Good Carrot Cake Recipe

here is i delicious carrot cake recipe that I found googling from Sugoodsweets :) above pictures are of me laboring over my carrot cake hahaha. i didn't have a grater, (YOU MUST HAVE A GRATER OR YOU'RE GOING TO BE SPENDING THE NEXT TEN YEARS CUTTING CARROTS INTO LITTLE PIECES! (like me))

from her site:

Grandma’s Carrot Cake

This recipe is from Jessica Su’s Grandma. She used to bake this cake for the family and it’s enjoyed by everyone.

Ingredients:

2 Cups Flour
2 Teaspoons Banking Powder
2 Teaspoons Baking Soda
1 Teaspoon Salt
2 Teaspoon Cinnamon Powder
2 Cups Sugar
1 ½ Cups Oil (may reduce a ¼ cup)
4 Eggs (in room temperature)
½ Cup Crashed Walnuts
3 Cups Shredded Carrots
1 Cup Minced Pineapple
2 Teaspoons Vanilla Extract

Direction:

1. Shift the flour, banking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar.
2. Beat the egg
3. Mix the dry ingredients, beaten egg, oil, carrot, pineapple, walnuts, and vanilla
4. Pour the mix in a bundt cake pan (don’t need to oil the pan)
5. Preheat the oven to 375 degree, and bake for 1 hour.

Notes/tips:

• For cupcakes, bake for 20 minutes. Yields about 2 dozen.
• I used 1/2 cup of oil and 1 cup of applesauce. It still yielded a moist and airy crumb. Actually, maybe a little too airy! I like carrot cakes that are denser. To combat this “problem,” I recommend using half whole-wheat flour. You may also use 100% whole-wheat pastry flour or white whole-wheat flour.

kimmei's notes:

I minused a half cup of extra virgin olive oil and put a half cup less of sugar than in the recipe and it turned out great! my family loved it yayyy! ps you can click on the images to enlarge them if you can't see.

ENJOY! LOVE YOU ALL :) SMILE!

Bruschetta Recipe with Basil

Recipe:


what i made: tada!

Ingredients

• 6 or 7 ripe plum tomatoes (about 1 1/2 lbs)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
• 6-8 fresh basil leaves, chopped.
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

• 1 baguette French bread or similar Italian bread
• 1/4 cup olive oil

Method

1 Prepare the tomatoes first. Parboil the tomatoes for one minute in boiling water that has just been removed from the burner. Drain. Using a sharp small knife, remove the skins of the tomatoes. (If the tomatoes are too hot, you can protect your finger tips by rubbing them with an ice cube between tomatoes.) Once the tomatoes are peeled, cut them in halves or quarters and remove the seeds and juice from their centers. Also cut out and discard the stem area. Why use plum tomatoes instead of regular tomatoes? The skins are much thicker and there are fewer seeds and less juice.

2 Make sure there is a top rack in place in your oven. Turn on the oven to 450°F to preheat.

3 While the oven is heating, chop up the tomatoes finely. Put tomatoes, garlic, 1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil, vinegar in a bowl and mix. Add the chopped basil. Add salt and pepper to taste.

4 Slice the baguette on a diagonal about 1/2 inch thick slices. Coat one side of each slice with olive oil using a pastry brush. Place on a cooking sheet, olive oil side down. You will want to toast them in the top rack in your oven, so you may need to do these in batches depending on the size of your oven. Once the oven has reached 450°F, place a tray of bread slices in the oven on the top rack. Toast for 5-6 minutes, until the bread just begins to turn golden brown.

Alternatively, you can toast the bread without coating it in olive oil first. Toast on a griddle for 1 minute on each side. Take a sharp knife and score each slice 3 times. Rub some garlic in the slices and drizzle half a teaspoon of olive oil on each slice. This is the more traditional method of making bruschetta.

5 Align the bread on a serving platter, olive oil side up. Either place the tomato topping in a bowl separately with a spoon for people to serve themselves over the bread, or place some topping on each slice of bread and serve. If you top each slice with the tomatoes, do it right before serving or the bread may get soggy.

Makes 24 small slices. Serves 6-10 as an appetizer. Or 3-4 for lunch (delicious served with cottage cheese on the side.)

Shrimp Scampi Linguine Recipe

The long awaited food post! =P i'm sooo sorry I haven't post about this till now, anddd I forgot to take pictures of the nice little setting I did for our dinner (I was busy eating it all hahaha) =P

shrimp scampi linguine (recipe) ( i changed the recipe a bit, my changes are below)

INGREDIENTS:
1/4 cup olive oil
1 lb peeled and deveined large shrimp (raw; 20 to 25 per lb)
3 large garlic cloves, left unpeeled and forced through a garlic press
pinch of dried hot red-pepper flakes
1/2 cup dry white wine
2 pinches of salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons salted european butter
3/4 lb linguine
2 pinches of dried parsley flakes
1 large portabella mushroom

Preparation

Bring a 6- to 8-quart pot of salted water (this makes the temperature hotter) to a boil.

1) instead of pressing the garlic through a press i chopped it really finely

2) marinate shrimp in the olive oil (this makes the shrimp more tender), salt, pepper flakes, wine, and chopped garlic for at least one hour ( i left it overnight)


2) heat oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking, then sauté shrimp (that was marinated), turning over once, until just cooked through, about 2 minutes, and add butter and mushrooms to skillet, stirring until melted.

3) Cook pasta in boiling water until just tender, about 3 minutes. Reserve 1 cup pasta-cooking water, then drain pasta in a colander. Toss pasta well with shrimp mixture and parsley in large bowl, adding some of reserved cooking water if necessary to keep moist.

PICTURE TIME!

my tea set I got from Teance



sorry guys i only have the picture of the pot after all the food was eaten:



and the finished plate:

My Food Fix

will be making this tomorrow with shrimp scampi will post pictures and recipes! =P

in the meantime enjoy this instructional youtube video



=P

note: btw i'm not eating the shrimp (remember? im a vegie-matarian) =P

I have finals! aaaaaah

So...I have finals on wednesday, and guess what, all i've been doing is blogging. so.........I'll be going on a hiatus till wednesday =P happy blogging, can't wait to see everyone's new posts. in the meantime i will be working hard.

today was pretty fun, i went to eat at this Vietnamese restaurant called Anh Hong in Berkeley. They gave me such a huge dish of stuff to make spring rolls because they thought it was for two people (it turns out I ate enough for 2 =P) although i was full, i still had room for dessert (hey my stomach has a separate compartment for that) so i ate delicious fruit tarte with blueberries, strawberies, and kiwi on top. [wish i had taken a picture of it]

last week I made egg custard pie (will make again soon) i'll share the recipe, it's so easy to make and it tastes pretty good.

i'm also a big foodie, so i'll probably post a bunch of food and recipes (i love making sushi and eating sushi

happy blogging!

kimmei