O.M.G. Banana Cream Pie

These days, it doesn't take much to inspire me to make something new in the kitchen.  I crave all sweet things!  I saw this post on Cupcakes and Cashmere and had to make it... immediately.  I love banana cream pie, so this recipe already captured my heart.  But a banana cream pie with an Oreo cookie crust?  Sounds like O.M.G. in my mouth.  And was it O.M.G., indeed!  I made this pie for a family gathering one sunny Saturday evening, and every single person that had a taste of the banana cream pie were raving about it.  I was shocked by the responses.  I'm not a great dessert maker, so I am quite glad that this turned out great!  Even my dad, who "grades" our cooking and rarely gives out anything above an A-, took a bite and shouted, "A+!!!!"  It is truly an amazing pie.  Please, I beg of you, give it a try!

Banana Cream Pie with Oreo Cookie Crust

Ingredients
Oreo Cookie Crust - 
- 2 cups crushed Oreo cookie crumbs
- 5 Tbsp butter, melted

Custard -
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup cornstarch
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 5 large egg yolks
- 2 1/2 cups whole milk
- 2 Tbsp unsalted butter, soften
- 1 tsp vanilla extract

3 ripe bananas, peeled, cut into 1/2-inch thick slices

Whipped cream - 
- 1 cup chilled whipping cream
- 2 Tbsp powdered sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract

- chocolate curls (optional)

Tools
- food processor
- whisk
- fine-mesh sieve
- wax paper
- peeler (optional, to get chocolate curls)

Steps
1. Make the crust first.  Grease up a 9 1/2 inch pie plate (if using a glass pie plate then there is no need).

2. Separate Oreo cookies from its' filling.  Crush the Oreo cookies with a food processor, until fine.

3. Mix the cookie crumbs with melted butter until moistened.  Dump it into the pie plate, spread it evenly over the pie plate, and press down nice and firm with a spoon.  Place in fridge for 30 minutes before baking for 10 minutes at 350 degrees.  Let it cool while making the custard.

4. Next, make the custard.  Heat milk in a heavy saucepan over moderate heat until hot but not boiling.

5. While milk heats, whisk together yolks, sugar, cornstarch, and salt in a heatproof bowl until smooth.

6. Add 1 cup of hot milk to yolk mixture in a stream, whisking, then add remaining milk, whisking constantly. Transfer mixture back to saucepan and cook over moderately low heat, stirring constantly, until thickened and registers 170F on thermometer, 6 to 10 minutes (do not boil).

7. Immediately force custard through a fine-mesh sieve into a clean bowl and stir in butter and vanilla. Cover the surface with wax paper, cool to lukewarm, about 45 minutes.

8. After the Oreo cookie crust and custard are cooled down, start assembling the pie.  Spread about 1 cup of custard in crust.  Top with sliced bananas, then cover the bananas with the rest of the custard.  Chill the pie for about 2 to 3 hours.

9. Beat chilled whipping cream, powdered sugar, and vanilla extract in a bowl to soft peaks.  Spread cream over pie.  Place in fridge for at least 1 hour and up to 8 hours.

10. Garnish pie with chocolate curls, if desired.  Cut into wedges and serve.

Serves 8 - 10.

Crumbly Oreo crust, eggy and sweet custard filled with bananas, and clouds of whipped cream.  Heaven.

Just Pictures: Four Years = Three Fantastic Meals (Part 2)

For the last two years during "anniversary weekend", we've headed up north to Napa for a meal at Ad Hoc, Thomas Keller's much cheaper restaurant in downtown Yountville.  We wanted to continue this tradition, so we made our way up again this year.  Since I couldn't enjoy any wine-tasting activities, we decided on a chill day of driving up in the morning whenever we felt like, a no frills lunch date, and whatever our hearts desire for the rest of the afternoon until dinnertime.

We discovered the Marin French Cheese Factory last year, thanks to LivingSocial deals.  We visited this factory in Petaluma with our friends on our food-filled adventure day.  They had a fabulous picnic area overlooking a cute little pond, scattered picnic tables all around, and it looked like a perfect place to spend a sunny afternoon.  I've been wanting to come back here ever since and decided that since we were heading up north anyway, we should stop here for a lunch picnic.

From top left to right, clockwise: fruit salad with plum, asian pear, apricot, and strawberries // spicy pasta salad // castelvetrano green olives // triple creme brie and pesto brie // salami // hummus // garden salad // Dorito chips // sliced french baguette.  A few items from home, a few items from Whole Foods, and cheese from the factory.

We ate, we played games, and we read our books and magazines on a sunny yet slightly breezy afternoon.  All of our worries were washed away for a few hours.

Baby boy at 28 weeks.  I think he enjoyed the relaxing time-off too!

Now on to dinner...

Drinks to start: Ginger beer from Bundaberg (light ginger ale drink... yummy!); chilled Viognier white wine (didn't get a chance to note from where and what year).

First course: Summer pole bean salad - blue lake, romano and yellow wax beans, blonde frisee, pickled radishes, chopped shallots, fingerling potatoes, with meyer lemon vinaigrette.  This salad was pretty darn delicious.  I can eat plates and plates of this!  The pickled radishes were the best thing in the dish.  This is the second time I've had something pickled from Ad Hoc and they never go wrong!!

Second course: Marinated beef skirt steak with parsley cous cous, Indian eggplant, romesco sauce, cauliflower florets, and wilted arugula.  Because of the baby, I have to eat red meat that is thoroughly cooked (no red, no bleeding) so I was a bit disappointed that the main entree this day was steak.  They were accommodating enough to provide us 2 separate steaks so the hubs doesn't have to suffer eating overcooked steak.  As I was cutting through the first slice, it was amazingly easy to slice through.  I was surprised.  Then I took a bite of the skirt steak.  Oh My God.  It was so tender, perfectly marinated, and really THE BEST medium-well steak I've ever had!  Especially since I've been pregnant!  I kept gushing about it to the hubby and finally, he decided to try a piece.  He couldn't believe it also.  When the waitress came to check up on us, I gave her high praises for this amazing piece of skirt steak.  The chef made my day!

Third course: Cowgirl creamery's wagon wheel with pepper stew and paladin toast.  I thought this course was just OK, I think I would have preferred individual slices of different cheeses like last year.  There was a younger diner sitting at the table behind us (he must be around 10 or 12 years old) and when he saw this course, he excitedly screamed, "Oh wow, grilled cheese sandwich!"  That was cute.

Fourth course: Vanilla poundcake with strawberry sorbet, rhubarb compote, candied pistachios, and chantilly cream.  I could have been happy with another scoop of the sorbet! Hmm hmm!

Behind the restaurant sits a fabulous garden and an extension of Ad Hoc, called Addendum, that serves up their famous buttermilk fried chicken and barbecue ribs.  The fried chicken alone is seriously worth a trip up, a definite MUST-VISIT spot when you are in town.  It's only open Thursday - Saturday and from 11 - 2 PM, or whenever they sell out.  I got the chance to try Addendum a few weeks ago when I was in town for my sister's bachlorette party, and that's why I can say this is a MUST-HAVE lunch!

I am amazed and in awe of Thomas Keller's gardens, the one behind Ad Hoc and the grand football-sized garden across the street from The French Laundry (pictured below) are simply fabulous.

I aspire towards having a garden like this one day... hey, a girl can dream the impossible, right?

Just Pictures: Four Years = Three Fantastic Meals (Part 1)

It's that time of the year again... our wedding anniversary.  Seriously, where does the time go??

This year we indulged ourselves with 2 fantastic dinners and a relaxing lunch picnic by the pond.

The first dinner was on our actual anniversary, on a Thursday.  Our friend EH actually kind of picked the restaurant for us - she gave me a gift certificate to James Randall in downtown Los Gatos for my birthday earlier this year!  So we went and indulged...

We were early enough for happy hour that day (hey, pregnant lady's got to eat, and usually early!) so the hubby ordered a delicious sounding cocktail from the menu.

The drink actually had a cool name to it, and I really should start writing these things down, but I forgot.  This contained grapefruit juice and vodka, and probably some cool other things but seriously, we both forgot!  And yes, it was delicious.

I had a homemade lemonade (not pictured) that totally hit the spot.  Hmm, I can drink many glasses of that...

We also ordered 2 appetizers to start that were $5 for happy hour.

French fries with lemon zest, black pepper, arbequina olive oil, and homemade ketchup.  Simple things are simply the best!

One of the special appetizers of the day, pork belly on a bed of arugula salad with figs and blackberries.  Disappointingly, I was expecting fatty and juicy pork belly in sauce, but this was deep fried and therefore, I think, made it dry and hard to eat.  Boo.

The hubby's entree: seared kobe new york steak, onion and bacon ragout, tarragon pistou, topped with foie gras butter (optional topping for some extra $$, but totally worth it!), with a side of au gratin (not pictured).  I'm not a big foie gras fan, but that butter with the steak was yum-mmmy!  The potato au gratin was also really good - I should have found out the cheese that was used.

My entree: Fried chicken, bacon collard greens, buttered mash potatoes, buttermilk biscuit, with honey and chive butter.  All of the items in this entree were superb - my favorites were the biscuit and chive butter.  The biscuit was amazingly flaky and soft, and I don't know what they did with the butter but the chives were perfectly blended in and it was just so darn good!  Maybe the baby is a butter lover?  Now that's my boy!

We skipped dessert at the restaurant and walked about a block to get gelato at Dolce Spazio.  Although we walked around downtown a bit to work off our meal prior to dessert (a great "walk", I scored some cute things at J. Crew!), we only had enough room for an uno size (small).

Half amaretto almond (amaretto gelato//toasted almonds), half oreogasmint (mint gelato//oreo pieces), with a triangle wafer.  YUM!

******
Since we are taking every chance to enjoy our time left as two, with just about 12 weeks to go, we took the next day off from work and ventured up north to continue our "anniversary tradition" (examples here and here).  Part 2, a lunch picnic and fabulous dinner, will be posted next!

Tangy Fingerling Potato Salad

Looking for a quick and easy potato salad for a summer BBQ or pool party?  Here it is!  It's cold, it's sour, it's salty.  The potatoes also have a great crunch.  It's a delicious little side to go along with some barbecued meat or hamburgers. Give it a try!

Tangy Fingerling Potato Salad
from Martha Stewart

A few variations...
- I used purple, red, and yukon potatoes instead.
- I didn't have any white wine vinegar so used rice vinegar instead.  It worked!

Colorful potatoes.

Cold and tangy.

Pickled Cucumbers

This pickled cucumbers dish was a staple item for me growing up.  A popular Chinese dish, I always order it whenever I am eating at a Taiwanese restaurant.  My mom also knows that I love this, so she will remember to make it when it's hot out.  It's been hot out, so I decided to make it for myself!  It's quite a simple dish to put together... I may be pickling more often now.

Pickled Cucumbers

Ingredients
- 8 Persian cucumbers
- 2 1/2 tsp salt
- 8 cloves of garlic, smashed
- 4 Tbsp rice vinegar
- 2 1/2 tsp sugar
- 2 tsp sesame oil
- garlic chili sauce, to your desired spiciness (I only put a dash for taste)

Steps
1. Wash the cucumbers and cut it in half length-wise. Cut it again length-wise to produce 4 long slices.  Cut the slices in half (or thirds, depending on how long the slices are) into 2 or 3-inch pieces.

2. Toss cucumbers with salt and let it sit for 20-30 minutes, to let excess water drain out.

3. Drain water and mix in smashed garlic, rice vinegar, sugar, sesame oil, and garlic chili sauce (optional).  Mix well!

4. Place it in the refrigerator overnight (about 24 hours for best results) and enjoy!

Serves 2-3.

Crunch crunch.  The garlic gives it a little extra kick!

Summer Dessert with Nectarines and Apricots

One of the common questions I get while being pregnant right now is: do you crave anything?  Sometimes I think long and hard about this because I don't really think I do.  I do not have crazy cravings such as pickles dipped in chocolate or fries dipped in ice cream (although I already do love this with McDonald's soft serve and their french fries... hmm, I want some right now), but I guess I do crave something, and I eat A LOT of it... fruits!!

This started back during my first trimester, when I avoided eating a lot of things because nothing seemed appetizing to me.  I felt like I had to force myself to eat my lunch or dinner (especially dinner... I just wanted to go to sleep!), but the only thing I enjoyed eating were fruits.  It was apples, oranges, and bananas at the time since it was winter.  Now that summer is here, I am a much happier pregnant lady!  I get to enjoy items such as watermelon, cantaloupe, pineapple, peaches, nectarines, plums, apricots, pears, cherries, and the list goes on and on... you know those Costco-sized watermelons?  I can eat one all by myself in less than a week.  I LOVE FRUIT!

My current love for fruits inspired me to make a quick dessert for the family last Saturday night.  I have sooo much fruit in my fridge, why not share?  This was a delicious and fulfilling galette, especially with a big scoop of Haagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream!

Nectarine and Apricot Galette
from Simply Recipes

A few variations...
...instead of using 2 peaches, I used 1 nectarine and 4 large apricots.
...mixed 2 tsp of sugar and 1/2 tsp of cinnamon together to get cinnamon sugar, and generously sprinkled the mixture on the crust (after the eggwash process) to give it a bit more of a sugary taste.  If you have coarse sugar, it's even better!
...I actually forgot the small chunks of butter to be placed on top of the fruits, but I don't think it mattered much.  You can opt out if trying to save some fatty calories (quite little though).

Happy fruits.

Alternating nectarine and apricot slices.  Fold the corners to wrap it all up!

Mouthwatering...

Just Pictures: Big Island Eats

In terms of cooking, I've been MIA for awhile. The reason?  A certain tiny human being has taken over my life and I am either too tired or too achy to step into the kitchen and whip up something.  Yes, we are expecting and our ever growing baby boy is currently at 27 weeks!  We cannot wait for his arrival this late September!

Before the baby's arrival, we decided to have one last go at a real vacation and spent a week on the Big Island of Hawaii.  It was an amazing, relaxing, and food-filling week of sun-soaking, island-exploring, and food-tasting fun.  Take a look at some of the great things (and a couple of "THE BEST" things) we tasted:

Da Poke Shack

Because I cannot eat raw fish (trust me, I was kicking myself over and over again the entire week), I have to rely on my hubby's equally good taste buds to let me know if this place was good. With a raving 5-stars from 223 reviewers on Yelp, and the hubby grinning, savoring each bite of the fish every time he had it, I knew I was missing out on something big.  Daily, there are usually about 4-6 choices of poke, and you can choose 1 or 2 styles of poke, a side, and a big blob of white or brown rice with nori (seaweed) flakes sprinkled generously on top.

Top to bottom: sesame poke with kimchi mussels and white rice; Pele's Kiss with crab salad and brown rice.

Yes, I am drooling along with you.  To top it off, this place was literally right outside our rented condo, so I have to walk by it every day, watching everyone enjoying the delicious poke!  I'm not sure if we'll ever be back, but if we get the chance, I am definitely going to try it, multiple times!!

Island Fruits

Left to right: kona mango - it's just so much better in Hawaii; apple banana - tangy and sweet banana; papaya -  a MUST!

Rotana's Thai Cuisine

One of THE BEST I've ever had - a super fresh papaya salad.  It was the perfect combination of green papaya, tomatoes, carrots, peanuts, lime juice, and fish sauce.  There may be other secret ingredients.  I can eat this every day! 

Sam Choy's

A nice meal with amazing views to round out our week on the Big Island.

Left to right: complementary salad and coconut curry soup, lava flow (virgin and non-virgin), and Kona chicken wings.

Top to bottom: braised short ribs on a bed of chow mien and Kona orange duck with a side of brown rice.

Scandinavian Shave Ice

One can't go to Hawaii without eating some shaved ice!  Super fine ball of ice drenched with mango and passion fruit syrup, with a delicious macadamia nut vanilla ice cream in the center.  Creamy and fruity!

Two Ladies Kitchen

Another THE BEST, AND THE MOST AMAZING MOCHI I HAVE EVER HAD.  EVER EVER HAD.  EVER.  If you are going to visit the Big Island, I highly recommend visiting this small store in Hilo downtown for amazing mochi.  Their signature strawberry mochi is out of this world, and it really is THE freshest thing we've ever had.  I've had the same strawberry mochi in Japan and it wasn't as good as the ones here.  It is as big as your head and can seriously fulfill you with just one.  The nice lady that helped us also gave us an extra one for the road - how nice!

We also tried other flavors, from top left to right, clockwise: lilikoi (passion fruit), marshmallow, peach, chi chi (milk-flavored), peanut butter, and brownie.  We were not able to finish them all in one day, but because they are SO fresh, it was still delicious the next morning.  After we finished them all, we were sad that we did not get 2 or 3 more boxes!

It was a great excuse to get away, and maybe we should have went on multiple babymoons. :)

We love Hawaii...

Baby and Me (at 19 weeks)

Catfish

For me, it is usually a treat to eat freshly steamed fish on special occasions, such as Chinese New Year or out for a banquet dinner.  During a regular visit to my mother-in-law's in SF, we stopped by Chinatown (our usual hangout spot), devoured some delicious dim sum from our favorite restaurant, Great Eastern Restaurant (yes, where the President was this past February!), and went grocery shopping on the busy and crazy Stockton Street.  Both my mother-in-law and I bought a fresh big catfish to eat for dinner.  You can truly taste the freshness in each bite!

Steamed Catfish with Black Bean Garlic Sauce

Ingredients
- 1 fresh catfish
- 3 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 Tbsp garlic black bean sauce
- 2 tsp soy sauce
- 2 tsp rice wine
- 1 stalk green onion, thinly sliced

Steps
1. Wash fish thoroughly. Pat to dry.

2. Mix minced garlic, garlic black bean sauce, soy sauce, and rice wine together.  Place washed fish on plate and pour mixture all of the fish.

3. Fill a large pot with water. Ensure that you have a stand or some type of device that can place a plate on top, in order to steam the fish. Turn heat to medium and let it cook and steam for about 20 minutes. The fish should be flaky when done.

4. Place thinly sliced green onions on top of the fish and serve.  Serves 2-4.

Just Pictures: Tea Party For Our New Niece!

My older sister is having a second child, a girl (yayy!), and didn't want a baby shower this time around. Well, I made her have one.  A surprise tea party baby shower.

My sisters and I have been talking about holding a tea party for awhile now, an inspiration from my talented friend, Cin Cin Let's Eat's annual tea party (examples here and here). My younger sister and I planned this party together and decided on 3 savory sandwiches (my responsibility) and 4 sweets (sister's responsibility).

The menu...  

-- Curried Egg Salad --

(inspired from here, without the celery and green onions and added about 1 Tbsp of yellow curry powder to the mix of 8 eggs)

-- Chicken Salad (courtesy of Safeway, haha) --

-- Cucumber Sandwiches with herb butter, half with proscuitto on top --

(mix softened butter with chives and salt, thinly slice an English cucumber and nicely layer cucumber pieces on bread)

-- Raspberry Coconut Thumbprint Cookies --

-- various cupcakes from Frost Factory --

-- Passion Fruit Tart with Strawberries and Raspberries --

-- Fruit Salad (not pictured) --

The spread 

It was a fabulous time on a Sunday afternoon of April Fools Day.  We cannot wait for our little niece to arrive in the world (just a few more weeks, yeah!).

Discovering New Vegetables: Kale!

Kale is like the "hip" vegetable lately.  I'm not sure if it's because I suddenly have a new appreciation for it so that I notice, but it's everywhere!  I first encountered this vegetable due to the juice cleanse I did last year.  One of the two green juices I drank everyday for 3 days had kale in it.  Soon after the cleanse, we purchased a Vitamix in order to make healthy smoothies.  Oh man, the Vitamix blender is the most amazing thing and may be my second most favorite tool in the kitchen!  For green smoothies, I sought out different vegetables to use and a lot of the recipes I found used kale.  I initially ate a lot of kale in a blended fashion, but after finding this salad recipe and still having lots of it in the fridge, I decided to give solid kale a chance.  What a great salad.

Fully-Loaded Kale Salad
adapted from Healthy. Happy. Life.

A few variations...
...I used marinated artichokes, pears, romaine lettuce, persian cucumbers, plum tomatoes, and avocados.

A surprisingly nutty and tangy dressing.

Refreshing!