Mac & Cheese

Yesterday was National Mac & Cheese day. Who knew? Here are some of the best Mac&Cheese recipes from around the web that I have found, to help you celebrate:

Green Chili Mac & Cheese: http://thelunacafe.com/world-famous-green-chile-mac-cheese/


Carmelized Sweet Potato, Garlic, and Rosemary Mac & Cheese: http://www.delish.com/recipefinder/sweet-potato-garlic-macaroni-cheese

Truffled Macaroni Gratin: http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2009/12/truffled-macaroni-and-cheese-gratin-recipe.html

 

Lightly Cheddared Spinach Ricotta Mac&Cheese: http://www.food52.com/recipes/10495_lightly_cheddared_spinach_ricotta_mac_and_cheese

Chocolate Lobster

On a recent trip to Portland, Maine (by the way, very charming town), I stopped in a local chocolatier's shop and found this:

It's a full lobster meal, made completely out of chocolate. Even the little butter on the side is chocolate. Only in Maine. Oh, those Mainahs. (Thats what residents of Maine are known as. I looked it up). At $30, it costs as much as a real lobster meal. But if you know someone who has an obession with both lobsters and chocolates, it would make a really good gift. I'm just saying. They wouldn't let me try the lobster without buying it, so I don't know how it is, but the taffy from this place was really really good:

http://www.havenscandies.com/ 

PS if you ever go there dont take a camera, they were really weirded out by the concept of a food blogger taking pictures of stuff.

Gojee

OMG you guys. This site is amazing. Just sign up: http://www.gojee.com/

It basically goes through hand selected food blogs and finds awesome recipes. This is what my now defunct food startup was supposed to do. Here is why it's better than any recipe site I've come accross so far:

- Unlike the lame boring recipes on Epicurious or Food Network, these recipes are actually exciting. Instead of endless salad/bbq ideas the ingredients and dishes are much more varied. This website is for foodies, not midwestern housewives.

- Good food photography - makes me actually want to cook (I have been lazy lately).

- Easier website interface and excellent search functionality. You can filter out dishes with ingredients you don't like. As someone who doesn't eat pork, for example, I'm always frustrated to have to filter out everything with prosciutto myself. This does it for me, and saves my preferences. I can also type in an ingredient I currently have in my fridge, and it brings up a list of recipes with that ingredient. Since I only have one thing in my fridge right now, brussel sprouts, I typed that in and these were my top 3 results:

1. Brussel Sprout Potato Hash - pretty interesting; a very hearty, comfort food-type dish based on brussel sprouts. something i haven't really seen before.
2. Crispy Marinated Brussel Sprouts - links to Mark Bittman's blog for the recipe, where we learn how to bring out the flavor of the brussel sprouts without relying on bacon or cheese for flavor or texture. See, we are becoming better cooks already.
3. Shaved Brussel Sprout Salad with Red Onion, Pecorino, and Lemon - links to a thoughtful recipe at Food52 complete with wine pairing.

Here is what I got on Epicurious:

1. Brussel sprouts with shallots and wild mushrooms (this involves saute-ing the brussel sprouts with shallots and mushrooms - how exciting. I totally had not thought of doing this myself before looking for something more interesting online).
2. Baby brussel sprouts with buttered pecans. (this involves saute-ing the brussel sprouts with baked nuts).
3. Brussel sprouts with marjorum and pine nuts. (once again, saute brussel sprouts with some random ingredients. I don't even like pine nuts).

Even those of us who like cooking get sick of it sometimes, but this website makes it really easy to get back into it. For people who just need to make something impressive quickly, this website is easy to use and accessible - none of the recipes I found were too complex.

Kitchen Essentials

Excellent list of the basic tools for a well stocked kitchen by Jill Santopietro: http://www.jillsantopietro.com/kitchen.html

Wild Food Walks Schedule

For those of you in SF, forageSF has released its schedule for wild food walks - they take you on a walk through a park and teach you to forage for wild edible plants, mushrooms, or seafood: http://foragesf.com/wild-food-walks/

Dinner Party on the L

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/04/dining/04train.html

My favorite line: "...officials at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, reached on Monday, were not amused. “A dinner party on the L train?” said Charles F. Seaton, a spokesman for the authority. “No. Subway trains are for riding, not for holding parties.”

Reality Show

So, The Food Network is now casting for Season 2 of their reality show, hosted by Tyler Florence, about food trucks: 7 teams, 3 contestents each, coast-to-coast race, competing for $50K.

They are accepting applications here, in case any of you loyal readers happen to own/operate a food truck: http://www.foodnetwork.com/the-great-food-truck-race/index.html

So...I thought this sounded stupid, but once I watched the trailer it looked cool. I'm totally going to watch it.

SF Street Food Finder

A useful link: http://www.sfcartproject.com/sfstreetfood

Real time map/timings of food trucks in SF & Oakland

Google Recipes

It's about time! Actually, don't know how long this has been around but I just discovered it. Recipe View on Google!

Try it here: http://www.google.com/landing/recipes/

From Google:

Focus Your Search
When you search for a recipe or ingredient on Google, you’ll get lots of results, but not all of them will be for recipes. Now you can narrow your search results to show only recipes.

Recipe Info At Your Fingertips
Get help finding the right recipe with ratings, ingredients, and pictures displayed on the results page.
Slice and Dice Your Results
With just a few clicks, you can customize and filter search results to show recipes with your ideal ingredients, cook time and calorie count.

The Modern Toilet

Manga-inspired, bathroom-themed Taiwanese restaurant chain The Modern Toilet started from a humble idea: chocolate ice cream piled onto a toilet-shaped container. The success of this initial ice cream shop led to the development of a full service restaurant in 2004. Today, the chain is expanding rapidly accross east Asia. Diners sit on faux toilets and eat from dishes shaped like toilets, urinals, and bathtubs.

According to The Modern Toilet, "it's supposed to shock and confuse the senses" - kind of the opposite of dark dining, where the goal is to heighten your sense of taste.

Apparently themed restraurants are quite popular in Taiwan, where one can eat in a jail, airplane, or hospital.


Modern Toilet Website: http://www.moderntoilet.com.tw/en/
Dark Dining SF: http://sf.darkdining.com/

Charlie Sheen's Winning Recipes

Guess who now has a cooking show? http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/bfb12aea47/charlie-sheen-s-winning-recipes?ref=nf

I don't even know if this video is worth posting, but I do like the tiger striped chefs hat.

Durian Ice Cream

Have u guys ever heard of Durian? The stinky fruit:

Today I had Durian ice cream. it was gross. It smells and tastes like putrid rotten onions. I only had one bite, but the taste was in my mouth for a couple hours, even after chewing gum, drinking coffee, etc. And this is kind of gross, but it makes you burp a lot. It is an acquired taste, but I don't know if the suffering during the taste-acquisition phase is worth it. It doesn't seem that bad, but 30 minutes later the taste is still so strong. I wouldn't try it again, even if I was put into another situation with a bunch of non-ethnic people and wanted to look tough. I'm not going to post the recipe or post a link on where to buy it because it's gross and you shouldn't eat it unless you have already tried it and like it, in which case you don't need a recipe/place to buy it because you already have one.

Angry Birds Cake

Farhan found this link: http://mashable.com/2011/02/21/playable-angry-birds-cake/

this guy makes it look so easy.

Panda Bread

Jana found this awesome recipe: http://perfectpandas.com/2008/01/08/panda-bread/

SF is laggin it

I forgot to bring lunch to work today and I wasnt super busy, so I went out to Plant Organic Cafe (on front and pine) because I heard they have vegan burgers. Well, it wasn't even vegan - the cheese was real dairy. These people need to get their act together. Totally ridic, right? Not bad, though. Anyways, I left and started walking down the street, and I looked up, and saw...Cupcake Cove. Obviously, I had to go in. Fi-Di was in dire need of a cupcakery. I ordered a black bottom cupcake, which came with a special container so your cupcake doesn't get smushed in transit. This cupcake totally made my life. There were even chocolate chips in the cream cheese filling. It was pretty good. It's definitely not a top tier cupcake place, though - doesn't even come close to something like Magnolia. It wasn't warm, but it was very very moist, which was cool. Also, could have been more chocolately. I would rate it a B, but it gets bumped up to an A- because there is nothing else in the area. Those slackers don't even have a website, but you can look at their facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=21127&id=123691661027564

Black Bottom Cupcake (i know, my food photography skills are amazing - my secret is taking all my pictures under the harsh florescent lighting in my office):

Plant (this location is usually filled with obnoxious businesspeople):

Macho Cupcakes

David Arrick became Mr. Cupcake not out of a desire to bake or an affinity for frosting but "out of anger and frustration." It was fall 2008, and he'd lost his job as a Manhattan real estate attorney, his home in New Jersey, and a huge portion of his savings. He'd also just turned 40. At this low moment Arrick waleked by a certain venerable bakery-a familiar stop on Sex and the City bus tours - in his West Village neighborhood and saw a line of women around the block. "Freaking cupcakes," he thought. "What if I made them manly?"
- Bloomberg Businessweek, December 13 - December 19 2010

The result: http://www.butchbakery.com/

Instead of flavors like Red Velvet or Vanilla, the Butch Bakery offers cupcakes like The B-52, Kahlua soaked Madagascar cake with Bailey's Bavarian filling - in fact, Mr. Cupcake spends more money each week on liquor for his cupcakes then on chocolate.