Ambitious Delicious(ness)

Okonomiyaki (or Japanese pancakes) is something I’ve been meaning to make for a long time. My cousin J and her husband J made it for me once and it was quite delicious! Thanks! When you put the fish flakes on, it wiggles around due to the heat. It’s the best part!

The name is derived from the word okonomi, meaning “what you like” or “what you want”, and yaki meaning “grilled” or “cooked.” Not sure how authentic my recipe is, as I put whatever vegetables I had into this dish. But who cares, as long as you end up with a delicious experiment?

Over Memorial Day weekend, I had a few friends over for a leisurely dinner and relaxation. We paired this with a “make your own summer rolls” spread, as it was super hot in my place to make anything else requiring heat.

L-R: Fish sauce, peanut sauce, Sriracha sauce. I love sauces!!!!!

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According to this informative article in Cooks Illustrated:

“Vanilla is a powerful ‘flavor potentiator,’ meaning it enhances our ability to taste other foods including chocolate, coffee, fruit, and nuts, and boosts our perception of sweetness.”

This may be why vanilla extract is a staple ingredient in baked goods. The article goes on to say that real extract is recommended for cooking, and making cold creamy desserts, but that imitation may be an ok substitute for cookies (as extreme heat changes the taste).

(*Photo courtesy of Edmond H. Lee)

Natural vanilla extract can be expensive, so when I came across a blog post about it on Simply Recipes, I knew immediately that I wanted to give it a whirl.

I started out by purchasing two dozen Madagascar vanilla beans from Beanilla trading company, for about $1 each. The beans were vaccuum packed and fresh, and they taste great!

Once you’ve used up most of it, you can add more alcohol and vanilla beans to keep it going. You can use dark rum as well. This project takes about 4-6 weeks to make, but it is totally easy, awesome and delicious!

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I thoroughly enjoy experimenting in the kitchen, whether it’s trying out a new vegetable that I’ve never cooked with before, adding coffee and cayenne pepper to a batch of cookies, or adding Kimchi as a pizza topping. Most of the time, it’s not a big deal, as the end result might not be awesome, but edible.

Until now.

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Check out this bomb diggity new recipe that I ended up with!!! (Can you feel the excitement radiating through this post?! No?!? Why Not?!?!?)

Let’s rewind – I made a magical batch of hummus last week. I call it magical because after eating it for 3 days straight, I still had a tub leftover! It was too delicious to waste. It was time for a reinvention.

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As promised, here is the rest of my meal from that fun night of cooking with friends. The rest of the meal was so simple – I brushed some balsamic vinegar on the salmon then grilled it on a pan.  Read more to find out what the “secret” ingredient in the dressing for the salad was! It tastes totally better than what you would imagine!

Photo by Edmond H. Lee*

Once again, here are the beautiful photos by Edmond, followed by the recipes! I’m sad that I have to go back to my normal photos. Back to reality!

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Remember my cheesecake post? This post is from the same night. My humble kitchen was transformed into a photo studio, complete with a gigantic tripod, two light diffusers and a humongous camera! It was awesome!

Photo by Edmond H. Lee*

Since this dinner recipe is pretty long, I’m going to post about the rest of it later. Having Cate and Edmond in the kitchen with me was so much fun! C was in charge of stirring the risotto. She stirred and stirred and stirred…her arm was about to fall off! Thank you for your dedication, C! You made a really yummy risotto!

While this was going on, E was running around trying to get action shots. I really liked having company in the kitchen because all I had to do was pay attention to the food, instead of stirring and trying to take pictures at the same time. Hope you enjoy E’s photos!

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Thank you everyone for participating! Unfortunately, they can be only one winner. Since some of you left me two comments, I had to count them as just one.  There were a total of 19 eligible comments, that is the number I used. The random number generator chose #8!

That means Sean, commenter #8, from simple, elegant, delicious is the winner!!!! Congratulations!!!! I will send you an email to get your mailing address so that you can get your delicious honey and chocolate in the mail.

I hope to hold more giveaways in the future! Thanks for playing!