Samosas - aka meat pie!

Samosas are actually very easy and very quick to make. First, grab your ingredients! In the recipe below, I used ground meat, onion, one egg, seekh kabob spice pack, and wonton wrappers. You'll need a small dish of water to help seal the wonton wraps and some oil for frying. You can use lamb or veggies instead of ground meat. I would have actually preferred to use ground lamb, but I didn't have any on hand.


First, dice your onion into small bits, and add it and one egg to the meat. If the onion makes the mix wet enough, you might not need the egg. I didn't realize how much meat I was making, so I need the egg in my mix. Then add the spice and get your hands in there to mix it all together. If you don't have a pre-mixed spice pack, just use whatever spice combo you like. Try cumin, curry, corriander, and clove for a nice mix.



Second step is to cook the meat. Make sure you cook it all the way through! Don't leave any red! This should only take a few minutes. Once finished you can let cool, or get right into making the pies. I got right into it because I was in a rush, and they turned out fine...minus the 2 near miss house fires.



As you can see I need a little more practice frying. I turned my back on the 1st 2 pies to make a 3rd pie and 1 minute later I turn back to smoke and dark brown meat pies. They still tasted good, but they don't look at nice. The third came out a little better, but I think the oil wasn't quite hot enough. I made several more after this and they came out very nice.

I want to try these again and try to cut down on the oiliness. They were also super spicy!! I will definitely be keeping this in my book of recipes. Or if you are kitchen impaired and are in the Atlanta, GA area, you should definitely go to the Dekalb Farmers Market and try out their samosas, which can be found in their restaurant. And by restaurant, I mean a walk through buffet where you pay at the end and grab an empty table for a quick meal before taking off through the endless rows of meats, seafood, breads and veggies.

Food Food Food

Giraffe in Japanese is Kirin, which is also the name of a popular Japanese beer fyi. This bread packaging is just another cutesy marketing ploy to get people to buy sub par bread. Supposedly, according to the package, it's choco flavored, but I was never able to tell a differ between flavors with combini breads. The packaging also says "kimochi" which usually means it's going to be soft. Next, I forget the name for this, but it's diced shrimp mashed between two slices of renkan (lotus root) and then dipped in batter and deep fried. The Japanese call this tempura, which I dearly dearly love. Lotus root, which I can't find in the US, is AWESOME. It doesn't have a whole lot of flavor on it's own, but it's super crunchy and can be used in a lot of dishes. I used to slice them really thin and make them into chips by frying them in oil.This was a breakfast-for-dinner X and I made one night. I fried some onions, scrambled some eggs, mixed together some pancake mix, and chopped up a little sausage. It was good, really good. I love breakfast-for-dinner. I'm not that into icing, but I love cakey things, especially if they taste like lemon! i made these lemon cupcakes for work, but I ended up eating most of them myself. Oops! Found this mayo in our local Big Lots. Big Lots is like a discount store that sells stuff for really cheap. The one in our area is AMAZING. I always find really cool food stuff there and neat holiday decorations. I guess this mayo didn't make it to China. Last but not least, Santa got me the Martha Stewart Cookies Cookbook for Christmas, and mom and I have made it our personal mission to go through about every two weeks and make a new cookie and then rate it based on a multitude of factors. We let dad rate it based solely on taste. These cookies were Almond Macaroons. There is some debate about whether these should be called Macaroons or the French Macarons, as some believe that calling them Macaroons suggests that coconut is a main ingedient. I have yet to look up the answer. I believe the one and only ingredient of these cookies was almond paste...well, close enough. They are extremely sweet and very delicious. They came out really shiny and very white--a strange look for a cookie.

Dinolicious!

I found this AWESOME cake pan at Target last weekend and it was love at first sight! I mean, who wouldn't want this!?!
The dino cake pan wrapping had a recipe for "vanilla cake" so we decided to give that a try. You know, a little flour, butter, 4 freakin' eggs, and vanilla of course. So last minute, I remembered I had bought baking mini m&ms, which I have been dying to use, so we added a few to the batter after we had poured it into the pan. I thought that it would turn out a little like fun-fetti cake. Oh how wrong I was! We sprayed the bejesus out of the pan with some Baker's Joy, which is an oil spray with flour to really prevent sticking. There were a lot of tiny little itty bitty crevices in the pan. And baked them for about 20 minutes. I think they came out really awesome! As you can see, the m&m idea didn't pan out. All the m&ms dropped to the bottom and started to burn. Not good at all. Then to make them look even more awesome, I decided to ice them with some pink frosting to really bring out their awesome dino shapes.
Overall I really liked these. I brought some to a friend at work because the recipe makes quite a few cakes. I wasn't a huge fan of the cake, but the icing covered up any blandness, and they were lots of fun to make! Love them!

Random Foods

Is your ketchup just not cutting it? Well, you can always head to McDonald's for some "fancy ketchup." Not sure what that means, or how it compares to regular ketchup. And never fear, I didn't actually go to a McDonald's to get this. I found it while cleaning out our pit of a pantry. Who knows how old it is. Who knew Wendy was black in Japan?? Either that or she has a really dark tan....doubtful with her grammy clothing. Here's a flash from the past, nabe (or Japanese hot pot). I had this at my leaving enkai from Higashi. It's on top of a gas stove, filled with veggies and tofu. It was delicious!Hahaha, ever wonder what I do when I'm not cooking?! I burrow under blankets and chill out on the sofa with my dogs...well usually Nancy, but sometimes Truffles let's me trap her. Remembering better weather. Watermelon isn't really my thing, but every once and a while I like to eat it. I'm not a fan of the seedless. This thing takes up the whole top shelf of the fridge. I made these mini lemon cupcakes with raspberry icing for one Friday in training. Not very unique, but fun to eat one after another after another after another...and so on. Lastly, in the Fuku underground there is a VERY smallish Godiva ice creamery, where you can buy highly overpriced drinks and ice cream. I got this dark choco and raspberry frap. Not bad, but super rich. I couldn't finish it...at least I don't think I did. This place is really popular with Japanese peeps, but I'm not really sure why. I think they just like the brand name.

Disney Deliciousness- Back Into Da Food Groove

Oh man, do I have some food adventures to post! So let's jump right in!

Right after I got back to the States, I took a trip down to Orlando, and of course got one of my favorite treats at Downtown Disney.A candy apple!! I like my candy apples dressed to the nines! I don't just like mine dipped in caramel, I like mine dipped in caramel, then milk choco, and then m&ms!!! And luckily for me, certain Disney candy stores know just how to cure a sweet tooth.
First you get in line and fill out a form with what you want. And yes, you can mark all the toppings, lol.

After that, you can watch them make make your magically delicious treat, which they package so it won't tip over or roll around.
After you get home, you can take it out and marvel at it's awesomeness before cutting into it with a super huge super sharp knife.
I would recommend cutting all of it up and then wrapping and refrigerating it because it gets hard as a rock after it gets cold. This is one of my favorite candies. So good, so sweet. And it sticks to your teeth and the chocolate balances out the apple. It's heaven.

Omurice- Not a Western Invention!

Food time!

Here's an oldie! I really thought I had already posted this but I guess not! Omurice, which can be separated out into omelet rice, I must assume is a Japanese creation. Basically you take some rice, add chicken and some veggies, squirt on some ketchup and throw an egg on top of it all and you are left with a deliciously awesome meal. First, I diced some onion and bell peppers. I used half an onion and 3 baby bell peppers. I also cubed the chicken.I popped the peppers and the onions into the pan with a bit of olive oil first. After they browned and softened a bit, I added the chicken. Make sure the chicken is cooked through before you add the rice.
So, when I was in Japan, I used store bought rice that was already cooked for me. I heated it up for about a minute before adding it to the chicken veggie mixture. Having it hot helped it mix better with the other ingredients. (Also, make sure your heat is on med-low or low at this point. You don't want the rice to stick to the pan. You can also add some rice wine to help with sticking/burning. After a rough mix, add some ketchup! I like a lot of ketchup in mine, so I add a little extra. It took me one or two tries to figure out that I like mine covered in ketchup. And then mix that up really well and your ready to put it on a plate.
Try to shape the rice mix into an oval, because the egg will be covering it. Hopefully, you're not as ghetto as I am and can afford some plates and silverware....hahaha. Scramble the eggs and then pour them into a pan that has been lightly oiled and on medium heat. Also, you want to use about 3 eggs. If you use too few and you're using a wide pan, then the egg will be really thin and will break easily. Once the sides solidify, pull them back a bit and tilt the pan so that the liquid egg can move to the free space. Cook the egg until it's to your liking. I don't like slimy eggs, so I usually cook them until almost everything is solid. Next comes the tricky part.
The trick is to flip the egg onto the rice without breaking it and covering all of the rice. This just takes practice. Half the time the egg sticks to the pan for me or I toss the egg half on and half off the plate. Hmmm....As you can see, I need a little more work at it. And to top everything off, I add more ketchup of course!And then dig in. I like omurice because I can eat about half of it, and then eat the other half for lunch the next day (with a little extra ketchup). At first, I hated omurice. I thought it was weird and the only thing I would ever put on eggs was a little salt. But somehow I tried it and it grew on me. A lot. I highly recommend it!

Random Picture Post!

Food I've seen, eaten, made, etc.

"Takoyaki-san" Mr. Octopus man. This is actually a kids make-your-own-candy kit. Looks pretty gross to me, but who am I to judge, since I never tried it? First you pop in the (hopefully) imitation octopus tentacle candy, and then pour in a jelly mixture. After you wait a while, it will congeal and you can eat it. Yuuumm....

Hahaha, this was some omurice I made one night for dinner. When I was painting on the ketchup I was going for the cute "Squee~" face, but instead I got the "OMG, MY FACE IS BEING EATEN" face, lol.

:) This was the snack survival kit for the Miyazaki trip that X,R, and I took during the summer. Unfortunately, it didn't really last that long past the first night. Those owl blueberry thingies were good. Ahh, thank you Hard Rock Fukuoka for being there when K and I needed you most. This blue cheese burger was so good and the fries were so good and the drinks were so good and the milkshakes we got after were so good. Thank you. Something not so good was this Lawson's soba lunch, which I usually wouldn't buy. But occasionally all other edible food in the store had been pilfered by greedy single men who needed to buy lunch AND dinner. I mean, if you like soba, then you would find this pretty decent, but I can't stand cold food. I like how it comes with a raw quail egg.