Cafe World Challenge Week 20

This has been my Japanese week. I attended a cooking class called "Made in Japan" and thoroughly enjoyed it and I made one of Cafe World's Japanese theme dishes.

The class was at my local LCBO, the liquor stores here in Ontario. You can see on their website that only a limited number of their stores offer the classes, so I'm lucky that my closest store is on the list. I would seriously recommend these classes to readers in Ontario, I can't speak for the other locations, but I was impressed with the class and had tons of fun. This class wasn't hands-on, you got to sit back, watch, ask lots of questions and then enjoy the food and also the wine and beer pairings. It was enough food for a meal. I will do this again, but bring my husband or a friend for a fun night out. The other benefit of such a class is being able to ask about ingredients and where to find them. I was able to discover an Asian market that was cheaper and bigger than the one I'd been shopping at. My original intention was to learn about sushi making, so I feel I can now confidently take on this challenge. The instructor and LCBO hosts suggested that they might have a hands-on sushi making and design class in the winter sometime, so I will definitely look out for that one.
Here is the full menu of dishes prepared at the class:
-Salmon Sushi Roll with cream cheese
-California Roll with crab
-Shrimp dumplings with butter sauce (not prepared at class)
-Spring salad with ginger dressing
-Miso Soup
-Teriyaki Chicken
-Steamed sushi rice with coconut flakes




Chashu Ramen

Ramen is a Japanese noodle soup served with various toppings. In this instance the major topping is Chashu, simmered pork. In the above picture you can see that the Cafe World version has the pork, some fish, nori, bamboo shoot, scallion and egg topping, so they pretty much went Full Monty. I chose to stick to basics and only used the pork, bamboo shoots and green onion. I used a great book for all the recipes, The Japanese Kitchen by Hiroko Shimbo. I got this book from the library and did some web searches and found this blog, Tess's Japanese Kitchen, she is learning to cook Japanese food by cooking her way through the book. So you can find the recipes from the book on her blog. It is also worth reading through some of the comments as you get tips about finding ingredients and alternatives.

This was a multi part dish and allowed me to cook the broth the day before, then make the pork the next morning and then cook the noodles and heat the broth and enjoy that night. If you were to follow the recipes in the book and make all components from scratch, you'd be following five of the recipes (click the link to be taken to the recipe on the blog):
-Basic stock for ramen noodles (Ramen Sutokku)
-Simmered Pork for Ramen (Chashu)
-Sweet simmered bamboo shoots (Menma)
-Garlic paste (Ninniku-dare)
-Ramen broth flavoured with soy sauce (Shoyu Ramen)

That last recipe is basically the master recipe that brings all the others together and gives you the final dish. Since I don't have endless time and was only making this for my little family, I used commercial bamboo shoots and garlic paste, so I skipped the 3rd and 4th recipes.

If you're not interested in reading through the recipes, this is a summary. The noodles are served in a tasty broth with garlic paste and the soy sauce pork liquids added and then topped with sliced simmered pork, bamboo shoots and scallions.

A very tasty meal. You can see good pictures of all the components and ingredients on Tess's blog and below is my result.



Cafe World Cookbook Changes

Vampire/Werewolf theme, so Vampire Staked Steak. In line with my weekend plans...going to see Twilight Eclipse, hopefully I've given it enough time since the release to avoid a screaming mob of tween girls. Watching New Moon a day after release is not an experience I want to repeat. But I'm a sucker for the Twilight Saga so will have to see it on the big screen.


Next Up: I'm feeling like some sweet treats, so some homemade ice cream and I might try my luck at donut making. I'll be able to cook up my corned beef the week after.

Progress: 39/72

Disclaimer: Image owned by Zynga. This site is not owned by Zynga. This site is not the owner of the intellectual property

Cafe World Challenge Week 12

I spent my long weekend trying to recover from a throat infection, so I was in no mood for major cooking, but I did cuddle up with my little boys and watch some Food Network, which I haven't done in months. That is, both watching Food Network and actually get to watch something of mine with my sons in the same room. They usually moan too much about wanting to watch their shows that it's pretty pointless attempting to watch anything myself. But this weekend was different, I had one with his head on my lap and the other snuggled against my side and they watched in silence, I wished I'd gotten a photo, a rare peaceful moment!!!

So anyways...I saw an episode of Bob Blumer's Glutton for Punishment and he was learning to make dim sum dumplings from the masters and it seemed really difficult. So I thought I'd prepare some Shu Mai Dumplings while fresh with the tips I picked up from the show.




Shu Mai Dumplings

As it turned out, Shu Mai dumplings are open ended and are not as difficult to construct as those I saw on the show. I also found that there are ready-made dumpling wrappers, so I didn't need to make the pastry.

I used this recipe from myrecipes.com. It was pretty simple, with standard (for me) ingredients. When I went to the oriental food market, the guy there was very uncertain about me making my own dumplings and kept on trying to sell me the prepared frozen ones, but since I bought the dumpling wrappers and a bamboo steamer and new chopsticks, I think he made a better sale.

I think they turned out pretty okay looking, not perfect, but none fell apart and they were easy to eat. They tasted absolutely FAN-frikken-TASTIC, I'm still salivating about that meal 24 hours later. I think the ginger and green onion were the essentials for the taste. These dumplings had pork and shrimp, but I saw different recipes with just pork, just shrimp and some with mushroom and other veggies too. I even saw tofu and eggplant versions.

I was really intimidated at first, but I'm really glad I discovered this dish...this recipe is definitely a keeper and will be made again and again.





New Cafe World dish

Another favourite has been added earlier in the week: Philly Cheesesteak
Late last night I came across two new ones, Angel Fruit Cake and Spicy Devil Eggs. I wish they'd introduced this last week, so I could have included the Devilled Eggs I made then, oh well it's very easy and I'll do them again soon.

Progress: 27/65

Next Up: If I can find some, I'll get some Lobster.

* Disclaimer: Image owned by Zynga. This site is not owned by Zynga. This site is not the owner of the intellectual property.

Cafe World Challenge Week 5

This week I made 3 dishes and chose two specifically to use my new little toy, a beautiful wooden mortar & pestle.









Macaroni & Cheese

Believe it or not, I have a 4 year old that hates mac & cheese, so I decided I had to add things he liked to maybe disguise the fact that it was mac & cheese. It didn't work so well, he just picked out what he liked and ate those separately. He usually has garlic bread with his pasta at preschool, so he was not happy to have his "garlic bread" ie croutons on his pasta and thought I was ridiculous for cutting it up so small. I have to admit that life with the boys is never dull. At least my little guy is like a human garborator and eats whatever is placed in front of him and then scavenges off our plates too.

I used this Knorr recipe for Bacon Parmasan Mac and Cheese, I had the recipe card in my recipe scrapbook. I only made one change, I couldn't find the Parmasan Basil seasoning, so I used another variety of Parmasan herb seasoning. Good comfort food.



Rackosaurus Ribs

We didn't go on any Dinosaur hunting expedition to get this meal, but my son James, who is dino-obssessed, did pretend he was a Velociraptor and he was eating a Stegosaurus. But after a few bites, he reckoned he preferred to be a plant eating Triceratops and focused on his mashed potato and salad.

I used another recipe card in my scrapbook and produced Rubbed Barbequed Baby Back Pork Ribs , except mine were done in the oven. I found this recipe as well as the next one on recipe cards in The Wine Rack, found in my local store. I went to the website printed on the card and found the blog with the recipes, what a great resource.

I chose this recipe so I could use my mortar & pestle and because my hubbie likes spicy foods. But be warned, it is spicy, so go slow on the chilli powder if you don't like spicy food. I would also warn those that don't like much salt, like us, to reduce the amount of salt used. It might not have been so salty if it was done on the barbeque???



Fish and Chips

I couldn't resist doing this recipe....Cedar Planked Pine Nut Coated Tilapia, which is in the same link as the ribs above. I got to use my mortar & pestle again and I used cedar grill planks for the 1st time. I learnt my lesson and reduced the salt. I really liked this one. Once again I used my oven instead, we don't own a barbeque...don't ask???
I know that the Cafe World version is the traditional battered and fried fish, but this is the gourmet version. So I'm counting it.

The fish was suculent, the coating was tasty and I liked the mild smoky cedar flavour.



Progress: 12/59

Next up: Something sweet....Triple Berry Cheesecake and one of the Oriental dishes.

* Disclaimer: Image owned by Zynga. This site is not owned by Zynga. This site is not the owner of the intellectual property.