One day in my senior year, I decided to make gyoza on a whim. I was mostly doing low-carb, but I had a tiny amount of shrimp and ground pork in the fridge, and I just thought, “Gyoza. Oh yeahhh”. I don’t know, don’t ask me. Once I see that I have 2 or more ingredients in my fridge that can contribute to one dish (no matter how many more ingredients it needs) the idea kind of just locks up in my head and demands to be carried out.

This gyoza experience was pretty interesting because, 1) I had never made dumplings from scratch before, and 2) I was only making enough for one serving, like 5-6 of them. Most recipes assume you’re planning on making 20-30. I must have used only a quarter cup of flour for the whole recipe. The little dough ball I prepared was the cutest thing ever. :3

Mostly got my recipe info from URB. Do you see a theme here? URB is awesome.

I used ground pork, shrimp and mushrooms for the filling.

Little dough ball!

I didn’t have a rolling pin, as usual. I used a beer bottle to roll these out.

Fry em for a bit, dump a bit of water in there, cover and let them steam.

Ah, college.
- Thi

This is homemade breakfast sausage, coconut flour paleo pancakes, and a bit of non-paleo syrup.

Hey. 90% rule, alright?

I used the breakfast sausage recipe from URB: http://userealbutter.com/2011/01/13/breakfast-sausage-recipe/

- Thi

Here are pictures of a few steaks I cooked back when I was living in an apartment in La Jolla with friends. The kitchen was, to put it bluntly, pretty terrible. It had a very old electric stove, and only a few “burners” would work at a given time. When the burners actually worked, there were really only two settings for the range (it was supposed to have infinite options from low to high): Fucking HOT and getting hotter (how is this possible?), or a low simmer.

Like the range, the oven didn’t seem to too concerned with precise temperature controls. I have a feeling it had a standard error of +/- 50 degrees at any given time. The result: frustrated me and an indifferent kitchen, it was pretty much domestic absurdity. Not to mention I chose to use cheap pots and pans (the famed $2 Ikea pan and an ungodly blackened cookie sheet, for example). Luckily I am like a sidewalk tree in Brooklyn (sarcasm) and can thrive in less-than-ideal kitchen environments. I am the archaea of the cooking kingdom.

Perhaps you will find me in hot springs one day.

Despite the setbacks in appliances and hardware, I had developed a pretty good steak protocol that was tailored to work in this kitchen. It was yielding medium-rare steaks consistently. It produced a perfectly satisfying brown crust. I started to laugh again. Life was good.

Click “more…” for medium-rare moneyshots and more steak rambling.

Here is some exclusive raw text footage of the notes I kept for perfecting this recipe:
“3 minutes first side
2 minutes second side

450 degree oven for 6 minutes
(4 is too little, 8 is too much!) bone cooks too

note to self:
3 minutes one side, 2 minutes the other
6 minutes in oven = TOO MUCH!

next time:
2 minutes first side, 1.5 minutes second side
+ 4 minutes in the oven

^^ this is slightly overdone for a small-medium steak

would rather:
2 minutes first side, 1.5 minutes second side
+ 3 minutes in the oven

2 min first side
1.5 min second second side

for 3 minutes in oven. FLAT.
^ THIS IS A PERFECT FUCKING STEAK”

Yeah, go figure. Is this self-explanatory? I’m assuming it is, because I’m too lazy to write out what I really did. Take out steak an hour before cooking to bring to room temperature, salt right before cooking, 450 degree oven, yadda yadda yadda. Also, when cooking, I love to listen to music that matches the cuisine of the food I’m eating. Steak is pretty culturally inert, but my steak songs are usually from the Beastie Boys – The Mix Up album or Calexico songs. I end up using the songs to time the cooking, actually.

As terrible as the kitchen was, I learned to roll with it. It worked out by the end, however I admit I now feel somewhat stunted in the proper way to cook a steak (super hot cast iron skillet, different timing). Surely in due time I’ll learn to roll with this, too.

- Thi

We ate at Ad Hoc back in September (yeah last year, WHAT OF IT), and luckily we had reserved fried chicken night! I think we made the reservation about 3 months in advance. We had to change the number of spots from 4 to 5 a few weeks before and they were very accommodating about that.

In a nutshell: Best dining experience ever. Keep in mind we’re pretty much poor college students, so a $50 meal at Ad Hoc is kind of a big deal! And, it was so worth it. Onto the food!

Palladin toast and butter. Delicious toast, that’s all I can say. The bread was continuously replaced during dinner.

The French Laundry Garden Heirloom Tomato Salad: Easily the best salad any of us had eaten. We loved the bacon crumbles. If ad hoc began to bottle the bacon crumbles up and sell it, we’d be on that so fast.

Famous Buttermilk Fried Chicken. Oh, yes. Everything you’ve ever heard about it is true.

Sides: Brentwood corn on the cob, red bliss potato salad

Cheese plate: Bellwether Farm’s Carmody, yellow peaches, baby chioggia beets, toasted cashews.

Chocolate bread pudding with apple butter. It was actually the first time Kim and I had bread pudding!

These were made for a Christmas potluck ages ago, and they’re quite perfect for the winter season. However, that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be just as good right now in the summer!

Recipe from Kirbie’s Cravings, find it here!

Non-stick cooking spray is so appetizing, isn’t it? I used a 12-mini-donut pan that from Sur la Table. I poured the batter into a ziploc bag and snipped off one of the corners to “pipe” the mixture into the pan. I had to be careful not to fill them too high, or else I’d get mini half-muffin/half-donut things, which were still very tasty but I’d rather not encourage any donut identity confusion here.

Cooled donuts, after a dip in butter and cinnamon sugar. Notice the muffin/donut hybrid on the left. I had to eat that one…for quality control purposes.

Ready to be hauled off to the potluck!

Here’s an easy dinner to make. By easy I mean, most of the work is simply done in the prepping and cutting; the rest is taken care of with time and heat (thanks, oven). The main stars of this dish are the Paleo meatballs. In an effort to reduce the carb count, ground flax was used instead of breadcrumbs as a binding agent. Did they turn out just as well as regular meatballs? Read ahead to find out!

Formed meatballs ready to go into the oven

While those are baking, drizzle a portobello mushroom (stem + gills removed) with balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and parsley and wrap in a foil pouch. Throw it in the oven when there’s 20 minutes left of baking for the meatballs.

The meatballs 45 minutes later and plated. Drooool.

Heat up some marinara sauce (jarred, fresh…your call), mix in the meatballs, and top with grated parmesan and parsley. Serve with the sliced balsamic portobello mushroom, and roasted vegetables if you have any (I added broiled zucchini slices).

Verdict?

Tasty and hearty. The spices lend a flavorful touch to otherwise bland ground beef and pork. Unfortunately, the meatballs were quite stiff and hard compared to meatballs made with breadcrumbs. I’m not ready to single out flax seeds as the culprit though–the stiffness could be due to using ground beef with a low fat percentage, or the fact that I used reduced fat ground pork (why did I buy those?!). The meatballs were also over baked by about 5 minutes (set your timers, people). All in all, there are a few variables that may have caused the stiff balls (heh). I’ll just have to try making them a second time!

Flax Meatballs – Adapted from low carb new england

1/2 lb ground beef (used 90/10)
1/2 lb ground pork
1/4 medium yellow onion, chopped
1/2 egg, beaten
1 tablespoon minced garlic
2 tablespoons ground flaxseed
1 tablespoons italian seasoning
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 tablespoon basil
1/2 tablespoon red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon parmesan cheese

1. In a big bowl, combine ground beef, ground pork together.

2. Add chopped onions, garlic, beaten egg, spices, and parmesan cheese to meat mixture. Mix together with hands until ingredients are uniformly distributed.

3. Form into golf sized balls and place on greased pan. I was able to get 13 generously sized meat balls from this.

4. Bake 350 degrees F for 25 minutes, flip over and baked for another 20 minutes.

Thanks for reading! Be sure to heck out the other paleo + low carb blog posts we have!

- Kim <3

Hi, folks! Another low carb recipe for the books today, and a good one that could use up any leftover riced cauliflower. This crust is made up of mozzarella, eggs, cauliflower, and spices. I usually eyeball the amount of ingredients, and I’ve even gotten away with using just a half cup of mozzarella in a whole recipe when I don’t have a lot on hand. It tastes great, and it really can’t get any simpler. It may even be easier to prepare than regular pizza dough!

This is the method by which I prepare riced cauliflower for the crust:
* Boiling cauliflower florets for 6-8 minutes
* Drain and allow the cauliflower to cool down for a few minutes. (I usually lay them out on a cutting board so that the steam can really evaporate)
* If the cauliflower still has a lot of water, I blot the florets with a paper towel. You really do not want to bake with wet cauliflower, it will make the pizza soggy.
* Once dry and cooled down enough to handle, mince the cauliflower into pebble-sized pieces.

For the rest of the details, you can check out The Lighter Side of Low carb, which I credit for the recipe. (Recipe: here.

One suggestion I would make is when shaping the pizza crust, make sure that the center of the pizza is thin and that the edges/”crust” portion of the pizza is thicker. When I didn’t do this, the middle of the pizza would be more soggy than I liked, and the edges overdone. Varying the thickness ensures you’ve got an evenly cooked low carb pizza pie that will be crispy and cooked in all the right places.

Freshly cooked crust, ready to be topped and put back in the oven.

Cross-section of a slice of pizza made with cauliflower “dough”. Not bad!

For my cheap college student modifications to this recipe (halving the amount of mozzarella), a whole crust will be just about 302 calories, 14.8g fat, 9.1g net carbs, 27.7g protein

_________
Here is a recipe for a low carbohydrate, high protein, and high delicious Thai red curry. In making the culinary switch from solely tasty cooking to dietary constriction, sometimes all you need to make favorite dishes appropriate is to replace an ingredient or two. In this case, that ingredient is rice.

Quite a large component of a curry dish, isn’t it?

In this recipe, the rice is replaced with grated cauliflower. YES, cauliflower! You might be thinking “Cauliflower tastes nothing like rice!” or “Cauliflower can’t fool me” or “huh…interesting”. Drained well, and cooked NOT to mush, it contributes the same qualities that rice does to a dish. That is, it turns out to be a wonderful base for this heavy curry, a bed to sop up the curry juices.

Thai Red Curry with Cauliflower Rice

For curry:
1 chicken thigh, sliced
1/4 yellow onion diced
1/2 green pepper sliced
1 tsp olive oil
1 tsp Thai red curry paste
1/4 cup light coconut milk
fish sauce
basil leaves

For rice:
1/2 cup cauliflower

1. Saute chicken thigh in 1 tsp olive oil, cook until browned, about 3 minutes
2. Add onions and green pepper to pan until soft.
3. Add curry paste to pan, and let paste fry for a minute to release aromatics, careful not to let it burn
4. Pour coconut milk in pan and bring to a simmer, add fish sauce to taste (should be <1 tsp)
5. Turn off heat, and stir in basil leaves

Rice
1. Cut cauliflower into slices, and chop, grate, or process cauliflower in food processor until chunky and has a similar texture to rice****
2. Add cauliflower to plate and microwave for 3 minutes (do not add water)

Makes 1 serving
255 calories
13.2g fat
7.2g net carbs
22.3g protein

The process was so simple, and they came out great–even though we had a lot of technical difficulties! One: we had no candy or meat thermometer. This didn’t turn out to be be much a problem. BUT, two: the egg beater which we used to beat the marshmallows died about 2 minutes into whipping (from overheating we may assume). Hand-mixing marshmallow goo is quite a tiring task, folks. However, it turned out just fine in the end.

Almost too cute to eat!

…almost…

Burnt marshmallow-y goodness. Nothing beats it. We were both snacking on s’mores and marshmallows all throughout winter break. It was well worth the calories and sugar and 5 pounds weight gain.

S’mores boxes! Pack in each box a few classic Hershey’s chocolate bars, graham crackers, and homemade marshmallows. A very delicious and toasty gift!

We covered one batch with regular powdered sugar, and another batch with cinnamon sugar (!!). There are so many variations one can do with this recipe! To prepare the s’mores, we skewered them with bamboo sticks, and stuck them over a gas stove until the outside was all burnt and yummy. Yes, it was a very traditional setting (I’m sure they would have been awesome with a real campfire). We also smeared graham crackers with Nutella spread instead of chocolate…my god.

Fresh marshmallows. Dooo it.

Homemade Marshmallows
Credits to SA forums

Ingredients:
3 envelopes of unflavored gelatin (1/4 oz each)
1/2 cup cold water

2 cups sugar
2/3 cup light corn syrup (Europeans should look for Golden syrup, Karo syrup, or refiner’s syrup as a substitute)
1/4 cup water
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract (some say a teaspoon is more accurate)

Confectioners’(powdered) sugar for dredging

Recipe:
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with whisk attachment, sprinkle gelatin over 1/2 cup cold water. Soak for 10 minutes. (NOTE: egg beaters work fine for this)

Combine sugar, corn syrup, and 1/4 cup water in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and boil hard for 1 minute. Pour boiling syrup into gelatin and mix at high speed. Add the salt and beat for 12 minutes. Add vanilla and incorporate into mixture. Scrape into a 9 x 9-inch pan lined with oiled plastic wrap and spread evenly. (Note: Lightly oil hands and spatula or bowl scraper). After pouring marshmallow mixture into the pan, take another piece of plastic wrap and press mixture into the pan.

Let mixture sit for a few hours. Remove from pan, dredge the marshmallow slab with confectioners’ sugar and cut into 12 equal pieces with scissors (the best tool for the job) or a chef’s knife. Dredge each piece of marshmallow in confectioners’ sugar.

Store in an airtight container.

<3
Kim and Thi

We adapted this recipe from Allrecipes. Here are our modifications and some notes:

• We substituted sour cream for plain yogurt and mayonnaise. It was less of a substitute thing and more of we’re-too-lazy-to-get-the-rest-of-the-ingredients type thing. Nevertheless, the sauce was great even if it was ultimately seasoned sour cream.

• We also used pollock instead of cod because fresh cod is mysteriously difficult to obtain in regular grocery stores. Maybe we need to shop at nicer stores.

• Being underage and all, we used whatever beer was leftover from last weekend’s frat party. Just kidding. We used Fat Tire, a dark Amber ale. It worked wonderfully in creating a nice fluffy crust. If you wanna go more traditional, you might wanna use Corona or Dos Equis.

• GOOD corn tortillas are essential!! We bought ours from a Mexican mart that were made fresh the day they were purchased. The difference between homemade tortillas and shelf grocery store tortillas is astounding. Don’t even think about grabbing a bag of Guerreros for this recipe! If you do…well. I don’t even know what to say to that.

No intense step-by-step pictures but we think these are the two most important shots of any fish taco making process: the freshly deep fried beer batter fish, and the final presentation of the taco.

The additional toppings were shredded cabbage, Tapatio (our favorite AP hot sauce), El Yucateco green habenero sauce, red salsa casera, fresh cilantro and deep fried beer battered jalapeno slices (we got creative). Top yours with whatever you have around. The rest of our Asian family enjoyed these tacos. Yours will too.

We have a lot of tortillas leftover and some nice beef flap meat and pork shoulder in the fridge. Possible next post: Carnitas and carne asada! You’d better anticipate it.

- Lots of love, Thi & Kim

ps: we love comments