Biscoff Stuffed Chocolate Cookies: Jetlag Cookies

Despite my ridiculously easy schedule that I have given myself for maintaining this blog, I forgot to take pictures of the most recent thing I have made that may deserve a post. So I'm stuck in a conundrum to either post a short and nonsubstantial post about chocolate cookies that lack any particularly good photos, or post a long winded introspection revolving around my bad luck with galettes and the cherry/green tea flavor combo. Currently I am chillaxing at an airport in front of a women who I witnessed consume several small bottles of Wild Turkey, and am now mildly worried about her. On a side note, there's the usual jetlag and trying to keep myself from falling asleep too early.

So instead of writing about a failure in baking, I'll keep this short with two questionable pictures of something I think all of us want/need when we're just a little bit tired and just want to take things a little easy. Mainly- soft baked cookies. Especially those that are warm, rich and with just a little bit ginger and cinnamon thanks to biscoff spread stuffed and melty in the center. No one wants a hard crunchy cookie when they seek a comfort food cookie. Well, at least I don't. Hard, crunchy cookies are for festive moments and tea. Or maybe I'm just getting cookie textures mixed up with actual emotions. Go figure.



Recipe adapted from Sally's Baking Addiction. The only different was rather than caramel candies in the center, I used biscoff spread. Chilling the biscoff in the fridge made it much easier to work with. You can easily substitute biscoff for peanut butter if you're into the whole dark chocolate peanut butter combo. And face it, who isn't?
Side note: the women across from me is now either taking odd pictures of the general airport, or more likely, selfies.

Cannoli Ice Cream: Toppings Megabus

If only pistachios were $5. Not that Megabus is even $5 dollars these days. Sorry Boston friends. You are definitely worth the $35 or whatever they charge these days though. Friendships are worth above money. Though there is a certain element of responsiveness and genuine communication that seems to falter despite all the forms of "talking" we seem to have these days.

quality photo right there. the makings of a true food photographer.

Anyways, to break the 4th or whatever wall I seem to avoid by trying to make my posts timeless, its already Friday at midnight, I'm rather sleepy and running on 22% battery-life, so I'll have to make this fast and not-so-cute. Basically, banana loaf lasagnas means left over ricotta. Which means cannoli ice cream. Which means an abundance of toppings. Probably a little too much-pistachio, chocolate chips, and crushed sugar cones. The original recipe called for actual homemade cannoli shells, but I don't have that kind of time, so sugar cones it was. The beauty of ice cream toppings is that you can add or subtract whatever you want without a major recipe make over.



 Unfortunately, I forgot that sugar cones get soggy. While the crunchy was great when the ice cream was freshly churned, it wasn't so awesome on the 3rd day or so. Not sure if homemade cannoli shells would have that same effect, but I'm curious now since that wasn't really a disclaimer in the original recipe. The ice cream itself is absurdly easy since all the richness derives from the ricotta and your typical mixture of milk and cream rather than cooking a custard. I was a bit skeptical about whether it would actually taste like a cannoli both because 1) There was a lack of mascarpone which seems like a necessary staple for most real cannolis, 2) I've only had 2-3 cannolis in my current existing life so can I really recognize cannoli in ice cream form?, and 3) My last few ice creams have been kind of a miss on the full flavor side.

This time around though, it was obvious that the ice cream base was creamy in that cannoli sort of way. I've never been a big fan of chocolate chips in ice cream, but added them in just to try it out. Still don't really like chocolate chips, but loved the ice cream anyways, especially the pistachios and sugar cones in their non-soggy state. Maybe next time I'll try chocolate flakes because chocolate is still delicious. Just not in crunchy rock hard chip form. Gosh, imagine if I used full sized chips and not mini ones. That would have been a disaster.

As a general update, I ended up running to reserve battery power at the beginning of that last paragraph, so I had to grab my charger. I could re-edit this so that you would never know that I was in the midst of a battery crisis, but I like adding an edge of danger to my posts. Sorry that was a bit too hyperbolic even for me.

Recipe from Cooking Classy (yay alliterations!). I used a hand mixer with a whisk to blend the base since my blender was a bit occupied by pesto. I was concerned I would make whipped cream, but mixing with a spoon when it got too foamy seemed to resolve this. The final base was a little grainy from the ricotta, but the final product was still creamy.

Red Bean Ice Cream: Summer Vacays to the Homeland

I want to say that this is the first time I've had red bean ice cream while in the US, but I feel like that isn't true. It's not like red bean is a super absurd flavor these days. Regardless of the accuracy of my memory, red bean ice cream is something I tend to affiliate with hot, dusty, humid summer days in China visiting family. Every 4ish years or so, we go back to China and, if you have any sense of what Chinese family reunions are like, its a big old time. So much food. So much nice dining. So much one uncle insisting over the other to pay. So much fish oil to bring from the US (and chocolate of course). So much cutesy mechanical pencils and stationary to bring back. It's great.

One of the memories I have from these visits is the reasonable, yet possibly absurd amount of ice cream my siblings and I would consume on a daily basis while being shuttled from one monument to the next. Sure there were some normal flavors, like drumsticks and plain vanillas, but there were also some (at first) fascinating flavors that we probably only tried after the insistence of our mother. Some classic flavors include red bean, green bean, and one that we called "green tongue jello," whose actual name still evades me as a semi-adult.

I'm not sure if this ice cream was a strongly red bean flavored as I would have liked. The super DIY-er in me bought red beans rather than just pre-cooked, sweetened red beans--definitely the easier route. In my defense, I was not deliberately trying to be a hipster or snob. I literally did not realize that pre-made red bean paste exists. This is probably also pretty telling of how terrible I am at grocery shopping if I didn't notice the red bean paste sitting a few shelves away from the dry red beans.

Thankfully, making your own red bean paste is not that difficult- and probably even better if you're particularly picking about the texture or sweetness of your paste. My stove is unnecessarily hot at times, so I did accidentally burn some of the beans when the water got dangerously low while "simmering." Its unclear if this is a placebo effect, but I do feel like after a few days, the ice cream has gotten richer in red bean flavor compared to when it was freshly churned. Orrrrr, I just have really really messed up taste buds from all that sugar.
Regardless, it may not be my best ice cream yet, but its definitely one I plan to try making again at some point. And as a side note, happy belated mid-autumn festival! Go eat some mooncakes!
Ice cream and red bean paste recipe from food52.

Conflict Kitchen: A Different Kind of Socially Conscious Eatery

I usually reserve the "eating out," and "flashback friday"-like posts to busy school times and family vacation times. However Conflict Kitchen, a little take-out eatery I visited in Pittsburgh, PA was just too cool for me to not write a post about it. Located along literally some of the most pristine outdoor open-space grass I have ever seen, Conflict Kitchen is a food stand that changes its menu every 6 months. Each half year, the eatery picks a nation that the US is currently in political conflict with and serves food from only that nation. Not only does the menu change up, but the entire stand goes through a makeover, with its decor and colors to match the nation, and a new name. Currently, its Venezuela. 

Now, there are plenty of socially conscious, politically active food eateries, restaurants, and general dining choices around the world. The ones I've visited, though, tend to circle around concepts like, sustainability, or locally sourced, organic, grass-fed, ect ect. You know, the things you think about when you think of a Californian hipster. Sometimes there's an occasional coffee shop that'll donate x percentage of profits to a local charity. They might even make a contest out of it if they're super into it! All of that rambling is to basically emphasize that none of these restaurants literally remake themselves twice a year to achieve their social activism ~twist~.

My Pabellon Criolos

Of course, as a food blog, I should probably comment on the food. I tried to get a picture of the menu (below), but the glare from the picture perfect park really makes it a bit hard to read. The menu for Venezuela was largely small eateries, like plantains, empanadas, arepas, and then two "large plates." I was super hungry, so I ordered the pabellon criolos, which basically consisted of really delicious shredded beef, beans, rice, and some perfectly sweet and not too soft, not too firm plantains. There were so many other things I wanted to try though too-like the arepas! If only I wasn't traveling alone that day. But kudos to an excellent combination of good food, good design, and really creative concept. Not that they needed or wanted my approval.

I will be the first to admit, sadly, that I don't think I actually learned a whole lot about Venezuela by visiting Conflict Kitchen. The eatery does do exhibitions and presentations with the public, but they seem to be few and far in between. There's a lot of small, cutesy, interesting stories about Venezuela on the website. However, I get the impression some basic background on the on-going conflict would be important, which I sadly lack. Then again, as a food eatery that serves ethnic cuisine, perhaps the point isn't to educate the eaters on the political puzzle, but rather to share the social and cultural experiences of each of the nations it features in a rather literal way.

Anyways, I'll end this post with a quote from an  NPR article that I think nicely summarizes Conflict Kitchen (written back in 2012 when the nation was Iran and I guess they were serving wraps):

"The eatery is an experimental public art project — and the medium is the sandwich wrap."