Fulfilling Hunger Cravings

You know, you have those moments where even a intricately composed culinary dish would not be enough to cure a craving for some good, REGULAR food. Well, maybe you don't, but for me this craving was a grilled cheese sandwich. Ah, yes. Melted cheese and whatever other concoctions of my desire pressed between two perfectly toasted toasts, toasty in the outside and soft in the inside. (From here on forward I will try my best to refrain from using the word "toast".)I developed a craving for a nice grilled cheese sandwich when I saw a picture of one online. I have the tendency to look at pictures of food when I'm really hungry. It's like torture, but really, really good torture. I don't really think there's really much of a right way to make a grilled cheese. I say, you use whatever cheese you have in hand and add whatever additional ingredients you want between two slices of bread. Put that bad boy on a oiled pan on low heat and golden both sides ( I like goldening better than browning). Sometimes you'll have to keep the pan covered to make sure the cheese completely melts. The result is absolutely heavenly, even if you screw up. Oh God, this is not a good time to be talking about food. I'm so hungry right now! Good day to you.

PS I broke hollandaise sauce. I suck. Oh well. Too bad so sad.

Yesterday: Fail. Today: Fail. I wonder what tomorrow holds?

My cooking spree is starting to turn into a cooking fail.
I feel like the ultimate noob of cooking. It's discouraging, but on a more optimistic note it drives me to become better (or that's what I tell myself to make myself feel better.)

Fail Day 1
Yesterday I was the assigned snack person for my church. Determined not to spend my hard-earned money on petty supermarket snacks, I decided to bake my own snacks and share them. I made banana bread (it's vegan!) and snickerdoodles. The banana bread is really easy to make, but somehow it didn't taste as good as I remembered. It was moist, yes, but taste-wise it was a little bland. It might have been because I only added 1/4 cups of sugar for the sake of health, but that had never been an issue in the past. Gasp...I'm losing my touch!! The snickerdoodles were worse. Because I was out of butter, I substituted margarine. Bad news. My dough was an utter disaster. Rather than being stiff as it should have been, it was pasty and difficult to mold. In the end the textures of the cookies came out okay, but the taste was a little off. I was not happy. People said they enjoyed it, but to me, it was an utter fail. I'm losing my touch. Is it possible that I am getting worse at cooking the more I do it?
On a brighter note, that night I made a chicken pasta casserole-esque dish. It was pretty delicious. Or so I thought. My sister loves this stuff, but she wasn't home by the time I was done with it. I saved her a serving and she ate it the next day, only to report that it was bland and not my best work. My mom made me feel better by saying that the reheated pasta was not as good as the fresh one. I suppose she's right. My sister missed out.

Fail Day 2.
Today was my dad's birthday. I think he is 53 now. Anyway, after coming home from school at 2, where my day started at 5:30 am. I had tutoring from 4-6. I went to the store to buy groceries for my dad's birthday dinner. And cooked from 7-9-30. Wow. I was tired. I tried to make chicken duxelles with supreme sauce (a dish that was demonstrated to me in class the previous week) and tried to make some hodduk (the korean snack with the cinnamon sugar and peanut feeling). I misread the recipe for the hodduk. To make a long story short, after 2 hours I came to realize that my hodduk dough was crap and could not be utilized. Sadness. I labored over the chicken to redeem myself for the failure in making the hodduk for my dad. I made the filling for the chicken. Pretty damn good. I made the sauce, consistency was nice. Just when things start to look good, failure stabs me from behind, then takes a cheap shot by kicking me in the stomach while I'm down. I seasoned the sauce when it was the consistency of motor oil and left it on low heat to keep it warm. I guess warm is too high, my sauce continued to reduce and it was kind of salty. I put the chicken with the stuffing in the oven. My dad came home in a bad mood (it's a long story). Feeling the pressure, I took the chicken out of the oven. It looked kind of done from the outside, but my instinct said it should stay in the oven longer. Again, Long story short...I didn't follow my instincts and the chicken was OF COURSE undercooked. I mean, it tasted good in the long run, aside from the slightly salty sauce. However, I'm exhausted, I'm not feeling very proud of myself, and I suck.

Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.
Maybe.

Good thing I watched this video. It really made me feel better. NO joke. Watch it!

Buttery, Saucy Goodness

Today, I made steak, potatoes, and green beans with Chausseur Sauce, which is a type of white wine brown sauce. The steps are simply butter, shallots, quartered mushrooms, tomato concassee, thyme and basil (oregano is optional), white wine (reduced til au sec, meaning nearly dry), demiglace, simmer until it is the right consistency, season if necessary, garnish with parsley, monter au beurre (adding butter), plate, eat, then get fat. Simple as that. Simply delicious.
Our critique from Chef was that the sauce was good, the potatoes had good color on them, but the green beans could have been blanched for a while longer for better color. I was so proud of myself today, but then I remembered I used demiglace (which goes into the Chausseur Sauce) that Chef had made during his demonstration. Maybe that might have contributed to the sauce being good...oh well! It was yummy and I destroyed the plate in a blink. I had an incident, which happens more than I'd like, where I am eating so quickly that the food actually misses my mouth. There were two people who witnessed my lack of coordination and they looks on their faces said it all: Did that really just happen?
What a LOSER!

I burned my finger trying to get the pan out of the oven. I was cursing up a storm and it still stings. At least I got a good meal out of it.

PS picture quality sucks because it was taken with my cell phone (and as a side note, my cell phone REALLY sucks.)

Bringing in True Yellow into White America

Just recently i started to think about Asian cuisine, specifically Korean cuisine. If you know me, as full-blooded Korean I may be, I am not very Korean-ized. For the majority of my life, I never really enjoyed Korean food, but only with very few exceptions: specifically Korean bbq, and even more specifically marinated short ribs. I was almost a full-fledged carnivore at the time. Thank goodness my taste buds have changed over the years (tremendously, I might add) because now I think cuisine from any culture is something to be cherished, savoured, and eaten many, many times.
I started reflecting on fine dining. French, Italian, New American cuisine are served in fine dining restaurants, many of which are awarded michelin stars and mobile stars. What about Asian food? If I am correct, there are no restaurants serving Asian cuisine that have achieved such heights. In America, Asian food is a quick outing for good food, nothing too fancy, or a hole in the wall. Westerners even put their own spin on Asian food and still label it Asian food. Don't forget the orange chicken. It's not really Chinese. There is an under appreciation and a lack of value for Asian cuisines. We have become short sighted to the various types of Asian cuisines we have yet to try. If someone mentions Chinese we automatically think orange chicken, chow mein, etc. Vietnamese: Pho, Vietnamese Sandwiches. Japanese: sushi. Korean: Korean bbq. Stop right there! Ah, Korean bbq. Cooking mountains and mountains of meat, given the opportunity to be a tyrannosaurus rex for a day, is the epitome of Korean BBQ. I love it, too. But, really, there is more to Korean cuisine than just Korean BBQ. The only "gourmet" Korean restaurants in Los Angeles (Korea Town included) were Korean BBQ joints. That's fantastic, but also kind of lame.
That's why I have grown a new desire to learn to cook as many Korean dishes as I can. This task is a bit difficult for me because I dont really have anybody to learn from. I found my mom's old Korean cookbooks in the garage. They are all in Korean, so reading them is going to be a pain, but a good, good pain. After I hone my skills, I am sharing the art of Korean food to family, friends, and strangers.

IN THE MEANTIME
I've been cooking again!
#1.) CARROT SOUP

So easy to make! Cook some diced carrots and onions in a pot with some olive oil. When they start getting transluscent add water and bring to simmer. Simmer for 20-25 mins. Put in a blender. Puree. Put back in pot. Season to taste. Garnish with whatever you want. I did some parmesan cheese and sesame oil. I over salted it, but other than that little mishap, it would have been a pretty sexy soup.
#2.) BAO!

I really like Chinese Dumplings. I craved so I made. 80% of them, due to my inexperience, turned out deformed (but still tasty). I definitely need to learn how to master this from somebody. This was one of the 2 that came out without much a battle scar.

I'm thinking about making lemon bars tomorrow. I crave sweets as always.