Legend of Fall(Series I)--Apple, apple , I love you :)

Apple cider cinnamon poached apple

Fall is here, fall means apple, butter squash, pumpkin....( why am I only able to think of 3??)
Falls is painted in orange, which makes you feel warm and comfortable like S-un-K-ist. I want to be a person that is easy to get along with, so I got that orange hoodie. But it didn't work as well as I thought:( The world is so complicated and gaogao is too powerless...


The first series is dedicated to Apple. it is said having an apple everyday, all kinds of illness would keep away from you. There are many kinds of apple, in China, we like to eat Fuji, golden Delicious. After I came here, I started to like gala, even red delicious, because it is not very sweet(low-sugar) and dark-red skin makes me feel it has so much vitamin. Then I turned out to be a fan of more tangy ones , like bourbon. My new favourite is Jazz , it is very pretty, tangy , crispy, sweet.


Did some apple firmness test for poaching:
Gala: mild easy to lose firmness
Jazz: tangy takes longest
Honey crispy: crispy but mild easy to lose firmness
Grand smith: easy to lose firmness

Pork tenderloin nugget with apple sage onion sauce

Baked pork tenderloin nugget. rub pork nugget with salt, brown sugar, sage, onion powder...
'dress it up:
1st layer: starch
2nd layer: egg+water
3rd layer: panko mixed with butter
(SK taught me to do the 1st layer and 2nd layer twice, I guess it will be easier to stick more panko)


Sauce:
Saute Jazz Apple(peeled, diced), onion, sage
Add apple cider, chicken stock, honey, let it boiling
Add starch water mix,
Garnish with minced sage.

Apple Pecan Fennel Salad with Apple cider vinaigrette

A Dream Comes True--
I dreamed about an old special friend that felt like hadn't contacted me for long pinged me in pidgin, as usually, it ended up I woke up disappointed. But something magical happened , It just happened at night, at the end of the day. Unbelievable, it's such a miracle, my life is therefore brightened, I appreciate it .
Aware it doesn't happen often, and not everyone has a fortune like this, so ...Gao_Gao should be happy :)

What did you cook for Friday night?-- Homemade tomato meat sauce pasta

You like to go to Bertucci's on Friday night in the fall, and you call that as comfort food. I thought comfort food was just something that can make you feel warm, but today, after I carefully cooked this pasta , I got to know what comfort food means, at least for me, I it is something simple, ordinary, familiar, no question mark, no expectation since you just know it is good as itself, something that you are always comfortable with and relaxed with.

What did you cook for Friday night? Comfort food?

1. Cook the bacon, I find it is a better way to cook it in the oven /toast oven, 400F, 10-12min , it can't be dried out and remains lovely baby pink :) cut into small pieces.

2. Brown ground beef: I added Chinese five-spicy and ginger powder, garlic powder ( of course, preferable fresh one) , some wine, it already smelt good. Drain the fat

3. Saute garlic, onion, mushroom,until they are soft, add drained ground beef, bacon, canned diced tomato. I also pureed another canned peeled whole tomato to get a tomato puree ,and use it as well, so more juicy.

4. Add red wine, sherry vinegar (Alton's advice), tomato paste, ketchup, bay leaves, oregano, basil, hot pepper flakes, covered for about 20mins.

5. Add Parmesans.

Put a cheesy bread on the side. For you, hope you are going to have a relax weeked or you already had one

Farewell, my grill and a cooking assignment 'A'--curry chicken skewer with cucumber yogurt

Grill sold@200909019

I can draw an umbrella on the wall , and when it rains but I forget to bring it, I might smile even still frustrated;
I can draw a motorcycle, and with the fall coming, it will remind me the bright summer when I so wanted a bike.
I can draw a cup of hot chocolate, it also looks a like a cup of coffee though , but I write 'L.A.Burdike' on the mug ^^
But one of the things that is difficult to draw is vanilla ice cream without waffle corn, I can only imagine the happiness feeling it brings to me.

I drew you, my grill, you are gone, but you are part of this summer, for ever, ever and ever...

I think I will keep the chimney, even when I get a gas grill later.

Gaogao+Chimney

vs.

Léon + Houseplant

This is a cooking assignment, it is also something I can't draw . I wish I made it in the summer...

Cut chicken breast into strips, rubbed them with green curry mix, and also added some soy sauce.Marinade for several hours, make skewers. Brush them with cooking oil, Grilled them using griddle. Squeeze some lime juice during grilling.

Cucumber yogurt dip:

cucumber

yogurt

salt

call for mint(I used extract instead)

lemon juice

It looks exact the same as the ones from restauranta :PP

XGs will give it a A, I am so confident about that.

PS: I know, grilled food, CaNcer, CAnCer!, But

don't you think there are something that will remain as dreams until we die??

NO COOKING until homeworkSS are DONE

Success!

Althought only 70-80 people showed up, it is as expected.
It was my first time to walk from the beginnig to the end, withou missing any fun point.
So happy to learn the history , I think I learned some in high school too, but this time, it was about you want to know more about somehing you love, so it is kinda magical that I can just remember them after I read those articles.

Some impressive fun facts that I want to share with you:

1. the golden roof of the state house in park street, it is gilded and it is the sign of Boston, when you see 'XX miles' to Boston on highway, it means to this point.

2. Back bay was a bay with water

3. Old state house was almost sold to Chicago~~

4. Bunker hill was not real Bunker hill, it was Breed's hill, but because of some mistake of British general, it got name exchanged with the bunker hill, which is half miles away.

5. The golden steaming kettle on the top of the Starbucks near government center has nothing to do with Starbucks, it has been there since 183?

6. Boston common was a bury ground too

I hope, I can show my parents my dear Boston and Cambridge, some day, I mean it.
I miss you, Daddy, Mommy。。。。。。

Friday

在GYM 卖呆，不可耻

young LEADRES

Fei asked me to be relaxed since I have so many leaders to work with.
The meeting before the big day, after I stepped in the conference room , seeing those pretty, adorable faces, I felt nothing but >..<

When I was doing the reviews for those historic places, I started to doubt if I should major in engineering... It has so much FUN~~~

GaoGao ROCKS

Send emails in a SMART way

1. Sent about 90 confirmation emails. Estimated 150ppl total including guests
Fei is assuming half will not show up >..<
( I know I should have added them into a group when I got their emails)

2. As my signature, ICkéVIna is going to be famous ^^

3. I just realized '偶' is still popular, lol I am still on the track

4. Some girls thought I was a guy and tried to be sweet and impress me *--*

爱上 范范

不是 后知后觉，
应该是 厚积薄发吧。。

Conservatively estimated--100 ppl signed up

(Part of me starts to hope it should stop here and no more people will sign up)

Pressure, pressure!
Clueless
Nervous
But...
more excited

It's about nothing but show-off--paprika grilled chicken breast

Quoted the original word I told to Xiao danan, I LOVE that pan to DEATH!

It is so pretty, love the red color, underneath is bacon, walnut and raisin couscous.

The new book I got is also talking about something happened to the author(the prince) in the culinary school. as he said, he had to eat what he made, so as long as he had class, he would have food. It sounds a little horrible for me, I can't eat that much, I want to be a skinny chef !! And since it's about learning , so no too much variety, for example, if today's topic is about eggs, that means you have to eat eggs that are boiled, baked, scrambled, poached; with mushroom, with basil, with cheese... I guess one important qualification for a good chef is you should never be sick of any kind of food, no matter how much you have had ^^

-----------

No 17, opened@0916200910AM

Can't help, bought Special K again; I often imagine a day that each meal comes with Special K, but never make it:

Morning: smoothie;

Lunch salad( it's really good with sweet dressing ,apple cider vinaigrette, cranberry walnut, even wasibi one or balsamic syrup, much more healthy than croutons);

Dinner : one kind of sweet soup: carrot soup/Gazpacho(never like oyster cracker);

Maybe I should recommend myself to Kellogg Company and show them my big 'K' , and they might award me a honour customer, and I would enjoyfree Special K for life, never knows >_<

----------

If my life had only 1 year left, one of my wishes would be to try the food prepared by Iron Chef...

I am a VIP

自从freedom trail的广告发出去以后， 收到好多小朋友的报名， 用很可爱的英语，“dear dir/Madam' , 很激动 喜欢用‘thank you VERY much’，搞得我心潮澎湃的，从来没有觉得自己这样重要过。
-----------
Follow-up:
Now, the sign-up emails come in almost very minute and it's getting boring seeing this kind of emails *_*". But the 90s-borned kids all have nice-sounding names

Diet S-un-K-ist

很少喝 橘子汽水 因为一直没有发现 diet 的 版本

在学校里的 便利店里发现了 diet sunkist， 很开心的买下来。 结论：橘子+汽水 但是不讨厌

而且 我发现 sunkist 上也有 一个 'S‘ 和 一个'K'。

开始我也不喜欢Special K， 但是在我吃完一个巨大的K以后，决定make A Change的时候，居然发现那个很难。 有些东西， 当你习惯了以后，那变成最好的了， 然后我们就被挂上了固执的高帽子。

吃完Special K，一想到那个nutrition label里蛋白质， 纤维素，维他命， 觉得自己被好好的营养了一把， 很满足；但是每次喝了汽水， 都觉得 很难过， 一定又损失很多钙， 于是马上塞了一粒多维

-----------

今天很奇怪， 看到很多人， 可是他们都好像没看到我，我就 一直看这他们 从他们身边走过。。

Look back one year, a hot chocolate hug--Mexican Hot Chocolate

Today is 9/14, I remember I was somewhere Massachuset enjoying lobster on the same day last year. It feels like happened a lot in the past year, I can't believe it has been only one year. And I laugh at something I said, something I wrote, something I believed in, but I understand the little silly me one year ago, when I was doing those, I already had expected they would be teased later.Like now, it would be awkward to read these in the next year, I guess I would wish I had never ever written those words. But let me worry about this next year.

It is a little early to celebrate my first hot chocolate one -year anniversary, but I don't feel like celebrating my first roast pork tenderloin one-year anniversary, maybe I just can't wait , love it so :)

Hot chocolate has be made from chocolate, but not cocoa powder, that is hot cocoa. Those hot chocolate in restaurants that impresssed you a lot are all made from shaved chocolate but not cocoa.

It is very simple, but will bring you incredible warmth and happiness, like a warm hug with the smell of chocolate :)

Pick up one kind of chocolate you like, bittersweet, dark or milkchocolate . I usually go for bittersweet.

Carefully shave it( besides hot chocolate, it also can be used as the ice cream topping), just use knife or a shaver

Whole milk( no way to be skim milk, fat free milk --it can't be counted as MILK)

Use whisk, carefully stir, mid-heat, not let it boil, just let the chocolate dissolved in the milk.

At the end, the secrete ingredient is Butter, melt in 1/2 tbs butter( unsalted ~~). Neither half &half nor heavy cream, they are too heavy.

As for the flavor, you can use cinnamon, vanilla, chocolate liquor, even spicy. For toppings, whipped cream, marshmallows.

Today what I made is actually a spicy Mexican hot chocolate by using Mexican chocolate taza. if not for hot chocolate, I do not like the texture of Mexican chocolate, it has too much sugar, you can see it there. but it combines all the spicy there, so it's good for hot chocolate.

I really hope it is one of the few things in my blog that my friends would like to try .

Love the cast iron pan--blacken chicken grilled pepper avocado salad with ranch

Cast iron pan, an amazing toy, I want to use it everyday for everything. E said I can't have grilled food too often , it's not healthy. Well, I do not want to get sick, I have so many dreams that haven't come true, I can't die !!

Grilled avocado: toss avocado with lime juice and seasoned with salt pepper( I used bread dip mix)

Grilled pepper: tossed with olive oil, and seasoned
Blacken chicken: boneless chicken thigh(" I love chicken thigh, it doesn't dry out when you cook it" ) rubbed with smoke paprika, Cajun mix as well as some oil---- it really can kick CBC's ass .

Tortilla chips: brushed with olive oil and canjun mix, 300F 10mins, remeber to turn them over once in the half way

Dressing: Ranch

This low-carb tortilla chip is not as crunchy as the whole wheat one, but it's low-carb, which makes me very happy. When I cook for myself, I always use heathy choices, but for others, I am always afraid the heathy stuffs would degrade the taste, so always whole milk, heavy cream, butter, non-wheat bread. I remember when I shopped panko, I hesitated for 30 secs between whole wheat one and original one.
We have to admit, it is difficult to get both healthy/diet and good taste. French cuisine loves butter, there is a trailer of 'Julia and Julie' about french scramble eggs, I believe it is good, but I don;t think I want to cook myself scramble eggs in that way.
Well, as long as most of time , we stick to a healthy way, it's fun and enjoyable to have high-calories good eats.

Cilantro won!--Jamaician dirty rice

This is also part of yesterday’s meal, I used package rice, it was bought long time ago. For no reason like Cajun food, especially crawfish etouffee with dirt rice, sounds very rustic ~~

Take some advices from the package as well as add some imagination: mushroom, bell pepper, bacon, pecan, raisin, parsley, cilantro, cayenne pepper. And at the end, cilantro becomes the shiny start also boosting the spicy. There is a ‘ hot chili chicken ‘ in JoJo taibei around BU, it combines Chinese marinade hot chili pepper and cilantro, very impressive. Cilantro always highlights the spicy flavor.
Now my herb ratings is 1st Basil, 2nd Thyme, 3rd Cilantro.
The one I don’t like is Rosemary, weird

Have a relationship with myself-grilled tomato bread salad

Envious of those RAs, TAs, they have their own places in the school, a desk, a chair, a desktop, they can just leave their stuffs there, unlike me, have to carry everything to school and carry back. I still like to go to school every day, although I don't have classes every day, it makes me feel like part of something.

One of signs that we have grown up is our own time become more important, you can't ask for too much company from others, otherwise you would feel guilty, at least for me. I remember in high school, I could just ask my friends' company for a bathroom trip, a candy-shop trip, or even more simple, just a walk. But now, we can't do that, I can't do that. The other day, Xiaodandan and I went to gym together, but she finished earlier than me and had to wait for me, so our gym plan trial wouldn't work. My Mom often wishes it would be wonderful if she had twins thought it would be weird to have a twin sister. But now, I do wish I had someone as same as me, I want to cook, she would cook with me, I want to run , she would run with me, I want to go shopping , she would go shopping with me. When I feel cold, she would give me a big hug. Yesterday, when XGs was here, he asked what he could help with cooking, I told him, maybe he could just talk with me, it felt very good to have someone around listening to you , answering your very clueless questions. then I laughed, because I know there is a kind of job for accompanying old people, talking with them . Does that mean I am already old?

This guy was basically failed yesterday. It is true how much attention you pay to food, how much taste it gives back to you. So today, I re-made it, very carefully, very patiently.

For vinaigrette, I added some sugar, I used to use sweet stuffs( like sweet corns figs) for my salad, so it's OK no sugar added in vinaigrette, but if no sweet ingredient, it's good to add sugar. Also I removed Dijon mustard , use sherry vinegar instead of balsamic.

For bread, I increased the rate of butter and bread, carefully saute garlic in butter, not let it brown, mixed parsley afterwards before bread go into the oven.

For salad, add thyme, red onion( marinade it in vinaigrette ahead), as well as bacon.

For grilled tomato, carefully removed the seeds.

And it has to be served immediately after mixed with vinaigrette.

It is SOOO good, buttery crispy bread with juicy warm grilled tomato and bacon surprise. sK's comment on Bacon is ' everything is good with bacon' :)

Zhaozhao just called, I thought I would end up keeping silent for the whole day, I am often worried I would get aphasia if I didn't talk for long enough.
Boston's fall is such a beautiful season, I guess most of the love stories start in fall, here. Tomorrow, when it stops raining, I decide to start a relationship with myself, seriously.

I should have made a wish-Apricot Ginger Glazed pork tenderloin with bread salad

New semester started, Taking T comes back to my daily life. I never mind commute by T and I can always do reading , the funny part is I am more concentrated :) Reading a Chinese novel on the T is like putting a label on myself: I am an awesome Chinese ! Maybe one day, I could get to know some new friends because of it, but it has to be Milan Kundera's big fan.

He wrote : there is a very expensive grocery store, so for the people that do shopping there: it is more important to pay than to eat. It reminded me the whole foods and Market basket.

I admit the meat in whole foods are almost the best, but for the vegetable, it is also pretty fresh in market basket, because there are so many people shopping there so the one on the shelves are always fresh. It can't be guaranteed in the whole foods sometimes. But I just love to shop in the whole foods, I remember one of sK's friends said 'the whole foods along the river' is a very BEAUTIFUL store and it is. I do enjoy shopping there or just hang out there to check out each item.

Weekend depression, so sad, it is a Friday again, and it is raining, nothing could be worse than this for me. So I have to do big cooking to help me get over it.
Apricot Ginger Glaze, I used it for chicken wings in Duncan’s BBQ. People liked it which was one of the few things that could make me happy during that time.
(apricot preserve, ginger, soy sauce)

I wanted to do pork tenderloin again, because I wanted it to come out really tender, 10F lower, it will be raw , 10F higher, it will lose the juicy. It said it should be took out of the oven when it reaches 140F and let it cook by itself. 350F , 15min, I checked, it about 120F, then another 5mins, it got almost 140F, then I boiled it, and didn't take it out from oven until the glaze layer was formed. so you know, it didn’t come out what I expected it to be.

The salad is bread cucumber grilled heirloom tomato with basil. I got the new cast iron pan , and it really can be a grill only without the smoke flavor. I was in a rush , so didn’t remove the seed of tomato, and it was a little messy. Bread is cubed sourdough bread, dipped with garlic butter then bake until crispy.
Lovely heirloom tomato, it has the flavor of the ones in my Dad’s garden during my childhood. I will make it again, love grilled tomato J

Summer is just gone, for me it was a very special summer , and I grow up one year old with a very different birthday. I watched one EP of Grey Anatomy, it was Izzie’s birthday, Alex asked her to make a wish and I just realized I didn’t make a wish on my birthday. Actually I did not have any wishes at that moment, but maybe I should have made a wish for nothing to be changed…

Important Notification

Re-processed some of the pictures, kind of get rid of the nightmare of incandescent lamp.
Feel more comfortable now

Low carb tortilla-- pulled ox tail and port pear mushroom salsa taco from last meal

For the leftover, the only thing I could think of is taco. But the sauce and pear is almost gone, so I have to make more. Can I call it salsa?

Sauté some onion, mushroom, pear with butter add port, beef stock or paste, honey, thyme, rosemary, boil until the water is gone.

The surprise is I found a low carb totilla in the store, only 120 cal /piece and 11 fibers, unbelievable, and it is so soft, unlike those whole wheat ones. I had been afraid of tortilla because of the carbs. Now I think I am free to have taco, burrito, maybe I can make burrito for lunch. Everything is going up, it is kind of torching me to pay for some awful food . I told E my cooking is getting better and I am more confident about myself, IT IS! ( XGs said he eventually saw me look confident and that was when I talked about my cooking; He knows how awkward I was about school last semester) And last night, I went to my friends' house and made them awesome steak. It came out so good, I am proud of myself.

PS: Thanks for XGs' supporting, he told me he checked my blog in different places to increase the unique visitor number of my blog. But for some reason, google analystic looks not working well recently. Still, thank you, I will remember to call you when I have gourmet plans : p

the 2nd day of Labor day holiday, feed a hunger--Braised ox tail with pear

Today is the second day of Labor day holiday, unbelievable, I still stayed at home, ( I ruled out the walk in Cambridge area). Oh, I visited veggie planet yesterday, because there was a show there, so it was natural to take away and eat alone. the pizza dough reminded me Kissa( sK's invention about pizza) , it should be flatbread, but very alike. No surprise, but very delicious. and they do use some tofu mash (something like my tofu caesar). I have a little concern about vegetarian food, because it is delicious with the cost of a lot of oil.

XGs told me he had been hungry for days and would come with a super big appetite. Nothing is better than braised meaty short rib to fed a hunger. This recipe is called braised beef with ginger and pear, which I saw it from last month's bon appetite. it also calls for pig feet as the secrete ingredient. I guess it would release collagen which is amazing. When I was shopping pig feet, I found ox tails, it was like a bonus for me, I didn't have to drive over to the whole foods for short ribs, but could get wonderful ox tails here!

It is called ginger pear, but it doesn't look like it calls a lot of ginger. so I doubled the ginger.
And it also calls 3 hrs braised time, I just followed, and I was completely free during those three hours, which was not bad. When I was back , my house was full of braise aroma~~

It also says discarding the pig feet, but in China, almost everyone likes it, and because of collagen, women all go for it. I also pulled out the meat from those larger ox tails but kept the little ones. at the end pour on the reduction sauce.

Served with mashed potato. I had a mistake here, I should have use Yukon golden potato ~~
Not sure when I can make mashed potato again, I can't stand that much creamy carbs!
BTW, I have to admit I do admire XGs's ablity to eat meat :P

Asparagus, smoke salmon with creamy horseradish and dill sauce

People often asked me do you cook seafood. well, I actuall didn't cook it very often. Because during each period of my life, the one for me was not a big fan of seafood, so I just didn't do it. Well, I am cooking for my friends now, so it's time to pick up seafood, which I love so .

Pretty simple one, the sauce is supposed to be;

heavy cream, horseradish, dill.

but I don't have heavy cream on hand, so i used creamy cheesy( weird? but it works :)

I think I should have used some white pepper though

2nd round-- Rasin, cilantro lamb-beef meatball with curry sauce on Naan bread

Last meatball, I got the comment is 'too dry' . I agree, I thought it was only because meat is too lean. Then I did some research and found out the magic secrete!. Besides it should be at least 20% fat ground meat, also needs bread crumb and egg to hold the fat and prevent it from going away when being cooked. The most magic part is add water!! I know, it's difficult to believe , but it is definitely true. so my plan is:
1. 80/20 ground beef, ground lamb=2:1
2.2 eggs, about 1/2 cup panko
3. mix beef broth and coconut milk . finally soak meatball in the coconut milk.

Sauce : curry
For meatball:
using whichever herbs you can think of to make it get along with lamb and curry sauce:
coriander, cumin, turmeric , cayenne pepper, garlic powder, onion powder,
(salt , pepper)
also minced cilantro , golden raisin( after soaked)

Using pan to cook meatball until it's done.

Curry sauce is Japanese curry cube, I mixed in carrot, mushroom, onion, potato, ( no surprise)

After curry sauce and meatball are done, throw meatball into sauce. and it's done.
I don't like cook meatball in the sauce, one thing is curry sauce is kinda heavy and needs low-head which is not good to make meatball cooked, the other is it would make curry sauce too greasy.

My original idea was to use some pita bread to wrap meat ball( like greek , Mideast style), but I found nann bread in store, it’s more Indian. But it came out not easy to eat : )

Zhao is so sweet, she complements everything I make, she also eats it in a way that makes you feel like she is enjoying it very much. I love that!
I remember I was going to do the meatball in this way, but sK didn’t agree, so we quitted. It’s really good, and lamb meatball should be treated in this way. I am happy that I make it come true again ( besides zhaozhao, my roommate also gave endorsement).
Although sK always discouraged me to be adventure, still it is sK that made me realize I love cooking so much and gave me the initial passion that still drives me to try, to learn, to explore.
So every time I got success, I would feel grateful.