Veggie Pizza

PIZZA! Making pizza at home sounds like too much work, too many ingredients, and too much thinking that you can just go out and buy a store-bought pizza. However, this mentality is set aside when you find an easy-to-follow recipe. I've been reading a lot of the cooking section of New York Times- it has some really good recipes from reputable restaurants. Doing some more research, I found a recipe from Roberta's pizza in Brooklyn, New York: http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1016230-robertas-pizza-dough. The crust came out thin and crispy, just like New York style, and this pizza recipe was sure something to write about. 

 

Ingredients:

306 grams high gluten flour

8 grams fine sea salt

2 grams active dry yeast

4 grams extra-virgin olive oil

Toppings

How to Make:

1. In an electric mixer bowl, combine flour, salt, and yeast. Add 200 grams of lukewarm water. Add the olive oil. Knead until well combined.

2. Let dough rest for 3 hours.

3. Shape dough into a ball and roll out the dough on a floured surface. Stretch out dough and shape it into a circle.

4. Add toppings. (I put thinly sliced soaked potatoes, pizza sauce, mozarella cheese, organic tomatoes, organic basil, and white onions.)

5. Heat up pan (without the pizza first) in a 450 degree temperature oven. 

6. Then, carefully take out the pan and place the pizza in the pan. 

7. Bake for 11 minutes.

8. Take out and enjoy!

Tea Leaf Eggs

I used a combination of recipes:

http://rasamalaysia.com/chinese-tea-eggs-tea-leaf-eggs-recipe/2/

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/chinese-tea-leaf-eggs/

Ingredients:

Black tea

Star anise

Cinnamon stick

Black peppercorn

Light & dark soy sauce

I ended up using too much soy sauce (6 tbsp), and after I let the eggs simmer for about 2 hours, most of the liquid became dry. Next time, I will add more water and reduce the amount of soy sauce.

Oven cooked yam + beef

For a while, I got so lazy and just wanted to eat out all the time, which is very expensive and unhealthy. I got back to cooking because my friend showed me her friend's Facebook pictures of 100+ meals cooked, and I was totally inspired since I wanted to broaden my cooking menu and try cooking new things.

I also got sick of making claypot rice over and over again as my dinner meal plan, so I started cooking food in the oven. For lunch, I made potato wedges in the oven. For dinner, I continued this trend and cooked some beef and yam in the oven (early Thanksgiving much?) 

Basically, I marinated the beef using salt, cornstarch, oyster sauce, soy sauce, sesame oil, and a little bit of MSG (I know, MSG is bad so I didn't add too much :) I coated the yams in some oil so it didn't stick to the pan (I didn't have any parchment paper). I just tossed everything in the pan and cooked on 350 degrees- the beef took less time (approximately 15-20 minutes) so I took it out first. However, the yams took longer (I even had to add some more oil to get it to ripe faster)- about 35-40 minutes. It took a lot of discretion and patience, but it was SO DELICIOUS! This meal kept me inspired to cook again. My new goal is to cook new savory foods and expand my knowledge of cooking. 

猪肉饼煲仔饭 Claypot Rice

Very yummy & easy!


Fill pot with the amount of rice you want to eat. Add water to a level about 1/4" above the rice. Add a little oil (can be vegetable, sesame, any kind) and stir it in the rice. Place uncovered pot over stove on high heat. Once water starts to boil, add grounded pork, garlic, ginger (whatever contents you like) into the pot & close the lid and turn to very low heat. Cook for about 10-15 min. 


You can also pour this sauce over rice:
Soysauce + hoisin sauce + chicken broth mixed together.


Enjoy!


*Note: The heat settings are based on a gas stove. I have not tried making this over an electric stove, which can take longer to cook the meat thoroughly.
**Because the meat has a lot of water content, the rice should not have too much water or else it would soak up the water and become super soft.