annachan

I totally forgot about that. Even though I shouldn't, since my mom makes this all the time. It's not that anyone has had a child, we just love this stuff....

My mom would cook them with rice once in a while. Just add them along the rice in the rice cooker. She does it more for the "good for your eyes" thing than the taste. The rice is a little sweet for me, even with soy sauce.

I happen to love crystal fungus in soups and dessert soups. It is kind of bland, but has a great texture. I also love wood ear. My grandmother used to stir fry wood ear with "golden needle" (a dried vegetable of sort) with chicken wings. My mom tends to put it in stew with mushroom and pork/spare ribs.

Black vinegar is great with crab. I love mine with just minced garlic and ginger....

Lychee Garden on Powell has good dim sum at great prices.

My top choices are Jardiniere and Boulevard.

My husband and I were there for Valentine's Day last year. The food was wonderful! It's a little pricey, $90 per person, but worth it. Other than the 5 courses we had, there was also an amuse bouche and a cookie platter that arrived after dessert. Wine is the most expensive there. Most bottles are in the hundred range with quite a few in the thousand range and even some in the ten-thousand range. We were big on drinking that night so we just got 2 glasses, which came to almost $100. I was wondering why so many people brought their own wine and pay cockage. I understood when I saw the bill....

Chouchou in SF....my favorite burger....It's a well seasoned, juicy burger with carmelized onion and tomato. Cheese is good, but an egg on top is even better....

The cake's going to be a basic genoise. Since they don't drink, I can't use any alcohol either to flavor the fillings or the syrup for the cake layers. The outside will be a basic IM buttercream. Based on her suggestions, these are my thoughts: crème brulée is out (though we are having them to dinner the night before, and I will probably make that for dessert that night). Pomegranates and oranges/blood oranges seem more wintery to me, and plums and apricots strike me as being better suited to tarts. That leaves me with caramel, hazelnut, berries, mango, and passion fruit. The grapefruit thing throws me, as well. I could do a grapefruit curd, but can't possibly imagine it being very tasty as a cake filling. The cake will likely be six layers, so there are five layers of filling. I could swap out a couple of layers of cake for a hazelnut dacquoise and do a caramel mousse filling, or do a hazelnut praline mousse filling, or mix fruits: raspberry + mango, mango + passion fruit, raspberry + apricot. My friend is right. The possibilities are endless. Do you all have suggestions to help me clear my head? ← Chocolate cake with hazelnut buttercream....that's what I had for my wedding cake....

I have a sponge cake recipe that is similar (but not exactly) to the ones you get @ Chinese Bakeries. 1 cup Softasilk (cake flour) 1 cup sugar 6 eggs, separated 1 tsp vanilla 1/4 cup cold water 1/2 tsp salt 1/2 tsp cream of tartar Preheat oven to 325. Beat egg yolk and sugar till creamy. Stir in vanilla. Add flour and water alternately till mixed well. In a spearate bowl, beat egg white till foamy. Add salt and cream of tartar. Beat until stiff peak. Fold egg white into batter in batches. Pour into ungreased angel food cake pan. Bake until toothpick comes out clean, about 50 minutes. Turn upside-down to cool. Because there's no oil in the cake, it does stick to the pan. Just use a knife to careful go around the pan. It helps if you use a pan that has a removable bottom.

Next time, save them and toss them with some cooked noodle the next day. Add meat/vegetables if you like.

I like thining the mayo out with some seasoned/garlic rice vinegar. Another idea is to use olive oil as a base instead of mayo. I have a lime olive oil that works great. i can imagine a hazelnut oil or truffle oil would work well.

That should come out fine, but I would add garlic and maybe some shallots as well. I also like to prepare green beans with onion and garlic with crushed tomatoes, like a stew.

I like the crock pot method as well. Instead of cutting up the onion, I've actually just peeled them and left them whole. I haven't tried it with the seasonings in the pot, just onion and butter, and then season later. When the onions are nice and carmelized, I transfer them and the juices to a pot and add stock, seasoning, and sometimes wine. It's divine!

I've found that the lower quality pasta does that. I used to get Barilla's (sp?), which is a good quality at its price. Then I discovered Trader Joe's pasta. It even cheaper ($0.69 for a pound) and it's comparable to Barilla's.

Haven't tried this at home, but I've always loved Mango Chicken @ restaurants. If I am to make it at home, I imagaine that I would stir fry chicken with mango chucks, red onion and jalepeno peppers.