Phillipe's

I was in LA for my February break and had the hugest list of places I wanted to try. I absolutely adore Anthony Bourdain and on his LA episode he went to Phillipe's for their french dipped sandwiches. I got the lamb sandwich double dipped with bleu cheese and had potato salad and cole claw as sides. The sandwich was pretty good but I didn't like how the sandwich was a little soggy with the au jus but the lamb was very succulent and the potato salad was delicious. Cole slaw was so so. I can see why some people might love this sandwich but it wasn't my favorite thing in the world. Definitely worth checking out though if you are in the area. The lemonade was pretty refreshing as well. The atmosphere of the place was very old school with communal tables and straw on the floor. The mustard is Phillipe's own speciality and there is a bottle at every table. They serve the food on these plastic trays reminiscent of cafeterias and I found that rather charming. The mustard is pretty spicy and added a nice kick to the sandwich. If you really like it you can buy some to bring home.

The line was pretty long but it moved pretty quickly 

Loving the old school feel

Thick slices of juicy lamb with bleu cheese  

my meal and a coffee 

a close up

had so much amazing food at LA. Expect many many more posts to come about great restaurants in LA!

Spaghetti Carbonara

One of my favorite dishes ever. What can possibly go wrong with a pasta dish involving eggs, bacon, and parmesan cheese. Not exactly the best idea to make this post at 1:30 am considering how hungry I am right now but since I've been having trouble sleeping anyways might as well blog a little. Last time I made this was when we had a Italian feast at my house where we had bruschetta, home made pizzas, and carbonara. mmm

Servings: fed 6 people and still had a lot of leftovers for late night munchies

Ingredients:

-1 pack of bacon

-1 box of spaghetti (1 lb usually)

-3 large eggs

-1 pack of parmesan cheese

Directions

1) Cut bacon into little 1/2 inch bits

oh hell yeah.

2) Whisk the 3 eggs together with half of the parmesan cheese

3) Boil the pasta until al dente in water with oil and salt

4) Turn off the heat and drain the pasta

5) Brown the bacon in a pan until crispy and then throw in the drained pasta.

6) Put the pasta and bacon back into the pot (must be off heat) and immediately mix in the egg and cheese mixture. Toss around to ensure that the hot pasta turns the egg mixture into a creamy sauce.

7) Watch Charles cut the pizza while tossing pasta

8) Enjoy

Pastitsio

I had a friend who said this was one of his favorite dishes so I decided to give it a go. For a first time try I thought I did a pretty damn good job :) Pastitsio is a Greek dish consisting of macaroni, meat sauce, and a cream sauce on top. All added together = stoner heaven, or heaven for anyone actually. I got this recipe from allrecipes.com with a little changes depending on my own tastes.

This fed 5 people at dinner and had leftovers for many days to come. I would say this could probably make 20+ servings?

Ingredients:

Meat sauce

-1 1/2 lb ground beef

-1 can of tomato paste

-1 large onion

-1/2 cup dry red wine

-1 tsp garlic (add more if you like garlic)

-1/2 cup of chicken stock

-Salt and pepper

Pasta

-1 pound macaroni

-2 tbsp of olive oil

-3 eggs lightly scrambled

-4 tbsp butter

-1/4 cup parmesan cheese (could use more)

-1 dash of nutmeg

-Salt and pepper

Cream sauce

-1/2 cup flour

-3 cups milk

-1/2 cup of butter

-1 tsp nutmeg

-1 egg

-Salt and pepper

1/2 - 1 cup of parmesan cheese for the top

Procedure:

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F

2) To make meat sauce, add olive oil to the pan and brown the garlic and onions. Increase the heat and add the ground beef.

3) After the meat is lightly browned, add the tomato paste, wine, chicken stock, salt, and pepper. Heat over low heat for approx. 20 minutes until the sauce is reduced.

4) Heat a pot of water and add the macaroni. Drain when pasta is al dente. Melt butter and add to drained pasta along with the parmesan cheese, nutmeg, salt, and pepper. After pasta is cooler add in the eggs and toss.

5) To make the cream sauce, Melt the butter and whisk in the flour. Make sure to keep whisking to ensure that there are no clumps left. Add in all the milk and continue stirring. Add in nutmeg, salt, and pepper. Stir for a little and then whisk in the egg. Transfer half of this cream sauce to the meat sauce.

6) To put it all together :) Grease a lasagna pan and put a layer of the macaroni on the bottom of a large lasagna pan, then layer over the macaroni all the meat sauce.

7) Put another layer of macaroni on top of the meat sauce and pour the cream sauce on top.

8) Sprinkle with parmesan cheese and bake for 50 minutes or until golden brown

8) Eat

Kind of forgot to take more photos of the final product because I was so ready to devour this. Really time consuming but well worth the effort. Especially enjoyable if you drink the leftover red wine that you didn't use for the meat sauce :) but don't get too tipsy and burn your arm on the oven like I did...

xx

Scallion Pancakes

Made these last semester but never got around to uploading it. Scallions pancakes are one of my favorite foods and can probably eat them forever, but I say that about a lot of foods... I felt that the final product was a little bit too dry, so will try to make it again and perfect it next time.

Ingredients:

-Flour

-Water

-Scallions

-Oil (for brushing the pancakes and also for frying)

Directions:

1) I just eyeballed the amount of flour and water, so I didn't write down any actual measurements. I just added enough of each and adjusted to make a firm flour ball.

2) Wrap the dough ball with saran wrap and put in the fridge for an hour or so

3) Cut the scallions into approx. 1/2 cm bits

4) Get the oil...

5) Divide the big dough ball into little dough balls and roll it out to around 7-8 inches wide

6) Brush the pancake with oil and sprinkle with scallions

7) Roll up the pancake and then twirl it around and press down.

8) Fry in oil.

9) Flip it around when one side has become brown and crispy

10) Cut into small pieces and serve

To Make/Eat List

It has been way too long since I've updated! I'm so sorry I have actually been cooking a lot but have been super lazy with updating. My camera also broke so I have been taking photos with my Blackberry which isn't ideal. But now I'm going to make a list of all the things I want to make before the school year is over. Feel free to suggest anything - I hope my housemates are ready to be fattened up.

Banoffee Pie

Coconut Cake

Pastichio

Quiche Lorraine

Pork and cabbage dumplings
Spring rolls

Shrimp scampi

Duck confit

Beef bourguignon

Potato, leeks, and bacon tart

Beef brisket (auo nam)

Tempura

Soondooboo Chigae (Korean spicy tofu stew)

Strawberry cheesecake

Momofuku crack pie

Chicken karaage (Japanese fried chicken)

Mixed fruit pavlova

Raspberry/blueberry scones (for Maddy)

Bacon, scallion, cheddar scones

Tiramisu

Snickerdoodles

Macarons

Paella

Cinnamon rolls

Beef and Guinness pie

Spaghetti bolognese

Caramelized onion tart

French tomato tart

Beef stroganoff

Fish and chips

Corn pudding

Chicken cordon bleu

Chicken parmesan

Pesto pizza

Lasagna

Pumpkin ravioli

Risotto Milanese

Parmesan polenta

Buttermilk fried chicken

French onion soup

Tteokbokki (Korean spicy rice cake)

To be continuously updated :)

Stick around for an update regarding a insane lunch I had today of Sichuan hot pot

Deep Fry That

I should open a restaurant. Just had 5 hours of rehearsals and photoshoots. Quite tired but feel so accomplished! Now waiting for the bran van to come so I can return home and do some cleaning chores :'( and maybe put away my laundry. I think my music from my headphones is too loud because I am getting so many death stares from everyone in the student center study area. Oh well bahahaa they can appreciate a little Guetta. Anyhow, here is my newest creation... KATSU CURRY.

Katsu Curry (Deep fried japanese pork cutlet)

Ingredients:

-Pork chops

-Soy sauce

-Panko bread crumbs

-1 egg

-A lot of oil

-Japanese curry cubes

-Carrots

-Onions

-Potatoes

-RICE

Directions:

1. Pound pork chops. I used a real hammer... because I didn't have those meat pounder hammers. But I covered the porkchops in clingwrap before doing the deed so don't worry I did not get food poisoning.

owned.

HAHA GROSS.

2. Chop up veggies. Dice onions and cube the potatoes and carrots.

Morimoto needs to watch his back with these chopping skills

3. Fry all veggies in a pot.

4. Dip the pork chops in a whisked egg and coat with panko bread crumbs.

5. Heat oil and turn on low heat, add pork chops.

AMAZING.

6. Add water to veggies and add curry cubes. Cook until sauce thickens and potatos and carrots are soft.

7. Take pork chops out and put on rack. I didn't have a rack so I just put it in the oven so the excess oil can drip off :)

8. Plate and serve! Rice + curry + tonkatsu!

you know love me for reals.

MUSHROOMSSSS

Done with two hells weeks! So so so happy. Time to cook something epic to reward myself :) Got home from 4 hours of lab, exhausted but still decided to make this pasta which was so worth it. This is what you missed out on Mark dearest :) but it's ok there is always next time.

Mixed Mushroom Linguine with Truffle Oil Cream

Ingredients:

Whole wheat linguine

Mixed mushrooms

Truffle oil

Heavy cream

Olive oil

Oregano

Rosemary

Shallots

Parmesan cheese

Salt

Directions:

1. Cook pasta

2. Chop up mushrooms and rinse


3. Sauté mushrooms with sliced shallots. mmm bubbly.


4. Get herbs readyyy. Add.


5. Add heavy cream. Fatty fat fat. YUM.


6. Add a ton of parmesan cheese and drizzle on the truffle oil.

7. Delishhh

8. Demolish.

I felt like it was missing something. It was delicious but there seemed to be an ingredient that should have been added. And since we are geniuses we figured out that it was GARLIC - love you Nikki :) Next time when I cook this for you I will definitely add garlic so it will be perfect!