Small-batch baking: lemon pistachio cake with lemon cream cheese frosting

Posted on by
Reply

While I love cooking, baking was always my very first love. I still have fond, happy memories of being upstairs in my aunt’s kitchen, scooping out balls of cookie dough and placing them neatly on a baking sheet. I still remember the birthday cake she made me for my 5th birthday that was covered in a thick white frosting, dusted with rainbow sprinkles all over as I had requested. I sat there at the kitchen table and helped her mix and scoop the batter into the cake pan before baking… I also remember how my mom refused to let that cake be the centerpiece cake in the photos and pushed my rainbow sprinkled white cake off to the side in favor of this chocolate cake that I didn’t pick out or like. Yes, you have to remember the good with the bad.

Given that it’s just the three of us at home, and I don’t let Kaia indulge too much on sweets, there’s not too many mouths to bake for anymore. So when I get the opportunity to bake or feed more mouths, whether that’s because Chris’s parents are in town or we have friends coming over for a meal, I usually jump at the chance to bake something new. And I try to look for small batch bakes because I don’t necessarily need three or four dozen cookies, or to eat a cake for the next two weeks. For my father-in-law’s 71st birthday, I decided to make a cake that I thought of when thinking of Chris’s mom: a lemon pistachio cake with cream cheese frosting. It would be perfect because it’s a small batch cake, made in an 8×8 pan, as opposed to the 9-inch round monstrosity that was the orange olive oil cake from a few weeks ago that would require a small army to eat. This cake has toasted ground pistachios and lemon zest to give it a rich flavor, but it’s actually quite light and airy. It’s a moist sponge cake that pairs really nicely with a slightly sweet cream-cheese based frosting, with a little sugar, vanilla, and fresh lemon juice added to it. And what gives it its beautiful green hue is a secret ingredient: just a teaspoon of matcha!

This lemon pistachio cake was a beauty and a hit: both Chris’s parents had two generous slices each. There’s only three slices left for tomorrow. This cake was not only easy and quick to make, but also delicious and satisfying to look at and eat. I’m definitely making this again in the future!

British-style baked beans at home for Topa’s 71st birthday

Posted on by
Reply

Since my college days, I’ve always been fascinated by recipes for dishes that we typically eat store-bought, whether it’s from a package at the supermarket or from a bakery. I like seeing recipes for things like Oreos, pop tarts, and even Goldfish crackers because they’re just nostalgic: they evoke a sense of childhood and, well, pure youthful ignorance of what kind of crap goes into the food you consume and ultimately put into your body. Why am I saying this? Well, if you are aware of the food industry, you will know that packaged food items that are shelf stable and meant to last a while, such as Oreos and pop tarts, are shelf stable because of all the preservatives and artificial ingredients that are added to it. And no, those things are typically not great for your health. So it’s always fun to see homemade “upgrades” of these foods.

I did not grow up with baked beans. During the times when I did have them, they were typically a side to barbecue, usually ribs or brisket. Chris’s dad’s daily breakfast while he’s back home in Melbourne is tinned British-style baked beans, usually out of a Cole’s brand can, mixed with some sambal oelek sauce for some heat, on top of toasted multigrain bread. That’s a very British breakfast, one that is 99.9999% of the time always from a can for Brits. So when I saw that Serious Eats posted a recipe for British-style baked beans, I thought it would be a nice treat for his birthday, to have fully homemade baked beans made from my Rancho Gordo eye of the goat heirloom beans.

I soaked the heirloom beans for four hours (for heirloom beans, they say to never soak them more than six hours). Then, I rinsed and simmered them for another three hours. Finally, I made the sauce, which is a base of diced tomatoes, apple cider vinegar, onions, fish sauce (as a sub for Worcestershire sauce, which I never have), garlic, brown sugar, bay leaves, and thyme. I blitzed it in my blender and added it to the pot of beans, then simmered it down until the sauce became a thick glaze. And the flavor was most definitely an elevated version of the canned British-style beans; it had this interesting, savory, sweet, tangy flavor, with a nice bite from the velvety eye of the goat beans. The flavor was complex, but still reminiscent of the tinned beans. I was pretty pleased with my final result.

British-style baked beans are nowhere as sweet as American-style baked beans. I even reduced the sugar in the Serious Eats recipe a bit to ensure they weren’t too sweet. And I think they came out perfectly. This recipe is definitely a keeper.

Mother’s Day 2024 at home

Posted on by
Reply

Mother’s Day is one of those heavily commercialized holidays in the U.S. that businesses absolutely love. They love that people are willing to shell out extra money on things like overpriced (and over salted and buttered) meals, hand bags, flowers, and jewelry on the one day of the year they need to at least show that they care (even if they don’t) about their mothers. So in the weeks preceding Mother’s Day, you will constantly see ads everywhere outside and online for Mother’s Day sales and specials. If you don’t know Mother’s Day is approaching, then you truly must be living in a cave.

I’ve never liked all that hoopla because my general thought was always: mothers and fathers don’t need a day of appreciation; they need a lifetime of appreciation, expressed in small and large ways constantly. If Mother’s Day is the only day you choose to express appreciation for your mother (or the mother of your children), you probably deserve to die a slow and painful death.

Chris’s parents arrived on a very delayed flight back from San Antonio this morning, so I decided to prepare brunch at home for all of us. I made asparagus, goat cheese, and bacon frittata, vegan caesar salad with chopped walnuts and crispy chickpeas, and vegan chocolate chunk banana bread sweetened just with ripe bananas and ground dates. Chris fried some thick cut bacon from Paulus Farm Market that we picked up in Pennsylvania last weekend, and then toasted some thick slices of olive bread from Il Fornaretto Bakery. It was a tasty meal.

A few of my friends messaged to wish me a happy Mother’s Day and asked what I did. I told them I made brunch for the family, including Chris’s parents. And some responded, “You’re not supposed to be cooking on Mother’s Day! Leave that to Chris!”

He insisted he made the bacon and bread. He definitely did not make the bread. But my response here is: I love cooking, and thus cooking makes me happy. Plus, I’m a control freak, so honestly I’m not sure I would want Chris making me a frittata. Some things, if you want them to happen, you really just need to do yourself.

As for what Pookster did for me for Mother’s Day? She prepared a Happy Mother’s Day sign for me with her hand print on it in green paint at school. And at 6:30 this morning, I had an abrupt awakening when she decided to jump on top of my stomach while I was half asleep. Yes, it WAS a happy Mother’s Day from her!

Suma, Topa, and Kaia fun times

Posted on by
Reply

I love watching Chris’s parents interact with Kaia. I love that they adore her so much and enjoy actively spending time interacting with her, whether that’s in person or via video calls. It’s the type of grandparent interaction I always hoped she would have. After our last trip to Melbourne, Kaia’s memory has been quite strong in remembering her Suma, Topa, and Shushu (Chris’s brother). She always mentions them and calls them out whenever she sees photos or videos of them. She also has associations with them, such as remembering that Suma played piano with her when she saw a piano in her Habbi Habbi book. In the same vein, it also annoys me (at least, when I actively think about it) how uninvolved my parents are with her. They have actively refused video calls. The one time we went to visit, they barely interacted with Kaia directly and had to be forced to hold her. It was embarrassing to witness. Yet somehow, they insist how much they love her and how she’s the most important thing to them (really). Kaia has zero memory or association with either of her maternal grandparents. While I think that’s sad and pathetic, there’s not much I can do about it.

Last weekend while we were traveling in Pennsylvania, Chris kept on trying to get Kaia to engage with sights on the streets and roads we were walking and driving on. He’d say things to Kaia, like, “What color is the car?” or “What animal is that?” And oftentimes, before Kaia had a chance to look or respond, Topa would eagerly respond with the correct answer. I found this absolutely hilarious. It was almost as though Chris were the adult, and Topa and Kaia were the pupils learning in class; Topa had reverted from a 70-year-old grown man to a 2-year-old toddler in just seconds! So eventually, Chris got frustrated with his dad constantly answering, so he yelled out, “What are you, 2?! The questions are for Hoji, not you!!”

Was Topa trying to help Kaia? Of course he was. But he wasn’t giving her enough time to respond, and sometimes, you have to give kids the time and space to grow, otherwise they won’t grow and mature. There’s always a fine line between helping your children and hindering their growth. And the line is always very different and grey depending on the situation. It’s something as parents you have to consciously and constantly navigate.

In-laws and their quirks: on steaming vs. ironing clothes

Posted on by
Reply

Every time Chris’s parents come visit, I can inevitably expect the same usual exchanges and things to happen: Chris’s dad will do a full recount of their entire journey to get to us, including details about the lounges (and alcohol) they enjoyed, the food in flight and overall inflight service, movies he had watched, and how comfortable his seat/bed were. He will talk about the ride to our apartment from the airport and whether he had any chit chat with the Uber or taxi driver.

Chris’s mom will marvel over any food I had prepared for them and eagerly ask if she can help with the food or cleanup. She will then try her best to wash and clean up as many things as possible. And eventually, she will ask me if I have an iron… to which my answer is always… “No, but we have a steamer!”

Then, she will say her usual comments about how a steamer is okay, but it’s not enough. While a steamer is able to get out wrinkles, it isn’t able to iron on those nice lines/pleats that she likes on her pants (to which my Gen Y brain would immediately think, “Who cares or even sees your dumb lines on your pants? DO YOU EVEN SEE THEM WHEN YOU WALK?”

When we moved into this building, somehow, I could not locate where my iron went. So I discovered the magic of a small travel-sized steamer and have never gone back. It is quick to heat up, it de-wrinkles in seconds, and it’s light and easy to clean up and put away. I realized that none of my clothes ever required an iron or any “lines,” and all my summer clothes that required heat would be cured by a steamer. So I’m fully in Camp Steamer over Camp Iron.

So, every year, I chuckle to myself whenever Chris’s mom asks me about an iron. Because I always know the face she will make when I offer my steamer…

Mother’s Day flowers in a dusted off butterfly vase

Posted on by
Reply

Since today was Thursday, Chris did his usual Whole Foods grocery run after dropping off Pookster at school. He came back with groceries and bouquet of 16 red-orange roses for me and his mum, who will be back along with his dad this Saturday evening from a side U.S. trip to San Antonio, Texas. The flowers are in honor of Mother’s Day, which is coming up this Sunday. It will be the first and only Mother’s Day we’ve celebrated with his parents since Pookster has been around.

I unwrapped the flowers, trimmed them, removed excess leaves, and added them to a round vase. They dropped to one side clumsily, so I wrapped them with a rubber band so that they’d all stay together. Because the flowers do not “fill” the vase, they still all stayed on one side and looked a little depressed. So I went back to my closet and unearthed a slim rectangular butterfly vase that my friend had gotten me over 12 years ago when I was still living in Elmhurst, Queens. She said she was at a gift shop at a science museum back home, and when she saw this vase, she immediately thought of me and bought it. I realize that I hadn’t used this vase since I lived in Queens, so I decided to try these flowers out in the butterfly vase. And it was a perfect fit: the flowers fully filled the vase and all stood beautifully upright. You could enjoy both the flowers as well as the beautiful butterfly prints on the clear glass vase altogether. I added some ice cubes into the vase to keep the flowers fresh for longer.

I thought about all the shopping mailing lists I’m on for one of my email accounts and how this year, there seems to be more awareness about how triggering of a holiday Mother’s Day can be for some people. I’ve gotten at least four different emails asking if I’d like to opt out of Mother’s Day related emails and promotions; I don’t recall ever getting these before this year. Whether it’s because people have lost their mothers, have a difficult relationship with their mothers, or are actively trying to become a mother but have not yet succeeded, there’s a lot of reasons that Mother’s Day and the period around it can be a painful time. I’m fully aware of that since I was once in the shoes of someone who wanted to be a mom but hadn’t yet gotten there. And for my whole life, I’ve had a difficult relationship with my own mother… and still do. I see those who are struggling and their pain, even if they choose not to be open about it. I can fully relate.

New shoes, no interest — yet again

Posted on by
Reply

Tonight, Chris had a consulting call around the time of our dinner, so while he went into the second bedroom to take the call while Pookster and I were eating, Kaia did her usual thing of getting upset that Daddy was closing the door on her and leaving us and started whining. I tried to distract her with things like crunchy roasted chickpeas and kiwi. It all worked for a while… until it was time to clean up, and she immediately made a beeline to the second bedroom to be reunited with Daddy.

I tried to lure her with a new pair of shoes I had saved for her during a big Stride Rite sale last year in her next shoe size. She’s been showing more interest (and opinion…) in what she wears, so I thought she’d get excited by new sneakers.

“Kaia!” I called. “Want to see your new shoes?”

It was like dog ears went up when you looked at her face and how she immediately turned to me and smiled.

“Yeah!” she responded immediately, and then I told her to come with me into our bedroom so she could look. She came running.

I let her open the box to unveil the new blue, turquoise, magenta, silver, and white velcro sneakers. She held them up and turned them around on all sides to admire them. I asked her if she liked them, to which she responded with a curt, “No!” with a high pitch at the end. I asked her if she wanted to put them on, and she got annoyed, “No, no, no, NO!” I tried to put a shoe on her foot, and she started yelling.

Okay, she didn’t consent. I shouldn’t push it. So I put the shoe back in the box (as she threw the second shoe) and let the shoes be, separate from Pookster.

So, my new theory is that she likes the idea of new shoes, new dresses, new clothes… but when it actually comes to putting them on the first time, it seems like it’s still going to be a struggle.

Okay, I can deal with this, sort of.

Tamarind date chutney

Posted on by
Reply

I was looking at different ways to make our daily weekday toasts more interesting, and one way was to use Indian flavors (of course). Whenever you have Indian or Thai flavors, it’s pretty much impossible to have a boring meal. There is something about South and Southeast Asian cooking that always seems to get the right balance of sweet, salty, sour, and savory where things are just finger-licking good.

In the last couple of weeks, occasionally I’d make “masala grilled cheese,” where I’d take a white cheddar and sandwich it between chaat masala or garlic chutney-spiced mayo, some freshly made cilantro chutney, and sandwich them between two buttered pieces of bread on a hot pan. But then I got another idea, which is to make the sandwich a bit more like a chaat snack or samosa, so today, I added masala potatoes (first boiled, then sauteed), plus an additional layer of homemade tamarind-date chutney (made in my Instant Pot for the very first time this week – it was so quick!). I forgot how good the sweet-sourness of the tamarind date chutney really compliments all the savory and spicy of the cilantro chutney, gruyere cheese, and the potatoes. I made a decent-sized batch of the tamarind date chutney and froze half of it into cubes for future use.

I thought about my absolute favorite sandwich on earth, the classic mixed banh mi (banh mi thit nguoi), and how it also achieves the perfect balance of salty, savory, sweet, sour, and spicy, in the same way that this “samosa grilled cheese” sandwich does. While the bread on this grilled cheese provides crunch, in a banh mi, the crunchy raw pickled carrots and daikon also add crunch. Our family is lucky to identify with such delicious cultures!

Kaia “stocks up” on vegetables at So Kong Dong in Fort Lee, NJ

Posted on by
Reply

Kaia is almost 2.5 years old, and knock on wood, she still enjoys her vegetables. She does not enjoy ALL vegetables (does any human?) and definitely has her favorites and her lesser liked and touched ones. She has strong preferences about vegetables being cooked (she hasn’t eaten any cucumber since before turning one and still refuses any type of salad) and does not like thick sauces on any vegetable (or protein, for that matter). And she also seems to know when she hasn’t had enough of them.

While at So Kong Dong in Fort Lee yesterday, as soon as our server brought an array of delicious banchan to our table, Kaia’s eyes immediately stopped on the little plate of lightly dressed and blanched sesame studded broccoli. She asked for it immediately and proceeded to eat two plates of it all by herself. It was almost as though she was “making up” for not having much veggies during our Pennsylvania long weekend trip. I’ve read that some toddlers actually do this subconsciously, but a lot of my colleagues and friends who also have toddler-age children (who hate vegetables) would beg to differ here.

Some of my colleagues, who occasionally watch my private Instagram stories, have jokingly accused me of “mom-shaming” by posting videos of my toddler happily and voraciously eating massive amounts of Chinese greens while they can barely get their kids to eat a single bite of any vegetable. All I have to say is: I’ve reinforced vegetables (and foods) of all shapes, colors, and sizes since her first bite of solid food when she was six months old; I have been really intentional about not sending her the message that vegetables are gross or lesser than her carbs or protein. I’m just doing my best as a parent. I can just hope that peer pressure doesn’t eventually take over and have her suddenly go on a vegetable strike or decide she hates vegetables.

My father-in-law cannot crack an egg

Posted on by
Reply

We drove back to New York today, but of course, en route back from Harrisburg, we had to stop in New Jersey for a Costco run. While at the Wayne, New Jersey location, we bought no less than $400 worth of produce, meat, seafood, alcohol, and household supplies like toilet paper (how could you not?), baking soda (MY FAVE), and baby wipes. I even scored a much coveted tub of over 20 ounces of Maldon sea salt for only $7, which typically goes for over double that in the U.S. if you buy it online. Chris didn’t really understand what the big deal was, (“Do you really need that much salt?”), but when you know, you know.

As a final stop before we went back to our apartment, we went to Fort Lee to have some delicious soondubu jigae, spicy Korean tofu stew. I can’t even remember the last time I had eaten here was, maybe nine or ten years ago? But regardless, I was pretty excited. I got the medium spicy tofu stew and savored my rich, savory broth and the silky smoothness of the freshly made tofu (while Kaia made up for her lack of veggies over the last couple of days and went to town on the crunchy sesame broccoli banchan). And I also got a kick out of watching my father-in-law attempt to crack his raw egg into his stew bowl to enrich his broth.

Chris’s dad is a very intelligent person. He is educated, well traveled, knowledgable about history, the world, and people who don’t look like him. He has endless curiosity about things he learns he doesn’t know (and finds Wikipedia to be his best friend). But one area that his entire family teases him about is his… lack of common sense in doing seemingly basic things, like cracking an egg, knowing whether chicken is raw or cooked (he has legitimately eaten an entire meal of raw chicken that his wife had left on the counter to marinade… not realizing the meat was not cooked), eating with his hands, and anything really that is related to getting his hands dirty. I once talked about making things from scratch vs. a box, and he had a puzzled look on his face; Chris later explained and said, “He has no idea what “from a box” means!” Whenever any kind of meat is on the bone, he struggles to eat it unless he can neatly cut it off with a fork and knife. So when the eggs were presented and we explained they were raw and had to be cracked, dropped, and mixed into the stew, Chris’s dad got uncomfortable and gave a helpless look to his wife. Chris insisted that he crack the egg on his own. I then proceeded to record him on my phone to see if he would be successful. He tried to crack the egg weakly about three times before he finally gave up, gave another helpless look to his wife, and his wife conceded and just cracked the egg for him into his bowl.

It was a bit pitiful to watch, but pretty amusing. And now, I have it documented for rewatching forever!