Faux Chocolate Truffles

Yuzu is Watching Hairspray John Travolta, Michelle Pffeifer, Queen Latifah and Zac Efron

Sorry, not a real food post again. =P I made more crocheted food to share with you! These little truffles were inspired by Pukashell's adorable little bon bons. I wanted to crochet something super quick and easy, and this trio of truffles fits the bill.

©2008 Yuzu Eats

I bought 'puffy' paint (which I probably hadn't used since junior high school) at Michaels and used it to add the drizzle effect on the tops. The flavors are (clockwise from the top) raspberry white chocolate, lemon with milk chocolate, and chocolate strawberry. Yum!

Click to view post

Strawberry Pudding...Sort Of

Yuzu is Reading Northanger Abbey Jane Austen

This is a food journal, and while this doesn't technically qualify as 'food', it's a likeness of food. :) So I thought I'd post it. I've made several food-related crafts over the years, and hopefully I'll keep making more.

©2008 Yuzu Eats

It was so hot out this past weekend, I spent most of my time indoors. To pass the time while watching television, I crocheted this strawberry pudding. It looks kind of like a miniature flan. My favorite part is the teensy strawberry on top of its head. :)

Click to view post

Cupcakes for My Sister

Yuzu is Reading Without You: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and the Musical Rent Anthony Rapp

My sister's birthday was last week. She'd just given birth to her second daughter the day before. As we awaited their return home from the hospital, I baked cupcakes to celebrate both birthdays. I was babysitting my two-year-old niece at the time, so I didn't want to fuss with a bunch of ingredients. Thank goodness for boxed cake mixes. Vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting...mmm!

©2008 Yuzu Eats

My sister likes her cupcakes simple. So I didn't pipe the frosting or cover the tops with sprinkles. Instead, I used an offset spatula to spread the frosting, and I topped the cakes with sliced strawberries. They came out quite tasty, and my sister liked them a lot. Mission completion!

Click to view post

Spaghetti is Yummy

Yuzu is Watching Becoming Jane Anne Hathaway, James McAvoy, Julie Walters, James Cromwell, Maggie Smith

After church on Sunday, I swung by the grocery store to pick up some ground beef, onions, grape tomatoes and basil (the only ingredients I was lacking at home) to cook spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. I've only made homemade tomato sauce a few times, and I find that using a good jarred sauce saves so much time and tastes just as good. I didn't even use a recipe for the meatballs — I just eyeballed all the ingredients as I tossed them into the large bowl to mush the meat with my hands. The eyeballing worked well, because the meatballs were juicy and delicious!

©2008 Yuzu Eats

I bought a large container of fresh basil leaves and totally went crazy with it when I fixed my bowl. I took a few leaves and tore them over my warm pasta. I know basil has quite a strong, peppery flavor and is probably best used moderately. But I always put a lot of freshly ground pepper on everything I eat anyway, so what harm is there in adding even more peppery goodness?

Click to view post

Bakery Tour at Disney's California Adventure

Yuzu is Listening To Under the Blacklight Rilo Kiley

On one of several trips to the Magic Kingdom this month, I took some photos of the Bakery Tour by Boudin® Bakery at Disney's California Adventure theme park. In all the years that I've been going to the Disneyland Resort, I didn't even realize this tour existed.

There's a process that Boudin's been using for over 150 years to make their famous sourdough bread. I wasn't really paying attention to the video that was playing overhead as I walked through the tour because I was busy trying to take indoor pictures from behind the glass while munching on the free sourdough bread samples they gave me when I first entered the tour. Isn't it cute how there are Mickey Mouse-shaped heads throughout the bakery? Disney has to leave their mark on everything, after all.

Click for a closer look

©2008 Yuzu Eats

After the sourdough breads are done, they're brought over to the kitchen where someone slices into the tops to turn them into bread bowls. Then they're ready to fill with a variety of delicious soups served up in the theme park. The next time you find yourself in a Disney theme park, you have to try a soup bread bowl (especially the clam chowder bowls served in New Orleans Square at Disneyland). They're quite yummy, and they're definitely a nice break from typical amusement-park food.

Click to view post

Caprese Tartlets

Yuzu is Watching December Boys Daniel Radcliffe, Lee Cormie, Christian Byers, James Fraser

My department had a holiday pot luck today at work. If I ever bring food to share with coworkers, it's almost always something sweet. But I opted for the savory this time because I figured there'd be a lot of sweets already. We've been receiving baskets of muffins, cookies, chocolate and fruit from various vendors. I'm kind'a sugar'd out...and it's not even Christmas yet!

I woke up early this morning to bake something I came up with while I was grocery shopping over the weekend. I knew I wanted to make something very simple with very few ingredients. And, well, here's my contribution to the department pot luck.

©2007 Yuzu Eats

I used crescent-roll dough to create little shells and filled them with shredded mozzarella, diced tomatoes, fresh basil and freshly ground pepper. I baked them in a mini-muffin pan for eight minutes in a 375ºF oven, and the result was four dozen little caprese-style tartlets.* Kind of a nice festive snack for the holidays!

*Or you can call them what they look like — mini pizzas.

Click to view post

Tiny Thai for the Solo Diner

Yuzu is Listening To Jersey Boys (2005 Original Broadway Cast) John Lloyd Young, Christian Hoff, Daniel Reichard, J. Robert Spencer

I have been craving Thai food lately. So much so that I made the mistake of ordering the Thai chicken pasta at The Cheesecake Factory this past weekend (a peanut-allergy sufferer's worst nightmare). It was like eating a jar of Skippy peanut butter, tossed with linguine, chicken-breast chunks, bean sprouts and a can of crushed peanuts. It wasn't completely horrible because I do like peanut butter, but I think it's a little heavy on the peanuts. I wish I took a picture of the plate when the server brought it over — peanuts ALL around the edge. A lot of them.

From now on, I shall not let my current cravings dictate what I order if I'm not in the right establishment to order that particular food. Stick to what each restaurant does best, that's what I learned. Funnily enough, I already knew this a few months ago when I was in New York City and was craving Thai curry..

Dim lighting = blurry photo

©2007 Yuzu Eats

That right there is probably one of the best meals I've ever eaten. I don't know if it was because I was 3,000 miles away from home, and the stewy dish was comforting to me. But gosh...chicken panang curry from Tiny Thai Cafe, you were delicious. It was sweet, slightly spicy, and light...all at the same time. The chicken breast was tender and absorbed the flavor of the curry very nicely. The curry juices mixed with steamed Jasmine rice — yum! I think coconut milk should be used in every dish. ;)

Original image from Tiny Thai

The restaurant, which is located in Manhattan's famous Hell's Kitchen, was difficult for me to spot at first. I must've walked by it two or three times before realizing it was there. The front of the restaurant is that small. Once inside, I was warmly greeted and seated at a table for two (for my party of one). I placed my order and was served my meal with a minimal wait. I ate dinner here before seeing a Broadway show (hooray for multiple viewings of Rent!). The restaurant is just far enough from the craziness of Times Square to not have the Broadway crowds, but it's close enough to only have to walk a few blocks to the various theaters. I am definitely going to eat here again when I go back to New York.

Tiny Thai Cafe
693 9th Avenue (between 47th & 48th Sts.)
New York, NY 10036
(212) 265-2229

Notes to the solo diner: It's not a bad experience to eat at a restaurant all by yourself. Pick a time of day when a restaurant is less likely to be busy so that your servers will be more attentive to your table of one. And don't sit at the table near the window, because people on the street might point and laugh at you (kidding).

Click to view post

Green Tea Muffins

Yuzu is Watching Rent Anthony Rapp, Adam Pascal, Jesse L. Martin, Wilson Jermaine Heredia, Idina Menzel, Taye Diggs, Rosario Dawson, Tracie Thoms

I went to the ophthalmologist last week and found out I have a bacterial infection in both of my eyes, so I've been on antibiotic eye-drop medication for about six days now. I am back at work today, and so far my eyes are doing okay. I just can't strain them too much by reading a whole lot. So what am I doing? I'm blogging! ;P

Picked up some green tea muffin mix at Trader Joe's last week and baked them for my parents, who love to drink green tea. I'd tried them previously when someone baked them at work, but wanted to give them a go myself. I used my jumbo muffin pan for the first time, and the batter was the perfect amount to make six plump muffins. I added a few pinches of sugar to the mix because I personally like green tea a little sweet. The muffins came out yummy, moist and not very sweet at all. I think I found a good balance of sweetness because they were sweet enough for me (a sweet tooth), yet not too sweet for my parents (who aren't into sweets as much as I am).

©2007 Yuzu Eats

I finally watched Rent, the movie based on one of my most favorite Broadway musicals ever. I had really low expectations of it because you can never be too sure about stage-to-screen adaptations. But it was surprisingly good! I've watched it twice already. My Rent CDs are back in rotation after a few weeks' hiatus.

Click to view post

Pumpkin Cake

Yuzu is Watching Knocked Up Seth Rogen, Katherine Heigl

I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving holiday last week! Did you eat good? I didn't eat as much as I expected to. The food was great, of course, but I guess I just wasn't in the mood for stuffing myself.

For dessert, my mom baked her traditional walnut cherry cheese delight (which is basically a yummy cheesecake), and I baked something new. Pumpkin cake! Well, pumpkin bars, depending on how you slice it. I call it cake because it wasn't dense enough to be a bar, and it was so moist and delicious, it's pretty much like a cake!

©2007 Yuzu Eats

The recipe for the cake/bar portion is courtesy of Food Network, with minor tweaking by yours truly. The frosting recipe is for my most favorite cream cheese frosting in the world. Try it — it's easy!

Pumpkin Cake
4 eggs
1 2/3 cups granulated sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
1 15 oz. can pure pumpkin
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Using an electric mixer at medium speed, combine the eggs, sugar, oil and pumpkin until light and fluffy. In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and baking soda. Add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture and mix at low speed until thoroughly combined, and batter is smooth. Spread the batter into a greased 13 x 9" baking dish. Bake for 35 minutes. Let cool completely before frosting.


Frosting:
1 8 oz. package cream cheese, softened
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1/8 tsp. salt
3¾ cups sifted confectioners' sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Cream the butter, cheese and salt with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add sugar gradually until smooth. Add vanilla extract and mix until incorporated. Spread onto cooled cake.

Click to view post

Rice To Riches

Yuzu is Listening To Spring Awakening 2006 Original Broadway Cast see related

©2007 Yuzu Eats

How have I managed to eat at this place several times and not once blogged about it? It's been in my links list since I started this blog. I first happened upon Rice To Riches three and a half years ago. Eatdrink&bemerry suggested I check the place out because...umm, we're Asian and we like rice. ;P But it's so much more than rice — it's all about rice pudding here.

I've eaten here with friends, and I also took my parents here a couple of times. Mom and Dad seem to really like this place because a) their rice pudding is yummy, and b) their public restroom is probably the cleanest non-hotel restroom they've ever seen in New York City. Located right off Mulberry Street in NoLIta, Rice To Riches sticks out like a sore thumb on Spring Street with its futuristic, brushed-metal exterior. Upon entering the store, you see high, white tables shaped like surfboards (or maybe they're supposed to be like rice kernels) and flat-screen televisions displaying colorful, bizarre pop art that mostly has to do with food. I think I recall spotting a doggie on the screen one time, though. Sometimes the TVs display random definitions like "SLEEP: a poor substitute for caffeine."

The ambiance is retro and modern at the same time.

Rice To Riches makes their pudding right in the store, so you can be sure you're getting the freshest rice pudding available. Their flavors carry some interesting names that almost seem to give them their own personalities. Take, for instance, Stubborn Banana or Forbidden Apple. Or maybe you're in the mood for a Cinnamon Sling, Almond Shmalmond, Coconut Coma, Don' Cappuccino or perhaps even Sex, Drugs 'n' Rocky Road. Their puddings can be topped with anything from 'blessings' (toasted coconut) to 'mischief' (graham cracker crumbs). Pudding flavors and toppings vary throughout the year. My dad had a yummy mango pudding last year, but it wasn't there when I went a few weeks ago.

I'm so predictable — I get Understanding Vanilla every time.
It understands how boring I can sometimes be with flavor choices.

It's been a lot of restaurants' and stores' goals lately to be certified green. Using less plastic, more recycled paper and generating less waste in general is what many businesses are doing to help the environment. I've read complaints that the plastic containers in which Rice To Riches serves their rice pudding are not good for the environment. Nay, I say! Why throw away those containers after you're done stuffing your face with rice pudding? From the very first time I went to Rice To Riches, I vowed to save every container I've ever used. The second and third (and fourth) times I ate there, I asked for containers in specific colors because I wanted to complete my collection. I only have the 'solo' sizes, though...not the 'sumo' ones. =O

Their containers are really cute and quite durable, so
I save them and reuse 'em to carry snacks in my bag.

A word of caution: if you are watching your carb intake, it's best to steer clear of Rice To Riches. This place prides itself on being carb-heavy. There's a sign hanging over the cash register that says, "We sell rice pudding. If you don't want that you can have rice pudding. And if you don't want that you can have rice pudding." Rice pudding is pretty much all you get here. And that is totally fine with me.

Rice To Riches
37 Spring Street (at Mulberry)
New York, NY 10012-5723
(212) 274-0008

Click to view post