The Best of Cooking Light

My copy of The Best of Cooking Light arrived in the mail today! It is heavy like a giant textbook. For me, the one thing about cookbooks is that they must have beautiful pictures. Colored ones. I can’t bring myself to buy a cookbook without a good amount of pictures in it. This one is beautiful. There [...]

Faux Sourdough and my first poolish.

“If thou tastest a crust of bread, thou tastest all the stars and all the heavens.“
- Robert Browning

It is amazing what one little extra step can do. Something as simple as making a starter/sponge/poolish can do so much for the taste of bread. I made a faux sourdough the other day. Faux, since I didn’t [...]

一朗亭 Ichiro Japanese Restaurant (Great udon!)

It is hard to find a good Japanese restaurant in Vancouver, despite the vast multitude in the city (Dinehere lists 328 of them, which is double the number in the “pubs” or “pizza” or “family” categories). Maybe it’s my picky palate. I have gone places where I pay $30 for a few pieces of sashimi freshly [...]

A refreshing spin on the traditional. 炸兩.

Ja-leung (炸兩) is a popular Cantonese dimsum derived from two great Chinese foods: the Chinese fried donut (油炸鬼), and the rice noodle roll (腸粉). Basically, Ja-leung is made by wrapping the fried donut stick with a layer of rice noodle roll. Once it arrives at your table, the server cuts the Ja-leung into bite-size pieces, and it is doused [...]

Yeasted Spelt bread

Impetus: Japanese Melonpan 
The reason I decided to learn how to make yeasted bread (other than the fact that it is something on the list of things that I simply must learn), is actually because I hope to one day make Japanese melonpan. In order to make a good melonpan, I decided that I must first understand the [...]

Oatmeal Spelt Muffins

A baking project was long overdue. So I made muffins. Oatmeal spelt muffins, to be exact – in blueberry, chocolate and walnut varieties. I have never made muffins from oatmeal before, and I didn’t follow any specific recipe. They turned out just fine – had the perfect moistness inside. (One sampler said a little too moist [...]

Red meat? It’s gotta be juicey, gamey lamb!

I don’t eat red meat often, maybe once a month. For health reasons, and also because a giant slab of meat just doesn’t excite my palate. That being said, however, lamb is definitely my red meat of choice, and my preference for it far exceeds that of pork or beef. I love that gamey taste and [...]

The art of salad rolls.

I love anything that comes rolled up in some kind of wrap. Salad rolls are one of my favorites. So refreshing and tasty with peanut sauce dip. I always have some rice paper lying around at home; salad rolls and variations thereof are pretty simple to make. Still, I cannot resist ordering these things whenever [...]