French macarons will be the death of me

I would guess that this recipe would go by easier and quicker if I can actually use almond powder/flour--- problem is, my son is deathly allergic to all nuts and tree nuts. I challenged myself thinking, eh, what's the big deal anyway, there are A MILLION flour substitutes out there. I also would have to bash my head on a wall for even daring to think that to begin with.

Yesterday, after months of dilly-dallying over the idea of French macarons, I jumped for it. I went to the local specialty store, grabbed a bag of coconut flour and coconut flakes. I tried a recipe I found online for nutless macarons and they were ABOMINABLE! I basically just had mounds of the American version--- but worse. They were dry, icky and not beautiful like they should be.

Attempt 2--- they looked like sugar cookies. At least i was on the right track, I was able to put it in a piping bag and i was able to squeeze it out.

Attempt 3-- a lot more successful. It was a bit chunky since the coconut flour tends to do that and I didn't tap the bottom of the pan out, but I got a very delicious result out of it. This was my end result:

See-- chunkier. Delicious though, oh man, I can stuff my mouth about a million of those. Today though, I wanted to solve the "chunk" issue so I ran again to the local specialty store and bought soy and coconut flour again, but a different brand.

OHHHH MYYY GODDDD! I'm pretty sure before I got my "good" result today, I ended up with several choux like macarons. I'm making freaking macarons here, not croquembouche (that is for a different day. It would be the "death of me par deux"). I'm just very grateful I have a wonderful husband that kept telling me that I can do it, I can make delicious and beautiful almond-less macarons. He's such a doll, without him, I would have pulled a Julie Powell type of tantrum and it wouldn't be cool because I complained many times about how horrible she was about the whining. I guess it's something about French cooking though, even worse, French pastry--- it tests you. This macaron recipe is the EASIEST recipe I've ever done, not many ingredients, easy to edit to a specific flavor, but it's technique. I have the technique but experimenting with the ingredients just fail me a lot, and this is the love of a mother talking here. I want my son to experience MACARONS!!

I went back, with my head up high, I can't remember how many eggs I've cracked and I got this:


My vision is so clouded I can't even tell if these are better or worse than the ones from yesterday. One thing is for sure though--- yep, I will try again. I have about 2 cups of coconut flour and 2 cups of powdered sugar left. I found a printable macaron template and I will go for it. I'll have a good cry tonight if I come out of this alive.

Lack of blogging

It's been a very busy, busy month. Just when I thought all of my weekend activities are done, now my weekday activities are filled. Even stay-at-home-moms have their share of activities and being a Mom is a full time job which then leads to lack of blogging but to a myriad of cooking.

Just like everyone else, my family and I are holding back on the expenses because we want to save up, so we cut down on eating out, which means we're probably not going to our favorite Japanese restaurant. I love teriyaki, never have made it at home because I always have Filipino soy sauce at home and it never tastes the same way as the kikkoman style soy sauce. Soy sauce is like hot sauce, it tastes different from every region. A few months ago, I was in my Korean food kick, I looked in my pantry and realized that I do have ALL ingredients required for teriyaki.

The greens are the most fabulous greens EVER. I love Chinese broccoli and broccolini better than I like regular broccoli, and last weekend at the farmer's market they had the most beautiful bunch of them. I had to have it! It's like seeing a purse that I needed to have, but it's broccoli. Is that weird?

Anyway, farmers market season is on so go ahead and go out there, get some produce! They're beautiful, better than looking at stack of Marc Jacobs purses! No? Well, it's good for the health and they are beautiful.

Buttahhhhhh, buttah, buttah

I've made a lot of difficult dishes and some that have brought me down to my knees with tears in my eyes, but whenever I've succeeded, I have never jumped for joy all over the place and sang to the tune of "I like bugs" from Yo Gabba Gabba. It happened today because today was the day I made BUTTER!

Now if you have had my cooking, you will know how much I love cooking with butter--- and heavy cream, and heavy cream makes butter. We just had a party for our little boy a week ago and what was leftover (among the many things) was a huge carton of heavy cream. I already made alfredo last night but I still had about 2 cups left over so today I pulled out the kitchen aid and made butter. Cinnamon and honey butter, but then I looked in my pantry and I remember I had this canister of French grey sea salt and put a bit in too just to give it a subtle saltiness.

Of course, I shaped it like the boxed butter because it was the sensible thing to do.

It just spreads so beautifully. It was such a great snack, not healthy, I'm sure, but delicious nonetheless. Of course it's only sensible to follow homemade butter with homemade bread, so yep, that is definitely next on the list.

I went a little crazy with the cooking yesterday

Tuesday I had a slight fever. I felt paralyzed and helpless and we ate leftovers. Nothing wrong with leftovers, but if you are anything like me, you start twitching when you don't cook. I guess it's more like I went on a cooking/baking tirade this week. I just NEEDED to do it. So here's some of my creations from my delusional week.

First I corrected the issue I had with the Inca Kola cupcakes. I also had a bit of free time on my hands so I sculpted some fondant flowers.

The day after that is when I got him with symptoms of grogginess and lack of energy. A day passed and I decided to make up for my lack of activity so I made these. They didn't really take too much effort, but a hump day dinner, I guess it was a bit of a nutso job. I did run my dishwasher twice (or was it three times?).

I first made these biscottis. I can't take up for the credit, this one was Giada de Laurentiis' recipe. I did put French grey sea salt instead of just sea salt. I don't think that will still make it my recipe.

Then I looked in my fridge, and hey, there are carrots. Loads and loads of carrots. Why did I buy these much carrots? Only one way to fix it!

I actually wanted to put baking soda in this, I ran out coz I was unclogging our sink. It turned out to be a good thing coz adding that extra 1/2 tsp of baking powder made it oh so fluffy wuffy. (Baby talk, gross, forgive me, I've been getting all crazy giddy over potty training my toddler--- that's another story).

I guess we can't have dinner with appetizer and dessert, well in theory, it technically can happen, but I know my boys would go crazy if I didn't offer some type of main course. I have a serious addiction to goat cheese and sun dried tomatoes together. I just LOOOOVE it. Any sausage with fennel seeds in it, count me in. Best way to combine them all? The usual way I do it, except this time, I decided not to include cream. You know, I had to cut down on some carbs with this meal.

I think my fridge is stocked up for food until Friday dinner. We'll see. Today, I might just tackle on ice cream again. My new ice cream make is my favorite new friend. I'm totally biased to it right now. LOOOVE it, I just love it!

Inca Kola cupcakes

My best friend Bruce and his family own a wonderful Peruvian restaurant in San Francisco. Every now and then, we'd go over there to visit. You should visit too, people at Yelp love them, and so do we. It's called Rincon Peruano (yes, I'm plugging, but it really is a must visit place). They have this golden cola called Inca Kola and it's just utterly delicious. It doesn't taste like any other soda I've had. It looks like mountain dew, but you'd hate on mountain dew after you've had this. So last time we were at the restaurant, well, we bought 2 dozen of them to take home coz that stuff is addicting.

While talking to Bruce last night, I came up with the idea to make Inca Kola cupcakes. I've made San Miguel (Filipino beer) cupcakes, Guiness cupcakes--- so it was time to step it up a bit. I might have messed up a bit today by not putting the ingredients in room temp, I still need to tweak the recipe a bit, but it is delicious. I also used this crazy frosting I found online for the frosting. Why is it crazy? It has flour in it. It sounds weird, but it's heaven.

Recipe:

Preheat oven to 350F

Ingredients:

1/2 cup room temp. butter

1/2 cup sour cream, room temperature

1 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla

3 eggs

2 3/4 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup inca kola

cream the butter, sour cream and sugar. When the butter mixture becomes fluffy, add eggs one at a time. When thoroughly mixed, add the vanilla.

In another bowl, sift (or whisk) the flour, baking powder and salt together.

Add the flour mixture and Inca cola to the butter mixture, alternating each other starting and ending with the flour.

scoop the batter in lined muffin pans, bake for 15-18 minutes in 350F preheated oven.

For frosting, any buttercream works =). Enjoy.

Hormonal Challenges and homesickness

It's been 3 weeks since I've been back from my trip to the Philippines. I miss it a lot, I want to go back. Anyway, while we were there we had Chicken Sinigang. Now I've seen it made here and there but I just was never raised on it, my mother was a strict beef, shrimp or bangus (milk fish) Sinigang maker. NEVER CHICKEN! I don't know why, I'd have to ask her why.

I basically cook based on how my boys devour food, it's usually pretty easy--- anything works. I'm actually the picky one, is it really a surprise? So yesterday, I asked my husband if he would want some chicken sinigang and he ok'd it. Nostalgia then enters from the left stage door. I made it today and it just sent me back 9,000 miles away again. It's my new favorite, and it didn't even take as long of a wait as beef sinigang takes.

Please take note on my failed attempt at beautifying that radish. End result is mouthwateringly tangy though. Pretty sure that "mouthwateringly" isn't a word by the way.

On to the dessert-- Every time that time of the month strikes me, I usually always need chocolate--- chocolate cake to be specific. I bought a ready made cake due to laziness the other day but I was just not satisfied with it. They used yellow cake to begin with, totally buzz kill to the delish ganache that was on it. So today, I took matters into my own hands and dealt with the problem within my kitchen. Well, plus I was also testing out recipes for my son's upcoming 2nd birthday. this was our end result:Now let me just put a disclaimer I haven't tasted the whole thing all together, but the separate parts I did take a bit of bites from have satisfied my needs. Oh, and quick tip, if you ever have creme fraiche in the fridge but your cake calls for sour cream, go on ahead and use it. It's actually better, it's much thicker and just has the proper amount of tang.

nutty for coconuts

A client wanted a super summery cupcakes for her function for tomorrow. She fell in love with my strawberry cupcakes with the cream cheese frosting. She wanted the same one, only problem is that she can't pick them up the day of, she needed to pick them up the day before and so I suggested something different because of how the strawberries are 2 days after. I suggested coconut cupcakes and raspberry frosting. We both agreed that both are very summer flavors. I wanted to put a bit of twist of Filipino flavors in it, and commonly, our desserts, when made with coconut, may include pandan. Pandan is an aromatic leaf, usually we boil it to get the scent out of it. Here in America, the leaves are a little hard to get a hold of, so the extract will do. I just put a hint of it, most of the flavor comes from the high quality vanilla and coconut milk. I toasted some coconuts too to add some contrast.