Pseudo Cuban Samiches

I hate leftovers. Well, hate is a strong word and it's kind of a lie because there are some leftovers I don't mind eating. OK, so that totally just blew up my initial sentence.

Anyhoo...I do like remaking leftovers that I'm tired of since I get bored easily. I get bored of lots of things easily...like when I talk. That's probably why I have such violent subject changes.

I digress. Big surprise.

After going to our friend's wetting down (he too became a Lieutenant Commander/O-4 in the Navy like my hubby) recently. His wife made Kalua pork. I had never had it, but LOVED it! So simple and yet, so good.

I recreated it and made it supposedly the authentic way with shredded cabbage. Unfortunately, I also used a lean cut of pork since I didn't want all the fat of a pork butt. For Jaron's party...I'll be using the butt (aka the shoulder of the piggy). It turned out well still...but not as tender. I wasn't surprised and still trying to think which was more important for my fam...healthy or a little less delicious. The former won.

Did I mention how ridiculously easy it was to make??? Take the pork, rub it with sea salt (I used Kosher), pour a bottle of liquid smoke on it, and set it & forget it in a slow-cooker. Yeaaaaaaaah. Shred that bad boy up, add shredded cabbage (if you like), and cook it until the cabbage is tender.

Anyhoo...Kaia and I love Cuban sandwiches. I grew up eating them & media noches whenever we'd visit my mom's fam in Miami. I just introduced the kids to them last year before we left FL. Jaron, not being a big fan of sandwiches then, thought it was just aight. Kaia totally *hearted* them.

So, with 1.5 hours to go before party time and my still needing to buy the birthday boy a present and make myself look semi-presentable...I went into overdrive. I did not make these sandwiches authentic, but aimed for getting the taste as close as possible. A real, delicious Cuban sandwich starts with possibly THE most important ingredient....Cuban bread. Mmmmmmmmmm. You have to try this bread. It is just some yummy goodness. There is the requisite roast pork, ham, pickles, swiss cheese, and mustard. Most of the Cubans I've had have been buttered on the outside and pressed hot...like a grilled cheese. I really hate to make any ethnic food unless I've tried the real thing and get a good idea of the right spices, cooking technique, etc. Still, I was hankering for a Cuban and figured the leftover Kalua pork would make a pretty close version of the sandwich.

I made my pseudo-not-authentic-but-close-to-the-taste Cuban with sliced La Brea wheat bread, buttered on the outside (with Smart Balance), a shmear of yellow mustard, slice of Swiss cheese, and the leftover shredded Kalua pork...we left out the pickles because we didn't have any and the kids don't like 'em.

Grill to perfection and enjoy...'cause we did!

We served it with my grandfather's cabbage salad. Mmmmmmmmmm.

Beta-Carotene Goodness

Did you know that carrots are one of those veggies that have more nutritional bang for their buck when cooked? So, with that logic, here's something that is not only delicious, but NUTRITIOUS.

Yeah, it's a stretch, but a gooooooood one! ;o)

The Hubs loves himself some carrot cake. I first tried this bad boy when Sean's first CO (commanding officer) on his first sub was leaving and they were welcoming the new CO...this ceremony is called a Exchange of Command. Anyhoo...one of the other officer's wives had made this fabulous carrot cake. FAB-U-LOUS. So fabulous that I made my fiance hunt this man down to get his wife to fork over her recipe. I'm so glad I did because I haven't used any other carrot cake recipe since then. I've tweaked it to my liking.

I made the one above for the wardroom (basically the group of officers on the submarine) Super Bowl party this year. Unfortunately, I don't know how memorable that cake was since basically everyone at the party came down with a stomach virus (incl. our fam) that incapacitated almost the entire wardroom. Yeah, needless to say, there were barely any officers around that week on the sub...save for the guys who weren't at the party and my hubby who managed to barely escape the plague that got us. I. Hate. Nausea. And. Vomiting. I will birth a child, tear a ligament, break a bone any day...but Lord do not make me queasy!!

Anyhoo...with that said. I love, love, love spices. So, I make this cake extra spicelicious. The cream cheese frosting tempers it quite nicely. But, if you don't like too much spice, just cut back on the measurements I gave on the spices...which are approximations since I go against the baking grain and just dump the spices until I think it's good enough. Luckily, since they're spices, my lack-of-measurement for them is technically not wrong since it won't affect any chemical reactions in it.

This bad boy is just some yummy, moist, spicey, carroty goodness.

Carrot Cake
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
2 t. baking soda
1.5 T. cinnamon (I won't lie, I probably use about 2 T. or more)
1 - 1.5 t. ginger
1/2 - 3/4 t. nutmeg
1/2 t. ground cloves
1 t. salt
1 cup oil
4 eggs
4 cups shredded carrots (the original recipe calls for 3, I like to use 4 or more)
1 t. vanilla (again, I am guilty of using 1.5-2 t. vanilla)
8 oz. crushed pineapple, drained
1 cup walnuts (optional)
1 cup raisins, rehydrated in rum (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sift dry ingredients together. Add the oil & eegs, one at a time. Beat until thoroughly mixed. Add carrots, pineapple, & vanilla. (This is where you would also add the nuts and/or raisins, if using.) Mix well. Pour into a greased and floured 9x13 pan. Bake for 45 minutes or until done.

Done will be when it's no longer shiny on top, center is firm, sides are beginning to pull away, and there is just a touch of brown spots.

Let cake cool completely in pan before removing.

Frost with cream cheese frosting. Add garnishes, if desired. I added toasted coconut and toasted chopped walnuts in the photo above (since there were no walnuts in the cake).

Cream Cheese Frosting
3/4 cup butter, softened (I use salted since I'm not big on way too sugary frosting/icing)
1 lb. (or less) Confectioner's sugar
1 lb. cream cheese, softened
1 T. vanilla (I. Love. Vanilla.)

Cream butter & cream cheese together. Add vanilla. Mix. Mix in sugar...sloooooowly, unless you like a snowy kitchen. I find working in it in 3-4 portions helps!

**Some healthy substitutions would be: whole wheat flour for the flour, 1/2 cup applesauce & 1/2 oil instead of 1 cup oil (which I used Smart Balance oil), & a lower fat cream cheese in the frosting.

Enjoy!

Strawberry Cupcakey Goodness

So, while at Costco, the cover of the Martha Stewart Living Magazine was screaming at me to pick it up...so I did. The cover was actually a heat made out of multicolored cupcakes. So cute and I had to get it since my sister loves cupcakes and her baby shower is quickly approaching.

I found THE PERFECT strawberry cupcake recipe in it. Like Ina Garten, Martha rarely fails me. Well, I've only used one other recipe from her, but it's my fail-safe go-to easy-peezy meal: Spaghetti w/Brooklyn White Clam Sauce. We've been a huge fan of that dish since she was on Food Network waaaaaaaaay back in the day!

Anyhoo, I'm more of a cook than a baker. I'm still getting the hang of things but getting better. I get a bit nervous baking cakes from scratch but almost never use a box mix...because of the dreaded trans fats! So, after delving into one of these beauties last night (minus the buttercream which I made this morning), I was pleasantly shocked and completely amazed at the fluffy moistness that was very much like a boxed cake mix cake that this cupcake had! DELICIOUS! It could've been a bit more strawberry-er and had more of a strawberry muffin-like taste. Still...paired with a good strawberry buttercream...you can't go wrong!

I've been dying for a great strawberry buttercream. The strawberry buttercream I hold on a frosting pedestal is the strawberry buttercream from

Cake Love. Apparently, Warren Brown, owner of Cake Love, tells you right how to make it here. Surprisingly, out of the gazillion kitchen gadgets & utensils I have...I do not own a candy thermometer! Jaron's birthday is coming up soon...and my little man is going to have a strawberry cake...so we'll have to try Warren's recipe for my all-time favorite strawberry buttercream then!

For this weekend's cupcakes, I took my usual go-to buttercream recipe and played around with it to get a strawberry buttercream. This was actually possibly my third attempt and it's so cliche, but third time really was a charm!!! If I go back to this buttercream for future strawberry buttercreams, then I will change it to 2 sticks salted butter instead of just one stick salted & one unsalted. It was a tad too sweet and slightly overpowered the delicate cupcake. One plus about the buttercream this time...I found an ORGANIC SHORTENING!!! Yea-uh, Baybee!!! Anyhoo...I added strawberry extract and will NOT be doing that next time, I will add a touch of vanilla and more strawberries. I really was looking for a strong strawberry taste.

Strawberry Cupcakes
Adapted from Martha Stewart Living
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup cake flour (not self-rising)

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

2 1/4 cups sugar

3 large eggs plus 1 large egg white

1 cup whole milk

1 1/2 teaspoons strawberry extract
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2 cups finely chopped strawberries, plus small strawberries for garnish

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Whisk dry ingredients in a large bowl. Cream butter and sugar with a mixer until light and fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating after each addition. Reduce speed to low.

Mix any remaining wet ingredients (in this case the milk & extracts are the wet ingredients) in a bowl if needed. Add dry ingredients to butter mixture in 3 additions, alternating with wet ingredients and ending with dry. Add chopped strawberries into the batter. Scrape sides of bowl.

Divide batter among muffin cups, filling each 2/3 full. Bake cupcakes until testers inserted into centers come out clean, about 20 minutes. Let cool in tins on wire racks. Once cupcakes are cool, frost tops with strawberry buttercream. Frosted cupcakes will keep, covered and refrigerated, for up to 2 days. Top with a strawberry just before serving.

Strawberry Buttercream Dream Icing
2 sticks salted butter, room temperature
1 cup shortening
2 lbs. powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 - 1 cup finely minced strawberries
1-4 tablespoons very cold milk

Cream the butter and shortening in the bowl of an electric or stand mixer. Add the vanilla extract and combine well. Add sugar in about 3-4 separate batches and mix thoroughly after each addition. After all of the sugar has been added and mixed thoroughly, add about 1-2 tablespoons of milk. Mix at medium-high to high speed. Slowly add strawberries until you reach the desired consistency...adding more milk if needed.

I'm Pho-real about my addiction...

My name is Tanya and I have an addiction.

Oh pho, how I love your hot, steamy goodness! My kids adore you and our family chooses you to warm our cold, winter days. We love you pho and are just so happy you are only 15-20 minute drive away now that we live in an area with more diversity. Thank you.

But seriously, we are so loving this fabulous Vietnamese noodle soup. I had loved them from back in the day in DC and of course, in CA where there are a veritable plethora of pho shops in the Bay Area. How could you not love this beefy broth, noodle, fresh herb, meaty goodness? Ooooooooh...so good. Now, if they could tone down the MSG, we'd be allllllll good!

G-town Cupcake

A few weeks ago we managed to sneak back home to DC for a short weekend. While there, my sister and I had a "Sister Day" and went into to Georgetown specifically to get these lovely beauties that had warranted a large section of the Washington Posts' Food Section a few months back. Georgetown Cupcake (right around the corner from our parents' alma mater)...has become the "IT" place of cupcakes in DC. I do not kid you that we stood in line for a good 20 minutes or more to get inside the bakery. What you see in the photo is the Chocolate Ganache, Toasted Marshmallow, Lemon Berry, Mocha, Chocolate Vanilla, Coconut (we got a reg. coconut and a Chocolate Coconut), Chocolate Cubed, and Vanilla Squared.

My sister and I are not big chocolate people...but if we had to opt for chocolate, hers would be milk and mine would be dark. Anyhoo...the cupcakes were fabulous!! My only gripe...the frosting. Too cream-cheesy for me. I like my buttercream to taste like buttercream. However, it did pair very well the cupcakes and the texture was unbelievably light and airy...but I was just hankering for good buttercream-buttercream. BUT...the clear winner for the both of us...dun dun duuuuuuuun...THE CHOCOLATE CUBED (that's the one in the foreground with chocolate sprinkles.

The ideal pairing? Cake Love buttercream (SOOOOOOO INCREDIBLY GOOD...but the cupcakes...dry & ughhhh) and Georgetown Cupcakes' cake! I tried two popular cupcake shops in NYC...Buttercup Bake Shop and Crumbs Bakery. The former I was really unimpressed with...you can find the same taste, consistency, AND quality in the grovery store. The latter was ginormous, moist, but tasted like a box mix...the buttercream was nothing noteworthy, not bad, but not standout.

Anyhoo...that's it!

Change

Since we are all about Change in this house...which since the last time I posted, we have CHANGED houses...;o) I decided to catch up and start providing some new posts here and there. We are really fortunate to have the family that we have since we moved right before Xmas (the 23rd to be exact), our family came down and unpacked the rest of the most important room in our home...THE KITCHEN!!! It was a fabulous early birthday gift for me and I feel a little bit more functional among the sea of boxes here!

Anyhoo...the CHANGE in this recipe is taking boring but yummy edamame and making it something totally crave-worthy! We're talking simple but easy; yummy but healthy: GARLICKY EDAMAME. My Aunt Hilda made this for us years ago and we can't go back to plain edamame.

The recipe/process is simple. Mince up some garlic...I love LOTS of it! Lightly saute in extra virgin olive oil. Boil up a bag of edamame till a tad under desired doneness (yes, I'm all abotu making up my own vocab right now). Drain and toss immediately into the garlicky oil. Season with salt to liking and enjoy the goodness that is Garlicky Edamame. Seriously, it is soooooo addictive!

I should've made some for me and my baby girl, who I kept home from school to watch the inauguration. This is one of Kaia's FAVORITE things to eat. Girl can eat a whole platter by herself! But, I didn't. Regardless, we're so proud of our country right now and excited for the CHANGE to come! GObama!