Posted in Recipes

Totoro Cookies

Last May, I saw a post by Anna the Red about making your own cookie cutters. Using this as inspiration, I bought a circle cookie cutter and tried to make my own totoro cookie cutter. It seemed to work okay, though my cookie dough was not the best. I just used store bought sugar cookie dough and mixed cocoa powder into some and matcha powder into others to make several different colored totoros, but I think the store dough is very greasy so the shapes spread and didn’t stay firm.

The occasion was my sister’s graduation from junior college (she’s now almost done with undergraduate, soon to start graduate school) — she’s as much of a totoro fan as I am! Another thing I didn’t take into consideration was the weather. I decorated these cookies with chocolate, but the hot May sun melted the totoros against the box and they ended up being all melted blobs.

 

Black Bean Burgers from Everyday Food


I recently made these burgers with my boyfriend in an effort to eat healthier and use up some breadcrumbs. The burger itself tasted pretty good, but didn’t hold up well in the pan when cooking. The outside was crispy and colored like a burger, but the outside was still mushy even after flattening the patty, cooking it longer than the recipe stated, and making smaller patties. This is a good base recipe, and it might taste better if refrigerated to firm up before cooking.

The original recipe is on Everyday Food’s website–I won’t post it here since we followed it line-by-line other than halving it. The original reason for the recipe in the magazine was to use up a big leftover pot of beans several different ways, so it’d be worth checking out the whole feature! We just used canned beans instead of the ones used in this recipe.

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Thin Mint Cupcakes

This year, I’ll have been a Girl Scout for 20 years. After all those years of eating, selling, and buying Girl Scout cookies, I’ve never thought to bake with them. The most I’ve ever done is pop some thin mints into the freezer. I saw a lot of recipes for Thin Mint, Samoa, and Tagalong-inspired recipes on Pinterest and decided I was going to do something creative this year. I can’t usually wait long enough to save a whole box for baking, but this time I bought extra and forced myself to wait to make something special with them.

We had a celebration at work for someone’s promotion so we surprised him with some treats. I made the little “Congrats!” flag the same way I did on the mini whoopie pies, a toothpick and decorative washi tape.

I used a cake recipe (found through Pinterest) I baked Peppermint Mocha cupcakes with in December that everyone declared “the best cupcakes ever.” I then combined two other recipes for the ganache and frosting. Another great discovery I’ve made is that the perfect vessel for cupcake duo transport is a tea box! I’ve used this method multiple times to give friends and family two cupcakes and it works like a charm.

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Funfetti Cookies & Pinterest

I used to have a feature on here called “Show and Tell” where I would share a few of my favorite things found on the internet that  caught my eye. After a few installments, I found out about Pinterest. It basically accomplishes the same thing as my feature was and it’s a one-stop-shop to ‘pin’ things that inspire you, or to remind you to make those recipes that you see floating around the internet. The great thing about it is that you can share or ‘re-pin’ things on it very easily and it always keeps a main picture and original source link.

I introduced my sister to Pinterest and she found about about these Funfetti cookies and shared them with me! Before meeting up with my sister for an event we put on together for local Girl Scouts, I made these as a surprise treat for her.

These cookies use funfetti cake mix, but you also have to add flour, eggs, butter, and… wait! It sounds like I’m making cookies from scratch? The amount of work needed for these cookies and the fact that they only use part of a box of cake mix makes me think that I won’t make them again. They do have that nostalgic “kid’s birthday party” taste, but they are a tad flat. The recipe makes a lot of cookies, but I think it would be worth it to double the recipe just to use up the full box of cake mix.

Regardless, my sister was happy and so was my office since they got to eat the leftovers. I ate quite a few myself, so I can’t complain too much!  For the source of inspiration and recipe, visit Lovin’ From the Oven.

Sriracha and Wasabi Deviled Eggs from Food & Wine

In November 2010’s Food & Wine magazine there was a great article about an Asian-American Thanksgiving that included recipes such as Soy-Sauce-and-Honey-Glazed Turkey, Sweet-and-Spicy Sesame Walnuts, Cranberry, Ginger and Orange Chutney, Red-Miso-Glazed Carrots, Smashed Sweet Potatoes with Five-Spice Marshmallows, and Sticky-Rice Dressing. I really empathized with the article, written by Joanne Chang, a first-generation Asian-American married to a meat-and-potatoes East-Coaster. Right from the beginning, I knew I was going to like this feature.

I must have been around 10 when I realized that my Thanksgivings were not quite like everyone else’s.

Before recycling the magazine, I ripped out every single page related to this feature and tucked them away for safe-keeping. Sure enough, soon after I boiled up a big batch of eggs to make these Sriracha-Wasabi Deviled Eggs. These eggs are a marriage between Chinese Tea Eggs and traditional American picnic fare. I brewed them too long in the marinade so they were extra salty, but otherwise were a nice, rich snack. The only problem? A plate full of deviled eggs and only two people to eat them! Sad to say, I don’t think that deviled eggs keep long in the fridge, especially after plating them. But, I definitely recommend this for an appetizer for a group of people with more adventurous taste buds.

Have you heard of “Magazine Mondays“? It’s an informal round-up of recipes reproduced from magazines, by Cream Puffs in Venice. Just like me, she has a heap of magazines and this non-event event gives incentive to delve into the cooking magazines that seem to pile up and to justify their continued purchase. I always enjoy seeing what magazines people are reading and what they’re making from them. This is my first time participating in Magazine Mondays and I hope to be contributing more in the future!