Category: Recipes

Scones – Inspired by Flour Bakery’s Currant Spelt Oat Scones

I’ve never been to Joanne Chang’s famous Flour Bakery in Boston, but I do have her cookbook, and after having made her banana bread, I’m definitely a big fan. Lately I’ve been on a big baking kick, and I was inspired to pick back up her book and make something new. My friend Timmie told me she made Chang’s currant spelt oat scones, which was published in Pastry Love: A Baker’s Journal of Favorite Recipes. Nobody really gets excited by scones, do they? They look so dry and oversized…especially with oat and spelt in there. But she swore by these, and I can confirm that these are buttery and delightful.

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Matcha Blondies

Lately I’ve been experimenting with a lot of matcha baking recipes. Matcha, the trendy green-tea powder that’s now offered in lattes and drinks everywhere, is a very complex ingredient. It’s a bit of an adult taste, since it has an earthy, bitter aspect to it, so using just a tad too much can totally ruin your dessert, but if you use too scant an amount, then it’s as if you used none at all. But after a lot of tinkering, I’m happy to have successfully pulled off a super easy matcha blondie recipe. When I pulled the blondies out of the oven and took a bite, I felt like Goldie Locks when I thought to myself, this is just right.

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Easy Roast Chicken – Thomas Keller Epicurious Recipe

I discovered that making a really good roast chicken is actually incredibly easy. A roast chicken suggests some sort of a special event, like Thanksgiving or a family Sunday supper, and so you think that this type of dish requires a lot of time and preparation. I came across a Thomas Keller roast chicken recipe on Epicurious–the title “My Favorite Simple Roast Chicken” caught my eye–and I was impressed by how little work was involved. Basically you salt and pepper the bird everywhere, stick it in the oven for about an hour, let it rest in its own juices for 15 minutes, and you’re done. I thought a Thomas Keller recipe would involve a lot of complicated steps, but it really is very easy to execute, as demonstrated by my ability to successfully execute it multiple times.

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Trader Joe’s Ube Mochi Pancakes Review

I went to Trader Joe’s recently with the mindset of stocking up on only pantry staples–milk, cheese, bread, avocados, nothing else–but then I came across a non-essential pancake mix that was anything but. I’m talking about the new Trader Joe’s ube mochi pancake mix. When my eyes met its cheery purple polka dotted packaging, I had to learn more. Then I moved closer, and it had me at the words “ube mochi”. Into the cart it went. How exciting is it to have a pancake mix with Asian flavors in it? You don’t normally see ube, a purple yam varietal common in the Philippines, and mochi, which is sticky rice dough used in Japanese sweets, in the ingredient list of anything, ever! So in it went, becoming my next day breakfast project.

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Easy Kalbi Short Ribs Recipe

One of my go-to recipes during this pandemic has been Korean kalbi jjim short ribs, which are surprisingly super easy to make. I have my Korean mother to thank for sharing this simplified recipe with me. The hardest part is probably procuring all the ingredients. Many of them you can easily find in an Asian supermarket like H Mart or Sunrise Mart, but otherwise you can probably find them in the international aisle of a Whole Foods. As for the meat, try to get the bone-in short ribs. H Mart will usually have this in their meat aisle and it will be labeled kalbi meat. At Whole Foods, however, I find that it’s subject to availability–it is not part of the regular lineup like ground beef and sirloin. But when they do have it, I would highly recommend that you buy 2 lbs of it and make this recipe.

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