FitFool

As soon as I read kitiara's post about making bacon-wrapped dates, I had to know what it tasted like. They're every bit as wonderful as I had imagined. Salty, crispy bacon hugging the sweet date with a creamy, cheesy center. Blissful mingling of flavors and textures. Even better? Only one other person wanted to try them so I had the rest of the dozen to myself. (I only made a handful of them since I was using bacon leftover from making the Bacon and Cheese Potato Cake.) You can either fry or bake the wrapped dates. Kit noted that these reheat well but I can't confirm that since I ate them all and didn't leave any for leftovers.

While my mom is an incredible cook, I sadly didn't learn as much about cooking as I could've from her since I didn't take much of an interest in food until after I had left home. So when I wander around the aisles in an Asian grocery, I'm mostly peering at the packages trying to remember if I've ever eaten them at home. Recently, on one such stroll, I decided I wanted to have miso soup at home whenever I want it. There was a section in the refrigerated cases with several shelves of different kinds of miso paste. Not knowing the differences, I just picked one that had instructions printed in English. And while wandering around looking for the dashi (a mixture to make the soup base), I found more shelves (unrefrigerated this time) of miso paste. How does one choose? The miso pastes I saw were all high in sodium. It would be nice to find a lower-sodium version since the resulting miso soup was pretty salty. (though still tasty!) I still couldn't really tell you what miso soup is but it turns out to be quick and easy to make at home. And I'm sick with yet another cold already and the miso soup at least makes my throat feel better even if it's not making my cold go away.


( Click for recipe and pictures )

Summer has kept me happily supplied with berries. So I decided to try making fresh fruit tarts after being inspired by hoorayformegan's post. Came out beautifully. I found the dough for the crust was difficult to work with, sticking to the counter top and my fingers. The dough also broke apart easily. I got 13 tarts, 1 extra shell, and 1 broken shell that I dropped on the floor trying to get it out of the muffin tins. Taste was good though I wasn't a huge fan of the cream cheese filling. I think if I try again, I'll use a lemon curd or maybe vanilla custard instead.

I don't even know what to name this dish. (edit: both of my parents have responded that the name of the dish is Pepper-Salt Shrimp) My mom showed me how to make it. I love how you can eat the whole shrimp, shell and all, for a spicy, salty, crunchy shrimp dish. Once when I ducked into a Chinese restaurant on the tail end of lunch, the table next to mine was filled with college-age women, all white. They were talking and laughing and one of them kept looking at me. I thought she was wondering why I would show up for dimsum alone and for once was feeling self-conscious about dining alone. But as they were leaving, she held out a plate of this shrimp dish and asked if I wanted it. "We didn't touch it," she explained. "We didn't realize it would have the heads on the shrimp." What luck! (and don't worry, for this recipe, we trim the heads off)

The food pictured in this post was prepared by my mom. I cooked it too tonight on my own but hers was more photogenic. Thanks Mom!

This is delicious and truly really simple to prepare if you use canned artichoke hearts. The adults present thought this looked and tasted delicious. The kids eyed the leeks suspiciously so I caved and served their linguine with some jarred tomato sauce to avoid any complaints (besides, it left more of the good toppings to go around with the adults).

This was one of the last new dishes I ever cooked for Michael. These muffins were a big hit with Michael and several friends of all ages, from kids to adults. Not difficult to make at all. The hardest part was waiting for the bananas to ripen before I could try the recipe. They came out deliciously moist and I froze some for later which thawed out just fine. Glad to be attending the mellybrelly Home School of Baking!



( Click for recipe and bigger pictures )