Absolutely delicious roasted radishes

This is a very interesting dish that the skinny bitches has recently tested out...It is absolutely refreshing and YuMMMM!! It is definitely a crowd pleaser to bring to parties!

Roasting the Radish

•  2-3 bunches of radishes (trimmed and washed)
• 2 Tablespoon olive oil
• salt and pepper

Direction:
- Pre-heat oven to 400F
- Quarter radishes if they are large, or just half them
- Toss them with olive oil, salt and pepper
- Roast for 20 minutes

Soy sauce dressing

• 1/4 cup of soy sauce
• 2 Tablespoons of  toasted sesame seeds
• 1 teaspoon of sesame oil
• 1 Tablespoon of rice wine vinegar
• a drizzle of honey
• 3 bulbs of chopped scallions

Direction:
- Whisk all the ingredients together and pour dressing onto the roasted radishes and mix them. 
- Continue to roast the dressing-coated radishes for another 10 min so that they soak up the dressing

The addictive pot stickers

Thousand apologies to all of our loyal followers for my absence on this blog. I have owed way too many recipes due to the hectic school work of being a 2nd year grad student...OK, instead of babbling about my complaints on lab work stress, let me share with you one of many of our all time favorites - the AWESOME pot stickers.

I have won my boyfriend's (aka IT man who manages this website) family during Christmas with this dish and I am sure I can win yours too.

It has taken me several years to perfect this recipe and finally we came with the right combination ta-da-: a combination of pork and shrimp is the KEY!

Makes 40-50

The pot stickers:

• 1 packet of round dumpling skin (usually comes in 50-60 pieces)
• 1 pound ground pork
• 1/2 pound shrimp (deveined and shelled)
• a bunches napa cabbage, shredded
• 2 cloves garlic, grated
• 1 tablespoon ginger, grated
• a handfuls of cilantro, chopped
• 3 sprigs scallions, chopped
• 1 tablespoon Chinese rice wine
• 2 teaspoons white sugar
• 3 tablespoons good quality soy sauce
• 3 dashes ground white pepper
• 1 dash salt
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil

1. Add ground pork in a large mixing bowl
2. with a food processor, chopped the shrimp into pieces (don't grind them too finely, leave some smaller chunks), then transfer chopped shrimp into bowl with the pork
3. Add all the ingredients into the same meat bowl and mix them with your clean hand, make sure you don't over mix them
4. Use a teaspoon, scoop the meat filling into the middle of the dumpling skin and fold them.
5. Once all the dumplings are wrapped, heat up skillet to a medium high with 2-3 tablespoon of vegetable oil. When searing the pot stickers, make sure not to over-crowd your skillet. It takes about 3 min to cook one side, then flip the other side to cook for another 3 min with medium low heat. (skin will turn golden brown and the filling will cooked thoroughly)

The savory dipping sauce:

• 1/3 cup soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon mirin
• 2 tablespoons chinese rice wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 shallot, diced finely
• 3-4 pieces birdseye chilie (optional if you like spicy)

Whisk everything together in a bowl

Barley Risotto - after a long Hiatus!

Alright, its not like skinny bitches are on a diet and not cooking. In fact, we've been cooking up a storm since the holiday, but boy oh boy, where does one find time to work / school / cook and blog at the same time?! I'm looking at my food picture collage and i don't even know where and how to start adding the recipes that are so freaking backlog! i'll leave it to the Rochester bitch to figure it out.

So ignoring my backlog, i figure i'd jump the line and add today's creation as the first 2011 entry.  This recipe is a courtesy of my colleague MS who made it last week, and i got to taste it and be inspired to create in my own ghetto kitchen.  Using barley for a risotto recipe is simpler than arborio rice because it requires less stiring than then traditional recipe, or at least, i got away with it! Please enjoy - ideal for tomorrow's valentine dinner!


Barley Risotto with Mushroom and Cabbage
1 C barley
6 C fluids (i used 3 C chix stock+3 cups cabbage stock since i boiled cabbage in it, and some white wine, optional)
Mixture of bella, shitake and or your favourite mushrooms
1 Onion
5 cloves (or more) Garlic
Salt and pepper to taste
Grated Parmesan (i used superfine quality Parmesan, totally made the difference!)
And for obvious reasons, olive oil for cooking.

In a dutch oven, add olive oil (2-3 tbsp) and sauté onions and garlic until translucent.  Add mushrooms and continue the sauté action until softened. Add barley and 3 cups of fluids and stir occasionally.  Simmer on medium heat and add some kosher or sea salt (~2tsp).  Check occasionally and continue adding liquid as the barley absorbs.  Taste the barley to see if it is tender to your liking, if not, continue adding a little stock and keep simmering with cover on.  The process took me ~45 minutes.  I had boiled some cabbage on the side, and added the boiled cabbage at the last 10 minutes of the cooking action to incorporate some vegetable into the dish.  You can always add asparagus instead.  Shave as little or as much parmesan cheese into the risotto and stir to melt the cheese, and, Voila! I roasted some korean potatoes and sweet potatoes as well as carrots/brocoli/cauliflower as a side.  Do serve it with your favourite meat such as roasted chicken or flank steak. Enjoy, and Happy Valentine's Day!!

Not your Average Pumpkin Bread!

ok, due to popular request from workplace colleagues to hurry up and post my pumpkin bread recipe, here it is, sorry for the procrastination, but you still have between now and Christmas to slide in this recipe ! This is sooooo good even big Al, who only eats chocolate chip cookies, took a bite of it and could not put it down! Now that, is AMAZING!

Not your Average Pumpkin Bread (recipe makes 2 loaves)


3/4 C mashed pumpkin or pureed (either from fresh pumpkin or Libby's canned pumpkin)
3/4 C mashed sweet potato or pureed
3 C sugar (can be reduced down to 2 1/3 C)
2/3 C vegetable oil
2/3 C milk (or water)
4 eggs
3 1/2 C flour
2 Tbsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground ginger powder (optional)
1 or 2 diced apples (depending on the size of the apples, either granny smith or any apples in your pantry would do)

Pre-heat oven at 350 degrees.  Combine all the ingredients except apples and mix well with a mixer.  I typically add the eggs one at a time and continue baking, not sure if it would make a difference if you dump all 4 eggs in the mixing bowl?  When all ingredients are evenly mixed and blended, gently fold in the diced apples in your doughy mixture.  Divide into 2 loaf pan and bake for approximately 1 hour.  Make sure you check the middle of the bread with a knife to make sure that it comes out clean before you turn off the oven.  Alternatively, you can cut all the ingredients in half and make 1 loaf.  Do not overload your loaf pan as the baking would take longer than 1 hour, and be on the soggy side.  The lovely baked apples in the bread gives it a surprise to everybite you take. Enjoy!

Yummcious Hummus

First of  all, I would like to apologize to the audience out there this recipe does not have a picture due to several reasons that I will outline later in the blog. However, if you guys out there try this recipe and really like it, please take a moment and take picture and send it to us, we will surely post it with this recipe and will greatly appreciate it.

I decided to make this is for our weekly lab meeting. During the lab meeting, each person gets rotated to bring breakfast to feed 15 people that we have in the lab. This is my first time having to bring breakfast to the lab. Since I am in a tight budget as a grad student, I decided to set a budget for under $10 to feed 15 people. I knew going to get rotated since 3 weeks ago (we have a list of people to when to get rotated), I have started "collecting" breakfast items and formulating my menu based on what is on sale at the store. I have decided to make a breakfast casserole and hummus with french bread. I know most of you out there think hummus is an appetizer, and surely it is, but our lab members love hummus so much that it doesn't matter if it's for appetizer, entree or dessert, they can eat it anytime of the day! (and it is healthy fo ya!)

So back to the seasons that I do not have a picture for this recipe:

1. I almost burn my blender (I thinks it's a 20 year old blender donated by a someone I know whom I appreciate very much)
2. Uniqueness of the blender: CAN crush ice and make smoothies
3. Disadvantage of this old blender: DOES NOT blend chickpeas, mixture is too thick-> blades got stuck->motors still running-> blender began to smoke-> chickpeas eventually got blended
4. Lesson learned: Time to get a new blender with better motor/ Getting a real food processor

This recipe is fast and easy, should not take as long as I had, serve 10-15

Ingredients:

• 2 cans chickpeas (aka garbanzo beans)
• 4 T tahini paste (a big shout out to Josh for contributing the paste for my dish), can get at spice store
• 1 T ground cumin
• 1/2 t cayenne pepper
• 1/2 t papprica
• juice of 1 lemon
• 5T olive oil
• 1/4- 1/2 cup of water or chicken broth (depending how thick you want the mixture to be)
• salt to taste

Direction:
1. Add all ingredients into the food processor/ blender, and blend until smooth
2. Depending on your spice taste pallet, add more cumin/cayenne as you like 

Aycaramba Spicey Fall Vegetable Linguine

Another post with total utilization with the recently home-made Aycaramba Spicey Cranberry Hot Sauce! Who doesn't love Fall vegetable? Here are two that is being used in today's recipe, and the blend is out of this world and totally healthy, without the Eeeeky cardboardy taste.

Aycaramba Spicey Fall Vegetable Linguine

1 box of Linguine (or any other kind of pasta in your pantry)
1 bunch kale (no its not only for decoration on a salad bar!)
1/4 - 1/2 (depending on size)  of Calabaza pumpkin, cubed in bite size
1 purple onion, rough chop
1/2 head of garlic, minced
2-3 tbsp brown sugar
4-6 tbsp soy sauce (this is for a whole lb of pasta, so don't be alarmed!)
1-3 tbsp of Aycaramba Spicey Cranberry Hot Sauce (http://foodieliciouslife.blogspot.com/2010/11/aycaramba-spicey-habanero-hot-sauce-and.html)
Salt and Pepper to taste, if desire.

Wash and rough chop the kale.  Boil for about 10-15 minutes to soften the vegetable.  Drain and set aside.  Boil pasta according to manufacturer's direction, set aside.  In a large skillet or wok, add a couple tablespoon of olive oil or vegetable oil  and stir fry garlic and onion on medium heat, and add in the Aycaramba hotsauce.  Add in the pumpkin and stir fry for a few minutes, then add soy sauce and cover for 5 minutes to soften the pumpkin.  Add in brown sugar, continue stir fry, and add in kale and finally, pasta.  Mix well.  Taste your creation, and if additional brown sugar, soy sauce of salt is required, please, feel free to add some more according to your tastebud.  This is a nice twist on a spicey creation for a pasta dish, and goes well with your favorite bottle of Riesling (at least for me anyways, but what do i know about wine?!)  Bon Appetit.

Aycaramba Habanero Sauce with Sweet Potato Wedges

So we got the recipe to the Aycaramba Habanero Sauce that was just posted (http://foodieliciouslife.blogspot.com/2010/11/aycaramba-spicey-habanero-hot-sauce-and.html), what do we do other than using it as a vaccine against sinus congestion?  Slather onto sweet potato and bake it in the oven, of course!


Aycaramba Sweet Potato Wedges


As many sweet potato as you so desire to eat, cut in wedges
Lightly coat with olive oil, and sprinkle generously salt, pepper and dried rosemarry (about 1 tsbp).  Optional is to also finely chopped garlic into the mixture.  Depending on your spicebuds, start with 1 tsp and increase accordingly, the Aycaramba Habanero Sauce onto the sweet potato, and mix everything evenly.  Pre-heat oven at 375 degrees, and bake the wedges for 25 minutes, and decrease the temperature to 350 degrees and bake for another 20 minutes.  SWEET SPICE IN HEAVEN!