Mac + Cheese + Pie = ^_^

So I saw a recipe for a mac n cheese pie that I was going to make but then... I got too lazy to make a crust.  INSTEAD, we have this mini pie maker that works really well with those Pillsbury Grands biscuit dough in the can.  But I also wanted to make a spicy mac n cheese using pepper jack cheese so I researched a couple different recipes and came up with one of my own.  I couldn't use all pepper jack cheese or else the flavor would have been way too overpowering so I used half mild cheddar and half pepper jack.  I never really measure when I cook so these measurements may be a little off but here's about what I think I did:

Ingredients: 

Makes about 16

2 cups of small pasta, cooked al dente

4 oz Monterey pepper jack cheese, cubed

4 oz mild Cheddar cheese, cubed

1 teaspoon all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons sour cream

1/2 teaspoon or to taste of salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, dry mustard, tabasco, and garlic

1 cup half-and-half cream

1 tbsp butter

2 cans Pillsbury grands biscuits

Sorry if these measurements aren't really correct...you just have to taste and experiment!

This is the kind of pasta I used.  They're super small!

Just in cause you've been deprived of a childhood and don't know what I'm talking about, these are the type of buiscuts you should get.

What to do:

~ So first cook your pasta and be sure not to overcook it since it'll cook a little when mixing with the other stuff.  

~ Then on the stove cook on medium your butter, half-and-half cream, flour, salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, dry mustard, tabasco, and garlic.   

~ Then add both cheeses and let it melt until you get a nice creamy cheesy mixture.  

~ Then finally mix in your sour cream followed by the pasta very last.

~ So once you have your mac n cheese done, time to make the pies!

~ If you don't have a cute handy dandy pie maker, then well, TO BAD.  Should have thought about that before you made your mac n cheese!  Nah jus kidding I'm sure you can use little bowls or maybe even a muffin tin instead and just bake them.  But I dunno I've never tried it so don't blame me if it fails.  Anyways, grease whatever you're going to use and place one layer of the grands biscuit dough onto the bottom, fill it with a small spoonful of the mac n cheese and lay another layer of dough on the top of the filling then close the mini pie maker or if you're using something else, pop them in the oven.

~ The pie maker cooks it pretty fast so it only takes a few minutes; baking in the oven will take longer.  

~ Check them to make sure they are golden brown then pop the little pies out and you're done!

MarMOND!

WOW, it has been over a year since my last post and I am back due to the fact that I have yet another summer of NOTHING to do!  SO let's kick off 2011 with a REAL recipe like a REAL food blog!

After watching "Cupcake Wars" on the food network, I was instantly inspired to try making a marshmallow whipped frosting since one of the contestants made some type of marshmallow frosting.  So after this inspirational moment, I decided to make a Fresh Strawberry Yogurt Cupcake with an Almond whipped cream topping.  What, Marshmallow?  Anyways, I have been in a homemade whipped cream mood lately and wasted many hours brainstorming a good combination.  BUT I also wanted to use greek yogurt in my cake since I've tried it in a healthy cheesecake I made once and it has a super rich and creamy flavor.  So finally I found a recipe for a Fresh Strawberry Yogurt CAKE and just modified the recipe to make it into fun cupcakes!

Cake:

1 cup butter, softened

2 cups sugar

3 eggs

2 tablespoons lemon juice

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

8 oz. plain or vanilla greek yogurt (I did half plain and half vanilla - vanilla is slightly sweeter)

12 oz. fresh strawberries, diced

1 cup powdered sugar

Frosting:

(I just made up my own recipe so I'm not sure about the measurements but I will give you an estimate - but really you should just add ingredients and keep tasting until it tastes good!)

2 cups heavy whipping cream

1 teaspoon almond extract

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1/3 cup finely chopped almonds

What to do:

~ Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.

~ Mix together the flour, baking soda, and salt then set aside.

~ Blend together butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy.  Beat in eggs one at a time and stir in lemon juice.  Alternate beating in the flour mixture from earlier and the yogurt, mixing until everything is blended together.

~ Toss strawberries and gently mix them into the batter so they don't get mushy

~ For the frosting, make sure the whipped cream is super cold and stick the bowl and whisk you're going to use in the freezer to make sure those are super cold too.  

~ Once they're all chilled up, start whisking the whipped cream at a high pace and once you begin, don't stop or else the whipped cream might loose it's fluffiness.  Early on in the whipping process, slowly dust in the powdered sugar while you're whisking and throw in the almond extract whenever.

~ Whipping the cream sometimes takes forever but don't over-whip!  Whip until it "peaks" as in the look like little mountains when you pull the whisk out.  And once it's done, fold in the almond pieces into the cream.  Frosting DONE!

So now that you have both the cake and frosting done, you can decorate your cupcakes however you desire.  To put the frosting on, since I don't have a piping bag, I just used a sandwich sized baggie instead.  You just put some frosting into the baggie, seal it so there's no air, and the twist the top corner so all the frosting goes to one of the bottom corners, and then cut off a little hole from the bottom corner the frosting is on and there you go!  Pipe away!  Yay!

  

Ku-re-pu

Boy do Japanese sure like crepes.  There has been a crepe stand in every city I've visited!  The secret to a good crepe is...THE SMELL.  The things that lures people to buy these delicious cones is definitely the marketing strategy of SMELL.  So since I have been in Japan I have tried 4 different crepe stands with five different flavors...how is that possible?


~ Angels Heart ~

Harajuku is famous for their crepes, who knows why.  Surrounded with thousands of choices, around 5 to be exact, we decided to try "Angels Heart" crepes.  Here I tried the Kiwi with Strawberry ice cream crepe.  Since it was my first Japanese crepe I thought it was amazing!  However...after tasting a couple others, this crepe turned out to be simply average.  Although, I did appreciate their interesting flavors and clever combination of Kiwi Strawberry but the strawberry being the ice cream.

Too bad the crepes don't really look like that.

I say 7/10

~ Tapioca World ~

Ok I knew it was a mistake from the beginning to buy a crepe from a stand called "Tapioca World" but we were really craving crepes and we couldn't find the other place so we gave it a go.  One flavor definitely stood out to me:  Matcha Azuki.  Of course I love the crazy flavors and with half their choices being boba drinks I had no choice but to try the Matcha Azuki.  I admit, being from a place called Tapioca World, they did pretty good.  Although, I would appreciate it if he spread the filling evenly instead of it all being on the top....and then the last bite was an explosion of Matcha...wow.

Random little stand.

The crepe man.

Final product: 8/10

~ Marion Crepes ~

So this is the famous chain of crepe places.  They even have a stand in Shirokiya in Hawaii.  There was one of these in Harajuku but we actually went to the one in Kamakura because it was so convenient when we were craving crepes yet again...I'm beginning to think we are misinterpreting the definition of "craving" because it seems like whenever we pass a crepe stand, we can't resist it.  This place had an interesting separation of menu, hot and cold crepes.  Although, I'm pretty sure all crepe places have this segregation but this one made it clear on the menu.  Cold crepes are the kind with ice cream so they let the crepe cool so that the ice cream doesn't melt.  Hot crepes mostly had custard (HOMEMADE custard to be exact) and other fillings.  AND i observed that the hot crepes are like flat and the cold ones are always rounded.  So at this place of course I had to try their homemade custard, I'm a sucker for homemade things, and therefore I ordered Banana Custard.

Fading displays are not appetizing...

OH they speak Spanish what a relief! 

FLAT = HOT
7/10 tabun...

~ Kunpu...Kizu...Ku Don?? ~

Dang I really with I knew what the name of this crepe place is...but I have no idea.  Their sign has like three names on it and I have no idea which is the real name!!  Plus the font they use is absolutely terrible, especially if Japanese is not your first language.  I felt so stupid standing in front of the menu for 10 minutes trying to make out what it said and what each flavor was.  Then I felt even more dumb when the lady gave me my crepe in a wrapper with the menu on it but in ENGLISH.  AND an explanation of what "Puff" is.  The puff at the end of all those names made me feel dumb too cause I kept re-reading it making sure I didn't misinterpret it.  But apparently PUFF = Whipped Cream...would have helped sooner.  Anyways, enough complaining, in fact I shouldn't be complaining at.  This was the best crepe I have ever had in my life.  Not that that's saying much, I'm no crepe expert, but there were GOOD...REALLY GOOD.  It was the crepe itself that was bomb and it just took the right combination of ingredients to make it AMAZING.  So the reason I had more crepe flavors over places is becuase I had two different flavor crepes from this place...not that I had two in one visit, I don't want to get diabetes THAT badly, but I liked the first one so much I had to take my crepe buddies there.  So the first crepe I tried was Banana Custard and I cannot describe how delicious it was...ok maybe I can.  I think the secret is they don't cook their crepes too much, in fact maybe a little undercooked, but it gives it that nice doughy flavor and texture that fills you with happiness.  To make thing even better, she was quite generous with the bananas.  I came to the conclusion that bananas are kind of their specialty since there's bananas hanging all around the kiosk and the only real fruit on the menu is banana.  The other fruit choices are either canned fruits or fruit jam.  Now this place is a prime example of where SMELL attracts customers...this place always has a huge line and whenever I enter this alley the smell is overwhelmingly GREAT.  

Little stand that says they open at 11a...but trust me they DON'T.

This is what I had to read -_-

She just chopped off a banana hanging and put a WHOLE banana in my crepe!

Custard time!

See there's THREE names!!

Look at those giant chunks of banana...for sure a 9/10.

The second time I ORDERED a Banana and Milk with Ice Cream crepe but unfortunately I ended up with a Milk and Chocolate with Ice Cream crepe...uhhhh ok.  The milk I believe was condensed milk or some kind of milk liquid, however, I didn't really taste it since she filled my crepe with chocolate chips AND chocolate syrup...and I didn't even SAY chocolate!!  So basically, I was disappointed...this crepe was uncomfortably sweet and I had to squeeze out half the chocolate so I could finish the rest.  

Getting out the ice cream.  

It looks so good but it was so not enjoyable half way through.  

Probably a 6/10 just because the crepes themselves are awesome.

I Love to DRINK!

I feel as though the drinks in Japan deserve their own post.  And they taste like those fancy drinks that are like $6 in America but all these drinks were bought either through convenience stores or vending machines.  So none are more than $2, crazy right??  And all these drinks are LEGIT.  Check em out:

This is Strawberry Milk.  And this is a BIG carton too, not those tiny one-gulp school lunch kind.  I have never tasted better Milk than Japan's Strawberry Milk...rule of thumb in Japan: Strawberry flavored anything is awesome!

And this carton: about $1.25

I'm a fan of milk tea, and this was one was one sale so of course I bought it.  It was only like a $1 and because it was so cheap it tasted better.  I don't know why it works that way it just does.  The better the deal the better things taste.  

So...I thought this was peach milk judging from the milky-like liquid in the carton's picture, but no.  The Japanese tricked me.  It turned out to be just peach juice with some other weird flavor...it was really sweet and had some chucks of, I'm assuming, peach.  I don't know if I didn't like this drink cause it humiliated/disappointed me or if it was actually not that great...maybe a mixture of BOTH.  But hey, only around $1.25...

This is the first vending machine drink I bought in Japan.  After passing around 436 other vending machines I finally decided on this one.  I was thirsty, and the Banana Milk gave me those puppy eyes so I couldn't resist.  I admit, this time the size was disappointing...kinda tiny can I finished in 30 seconds for like $1.25.  The size was even more disappointing because it tasted so dang good!!  I though Strawberry Milk was good...but Banana Milk is up there too...Japanese have so many flavors of milk and NONE disappoint!

I have no idea why they call this "straight tea" but it does not taste like it sounds.  I was thinking straight as in like an expresso shot or something but like a tea shot.  But boy was I happily wrong.  It's got this sweetness to it... I have no idea if it's naturally sweet or if they add sugar but if it's naturally sweet I'm growing one of those bushes in my room.  Only like $1 too.

Like I said before, I'm a fan of Milk Tea, thus I've drank a LOT of different kinds.  But this is a different story...this is like cream puff flavored milk tea...OMG this stuff scares me.  First of all it's LIPTON.  Secondly, it tasted AWESOME + it's LIPTON.  It's not even a Japanese company and it is probably the best Milk Tea I have ever drank...for real.  But even though it's Lipton I bet it was the Japanese idea.  But it was the most expensive drink I have bought so far...which still wasn't that bad at a price of $1.70.  If you ever see this I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT.  

This Milk Coffee was HOT.  From most vending machines they have hot and cold choices.  And they're so sneaky cause the hot and cold drinks are in the same type of container.  This plastic bottle usually denotes cold, but not in this case.  Man the Japanese are so sneaky!!

Again around $1.25.

Eat drink and you WILL be merry!

Itadakimasu!

Sashiburi. I apologize for the long delay but from here on I shall share with everyone my Japan food excursions and attempt to describe them. But words just don't do it justice. Basically Japan has this magical power to take something ordinary and make it 20x better. We all know this already but I'm just making sure we're all on the same page, so just in case you didn't know, America sucks. Yea yea people say Japan is expensive but I am here to show you the snacks and street food I have experienced that are CHEAP since I am a CHEAP person. Ok enough talking, no one wants to read this anyways, it's all about the pictures...

Miruku pan aka MILK bread.  This is a delicious sweet bread with a milk-ish cream filling.

I think the pack was around $1.

Left - I'm assuming they are Garlic flavored from the tiny little flaming garlic in the bottom right...but the bag just says "Heart Chips"....

Right - Chizu Poteto...literally translated to CHEESE POTATO.  I don't think you can see but they are advertising the little specks of cheese you can see on the chips...yay?

Both around $1.50

Yea for some reason I'm a fan of chips...they're cheap, easy to eat, and tasty.

Left - Wasabi and shoyu chips...just as the title says is how it tastes...very interesting and surprisingly good.

Right - Chizu Bito is what it says...basically light fluffy crisps flavored with..cheese...

ON SALE for 98円...which is a little over $1.

Uhh corn pottage chips?  Whatever that means...and don't be fooled by their looks, they were not cheese puffs.

I think like about $1 too.

Konyaku...I thought it was dango at first...but it definitely is not.  My host mom and dad failed to explain every well so I just wikipedia'd it.  All I got out of them was "like potato" and "0 calories".  It's like what those sukiyaki noodles are made of...they're like jelly with almost a squid texture...very strange.

But it was fresh and only 100円 at the Sakura-Matsuri!

This is one of the many examples of the Japanese taking something ordinary and making it amazing.  This is Strawberry Pudding...but the pudding is more firm than the pudding we know.  And it's STRAWBERRY flavor...and trust me Japanese Strawberry is VERY DIFFERENT from the American so-called "strawberry" flavor...

Around $1 too.

This sandwich is filled with chicken karaage.  See what I mean?  The Japanese have crazy ideas!  This sandwich was average compared to other Japanese food but GREAT compared to American junk.  Well for the price that is...and this is CONVENIENCE STORE FOOD.  Like 7-11 kind.  

And only around $2.50.

Here's another Karaage sandwich from the same convenience store...but better.  I think the other one had too much bread and over-powered the actual chicken.  This one was good.  

And around same price of $2.50.

When I saw this, the packaging makes it look appetizing and expensive.  I wouldn't have bought it if I hadn't seen that big yellow and red sign that said 98円 for everything on that little cart!  I thought it was too good to be true but I was wrong...it's true.  The Japanese sold me a sturdy package of three large delicious long milk custardy bread things.  And let me tell you, Japanese bread is ALSO one of those normal but great things.

So this has to be one of the greatest deals in Japan.  There's the supposedly "fast-food-like"places here where you choose what you want at this machine, sit, then they deliver it to you.  Well Japan and American have VERY different definitions of "FAST FOOD".  Here's the difference:  Japan serves legit GOOD QUALITY food - not food they find on the floor or flavor random things with nasty "MEAT FLAVORING" *cough cough* ARBY's *cough*.  I mean, how much more downhill can you go from having to flavor your Roast Beef sandwiches with "Roast Beef" flavoring??  SICK.
Anyways, this awesome bowl of soba was a mere $3.  NO LIE.

THANK YOU JAPAN.