Not everything ends up here

This is going to be short and brutally honest.

Not everything I make turns out well. Sometimes it takes me many, many, attempts to get it just right.

Last night I tried to make lumpia.  These are Filipino spring rolls filled with mostly pork and few vegetables.  I used a recipe I got from a graduate student who makes them all the time for pot-lucks.

They were not the same.  I don't know what was wrong. Seriously, I even bought everything from the special market on Oddie to make sure I got authentic ingredients.

No, I didn't even bother to take pictures, so there won't even be pictures of how they looked.  (They looked normal but didn't taste right.)

Brady said apparently I didn't have my Filipino mojo going on.

OK, maybe sort of.  But I did take a few extra lumpia wrappers and made some awesome banana rolls.  I have made these before and maybe eventually will post how to make them.  Turns out, I have intuitively made something like a Turon, simply because I like my bananas wrapped up and fried.

Dinner wasn't a complete loss, but I will be going back to making average Chinese-like egg rolls for now. I think I can handle my Chinese seasoning better.

The other night I made Pad Thai.  Tasty, but too many noodles and not enough sauce.  Every time I make it, it turns out different so no recipe coming until I get that straightened out.

Another fine example of something not ending up here, I tried to make some "easy" Tiramisu.  It was not right either.  Too runny, too bitter, not very appetizing.  I have an idea to recreate it using no coffee at all.  The mascarpone cheese in the fridge has been calling to me. 

But, as a teaser, I will be posting my recipe for Thai-style coconut sticky rice very soon.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Basque Sheepherder Bread

Image
Lately, I have been in the mood for some foods that are a bit unusual. You could say we're tired of the same old thing. I started looking in cookbooks and asking around for ideas. One of my coworkers is in the Basque Library at UNR. She recently posted a link to some Basque recipes on their Facebook page. That got me thinking. I went home and looked through the church fundraiser cookbooks, and asked Grandma Rose for ideas. I found some great stuff, like this bread. This recipe has been passed through the Winnemucca community and shared by a number of people, so I'm not sure who to credit. I made a few small modifications to the recipe. For one, I don't have a gigantic cast iron Dutch Oven, so I cut the recipe in half. Two, as I was making it, I used slightly less flour than originally called for and kneaded it slightly less.  I think next time, I will use the stand mixer with a dough hook to mix and work the dough before I knead it. I'm getting a little bi
Read more

Basque Flan

Image
Flan is such a treat!  If you're unfamiliar with flan, you must try this.  It's simply custard with caramel in the bottom of the baking dish. It's smooth, cool, sweet, and beautiful. Now, I've had some bad flan. Let me tell you. There is one very popular Mexican eatery in Downtown Reno that I just don't like. Their flan is very firm, not very sweet, and tastes almost cheesy. Yuck. And then there are times you get flan that is so good, so amazing that it's like your mouth has found paradise. There is one particular person from the church back in my hometown that made pans and pans of amazing flan for church functions.  Amazing isn't even descriptive enough as a word. A lot of the flavor has to do with the caramel.  If your caramel is very dark, your flan will take on a toasty flavor with a bitter nutty, coffee-like aftertaste. I like my caramel a bit lighter, so there are hints of that toastiness, but it's not so noticeable. Those flavors will mello
Read more

Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake

Image
The other night, we were hungry for cake. Being the cake lover that I am, I got busy and whipped up a chocolate cake.  I have to say it can be difficult to get cakes to rise properly at high altitude. Normally they sink in the center and stay sort of gooey, unless you cook them longer and then the edges get dried out. This cake is by far the BEST chocolate cake recipe EVER. I'm not kidding! It tastes great, really chocolate-y, good texture, moist, and it didn't sink in the middle or cook unevenly. These pictures are of a slice cut from the absolute center of the cake. See how perfect it is? This is unbelievable! This is not my first time with a mayo cake. It was pretty common back in Oklahoma. Maybe it's one of those regional food things because my hubby thought I was crazy for using mayonnaise in cake. I asked him if he ever had sour cream chocolate cake. Of course not, but he wasn't grossed out. So I proved that even though it sounds funny at first, it tastes
Read more