Creamy Pumpkin Soup

This delicious pumpkin soup is a great comfort food for the holidays. Too bad I freaking started school today. OH WELL. For those of you who have no idea what to do with pumpkin, you can use it for soups like I did, or put it in raviolis, risotto..or even pair it with some delicious poultry. Those of you who don't know, you can actually go to the asian supermarkets and buy a pumpkin for a dollar and seventy cents. I went to Vons once and bought myself a 5 pound pumpkin; they priced it at 8 bucks. That's ridiculous. I bought a freaking pumpkin at a asian supermarket for 1/5th of that. Well now you know and here I am to share some of that knowledge with you. Anyway lets begin 

 Ingredients
1. Pumpkin
2. 4 cups Chicken or Vegetable Stock
3. 1 cup of cream
4. 3 cloves Garlic
5. Salt and Pepper 

Cook Time: 8 minutes
Prep Time: 20 to 25 minutes 








Directions
1. What you first want to do is cut your pumpkin in half. Sorry I didn't post up a picture but you're pretty much going to be cutting it like you were going to prepare a layer cake. Save the rest of your pumpkin for next time. Now I forgot to mention the pumpkin you get at the asian markets are green so don't freak out if you dont see any of the traditional looking pumpkins

2. De-seed your pumpkin and crush your garlic cloves. Now just put them right in the center of the pumpkin. That's right, you're not doing anything to them. The oven is going to slowly roast the pumpkin along with the garlic. You can even put in some thyme or rosemary if you want as well. Roast it for a good 20 to 25 minutes at 375 degrees

3. Once your pumpkin is done, use a spoon and scoop out the flesh of the pumpkin. Get a nice pot and just add your roast pumpkin, stock, and cream. Season with some salt and pepper. Now i'm sure at this stage it doesnt have the texture that a soup has. Once you're done cooking it out for the next 8 minutes put it in a blender and just blitz it. And now you're ready to serve

This is one of the easiest satisfactions you could possibly make. You can even throw in a knob of butter if you want just to make it a bit more creamy but one of my friends wanted me to make a somewhat partial vegetarian dish so there you go. Enjoy! First day of school done, a crap ton more to go....

Fast.Easy.Delicious 

Herb Crusted Lamb Chops

It's like 3 in the morning and I'm still thinking about food. I'm so hungry. Anyway, I made a herb crusted lamb chops. I decided to take the same concept that I did for the Swai that I cooked in my recent blog and apply that to this rack of lamb. The crunchy affinity of the bread crumbs just adds such a nice bite and texture when you're chowing down on this baby. It was amazing. I rarely cook lamb, like ever. So I wanted to give it a shot. 

Ingredients

1. Rack of Lamb

2. 1 cup of bread crumbs

3. 1 cup of parsley

4. Grated Parmesan cheese

5. 2 Tbspn of Olive oil 

6. Dijon mustard

7. Salt and Pepper to season

Prep Time: 10 Minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Directions

1. First get your parsley. Finely chop up your parsley. Put your parsley and your bread crumbs into either a food processor or a blender. Add in your grated Parmesan cheese. This keeps the lamb nice and moist when its coated. Drip in your olive oil and blend together. It should come out like the picture seen on the right hand side. I have a 15 year old blender, but it still worked just fine

                                                                           

2. Get a nice hot pan and drip in your olive oil.Getyour pan to medium - high heat. This is the first stageso you're only coloring the lamb. Cook it on the skinside down. Color it for a good 3 to 4 minutes until it's nicely browned. Next you're going to want to setyour oven to 400. Bake those bad boys for a good 10 minutes. Once they're out of the oven, get a brush. Brush your lamb with the dijon mustard and coat it with your herb crumbs  and finish it off in the oven for 5 minutes.                                                                             

NOW you're ready to eat that delicious, juicy, lamb chops that you've been eyeing on for the past 20 minutes. It is a well deserbed meal since you've put so much effort into it. Well actually I did, but I"m sharing my wonderful food with you all. It tasted amazing. Oh and for those of you that don't know if it's cooked in the middle or it's rare, medium or well done. I suggest you get a thermometer. It's difficult to tell if you can't see what it looks like inside of course. 125 F is rare, 145 F is medium, and 165 F is well done. So I hope you guys enjoyed this recipe it's pretty easy, the only downside is it takes alot of preparation to make but I think it's worth it in the end. 

AbsolutelyDelicious

Pasta Dough

It's easy. Anybody can do it, and it's so versatile you can use it for anything not just pasta. You can definitely use it for egg rolls as well. Ever since I started learning how to make pasta dough it has been so life changing. All the pasta meals I make tastes so much different from the dry pasta you buy in a box. I'm not hating on the ones that come in a box those are great as well; but it just feels different when you can tell yourself "I literally made this, with my own hands" and then you can feel proud about yourself. 

 Ingredients
1. 1 egg

2. 100 grams of flour 

3. 2 tablespoons of olive oil

4. Pinch of Salt 

Prep Time: Depends on you







Directions
1. Now you want to start off beating your egg. Just beat it up like you were gonna prepare scrambled eggs or something. Next get a bowl and together your flour and your egg

2. Before you mix those two together, add in your olive oil and your salt. Now you can give it a good mix. You can use a wooden spoon if you don't wanna deal with sticky dough getting all over your hands. Just keep giving it a good mix until it forms into a nice yellow dough. 

3. This is the part where you gotta get handsy. Get some flour and dust it onto your board. Put your dough on the board and have it gather up all the flour that's been spread onto the board. You might want to gradually add flour from time to time in case it gets sticky again. Knead for a good 5 to 10 minutes until its a bit firm

4. If you wanna make it or shape it into the ball like you see on the tv, just grab the two ends of the dough and fold it together. Imagine you're looking at a rectangle. Grab the horizontal ends and fold them together, and just keep doing that. The bottom is going to be given a twist so it maintains that circular ball like shape.

                       And there you go. You just learned how to make pasta dough. This is for one portion, meaning 1 egg and 100 grams of flour serves 1 person. If you want to serve more than just one, just double the amount or multiply it by how many people you're serving it to. The great thing about making your own dough is it cooks in under 2 minutes! It's so freaking fast you're gonna love it. Hope this helps and happy new year! 

Dim Sum Style Pork Buns

Errrrbody LOVES dim sum, and If you had a bad experience with it; let me take you out to show you what it's really all about. I grew up on these oven baked Cha Siu buns my whole life. My grandparents would constantly take me out in the morning when I didnt have school and we'd just sip up some tea and order a crap ton of chinese food. I grew up on these lovely buns but I'm going to make the steamed version this time because I haven't figured out how to make the baked version ones. With the left over pork meat that I had from my pork belly you can make a whole variety of stuff. This recipe is easy, even making the dough is easy. 

Ingredients
1. Left over pork meat
2. 1 cup of flour
3. 1/2 cup of milk
4. Pinch of salt
5. 4 tablespoons of hoisin
6. 4 tablespoons of chili sauce 
7. 2 tablespoons of black bean sauce

Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 12 - 14 minutes








Directions

1. Get your cup of flour and your milk and just mix it well until it forms into a dough. Like all other doughs you need to knead that chunk of sticky dough so knead it until it's elastic enough and not sticky to form into small patches. As you're kneading the dough remember to add a bit of flour each time you knead otherwise it'll stay sticky and wet


 2. Once you've kneaded the dough, roll it out until it looks somewhat like a sausage. The diameter of the dough was around 2 inches for mine but as long as you make enough to wrap around your meat it's find. I got my left over park and I added the hoisin, chilli, and black bean sauce to give it that tangy asian flare of flavor. Get a spoonful of that pork and put it in the rolled out dough. Once you put it in, wrap around it. Don't be afraid if its not a perfect balls, that takes a bit of practice


3. Once you're done forming your balls of delicious, that didn't sound right at all. Once you've made your pork buns, get a wok or a  pot. Put in a good amount of water. You're going to be using the water to steam the buns of course. Now I had this sort of tool which allows plates and other stuff to sit on so it can steam properly. If you don't have that, get a bowl facing up and put a plate on top. It works just as good, I've tried.

4. After All that's been set up you're read to cook those buns! Bring the water to the boil and cover the top of your pot/wok. Steam for about 15 minutes. Just in case. And you're ready to eat! Serve it with some hoisin sauce on the side and some crunchy vegetables and you're good to go! It's so good and you can do this with any meat you want. It's just thinking of stuff you can make with the left overs you have.

SuperDelicious. 

Pork Belly Sliders

I had some pork belly at home that was just waiting to be braised and served up but I didn't want it to be served just by itself. At the same time I was really craving something starchy so I found these chinese white sliders that my mom bought from the grocery store. I'm pretty sure they make these little sliders on the streets of Taiwan, they're super popular, and what I've been told from my aunt that every Taiwanese family has their own secret recipe for cooking pork belly. Alright lets go

Ingredients

1. Pork Belly

2. White Wine 

3. 2 Heads of Garlic, Seriously

4. White Steamed Chinese Buns

5. Salt and Pepper

6. Hoisin Sauce 

7. Cilantro 

Prep Time: 5 Min

Cook Time: 3 Hours  

I know, 3 hours is a freaking long time, but as its braising in that white wine and that lovely meaty juices, within those three hours its gonna be so tender, it'll melt in your mouth. It is so worth it just wish there was a faster way to cook this haha. 

Directions

1. First what you want to do is score your meat, meaning use a knife and make diamond shape patterns on your meat. REASON being is that when you season your meat with salt and pepper or whatever seasoning, it'll penetrate the skin easier and flavor the meat inside as well. Remember to Season the top and bottom with Salt and Pepper 

2. Cut 1 head of garlic in half, get a roasting tray or some type of casserole dish and place your garlic heads across from each other or diagonally to each other. What you're going to do is set your pork belly on top of your garlic cloves so that its somewhat above water level, or what we're going to be using is white wine. 

3. After your pork belly on top of your garlic cloves, add in your white wine. Now I really don't have a exact measurement on this but you know, just eye the damn thing. Cooking doesnt need to follow exact measurements, have some fun with it! Don't worry if the white wine is touching the bottom part of the pork, it's totally fine. 

4. Next get some aluminum foil and wrap around the whole thing. Get your oven to 350 degrees F and let it braise for a good 3 hours. If you braise it for even longer it'll be so much flavorsome.

Just steam up those white baos for just 10 minutes and pull off that succulent, melt in your mouth pork belly and stuff it in those sliders. Top it off with some Hoisin Sauce and Cilantro and you are ready to dive in into a taste of heavenly delicious. At the same time I was able to make some gravy on the side with just the left over juices that came off from the pork belly

So there you have it, Pork Belly Sliders with a Side of Gravy. It is not the fastest thing to make i'll be honest, but if you put some love and care into that piece of meat, it could really do wonders you know? It's 2014, and my new years resolution will probably just be cooking more and more...exploring different cultures of food and just see what's out there. Happy New year and hope ya'll are having fun 

Thistakesafreakinglongtime.Easy.Delicious