Matcha Kick!

So lately I've been on a Matcha kick... I recently bought a Matcha set from Itoen and I love it! First off, let me give a little recap on what Matcha is for those of you who don't know what it is.

Matcha or  抹茶  (まっちゃ) as you'll most commonly find it in Japanese supermarkets, is green tea that is shade grown, picked and then laid flat to dry. Once It's dry, the leaves crumble up and then are stone ground to make the fine powder known as Matcha.  Matcha is really good for you to drink because it is rich in amino acids and contains the highest amount (more than 137 times more) of antioxidant EGCG's than any other green tea available.   There have been studies that state that EGCG is very good at treating many types of cancer's as well as other diseases. 

In Japan, Matcha is generally used for sado/chado (Japanese tea Ceremony) and that's where this story begins :)  When My husband and I went to Japan for the first time we went to a tea ceremony at the Tokyo Botanical Gardens and since then it started to peak my interest so the next time we were in Japan we had it at  Kinkaku-ji in Kyoto.  It was that time in Kyoto that I was the most memorable because till this day I can still taste the bold sweetness of the Matcha, it was the best I have ever had and I'm still looking for a Matcha that matches that one in taste.  I think I'm going to have to go high grade for that.  BTW, if you want better tasting Matcha, from what I've been told the Matcha from the Uji region of Japan is the best.

So getting back to the set I bought, it came with a bamboo whisk (chasen), bowl (chawan) and wooden spoon (chashaku) all for the low low price of $33 dollars! :) I think it was on sale. It's a really pretty and sturdy set, I was lucky to get this because after looking around the internet at different American and Japanese Matcha providers, this set seemed to be the best because it actually came with a tiny tin canister with Matcha.  Sadly, I'm not sure what type of Matcha it is grade wise or what region it came from.  It's probably not that high a grade because it's a bit bitter to me.   It also does not foam very well.  Good quality Matcha is supposed to foam up well and have a nice even consistency to it.  I guess it's ok for now.   I'm going to try to get some Matcha from this website, "O-Cha", which means "tea" in Japanese.  It was particularly recommended to me that I should try the following Matchas : "Kiri no Mori" and "Kiku Mukashi" . Since they are on the expensive side and Matcha is never cheap (if it's cheap, please stay way from it as it's most likely low quality) I'm going to have to wait a while till I have the extra funds to buy some good Matcha :)

Divine Brine from the Farmers' Market!

Have you ever had Wasabi Dills before? Well, what are you waiting for? Go try them! I discovered them during one of my trips to the Farmers' Market at Union Square.

My hubby and I love going to the Farmers' Market because there are usually some awesome finds there! They have some of the best apples and fresh fruit I have ever tasted. Paying just a little bit more for non chemically treated fruits and veggies is definitely worth the investment. I think my favorite apple supplier is "Red Jacket Orchards".  They have some tasty yellow apples and delicious hot apple cider :)

So getting back on topic, Divine Brine is this little stall that I found on one of these trips (on a Friday) that had samples out for the public, so naturally this means I'm going to flock right to it! Hehehehe....
They had a bunch of different pickle varieties and a few chutneys and the best Beet Caviar you'll ever taste! Yum!~ So my hubby and I bought this Wasabi Dill, some Peach Chutney and a jar of Beet Caviar! If we could we probably would have bought one of each of the things they were offering, everything is just so tasty!

Here are some pics from the Market !~ :

Cake Decorating Class!

So yesterday I attended my first Cake Decorating Class! It was so much fun, I gained a "Sim Skill Point" ( for those of you who have played "The Sims" you know what I'm talking about!) in baking!  It took place at "The Brooklyn Kitchen" , which is located at 100 Frost Street in Brooklyn.

Let me start this entry by stating that I almost never go to Brooklyn.  The last time I went there was for jury duty a few years back and then there was the time my husband, then boyfriend and I accidentally took the B24 and ended up getting lost there ...  In any event, you may be asking yourself, " your a Queens girl, why are you going all the way to Brooklyn to take a class at some shop?", well, the answer is that I've been looking for some decent and cheap classes to improve my baking skills as much as possible and at $65 dollars, it was not too bad.  Most places for a 2 to 4 hour class ask for a minimum of $100 and I said, "hey why not? If I like it I may take more classes?"

The class was scheduled for 6.30pm and lasted for about roughly 2 hours.  When I got to the store I smiled to myself cause they had a "singles" wall post right next to the wall.  The funny thing was it was a "Cooking themed personals board" and had sayings like " I would like to cook ________ for you", I thought it was cute :)  The store its self was nice and spaceous and had a lot of interesting items that you wouldn't find in your local target's cooking section like mason jars and squirrel shaped cookie cutters.  There was even a mini herb garden under UV light (it looked like a mini botanical)! I probably should have taken pics of these things but sadly the only pics I have are in my mind :)

Megan Fitzroy

So after quickly browsing through the store I got my name tag and proceeded to go to the class room.  I actually consider myself lucky to have gotten the big classroom on the first floor for my first class there, it made a great impression.  There was another class being held the at the same time on the second floor and it seemed a bit more cramped up there (it was off to the side almost mixed in with the baking merch for sale..).  The classroom that I got was big and very rustic.  The walls were mostly bare brick and there was a lot of natural light coming in through the high ceilings.  Next to the coat rack there was a rack of animal meat hanging from the ceiling.  Not sure if they were real though... They looked like they were cured or smoked..  It kind of seemed out of place but I guess that was part of their decoration.

Rosettes

Our class was taught by Pastry Chef Megan Fitzroy who proceeded to teach us the art of piping and decorating cakes with the following techniques : Beading, Shells, Reverse Shells, Vines, Leaves and Rosettes.  She had us practice onto cake boards, I kinda wish we had our own mini cakes to practice on but hey.. at least we got a small decorating kit included to show for our hard work! hehehe.  We also learned how to make cornets (which i thoroughly suck at... sigh...) Oh and after practice we each got a piece of her wonderful chocolate cake!

All in all I enjoyed the class and now I can practice my piping to my hearts content to get it perfected!  I think the best ones that I got were Reverse Shells and Rosettes.  Regular Shells are a bit hard to get that point on... I also thought that the frosting was just slightly on the thicker side for them too.  Well practice makes perfect!  I can't wait for my next baking class !!

Sorry I have not updated in a few months!

Wow.... so I just realized I've been a very bad blogger.... It was my goal to make this a personal journey website and well, I kinda let other things in life take over and forgot about you. Well, I'm back now!! I'm going to be posting things a bit more often and hopefully keep a realistic goal of posting at least twice a month.  I also should mention that my computer decided to die on me about a month ago and I had to get it restored and get a new hard drive so all of my pictures that I had stored on my computer of foods I had made are completely gone.  I had done so many things that now I have no pictures to document my stories with... I had made fish twice, some baked beans ( that really were not that good... but I wanted to put them here anyway lol) and some other things I can't remember for the life of me.   I don't even really have my original backups of the pics on this blog up till today...  It kinda sucks but I guess that will teach me to keep backups in two locations rather than just solely relying on my computer.

So now that the sad news is out there, get ready for tomorrow because I shall return with some Green Tea goodness!

So I did end up making that soup....Sebzeli Sulu Kofte

So I really did end up making that soup last week.  I kinda took my dear sweet time to post this up though, but at least I can say I made my quota hehe. It seems like my posts are kinda stretching thin these days though.  My goal is that I want to post at least two posts per week, one in the beginning of the week and one at the end, and if I get more in between that then even better!

Ok, so onward to the soup. Last year my mom and I took a tour package of Turkey and I have to say, I was most inspired.  I really enjoyed the food there and this soup is something that I had on several occasions :) It's called "Sebzeli Sulu Kofte"  which is Meatballs and Vegetables in tomato sauce.  It's not really a soup, it's more of a stewish soup, I guess it really varies where you go to get it hehe.  I had made this once before and this time around I stuck a bit closer to the original recipe.  Last time I did not add the peas and it was a bit soupier. I also added red pepper paste to the mix to give it a more tomatoy taste to it. The one thing that I still notice is that I need to add more water next time. I'm not really that fond of chunky soups :)










I got the recipe off of this wonderful turkish cooking site called " Binnur's Turkish Cookbook".  I loved the concept of so many of these dishes that I actually got her book for Christmas! :) Since I'm not allowed to post the recipe here for the dish I'll link it here :  Sebzeli Sulu Kofte recipe.

Enjoy~~!!

And now for a little something extra! Shiba Cookies!

"Oh Mama! For me?"

B"efore you ask, No these are not cookies made from Shibas or are they made by Shibas. :) While cooking I decided to make a little extra something for my dog :) Sad thing is It was from a doggie cookie mix bag I bought in target recently and I only found 1 bag. It was just your standard  "Take this flour mix and add water and then cookie cut the shapes and bake" recipe.  I couldn't really tell you the ingredients even if I wanted to because it was not made from scratch. I would love to find a book out there for some cheap doggie baked goods! That would be fun :) 

These guys came out nice and crispy when they first came out of the oven but as time passed and I put them in a jar, they kind of got soft. I guess it's the ingredients in them or something? It was kinda odd. Ah well, but Ayato (my Shiba) loved them! He's lucky this week cause he's going to get a lot of these guys to finish them up quickly.  Now next on the agenda will be some cat treats!

Lemon Bars part 2 :D Woot! #2 is done!

Ok! So I finally got my lemon bars out! :D Not exactly in this weekly's order but who's counting right? This time a bought a real 9 x 9 brownie/cake pan and made them in there! :) The bars came out so much better this time around! I didn't have to fight with them to get them out of the pan and the texture was nice and even through out! Not as porous and bubbly like last time. I even coated them with confectioner's sugar and they looked and tasted even yummier than last time!

The recipe  that I used came from this page

" Cooking Done Light "
and here are the ingredients:

1/4 cup confectioners’ (powdered) sugar
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
3 eggs
scant 3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons freshly grated lemon zest
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
additional confectioners’ sugar, for dusting.

 If you want the actual directions please feel free to go to the website listed above. :) Thank you for these awesome lemon bars!!! I think they will be a family household staple! hehe. Now I just need to do them a couple dozen times and get them down packed so that I'm not looking at the recipe on a piece of paper all the time !! I kinda still wish I bought a Chumby to place on my kitchen counter so I could view recipes on it. Unfortunately in reality its not that practical for that use.. I'd prob get it messed up and dirty with little bits of lemon peel stuck on it and we don't want to do that to poor Chumby now do we? No we don't.. The text would probably be too small on it anyway... Oh! side note, I need to buy another 9 x 9 pan. These babies don't last a full day lol!!