Trickster Tofu Lettuce Wraps

I tricked you, didn't I?

Into thinking that you were eating chicken, because of the color. Or Chinese duck, because of the traditional leaf wrap. Or a taco of some sort? Because of the avocado.

PSYCH. You have all fallen into my diabolical, vegetarian TRAP! QUEUE EVIL LAUGHTER.

Sorry, I amuse easily. Or watch too much batman. Or both. 

But seriously, these lettuce wraps are bomb-diggity-freaking-gewd. So good, that the baking-hiatus doesn't sting as much. They're the Watson to my Sherlock (shout out to the BEST SHOW ON TELEVISION. sherlock4lyfe). The Selena Carlyle to my Batman.  Don't think of it as deception, think of it as a gift, from me to you. Think of it as sweet baby jesus wrapped in a lettuce leaf, that is how splendid they are.

They are healthy.

And easy to make.

With a delicious taste

That fills even *my* bell-eh

You don't need that many ingredients

And they are very...

...very photogenic 

Tell me you don't want to come over here and gobble one of these up right now. I dare you to.

Difficulty: 2
Willingness to make again: 10 10 10 10 10 10 10
Over-all: 9.9
Notes:
1) Next time, going to add some crushed peanut on top to make it more crunchy, because frozen corn isn't as crunchy as fresh corn off a husk is (and no, I am never going to buy regular corn over frozen corn, ever. Sue me)

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2012/02/vegetarian-lettuce-wraps/

Peanut Butter Jelly Cookies of Death x2: A Beautiful but Sinful Modification

Oh...My...God.

This is what rock bottom must feel like.

Like 9 cookies being engulfed alone, in your kitchen, at 11:30 pm.

I can't believe I just shared that. Please do not judge me. I already sort of hate myself.

Am I the only one who also finds this mouth watering as well? Yes, just me? Then I'll just take...that...and hideinacornertoeatitbymyself. CIAO~

Remember when I made those peanut butter fudge cookies of death that one time and practically morphed into a baby killer whale?

Well, as they always say: become a baby killer whale once, shame on you.
Become a baby killer whale twice.....jesus christ....WHYYYY did I not heed my own advice? *shoots self*

merp

Because, as I mentioned in that past post, I wanted to remake these cookies with jelly, that's why. And I finally did it.

                                       

And now I am going to sound like a bi-polar hypocrite. But o-my-GAWD what a beautiful idea. They tasted amazing. Phenomenal. SEN-sational. OUT OF THIS WORLD DELICIOUS. mMMMMMmm mmMMmm MMM. I die.

Zero regrets. Baking with jelly is the next. big. thing. people, you heard it here first. It is simply the best.

Just the right amount of sweet. Soft without being overly gooey. Delicious granola crunch. Warm gooey jelly. Perfect peanut butter flavoring.

Hey, hey, you....JELLY....right now?

Over-all: 9.9
Willingness to make again: ...... *
Notes:
1) Since I was low on oats, I used some of the Mom's healthy cereal to make up for it. BEST IMPROVISATION EVER. The cereal was delicious and added more crunch than the oats would have alone. 
2) AGAIN, did not put enough jelly on top. I keep forgetting that that shiz spreads like no other. GUHHH, should have learned the first time with the chocolate sauce. STUPID STUPID STUPID.

You can see from these two photos how unattractive the jelly looks post-baked, because I didn't add enough :( 

But the important thing is that it still tastes like a million angels singing in your mouth

* So, here's the thing. While I really do have no regrets on my epic consummation of love with these beautiful, sinfully glorious cookies, it did serve as a wake up call. I may have a problem. With sweets. And eating them at a rate that will shoot me straight into obesity with zero pit stops. And it's sad because now I just want to bake with jelly every day of my life. And then eat it for the rest of my life. But I think I am going to go on a baking hiatus for awhile. Because who am I kidding? "Sharing my sweets with my co workers and friends lalala I am so nice!" really translates into...well...eating 9 cookies straight out of the oven at 11:30 pm. Sigh.

Here you can see me a fatty little asian girl noming on cookie batter with chopsticks. Oh wait, that's me.

So from now on I am going to try to distract myself by finding extra bombdiggity savory recipes. These are more useful to me anyhow because I need basic sustenance to survive when I go back to school, not cookies and more cookies (sadface) (being a responsible adult sucks).

TL;DR: Jennifer the baker is currently on hiatus after a (orgasmic) unfortunate incident. Please leave a message while she drowns in her own tears, after the beep. 


*BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP* 

UPGRADED Vegetarian Stir Fry; Thanks Ma!

I can't get enough of veggie stir fry. It's just...so...good. Always. Just because I'm livin' yooooung and wiiiillllld & freeeeee, doesn't mean I don't appreciate some consistency once in awhile.

This is upgraded from the last time I made stir fry because the Mom gave me some great tips, and she taught me something called "gou qian," which is a process that will get your stir fry to have a nice, thick texture to it. AKA: make it 100x better.

All the advice from the Mom accumulated to make a much more outstanding dish of stir fry. To the point where I willingly listened to the Mom's instructions, and am now publicly acknowledging how right it all is. That's how you know this is kind of a big deal.

Advice 1: On What to Fry First - Last 
The Mom gave me advice on what the best order of frying the veggies would be to avoid burning and maximize flavor:
1) oil + cong
2) add the garlic
3) add the onions (NOTE: white onions > red onions, in my humble opinion)
4) add the mushrooms (fry until nice and brown. MORE COLOR = MORE FLAVOR = maximized amount of happiness)
5) broccoli

Advice 2: On Making your Broccoli Firm but Soft and Yummy 
1) boil a pot of water (bad images of chickpeas BEGONE)
2) dump your cut broccoli into said pot
3) let water boil again
4) take out steaming broccoli, dump out hot water, and rinse with cold water immediately afterwards

Okay, WARNING: impending nerd alert.

But this process makes sense because you are manipulating the turgidity of the broccoli. By heating the broccoli you are denaturing enzymes and making it softer, but by immediately cleansing with cold water you are reversing the osmosis within the plant cells. Extra water means the solute concentration is higher inside the cells than outside, causing an inward flow of water into the plant cells, thereby expanding their cell walls and making them turgid (nice and hard, that's what she said) as opposed to limp.

WOOO applications of plant bio FTW. Except not, because plant bio is still the absolute worst of all things.

Advice 3: On how to Gou Qian 
1) add some salt and wei jing AFTER all your vegetables have been added and mix in
2)  then take a spoonful of starch and dissolve it in some water
3) pour solution into the skillet and continue mixing in
4) mix THOROUGHLY so you do not get weird starchy clumps

Okay, I am sorry, I'm sorry!!!! But, NERD ALERT PART 2:

Here we see that by adding salt, the water and juices of the veggies will start flowing out onto the skillet, because now the water concentration is much lower in the skillet than in the veggies. Utilizing this, we add the starch, which will combine with these yummy veggie juices to produce a nice, thick, almost syrupy mixture that adds a delicious texture to the vegetables. They don't get soggy, but just make the veggies thicker.
(READ: SCIENCE IS COOL???)

Over-all: 9.9!!

And now, to completely undo all the intelligent-science-chick points that I earned with a question: does anyone else have a really hard time spelling brocolli,  brocalli BRO-CC-OLI?? Or is it just me. Because my post is filled with these ridiculously annoying red squiggly lines of death right now. And no matter how many times I have to write BROCCOLI, I keep getting it wrong. It's demoralizing. It is almost making me not want to make broccoli ever again just to preserve what small shred of dignity and self-worth I have left.

Psych. This stir fry is toooo good to quit over a lack of elementary spelling skills. I'll just have to live with the fact that I can describe the biological processes behind my cooking but cannot spell the vegetable I am cooking in the first place.

WELCOME TO MY LIFE. 

Alas! Zee Crepe!

Finally got my act together and used the left over "pancake" batter to purposely make a crepe.

with whip and strawberries

doesn't it look like a burrito?

Took a few failed attempts and the Mom's intervention to finally figure out how to make the crepe paper thin. (spread spread spread!)

But I am happy that we used all the batter without wasting it. And this crepe was deeeeeelicious.

I officially decree Crepes > Pancakes

POST-DARK KNIGHT RISES PB Tofu Take 2

Obligatory:

YOU GUYS I WAS AT THE DARK KNIGHT RISES MIDNIGHT PREMIERE LAST NIGHT AND IT WAS AWESOME NOW I AM REWATCHING ALL THE ANIMATED BATMAN EPISODES I CANNOT STOP BATMAN4LYFEEEEEEE.

Okay, I'm done.

the sauce turned out much better this time

So I kept my word and decided to make some peanut sauce tofu. I was super wiped out today after sleeping at 4 am, waking up at 9 am to go see Walter Lewin speak at MIT, then hauling my butt into work, before taking an hour to commute back home.

zzzzZZZZZZzzz I am p o o p e d out.

Which is why delicious, but super easy-to make tofu sounded especially appealing today.

I am very happy to report that this tofu turned out much better than the first version I made at the beginning of summer. I just used the peanut sauce recipe from Wednesday and fried it with some tofu.

Difficulty: 3.5
Willingness to make again: 10 (practice makes perfect! I am very invested in tweaking/perfecting this recipe. I think we already covered that tofu+pb=eternal happiness)
Over-all: 8.5
Notes:
1) FORGOT TO TOAST PEANUTS  :( I think that really would have added a nice extra crunch. Next time!!
2) Should add more salt to it as I am frying
3) Out of a spontaneous impulse to be healthy, I bought this peanut butter substitute:

While still good, it definitely has a slightly different flavor from normal pb.

4) So this time I had a lot of sauce in ratio with my tofu (more than 1:1), but as I continued to fry the tofu the extra sauce became to solidify into super tasty pb chunks that significantly added to the tofu and gave some extra crunch to the dish. TL;DR: MORE SAUCE = GOOD

5) Maybe try with more cong next time?

Now just need to muster the energy to do some Insanity before I really melt into a lump of Batman-watching lard. I just finished downloading all four seasons of the Animated Batman Series! The fun just never ends; life is goooood (read: extra screwed for GRE). Is there such thing as too much Batman? Leading up to the movie, I finished watching all of Batman Beyond. And now this. Regardless, can't stop won't stop. Shameless die-hard super hero geeks, UNITE! Wait...that might just be me.

Debbie Downer's Peanut Butter Noodles

You know how I got to spend my Wednesday evening? Walking through pouring rain. And thunder. And lightening. In my totally not waterproof sandals and a romper.

BLARG is right my friends. Blarg indeed...

And as if that wasn't bad enough, I had the worst lunch ever. I basically had a lettuce and guacamole (READ: green paste) "sandwich" (atrocity) from Subway (satan's love child). Wasting a precious meal on something as  disgusting as ^that, is just down-right tragic. It gave me the moops. It made me sit dramatically at a windowsill and stare absently into the rain, existentially questioning my life and who I am in the universe.

Haha, just kidding. But not about the moops.

Okay, now I know this is the part where the sun miraculously starts shining through the clouds and I pull a rainbow out of a unicorn's butt, and everything goes from Greek Tragedy to My Little Pony. But I am afraid I am going to have to disappoint.

Because the peanut noodles I tried to make for dinner did not turn out all that great. What can I say? My life ain't a movie folks. Sometimes bad days conclude with bad endings.

Wow okay, in hindsight, I realize I am being kind of a drama queen. But if you must know, my life revolves around two core pillars: weather and food. Mess with both, and you are almost guaranteed to be able to write a soap opera about me. 

Fine, ONE bright side: the peanut sauce is really yummy and easy to make. The main issue was that we didn't have enough peanut butter, so we didn't have enough sauce in ratio with the amount of noodles we cooked. Resulting in really bland noodles...moops.

Difficulty: 5 

Willingness to make again: 8 (I want to keep making the sauce, but put it on TOFU) 

Over-all: 4 (PEANUT SAUCE: 8)

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2012/02/spicy-peanut-noodle-salad-with-cucumbers-red-peppers-recipe.html?ref=title

Notes:

1) the recipe said the veggies should be added raw, but the Parents were very vocal in insisting it would have tasted better if they were cooked. So will do that next time for sure.

2) the Dad taught me a cheater's method to toasting peanuts: put them on a plate with oil and microwave it. *

3) the sauce will probably be better next time when we have more peanut butter. 

*Only guess what guys, turns out this walking disaster isn't the only one who makes mistakes in the kitchen. Because look what the Dad did:

HAHAHA. THAT ^right there is the rainbow out of my unicorn's butt.