Fresh homemade pretzels a la Chef Will Morris @will0724

[I had this written two days ago, not sure why I didn't post it...I MAY have passed out mid-blog OOPS]

Source: Smitten Kitchen

I LOOOOOOVE pretzels… and I loooooove pretzel bread!!!…. L’Espalier actually has some of my fav ever!!! SOOOOO when I was craving them recently…. Chef Will came to my rescue!!! ALLLL the way from DC :]

Yes and just like that he shhhharrred!!!!!! YUMMMMMMMM

First background on Chef. FIRST of all.. follow him on twitter here :] Second of all you should go eat his food at Brasserie Beck in DC – okay I suck cuz I haven’t been BUTTTT… go and stick your feet in his face HAAA :] jk. He hates feet. Don’t. ONWARDS. He’s cool. Deal with it! Here’s an eater article about his tatts… Was just talking with D the other day about how nowanddays chefs are all tattooed up and awesome ;D

Not gona indulge on his recipe BUT…..

Boiling

Baking, Me looking at the Pretz…

What the pretzels saw looking at me…

Yes I have a pervy 13 yr old boy’s sense of humor….

His look like this [stolen from Chef's instagram!]

Yeah I’m not really a bread baker… I do cakes, cookies, muffins, pies, cupcakes etc.. but nothing too bready usually. Esp not with these many steps….

So mine aren’t so pretty and some of them stuck to the pan, BUTTTT they were PRETTY FREAKING TASTY… I may or have may not finished almost all of them…..

Need to make again soon, I crave carbs and salt way too much :]

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner & a Cookie Party at Midnight

First thing’s first…. I had fresh ramps and fiddleheads… and didn’t know what to do with them. So what do I do? Tired and cranky I needed to whip something up quick and delicious….

Crisp Pan-fried Chicken thighs with Ramps…

I crisp up the skin and then add some white wine and the ramps… no extra things except for salt&pepper

Salad, Fruits, Bread & NO CANDY :D

First off, Don’t forget to enter In Her Shoes’ ZAP pb contest by Friday!! You can learn more about ZAP and the winnings here :] (and read a cool blog too hehe) It’s some new pb that’s blended with 10 superfoods (including: carrot, kale, spinach, beets, blueberries & strawberries) too awesome!!!!

Strangely I was starving for something…. cold?! The whole day I expected my brain to crack and just want warmth and my oats and ooey gooey somethings… For ahwile I craved Zha Jiang Mien and then suddenly I remembered that I had beets that needed to be finished off and basil to eat before it went brown. BEAUTIFUL Basil. (I LOOOVE basil and eat it like baby spinach!!!)

A BIG handful or two of roughly chopped FRESH Basil
Double that in Baby Spinach
1 thinly sliced beet
1 large tomato
1 chopped up mango (it was lonely in the fridge)
1 tbs flaxseed
1/4c Wheatberries

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO FREAKING GOOD. Took me over a good 1/2 hour to eat (while I read cooking mags) I started making it with a big noodle bowl but after the spinach and the basil it was already super puffy so I went super sized ;]

Afterwards I finished off the last tiny beet :] It was lonely.

I was scared I was still hungry and my mind raced around thinking.. oats? Cereal? Yogurt? SWEEEEEEEEETS!!!!!!… (I CRAVEEE this pineapple upside down cake I saw Giada make today…) BUTTTT… I breathed in and out, in and out and let myself wait a bit before I realized I was full. But I still wanted to bake so I’m currently baking ADZUKI BEAN CAKE BREAD!!!! (Recipe is in below post)

Look at those yummie CHUNKS of delicious sweet red bean :] YUM!!!

edit @ 1130pm
I TOTALLY overdid fruits tonite. SOOo good but I’m SOO stuffed!!!

2 Cherimoyas

25 Rambutans & 24 Longans!!!

I’M OBSESSED :] (and have to pee so much.. hahaha)

Adzuki Bean Cake Bread

3c Whole Wheat Flour
1/2c Brown Sugar
1 tsp Baking Soda
3 tsp Mexican Vanilla Extract
1.5c Applesauce (nonsweetened)
1c Egg Whites
2 pinches of salt
Pre-made/sweetened Adzuki Bean Paste (chunky is the best!!!) – depends on how much you want, I used about…. 2 cups or so. I split it into thirds and left a hefty third for the topping (to cover it completely)
Black Sesame Seeds (optional; for decoration)
1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix everything but the bean pasta & black sesame seeds together.
3. Spray loaf pan and put in 1/4 of the mixture in.
4. Layer in some bean paste. (I did it nice and thick down the middle)

5. Add another 1/4 of the mixture in.
6. Layer another bit of the bean paste. (Also nice and thick down the middle)
7. I added another 1/4 of the mixture and then some…
8. I added a THICK layer ALL over the top of bean paste.
9. And then a THIN layer of whatever was left of the cake mixture.
10. Bake for 40-50 min and voila!!!!

YUMMMMMERZ!!

See how I layered it from the slice?

Butternut Apple Walnut Muffins

20 oz Butternut Squash (finely diced and mashed)
1 1/4c Brown Sugar
4 Large Eggs
1/2 Granny Smith Apple (peeled, diced)
Pinch of Salt
2 1/2c Whole Wheat Flour
2tsp Baking Powder
1tsp Cinnamon
3/4 Apple Sauce
2/3c Chopped Walnuts

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees & line a muffin pan with muffin cups.
 

2. Peel and dice and roughly mash up the butternut squash.

3. Add in the 1 1/4c of Brown Sugar (you can add more if you want it sweeter) and the 4 large eggs.
 

4. Mix thoroughly. And then chop and peel and add in the granny smith apple.

5. Mix thoroughly. Add in salt, flour, baking powder, apple sauce, cinnamon & walnuts.

6. Use an ice cream scoop and scoop them into muffin cups so it’s almost at the top.
 

Makes about 20 muffins! Bake about 20-25 min
 
 

My first batch I added a cute half walnut on top of each

and the other batch I topped it with cranberry sauce (1/2c cranberries, 1/2c water, boiled down)

Kooooooooooooza :D

WARNING!!!! Super photo heavy!!!

Last nite’s giant queen worm amongst my other Brite Crawlers :D

Must’ve been a mini baby slug or something. It tasted different from the other worms too :] HAHA, must’ve run away from his bag of some other kind of sour snacks… too bad I ate him just as fast as the little ones :D

I have been looking foward to this for forever..& been wanting to go to a show ANYWHERE for YEARS!!!

It was even BETTER than I knew it was gonna be…

SO YES!!!…. Today was AWESOME. I went to Cirque Du Soleil KOOZA (today was the last showing!!!) at the Bayside Expo :D

I had a quick breakfast of Guava dipped into Chia Seeds on the way into Boston….

I left early so I could stop in Dorchester for some yummie Vietnamese snacks :]

edit: Sammie asked me where this place was, and then I realized I hadn’t even said what the place was called hehe….it’s in Dorchester.. called Ba Le Restaurant!

Some Fried Meats/Sausages..

Savory Items..

Jellies, and rice cakes and lots of sweet sticky (colorful) RICE!!!

I got mostly sweets/jellies…

I love the jelly noodle stuff in the box :D

Tons of flans and puddings and stuff.. they even had some yogurt… I was kinda scared to try it tho. Ingredients just said sugar, milk tho…

The stuff on the top is pickled mangoes…

These drinks are so amazing too. I LOOOOVE coconut milk and the brown drinks on the bottom with palm seeds and goji and jujubes and stuff deliciously good (I ended up having some… you’ll see it up close later)

Fresh Bánh mì and other food items were made here too…

More snacks…

And more….

Durian.. Wintermelon, etc… Mung Bean Cakes…

Paté

More more and more…

Jackfruit Chips :D

I kinda wish i got some cuz I love it FRESH (as well as canned but they syrup oversweetens it…)

And even MOOOOORE!!! Hahah i wanted to try it all

I ended up with bags of snacks (now in my little fridge) and then I had some of these for a quick lunch/munch before going to KOOZA!!!

Two Summer (Shrimp+Pork with rice Noodles) Rolls…

MMM, innards!!! You can eat this with this peanut sauce (which I usually like to mix tons of hot sauce in) but I wanted to go sauce free today..

This is the jujube, dates, palm seeds, etc.. etc.. drink that I LOVE!!! So sweet and tasty!!! and HEALTHY (minus the sugar syrupy water it comes in) too!!

I was gonna eat these jelly noodles things but I wasn’t hungry…

I’m SUPER stocked up in snacks… lots of rice cakes, banana cakes, jellies, coconuty things, etc… you’ll see them make appearances in my lunches all week!!!

I managed to make it thru most of the show without touching the popcorn but gave into a small nectarine and 1/2 a brownie. I could smell hotdogs, popcorn and nachos tho :D

I ended up with a program, cd and a gorgeous GORGEOUS mask!!!! Here are some of the ones I tried on :] They had masks that were like 600$ and stuff too, CRAZY!!! I TOTALLY wanna go watch it again, any takers?? ;]

edit @ 1203am HMMM, next day I suppose but I’ll update with dinner and such.

I had to use up the rest of my Butternut from yesterday’s Quinoa stuffing for my artichokes…

Butternut Squash Planks :D My fav!!!!

I like to dip them in hot pepper flakes (well I like to dip everything savory into them haha)

Mung Beans (豆芽) w/ Hot Peppers…. & Garlic 空心菜

Unshown: Tofu w/ Pork Stirfry…

Bittermelon (苦瓜) Soup :D

I had so many of the bittermelon pieces, sooo gooood…

Coconut Milk w/ Jelly, Beans, Jackfruit, etc…

Sweet Rice Cakes – 白糖糕 (these are my FAV)

And then what I’ve been looking forward to try for the longest time because of Eating Asia…

Banana Cake… these were syrupy and a bit on the sweet side but soooo delicious and creamy

I had to have another Rice Cake :D But since they’re not exactly PRETTY.. I won’t bore you with another pic…..

I made bread today out of boredom. I tried this “Beer Bread” that I got in Maine (just add your own beer) so I added my Cherry Blossom beer & then 1/2c oats, 1/2c dried cherries, a tsp of Almond Extract and I melted a little Pumpkin Pecan butter on top :D And a sprinkle of oats and brown sugar as well.

I have the baking and mixing process on my regular digicam but I’m too lazy to download the pictures yet…

5 Preserved Plums & 4 or 5 Black Sugar pieces to suck/nibble on

1o*12 Daily Munch

Not feeling well today :[ AND unlike most ppl on Columbus Day, I had work :[ Boo! I w@h'd tho due to feeling like complete poo...

I'm addicted to weighing my food today...

Breakfast:

1 tbs Chia Seeds (12g)
1/2 Pomelo (344g)
Strawberries (304g) 

Snack/Lunch: 

200g of Pineapple

I decided to bake :] Banana Cinnamon Bread w/ Caramel Chips. NOM! I substituted applesauce for the butter, added 1.5 small bananas (sliced up), 1/2c oats and sprinkled some more oats on top before I popped it into the oven.

Before it went into the oven :]

An hour later, oh man my  house smells like HEAVEN!!! I’ve missed baking…

I’m gonna go nap before dinner….