Mango Glaze - Attempt at Food Blogging 2

I really dislike maple syrup. Which is strange, considering I love waffles and pancakes and french toast; I mean, what goes better with those than maple syrup?? To my palate though, anything else. Unfortunately, this little culinary quirk of mine usually means I turn down pancakes and waffles at restaurants and rarely bother to make them at home. Naked French Toast just doesn't seem that appetizing (this turned out to be apparently not true, later post on the Nutella Version).

To remedy this, I recently came up with a Mango Glaze that seems to be a hit among friends and housemates. It's basically a simple brown sugar reduction with a tiny bit of mango concentrate.

• First heat up 1/4 - 1/2 cup of water and 2 tspoon of butter, swirl until melted. 
• Add in 3 heaping spoons of brown sugar, wait until fully integrated.
• Bring sugar-water mixture to a boil, add in another 1-3 spoons of brown sugar (or just any type really).
• You can also add in a spoon of honey if desired at this point. 
• Continue to boil mixture, taking care to not burn by constant stirring. 
• Add in two spoons of mango concentrate (I just did one spoon of liquid from a can of mangoes and one mango chunk, diced).
• Continue to boil till mixture reach desired consistency (I wait till it is syrup-y). 
• Serve in drizzles, VERY sweet, don't overload.

First Burger

Compared to the other blog, I don't update this nearly enough. Apologies to our encouraging (though few) readers! I actually have a decent amount of pics/recipes piled up, but sometimes find no motivation to make these long posts. However, I shall continue to try.

Now, did I mention I like burgers? Well, if you didn't know, I do. A LOT.
At home, my dad makes all the burgers, I just watch and occasionally toast the buns. Earlier this summer, my friend Isaac and I made my first burgers together! It turned out amazingly (relatively, it's, of course, no Dundee).

Ingredients:
Essentials:
- 1 pound package of ground beef
- buns
Toppings:
- 1 tomatoe, sliced
- 1 package of mushrooms
- 1 red onion
- american cheese
- lettuce
- mayo of choice (we used horseradish sauce)
Stuffing
- cheese of choice (american and parmesan for me)
- red onion, diced
- smoke sauce
- spices of choice (chilli powder for me)
- pepper/salt
The amount of stuffing is really up to you and your tastes, I like to just eyeball the amount and change my recipe next time if it doesn't work. Cooking is a process!

For my burger, I packed it with diced red onions and hand-ripped pieces of american cheese (1 slice). After mixing those with the meat, I added the smoke sauce (about 2 teaspoon), chilli powder (three pinches, need more next time, probably 2-3 teaspoons), grated parmesan (I used a lot). Combine all ingredients together, make sure everything is mixed well, I then added just tad of salt and pepper for good measure.

The good thing about burgers is how easy and convenient they are. You can make the burger patties ahead of time, freeze it, and throw it on the grill later (not longer than maybe two days, otherwise, won't taste as good). I actually recommending chilling the stuffed meat for a while (>30 min), it makes it much easier to form patties.

So we shaped them into five patties, so a little smaller than quarter-pounders. Since we don't have a grill (hey, we are in college!), we just pan cooked them. Isaac did the honors, mostly because I have no idea how to tell when burgers are cooked. He actually probably overcooked the first patch, but the second was pretty excellent, especially for a guy with no experience.

For the toppings, I sauteed onions and mushrooms (I prefer shitakes). Isaac thinks sauteed things all look disgusting and brown, but I think sauteed things taste pretty good. Also sliced up fresh red onions and tomatoes. For sauces, we used horseradish and some kind of weird mayo. Obvs, you can add ketchup, mustard, whateves, but we just didn't feel like it.

We tried toasting our buns ghettoly, on the stove top, not a good idea. Burn issues. So we just went to the toaster, which is less exciting but much safer. Though I am now getting rather good at stovetop s'mores, but that's for another post.

Assemble you burger! Which is the fun part. Then eat! Which is the best part.

Featured below: Isaac's lettuce bowl burger (my idea). It prevents all the toppings from falling out; yes, we are some bright college kids.

My next burger creations plans to be much more adventurous. Stay tuned (does that apply to blogs?)!

Refreshing Summer Salad

I was really craving mozzarella the other day. So I went to co-op in search for some fresh ones. Then I saw some tomatoes and was craving that too. So I decided to put together a salad. Now, I REALLY love mozzarella, so if you are making this, you might want to tune down the amount.

Ingredients:
- normal serving of mozzarella balls. Mine came in a tub, about quarter-filled, I'd say around 15-20 balls.
- one tomatoe, diced
- few slices of red onion, sliced
- chopped scallions and chives

Toss with vinaigrette of choice!

For my vinaigrette:
I just made a simple dressing of 1:1 olive oil and rice wine vinegar with the teeniest splash of fish oil and a dime size amount of chili paste. It wasn't bad, suited my needs rather well.

But for those with a more refined vinaigrette tastebuds, I really like the dressing I used to make at home - 1:1 oil and cranberry redwine vinegar, with the oil being half peanut, half olive. Splash of sweet soy sauce and a bit of garlic paste to taste. It's yummm.

Also, keep in mind: this salad (and most foods) is only as good as the ingredients. Make sure you purchase good quality cheese and fresh veggies. And for the dressing, the olive oil I have here is terrible (compared to the expensive EVOO at home, I'm food-spoiled), so the dress was ughh-blahh to taste but when added to the salad, it wasn't bad.

I hope you made it to your own variation. Next time, I may add some cucumber. Enjoy!

"A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand."

Few things in life are as soothing as homemade cookies: being in love; affectionate puppies; a mother's embrace. As I currently lack access to any of the above, cookies seemed like a good idea.
I initially wanted to make chocolate chip oatmeal ones, but I didn't have any brown sugar =( so I decided to make snickerdoodles, since I found a recipe for them a while back. My biggest problem with snickerdoodles is that they are sometimes too hard and I like my cookies soft and moist. I ended up tweaking the recipe a little and voilà!

SUCCESS!

They turned out better than my highest expectations. I mean, it's pretty bad graces to praise you own stuff, but umm, possibly the best cookies I've ever had! And if not, for sure the best snickerdoodle cookies I've ever tasted. The first bite carried me into a soft cloud of comfort, soft, sweet, delicious.

The Recipes:
It claims to make three dozen... but those would probably be some small cookies. I only was able to make around twenty.

Ingredients:
* not whole measurements because I had to adjust for different serving amount than the recipe.

In a large bowl whisk together the flour, salt, and baking powder.
In another bowl/electric mixer, beat butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla extract. Add to dry mixture and beat till smooth dough forms.
Preheat over to 390 degrees.
Shape dough into round balls and place on baking sheets lined with parchment paper/aluminum foil.

For coating:
Roll the balls in a cinnamon and sugar mix (I did about 2/10 cup of sugar for every teaspoon of cinnamon). Flatten each cookie into about 1/2 inch thick.

Bake for 10 minutes or until the edges are slightly golden brown.

Let cool. Enjoy!