Nomad Kitcheneer

  I must confess: for the longest time, I have a prejudice towards cupcakes. I find the frosting too sweet, and the cake itself very bland. That is, until I did a "tasting" for a girlfriend of mine's baby shower. I sampled 4-5 stores' cupcakes, and oddly, I realized, not all cupcakes are created equal. (Duh....should've known that a long time ago, but how can I never make that connection?) Fast forward to St Patrick's Day, and I was sitting around reading recipes online for fun. Yes...i do that, though I also often lacked the motivation to get over the "activation energy" to actually make something. Anyhow, I saw this interesting recipe for chocolate stout cupcake with chocolate ganache filling and Baileys frosting. And I went.....how can a cupcake be SO complicated?! It's so complex that I got curious enough to actually want to try making it myself. I mean.....first of all, having beer in cupcake is an interesting idea. Secondly, th

Horchata I didn't really "discover" Mexican food until last year, despite living in LA for so long. Now, I'm always looking for new places to go, new taco and mole to try. Slowly, I'm building my Spanish food vocabulary. At least, now I know what a fajita or taquito is. Last week, when I was in San Francisco, and went to this amazing Mexican vegan restaurant, Gracias Madre in the Mission district. The horchata was probably the BEST I've had so far. It had a nice balance of creaminess from the rice milk and spiciness from the cinnamon. Not to mention, it wasn't overly sweet either. Normally, the horchata that I get is just over-powered by sugar, and the drink is super cinnamony. As a result, they are normally served on ice. Not that one from Gracias Madre, it was just simply poured into the glass, and voila, I can't stop drinking. So I thought, how hard can it be? It's supposed to be just a rice drink. There must be some recipes online th

A slice of delicious and moist banana bread I'm not a morning person. It's hard for me to wake up, even harder for me to get out of my bed and start my morning routine, let alone getting out of the door. So every morning, I'm always rushing. Moreover, I never seem to be able to meet my target departure time (unfortunately...). Breakfast for me, therefore, is usually consumed in my car, while I'm driving to work. Over the years, I tried many store bought options, and rotated through the freezer isles and toast isles. These days, being more health conscious, I try to make my own breakfast. Afterall, it's much cheaper (cost-wise) and I have greater control of what goes in there. Moreover, especially for the sweet morning treats, I can CUT SUGAR! I finally finished all my oatmeal muffin experimental items from my Take 1 , Take 2 , and not-yet-fine-tuned Take 3 experiments. Gosh! That was a lot of oatmeal muffins to go through. (Side note: I store the muffin in

Chocolate Pudding, ready to dig in If I ever get the "weakness" question in an interview, my default answer always involves being a perfectionist. On the bright side, that means I have high standards; not so great side, I can be a bit paranoid about fine details. When it comes to cooking, especially when it comes to making dessert, I AM A PERFECTIONIST. So in most cases, I'd try a recipe, have a reasonable success with it (or failure occasionally), and I'll always have something I'd change, and I'd work on it later. This Chocolate Pudding recipe from Tartine....I don't have anything I'd change (except maybe reduce the amount of sugar). It's simple, not very time consuming to prepare, and the result was phenomenal! I served it at the end of my dinner party, and everybody just inhaled it. The pudding is rich, chocolate flavor intense, with a hint of saltiness that highlights the cocoa. I topped the pudding with unsweetened softly whipped cre

  Fresh out of oven..... A few days ago, I made my first attempt of the oatmeal muffin , and the results were quite fantastic. According to review on epicurious, this recipe is supposed to be very flexible that you can make your own modifications. Since I still have my big bottle of buttermilk sitting in my fridge waiting to be consumed, I decided that I'd join the crowd and try to change things up a bit. Changes i made: Instead of butter, vegetable oil was used brown sugar quantity was cut in half half of the all purpose flour was substituted with rye flour added 1 tsp of vanilla and 1/2 tsp of cinnamon butterscotch chips in place of dried fruit lower oven temperature and slightly longer baking time With all the modifications I made, I was a bit scared of the result. I mean, usually I'd change one thing at a time, so if things didn't turn out well, I knew exactly what went wrong. However, with all the raving reviews on epicurous, I decided to just jump at

Oatmill Muffin, fresh out of oven I know...I know...breakfast is probably one of the most important meals of the day. For me, breakfast also pose another really tricky dilemma: do I want to sleep more or do I want to have a better meal? The choice for me has always been to sleep more. I told myself that I can eat while I'm driving (yes...and I'm pretty good at that, this is an essential skill if you live in Southern California, as we spend so much time behind the wheel anyways, might as well make good use of the time). The other thing is, I'm always sleep deprived, so I could really use that extra 15 minutes. Others would suggest eating breakfast after I get to work. Well....that doesn't fly for me, as I cannot eat at work, so everything must be consumed prior to me stepping into my office. Otherwise, you'll see me standing in front of the security trying to finish my breakfast as fast as possible.  So over the years, I've experimented with

Grand Marnier Crepe Cake It might not look like much, but this is some serious work! I love crepes. It's simple, delicious, and can go terribly wrong (read: floury and tough). I've been making crepes for years now, so long that I even forgot where/when I first learned it already. Oh well...let's say that I'm very particular about my crepes. I like them very thin, and not tough. And, in case you're wondering, I DO NOT have a crepe pan, and I don't plan on owning one either. To me, if it can be done using a simple non-stick skillet, then why bother spending a fortune on something that is uni-purposed. (Though....I'm guilty of buying many of these uni-purposed gadgets, but I've learned my lessons, and I'm much better at it these days! I promise!) Anyhow, I first came across the concept of crepe cake when I was in New York, upper west side. My friend and I went to this chic bakery, where everything on the menu is named in French. Ironically,