More Summer Picnics and Strawberry, Chocolate, and Hazelnut Date Bars

July 02, 2021

July 2, 2021

When I think of the perfect summer picnic meal, I always think about portable foods. Recently, I’ve been packing up some of my favorite foods to bring along with me to the park a few minutes from where I live. With summer finally underway, I have been packing some of my favorite treats for picnics at the park. A couple weeks ago, I packed along some crispy tofu bánh mì sandwiches and white chocolate chip coconut cookies for a summer picnic. Sometimes, I would swap in another version of my favorite homemade breads (such as my everything seasoning bread or Parmigiano-Reggiano herb bread) as other options to take along with me to the park. These are all great options for picnic food because of how portable they are. At the end of the meal, I always crave something sweet and this is where my newest addiction, my strawberry, chocolate, and hazelnut bars come in. Where do I start with my strawberry, chocolate, and hazelnut date bars? First, I need to give credit where credit is due by acknowledging where my love of date bars in general originated from. My first experience enjoying a date bar was in the form of the eye-catching, simplistic Lärabar I first laid eyes on in the breakfast aisle of my local grocery store. This was back before we abruptly shifted to teleworking and I was looking for mid-morning snacks to pack along with me in my lunch bag. One of my colleagues had casually mentioned how much she enjoyed the Lärabar due to its simplicity of ingredients and friendliness to a variety of dietary restrictions. Her recommendation led me to try a few different flavors until I landed on my favorite, the almond butter chocolate chip. The bar was packed with pockets of melty almond butter and chocolatey goodness. It easily became one of my favorite flavors. While I do still love enjoying the bars occasionally, I started making a few of my own versions of the bar last year. I experimented with mixing and matching different flavor profiles until I happened upon the magical combination of strawberry, chocolate, and hazelnut. The trick to getting the intense strawberry flavor into the bars (minus the liquid nature of the fruit) was to use freeze-dried strawberries. Freeze-dried strawberries are actual strawberry slices where the liquid in the fruit has been completely removed. What you end up with is a crispy fruit chip. The freeze-dried strawberries work wonders when added to my version of date bars. The rest of the ingredients for the date bars are hazelnuts, dairy-free chocolate chips, cocoa powder, freeze-dried strawberries, and dates (obviously). All I had to do was whiz all of these ingredients into a blender until I get to a somewhat wet, sticky, and crumbly texture. I know the blended ingredients are ready to shape into bars when I am able to press the mixture together and it holds its shape. Once I started making these strawberry, chocolate, and hazelnut date bars, I could not stop making them. They are addictingly good. I would make some to bring along to some of our small friend gatherings and pack the bars wrapped up in parchment or wax paper as a dessert option for summer picnics. I can avoid turning on the oven and just whip out my food processor to make these bars. This is the exact reason for why I love making these bars during the summer. The best part about these bars is how friendly they are to a wide range of dietary restrictions. This means I don’t have to worry about bringing them to friend gatherings. Most recently, I brought a few of these bars to a small gathering with friends and children. The ultimate test was to see if the picky eaters (usually the children) would eat these bars. They did, so I can count these strawberry, chocolate, and hazelnut bars as a success.

Baking Up Everything Seasoning Bread From Scratch

June 23, 2021

I know summer time is probably not the ideal time to be baking mainly because of how hot my home can get with the oven turned on, but I felt my cravings for bread starting yet again, so I just had to bake up a loaf of bread. Usually, I like to bake up loaves of my Parmigiano-Reggiano herb bread as a way to satisfy my intense cravings for carbs. Other times, I turn to my crusty bread as a canvas for building the yummiest sandwiches (such as my crispy tofu bánh mì). This week though, I made a slight detour from my usual favorite breads and baked up a loaf of bread packed with everything seasoning. I’m talking everything seasoning weaved throughout the bread. The moment you slice into the loaf of bread, you see the different colored specks of everything seasoning sprinkled throughout. Everything seasoning bread is one of my favorite breads to make on weekends for breakfast throughout the week. I would bake up a loaf, slice them up into semi-thick slices and reserve them for toasting in the morning. The slices of bread are the perfect vehicle for adding on a variety of toppings. I often toast up a slice of bread, top it with a fried egg or sliced avocado, sprinkle on some salt and pepper or everything seasoning, drizzle on sriracha, and dig right in not even an hour after waking up. The loaded toast served alongside a quick smoothie is all the fuel I need in the morning to jump start my day. Sometimes, I go through phases where I make loaded toasts and smoothies consecutively for several days. The last week was one of those weeks where all I want in the morning is a loaded piece of toast with a smoothie. This is where my everything seasoning bread comes in. I just prepare the dough and bake up the loaf of bread during one of the days over the weekend and I’m set for breakfast for the week. When I say I am set for the week, I really mean both Kevin and I are set for the week. He usually has to eat whatever experiments I cook up in the kitchen. If it was up to Kev, bread would not be at the top of his list of preferred foods, but when I bake bread from scratch, he is usually a fan of the bread right out of the oven. Of course, I have to smear on a heavy helping of butter onto the slice of homemade bread beforehand, but hey, he is still a fan. My everything seasoning bread does take some time to make, but most of the time required for the bread is inactive time (a.k.a. time needed for the bread to rest and rise). The first rise occurs immediately after mixing the ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. The second rise occurs after the dough has been left to rise for several hours and the dough has become noticeably bubbly. At this point, I transfer the dough from the mixing bowl to a parchment-lined baking sheet, shape it into an oval loaf shape, and leave it to rise for a second time. The rise time this time around is much quicker. When the dough has become noticeably bubbly during the second rise, it is time to pop the sheet pan into the oven to let the dough bake away. All in all, the actual active time required for the bread is probably closer to half an hour. I love how easy this bread is to whip together and definitely do not mind the additional inactive time it takes for the bread to rise. I know in this case patience will lead to a super tasty bread with well-developed flavor. I just have to watch myself to prevent myself from eating one too many slices of the bread in one sitting.

Packing Crispy Tofu Bánh Mì and Other Treats for A Summer Picnic

June 10, 2021

We have reached the peak of warm weather heading into June. June in Ohio is usually when the weather begins to settle into its warm rhythm. Kevin and I have been taking advantage of the warm weather by going on longer walks whenever we get a chance. One of my favorite activities other than going for leisurely strolls is to pack some food and head to the local park for an afternoon picnic. Right by where we live is a beautiful park with walking trails, picnic tables, and ponds for fishing. I have been using the warmer weather as the motivation to pack food into portable containers and take them along with us to enjoy at the park. My latest food obsession has been putting a spin on the classic bánh mì. Recently, I’ve been building a lot of crispy tofu bánh mì sandwiches featuring layers of homemade pickled daikon and carrots, jalapeño peppers, fresh cilantro, and crispy tofu slices topped with coconut cream, sriracha, and hoisin sauce. A light squeeze of lime juice at the very end adds the perfect brightness and tang to the sandwich. I ate tons of bánh mì sandwiches growing up in Brooklyn. Just a few blocks away from the home where I grew up in Brooklyn was a Vietnamese restaurant well known for its classic pho, grilled meats, stews, vermicelli bowls, rolls, and bánh mì. While I loved each and every dish I had at the restaurant (especially the spring rolls), the bánh mì in particular was a favorite lunch item for most customers. The bánh mì was always packed with tons of fresh aromatics, a protein of choice, and the crispiest and fluffiest bread you can imagine. Plus, it was portable. Many customers would swing by to order the bánh mì and take it along with them for a quick, satisfying lunch. My appreciation for bánh mì only magnified when Kevin and I traveled to Da Nang, Vietnam a few years back during a family trip. We dined amongst locals and had the opportunity to enjoy some of the most authentic, satisfying Vietnamese foods ever. Out of everything we ate, I still gravitated towards the bánh mì. The combination of aromatic herbs, sweet and tangy veggies, grilled meats, and spicy, creamy sauce brought the whole sandwich together. I still think back fondly to those aromas and flavors long after our trip abroad. When recreating the bánh mì at home, I made sure to include all of the elements and textures into the sandwiches. I prepared the pickled daikon and carrots the day before. I mixed together the ingredients for the bread the evening before. I prewashed and precut all of the remaining ingredients the morning of. Making the bánh mì sandwich from scratch does take some time, but the end result is a super satisfying sandwich. Traditional bánh mì uses a crusty baguette. For my version, I substituted in one of my go-to equally tasty bread recipes. Instead of traditional grilled meat, I subbed in a super easy crispy tofu coated in a seasoned cornstarch mixture and fried into crispy thick slices. The combination of the ingredients, flavors, and textures really does tie the whole sandwich together and makes for the perfect summer sandwich. To round out the rest of the picnic, I just had to pack along a simple cilantro lime corn salad, whole apples, watermelon wedges, my fav cheese crackers, and my white chocolate chip coconut cookies. Add in some frozen bottled water, sparkling juices, and condiments (sriracha and hoisin of course) and our perfect summer picnic was complete.

Welcoming Warmer Weather with Homemade Sesame Raspberry Ice Cream

May 30, 2021

Summer weather has arrived here in Ohio. Kevin and I have been going on longer walks to soak up some of the sunshine. Inevitably, fifteen minutes into the walk, I often begin to feel beads of sweat gather on my forehead. I still try my best to power through the walks until streams of sweat force me to head back indoors. To help stay cool during the hotter weather, I dusted off my ice cream machine and started making homemade ice cream. Ice cream is definitely one of my favorite year-long treats. I usually like to pack my freezer with a couple pints of ice cream here and there. Kevin’s favs are cookies and cream and chocolate chip cookie dough. I gravitate towards strawberry ice cream and green tea most of the time. Lately though, I’ve been experimenting with creating new flavor combinations. My latest creation, sesame raspberry ice cream, combines two flavors I love dearly into one. The sesame component is inspired by my love of ji ma wu, a sweet soup made of grounded black sesame seeds served throughout my household growing up. The raspberry component is inspired by my love of raspberry sorbet. When paired together in ice cream, the combination is delightfully nutty and fruity. I love the contrast of the earthy, nuttiness from the sesame powder paired with the tangy, sweetness from the frozen raspberries. The contrasting yet complementary flavors remind me just a bit of peanut butter and jelly, another classic pairing. The ice cream starts with the classic foundation of sugar, milk, and cream. Folding in the sesame powder and swirls of homemade jam was the fun part. The very first time I had sesame ice cream was as a child growing up in Brooklyn. My super traditional Chinese parents would ship my brothers and I straight to Sunday school on weekends to learn to read and write Chinese. My brothers hated the very thought of having to give up half of their weekend for Sunday school. I didn’t mind the extra schooling one bit because Chinatown had some of the best restaurants within a short walking distance from where we attended Sunday school. One such establishment was the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory. The shop had all sorts of unique flavors way before a lot of those flavors became popular. I was always captivated by the assorted Asian-inspired flavors of ice cream on the menu listed under regular flavors. Green tea, lychee, red bean, mango, sesame, and coconut were common occurrences on the menu. Flavors likes vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry were considered exotic flavors. As much as I wanted to try all of the flavors on the menu, I just could not justify how expensive it would have been. Little by little, I would swing by on special occasions to get just a scoop or two of each flavor. The sesame flavor in particular was sweet, nutty, and nostalgic like a frozen version of ji ma wu. I loved the sweet soup so much as a kid, I would make the instant packet variety whenever the cravings kicked it. I had the urge to recreate those distinctive textures and flavors in the sesame dessert soup I loved dearly as a child. Pairing sesame with raspberry just seemed natural.

Cheesy Pepper Parsley Homemade Pasta with Asparagus, Bacon, and Broccolini

May 19, 2021

I first learned how to make pasta from scratch at a pasta making course Kevin and I took during our honeymoon in Italy. Pasta was something I ate growing up as a treat on weekends. The local pizzeria on the corner of the block where my family lived served not only the best large cheesy pizza, but also some very good baked pasta. My favorite usual order was the baked ziti. Nothing beats the loads of tomato sauce, meats, veggies, and cheeses blended together and baked to perfection in the wood fired oven. I thought I knew pasta well having grown up in Brooklyn and eating variations of pastas from the pizzerias, Italian restaurants, and fast casual restaurants throughout New York City. It wasn’t until I traveled to Italy where I saw pasta in a new light. Many of the pasta dishes served in Italy were lighter on the ingredients. Yet, the flavors of the pasta still seemed to shine through beautifully in the dishes we ate. On one of the days of our honeymoon week, Kevin and I took a pasta making class and learned how to make pasta from scratch. The enthusiastic instructor taught us how to knead the flour and egg together with a light sprinkle of salt until we formed a pliable dough. We took the pasta making class with one other couple and spent the morning making our own lunch from scratch. Each of us ended up mixing, forming, and rolling out each of our own serving of pasta. We cut the rolled-out dough into strips, twirled the strips into nests, and handed the nests of fresh pasta to the kitchen with our preferred sauce and toppings. Kevin chose the classic carbonara. I chose the other classic, Amatriciana. The experience of learning and making our own pasta from scratch was one of my favorite moments from our trip to Italy. Fast forward a couple years and I am still applying the skills I learned in the class to pasta from scratch at home. Kevin would occasionally hover over me when I’m making pasta to remind me of what the instructor would say – keep your dough rolled as thin as possible without breaking the dough. Use the window pane trick to test whether or not your pasta dough has achieved the optimal thinness. Making pasta from scratch became one of my favorite ways to destress on a weekend. Whenever I had a stressful week, I would resort to making some pasta from scratch as a therapeutic outlet. Lately, I’ve been testing out variations of homemade pasta filled with fresh herbs from my AeroGarden. The parsley has been growing especially wildly lately, and so I ended up folding in tons of freshly chopped parsley into my homemade pasta dough. I especially love the bright flavors of herbs folded into the fresh pasta. The trials of pasta making using fresh herbs folded directly into the dough taught me to chop the herbs as finely as I possibly could and to distribute the herbs as evenly across the pasta dough as I could to prevent the dough from breaking. Instead of using the double zero flour recommended by the instructor, I experimented with another type of flour – durum flour. Durum flour, semolina flour, or sometimes a combination of both flours were often the flours used to make the dried pasta I often bought at the local supermarket. Compared to the double zero flour or all-purpose flour, durum flour tends to be more pliable and malleable, which makes it much easier for me to roll the pasta dough out as thin as possible. This week was definitely one of those weeks where my cravings led me to make some parsley pasta tossed with crunchy asparagus, crispy bacon, salty parm, and bright green peas. The combination of these ingredients and flavors packed the perfect savory, salty, and slightly sweet punch into the fresh herb pasta.

Baking Up White Chocolate Chip Coconut Cookies for A Spring Picnic

May 10, 2021

We finally seem to be entering into the warmer weather half of the spring season this week. April is usually when the weather begins to warm up in Ohio. Although, this year, the weather in April was still a bit unpredictable. With May fully underway, the temperatures are heading back in the warmer direction just in time for both Kevin and my birthday. I was able to celebrate my birthday earlier last week by recreating one of my favorite treats from my time living in Chicago – Chicago mix popcorn with a twist. Kevin’s birthday is just a few days from my birthday. To celebrate his birthday (and the warmer weather we’ve been experiencing), I decided to pack a bunch of our favorite foods for a picnic for two. Growing up, picnics were one of my favorite activities to do with family and friends. I would often pack a few sandwiches, some lemon bars, crunchy chips or crackers, bottled water and tea, and head straight for the beach with some friends. Some of my favorite childhood memories were spent enjoying light picnics at Brighton Beach. I often wouldn’t realize how much time has passed until the chill begins to fill the air and the sun begins to set. Since moving to Ohio, I often try to recreate some of those fond memories by picnicking with Kevin. When the cold weather subsides and the warmer weather begins to fill each and every corner of our home, I just had to pack my favorite treats for yet another picnic. Featured on my spring picnic menu are turkey club sandwiches, baked fries served with spicy ketchup, grapes on the vine, minty lemon tea, and my coconut white chocolate cookies. The inspo for the turkey club sandwiches came from a cross between the club sandwich I would order from McAlister’s here in Ohio and the heroes I grew up eating from the delis near my childhood home in Brooklyn. Baked fries with spicy ketchup replace the usual chips dipped in ketchup I would eat along with my favorite sub. Fresh fruit and lemon tea are two other must-have items for a picnic. The final sweet, baked component has to be my white chocolate chip coconut cookies, a deviation from the beloved chocolate chip cookies I usually pack with me. My white chocolate chip coconut cookies have slowly become a favorite treat in our home. The cookies feature a blend of soft pastry flour, nutty almond flour, tons of coconut components (coconut flakes, coconut sugar, and coconut oil), and white chocolate chips. They are super portable for a picnic and can stand in warm or cool weather for prolonged periods of time. I started making these cookies a couple months ago when working to develop yet another cookie recipe. I played around with different combinations of flours (including quinoa) until I came across the perfect combination of pastry and almond flour. Toss in tons of coconut flavor components and some white chocolate chips and my white chocolate chip coconut cookies were born. Slowly and surely, these cookies became a favorite in our household – mainly because of how addictingly good they are. Kevin describes the cookies as being reminiscent of oatmeal raisin cookies minus the raisins. To me, the cookies taste a bit like the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies sold at Potbelly’s. The nuttiness of the almond flour combined with the distinct tropical flavor of coconut really helps these cookies shine. The combo of almond and coconut also gives the cookie a beautiful shade of golden-brown color when baked. The addition of the white chocolate chips to the cookies adds another layer of sweetness and a visually stunning contrast against the golden-brown cookie. All of the flavors and components of the cookies combined together packs a delightful punch into such a small treat. These little treats are the perfect sweet gems to end a spring picnic. May is a special month for both Kevin and I because both of our birthdays just happen to land in the same month. We start the month off with celebrating my birthday and then shift to celebrate Kevin’s birthday. Both Kevin and I prefer a low-key celebration and so the natural choice of celebration was a picnic.

Recreating Chicago Mix Popcorn with A Twist Just in Time for My Birthday

May 02, 2021

May 2, 2021

I still can’t believe it has already been a year since my last birthday. Last year and most of this year felt mostly like a blur. I am only reminded of how much time has passed by taking a stroll through memory lane and reviewing all of the posts I’ve written over the past year. Whenever my birthday comes around, I try to celebrate with some form of treat. Last year, Kevin and I celebrated with a variety of confetti treats including one of our favorite easy desserts, confetti pistachio dessert balls. This year, I decided to celebrate with another treat I absolutely love – Chicago mix popcorn. I first fell in love with Chicago mix popcorn over a decade ago. Kevin had started an internship in the suburbs of Chicago and invited me to join him for a visit to the city. I took a trip out to Chicago to see Kevin and to experience some of the amazing food I hear of in Chicago. Everyone who had been to Chicago recommended trying the Chicago mix popcorn at Garrett Popcorn Shops. As a lover of food, I just had to try it. The Chicago mix is a combination of a sweet caramel popcorn tossed with a savory cheddar popcorn. Kevin and I rode a train from the suburbs into the city and we hopped on the nearest centrally located EL straight to the Loop. The moment we stepped off the train platform, we strolled through downtown Chicago, browsed some of the shops along the way, and made our way to the nearest Garrett Popcorn Shops. Before we even stepped foot into the store, a line had already formed out the door. A packed shop was definitely a good sign. We waited in line for just under twenty minutes until our turn to order. Kevin and I didn’t know what to expect and so we only ordered a small bag of Chicago mix popcorn. What a bad idea! The popcorn was so amazing, we finished the bag almost immediately. I so wish we had ordered a much larger bag and an additional bag to take home with us. Luck has it I would soon return back to Chicago a couple years later for my first job out of college. When I graduated college and started working full time in Chicago, Garrett’s Chicago mix popcorn became my go-to snack. I would take special trips out to the city just to get my fix. If I had a stressful day teaching, I would treat myself to some popcorn. If family or friends visited, I would bring them to get some Chicago mix popcorn. Even after leaving Chicago, my love for Garrett’s popcorn brought me out to Midtown Manhattan to get my fix when I visited family in New York and to one of the large shopping malls in Hong Kong when Kevin and I visited his family. It took until I moved to Ohio for me to miss Garrett’s popcorn enough to attempt to recreate the flavors and textures I loved so dearly. While I could order some of the popcorn online, the cost along with shipping proved too expensive. Thus, I had no choice but to recreate the beloved popcorn from Garrett at home myself. The hallmark of Chicago mix popcorn is the blend of sweet, crunchy caramel popcorn tossed with the savory, cheesy cheddar corn. The contrast of the sweet and savory, creamy and cheesy, and crunchy and soft flavors and textures is what makes the popcorn truly irresistible. The cheddar corn leaves a distinct orange hue on your fingers. You can usually spot other fellow popcorn lovers by looking out for the orange hue leftover on their fingers. In anticipation of my birthday this year, I got started on recreating the beloved Chicago mix popcorn as early as last month. For my take on the mix, I popped some corn kernels in a large pot drizzled with just a touch of coconut oil. Sometimes, if I am desperate for a quick popcorn fix, I just use microwavable popcorn. When the popcorn has sufficiently popped, I sift through the popcorn to pick out any unpopped or burned corn kernels. I transfer the rest of the popcorn to two sheet pans and got started on the caramel sauce for topping the caramel corn and cheesy powder sauce for the cheddar popcorn. To kick the popcorn up a notch further, I sprinkled in some chili powder to give the popcorn some slight heat. The heat in the chili powder paired beautifully with both the caramel and cheddar corn. I had to watch myself while I snacked on the popcorn to prevent myself from overindulging in the amazing popcorn.

Thai Basil Vegetable Hand Cut Noodles

April 24, 2021

We have reached the end of April. This week, we experienced some snowfall, just a couple inches, but still, for April in Ohio, this is somewhat odd. Earlier this month, we had a few days with warmer weather and sunshine. While there were some colder days here and there, most signs pointed to the start of spring. Here in my cozy kitchen, I’ve been experimenting with testing out new dishes and putting spins on classic favorites. I’ve recently been craving noodles and got to work in the kitchen to make some homemade wheat noodles. Homemade wheat noodles are one of the easiest noodles to pull together in the kitchen. It requires just three ingredients – flour, salt, and water. It’s also easy to scale up if needed to feed more people. I start with some flour in a bowl, a heavy pinch of kosher salt, and a slow stream of water. I add just enough water until a relaxed dough is formed. Resting the dough is key to allow the glutens within the dough to develop and the kosher salt to work its magic in providing elasticity to the dough. I usually let the dough rest for at least an hour while I prepare the rest of the ingredients to add into the noodles. My latest version features Thai basil, Thai chilis, as much vegetables as Kevin can tolerate in a dish, and some crushed peanuts at the very end. Whenever I make noodles, I like to mix in a variety of crunchy vegetables to add texture to the dish. Noodles were something both Kevin and I ate a ton of growing up. Kevin got his fix of endless options of noodles growing up in a food mecca on the opposite side of the world, Hong Kong. I got my fix of endless options of noodles in another food metropolis here in the U.S., New York City. Plus, noodles were something my family made all the time as an easy and cheap way to feed a whole family. I started making a version featuring Thai flavors as a way to use up the fresh Thai basil I’ve been growing in my AeroGarden since November. For the vegetable component of the dish, I piled on tons of aromatics (the Asian trifecta of ginger, garlic, scallions), Thai basil, Thai chilis, red onion, baby bok choy, and crunchy carrots. I love the vibrant colors of these veggies when combined in a dish. Most people will probably agree the more colorful a dish is, the more palatable the dish becomes. Topping the noodles with some crushed peanuts at the very end adds another crunchy textural element to the dish and further enhances the pleasantness of the dish. Whenever I prepare dough for noodles, I like to reserve part of the dough for savory pancakes. Most of the time, the savory pancakes take the form of scallion pancakes. This time though, I folded in some fresh dill and parsley as a way to use up the dill and parsley growing wildly in my AeroGarden. Fresh homemade hand cut noodles with a side of herby pancakes and some dipping sauce made for the perfect chill weekend lunch for two. To round out the rest of our meal, we had to have some fruity bubble tea complete with freshly brewed tea and some mango juice. Now, we finally feel complete.

Golden Chicken Soup with Cheddar Scallion Biscuits

April 14, 2021

April is in full swing and the weather has been unpredictable to say the least. Warmer days and colder days seem to fluctuate from week to week. The beginning of April brought forth rain showers and plant buds. This week brought back colder days and cozy socks. With the temps dipping this week, I just had to squeeze in one more comforting dish before Spring weather resumes. Earlier this week, my cravings for warm, comforting foods began to creep up again. This time, it was in the form of soup. I had recently been making a ton of soups – a soft food diet required by my dentist as I recover from dental work. As I graduate slowly back to firmer foods, I’ve been remaking another one of my favorite comforting soups, my golden chicken soup served with some cheddar scallion biscuits. I love the warm spices of cumin and curry in the soup. The spices add a deep earthy flavor, a beautiful golden hue, and some much-needed spunk to the soup. The addition of the cheddar scallion biscuits to the soup is reminiscent of a chicken pot pie. My golden chicken soup with cheddar scallion biscuits is essentially a lighter version of chicken pot pie, but with a twist. To help add even more depth of flavor to the soup, I added a couple teaspoons of chicken bouillon powder. I like to use the Lee Kum Kee brand of chicken bouillon powder to flavor my soups. Growing up, my family always had a steady supply of the Lee Kum Kee chicken bouillon powder in the pantry. It was the basis of many quick soups, stocks, and flavor enhancers in family dishes. When I moved to the Midwest, I still gravitate back to the familiar flavors found in the soup base. The rest of the soup cooks up fairly quickly. Once I get started on the soup, I let it do its own thing while I shift my focus to the savory cheddar scallion biscuits. The biscuits come together almost as quickly as the soup. I decided on making a variation of my cheddar and chives biscuits by swapping out the chives for scallions. I folded into the biscuit dough some leftover shredded cheddar cheese from when I whipped up some cheddar crisps on St. Patrick’s Day. The combination of the sharp, savory cheddar and bright, pungent scallions makes for the perfect flavor profile to incorporate into biscuits. The soup with biscuits reminds me very much so of chicken and dumplings. Nothing warms the body and soul like a comforting bowl of chicken and dumplings. My golden chicken soup with cheddar scallion biscuits really does do the trick in helping me stay warm on both the inside and outside until the warmer weather returns.

Lattice Heart Pies Filled with Homemade Mixed Berry Jam

April 05, 2021

April 5, 2021

Spring has finally sprung. The chirping of the birds and sprouting of plant buds can only mean warmer weather is on the horizon. The end of March also marks the end of March Madness. Despite the valiant efforts of our alma mater, the end of March marked the end of Michigan’s basketball season. We’ll have to wait until next year to see what else is in store for our team. The start of spring is a good time to get back into my baking groove. I’ve been putting new spins on old classics and testing out completely new baked goods using a variety of ingredients. My latest creation is smaller lattice heart pies filled with homemade mixed berry jam loosely inspired by the Linzer torte. Pies are one of my favorite desserts for three main reasons. They are beyond easy to pull together. Most of the time, they are packed with tons of fruits. The finished product always looks beautiful. These are all true for my lattice heart pies filled with homemade mixed berry jam. I started testing out these pies a few weeks ago when attempting to put yet a new spin on an existing classic. Lattice pies were usually reserved for Thanksgiving and in my most recent fall attempt, I made a version featuring a sweet apple filling and a savory cheddar crust. My lattice heart pies take a similar approach with the lattice topping, but is much easier and quicker to pull together. Instead of the sweet apple filling, these pies are filled with a homemade sweet and tart mixed berry jam. The savory cheddar dough is replaced with a spiced cinnamon and nutmeg dough. I would describe these heart pies as closer to a hand pie than a standalone pie. I formed these pies into hearts since the large heart shaped cookie cutter was the first cookie cutter I grabbed from my baking drawer. The pie dough does require preparation and chilling prior to assembling. Whenever I plan on making a pie, I like to prepare the pie dough in advance. Usually, I prepare and chill the pie dough the night before, but more often than not, I prepare the pie dough the morning of and let it chill in the refrigerator for at least an hour before working with it. I typically like to use a food processor as the ultimate shortcut for preparing the pie dough, but this time around, I decided to take the more traditional approach of cutting the ingredients together using a pastry cutter until a dough is formed. This approach makes it a lot less likely for me to overwork the pie dough. Once the pie dough is prepared, wrapped, and transferred to the refrigerator to chill, I shift my focus to making a very simple mixed berry jam. I often make jams as a way to use up bits and pieces of fresh and frozen fruits from all of the smoothies I make in the morning. For my homemade mixed berry fruit jam, I used a blend of strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries. A squeeze of a zested lemon and some sugar is all I need to get the jam started. The natural pectin found in the fruit (especially the blueberries) will help my jam come together. The mixed berry jam takes almost no time to prepare. I let the berries, lemon juice, lemon zest, and sugar work its magic on the stovetop. I then remove the pot to let the jam cool and set. The pies themselves are easy to assemble and make for a stunning dessert to serve at the end of a meal. The transition to spring weather always motivates me to eat fresher and lighter. Gone are the comforting foods (with the exception of these pies). Heartier casseroles are replaced with salads and stir fries. Hot sweet drinks such as my dragon fruit raspberry hot chocolate are replaced with refreshing teas packed with – you guessed it – even more fruits and some mint just to up the refreshing factor. The only step left is to enjoy the fruits of my labor and maybe go for an evening stroll to enjoy the spring time weather we are experiencing in early April here is Ohio.

Hello! My name is Jia Pan and I love to experiment with food. My site is a collection of recipes and stories chronicling my adventures in the kitchen and around the world.
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Fall Adventures in New England + Parm Herb Roasted Veggie Sandwiches

November 9, 2025

Everyone who knows me knows that I love fall. It’s my favorite season of the year. Not only is the weather the perfect amount of chilly without being overly chilly, I always eagerly look forward to the endless fun festivities associated with fall. October is the month that I especially look forward to because of spooky season. Now that Z is almost 3½ years old, she has begun voicing how much she loves the fall. To be fair, Z has been a fan of cooler weather for as long as I can remember. In the winter, you can for sure find her outside playing in the snow for far longer than we’d like. This past month of October has been an especially fun month for Z. The excitement only grew as the weeks went on leading up to Halloween. One perk about living in New England is just the sheer amount of Halloween events taking place in not only my town but also all the neighboring towns. We started October off with attending the Topsfield Fair, which always takes place the first weekend of October. We like to go yearly because there are always tons of activities for everyone in the family, especially the little ones. Z enjoys seeing the variety of live animals and the large pumpkins. Kev always wants to scout out the food vendors. I enjoy going for the atmosphere and to watch the joy on Z’s face as she interacts with the animals and exhibits. During the last two weeks of October, we’ve gone to a few Halloween events in our town and in the surrounding towns. Z’s favorite Halloween activity so far has been trick-or-treating. She loves collecting little pieces of candy and toys and filling up her tote bag with the varied treats and toys. To help keep us fortified throughout our October adventures, I’ve been preparing parm herb roasted veggie sandwiches for Z and I. The roasted vegetables are super easy to make in the oven, and I like to serve them on homemade parm herb bread that I prepare in advance. Speaking of, I have one loaf ready to go that is currently sitting in my freezer. I developed my version of parm herb bread a few years ago during the pandemic (when we spent most, if not all, of our time indoors). It’s great on its own but is made even better when topped with some roasted veggies and herbed cheese. I was inspired by this specific version of a roasted veggie sandwich ever since I had a fantastic veggie sandwich for a catered work lunch. The version I ate included a lot of warmed roasted veggies and goat cheese and was served on a cheese topped focaccia. The warmed roasted veggies were tossed with a balsamic vinaigrette, which altogether made the sandwich just delightful to eat. The textural contrast of the soft, fluffy bread, crunchy veggies, tangy sauce, and creamy cheese made the experience unforgettable. Ever since, I’ve been trying to recreate a similar version of the sandwich I ate on the work trip at home. A few times throughout the year, I like to plan a picnic for just Z and I, and so when I was planning such picnic during a crisp fall morning, it made perfect sense to incorporate these roasted veggie sandwiches into the menu. All of these picnics with Z also inspired me to create her latest Halloween “picnic” costume. I even made a matching outfit for myself to match Z. We then dressed up in our “picnic” outfits to enjoy our picnic outdoors. The best part about these sandwiches is that they are super easy to prepare once you’ve taken the extra step to prepare a couple of these homemade parm herb breads ahead of time. For the cheese component on the sandwich, I swapped out goat cheese (which Z doesn’t enjoy) and used Boursin garlic & fine herbs cheese instead (which Z loves). Dare I say that my version of roasted veggie sandwiches is even better than the one I had on my work trip!

November 9, 2025

June 29, 2025

Tea Party for Three + Heart-Shaped Jam Cookies

June 29, 2025

Some of you may know that May is an especially exciting month for our family. Not only because May is when we finally get to experience warmer weather, but it’s also the month where we celebrate all three of our birthdays. For Kev and I, we usually just go out to a local restaurant to eat dinner and then go back home and retreat into our favorite corners of our couch to relax. For Z, though, we had to make sure that we celebrated her birthday in a special way. Since I’ve been working on recreating some of my favorite foods to enjoy during afternoon tea, it made perfect sense to celebrate Z’s birthday with a tea party that features some of her favorite foods. A fruit platter is a no-brainer—it’s a healthy treat that we make for her every year for her birthday. While Z has become a bit pickier with new foods that we introduce to her, she almost never feels this way about fruits. No matter what fruits we serve her, she’s usually happy to eat them. Aside from the birthday fruit platter, I also try to create a sweet treat for her birthday each year. For her birthday tea party this year, I added additional foods that we typically love to serve with tea. Some of these foods include raisin and currant scones, curried chicken salad on cinnamon raisin bread, vegetable cream cheese on Asiago cheese bread, and heart-shaped jam pinky print cookies (similar in concept to thumb print cookies). The heart-shaped jam cookies are a new treat for this year, one that I created specifically to celebrate her third birthday. Over the years, I’ve created special treats to celebrate each of her birthdays. For her first birthday, I whipped up a batch of dragon fruit strawberry cupcakes and cake pops. For her second birthday, I made some wild blueberry whoopie pies. For her third birthday this year, Z helped me with making a batch of heart-shaped jam cookies. These cookies are loosely inspired by the ever-popular thumb print cookies. For my version, I used my pinky to form a heart shape instead of a thumb to form a circle. These cookies differ from other thumb print cookies in that they are more reminiscent of buttery shortbread cookies than typical thumb print cookies. For the jam filling, I used raspberry jam, a favorite of Z’s. With Z’s insistence on helping me with prepping the cookies, the kitchen has definitely become a lot messier in the process. The base of the cookies is very simple to make. I combine the ingredients in one bowl, roll and flatten the dough into circular cookies, and then use my pinky to press an imprint onto each piece of cookie dough twice, leaning right diagonally and then leaning left diagonally to form a heart shape. Z tried to help with this process and pressed her little fingers unevenly into the cookie dough. The heart shapes from Z’s pinky turned out too small, so I had to adjust some of the cookies to make sure they were consistent in shape and size. Once shaped, I popped the cookie dough into the refrigerator to chill for 15 minutes. As the cookies were chilling in the fridge, I preheated the oven. Once the cookie dough was ready, we removed them from the refrigerator and filled them with raspberry jam. I tried to fill just enough jam in each cookie to prevent the jam from spilling during the baking process. I then popped the baking sheet with the jam-filled cookies into the oven to let the cookies bake for just about ten minutes. Given how quickly the cookies bake up in the oven, I had to keep an eye on them to make sure the edges do not become too brown. Once the cookies are done baking, I remove them from the oven and let them cool while I started on preparing the other food items for the tea party. The other food items did take a bit of time to put together and arrange, but the tea party was definitely worth it just to see the smile on Z’s face. We all enjoyed the light bites and fresh fruit while we sipped tea and read Z a new book that we gifted her for her birthday this year.

June 29, 2025

March 9, 2025

Winter Adventures and Maple Blueberry Muffins

March 9, 2025

Winter in New England this year has been brutal. We’ve had multiple weeks of frigid temperatures and snowy days. While I mostly enjoy the snowfall, the most difficult part has been the effect of the cold temp on my working hands. No matter how much lotion I lather on, it never seems to be enough to keep my hands from cracking. That aside, Z has been absolutely loving the snow days. She would often eagerly await the snowfall just to play outside. On snow days, I can see her eyes light up when she sees piles upon piles of snow outside the window. The moment she steps foot outdoors, she doesn’t want to come back inside. I’ve deeply appreciated all of the precious moments I’ve been able to experience watching her find joy in winter weather. In between shuttling her to and from school and going to work myself, I’ve been working on another recipe to share on my site that features two ingredients unique to New England. The first ingredient is wild blueberries. I’m using the frozen kind from Wyman’s since I can more easily get them at the local Market Basket and Stop & Shop. The second ingredient is maple syrup that I’ve had the pleasure of getting in person at Ben’s Sugar Shack up in New Hampshire. These ingredients are featured in my recipe for maple blueberry muffins. While experimenting with the ratio of ingredients for my maple blueberry muffins, I found that just adding maple syrup is not enough to give the muffins the distinctive maple flavor and aroma. I definitely needed to add a couple teaspoons of maple extract to help the maple flavor shine in these muffins. Once I made that breakthrough, I was able to produce muffins with a lovely maple flavor. Most muffin recipes ask for cupcake liners to be filled halfway or three-quarter way full, but for these muffins, I like to fill the cupcake liners to the very top. This way, once baked, the muffins spill over and end up with the look of true muffins. Another trick I learned during my experiments is the importance of using a mixture of mashed and whole blueberries. Mashing the blueberries helps to give the muffins a stronger and more prevalent blueberry flavor. For this recipe, I used a combination of mashed fresh blueberries and frozen wild blueberries. Just a note on Wyman’s wild blueberries: I started incorporating these blueberries into my baked goods when I discovered them at a local Stop & Shop shortly after moving to Massachusetts. These frozen wild blueberries tend to be smaller and have a much more intense blueberry flavor than standard blueberries. I’ve used them extensively when making my wild blueberry whoopie pies and like to incorporate them into baked goods that ask for blueberries. Not only do these muffins have an intense blueberry flavor that honor the flavor profile of blueberry muffins, but the maple flavor also shines through with the addition of both the syrup and extract. I’ll admit that even before moving to New England, I loved using maple syrup in pretty much everything I make. Maple syrup has a clean sweet flavor and works beautifully as a sweetener for sauces, dips, and milk tea. Since moving to Massachusetts, I find myself adding maple syrup to pretty much everything. Once a year, during Maple Weekends here in New England, I travel up north to stock up on maple syrup. When March rolled around this year, we drove up north again to stock up on maple products from Ben’s Sugar Shack. Ben’s Sugar Shack is a well-known local producer of maple syrup located in New Hampshire and has become our go-to shop for maple syrup. Earlier this month, we got a refresher on how maple syrup is produced, enjoyed some samples of maple products, and stocked up on a few bottles of maple syrup all from Ben’s. Aside from just maple syrup, Ben’s also carries maple-flavored snacks. Kev usually heads for the snack section to get his fix of maple leaf crème cookies while my snack of choice is Cabot’s maple cheddar popcorn, a nod to New England that reminds me so much of Garett’s popcorn in Chicago (I even recreated them here). Though, that’s a story for another time. Once we loaded up on maple syrup (and an assorted array of maple-flavored treats) for the year, I got right back to work to make a batch of my maple blueberry muffins, the perfect little treat for breakfast, brunch, and snack on weekdays. As you can see in the photos above, Z is absolutely fascinated by the production of maple syrup. It also doesn’t hurt that the maple syrup treats are so addictive. When I started making maple blueberry muffins, she kept coming back for more and more. She often asks for them in the morning every few days. Luckily for us, during recipe development and testing, we all benefit from having large batches of muffins baked up and ready to go on those mornings where no one can be bothered to make breakfast. These maple blueberry muffins do the trick of filling our grumbling bellies and holding us over until lunch time.

March 9, 2025

October 27, 2024

Summer and Fall Adventures and Cinnamon Roll Scones

October 27, 2024

As summer comes to an end here in New England, we’ve been slowly adjusting back to the pace of a new school year. We’ve had a fairly packed summer with Z including weekend trips to Crane Beach, fruit picking at local farms, visits to museums and historic homes in nearby states, and a trip to a sunflower field packed with towering blooms. When September rolled around, Z started attending school full-time on weekdays, which meant cooking and baking a little bit more on weekends to ensure she has food the next day for lunch. Her school lunches typically feature a range of foods from each food group. Packing lunches for Z also gave me a reason to get back to recipe development mode more consistently. One recipe I’ve been working on over the last couple of months is a twist on cinnamon rolls and scones. Whenever fall arrives, I always look forward to the flavors of warming spices, most notably cinnamon and nutmeg. Cinnamon and nutmeg seem to make their way into most baked treats and drinks I crave during these cooler months. A baked treat I find myself craving often during the fall is cinnamon rolls. I’ve loved the flavors of cinnamon rolls ever since childhood and wanted to find a way to repurpose these classic morning treats into another treat. My experiments led me to the creation of cinnamon roll scones or cinnascones. Essentially, my cinnamon roll scones combine my love for both treats into one. This recipe has all the flavors of a cinnamon roll in the time it takes to make scones. Honestly though, it does take slightly longer to make cinnamon roll scones compared to typical scones because of the added component of the cinnamon-sugar-butter filling that is rolled into the cinnamon roll scones. I usually make the filling or paste ahead of time and leave it to cool as I start the next step of prepping the dough for the scones. One benefit of these cinnamon rolls is that they are less sweet than your traditional cinnamon rolls. When developing this recipe, I played around with the ratio of ingredients in my go-to scone recipe to get the proportions just right. Because of the added filling in the center of the scones, I had to reduce the amount of liquid I typically use to make scones. This prevents the scones from spreading too much when baking. The rest of the ingredients included in the scones are your usual ingredients—all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, butter, sugar, salt, and milk. These cinnamon roll scones do include the addition of both vanilla and almond extract and both ground cinnamon and nutmeg. The additional extracts and spices work well together to create a symphony of complementary flavors. The combination of these flavors is what makes the cinnamon roll scones truly stand out. While testing and retesting this recipe at home in preparation for sharing on my site, Kev, Z, and I have benefited from enjoying multiple iterations of these cinnamon roll scones. We had some for breakfast, some throughout the day as snacks, and even some for dessert on occasions. These cinnamon roll scones have even made their way into Z’s bento box lunches a couple times. They store well in the fridge and have added a little bit of a fall touch to our days. Whenever I find my cravings kicking in, I turn to these cinnamon roll scones and a cup of drip coffee for a relaxing morning breakfast treat.

October 27, 2024

June 23, 2024

Spring Celebrations and Wild Blueberry Whoopie Pies

June 23, 2024

Summer has finally arrived in New England. The transition from spring to summer brought us windy temps on some days and heat waves on others. The last couple of months have been especially exciting for our family as we traveled extensively throughout the New England area. Just this month, we headed up north to visit friends in Maine. A couple of months ago, in April, we made a special trip up north to New Hampshire and Vermont to witness the April 8th solar eclipse. In May, we headed west to visit some of the hidden gems located throughout the Berkshires. In between these trips, we celebrated our birthdays during the month of May. Since all three of our birthdays land in the month of May, we pretty much celebrated a birthday every week throughout the month of May. For Z’s birthday, we celebrated with an I Love You to The Moon and Back book theme. In between work and travels, I’ve been working on developing new recipes to share on my site. One recipe I’ve been working on lately has been my take on a classic New England treat I’ve had on multiple occasions on my trips up north. These treats are of course the cookie-shaped, cream-filled cakes known as whoopie pies. Despite the name, whoopie pies aren’t pies but are actually cakes shaped like giant cookies with cream sandwiched in between. They look pretty much like ginormous Oreo cookies. The ones here in New England are typically chocolate cakes with a marshmallow cream in the center. I find myself gravitating to these dessert pies every time I make a trip up north to Maine. On nearly every trip, we’ve defaulted to having lobster rolls and/or lobster bisque for lunch and rounded out the meal with whoopies pies for dessert. The whoopie pies I’ve eaten on my trips to Maine are always amazing. They are such beloved desserts that there are bakeries dedicated specifically to them. The taste reminds me of some of the packaged chocolate cream-filled snack cakes I would buy from the local grocery stores in Brooklyn throughout my childhood. When I set out to recreate these lovely little snack cakes, I wanted to combine a classic chocolate whoopie pie with the de facto Maine fruit, wild blueberries. Fresh wild blueberries aren’t easy to find where we live, but frozen wild blueberries are easily found in the freezer section of the local Stop & Shop near us. Since chocolate pairs beautifully with blueberries, it was only natural for me to combine my love for chocolate and blueberries into wild blueberry whoopie pies. My version of whoopie pies is a nod to the classic treat and the classic fruit of Maine. The best part about these whoopie pies is the portability. They are easy to tote around as a dessert after a meal, and they make for the perfect little celebration cakes for Z. The slight tartness of the wild blueberries helps to balance out the sweetness of the whoopie pies. Depending on where you get whoopie pies, the cake to filling ratio can vary drastically. Some whoopie pies are filled to the brim with filling, while others are not so much. When I recreated these treats, I tried to keep the ratio of cake to filling somewhere in the middle. Since these cakes are celebration cakes for Z, we wanted to make sure she got a full-size whoopie pie to herself. Z became a fan of these chocolatey treats ever since she set her little teeth on her first whoopie pie on our travels to Maine. When Z turned two last month, I baked up a batch of wild blueberry whoopie pies just for her to enjoy as birthday treats. We wanted her birthday theme this year to be a logical transition from last year’s birthday theme based on the book, The Wonderful Things You Will Be. With our recent travels to see the solar eclipse, I felt inspired to create a moon-themed birthday celebration. The logical choice was another one of Z’s favorite children’s book, I Love You to the Moon and Back. We obviously replaced “to” with “2” to keep with the 2nd birthday theme. As you can see in the photos throughout this post, Z thoroughly enjoyed her share of the wild blueberry whoopie pies on her birthday. She even asked for more of these little chocolate cakes on the days after her birthday.

June 23, 2024

March 10, 2024

Winter Travels and Smoky Cheddar Heart Crackers

March 10, 2024

February has been an exciting month of holiday celebrations for us. This year, Lunar New Year landed in the month of February, and so we traveled back to Brooklyn, New York to celebrate with family and friends. Right after Lunar New Year, we celebrated Valentine’s Day with Z at home. Z had quite the haul from both holidays. She received a stack of red envelopes from our family for Lunar New Year and then another stack of Valentine’s Day cards and toys from her classmates. Shortly after the February holiday celebrations, we took another short trip up north to see the Ice Castles in the heart of New Hampshire. Z marveled at the icy tunnels and structures and made her way through the icy walkways. Aside from all the February fun, I’ve been making smoky cheddar heart crackers throughout the month, testing and retesting my recipe. These snack crackers are very loosely inspired by my love of Cheez-It growing up. My version of the addictive cheddar crackers is made with super simple ingredients and are the perfect snack to pack for long (or short) car rides. With Z now more mobile than ever, we often find ourselves packing a lot of books, toys, and snacks to keep her occupied on road trips. These smoky cheddar crackers do the trick of helping satisfy her hunger and keeping her occupied at the same time. When making these cheese crackers, I like to use a fun scalloped heart-shaped cookie cutter to cut these crackers out as the fun heart shape makes them appealing to Z. I’ve packed these smoky cheddar crackers on multiple car rides with Z from short trips to much longer road trips. Z snacked on a handful of these crackers throughout our trip to New Hampshire and during snack time in the mornings and afternoons at home with grandma. The best part is I could whip these up in no time and keep them in the refrigerator for a few days. Not only are these crackers toddler-friendly, they are also adult-friendly. Whenever my cravings for savory snacks kick in, I could easily grab a handful of these snack crackers to enjoy as either a mid-morning snack or a late afternoon snack. To make these smoky cheddar heart crackers, I pulse together all-purpose flour, salt, sugar, smoked paprika, freshly cracked black pepper, butter, grated sharp cheddar cheese, and a couple tablespoons of cold water. The cold water works to bind everything together. The process I use for making these smoky cheddar crackers is similar to the process I use for making pie dough. Essentially, I drop all the ingredients into the food processor and let the food processor do its job to bring everything together. I then roll out the dough as thin as possible and chill the dough in the refrigerator for at least an hour before cutting out the heart-shaped snack crackers. Right before I pop them into the oven for baking, I artfully arrange the heart-shaped crackers on a parchment-lined baking sheet. About 18 minutes later, I end up with the perfect snack crackers. I have even left the crackers in the oven for a smidge longer (about 3-5 minutes) on a couple of tries to yield a toastier version of the cheddar crackers. As an optional step, I top these snack crackers with a pinch of Maldon salt just before serving. I love making these crackers on weekends when the weather outside turns chilly. This month has brought us multiple cold and somewhat snowy weekends. These snack crackers kept my cravings (and my family’s cravings) at bay throughout the mostly chilly February month.

March 10, 2024

December 17, 2023

Barbecue Chicken Bo Lo Bao and Adventures with Z

December 17, 2023

Winter in New England is truly a wonderful experience. The temperature has steadily dropped as well, which means out comes the winter hats, gloves, scarves, thick sweaters, and cozy socks. The transition to winter is an exciting time in New England since there is just so much to do not just in Massachusetts but also in the neighboring states. Over the last couple of months, Z has grown into such an energetic toddler. To help expend some of her energy, we’ve been taking her to a ton of local events in the neighboring states. Aside from all these adventures with Z, I’ve been actively working to develop more recipes to share on my site. A few months ago, when I was developing my recipe for egg tarts with a twist, I was simultaneously working on a recipe for my take on bo lo bao (or pineapple bun). Pineapple bun is a beloved bakery item that I grew up eating in Brooklyn. Contrary to the name, there is no pineapple in the bun (although, I have seen some bakeries incorporate pineapple into the actual buns). The name comes from the golden yellow cookie topping that is perfectly positioned at the top of a fluffy milky bun. The cookie topping forms a crack while baking in the oven. Once baked, the cookie topping resembles the appearance of a pineapple or bo lo. I wanted to combine my family’s love for bo lo bao with another family favorite, char siu bao, and ended up creating a barbecue chicken bo lo bao. My barbecue chicken bo lo bao is essentially a twist on a twist of two classic Chinese bakery buns combined into one. I grew to love bo lo bao mainly because my dad loves it. He would buy bo lo baos at the local Chinese bakeries near my childhood home in Brooklyn for breakfast, lunch, and even dinner at times. His love for bo lo bao spilled over to my brothers and I, and we often find ourselves craving bo lo bao whenever we walked by a Chinese bakery. Kevin, on the other hand, grew up in Hong Kong and has had his fair share of bo lo baos throughout his time living there. He remembers fondly the features of truly delectable bo lo baos especially when they are freshly baked and eaten straight out of the oven. For both of us, the hallmark of an excellent bo lo bao is the balance of a fluffy milky bread base and a crunchy cookie topping baked to golden perfection. A bo lo bao isn’t a bo lo bao unless there is a golden yellow cookie topping resembling the appearance of a pineapple positioned perfectly on top of the fluffy bread. Bo lo baos are best enjoyed when they are still warm out of the oven with the crunchy cookie topping intact. When I set out to recreate the bo lo bao, I thought back to my memories of the perfect bo lo bao before diving into research to recreate a version as close as possible to the ones I ate throughout my childhood. One bread baking technique that is often used in Chinese bakeries is tangzhong (or water roux). Essentially, you precook a portion of the liquid and flour to create a roux and then fold the roux directly into the bread dough during mixing. The addition of the tangzhong is what contributes to the ultra-fluffy, super soft bread texture. Tangzhong is often used in milk breads to help them achieve the signature fluffy texture. The tangzhong combined with letting the dough sufficiently rest is what results in the ideal pillowy texture of the bread. Ever since I incorporated tangzhong into bread baking, it has become such a game changer. Time after time, batch after batch, the bread always turns out ultra pillowy and soft. I’ve started to incorporate tangzhong into baking as often as possible whenever I want a reliably fluffy bread. On colder days, all I want to do is to bake up batches of these delicious bo lo baos to serve alongside some milk tea. For me, there is nothing more relaxing on a cold weekend than enjoying a bo lo bao straight out of the oven with a cup of steaming hot milk tea.

December 17, 2023

September 4, 2023

Egg Tarts with A Twist and Summer Adventures with Z

September 4, 2023

September 3, 2023

Happy summer! It has been a while since I last posted. I’ve been spending all of my time outside of work planning fun family activities to keep Z occupied throughout the summer. She has reached the stage where she has tons of energy and needs to expend the energy daily. We’ve had a couple of beach days, seen some family-friendly shows, strolled through historic homes in New England, visited museums throughout Massachusetts, and even had our first semi-long family road trip to Bar Harbor. When we aren’t out and about as a family, I’ve been testing out new recipes and refining upcoming recipes to share on my site. One recipe I have been working on and am finally ready to share is my take on Portuguese-style egg tarts, inspired by the famous egg tarts sold throughout Macau and Hong Kong. These egg tarts are also a favorite dim sum dish of ours. Dim sum is a dining ritual we’ve had in our family since childhood. I still remember fondly all the moments during my childhood where I would go to dim sum with my family and order all my favorite dishes. I would always go for the shrimp dishes (usually har cheung or har gow) and finish with a sweet treat during dim sum. The sweet treat of choice ranged from ma lai go to sesame ball with red bean paste to egg tarts. Egg tarts are truly amazing when enjoyed straight out of the oven. As much as I love the traditional egg tarts, I also love the Portuguese-style egg tarts. Portuguese-style egg tarts differ from traditional egg tarts in some fundamental ways. Portuguese-style egg tarts tend to have a puff pastry crust and an egg custard made with egg yolks baked at a high temperature to yield toasty brown spots. I love eating these egg tarts whenever I’m in Hong Kong or Macau. They’re one of my favorite dim sum treats to enjoy toward the end of the meal when I want something sweet to balance out the savory dim sum dishes. During the first few years when Kev and I dated, we vacationed in Macau and had the opportunity to enjoy freshly baked Portuguese-style egg tarts. The experience of biting into a piping hot egg tart straight out of the oven is a truly decadent experience. For a moment, all the world seems to fade away as I bite into the buttery, flaky crust before my teeth sinks into the silky, smooth egg custard filling. I would describe the Portuguese-style egg tart as a fun cousin to the traditional egg tart. With my parents staying with us in Massachusetts for the time being, we’ve jump started our dim sum ritual once again. Every other weekend, we would head over to Ming’s Seafood Restaurant in Malden to get our fix of dim sum. My mom’s go-to dim sum dishes are always beef tripe and chicken feet. My dad opts for the lo mai gai (glutinous rice and filling wrapped in lotus leaves) and sesame ball filled with red bean paste. Although Kev usually goes for xiao long bao, he hasn’t found a worthy substitute near us. So, he just eats whatever we order for the table. I go with my usual har cheung and har gow and occasional egg tart. Since I started making egg tarts at home myself, we’ve been ordering egg tarts a lot less frequently during dim sum. Egg tarts are composed of two parts – the flaky shell or crust and the egg custard filling. For the shell or crust, I like to make a more decadent version of my shortcrust pastry dough, essentially the dough I use for all my pies. Egg tarts also require special tart tins, so I ordered a set just to make them. It’s worth it to order a set of these tins if you make tarts a lot like we do in our home. Whenever I crave egg tarts, I just whip up the shortcrust dough in my food processor and shape the dough right away in the mini tart baking tins. I then transfer the tins to the refrigerator to let the dough chill in the tins for about twenty minutes. As the dough is chilling in the refrigerator, I move onto making the egg custard filling, which is composed of just four ingredients – egg yolks, granulated sugar, whole milk, and heavy cream. A fifth, but totally optional ingredient is vanilla bean paste, which I sometimes add to the egg tarts to give them another fragrant flavor. I whisk these ingredients together thoroughly and then strain them through a sieve a couple times to remove air bubbles. Straining the egg custard filling helps ensure a smoother egg custard filling in the egg tarts. I pour the prepared filling into the shortcrust dough filled tins and bake the tarts in the oven for 20-23 minutes at 425°F. Once the egg tarts have baked for twenty minutes, I check on them and see if they need a smidge more baking time. I always check for brown spots on the egg tarts as a sign that the egg tarts are well on their way to being done. The egg tarts do need to cool for a bit straight out of the oven before enjoying. Otherwise, you will end up with a burned mouth. For a coconut twist on the egg tarts, I folded in a half cup of coconut flakes into half of the shortcrust dough before filling the tins with the dough. These egg tarts with a twist are perfect for a weekend brunch, afternoon tea, or dim sum at home. My parents, who are usually traditionalists when it comes to dim sum dishes, voiced how much they liked the coconut twist on egg tarts. We even packed leftover egg tarts to enjoy during our family trip to the beach.

September 4, 2023

May 29, 2023

Dragon Fruit Strawberry Cupcakes and Z’s First Birthday

May 29, 2023

Z has officially reached a new milestone this month. She turned one year old and has been walking with some assistance. For such a momentous occasion for Kev and I, we had to celebrate in a special way. I thought back to all our adventures with Z throughout the year and still cannot believe how quickly time has flown by. The early days were much longer than we would like, but watching Z grow from day to day has brought us so much joy. I remember exactly a year ago in May when we brought Z home from the hospital. She was a tiny baby weighing just over six pounds. The early days were the most challenging days. We operated on very little sleep and had to return to work fairly quickly. Kev had two months to bond with Z. I had slightly less. Luckily for us, aside from some challenges with sleeping through the night, Z cooperated with us for the most part. She ate pretty much anything we offered and reached all her milestones at the predicted times. Watching Z grow from a tiny baby to a tiny human has been an absolute joy. When I look at her today, I still cannot believe the tiny human half my height was only born a year ago. As her birthday approached this year, I had to think of a special way to celebrate. I did some googling and brainstorming for inspiration. Though there were a lot of ideas out there on the internet, I wanted to do something unique for Z. I wanted to center her birthday celebration on a children’s book theme. When I came across The Wonderful Things You Will Be book sitting on her bookshelf, the idea for her birthday celebration was born. Wonderful became onederful or 1derful of course. With the theme decided, I shifted my focus to the desserts. Growing up in our household, desserts tend to be on the simpler side. We usually had a sponge cake with cream and fresh fruit that my parents bought from a local bakery and a plate of fruits. I wanted to apply the same tradition to Z’s birthday and merged a celebratory treat with a realistic baby-friendly sweet. Z would get a variety of fruits, while we would get to enjoy the baked treats. Z ended up with a fruit plate. We ended up with cupcakes and cake pops. Z’s cupcakes and cake pops had to be special and different from the ones I typically make, so I decided to merge my go-to strawberry cupcakes with red dragon fruit. I opted to add red dragon fruit to strawberry cupcakes mainly because of the Barbie-like pink color found naturally in the red dragon fruit. I first tested out the combination of dragon fruit and strawberries when developing a dragon fruit raspberry hot chocolate recipe for the colder months. I interchanged the raspberries and strawberries in the hot chocolate recipe as they both offer the same type of sweet and slight tart balance to the hot chocolate. I loved the combination of the slightly sweet dragon fruit paired with the sweet and tart strawberries so much that I extended the flavor profile to my cupcakes and cake pops. Dragon fruit itself has a mild sweetness to it and pairs perfectly with strawberries. When combined, the dragon fruit and strawberry puree gives the cupcakes and frosting an eye-catching pink dessert reminiscent of Barbiecore pink. The bright vibrant pink comes naturally from the red dragon fruit and is enhanced further from the redness of the strawberries. I only buy red dragon fruit occasionally because of how expensive it is. Red dragon fruit is texturally like a kiwi, but is much less sweet with a slight tartness to it. Folded into cupcakes, you get not only a delicious sweet treat, but a truly stunning pink treat. My cupcake recipe yielded exactly twelve cupcakes, which fit perfectly into a 12-cup muffin tin. Half of the cupcakes were served as cupcakes, while the rest were crumbled into a bowl, mixed with some frosting, and turned into cake balls for cake pops. The cake pops were dipped into colored candy melts and left to harden. I only used white, red, yellow, and blue candy melts for the cake pops, mixing some of the colors together as needed to form orange and purple for other color options. To allow the cake pops to harden without disturbance, I used the back of a collapsible silicone colander as a makeshift cake pop holder. The candy-coated cake pops were intended to look like balloons that floated on the cover of the children’s book. The best part about these treats is the stunning Barbie-like pink color comes naturally from the colors of the fruits without the added food coloring. Since Z’s palate is still developing at this age, a mild fruit such as dragon fruit was the perfect fruit for her to try. To round out the rest of our dessert spread, we had to have an equally stunning fruit plate, a must-have in our household. We served it up to Z just so she can get a head start on our family traditions. With the fruit plate, cupcakes, and cake pops all prepared, we just had to snap some photos before digging right into the lovely desserts.

May 29, 2023

March 31, 2023

A Strawberry Twist on Iconic Black and White Cookies

March 31, 2023

I have been working on recreating the iconic black and white cookies over the last couple of months. Black and white cookies are classic New York City treats. When I lived in New York City, I would see them in bakeries throughout Brooklyn and Manhattan. Even so, I’ve only had them occasionally. I still remember my first time taking a bite out of the black and white cookie from Zaro’s Bakery. The soft yet springy cookie topped with a vanilla and chocolate glaze was absolute perfection. It was as if a cookie and a cake had a baby. Whenever I passed by the Amtrak station in Manhattan, I would purposely make a stop at Zaro’s Bakery for one of its black and white cookies. I even served up individually packed versions of black and white cookies from Stern’s Bakery back in 2018 when Kev and I got married in Queens. Needless to say, black and white cookies are as dear to me as some of the more iconic New York City treats. I am, of course, referring to my love of pizza, bagels, and pretzels. Because of how accessible the cookies are, it never even crossed my mind to recreate them. That changed a couple months ago, when I had intense cravings for black and white cookies. While the options around me were sufficient, I really missed the version of black and white cookies from Zaro’s Bakery. I remember distinctly the mega size, the strong vanilla flavor of the cookie base and the balance of chocolate and vanilla glaze coated over the top of the cookie. In reality, the glaze actually coated the bottom of the cookies since they’re flipped over after baking. Either way, the glaze is an essential element of the black and white cookie. I decided it was time to try and recreate a classic black and white cookie. I scoured the web for sources on what actually went into the black and white cookies at Zaro’s Bakery and ended up watching one too many YouTube videos as I gathered information. I then shifted to developing and testing out the cookie recipe. I tested different ratios of ingredients and kept close notes of each iteration. After multiple tries and feedback from Kev and my mom, I finally settled on my preferred version. I found that a combination of cake flour and all-purpose flour yielded the perfect black and white cookies. Cake flour provided the cookies with tenderness, while all-purpose flour provided the cookies with structure. Adding just vanilla extract was not enough to give the cookie the extra oomph it needed and so I took a page from Stern’s Bakery and folded lemon zest into the batter. Other ingredients for the cookies included butter, sugar, honey, kosher salt, egg, sour cream, baking powder, and milk. I learned that many of these ingredients were necessary for helping the cookies stay moist, and they were essential in the version from Zaro’s. A couple tablespoons of pureed strawberries folded into the batter made these cookies exceptional. The addition of pureed strawberries yielded a tangy, sweet cookie with a fresh strawberry flavor. To appease all the cookie lovers in our home, I created three options for the glaze to top the cookies with. The simple glaze consisted of pairing black and white, black and pink, and white and pink for three varieties of cookies. The white part of the cookie came from a simple glaze made with confectioners’ sugar, corn syrup, and vanilla extract. The black part of the cookie came from the addition of cocoa powder. The pink part of the cookie came from the pureed strawberries. I baked and decorated a batch of these cookies for Valentine’s Day last month as a treat for my family. I even reserved a pink and white version as a smash cookie for Z. Z couldn’t quite figure out how to taste the cookie, but she sure did have a good time smashing the cookie with her fingers. Only time will tell if these cookies will be a home run for her. Enjoy these cookies as my nod to New York City with a twist.

March 31, 2023