Palomino's happy hour - Dairy Foods

I rediscovered Palomino's happy hour a couple weeks ago with a group of coworkers. I used to go to Palomino all the time when I first started working downtown Minneapolis. I remember drinking way too many cosmos and staying out too late on a weeknight. But hey, I was in my early 20's and that's the kind of stuff you can get away with at that age, right?

Fast forward a couple, er six years and I found myself back at Palomino, but this time I drank a beer and left at a reasonable hour.

The pretty drink below is a cranberry mojito (My coworker Amelia's drink of choice) and it was only $4. We also got a pepperoni pizza (all pizzas are only $5 during happy hour) and a platter with pita bread, roasted garlic, blue cheese and tomato chutney. That was half off and I believe it was only $6-$7ish. We had great service, the food was delish and the bar area had a cool vibe.

Happy hour is all day Sunday-Thursday, Friday and Saturday 4pm-6pm and 10pm to close. Check out the menu here.

French Apple Tart Recipes

I have so many apples in my fruits compartment and they are all getting wrinkly and drying up. I have to find a quick way to use it up before it goes bad. I made this very simple French Apple Tarts using Ina Garten recipe. As usual her recipe never fails me. The crust came out perfectly flaky, buttery and delicious. I’m sure it would be equally delicious with whipped cream or some really good ice cream on top. I love the simple rustic nature of this tart, and the burned sugar on the top and edges of the crust. This is one of those recipes I'm going to keep in my arsenal for those times when I want to make a great impression without a lot of effort.

For the pastry:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp sugar
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks/170 grm) cold unsalted butter, diced
1/2 cup ice water

For the apples:

4 Granny Smith apples or any type of apples
1/2 cup sugar (I used 1/3 cup)
4 tablespoons cold butter - small diced (I used 2 tbsp)
1/2 cup apricot jelly or warm sieved apricot jam
2 tablespoons rum, or water

1. For the pastry, place the flour, salt, and sugar in the bowl of a food processor Pulse for a few seconds to combine. Add the butter and pulse 10 to 12 times, until the butter is in small bits the size of peas. With the motor running, pour the ice water down the feed tube and pulse just until the dough starts to come together. Dump onto a floured board and knead quickly into a ball. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
2. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Roll the dough to about 1/4" thick and place the dough in a tart pan. Refrigerate the dough while you prepare the apples.
3. Peel the apples and cut them in half through the stem. Remove the stems and cores with a sharp knife. Slice the apples crosswise in 1/4-inch thick slices.
4. Place overlapping slices of apples to top of the pastry until the pastry is covered with apple slices. Sprinkle with the sugar on top and dot with the butter.
5. Bake for 45 minutes to an hour or until the pastry is browned and the edges of the apples start to brown. Rotate the pan once during cooking.
6. When the tart's done, heat the apricot jelly together with rum or water and brush the apples and the pastry completely with the jelly mixture. Allow to cool and serve warm or at room temperature

Real Wedding: Stephanie and Anwar, September 2009 - Dairy Foods

I have an awesome real wedding that I am very excited to feature today. Stephanie and Anwar were married at the gorgeous Mill City Museum in Minneapolis on September 5 with a combined style of urban and vintage.

Stephanie wore a birdcage veil and Anwar would not go with out Chuck Taylor shoes. Aren't they an adorable couple? I love all the amazing details that went into the wedding (Stephanie is in the industry and it really shows!). She has an event planning business and gets rave reviews from local MN brides. Be sure to check out her business blog FirstBlushBride.blogspot.com and website firstblushbride.com.

Stephanie's favorite vendors were Sadie's Fine Floral, photographer Spencer Combs, and the Mill City Museum (catered by D'Amico, always has amazing food).

Enjoy the beautiful pictures! All photos credited to Spencer Combs.

Who wouldn't want these good-looking guys in their wedding party?

Love Anwar's smile in this picture.

Great color and texture here.

How adorable is this cake topper? I love it!

Salted Egg Yolk Tofu Recipes

The first time I tried this dish was when I went back to Malaysia early this year. Cooking with salted egg yolk is very popular at the restaurant there. They will cook crab, prawns and also chicken in it. For today I am trying to re-creates this dish using tofu. The tofu is pan fried until crispy on the outside and still soft on the inside. The richness of the salted egg yolk complements well with bland taste of tofu. Delicious!!

Ingredients:

3 pieces of firm tofu -cut into 1” length
¼ cup of corn flour
1 tsp of salt
½ tsp pepper

Sauce:

1 tablespoon butter
2 cooked salted egg yolks, mashed
3 tbsp of milk
4 bird’s eye chilies, sliced finely
4-5 curry leaves (optional)
1 tsp chicken bullion
1 tsp sugar


1. Cut the tofu and drain dry on paper towel. Combined corn flour, salt and pepper in a plate. Mix well. Dust the tofu with the corn flour. Heat a bit of oil in a frying pan and pan fried the tofu on both side until lightly brown. Dish out and drain the oil on paper towel.
2. Remove any access oil from the frying pan. Melt the butter and add the curry leaves and chilies. Stir fry until fragrant and add in salted egg yolks and milk. Stir rapidly in a circular motion until well mixed. Add in chicken bullion and sugar. Mix well.
3. Add the tofu and coat well in the mixture. Dish out and serve warm.

Winter wonderland dessert display - Dairy Foods

These images come from the Inspired Bride blog, another great blog all about wedding inspiration and the writer/creator is from MN! She partnered with Bake It Pretty to create this stunning winter wonderful dessert buffet display. If you are at all into baking, check out Bake It Pretty, the site has amazing supplies including cupcake baking cups and toppers.

I love everything about this display, the color palette, the gorgeous miniature desserts, the attention to detail and most of all the branch/bird centerpiece. Something like this would have fit in perfectly with my winter wedding last December.

It's probably a good thing this wasn't posted a year ago or it would have given me more ideas to drive my husband crazy with. I stuck with a traditional 3-tier wedding cake, which was gorgeous, but the trend of dessert displays is really coming on strong this year and is so cool.

I have a feeling my best friend Kristin will love the color of this display as she is definitely gravitating towards all things blue/teal/turquoise. She just got engaged a couple weeks ago and I could not be more excited to help her plan her big day!

Yam/Taro Rice Recipes

I still have half of the yam left the other day from my Taro meatballs. So I decided to make some Yam Rice. I like this type of quick and easy all in one dish meal as you don’t really need to cook anything else. All you have to do is make a simple soup and it is a complete meal. The trick to make is good yam rice is to pre-fried the yam separately before adding it into the rice. This way the Yam won’t turn mushy or break up in the rice. For this dish I used Basmati rice as I find this type of rice give the dish a fluffier texture.

Ingredients:

2 cups rice - washed and drained
250g yam - cut into ½” cubes
5 pcs dried mushrooms - soaked and sliced thinly
2 pieces chicken breast - sliced thinly and season with ½ tsp of salt and ¼ tsp pepper
2 cloves garlic - chopped
5 shallots - sliced thinly
1 tsp grated ginger
3 spring onions – cut small

Seasoning:

2 tbsp oyster sauce
2 tbsp light soya sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil
1/2 tsp sugar or to taste
3 cups chicken stock/ water
1 tsp of black soy sauce
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Heat about ¼ cup of oil and fried the yam until lightly brown. Remove and set it aside. In the same oil, fry the shallots until lightly brown. Remove the shallot crisps and drain well. Set a side.
2. Remove the oil and leave about 4 tbsp in the wok. Sauté garlic and ginger until fragrant and lightly brown. Add in the chicken and mushroom, stir-fry for a minute. Add rice and seasoning. Stir-fry well.
3. Dish rice mixture into an electric rice cooker. Add water chicken stock/water and yam and cook rice as usual. Stand rice in cooker for 10 to 15 minutes before dishing out to serve.
4. Serve rice with a sprinkling of shallot crisps and spring onions.

Happy weekend: fall inspiration - Dairy Foods

These gorgeous images come from a blog I recently discovered called, Honey and Jam, all about baking and photography.

Just a little fall inspiration on this gorgeous day! I am looking forward to enjoying the pretty leaves and the sunshine.

Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes - Dairy Foods

My mom absolutely loves Boston Cream Pie. It is one of her favorite desserts so my sister and I decided to attempt to make it for her birthday last weekend. I brought up this dessert a few times last week to a few different friends only to hear the exact phrase, "my mom (or dad) loves Boston Cream Pie, too!" Is it a generational thing?

My sister found a great cupcake recipe from Martha Stewart. They were pretty easy, but did require three separate steps. You have to make the vanilla cream ahead of time as it has to cool in the fridge for at least an hour.

They turned out cute as hell and very tasty. We made regular and mini sizes. My mom enjoyed them which is all that really mattered.

Here is the recipe:

Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for tins
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup whole milk
3 ounces (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened, plus more for tins
3 large eggs
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Vanilla Cream (recipe below)
Chocolate-Ganache Glaze (recipe below)

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour standard muffin tins. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl. Warm milk and butter in a saucepan over low heat.
Beat eggs and sugar with a mixer on high speed until thick and pale, about 5 minutes. Beat in dry ingredients.

Bring milk and butter to a boil. With mixer on low speed, add milk mixture to batter, and beat until smooth. Add vanilla. Divide batter among muffin cups, filling each halfway. Bake cupcakes until light gold, about 15 minutes. Let cool in tins for 10 minutes, then transfer to wire racks. Let cool.

Using a serrated knife, cut each in half horizontally. Spread 1 tablespoon vanilla cream on each cupcake bottom. Sandwich with top. Spoon glaze over each, and serve immediately.


Vanilla Cream

Ingredients
Makes 1 1/2 cups
2 large egg yolks
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons plus 1/2 teaspoon cornstarch
Pinch of salt
1 cup whole milk
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions
Whisk yolks until smooth. Mix sugar, cornstarch, and salt in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add milk in a slow, steady stream. Cook, stirring, until mixture begins to bubble and thicken, about 5 minutes.

Pour 1/3 of milk mixture into yolks, whisking constantly. Return mixture to saucepan, and cook over medium heat, stirring often, until thick, 2 to 4 minutes. Stir in vanilla.

Pass vanilla cream through a fine sieve into a bowl. Press plastic wrap directly on surface. Refrigerate until cold, at least 1 hour, or up to 2 days.


Chocolate Ganache Glaze


Ingredients
Makes about 1 1/4 cups
2/3 cup heavy cream
6 ounces semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
1 tablespoon light corn syrup

Directions
Bring cream to a boil in a small saucepan. Remove from heat, and add chocolate and corn syrup. Let stand for 5 minutes. Whisk until smooth. Transfer to a bowl, and let cool, stirring often. Use immediately.




My mom blowing out the candle on her Boston Cream Pie cupcake.

Asian Potstickers/Dumplings Recipes

Potstickers is a Chinese dumpling, typically consist of a ground meat and/or vegetable filling wrapped into a thinly rolled piece of dough, which is then sealed by pressing the edges together or by crimping. You can just buy the wrappers now from most of the Asian store. Dumplings wrappers is much thicker than the wanton wrappers and has a chewier texture. I loved eating dumplings. I made this whole lots of dumplings and freezed it and this way we can eat it whenever we want to. This dumplings can be boiled, deep fried, steam-fry or steam.

Ingredients:
1/2 pound ground pork/chicken
1/2 pound of shrimp, shelled and deveined
2 cups of finely chopped napa cabbage
2 green onion, finely chopped
a small bunch of chives - chopped
1" ginger roots - finely grated
6 water chestnuts, drained and finely chopped
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tbsp of oyster sauce
2 tbsp of soy sauce
1/2 tsp sugar
1 tsp sesame oil
2 tbsp cornstarch
1 egg
1 package of frozen dumpling skins

Dipping Sauce

1/4 cup soy sauce
2 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon rice wine vinegar
Some finely julienned ginger

1. Put the shrimp in a food processor and pulse several times. In a large bowl, combine the shrimp mixture with all the rest of the ingredients except the wrappers. Mix well and set it aside to marinate for an hour.
2. Spoon 1 teaspoon of the filling onto dumpling skin. Brush the edge of the wrapper with some water. Fold over and press to secure edges. Make sure edges are sealed tightly. Shape the dumpling so that it has a flat bottom. Cover loosely with plastic wrap so that it doesn’t dry out.
3. When you are ready to cook, heat a nonstick pan with 1 tablespoon of cooking oil over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot arrange the dumplings, flat side down to the pan. Let it fry for 1 minute until the bottoms are light golden brown.
4. Pour 1/2 cup of water or stock into the pan and immediately cover with a tight fitting lid. Turn heat to medium and let the dumplings steam for 4-5 minutes. Open lid and let the remaining liquid cook off about 1 minute.
5. Remove to plate and serve with dipping sauce.

Real Wedding: Erin and Ryan, August 2009 - Dairy Foods

I realize that the content I post on my blog is quite a wide range, but I try to remain fairly focused in all things food, wine/cocktails, hosting and entertaining and fabulous parties. My hope is that my blog will inspire you to cook wonderful food, drink pretty cocktails and throw fabulous parties! And what party is more fabulous in your whole life than your wedding? This blog was really born out of my love of wedding planning.

Weddings are really a wonderful thing. They are all about love, beautiful details, family, friends and a lot of fun. And the photos reflect all of those things and tell a lovely story of a very important day.

This post marks a new feature I'm hoping to include on a fairly regular basis; real weddings (mostly local MN weddings but I will post weddings from anywhere). If you are interested and have recently had a wedding, please send me 5-10 of your favorite photos from your day with a brief description (eatdrinkpretty@gmail.com). Details and of course food/wine/cocktail photos would be great!

The adorable bride in the photos below is Erin and she married Ryan in August 2009. Their ceremony took place at the beautiful Diamond Lake Lutheran Church in Minneapolis and the reception was held at Blaisdell Manor. Jackie Just of Just-Bloomed was behind all those lovely flowers. All her gorgeous photos were taken by Spencer Combs.

Enjoy the eye candy!


Who doesn't love calla lillies?

The bride wore purple shoes, how fabulous is that?

Cupcake displays are a nice departure from the traditional 3-tier wedding cake.

I love this. Chandeliers are so classic and gorgeous.

The Blaisdell Manor ballroom, very pretty.

Oatmeal Raisin Cranberry Cookies Recipes

I’ve made tons of Oatmeal cookies in my baking life but I can’t seems to get the right taste, the crunch or flavor the way I like it. I’ve been tweaking around with this recipe for sometime and I finally got it right. This will be my ultimate Oatmeal cookies. The Cookies were light, crunchy, not too sweet and with the right amount of oatmeal and dried fruits. Just the way I like it. I think this is the best Oatmeal cookies I ever bake if I should said so myself ;)

Ingredients:

2 sticks/1 cup/226 grm butter
1 cup dark brown sugar
¼ cup of sugar
1 ½ cups flour
3 cups of old-fashion oats
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
2 eggs
1 tsp of vanilla
1 tsp of cinnamon powder
2 cup raisin
1 cup dried cranberries


1. In a food processor, give the oats a few pulses, then combined it with flour, salt, cinnamon powder and baking soda. Mix well and set it aside.
2. In a mixer beat soft butter with brown sugar for 3 minutes or until well combined Add in eggs and vanilla. Beat for 2 minutes.
3. Add the flour mixture into the butter mixtures until combined. Last add in raisins and cranberries. Mix well.
4. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Drop about 1 tbsp of cookies in a baking sheet and bake in a pre-heated 350 degree F oven for 20-25 min or until golden brown. Cool before storing in an air tight container.

Note : If you like chewy cookies, just bake until the edges of the cookies lightly brown, but if you like crunchy cookies like me bake if for another 5 minutes or until golden brown.

DIY Sushi - Dairy Foods

Sushi is fabulous and when you are spending the evening with two awesome gals with cocktails, sake and prosecco it is bound to be one fun night. And that is exactly what I did with Maija and Brooke a couple weekends ago. The three of us work together at my ad agency gig and usually at the office it is mostly work and no play. So we decided we needed some more "play" and set a sushi date at Brooke's house.

Maija took a sushi making class at Whole Foods a few months ago and brought all that great knowledge to us. On the menu was edamame, Mexican rolls and a salmon philly roll, all delicious. The class only included already cooked seafood such as tempura shrimp and smoked salmon so we didn't get too adventurous but we'll save the raw stuff for another day.

I can't divulge the secrets of making good sushi rice because Maija brought it over pre-made. Other things you will need:

Mexican Roll
Shrimp
tempura batter
peanut oil
deep fryer
cilantro
tomatoes
jalapeno
avocado

Salmon Philly Roll
smoked salmon
cream cheese
cucumbers (seedless)
carrots

Misc
edamame
wasabi
pickled ginger
Nori (seaweed)
Bamboo sushi roller (I have no idea if that is what it is really called)
Sake

Maija highly recommends taking the Whole Foods class and I have been trying to get in for a couple months now and they are so popular they always have waiting lists.

I ate way too much but everything was delicious, thanks for the fun night ladies!