Hodgepodge of recipes!!!

There isn't really a better way to share all these recipes I've been hoarding to myself. I usually try to have some sort of organization to each post by sharing a complete meal (with at least entree and dessert, if not salad or appetizer as well) or about a theme (mexican foods or asian dishes!) but that's just not going to work this time. You'll have to forgive me for posting about buffalo chicken sandwiches, lime poppyseed muffins, basil cream spaghetti, maple oat scones, AND risotto.

Seeing as you usually start your day with breakfast, I'll start this post with muffins-my favorite breakfast food. I definitely enjoyed eating nutella croissants and charcuterie+cheeses+breads for breakfast in Italy, but there's something about good old carb-y American pastries that I can't get enough of (hence, my constant visits to LA's hot brunch spots on the weekends). One of my favorite muffin flavors is lemon poppyseed, but I decided to be oh-so-daring by making lime poppyseed muffins. Honestly, I can't say there's a huge difference, but if you focus on the flavor long enough, you almost feel naughty for eating them early in the morning because they kind of have a hint of margarita :)

Great and easy recipe :) Can't say anything bad about it!

If you'd like any of these recipes and can't find the link to them (the name of each recipe has a different text color and if you click on it, leads to the original blog on which I found the recipe), please comment on the post! I promise I'll get back to your promptly. For this particular recipe, I couldn't find the original link so I'll have to email you the recipe as I copied it.

I made risotto for the first time ever!! I've always been intimidated by it because it takes.so.long. I have no patience for things you have to attend to for 45 minutes (vs. muffins which take 25 minutes to bake but at least you don't have to babysit them for those 25 minutes, you can go do other fun chores!). But I decided to overcome my disdain for waiting because 1. I love risotto 2. I wanted to challenge the core of my ever-impatient character.

Doesn't it look so warm and gooey and delicious?! And it was: this Roasted Red Pepper Risotto (click on the name "Roasted Red Pepper Risotto" to access the full recipe) was a nice departure from regular, white wine, mushroom risotto but it wasn't a crazy, wacko cousin (I've seen mexican risotto's and sweet risotto's and fried risotto balls and something about those just make me cringe).  The best part was the lemon--the tang of the lemons suited the spicy red peppers very well. I would add more cheese the next time I make it, but I am a self-professed cheese addict.

The next recipe was *another* challenge for myself. I originally wanted to make a béchamel sauce, which is one of the 4 (or is it 5?) basic sauces that most all other sauces are based on. But, alas,  Nick accidentally drank the white wine so I moved on to a similar concept: basil cream sauce. Ok, so it's not so similar but it is the idea of a from-scratch pasta sauce that attracted me.

And it was a hit. Even Nick liked it, and he does not like pasta, pasta sauces, etc. They get too repetitive, similar, heavy, and unexciting for him. Here, I just plopped a bunch of sauce onto some fresh pasta and it was simple, tasty, fresh, and light.

The last dish is an instant classic. It's been a while since I've had one of those (every thing I try seems great but nothing creates orgasmic noises at the dining table) and it was a welcome delight. This Buffalo Chicken panini comes from a blog I love (paninihappy!). Since I love a website called paninihappy, you can intuit that I love panini. I also love buffalo sauce (buffalo chicken pizza is one of my favorite pizzas) or anything spicy for that matter, and red onions. So it's almost a given I would love this recipe as long as it generally stuck to the basics.

We gourmetized the basic recipe by using ciabatta rolls and topping the chicken with mozzarella cheese. Perfection in my mouth!

You could almost say this blog DOES have a theme since the three entrees are italian-ish. That's a big ISH, but whatever, I do what I can to make myself feel smart and organized. :)

To make me look like a real, pro-blogger who actually plans her blogs ahead of time, I'll even go and add symmetry to this post by ending with American breakfast food: scones!

I LOVE my scones. They're less sweet than muffins, generally more dense, and somehow feel healthier (even though they're definitely not...they're on the same level in terms of high sugar, high carb, high energy, high ML-fever). Maple Oat scones are possibly my favorite flavor after Orange Cranberry. These are NOT Ina Garten's scones, which are probably my next challenge (one I've been saving because I'm pretty sure I'll have some sort of life epiphany when I try hers...she's a miracle maker), but a pretty darn good one nonetheless.

These might actually be semi-healthy because they're full of wheat bran, oats, and whole wheat flour! And you could tell-they tasted nice and hearty. Remember to use pure maple syrup--that makes the glaze amazing!

I love super close-up photos of food. The texture of the oat-y scone and the oozing maple glaze. Sigh!

On a completely unrelated but very happy note, this ad makes me crack up every single time. Something about it speaks to my undeniably giggly and childish soul. 

http://www.pandapanther.com/attEvolutionFaint.html

Enjoy! I am going to Disneyland for a wedding with my good Yale architecture friend Garrett this weekend! I can't wait!!! I wonder what the food will be like...will it be Disney-themed? 

Amo Il Cibo Italiano

I am convinced there's a reason God gave me the wonderful husband that He did: so I could become a part of an Italian family and by marriage say I'm "part Italian." Ok, I can't truthfully say that because I am 75% Vietnamese and 25% Chinese, or 100% Asian, but seriously...why was I not born an Italian? I LOVE their culture, their fashion, their language but most of all, I love their food.

Since food is so important to us as a couple, we wanted to be somewhere delicious for our honeymoon. We were able to narrow our honeymoon destinations down to Vietnam (pho!), Peru (ceviche!), and Italy and we ended up choosing Italy because it would be the most low-stress country to travel to since we've both been there and at one point, I was fluent in Italian (don't claim to be anymore).


While in Italy, we stayed at some amazing bed and breakfasts. This was breakfast every morning in Sesto Fiorentina (near Florence)

Fresh fruit, a cheese platter, AMAZING cured meats, bread, fresh breakfast cake (top right corner), fresh juice, yogurt, cereal, croissants, and wonderful Italian coffee. 

Nick and I immediately decided to adopt this "tradition" of eating meats and cheese for breakfast as soon as we find a good place to buy Italian cured meats in Los Angeles. This breakfast was so hearty and satisfying yet not overfilling; it was perfect for all the walking we did in town. I had my morning breakfast sandwich with peach marmalade, prosciutto, and OUR NEW FAVORITE CHEESE:

I can't even begin to describe to you how beautiful this cheese is. It has a perfect balance of salty, sour, and sweet, and it has a temperate yet distinct flavor. GAH!

Mirella, our host (and interior designer and antiquarian (which means she has fabulous taste!)), made us dinner one night too. It was a very, very traditional Tuscan meal. This was the dessert, which was made from a strange, slightly gummy flour, pine nuts, and other flavors. A bit strange, but we were proud of ourselves for trying something new!

This was the first course: a meaty polenta dish with very good cheese tossed in. It tasted like the more beautiful and intelligent cousin of macaroni and cheese. We also had appetizers (crostini with pate and cheese), pork and cannellini beans and salad and roasted potatoes, AND a bottle of wine and some dessert wine. Mirella did not hold back : ) And for her hospitality and food, we will be back to her beautiful bed and breakfast.

After Florence, we went back to Rome. Surprisingly enough, I fell in love with Rome on this trip. I had been there for a few day trips before, but never found it that beautiful or warm or delicious. This time, I did my research. My Italian professor at Yale *and* Mark Bittman from the NYT recommended eating traditional Roman food (pasta all'amatriciana and spaghetti alla carbonara, among other dishes) in Trastevere, a neighborhood in Rome that was historically a prison and is now a hub of amazing restaurants. We walked into a random restaurant called "Mario's" (figures) on the first night and ordered three pastas, all made fresh. Heaven. Repeat for the next three days. More heaven. 

I was stunned by the beauty of the Roman sauces--so simple, clear-tasting (and colored, for that matter), and delightfully fatty from the bacon! We didn't take pictures because we didn't want to be rude...there's definitely a sense of intimate family conversation and reverence for food in Italy that should not be disturbed. 

On the last day, we lunched at my favorite restaurant of the trip. This is what went into my stomach:

THE BEST GNOCCHI I'VE EVER HAD. This gnocchi is so incredibly fluffy and cloud-like and flavorful!!! The sauce was gorgonzola e ravanello (red radish) which looked simple on paper but tasted really soft, buttery, and slightly tangy in my mouth. 

Nick and I each ordered a pizza as well. Here's mine:

I did not LOVE Roman pizza (it's made on a flatbread crust, and I am just such a fan of thick, crusty, dough-y pizzas) but you can't really go wrong with arugula, bresaola, and fresh parmiggiano. There's also no red sauce here either, which makes the pizza lighter but significantly less exciting for me.

Possibly my favorite meal of the trip was our last dinner in our hotel room. We went to a grocery store and bought ciabatta rolls, our favorite cheese (see above), a package of fresh salami (12 slices for 2 euros!), a bottle of wine, and tons of other food to take to America.

Then we went to our wonderful bed and breakfast room, and we each ate 3 or 4 of these guys:

So easy, yet so freakin' amazing. I will always respect Italians for having amazingly fresh and simple ingredients. and for having the best wine. 

I could go on and recount every single thing I put in my mouth for those 5 romantic days, but I'll just leave you with these snapshots of our honeymoon. The rest we'll keep to ourselves ;-)

I have plenty of recipes to share so check back soon and regularly hereafter. I do want to return to a certain level of consistency with my posts :) 

Sidenote: Whenever I go abroad and eat only one type of cuisine, I come back to America craving burgers, burritos, and sushi. But this time, I came back and craved Nick and ML dishes, dishes that we make regularly and love to eat together. That would include:

Food of the Gods (black beans, corn, red bell peppers, cilantro, diced green chili peppers, mexican cheese, and hot sauce rolled into a tortilla) 

Burgers (specifically, Trader Joe's chili lime chicken burgers with havarti cheese, sauteed red bell peppers, dijon mustard, on ciabatta rolls)

Pizza (NYT crust, Trader Joe's unrefridgerated pizza sauce, TJ's quattro formaggio cheese, arugula)

Zingerman's Funky Chunky Chocolate Cookies

It's nice to know that we already have a married couple menu ;-)A strong foundation for a long-lasting marriage <3

Happy New Year!

It's been a month since my last post...a long haitus that can only be explained by my getting married and being out of country for the subsequent honeymoon. I hope you, dear readers, will forgive me! I don't plan on any more hiatuses in the near future...and look forward to diving into trying new recipes now that I have my evenings completely free again!

I'll be back very soon with details about the most delicious place to be in: Italy!

Love,

Mrs. Lerum