By far my favorite muffin recipe that I’ve tried is Smitten Kitchen‘s muffin recipe. The texture is just so lovely! I like the change this recipe for the fall and use fresh cranberries. (I wash and cut them into halves. I add TONS to the batter and some of them get soft, burst, and they get so delicious.)

Another favorite during the Summer was frozen yogurt. It’s SO MUCH easier to make than custard ice cream. I also feel like it’s a little healthier. You basically get some plain yogurt, add some honey/sugar/maple syrup as you want, and then any fruit (frozen is fine – I would add some more honey and let it defrost). I like to run some handfuls of berries through the food processor, so the yogurt gets colorful.

If there is one thing I definitely need, it’s some help organizing my cupboards and closets.

So for my birthday, Sophear got me an Ice Cream Maker! Yay. I took it for a spin in May and made some yummy custard ice Cream with strawberries. It was really easy. I followed Simply Recipes‘s French Vanilla Ice Cream recipe. You want to use yolks, because they give the ice cream more depth, creaminess, and it helps keep the texture in the freezer. I mean, who doesn’t like custard? For the most part, I used the above as a guide, but since then, gotten away with using half the amount of yolks and it was delicious! It depends how decadent you want it. The worst part about a custard ice cream is that, I can’t stop eating the custard before it goes in the fridge. Oh yeah, and the prep time (ie. the time you need to both cool the mixture and freeze the icecream) is longer.

Strawberry Custard Ice Cream

Heat 2.5 cups of cream and 1 cup milk (I used the 2% I have lying around and used extra cream… just saying). Add half the sugar to the mixture. Stir. Heat the mixture up, but don’t have it steam and boil. Let cool for a few minutes.

Separate 4-6 egg yolks, depending on how melty/rich you want the ice cream.

Wisk the egg yolks with the remaining sugar. Using a table spoon, ladle the heated milk into the egg while quickly wisking. DON’T LET THE EGGS COOK. Keep stirring. I did this 3-4 times, ladling in the hot cream mixture. Once mixed, slowly add in the egg to the milk mixture, stirring quickly. Heat the mixture, stirring constantly, let the mixture simmer slightly, but don’t let it boil or the eggs will start the burn.

Turn off the heat, let the mixture cool a bit (transfer it to a rubber bowl or something that won’t keep hot like a steel bowl).

Trim your strawberries and cut into small chunks. I pureed the whole thing, but if you want to leave some chunks, you can smash them and leave them as so. (Or puree half the strawberry amount and mash the rest.) Pour strawberries into the custard, mix thoroughly.

Place mixture in fridge/freezer to cool for 1-2 hours. (If you used more than 4 yolks, you can safely put it in the freezer and it won’t freeze.)

Freeze the ice cream according to your ice cream maker’s instructions. Usually, you need to freeze the bowl over night, turn the machine on, and pour in the mixture. I let the machine freeze the cream for around 20 or so minutes. If you put a lot of yolks, like I did the first time, the ice cream won’t really freeze. It will have the consistency of runny melted soft serve. Pour out the mixture and put in the freezer for a couple of hours.

I was honestly a little discouraged after seeing the texture out of the ice cream maker. However, once frozen for at least 3-5 hours, it completely resembled ice cream and tasted amazing.

Here is some inspiration! In the near future, I need to make some Maple-Bacon icecream!

Next project: Frozen Yogurt (which was SUPER easy / doesn’t require any additional heating or freezing)

I’ve cooked some steaks on the cast-iron, too, although mine are usually salted, instead of marinating. Salting? No, I’m not talking about “seasoning” it. In fact, afterwards, I wash it off and pat COMPLETELY DRY. I’m talking about this technique. It’s mighty good. Ryan, on the other hand, swears by miso-marinading the steak and broiling in the oven.

He’s perfected the method, starting out with a pretty tough flank steak to our last rib eye, both from Wholefoods. This time, he wanted something special and looked up specialty butcher shops. We found a great one near Bedford Ave in Brooklyn and took a trip there.

Marlow and Daughters
95 Broadway
(between Bedford Ave & Berry St)
Brooklyn, NY 11211

This place is a little bit of a walk from the Bedford Avenue L train station, but really worth a trek. This shop has tons of lovely things like organic vegetables (picked me up some rainbow chard!), cold cuts (picked some up), sausages (I’ve never had hand made hot dogs, so we bought a couple and plan to eat them tonight on a toasted potato bun), cheeses and yogurts (picked up a tub to make frozen yogurt). You definitely go there for one thing and come out with $50-$100 worth of stuff. Anyway. This is how we ended up with a little over a pound of dry-aged NY Strip Steak. We were looking at the dry-aged rib eye, but it was lofty 2lb monster with the bone… so yeah.

They butcher in house and a lot of steaks were left over from requests from restaurants from that day. The meats looked really great and fresh, if more expensive for the authentic butcher experience. The people that work there are super attentive and helpful, and of course, knowledgeable about their meats. Unfortunately this isn’t the type of place I would trek to once a week, but a splurge per month is definitely in the picture.

Red Miso Marinaded Steaks

This is Ryan’s recipe for steaks, which resembles the Japanese miso-zuke technique of marinading fishes. It makes the meat really flavorful and the mirin allows the outside to caramelize (the sugar content – so if you’re cooking a thinner steak and you suspect the cooking time to be less, then add more mirin for more of an instant char). Use around 3 table spoons per pound of meat with a splash of mirin or more if the steak is on the thinner side. Our steak last night was over an inch, so the mirin was minimal. Marinade at room temperature for an hour. If you want a stronger flavor, marinade in the fridge for some time and leave out for the last hour.

Twenty minutes before cooking, adjust the bottom rack of the oven to be around 6 inches from the flame. Set the oven to broil and leave in your cast-iron pan. Once the steak is good to cook, be careful and take out the cast iron and heat on the stove at the highest setting. (Please double up your oven mitts, as the one touching the cast iron was blackened.) The idea is to char the steak of a super hot surface. Place the steak on the skillet and brown each side for 30 seconds-1 minute. Depending on the thickness of the steak, once the meat is browned, throw into the oven (still on broil) for 2-4 minutes. I like mine medium rare, where the very center is still rare (less cooked than pink), so we left the steak for 2 and half minutes. Finally, take the steak out of the oven and rest on a cool surface for 10 minutes. There will be drippings from the meat that you can use later for sauce.

The meat was just SO tender and buttery. The dry aged meat gave the steak a real beefiness. And in fact, the miso didn’t detract from that, since it added a slight funkiness, tang, and saltiness and didn’t taste over powering-ly like miso. It was definitely one of our most memorable steak moments at home. The cut and quality of the meat is so important. Once we bought this flank steak that was just so chewy, even after marinading (and then it was full of artificial flavor, but not much meatiness, you know?) it was still one tough mo-fo. That moment made me really appreciate better cuts of meat. And personally, I’m not a big filet minion fan. It’s tender, but lacks a beefy/meatiness. Eh.

Roasted Kale

The kale, I kept simple. After washing the kale, I dried it thoroughly before tossing with some virgin olive oil. I added salt, pepper, garlic powder (see a pattern?), cayenne pepper (TONS), and Japanese shichimi chili flakes (7 variety). I cooked for a couple of minutes until the edges of the leaves are slightly crispy and everything else tender and dark green.

Sauteed Rainbow Chard

To accompany this dish, we roasted some kale (left overs) and sauteed some rainbow chard. We kept it easy and cooked it with 4-5 cloves of garlic and olive oil. I sprinkled some garlic powder, salt, and pepper for good measure.

I like the trim the chard from it’s stems and cook the stems extra long. I divided them up, and initially cooked the stems in oil and garlic for 5 or so minutes. I used around one clove of garlic and reserved the rest for when I sauteed the leaves. I put the stems aside and heat some additional oil and throw in the rest of the garlic into the pot. I used a pot to contain all the chard, but the leaves quickly wilted and shrunk to 1/4 it’s size. After 5 or so minutes, I threw the stems in, tossed around, and took the pot off the fire. Just sprinkle some lemon and grate some parmesan on top. Delicious.

Bon appetite!

We plated the steaks on top of brown and white rice respectively, each tossed with a small slab of butter, lime, salt, and parmesan (we know how to do it up!).

Feel free to adapt this for the grill. You just need to get the temperature really high. Let us know if there are any steak recipes that you recommend!!

Next post: We’ll report back on their hot dogs and yogurt (although I tasted that it was definitely yummy! I love that the 3 ingredients next to the yogurt are: organic whole milk, cultures, and vanilla) tomorrow!

• 1 bottle dry white wine (I used Trader Joe’s Sauvignon Blanc)
• 4 whole canned plum tomatoes
• 1 ½ cups half-and-half
• 1 cup heavy cream
• (Recipe asks for 3 lbs mussles) 1.5lb clams
• 6 tablespoons (¾ stick) unsalted butter
• 2 yellow onions
• 1 large leek
• 2 carrots
• 3-5 cloves of garlic (of course I used around 5-6)
• ½ teaspoon saffron
• salt and fresh ground pepper
• fresh dill

The night I decided to make this, Whole Foods never received their shipment of mussles. Seriously. So, desperate, I decided to get large clams to substitute. I love clam broth and it should make a good base for a bisque, right? Well it did. (Phew!)

Needless to say, clean the clams (I usually scrub them and leave them out in some water until they spit out all of gunk/sand stuck in them. You might see some of the spit – kinda fun!). First, the recipe calls to boil 1.5 cups of water and 1 cup wine. Whenever I make clams or mussels, I just steam them with a splash of wine and/or beer. In the future, I would use a little less water. That’s just me. Clean leeks (and discard tough green leaves) and chop the tender white area, mince the onions and garlic, chop the carrots. When the water/wine boils, add the clams/mussels and cook over medium for a few minutes. To avoid over cooking, I would listen for some of them to pop/open. Don’t cook for over 5 minutes. Take the mussles out and when they are cool enough to handle, separate the mussles from the shells (in my case, clams!). Discard anything that didn’t open. Reserve the cooking liquid on the side. (Strain it with cheese cloth to separate from any sand.)

Chop the butter up and heat up a pot. Melt the butter and add the onions, leeks, carrots, garlic, and saffron. Sauté for 5 minutes on high medium heat, and then cook covered for 20 minutes on low heat. I cooked them until the carrots started to tender just a bit (which definitely took some time). After that, add the tomatoes and cover for a few minutes.

Add 2 cups of the reserved cooking liquid (clam/mussle broth) and the rest of the bottle of wine (you weren’t drinking it were you??!?!). Bring the mixture to a boil on high heat, then lower the flame and simmer until the carrots are tender. Once the carrots are tender, add the half and half, cream, and mussles/clams. Heat the mixture and stir until steaming (not boiling). Finely chop a handful of some dill and mix in. Add some salt and pepper to taste.

This takes a little time, but is REALLY EASY to make. You can’t really make a mistake. I mean, it’s going to taste good… look at the butter, half and half, and cream. It’s just butter, cream, broth, and vegetables. And my very talented friend Genevieve (great cook) showed me how to steam mussels and clams years ago and it’s really the easiest thing in the world. The most labor intensive part is just the cleaning. (Which is just quickly scrubbing the buggers and emptying the bowl it sits in for 30 or so minutes)

This was lovely with some nice crusty bread. (And open another bottle of some dry wine!)

The whole shtick behind Robataya is simply grilled food with great ingredients. It’s Japanese, of course, and has a pretty extensive menu of seafood, vegetables, etc.

You can see where this is going right?

Unfortunately, I was very skeptical about the reviews on Yelp that this place was bland. BUT IT IS! Ridiculously bland. I don’t even want to hear about, “it’s about grilling great ingredients,” line, because cooking is a careful alchemy of texture, taste, and careful curation. I’m even more surprised at this reaction since… I don’t think this of any of his other restaurants. Even Soba… which I was skeptical that I would want to eat outisde of my own kitchen (or my mom’s), was great. When I went to Sobaya, all the food was delicious, balanced, and SOLID. Japanese food isn’t an explosion of flavor like… most Southeast Asian foods, but it’s definitely NOT BLAND or uninspired.

And you know what? It’s not as if I was like, “did I order the right thing?” I mean, I had the 8 course ($50) tasting menu. If the “right thing” isn’t in the tasting menu, then I don’t know where it would be hiding. It filled me up and it tried to be interesting… but most of the time, I was just like, “?!”

The first course was 3 slices of fluke, some spring brocolli with fish sauce (not thai, but a creamy house glaze), and some uni floating in some gelatin. The fluke was fine, but the moistness of the combu it was on… it was hard to eat… came apart (it was sashimi) and stuck to the thing. It was pretty badly executed. The uni was good, but the gelatin was completely bland. I had some with soy sauce. There was no indication of what to use for what. There was a side of delicious salt. I guess.

The second course was tuna, hamachi and white tuna… one piece each. It was fresh and good, although the tuna wasn’t an amazing fatty cut or anything.

The third course was shredded/pulled beef in a daikon beef broth with a piece of daikon. I really liked this. The broth was really good. NOT BLAND. And the beef was good, if a little tough. The daikon was cooked well with great flavor. Not bitter at all.

The fourth course was the vegetable plate with eringi (king trumpet), eggplant, and shishito peppers. The veggies were grilled to perfection. The mushroom was yummy, but just seasoned and cooked w/ butter. In fact, it’s kind of exactly what my mother and I do. But I LOVE eringi mushrooms, so I am not complaining. The shishito was hot and delicious. I tried a small piece of the eggplant, which was soft and tender… since I am technically allergic.

The fifth dish was a rather large piece of tsukune (ground chicken meatballs) and grilled beef. The “kobe beef” wasn’t the tenderest of kobe beefs I’ve had. It was kind of hard, but it was pink on the inside and the flavor was good. The tsukune was tasty enough. My SO thought the tsukune/chicken was gamey. It was full of onion. (It doesn’t beat Yakitori Totto, though.)

The sixth course was the fish and rice, which was a lot of food. The mackeral was dry enough that I doubted it was a mackerel at first. Haha. The rice was quality with salmon roe and steamed salmon. My issue with the rice, though, is that I LOVE getting the salmon and salmon roe rice at Sakagura and this dish is NO WAY NEAR as good or transcendent as that dish. Why? I don’t get it. I wouldn’t even mind if they did the same exact thing, honestly. I just want something good. The rice was good, but it didn’t nearly have enough ikuras in it. THE MISO SOUP WAS BLAND. I expect that at other Japanese restaurants, but again… Sakagura’s red miso soup is DELICIOUS. This time here, they use white miso and the thing is bland bland bland. And the fish was BLAND. I put some salt on it… and it was ok, but mackarel needs to be oilier than this fish was…

Our companions didn’t get the tasting menu, since they didn’t like fish. They did order a couple of a la carte dishes (similar to what came with ours – such as the Kamameshi w/ mushrooms, chicken tsukune, steak, etc…). One such dish was the fried yuba gyoza, which was one of the more tasty and interesting of all the other dishes.

The final course was the desert. I got the Shiratama with green tea ice… although that’s not what it is called in the menu… my memory is failing me now. The thing is, this dish only came with two shiratama pieces in a full bowl of sweet cold soup. I wasn’t impressed, but this was my SO’s favorite thing about the meal, I think. I think anything at Cha-An would have kicked this desert’s ass, though.

Sigh, and I guess the point is I was disappointed. I was surprised and disappointed. The food was bland. I understand the salt here is PREMIUM, but no. My mind is really confused, reconciling this place with Bon Yagi’s other places. This simply isn’t the same standard I’ve come to expect. The food is filling, but nothing I would ever really come back for again.