Homemade Peppermint Hot Chocolate

Delicious plain...

...but KILLER with real whipped cream & cinnamon

I'm not a huge fan of candy canes unless they're in a drink or crushed up into something like peppermint bark or the Candy Cane Joe Joes from Trader Joe's, which I absolutely love (both the Joe Joes and Trader Joe's).

This hot chocolate is soo good. I'm drinking it as I write about it.
I don't really measure things when I make drinks, but here's a really easy recipe that I just now put together for the drink above:

~1 cup hot water
1 1/2 Tablespoons Ghirardelli Unsweetened Cocoa (THE BEST!)
1 1/2 Tablespoons brown sugar (not packed unless you want it sweeter)
3 Tablespoons whole milk
1 candy cane
Heavy whipping cream (however much you want)
Ground cinnamon

1) Heat the water
2) Mix in the cocoa
3) Add brown sugar & mix
4) Add whole milk & mix
5) Plop in candy cane
6) Top with whipped cream (use a mixer to whip liquid heavy whipping cream until it forms stiff peaks and add however much sugar you want
7) Sprinkle with cinnamon

* Notes:
1.)This would work well with mocha instead of just hot chocolate
2.) For a healthier version, use less whole milk, exclude milk, or use low-fat, non-fat milk, or soymilk instead
3.) For more peppermint flavor, add more candy cane pieces at the bottom or peppermint extract
4.) For an alcoholic version, add some Peppermint schnapps

Mia makes this drink in a similar way! Here's a picture of my drink at her place:

My hot chocolate at Mia's

hehe This is what happens to the cane

My First Tailgate! @ Fresno State

 Saturday, 9/17/11: Fresno State vs. North Dakota

I'm well aware that this being my first tailgate and first Fresno State football game is shocking, but I finally did it, and it was fun. Saw lots of Blake's friends and relatives, and then Michelle F and her friend, Derek, stopped by. Oh--and the food was awesome! Here's Blake's mom's yummy seven layer dip, which my mom has made before too!:

  

My orzo salad, which was a spin-off of this orzo salad. Ingredients = cherry tomatoes, basil, sundried tomatoes, bacon bits, fresh mozzarella, red onions, salt, pepper, red wine vinegar, & olive oil. I used to make it with just tomatoes, mozarrella, & basil as the main ingredients like I did here, but then I got bored and branched out to this, which I think tasted pretty good. I don't have a recipe because I just kept adding, mixing, and tasting.

 

 My potato salad (used my mom's recipe that she keeps in her head). Boil potatoes, chop them into cubes and soak them overnight or at least for a few hours in Italian dressing, mix in diced pickles (just a little), black olives, four hard boiled eggs (and leave two for the top if you want), onions, mayonaise, salt, and pepper. Sprinkle paprika on top of the decorative eggs and put some parsley on top just for garnish (optional). Once again, I don't have a recipe, but it all just depends on how much you want to make. For this we used like eight medium-to-big potatoes.

 Aaand to make this a little Japanesey/Hawaiiany, my mom made some spam musubi for another event and gave two containers to us for the tailgate. All you do is form the rice using the proper equipment, fry some spam, cut it up, and dunk it in some teriyaki sauce. Then you wrap it all with nori (dried seaweed). One of my favorite things to eat.

I also brought homemade kettle corn (I posted about this HERE and got the recipe from Joy the Baker). I can't tell you how many times I've made kettle corn. SO easy and awesomely delicious. I can't find Joy's plain kettle corn post, but here is the maple bacon kettle corn one, which I want to try!

Fun!! The actual tailgate:

 Timeout, the Fresno State bulldog mascot:

Pineapple Coconut Smoothie (AKA Piña Colada)

I used "Coconut Pineapple" ice cream but call this a "pineapple coconut" smoothie because I added frozen pineapple juice so that it ended up being more pineapple-y (my brother loves pineapples). This smoothie is sooo good. The ice cream is wonderful and creamy and delicious even just on its own. By the way, I've decided to use my family's sake cups for food blog pictures of certain drinks.

Recipe (use however much you think you'll like):

Non-fat milk
Coconut pineapple ice cream
Frozen pineapple juice
Ice

Combine in a blender (my family uses the BlendTec, which is fantastic and blends things really well and makes ice very fine so you get smoooooth smoothies).

Homemade Watermelon Juice (Sandia)

I love watermelon juice and watermelon drinks. I love it with and without the pulp. First tried it in Berkeley at IHouse (International House) and also at Cancun Taquería, a good Berkeley restaurant with a big salsa bar (I posted about it here). I've also had it in Moreno Valley (near Riverside) at Taquería Azteca.

Anyway, so for this juice I just blended together some fresh watermelon slices (without the rind), water, and sugar and then added ice. I'd say that you don't actually need the sugar, but just play around with the ingredients and figure out how you like it. It's also good if you blend the ice so that it's a watermelon smoothie! And obviously you can add vodka and/or lime or something, but then it wouldn't be watermelon juice!!

Simple Corn, Red Pepper, & Bean Salad

* This recipe was featured in Cooking Across America, the latest edition of their Country Comfort Cookbooks series! Click here for more information!

I've been obsessed with the idea of making fresh salads like this one below and this orzo salad. The one below was made of kidney beans, pinto beans, red pepper, fresh corn, jalapeno, red onion, salt, pepper, olive oil, & store-bought Italian dressing. I honestly just used whatever was in the pantry or in my refrigerator. So refreshing, healthy, and delicious! It's also a VERY flexible recipe. You can make this with cucumbers, edamame, tomatoes, bell peppers, any kind of beans, any kind of cheese (I prefer fresh mozarella or feta), etc.

Before mixing:

After mixing:

Simple corn, red pepper, & bean salad recipe:

1 can pinto beans (drained)
1 can kidney beans (drained)
1/4 of a red pepper (diced)
3 ears of fresh corn on the cob (cooked & cut off the cob)
2 tablespoons red onion
~1-2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2-3 teaspoons diced jalapeno
Italian dressing (to taste)
salt & pepper to taste
* Optional: red wine vinegar and/or balsamic vinegar

Wash everything.
Chop whatever you want to chop.
Mix everything together in a big bowl.
Refrigerate for at least an hour.

Simple!

A 50/50 Bar (Creamsicle) - Two Ways!

Way #1:

I loooove smoothies, milkshakes, icies (is that the plural form of "icy/icee?" icees?), shaved ice, snow cones, etc. I also love the orange & cream combination. This is just 100% orange juice + ice cream + ice blended together and topped with Breyer's Creamy Vanilla ice cream. So easy and wonderful. After I made this I broke the wine glass. :(

* Note: Jamba Juice sells the Orange Dream Machine, which is basically a 50/50 bar in smoothie form. SO WONDERFUL!

Way #2:

The orange ones are delicious, but I still am on the hunt for the original 50/50 bar...or at least some kind that's similar to the first 50/50 bar I had back in daycare. It had a clear wrapping with dark blue letters, and the orange shell was harder and icy rather than creamy like this one is. My dad said the first one he saw was in wax paper or something. Anyway, these are good but just aren't the same.

The raspberry one:

Shaved Ice w/ Honey (& Cinnamon) - Just for Fun

* Scroll to the bottom of this post if you want to skip the back story part of this*

"If you could meet anyone--dead or alive--who would it be?" I've never had an answer ready for this one, but now that I've had many years to think about it, one person at or near the top of my list of people to meet would be Laura Ingalls Wilder. I've read all of her books as well as all of the books of Rose (her daughter) and Ma (her mom). I was so sad when I finished LIW's last book, The First Four Years. That was the first time I had read about childbirth (she talks about giving birth to Rose), and it kinda freaked me out. I think the phrase was this: "She was being bourne on a wave of pain." Lovely. Anyway! I swear this post is about food. I think about the food Laure Ingalls Wilder and her family ate because she described them fairly often. Salt pork, venison, canned peaches (a REAL TREAT back then), cheap barrel candies, etc. I will never forget reading from Farmer Boy about how Almanzo Wilder (who ended up being Laura's husband) ate food one time with such enjoyment that he could taste the food in all of the "corners" of his mouth. That really stood out to me because that's how you really taste delicious food...when it fills all of your mouth and you love it and only want more. Another thing that stood out was the fact that for a treat they used to put molasses in the snow and make molasses candies. I think it sounds better than it actually is, but I'd always wanted to try it. I'd even do it in the winter and eat real molasses with real snow (including all of the nasty pollution) just to say that I've tried it!

For now, I'll have to settle for shaved ice, which I don't mind at all because it's one of my favorite things to eat. Shaved ice with ice cream is by far my favorite, but any kind of shaved ice thing with fresh fruit, sometimes sweet beans, sometimes condensed milk (like in the Filipino treat, halo halo), etc. Here are some examples:

Plain shaved ice:
Just plain from Kogetsu-Do in Fresno
Just plain from obon festival in Parlier (near Fresno)

Shaved ice with ice cream, fruit, & other toppings:Just plain OR shaved ice with ice cream from Kogetsu-Do in Fresno (finely shaved ice - awesome!)
From Ten Ren's Tea Time in Riverside
Shaved ice with ice cream from Japantown in San Francisco - Argh! I gotta find this picture!
Green tea snow cone with azuki beans - in Japan

Creamy Slushies: Cream Slush from Sonic in Fresno, Clovis & other locations in the US - I usually request that they separate the slush part from the ice cream part so it looks kinda like this homemade 50/50 bar slush drink.

Granitas (kinda like shaved ice):
Coffee granita
Fresh strawberry granita

K...so about this shaved ice. After watching Alton Brown go on and on about how wonderful the Bragg Family Farm's Sugar on Snow dish (shaved ice, molasses, unsweetened donut, & pickle...so weird but amazing according to Alton Brown, who is one of the food gods) is on The Food Network's The Best Thing I Ever Ate, I had a craving for shaved ice and also that combo of molasses and snow/shaved ice. Since I don't have snow anywhere near me in this 90-100-degee Fresno weather (and because it's kinda filthy lol), I just blended some ice and put honey on top. I knew this wouldn't be amazing, but it tastes good, and I like the texture of the honey after it's started to get really cold and slightly hard. The cinnamon makes it more interesting too.  Try it with finely shaved ice if you can.

Fresh Mozzarella, Tomato, & Basil Orzo Salad

all mixed up:

My parents, bro, and I love orzo, fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, and basil, so why not throw something like this together? I rarely make things without recipes because I'm no recipe-making expert, but I was confident that this would be easy to make because I've made something similar with a recipe before several times. Plus, it's true that after making dishes after dishes, you start to realize that you can make some things without recipes based on just knowing what ingredients go well together. Kinda like how you can put chocolate and other toppings on ice cream without an actual recipe. 

Anyway, here are the ingredients (you just adjust them as you see fit):
* Cherry or grape tomatoes
* fresh mozzarella balls
* Chopped up fresh basil
* olive oil
* red wine vinegar
* balsamic vinegar (couldn't decide which vinegar to use, so I put in a little of both)
* salt
* pepper
* Turkey bacon (added at the end - optional)

* NOTE: Serve cold! Refrigerate all ingredients mixed well together for at least an hour or two.

I want to try this with more or different ingredients!

Pineapple Upside-Down Cupcakes w/ Sour Cream Frosting

I was watching The Food Network's show, The Best Thing I Ever Ate, and one Food Network star talked about a pineapple upside-down cupcake topped with a passion fruit frosting. This got my attention because my brother loves pineapple. Anyway, the show revealed a little about how the cupcake is made, and it seemed pretty easy (the pineapple & sugar part, anyway), so I figured I could make a vanilla cupcake and put some pineapple and brown sugar on the bottom, and I did!

They were good, but at the same time I have high expectations for food, so I'm thinking I'll use fresh pineapple instead of frozen next time and put more pineapple and more brown sugar at the bottom...and I'll use either a different cake recipe or use this same Hummingbird Cafe one but with whole milk (I only had non-fat!! BOO!!). I'm all about using REAL butter and real whole milk, heavy whipping cream, etc. usually. Oh well. Next time! Anyway, these came out pretty yellow and almost had the flavor and texture of cornbread--minus the grainy bits, of course (according to my mom and me). Interesting.

I knew that my uncle and little cousin were coming over, so I thought I should add a frosting to make it look prettier and taste better overall. I blindly mixed powdered sugar, one tablespoon of unsalted butter, & sour cream because I wanted to get rid of my sour cream leftovers. It ended up tasting like cream cheese frosting...only it was watery while mixing. Yumm.

RECIPES:

Sour Cream Frosting (Recipe by me. I was just experimenting 'cause I had never made sour cream frosting before)
* Note: This only makes a little bit of frosting (not enough to cover all 12 cupcakes) because I only wanted it on some of the cupcakes.

1 tablespoon of unsalted butter
some leftover sour cream (about 1/4 of a cup)
powdered sugar (didn't measure...just kept adding...probably about two cups)

Directions:
(1) Mix the butter & sour cream together with a hand mixer.
(2) Add powdered sugar until it has your desired consistency.

Vanilla Cupcakes (recipe on Joy the Baker's site, but she got it from The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook; I made this recipe for these cupcakes)

1 cup all-purpose flour
a scant 3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup whole milk
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

1) Put flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda & butter into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment (or use handheld beater like I did) & beat on slow speed until mixture is a sandy consistency & everything is combined
2) Gradually pour in half of the milk & beat until milk is just incorporated
3) Whisk egg, vanilla, & remaining milk together in a separate bowl for a few seconds and then pour it into the flour mixture & continue beating until just incorporated
4) Scrape unmixed ingredients from side or the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula
5) Continue mixing until the batter is smooth. Just a few minutes to avoid overmixing.
6) Spoon batter into paper-lined muffin tins, dividing between the 12 cups (you should barely have enough for each cup)
7) Bake for 20-25 minutes or until light golden & a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean
8) Cool cupcakes slightly in the pan & put onto a wire rack to cool completely before frosting

Chicken Salad Sandwiches

My chicken salad sandwich, made with raisins, green apples, almonds, & mayonaise...on Safeway's poopyseed/hazelnut bread, which is actually pretty good:


What inspired the sweet and salty mixture?

This is my absolute favorite chicken salad sandwich, which I bought from the Corner Bakery Cafe in Costa Mesa's South Coast Plaza (mall). Ingredients include sliced almonds, currants, and apples. SO good:


I've been trying to find a similar chicken salad sandwich in Berkeley, but the closest I've gotten so far has been the Oba Oba sandwich from Brazil Cafe (still yummy, although it looks kinda weird), which has corn and carrots and no apples or almonds:

* Note:  I've tried Cafe Intermezzo's chicken salad sandwich (in Berkeley), but it wasn't made of apples and whatever else their menu says it's made of...and it was mustardy instead of mayo-y.