a feast for mother's day

cooking for a party of 25 ain't no joke!

Since my family is quite big, we normally just cook at home, instead of dining out. Its more chilled, and quality time to eat at home.

This year I volunteered to cook the feast...so exhausting! Decided to give it a twist & have Korean for dinner. Had the Galbi, Bossam, Kim Chi jjigae, Bulgogi, but no bon chons (side dishes) I think I would have cracked if I made the side dishes.

The other day my boyfriend's sis-n-law made some Bossam. OMG it was my first time eating it and I'm freaking in LOVE. Like the sweet pork belly wrapped up in pickled cabbage..mm yum yum yum. And that's how I came up with my dinner menu for mother's day. We had a crawfish boil the previous week, tired of eating the same ol stuff we normally eat. I wanted to change it up and try to bring out my korean skills...haha jk. Bossam is a simple dish to cook, its like the Vietnamese version of goi cuon (spring rolls) with out any carbs. 

For more info on Bossam click me

Marinating overnight

Make sure to get the Pork Belly with out the skin. That part is tough and a pain in the butt to slice off. After marinating overnight, I boiled it for about an hr. Sadly, I over boiled mine and the fat belly got kinda smushy.

boil with lots of onion and few cloves of garlic

 

Next step was to pickle your Napa Cabbage. This process took me about 7 hours! It was worth it! FYI a lot of water will be used to pickle the cabbage. A few pages I checked out, some people eat Bossam with kim chi, red lettuce, or sesame leaf.

7 hours later....pickled cababge

I present you bossam-pork belly & pickled cabbage.

While I had my troops help me set up the tables, did some multi-tasking. For starters, I made some Korean Pancakes. What is Korean Pancakes? Click ME  The zucchini pancake is my favorite. Not a fan of the seafood, and haven't tried the kim chi yet. Very simple dish, Only if I can find the ones with direction in ENGLISH!

yum yum yum

Korean Short Ribs

Vietnamese Pork Belly- Thit Heo Nunog

Making Vietnamese Mayo

 I had to squeeze in a bmg creation~ I made a Bossam banh mi. Along with some other mixed of meats my cousin put together.

My cousin made a batch of his own korean bbq recipe. It was delicious!
We each pretty much created our own banh mi sandwich.

Ko-BAM! banh mi lol

Kim Chi & Jalapenos, the two ingredients I can't live without.
Just kidding....too deadly, but oh so good~





As you can see, I don't have many pictures for the other dishes I made....because we were all being pigs and couldn't help but eat! Cheers to good eats!

later gators,
bmg

Thim Hing

Quick review for my quickie...

Woo Hoo! I was able to squeeze in a banh mi fling before preparing for Mother's Day Feast~

Thim Hing is definitely a mom & pop's joint. If you can by pass a few things like the old run down joint, the rude daughters, old men smoking & drinking cafe sua da in front of the store, the banh mi will have you comin back.

Usually, I order bbq, chicken, or xiu mai because I like my meat fillings to be warm. The other day, I was at my moms and ate half of her Thap Cam from TH...it sure got me wanting more.

So this time I ordered the Thap Cam which is the usual cold cuts except TH adds Xiu Mai (meatballs) drizzled with the sauce. All that for $2.50! All the small banh mis are $2.50 and Large $3.50. The small was pretty filling to me, not sure how big is the large.

Growing up in Alief, TH was one of my favorite banh mi joints..still is...not because of the cheap banh mi, its their baguette. Its light, airy, soft & crispy, not too wide & round like other bakeries. Where you can taste all the ingredients in each bite. We also order loaves of baguettes, sadly they are not nice & warm. TH doesn't have the loaves displayed in the front store like other bakeries do. All the baguettes comes from the back kitchen, normally you would see the bread toasted in the front of the store, not at TH. I believe they have them in the freezer, who knows because its behind the wall. The loaf is quite flimsy and they bag it in a plastic sleeve from the Styrofoam cups..but once you toast it up, the baguette comes back to life! I believe its $1.50 for a loaf.

For more reviews on Thim Hing Click me

Service: It depends who's the cashier, if its the daughters beware for the attitude, this time she was nice to me. You get your banh mi within 5 mins max

Bread Quality: Baked fresh in store, warm light & crispy. thin & long

Meat Filling: 2 slices of each cut, they make their own pate, that's not a spread, cut into a strip.

Veggie Filling: thinly grated carrots, i got half of piece of jalapeno that was on one end of the bread, I think there was more cilantro than the carrots

Spread: Butter was yummy, wish they gave a little more.

Presentation: kinda sloppy.

Its been awhile since I've been to TH. I can't remember what the other sandwiches taste like..I guess I'll have to come back ^_^

Check it out if you're ever in bellaire area... BTW $CASH$ ONLY~

later gators,

bmg

Seaweed Addiction

Before I thought seaweed paper was only for sushi....

...Until I had roasted seaweed paper! It's quite addicting..it's like Lay's potato chips 'betcha can't eat just one'

My bf's folks brought some back from Korea for me, now I have tons of it in my freezer!

I like the little packaged ones, where you just open & eat it up..only flaw is you can end up eating more than a bag..maybe 2, 3, or 4?!

Anyways his folks gave me the big sheets of seaweed. Its all gravy...I just take out my cutting board & cleaver to make my own packaging by storing them in mini ziploc bags.
** don't forget to store them in the freezer...I guess to keep it fresh?! Who knows, haha I just followed their instructions**

One of my next mission is spam musubi! I've never had it with furikake seasoning. Curious to try it on something else besides sprinkling on rice *ding *ding (lightbulb lights up) I got a banh mi idea in my mind! Looks like I got to round up the troops for another tasting ^_^


Right now japanese shrimp tempura is on my mind...how can I turn it into a yummy banh mi?!? think.think.think.
Ahhh my semi eating healthy lifestyle is contaminating my thoughts -_-

bread(carbs)+ fried food+ greasy spread= bad eating
VS
Crispy baguette+shrimp tempura+delicious seasonings=party in your mouth

Hmm it's ok I'll just have my guinea pigs eat them for me...jk....they're welcome to eat at their own risk ^_^

I was lazy & also craving seaweed~
So I fried some eggs, rice & rolled it up with the seaweed...BAM! There you go egg sushi ~
I decided to pack up the extras for lunch! Oh Gosh I can't wait to see the look on my coworker's face.. They gave a funky stare to my spam musubis last time...I wonder what they're thinking now...oh well...yummy in my tummy,best of all cheap ass lunch!

They say seaweed paper is good for you but I'm not sure what's the info for the roasted ones -_-
It's kinda greasy with sprinkled salt.
Blah...I guess I'll google it later...

As for now, I'll keep eating them...I'm pretty sure it's healthier than a bag of potato chips?! :p

Seaweed away~

Later gators,
bmg

Waffle Bus

Back to being a busy bee again...more like being lazy to have a banh mi fling. I can't seem to decide where to go anymore!! So many choices! Hopefully I can squeeze in a fling when I'm in DC!?!

But for now here's my latest foodie venture ~

I guess the new hype lately are food trucks. The first & last time I ate out of a food truck was 'oh my gogi'
It was aite, not something I would ever go out of my way for. My cousins they loved it so much they made weekly trips. Until they figured to make their own batch at home.

There are so many food trucks out there now, I cant keep up! plus I'm too lazy to look up their location, drive & look for parking.
This weekend will be the 'Haute Wheels' a foodtruck festival. Last year I heard it was unorganized, ridiculous lines & wait time, and admission was $15. This year admission is $18! I think I'll past, besides it's mother's day. Cater to my mother..

Any who, my gf suggested the bus for lunch, first food truck for 2012~

Staff are friendly, food truck is nice & clean. Food came out in 10 min latest. If you pay with c/c there will be a $1 fee, so bring cash!

There wasn't a line when I arrived, (around 11:30 ish) about 10 min after ordering a line was forming.

I ordered the chicken fryders, nothing nifty just plain & simple.But in a good way. A well fried piece of juicy chicken in between two crispy waffle fries drizzled with spicy mayo.

Ha! For some reason I had chick fil a crossed my mind. Chick fil a nuggets in between two waffle fries...it'd be awesome if chick fil a serves spicy nuggets~


Ok back to WB-



For desert I ordered the nutella & banana. Besides it was nicely presented, in my opinion, big disappointment!
I felt the description was false. It's nutella & banana sandwich with sweet cream...what sweet cream?! It was pretty much something I could've made at home. The waffles are ok, didn't knock me off my socks. If I ever come back, will try a different filling.

My friend gave me a sample of her chicken with chilli honey instead of spicy mayo sauce waffle sandwich. Not a fan. I think it's their waffle. There's something about it.

Overall, a cool food truck..er bus?!

If you like to hear a different opinion on the bus, check out my fellow friend biff~ (she also bakes some good sweets, place your orders!!)
her blog:
http://biffssweetlife.blogspot.com

Time to go prep for mother's day feast!
Have a good weekend & happy mother's day to all the mommies~

Later gators,
bmg

Eat, Drink, Brunch

My lets play in the test kitchen at a friend's Casablanca ended up being a brunch party with wonderful company. 

                There was banh mis, cheese party, delicious refreshments, Rudy's, and dessert (spelled with 2's')

I hosted a banh mi bar~I was occupied with the prepping & cooking, didn't get to take many pics. Thanks VMA for the pics~

Kneading & Rinsing the veggies

 A few days before the brunch, I got a start on my veggies. Do Chua aka Pickled Carrots.

My mandolin was defected, so I had to chopped up some julienne carrots & grated the daikons.

After 45 min of chopping & grating, the next step was to massage them..JK..Sprinkle some salt and I started kneading for a few minutes to get all the moisture out until it was flimsy carrot.

bathing time!

Next step was to rinse off all the salt.

Now the veggies are ready to be bathe in a glass jar. They say you can make this a day or few hours ahead of time. My batch was pickled for about 4 days.

My first meat filling is from the pig. I tried to make Vietnamese sausage aka Cha Lua. click me for more info. For Christmas, I'm so asking Santa for a bad ass food processor. Cha Lua requires a lot of grinding to where the the pork becomes paste. I had lots of air bubbles, and it was mistaken for vegetarian sausage. Next time, I will ask the butcher to grind my pork twice, hopefully that helps!

 Ingredients were simple:

Ground Pork, Baking Soda, Fish Sauce, Water, and Tapioca Starch.

The prepping process took about 1.5 days

  

I was not pleased with the texture, so I fried it. It helped a little bit. Frying gave it a crispy texture on the outside. When you fry cha lua its called cha chien

My second filling is from the cow. A few days before the tasting I made my own Bo Ne. It was delicious & tons of flavor. But sure was greasy from all the butter I used -_-

 However, at the tasting I was so disappointed at myself. I went the frugal route and used sirloin instead of ribeye steak. OMG it was so BAD. I'm so embarrassed to discuss about it.  The eggs were also dry as well...hahah because I didn't use as much butter or grease like Paula Deen. I had the skillet work its magic on low heat.

 

winner winner chicken dinner

My third filling is from the hen. I made ga ro ti, roasted chicken. Save the best for last. 

Thanks Sous Chef~

Baguettes catered from Parisian Bakery & Thim Hing

Made my own Vietnamese mayo aka butter. Will defiantly work on that..still wondering why fresh garlic changes some things. I Didn't have the guts & time to make Pate, so I cheated and bought some ^_^

Preparing the chestnuts.

For dessert, I made Che Thai. Simple make ahead dessert. My favorite ingredient is the f aux pomegranate, its chestnuts covered in tapioca flour.

 Enough of banh mi, time for other goodies!!

Beautiful & Delicious Cheese Assortment

Birdy made Wrapped Baked Brie filled with some kind of jam and topped with brown sugar..So delicious~

Delicious beverages provided by the 211 ladies. So bubbly and refreshing~

 Chinese Egg Tarts & Mochi Balls courtesy of Mr. Lam.

Our Test Kitchen Item that failed...Brazilian Cheese Bread

That's it for now....can't wait to plan the next party~

later gators, bmg