the allure of the foamy drink was too strong for me to not give it a try. Earlier this week, I set my alarm to wake me up ½ an hour earlier than my usual time just so I can make myself (and Kevin) some Dalgona coffee. The Dalgona coffee was super easy to prepare and was the perfect morning drink to sip on while checking work emails. I loved the smoothness of the coffee and ended up making a cup every day for three days in a row. When Saturday rolled around, I couldn’t help myself and made another cup. This time, I added some peppermint extract, chocolate syrup, and served the foamy whipped coffee on top of some almond milk. It was just yum! While I can drink the coffee nonstop, I couldn’t just have coffee for breakfast. I paired my coffee with an easy brunch filled with some leftover focaccia, fresh fruit, and a ham, gruyere, and green peas frittata. Frittata is one of those dishes where I can start with a blank canvass and just build on layers of flavors using mostly pantry and leftover ingredients. I had some leftover bits of fully cooked ham sitting in the freezer (after making some ham and gruyère pizza pockets earlier in the week) and paired it with some sweet frozen green peas, another ingredient I have handy in my freezer at all times (usually to mix into fried rice, stews, and soups). The ham and green peas are combined with gruyère cheese for the ultimate frittata. I only had about 2-3 ounces of gruyère cheese left in the refrigerator, so I chopped up the cheese into small pieces and tossed it into the frittata for a salty, savory, cheesy bite. The combination of smokiness and sweetness from the ham, paired with the funky, savory cheese, and bright, sweet green peas made for a truly flavorful frittata. The frittata starts out on the stove and is then transferred into the oven to finish cooking. As the frittata is cooking away in the oven, I cut up some fresh navel and blood oranges and layered them on a plate. For me, a meal is not complete unless I have some carbs. Here’s where my leftover focaccia with rainbow tomatoes and dried oregano made its way to the table as the carb element of my brunch. Once the frittata was done in the oven, I was able to slide it off the skillet onto a plate, and serve it alongside the focaccia, fruit, and foamy coffee. The perfect, light brunch was complete and ready to be devoured by Kevin and I.