slim down meatloaf and Beef Zilzil

Ok, I've attempted to make the Slim Down Meatloaf (which I had for lunch) and Beef Zil Zil (ethiopian dish, which I also had for lunch) this past Saturday.

Slim down meatloaf.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_29552,00.html
So I started with the ingredients and combined them.

and after much blending in the blender and making sure the frozen spinach is dry, I combined it with the 1 egg and 1 egg white. Taste wise, I think one egg would be able to hold all this together.
The end result?

Not very flavorful dish, I knew I should've seasoned the ground turkey more but it was my first attempt at making meatloaf. Now I know!

Beef ZilZil
I was inspired by seeing this dish on one of Rachel Ray travel shows. I looked up the recipe and followed it. Everyone had a different version of putting it together but this was the one I followed.
http://www.astray.com/recipes/?show=ZILZIL%20ALECHA%20(BEEF%20IN%20GREEN%20PEPPER%20SAUCE


End result? I should've cut the strips of beef smaller and perhaps used more seasoning. Again, another new dish but I know I didn't get this right either. I will have to check out some Ethiopian restaurants to see how my dish stacked up.

Pork Chops and no soup for you!

This weekend, Costco had a $5 off coupon for porks. Naturally, I took advantage of the sale and started searching for some recipes. I was looking for something not so easy, yet not so difficult. I stumbled onto Michael Chiarello's Toasted Spice Rub Pork Chops with Apple Dressing. I had to go and purchase most of these spices since I can never find spices when I need them.

Toasted Spice Rub
1/4 cup fennel seeds
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
1 tablespoon peppercorns
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 cup pure California chili powder
2 tablespoons kosher salt
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon

Ground them up and season them onto the dutch oven they went. I love the flavor of the fennel, I think I'll experiment with them some more. Onto the recipe, I added some caramelized onions but I did not get a chance to plate this since I had a graduation party to attend.

I was able to squeeze in another experiment while the oven was on. I baked a kabocha (japanese pumpkin). Took the inside out, added cream, cucumbers, and salt. The cucumbers were leftovers and I just diced and tossed them withouth thinking. I think I just wanted to break out my new toy, the Kitchen Aid KHB1000B Blender. The soup did not come out creamy and hearty, rather it was a creamy and funky. I will have to experiment some more next time around!

Bette's Diner -Berkeley

In between dropping off parts to a customer and waiting for the North Face outlet to open, HS and I decided to head on over to Bette's Diner in Berkeley for breakfast. If you do not have the patience to wait an hour for this place, do not bother going here.

Upon entering, you see this pie in the sky motif.
To the right of the entrance is a jukebox. It's definitely a "fun" looking place. To tiles on the floor are checkboard black and white, reminiscent of the 50s. After being almost passed out for waiting, we finally got to sit down at the counter. There, we had a view of the short cooks plating the food. It looked fast and fresh.








I had ordered the 2 eggs with their apple sausages and their cranberry lemom scone. (The scone which is probably the best on there). It was good but nothing too fancy. HS got the banana souffle pancake. (The soffle takes a while to bake.) I also got a side of salsa and a latte. The damage was about $30 with tax and tip. I think price wise, this is a tad high for breakfast. Portions were not great but the food was not bad. I've had a lot of better breakfast in the North Beach district of SF. I recommend just going next door to their to go order section and get a scone. It will save you the time and a bit of change from your wallet.

Wahibs Middle Eastern

This past Friday nite, I got a chance to have dinner with ML and SC for dinner. These are my long time friends and we wanted something close by in Alhambra yet uncommon. We had decided on Wahibs on Main. They are a middle eastern restaurant serving Lebanese food. I got a bottle of Almanza, a Lebanese beer, very crisp and refreshing with a sweet after taste. It went very well with Kabobs.



The meals here comes with Soup or Salad. Since I was able to get salad just about anywhere, I opted for the lentil soup. Now, I'm not a big fan of lentil. I've always imagined senior citizens eating lentil because it's easy to chew. But this one soup was fresh, has nutty smokey flavor
Good eats!



For the main course, I got the chicken kabobs. I think this was probably one of their most request items. I got that and shared a chicken shwarma with the guys. The chicken kabobs were one of the best but the chicken shwarma stands out! We followed the dinner with knafeh and we were so stuffed, I couldn't even get ice cream at Fossilmans down the street.

Well, another great meal and recommendation for people who wants to venture out to something different, healthy, and not to burn a hole in the pocket.

Morimoto on a stick?

This was LTSC's sake tasting. The event had a great turnout, I got to see a few old faces at the event. Definitely will be back next year. I'll have to bring AJ and his girlfriend, Sachi because they are both Morimoto and Sake fans!

Baked Macaroni and Damn Coconut

Ok, Thursday nights are usually my cleanup days and freetime. So after work last night, I was home, picked about 20 or so Lemons. (They are for Peter and Pam up in SF). I also Mowed the lawn and did a few housekeeping chores. So afterwards, I went to the other house and started cooking. I had bought onions from the Korean Market by my work an hour before.

This was what I was attempting to make, another one of Rachel Ray's recipes.
Baked Macaroni and Gouda Cheese with Italian Sausage
http://www.rachaelraymag.com/recipe/33052/

*Instead of Macaroni, I had to use little elbows from a leftover session.
*In addition to milk , I added heaving cream cuz I had leftovers from the citrus sauce the weekd before when I made the Wasabi Crusted Salmon.
*Instead of regular Gouda, I had smoked gouda.
*and my caramelized onions was on the drier side.

This was the aftermath.

Didn't come out too bad but my version of the trouffle macaroni, which is similar to this one, was a tad better. This came out drier on the edges. Maybe I baked it on too high?

So I thought that was pretty easy, why not go for my curry when I had leftover potatos and more of the caramelized onions? Well, I had bought a 99 cent coconut a week and sometime ago. I thought, wow, that's cheap! Until you decide to cut into it!!!!
This is before:


This was first experience for me. I didn't have any of the necessary tools. I thought, why not get a screwdriver and a hammer? As I was nailing it down, I realized I didn't want to have motor oil to contaminate with the coconut juice. So I got a big cleaver.
If you chop it at the right place, it will open.
This is after:


Well, long story short, as I was trying to get the coconut flesh out, I accidently cut myself with the knive. Stupid as I am, after being taped up. I continued and broke one of SS' henkel knives. So basically a 99 cent disaster turned into $25 and a big wound. Don't let this happen to you! Have someone else cut open the coconut if you are cooking!