Brownies and Birthday Cakes

Long time no post. Sorry! In case anyone worried, the lack of post does NOT mean I have gone on a crazy crash-diet where I don't eat anything. As if. Rather, I have just been very, very, very busy. Insanely busy. You have no idea. I don't think I've gotten more than 3 hours of sleep a night since September. And that's on a good day.

This is a baking post! As some of you may know, my microwave-cooking adventures have had ups and downs. The score stood at 1:1--one success (banana bread) and one failure (cheesecake). I decided it was time to improve my numbers, so last Sunday when I decided to give my RA a gift for helping with us deal with certain problems Mi, E, and I have come to face living in the dormitory, I settled on brownies. Alright, I cheated and used brownie mix from a box, but the fact that I made these in a microwave, I felt, still deserves a post to commemorate it.

Microwaved in a glass Pyrex pan for 4 minutes, they came out chewy and delicious. E and I ate about half of them before I conserved the remainder for our RA.

October19th was E's birthday. I had been planning her strawberry cake for a month, and a week before I went to Surprise! Surprise! (which I report being one of my best shopping experiences ever. This is a home goods store. Yes.) and bought a small souffle dish to use as a cake pan in the microwave.

Considering my track record with frosting it didn't turn out too badly....

More later.

The Beginnings of Bento and Accidents and Mishaps in Manhattan

Okay, I'll be covering about two weeks' of food and events in this post, as I've been so busy lately I haven't had any time to make a post until now.

First, the cheesecake I froze weeks ago: turned out great. I like to eat it frozen, like strawberry cheesecake ice cream. Sans the ice cream. I've been trying to make it last, because between buying the sour cream and the cream cheese it's a fairly expensive dessert for a college student to make. As of now, I have a quarter left.

As you might have gathered from the title, as of late I've become interested in packing myself bento, or boxed lunch, to take to class to eat during my 1-hour lunch break instead of making the 10-minute walk down to the school cafeteria or buying lunch at Valentino's Market. Plus, the idea of demolishing so-cute-it-hurts food appeals to me. I searched online for a store that sells bento boxes and supplies in Manhattan, but came up with nothing. So a few weekends ago when I had some spare time, I logged into Jbox.com and bought myself some bento-making supplies.

Here's my dilemma: There are all kinds of bento, from colored plastic ones with cartoon characters to traditional lacquered wooden boxes, as well as tons of adorable sauce bottles, animal-shaped plastic picks, food shapers, and how-to books, all shipped from Japan. Anyone who knows me is probably aware of my incredible weakness to cute things. It was so hard for me not to overspend and splurge on the expensive, pretty sakura-patterned bento boxes and buy too many cute accessories, but I kept reminding myself that I was a starving art student and could not afford to waste money. Here's what I wound up with:

Pink snap-closure bento box with a rubber seal ($3.50)
Pink plastic chopsticks with case ($2.80)
Reusable silicon bear-shaped separators ($2.80)
Reusable silicon food cups ($2.80)

Total: $11.90, plus $6.55 shipping.

Not bad, huh? They arrived just today, and they are ridiculously cute, just like everything else that comes out of Japan (except maybe Godzilla...). I'm excited about bringing lunch for Monday's classes (hahaha I'm such a loser). What shall I make?

A few weeks ago, as way of preparation to making my own lunch, I made onigiri for dinner. For those uninitiated, onigiri are rice balls, traditionally shaped into triangles (but you can make them into any shape you want--here's a Pikachu onigiri shaper on Jbox.) and often with some sort of filling. You can also make your onigiri plain, or spice up the rice with furikake (rice seasoning that comes in lots of different flavors--salmon is my favorite). There are lots of different ways to make onigiri, and it's pretty versatile, so you can experiment with the rice, fillings, and decorations and have fun with your food.


My favorite salmon furikake. At $4 a jar, it's a touch expensive, but it makes plain white rice so much more fun.

The most important part of the onigiri is the rice, which should be glutinous enough to stick together without being smushed into rice paste. Japanese round-grain rice is best, but I've also heard of the rice used to make risotto being a successful alternative.

The onigiri I made for Mi, E, and I were plain and unfilled, made with round-grain brown rice and flavored with onigiri seasoning from an Asian supermarket, and shaped into a triangle.










This miso soup was made by E. I love miso soup, and it was so good, I had two bowls.

Part of Parsons' Foundation Year classes is a course called "Laboratory" on Thursdays, which is essentially a getting-to-know-NYC sort of thing. In Lab, we have to do group projects, one a week. The thing is, all of us are so busy with homework from all of our other classes, that our Lab project inevitably winds up being done on Wednesday night. Two Wednesdays ago, my group consisting of Mi, E, and JSK were in the Art Room in the basement of our building working on our project at 2 in the morning, when E and I decided we could all use some food and went upstairs to cook up this:


Teriyaki Noodles with Zucchini and Carrots. We made enough to feed our whole class and brought it down to the Art Room in a huge mixing bowl.



Another new discovery we made this past week is Vanessa's Dumplings, restaurant located at 220 East 14th Street that specializes in handmade Chinese dumplings and meat or veggie-filled buns, as well as various other Chinese comfort foods. Plus, they have bubble tea, and delivery on orders $10 or more. This past Wednesday, Mi, E, JSK and I were working late (again) on our latest Lab project, and decided to order some dumplings and bubble tea.


Have I ever mentioned how I love bubble tea? Some people are weirded out by the little tapioca balls in the bottom of the drink, but I love chasing them around with the extra-wide straw. My favorite flavor is the original plain milk tea made with milk and black tea. Mi and JSK both decided to get the Taro flavor, which I took a sip of. It's sweeter than the black tea version and colored purple, and I liked it--maybe I'll try something new next time. Vanessa's $2.99 bubble teas are the cheapest of any that I've encountered in NYC thus far, which have run from $3.50-$4.50 a cup.

JSK enjoying her taro bubble tea.

I've been thinking about making dumplings or wontons for a while. Dumplings are easy to make at home (my grandma taught me when I was 3) and a nice cheap, hot meal. Vanessa's potstickers, or fried dumplings, are $1.99 each, so why not? To accompany our bubble tea, Mi and I both ordered a serving of dumplings. I got the cabbage and pork dumplings, and Mi got vegetable dumplings. I loved mine, but Mi didn't like hers too much. The idea of a dumpling with no meat seems odd to the me that has always only had pork dumplings. Maybe they weren't meant to be vegetarian.




Oh, and newsflash: Yumi gets hit by a car! As I was crossing the street, a silver sedan came hurtling out of nowhere and I walked right into it. Luckily for me the wheels needed some air, and they only ran over the tips of my toes. They're fine. The real damage is to my left arm. Both of my arms smacked into the windshield, but my left wrist took most of the blow. I was too intent on getting to class on time to even pay much attention to the brief pain of the collision (and for the record, no, the driver did not stop). The real pain set in later--a dull, crushing hurt in my wrist and forearm. All my fingers are working, so it's not broken--a visit to my university's Health Center revealed that I had managed to fracture my wrist and make mincemeat of the surrounding tissue and ligaments. Wonderful.

(Conversely, the enormous bruise blossoming on the inside of my wrist prompted my classmate JN to comment on how the bruise looked like a hickey made by a dog, which led to an ensuing misunderstanding between me and another classmate, S, who for a whole hour thought I was "like one of those fetish people who train their dogs to lick peanut butter off their genitals".)

Anyway, it should heal in a few weeks given that I'm very, extremely careful with it. I can still type, but it can't support any weight, and any attempts to twist my wrist to either side results in a stabbing pain in my arm bone. I'm at a loss at what to do for my 3D class, the only class in which I really do need full use of both my arms to work the various machinery (they have a heat gun! I can't wait to try it out).

Fire Alarm Count: 33.

Midterms are coming around, so I should be pretty busy in the next few weeks...

I Forget to Eat, and Ensuing Failures

Fire Alarm Count: 31

One of these was at 4:30 am. Seriously? Seriously? Who the fudge (it's censored because my mother reads this blog. Hi mom!) is cooking badly/smoking at this hour? If it were up to me, I would demand to know the identity of the guilty culprit and then cheerfully beat them to death. Which is, of course, why it's not up to me.

All ranting aside...so the past week has been fairly eventful, food-wise. The main thing being, of course, that this Friday, I forgot to eat. Yes. That's right. Those of you who know me well will know how absolutely shocking this is, considering usually all I think about is my stomach. 9/10 times you catch me zoning out whenever, it is likely not my next fabulous art project that I'm thinking about. It is what I'm going to make for dinner. So for me to forget about that...well...let's see how this happened...

Friday morning: I don't have time to eat. This is not unusual.
Noon: I have forgotten my 3 objects of which I must draw for Drawing class. Feel like an idiot. Run back to my dormitory during my 1-hour break to get said objects. Grab a hot dog w/ ketchup and mustard along the way. It is not particularly filling, and I debate buying some other sort of junky fast food on the way back, but decide I don't have time to eat it.
10 pm: Texting The Boyfriend, I realize that my hands are shaking and that I barely have enough energy to stand thanks to my relative lack of energy input.

Upon realizing that all I've had is a hot dog all day...I run to the fridge and find...nothing. Ever since class started, Mi, E, and I haven't been cooking daily like we used to. Which means, of course, that our fridge is not nearly as well-stocked as I would like it to be. There was a smallish bowlful of dried, days-old rice on the countertop and a bag of frozen mixed veggies in the freezer. After much scrambling, I come up with this:



Brown Rice Porridge with Mixed Veggies.

Basically, I rehydrated the dried-out rice in a pot with about a cup and a half of water, then tossed in half a cup of frozen vegetables. The bowl on the left contains cucumbers pickled in soy sauce, which is a common Chinese side dish eaten with rice porridge. Not pictured here is the bowl of sliced vine-ripened tomato I marinated in a bit of oil with a large pinch each of salt, sugar, and chopped fresh basil. On the right, you see some of the delicious chicken that E brought back from home.

In fact, the chicken was so delicious I feel the need to elaborate on it....



This is what I had for dinner about a week ago. Brown rice with fries and spicy Korean chili-chicken. That's not the official name--I'll have to ask E what it is as some point and then beg for the recipe because I must have this chicken again sometime. It is the best chicken ever.

Er...so if you care, even a little, about my nutty cooking exploits in college, you may wonder, So what have you done lately?

I'm working on this microwave cooking business. I swear. But the thing is, some things just don't cook the same way in a microwave as it does in an oven...as my latest cooking disaster will prove.



Cheesecake. I love cheesecake, always have, even when I was a little kid. I think it's pretty odd--cheesecake is a pretty "adult" dessert, isn't it? Either way, at all the parties my parents ever went to, I was the only kid there that ever wanted the cheesecake. And when I figured out last year that I could make it on my own...

Anyway, I've gotten pretty good at cheesecake. The original recipe is from Kraft Foods, but ever since following this recipe to the T the very first time I made it, I've been continuously tweaking it according to suggestions by the people who've eaten it (and my personal taste, of course), and here's what I've come up with. It's more than pretty good, and really, I'm not one to brag about my cooking too much, because I'm starting out and mediocre at best...in my opinion this is the very best thing I make. My dad approves of it. Which, I assure you, is a big, big deal. Because my dad is the pickiest eater in the world. He'll eat anything, but for him to actually like it and have nothing critical to say...well, that is a rarity. Trust me.

Yumi's New York-Style Cheesecake

1 cup graham crackers, crushed
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, melted
1 1/4 cup sugar
4 pkg. (8 oz. each) cream cheese, softened
Don't even try to soften these cream cheese packets in the microwave. Don't do it. You'll just make your microwave explode. If you must microwave, take them out of the packets and do it at 30-second intervals. Or better yet, just take them out a couple hours ahead of time and let them soften on their own.
1 container (16 oz.) sour cream
1/4 cup flour
4 eggs
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp vanilla

~Heat oven to 325 degrees F.
~Beat cream cheese, flour, baking powder, 1 cup sugar, and 1 tsp vanilla together until well blended.
~Add 1 cup sour cream, and then the eggs 1 at a time. Beat on low speed until it's smooth, creamy, and delicious.
~Mix the graham cracker crumbs and melted butter together to make the crust. I usually pulverize the graham crackers in a food processor and then add the butter, but this time in my dormitory with no food processor to be found, I did with a mixing bowl and the bottom of a Pyrex measuring cup. Turned out just fine.
~Press the crust mixture into a pan. I prefer a 13x9" pan lined with aluminum foil, but sometimes we can't always have what we want. You can basically use any sort of oven-safe container you deem acceptable. Please remember that aluminum foil CANNOT go into the microwave. Please. Chuck your container into the oven and let it bake for 10 minutes, then pull it out.
~Pour your cream cheese mixture over the crust and then bake for another 40 minutes, or until it no longer jiggles like Jell-O.
~Beat the remaining sour cream, sugar, and vanilla together, and spread it over the cheesecake. Bake for another 10 minutes, then pop it in the refrigerator for 4 hours to chill.

Makes enough for...well, it depends on how big (or small) you slice it, but from my experience if you bring this to a party with known cheesecake eaters, there probably won't be any left by the end of the night. So do what I do--make two, and leave one at home. Just for you.

Do be warned, this cheesecake will rack up the calories like no other. It is an indulgence. Completely worth the two pantsizes, in my opinion, but then again...I would do so much for a good cheesecake.


Okay, amazing recipe aside, when I tried to make it yesterday, it flat-out bombed. I get the feeling it was some combination of my botching the order of mixing the ingredients together, and the fact that I microwaved it (I can hear all the anti-microwave-chefs around the world gasping right now...get over it). In any case, while the taste was exactly as I remember it, the texture did not come out right at all. Instead of being smooth and dense like it's supposed to, it had a curdled consistency vaguely resembling the steamed, beaten egg my grandma used to make me for breakfast when I was a kid in China. Which isn't entirely unpleasant, but disturbing enough when you're expecting thick creamy cheesecake. Here's what it looks like:



The Boyfriend, who had come to visit and was the reason for my attempting this in a microwave in the first place, swears it isn't bad and ate both the mini ramekin-cakes I made, but I don't believe him. I guess I've spoiled myself on my "perfect" cheesecake, because I couldn't bring myself to finish even one. I was too put off by the consistency. In fact, I was too depressed by this abject failure to even use all of the cheesecake mixture I had made (and I'd halved the recipe). Instead I just shoved it into the back of the fridge and crawled into bed.

Today, faced with the dilemma of needing my mixing bowl back, I decided that the main problem with this newest cooking exploit was the microwave. That darn microwave. I don't have this microwave business quite figured out yet, but I was unwilling to ruin any more perfectly yummy cheesecake mixture by microwaving it. So this is what I did instead:



Pressed the remainder of the crust crumbs into the bottom of a clean plastic dish left over from one of Mi's microwave meals, poured the chilled cream cheese-sour cream mixture on top, decorated it with sliced strawberries, and left it in the freezer. It's still there. I'll tell you how it turns out. I'm too nervous to try it now...

So instead, here's a picture of what I had for lunch today. Fried rice with mixed veggies, onions, and vine-ripened tomato. Nothing special, but the colors are pretty...and it was very tasty, in a homey sort of way. Not that I'm getting homesick or anything. Really.

Food is Best Eaten Outside

Fire Alarm Count: 28

And let it be known that two of last week's alarms had me tramping down 11 flights of stairs in 5" stiletto heels. Don't ask me why. Just know it happened.

Sooooo...this past weekend I went camping for the first time ever. With a bunch of Russian people. Make that a few hundred Russian people. There was a lot of singing and smoking and drinking and wasp-catching. And there was beer pong, although I (sadly) did not partake. I think if I ever have a normal camp experience now, it will be boring as hell.

But still...there were some interesting experiences. For one, I drank a whole 2 mL of vodka (seriously, I probably just dipped the tip of my tongue in it) and it burned so bad I wanted to spit it out. Vodka is not for me.

I also tried a mouthful of bourbon, which didn't go much better. Between you dear blog readers and myself, I nearly gagged it back up despite the fact that I have better-than-average control over my gag reflex. I was still not prepared for that burn. I don't understand why anyone drinks spirits, seriously. I can easily foresee myself going to bars and being THAT ONE that orders all the fruity pink drinks with goddamn paper umbrellas in them, and then getting completely hammered because it doesn't taste like alcohol AT ALL. Yes. Mind you, being a 105 lb. Asian girl I will probably get hammered anyway trying to keep up with my RUSSIAN boyfriend, who can apparently put away half a bottle of vodka and come out sober in a couple hours. That bastard.

Ahem.

Aaaaanywaaaaayyy...on to the food. Camp food.


I am starving just remembering this. Normally I don't even like wheat bread, but GAH. I will eat anything with cream cheese, lox, and tomato on it.

Dammit, I'm hungry.



And just like that, my ironclad will is broken and yes I WILL be splurging for that $14.99 package of smoked salmon at Trader Joe's. It's worth it. To me, at least. Because I looooooooove salmon. I would totally marry it--EXCEPT I HAVE A BOYFRIEND. WHOM I LOVE. Yes.


Erm...that bit of weirdness aside...not only was there awesome food there were awesome people.


Guy on the left is A. The Boyfriend is on the left. A kept hitting on me and I kept expecting The Boyfriend to leap up in a fit of jealous rage and tear A's head off. But apparently being mutually Russian crosses unseen boundaries of friendship and makes hitting on one another's girlfriends acceptable. So it's all gooooood. Because I like A. On a totally platonic level, that is. Because HE IS TOO YOUNG FOR ME AND I AM NOT A PEDOPHILE.

Nah, just kidding. He's not that much younger than me. >_<;; OhmygodIswearI'mnota40yearoldcreeper. (You can tell it's time for me to go to bed when I start talking like this).
So next up on the list is D (there were a lot more people there than just A and D, but I didn't get any photos of them because I'm a loser). This photo is a gem. Why, yes, that is a double cheeseburger he is cramming into his mouth. And not a wimpy one like you get at BK, either. A few minutes prior to this epic moment, an exchange between D and A went something like this:

D: A, MAKE ME A DOUBLE CHEESEBURGER WITH ALL THE TOPPINGS!
A: Yes, dear~!

Basically, these two get the position of Honorary Gay Couple.


Okay, so that photo of the lox and tomato is making me SO HUNGRY and it is LATE and I want food dammit. But it will have to wait for morning *emo tear* because it is more imperative at the moment that I shower and go to bed so I can wake up a 7 am tomorrow.

Edit:// Correction, apparently A is the same age as me. I'm not sure why I thought he was a year younger...In fact, we have the exact same birthday. Life is funny like that.

Simplicity, Midnight Snack 2, and a Tiny Extravagance.

This is what I had for dinner last night:


E made it for the two of us--chilled oriental-style noodles with scallions, seasoned with sesame oil and soy sauce. Simple, but delicious. Simplicity is good.

Simple Sesame-Soy Sauce Noodles

2 servings of thin oriental-style noodles
1 tbsp scallions, chopped
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil

~Cook the noodles in boiling water. Drain and rinse quickly in cold water to prevent sticking.
~Separate into two bowls and chill to slightly below room temperature.
~Divvy up the scallions, soy sauce, and sesame oil and mix it in good.

Makes enough for 2.

And then around 3 am, we decided to have a midnight feast, and Mi, E, and I each contributed something. tamagoyaki (rolled eggs) with nori and carrots from Mi, stir-fried green beans with garlic and onions from E, and mashed potatoes from me.


Garlicky Mashed Potatoes

7 baby russet potatoes (or 2-3 normal-sized ones), scrubbed
1/4 cup whole milk
2 tbsp butter or margarine
1/2 tbsp garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste

~Boil the potatoes in a pot until it is soft and easily poked into with a chopstick/fork.
You can peel the potatoes if you want. I didn't.
~Drain the water and start mashing up the soft potatoes. I did my mashing with a wooden spoon. If you have a potato masher, that's great, otherwise a fork or something works fine too.
~Add the milk and continue mashing until it's your desired consistency. I prefer my mashed potatoes a little chunky, so I didn't mash them completely smooth.
~Add the butter/margarine, and season with salt and pepper according to your tastes.

Makes about 3 servings, depending on the size of your potatoes.

Just as we were in the middle of eating our feast, the fire alarm rang. At 3:30 am.

Fire Alarm Count: 24

I woke up at 3 pm today, so my eating schedule has been erratic. I had a handful of Swedish Fish after getting up, and then some shrimp-flavored crackers which tided me over until evening. Then I decided to make myself a little snack.

Mi, E, and I went to Koreantown yesterday, and in the supermarket there was an entire freezer in the back with sushi supplies: fish, octopus, and different types of roe, including salmon, tobiko (flying fish) and masago (sweetfish/capelin). I picked up a little 0.3 lb container of masago for $4.50. It's a splurge for me, because how full can that tiny container make me, really? But we all have our priorities, and since the only other thing I've dropped a lot of money on lately is my Brita pitcher (which I consider an investment) and I've been pretty tightfisted with my funds, I decided to indulge a little bit. Just a little.

Tonight I was in the mood for eggs. I'm sure for many, fish eggs with chicken eggs sounds odd, but for me it sounds delicious. And it was. Scrambled eggs topped with masago. I love roe (most foreign canned caviar is too salty for my taste, I prefer the lighter variety used for sushi), but tobiko or masago is my favorite because they're so tiny that the little explosion of salt in your mouth is more pronounced. Plus, the colors were gorgeous.


For some people who are probably curious...no, I haven't gone out to any parties or gone clubbing even though I've been in NYC for almost a month. Nor have I yet gotten drunk, high, or knocked up. Instead I find it more fun to stay in my room, cook good food and write on this blog. Yes, I make a lame college student, I know. But you're reading this, aren't you?


Edit://

Okay, one last snack before I take a shower and hit the sack...



This is another treat I picked up at the Korean supermarket--a pack of 6 mochi, two white, two pink, and two green. For those of you who don't know what mochi is, it's a sticky rice paste cake filled with a sweet filling. This filling is traditionally red bean paste, but a popular twist on this traditional food is filling it with ice cream instead. Either way, it's a yummy dessert or a late-night snack. I had a pink one, and E had a white one.

The Korean Version of Fried Rice

It's been a while since I posted. Class has started, and the workload is ridiculous--I get the feeling that the professors are trying to keep up the 51% dropout rate of the graduating Fashion Design (which is what I'm going for) students.

Fire Alarm Count: 23

Tonight, Esther cooked dinner for us. She made a popular Korean dish, essentially rice with mixed different vegetables, meat, and a spicy chili paste. It's a fairly simple and versatile dish conceptually but there are a lot of components and thusly a lot of ways it could go wrong. As she said, when the Chinese had fried rice, the Koreans had...



Bi Bim Bap

4 slices (1/8 pound) bulgogi beef
2 tbsp bulgogi marinade
you should be able to find the beef and marinade in an Asian market.
1/4 cup shiitake mushrooms, sliced
1 cup cooked short grain rice
it's important that it's short grain, because long grain rice doesn't have the correct texture for this dish.
1/2 cup romaine lettuce, chopped
1/4 cup soybean sprouts
1 tbsp Korean chili paste (add more or less to taste)
2 sheets 3x4" Korean nori seaweed
Korean, not Japanese (the kind you use for sushi), because Korean nori is crisper and tastier by itself.
1 egg

~Mix the beef and marinade in a bowl and refrigerate for 1 hour. Then remove it from the marinade and cut it into 1/2" slices.
~Heat some oil in a frying pan and stir-fry the beef with the mushrooms on medium-high heat until cooked.
~Blanch the soybean sprouts in boiling water for 30 seconds.
~Fry the egg sunny-side up.
~Arrange the bowl in this order if you want it to look pretty (if you don't care, you can probably throw it all in in any old order): rice, lettuce, sprouts, beef and mushrooms, egg, and chili paste. Shred the nori sheets and add it to the bowl.
~Mix it all together and eat!

This is for 1 person, but obviously you can double or triple (like we did) the recipe easily.

*This is a spicy dish! It's not the kind of spicy that smacks you in the face--rather, the chili paste tends to seem not very spicy when you first taste it, then creep up on you slowly. It's not very spicy (proof is that I could eat it without downing 3 glasses of water), but, y'know...just a word of caution.