It is 2020 and We Are Food Blogging, Baby!

You have probably seen this pizza before online because everyone is making it. I first saw this beautiful pan pizza on my friend Marian's Instagram. Then I saw it being made over on my friend Nick's Instagram. And then my friends Ian and Kristen's socials. It seemed daunting at first because all I saw was the prep time: 18 hours. But once I mustered up the courage and time to do it, I realized how EASY it was and how DELICIOUS the end result was. I have made plenty of homemade pizzas in the last few years but this one yields both a caramelized crust (thanks to the cast iron and generous portion of mozzarella) with a soft and fluffy dough (turns out, cold rising for days is worth it!) Ingredient-wise for the dough, you probably already have all of it in your house:   2 cups (240 grams) all-purpose flour 3/4 teaspoon fine salt (I use fine sea salt) 1/2 teaspoon instant yeast or active dry yeast 3/4 cup (170 grams) lukewarm water 1 tablespoon (13 grams) olive oil For the toppi...

One of the biggest things I am trying to be better at is stretching my produce to last as long as it can. Unfortunately, I do not have the space to compost and my building isn't included in those brown compost bin pick ups that the city does. However, I still wanted to find a way to do something with some of my vegetable scraps. So while I saw many folks making beautiful broths with their chicken bones, I decided to do the same for my vegetables! A box of veggie broth can go for $4-5 here but if I can make it for free with what I already have, it seemed like an obvious small and easy project to do.  My biggest pro-tip is just putting all your scraps into a one-gallon Ziploc bag and have it hang out in the freezer until it's full. This will yield you at least 2 liters of broth, which you can store in the fridge for up to one week, or in the freezer for a month. My freezer broth has date labels so I know when to use it by!  Here are some vegetable scraps you can throw in: Garl...

I will admit that there are days when cooking seems like the hardest thing. The prep, the planning, the washing, the standing. It can get to you if you are doing it three times a day, every day. But sometimes I do just want to be in the kitchen, even if I am not actually doing any cooking, only because my apartment is small and I like the change of scenery.  Enter: boba, or bubble tea. The actual tea part is what I will be talking about because there is absolutely no way I am emotionally and mentally prepared to take on making tapioca balls BY HAND (although, if you are that person, this recipe sounds good !). The key is some good tea leaves and some time. What you'll need (for two servings):  3-4 tea bags of tea (I either do a Chinese red tea or a Jasmine green tea) 1/2 cup of milk (I use oat milk when doing a heavier tea and whole milk when doing a lighter tea. why? Preference!)  1/2 cup simple syrup 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup of boba (I use the WuFuYuan ...

There are are many answers to Noah's question of what to do when you have too many eggs . On a whim, I had placed an order with a farm wholesaler but they never confirmed my order. Alas, times are topsy turvy and I didn't think much of it. After our weekly grocery run, I get an email saying my delivery would happen today. I had ordered 30 eggs from them and we had just bought 24 at the grocery. We now had...too many eggs. Baking is a good way to use eggs but what about for meals? Behold, the egg salad sandwich. Humble in its cookery but delightful in flavor. It was a go-to for me on picnics growing up and provides a sense of comfort now. Egg salads are also infinitely customizable. I had originally planned on going with Los Angeles bakery Konbi's infamous egg salad sandwich , which requires a dozen eggs BUT milk bread, which I have not made in awhile (due to lack of motivation). My boyfriend had made some sourdough bread yesterday (yes, we also have made our own ...

What a privilege it is to go to the grocery store whenever you want. To pop in just for the one or two things you need to get to execute a recipe perfectly. To have the money to do so, as well! In any case, it has been a creative puzzle to try to find adequate substitutes in my own kitchen and pantry for a meal, especially at the last dregs before you do  have to make that one big grocery haul a week (or two). As I was scrounging around my kitchen, I came upon one can of chickpeas and one lemon. I knew I had some dried pasta left (although I only had one serving of gemelli and one serving of rigatoni) and the last few stems of parsley that I was able to stretch out for three weeks. Then, I remembered a Melissa Clark recipe that included all of these ingredients, and a wave of excitement rushed through me. We can make a very delicious, very easy lunch! Yes, I had to substitute fresh rosemary for dried thyme and basil. Yes, I had a bowl with two different types of pasta s...

(I was supposed to artfully drizzle some cream at the end but it looks like a disaster, which is fine because we don't have to rely so heavily on aesthetics around here!) There is something soothing about making, cultivating, or growing an ingredient to use for several recipes--especially during this time. My boyfriend has already used some of the scallion we have been growing in my kitchen to make soft scrambled eggs! And right on time, on day five, my basil has finally sprouted! And for the Paneer Butter Masala, Meera Sodha's recipe from Fresh India , we decided to make our own paneer! We used the same recipe that Cale blogged about  but since we are not blessed with a tofu press, we used a colander, cheese cloth, and a 2-quart dutch oven to press. Still VERY easy! What I also love about this recipe is that you can find a lot of things in your pantry already: canned tomatoes, frozen peas, lots of spices, the herbs you've been storing properly , etc. I did...

I am writing this after taking a little break from washing my clothes in my (luckily large farmhouse) sink because the laundromat closest to my apartment closed up for the foreseeable future last week. I *could* venture out further to find an open laundromat but since I am trying to limit my time outside/around people as much as possible, walking a further distance with a bulky bag just doesn't seem like a great  choice right now if I can avoid it.  Limiting my grocery runs/hauls is also another way to limit my time around folks, which means a lot of leftovers. Leftovers can be, I WILL SAY IT, boring after a day or two but I feel like throwing in some fresh herbs really helps liven it up a bit, and makes the dish feel like new.  How do you keep fresh herbs around for a long time? I am glad you asked! Here are some tips I have leaned on for many years and, if it's all new to you, you can use now, too!  Herbs can be divided into tender and hardy types. An...

Inspired by Nick's Spaghetti Kee Mao , I also decided to turn to the Night + Market cookbook my friend Andi gifted for my birthday a few years ago, to find inspiration. If your pantry includes some East Asian/South East Asian staples, you probably already have all the ingredients in your pantry/fridge to make the best Pad Thai in your kitchen. This was my small revelation when I looked at the simple ingredients list and thought, on a "normal" day, this is a good recipe...on day ??? of self-isolation, this is the perfect  recipe. I basically followed the recipe with two modifications: in lieu of fish sauce (as Brian is a vegetarian), we would normally go for the homemade vegan fish sauce that we made (and if you have the time, I highly recommend making it, because it's kind of fun and also, time consuming). However, the homemade version we made is chilling in Brian's fridge so I had to go with my third choice: a mix of soy + rice wine vinegar to sub. TBH,...

As a true planner, I rarely impulse buy so I have NO idea what compelled me to buy an 8-quart Instant Pot on ~a whim~ one day a few years ago. It takes up almost all the room underneath my sink (the only space that would accommodate such a large hefty machine) and although it is multi-function, I rarely use any of them. However, now that I am stuck at home for the foreseeable future, perhaps I will look into this "yogurt" function. I have made my own mayonnaise and whipped cream. Perhaps yogurt and some cheeses are in my future? But, I am getting ahead of myself because I'm here to talk to you about one of the easiest meals to make in your Instant Pot (or whatever pressure cooker you may have!). When I took a Lyft home with this 20 pound box (because I had no way of delivering it to my apartment), I watched a bunch of Youtube videos trying to figure out how to actually use it. I followed what I thought were the actual directions, failed, unplugged, reset, tried aga...

Hello friends, While I have been working from home since last May, the last week has been a stressful and weird time to be working from home! Usually, I can go two or three days of not leaving my house and be fine. I would eat breakfast, make myself lunch, and also dinner (with an occasional take out if I felt like treating myself). The only time I would leave my house was to do the occasional errand, go to the YMCA to swim with the senior citizens in my neighborhood, and see a friend or two. In the age of ~social distancing~ the only friend I have seen is Brian and, because we don't live together, not even that often! (Don't worry--he bikes to my apartment.) Anyway, while people are saying "THIS IS THE TIME TO BE PRODUCTIVE! WRITE THAT NOVEL! KING LEAR!" my first reaction is, "What if I just watched re-runs of Vanderpump Rules and stare at the wall?" and sometimes "What if I just start writing letters to friends and stare out the window like ...