Dau Hu Xao To at Mai Lee

This summer I discovered that I really liked vietnamese food. It has a lighter feel then Chinese, and tends to be less spicy than Korean. Also it tends to have lots of veggies and noodles in its dishes, which is great for me. Another really cool thing about vietnamese food is that it has some french flavors and ingredients incorporated in it, a result of the country being a former French colony. This leads to wonderful things like Banh Mi (sandwiches on french baguettes)! Anyway I like vietnamese a lot, and I've been wanting to get the try St. Louis' selection of vietnamese restaurants all semester. I finally got to one last night! Mai Lee is close to the Trader Joe's where I shop for groceries, so my boyfriend and I ate there before doing errands. I was extremely impressed. The restaurant is surprisingly large and was fairly busy for a Wednesday night. The menu was huge with an enormous vegetarian selection. I asked out server what he suggested because everything looked really good, and the dish he recommended was the one that I had been looking at. Dau Hu Xao To, which is tofu and veggies cooked in a black bean sauce in a hot pot. It was sooooo good. The veggies were cooked down really nicely and the black bean sauce was mild and flavorful. The tofu was well cooked (always important because improperly cooked tofu is the worst) and the variety of veggies was amazing. It was huge and I couldn't finish it all, but I really liked it. 

Thoughts on this Restaurant:

• The service was so quick we got our food about 15 minutes after we ordered and our server was really nice and helpful!
• As I mentioned there was a gigantic menu, so I want to go back and try other vietnamese dishes I like. I want to try their Banh Mi and also get some vermicelli noodles which are always yummy. Also they have a dish with taro in it! So that must eventually get tried.
• They also do take out, and it's not too far so that's an option in the future as well.

I was so pleased that I can add Mai Lee to my ever-lengthening list of STL restaurants I like. However, this is especially significant since its the first vietnamese addition! 

Chilled Sweet and Spicy Cucumber Salad

This dish was in part inspired by something I threw together in my dorm last year, and in part by the cucumbers I had at BoBo's last week. And also partly because the only vegetables in our apartment when I made this were cucumbers, carrots, and onions. I really like making fun veggie dishes, and I love my sweet chili sauce, so hence veggie dishes with the chili sauce. Cucumbers aren't great to cook with so I decided to make this a chilled dish. I cut the dukes as thinly as a could because the Bobo's noodle cucumber preparation was really fun (see previous post), and I wanted to add in the other veggies I had, hence onions and carrots. All of these veggies are great sliced and chilled and the sauce really enhanced all the flavors and brought them together.

I shredded the carrots with a knife, and it turned out rather well even though it was time consuming (see above). Also the carrots smelled really nice when I was doing it. I think peeling them that way releases the smell. I then thinly sliced the onions, added the sauce and shook it up. It was a really yummy and light meal.

Thoughts on this Dish:

• Even though I was constrained in my veggie choices I like the combination of these three, their mild tastes all compliment each other with out overpowering the others.
• I added very little onion and that was the right choice
• I want to learn a better cutting technique for the cucumbers and the carrot shredding. Something that I think will get better with practice.

This was good as a light meal, but it could also be a nice side for an asian style dish. It was easy and pretty and I'll be remembering it in the future. 

Taro Milk Tea

I spent a lot of my 2013 in Hawai'i. I was on the Big Island for a couple of weeks in January for a school trip, and then I spent most of my summer at a field school on Kaua'i. While I was there I learned a ton about the cultural, environmental, and geologic history of the islands. One of the things that I learned about is taro. Taro is a plant that is widely cultivated on Hawai'i and other pacific islands. It was one of the main nutrition sources for the polynesian peoples of the pacific, but it is still grown and used today. I was fortunate enough to try some taro flavored things on my first trip to Hawai'i and I decided I liked it. The second time I tried it I decided I REALLY liked it. And the third time, well it became a really special treat. So much so that when I found out I was spending my summer back on the Islands one of my first thoughts was, "Now I get to eat taro!" (kinda sad, but hey I like it). During my time of Kaua'i I was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to actually help plant some taro, and learn more about the crop and it's significance. The native Hawai'ian's used it as a dietary staple. It has a lot of essential nutrients and it's also a really sustainable crop. The plant itself is grown in water, much like rice. It produces purplish corms (it's a tuber like plant, I usually describe it as an aquatic sweet potato), and those are typically the part of the plant that is eaten. The corms are purplish in color (see below), and are actually toxic if they are not cooked before they are eaten. But then cooked taro has a sweet almost nutty-vanilla taste. It's kinda strange at first but really yummy!

Some of the taro things that I've eaten include taro sweet rolls, taro ice cream, taro chips, mashed taro, taro fries, taro burgers, taro hand pies, and taro tea. There are taro products everywhere in Hawai'i, but it is extremely hard to find here on the mainland. The only place I've seen anything taro is at bubble tea joints (and recently I saw it listed as an ingredient at a local Vietnamese restaurant :) more to come on that in a later post). I've been trying to find some good quality taro powder online for months, so I can use it the same way I use my matcha. And finally, FINALLY, a reasonably sized bag from a credible seller went on sale for the reasonable price of $15 on amazon. I jumped at the chance and now I have enough taro powder to keep me happy for the next year (see below)! I made myself a cup of taro milk tea earlier this week, and I was extremely happy with the mix. It tastes like other sweet preparations of taro that I've had, and is the wonderful purple color (I think dye is partly responsible for the exact shade, but its fun so I don't mind)!

Thoughts on this Drink:

• It tastes just like taro bubble tea I've had restaurants so no complaints
• The amount I got of the powder for the price was really good deal considering how hard it is to find and how much tea at a tea shop costs.
• I want to try baking with it the same way I bake with matcha, it also has a unique flavor that I think will add something to cakes. 

It makes me happy that I can make a cup of tea that reminds me of the time I spent in Hawai'i and of all the wonderful things I learned and people I met :)

Holiday Marshmallow Taffy

 This was a holiday take on my yummy marshmallow taffy recipe. I had a lot of crushed candy cane from the popcorn I made last month, and I thought it would be yummy to add to this dessert! So instead of using peanut butter (which I usually highly recommend to get the consistency right), which doesn't go well with peppermint, I decided to tweak the recipe. I used Nutella and melted chocolate instead! Since this is a holiday version, I used chocolate gelt! Gelt is chocolate coins that are a traditional Hanukkah candy, and since I made this on the 6th night of Hanukkah I thought it was a perfect addition to this recipe. It turned out surprisingly well and made me very happy :)

Thoughts on this Recipe:

• I broke my own have to use peanut butter rule and it still turned out well, so I guess melted chocolate and Nutella attain similar constancy. 
• I love this dessert because I created totally on my own, and I like that I can tweak it so many ways.
• The peppermint makes it a lot prettier! I wish there was a way to make this dessert look presentable because its so good that I want to share it with others, but it looks so icky :P

Such a fun way to start off December! I'm excited that I could find a fun and creative way to use the gelt that I got for Hanukkah this year, I'll be remembering this one next year.

Pesto Tortellini in Simple Pesto Sauce

After realizing how easy it was to cook these tortellinis for the soup I made a couple weeks ago, I thought I'd make myself a quick pasta dinner. I cooked up a handful of these guys and whipped up a quick pesto sauce (see below). I used a pre-ground pesto mix, a bit of greek dressing, and sundried tomatoes. It turned out well! Then I added the cooked tortellinis and mixed them up with the sauce. I topped the whole thing with a bit of shredded parmesan and done! It was simple and yummy. I don't eat pasta a lot because it's a lot of carbs, which I don't really need, but this was the first time I had some all semester. Pesto is a really nice sauce because it is really light and actually rather healthy compared to cream sauce or tomato sauce. Also it has basil and spinach in it and those are nice and healthy!

Thoughts on this Dish:

• This took me 5 minutes to make and was really easy
• With a bit of portion control and the addition of veggies, pasta dishes can be a nice well rounded meal. I only use about a cup of the pasta, maybe 10 tortellinis tops. 
• Next time I want to add more veggies like peppers and zucchini to this dish!
• I made this uses already ground pesto mix but it is possible to easily make your own pesto from scratch, using freshly chopped basil, spinach, garlic, and olive oil. I might try this out next time!

I was happy that when I decided to do pasta, it was really yummy! I have a couple of recipes for veggie lasagna using zucchini instead of pasta. I want to try it out next time I have a pasta craving.

Cucumbers and Green Beans at BoBo's Noodle House

                                   

I only live a couple of blocks from BoBo's but today I had dinner for the first time. It was a fairly early meal since I had to leave for the airport so my bf and I were the only ones in the restaurant. It was kinda nice actually, since its usually crowded when I walk by. They serve all types of noodle dishes, with a south Asian flavoring. Actually, a lot of their dishes have a Vietnamese flair (and I love Vietnamese food!!!). I wasn't hugely hungry so instead of getting a bowl I ended up getting two sides. The spicy cucumber salad and the peanut green beans. Both were amazing. Or at least I thought they were with my cold and screwed up taste buds. But my boyfriend really liked both dishes so I did get a second opinion. My favorite thing about the meal was the presentation of the cucumber salad (see below). The cukes were cut like noodles so I felt like I was eating a noodle dish, but it had none of the calories :) It was a wonderfully unique spin on one of my favorite Asian cuisine sides. 

                                  

Thoughts on this Restaurant:

• I really like how close this place is to my apartment and I'm looking forward to trying a bunch of their dishes
• There aren't that many vegetarian choices but I'm going to see if I can get some dishes without meat
• Like the atmosphere of the place as well 

The service was super friendly!

Overall I really liked it and want to try it again when I'm not sick :)

Pesto Tortellini Soup

So I'm getting sick. I've completely lost my voice and I really didn't have an appetite today. However, I know that its a good idea to eat something because bodies need energy to fight colds and I really want to get better. So I went into full sicky food mode. Firstly, I made some tea for my throat. Then I made some soup. My roommate made some homemade vegetable stock soup a couple of weeks ago so I heated some of that up. And then to make it a bit more unique I also cooked some of the pesto tortellini's that I had in the freezer. It was an awesome idea to make this soup really filling and flavorful. At least I think it was flavorful, my tastebuds aren't at their best right now. So I added salt, pepper, garlic powder, and parsley to the soup. I also put a bit of parmesan cheese on top. It was really yummy, and a cool idea for something that I threw together at last minute. I don't really have the ingredients to make a pesto sauce for the tortellini's but they went great with the soup. It also felt really good on my throat.

Thoughts on this Dish:

• This soup has a really italian feel to me and I love italian soup (minestrone is my favorite soup), so it was extra comforting 
• I cooked the tortellini's in boiling water for about 3-4 minutes, this was perfect.
• I heated the soup up for about 3 minutes.
• I think that it might have been nicer for the pasta to absorb the soup flavor a bit, but I didn't want it to get cold so I ate it right away.
• The parmesan cheese really added to the soup, but I think I would add a little less next time

I was so happy that there was soup in the apartment at a time when I really needed it, so thank you to my wonderful roommate!