Japanese Night + Sweet Potato Tempura Recipe

Ready for a cool story bro? My mom's boyfriend grew some string beans (that were used above in the tempura) in his yard. My boyfriend and I started a garden (or should I say I started the garden and gave up on it while he still tends to it and does all the work) a while ago. Every now and again I'll use something from it. Green onions in random meals, bell peppers in fajitas, various herbs in this and that, etc. I don't know why I find it so fascinating when we can grow our own things in our yards and then incorporate them into our meals. Most times we just go to the store and buy stuff, not even thinking about where it came from, how it grew, or what it took to get it onto our plates. It's always so exciting to me and once we move into our house in a few months I plan to have an even bigger garden with tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, everything.

Anyway, my mom's boyfriend brought some of the beans over and that's what sparked this whole themed dinner. He and my mom contemplated what to do with them and they decided to do some tempura. From left to right in the picture above we have sweet potato (recipe at the end of this post), carrots, the string beans, mushrooms, pumpkin, and shrimp. What I don't have pictured is the tempura bacon we experimented with. I had seen an episode of The Best Thing I Ever Ate on The Food Network one day and someone had picked bacon tempura. I thought it was so wrong that it had to be so right. It tasted like what it was, deep fried bacon. Definitely delicious and definitely something I will never do again, lol.


We also made sushi. Ahi, salmon, daikon, and tobiko (flying fish roe) all over sushi rice and wrapped in nori.


And last, to top it off, some miso soup.

I have to a admit that I don't like sushi. I don't like most Japanese food (I can hear my grandma in my head saying, "What kine Japanee you?!"). I didn't eat most of this, only the sweet potato and shrimp tempura, but the food was too pretty not to share. I saw that my mom was using a recipe for the sweet potato tempura so I decided to share that. It's basically the only thing (along with the miso soup, my mom making it like her grandmother used to) that was made from scratch. For the veggies and shrimp we just used a box tempura mix. This batter is sweeter and more dense than the batter you'd use for doing vegetable and shrimp tempura. I don't know how available purple sweet potato is outside of Hawaii, but you can definitely use yellow sweet potato if that's all you can find.



Sweet Potato Tempura

Ingredients:
3 sweet potatoes
about 2 inches of vegetable oil (sorry for not having the exact measurement, this is how we cook around here)
1 t. vanilla extract
1 t. salt
2 t. baking powder
2 cup flour
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk

Directions:
1. Boil your sweet potatoes until tender, slice into rounds.
2. Heat your oil over medium-high heat.
3. Stir all your tempura batter ingredients together. Dredge each piece of sweet potato in the batter, shaking off excess batter.
4. Drop several pieces into the hot oil. Let them cook until the batter turns brown on one side, about 3 minutes. This batter does take a little while to get brown.
5. Flip and cook until the other side browns.
6. Drain on paper towels to soak up any extra oil.

It is best eaten fresh, but can be kept over night in a zip loc bag or air tight container.

Mini Chocolate Meringue Cupcakes

To the 5 of you following me, I don't update this as much as I'd like to because I just do not have time to cook lately. I'm currently in the process of building my first home so all my weekends are taken up doing that. Hopefully come August we'll be done and I will update this thing at least once a week.

Anyway, I was watching a DVRed episode of Giada at Home a couple days ago and she made these Mini Chocolate Meringue Cupcakes. I've never done the meringue/egg white beating thing before because it always intimidated me, but it's super simple and the results are amazing. These babies should have DANGER written all over them. I'm pretty sure that I ate 8 of them, all in one sitting ;x The tops get all flaky and meringue-like, and the insides are all moist and chocolatey. I would definitely suggest making them, but at your own risk. Like I said, very dangerous.


Ingreidents: eggs, cake flour, semi-sweet chocolate chunks, vegetable oil, vanilla, cinnamon, sugar, salt, and cocoa powder.


Start by melting 1/2 cups of semi-sweet chocolate chunks (or chips) using a double boiler. (Does my chocolate look old? Oops.)


While your chocolate is melting, separate your eggs. 3 egg whites in one bowl...


...and 2 egg yolks in another.


To the egg yolks add 1/4 cup vegetable oil, 1/3 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons cocoa powder, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon vanilla, and a pinch of salt...


...and mix together.


By this time your chocolate should be melted. Set aside to cool so that when you add it to your egg yolk mixture, it doesn't scramble the eggs.


While that's cooling, beat your egg whites. When they're sorta fluffy, slowly add in 1/3 cup sugar. If you don't add it slowly while beating, your egg whites will drop and loose all the air incorporated.


Keep beating until it gets all fluffy, doubles in size, and forms stiff peaks.


Add the cooled melted chocolate to the egg yolk mixture and stir.


Fold the egg whites into the chocolate mixture a little at a time. I did it in thirds.


Be gentle when folding in the egg whites, you don't want them to deflate.


Next add 1/4 cup sifted cake flour to the chocolate mixture and fold into batter.


Fill mini cupcake liners and bake at 350 degrees for about 12 minutes. (I had one hell of a time with these cupcake liners for some reason. This part took the longest, trying to fill them up while they curled and didn't want to stay down in the pan.)


Straight out of the oven they were all pretty.


And then they fell and got all ugly.


I topped with sifted powdered sugar.


And then drizzled melted chocolate over the tops.


Try not to eat all 24 in one sitting.

Mini Chocolate Meringue Cupcakes
From an episode of Giada at Home

Ingredients for Cupcakes:
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chunks/chips
2 egg yolks
3 egg whites
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup sugar, divided
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
pinch of salt
1/4 cup cake flour

1. Melt 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chunks on a double boiler. Set aside to cool.

2. Separate your egg whites in one bowl and your egg yolks in another bowl. To the egg yolks add your cocoa powder, cinnamon, vanilla, salt, oil, and half of the sugar; stir.

3. Beat egg whites until fluffy. Slowly add in the rest of the sugar and beat until you get stiff peaks. Be sure to add the sugar slowly so you don't lose all the air you incorporated.

4. Add the cooled melted chocolate to the egg yolk mixture; stir.

5. Add the egg whites a little at time to the chocolate mixture and fold into batter.

5. Add 1/4 cup sifted cake flour and fold into batter. Be gentle so you don't deflate the egg whites.

6. Fill 24 mini cupcake liners with batter. Bake at 350 degrees F for about 12 minutes. Cool completely on wire rack before topping.

Ingredients for Topping:
powdered sugar
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chunks
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1. Sift powdered sugar over cooled cupcakes.

2. Melt chocolate and vegetable oil together using a double boiler. Use a fork to drizzle chocolate over cupcakes. Let the chocolate cool and harden.

Grilled Curry Shrimp

My mom and I got my boyfriend a new fancy pants gas grill for Christmas and we've been putting it to good use for the past week and a half. I randomly threw this together last night, let it marinate, and had it for lunch today.

Grilled Curry Shrimp

Ingredients:
about 25 shrimp, peeled and deveined.
1/2 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon curry powder
3 garlic cloves, crushed

Instructions:
1. Mix the curry powder and olive oil together. Add the garlic.
2. Marinate the shrimp for at least 2 hours (I did mine over night).
3. Skewer shrimp and grill until no longer pink.

Shredded Beef Tacos

1. I finally get myself to actually post on this blog after going back and forth in my brain for a while and now I can't even keep up with it.

2. As you've probably noticed, I'm not a chef. For as long as it takes for me to learn how to create recipes myself, this blog will consist of recipes I find online at random food blogs.

Anyway, I found this recipe and had to try it. I love the crockpot. I love tacos. I don't have any step-by-step photos because I woke up late this morning and was rushing to get this done before I had to be at work. I think the onions are my favorite part about this. They're SO soft, they melt in your mouth. The beef was also the softest I've ever experienced out of all the times I've made any type of beef in the crockpot. It was completely falling apart when I was trying to take it out of the pot. You can dress them up any way you want. We just used cheese and a green bell pepper that we grew ourselves in our garden!

Shredded Beef Tacos
From Elly Says Opa!

Ingredients:
1 (2 lb.) boneless beef roast
1 Tbsp. canola oil
1 onion, sliced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 Tbsp. tomato paste
3/4 cup beef broth
1/2 tsp. parsley
2 tsp. chili powder
1 1/2 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. cayenne
1/2 tsp. paprika
1/2 tsp. oregano

Instructions:
Heat a large, heavy bottomed skillet over medium high heat, and add the oil. Sprinkle the beef roast liberally with salt and pepper. Once the oil is hot, add the roast to the pan and brown on all sides, about 2 minutes per side. Place in the crockpot.

To the pan, add the onion and cook for about 2 minutes before stirring in garlic and tomato paste. After another minute, stir in the beef broth and spices. Scrape up any browned bits, and then pour the seasoned broth and onions over the top of the roast.

Cook on low for 8-10 hours. Shred with a fork. (To soak up any extra liquid, you can turn the crockpot to high for a little bit after shredding the beef.)

Frozen Hot Chocolate

I was browsing Food Gawker one day last week and clicked on some links. Click, click, click and eventually I ended up here, at a recipe for Frozen Hot Chocolate. This recipe calls for white chocolate and I just so happened to have some that I had been meaning to use up, but I want to try it again with regular chocolate. It was so easy and so good and I definitely suggest trying it out.

Frozen Hot Chocolate
From Dine & Dish

Ingredients
6 half-ounce pieces of high quality white chocolate
2 Tbs half and half
1 envelope store bought hot chocolate mix
1 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 cups milk
3 cups ice
Whipped cream (optional)
Chocolate shavings (optional)

Directions
Place the white chocolate pieces and the half and half into a microwave safe bowl. Heat for 1 minutes, stopping to stir half way through. Continue to heat until melted and smooth. Add the cocoa and sugar, stirring constantly until thoroughly blended. Remove from heat and slowly add 1/2 cup of the milk and stir until smooth. Cool to room temperature.

In a blender place the remaining cup of milk, the room temperature chocolate mixture, and the ice. Blend on high speed until smooth and the consistency of a frozen daiquiri. Pour into a cup and top with homemade whipped cream and chocolate shavings.

Asian Style Meat and Potatoes

I got this recipe from Sydney at one of my favorite food blogs, Crepes of Wrath. Everyone in my house loves it. I've shared it with multiple friends and they've all loved it. It's always one of my first go-to meals at the last minute when I realize I have no clue what to make for dinner. I almost always have everything on hand, and as far as the veggies go, I just use whatever we have at the time. I've made it before with broccoli, snow peas, carrots, edamame, eggplant, mushrooms, etc. I leave some stuff from the original recipe out (like red pepper flakes because I'm a wuss) and I tend to put a ton more veggies, but you can play with anyway you want and suit it to your taste. This was also my first time making it with ground pork as I usually just use ground turkey. I'll step-by-step the way I make it and then write out the original recipe at the bottom. You can also find it (and her step-by-step pictures) at the link I posted above.


First, wash, dry, and cube 5 medium potatoes. Toss it in 1 teaspoon peanut oil, 3 teaspoons sesame oil, salt and pepper. Bake at 350 degrees for about 40 - 50 minutes, until potatoes are golden.


While the potatoes are cooking I usually get my veggies ready. This time I used an 8 oz container of mushrooms, sliced...


The last of a bag of baby carrots, sliced...


And some already shelled edamame.


You're also going to need 1 small onion, diced, and 3 cloves of garlic, minced.


And one pound of ground pork (or ground turkey).


When the potatoes are almost done, heat 1 teaspoon of peanut oil and brown the pork.


When the meat is cooked, dump in all your veggies and stir.


You'll need 2 teaspoons white pepper, 2 tablespoons oyster sauce, 2 tablespoons soy sauce, and 1 tablespoon sesame oil for the sauce.


Dump that in with the veggies and stir. Let that cook for about 5 minutes while the sauce reduces a little.


By this time your potatoes should be done and out of the oven. Try not to eat them all while you're cooking the meat. It's very hard.


Dump that in and stir to coat. I like to let it sit for at about 5 minutes before serving so all the flavors soak together.



Asian Style Meat and Potatoes
From Crepes of Wrath

For the Potatoes
5 medium potatoes, cubed
3 teaspoons sesame oil
1 teaspoon peanut oil
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes

For the Meat
1 pound ground pork
1 bell pepper, sliced
1/2 onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 carrot, chopped
2 teapoons white ground pepper
2 tablespoons oyster sauce
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame oil

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Wash and cube your potatoes and toss them in the sesame oil, peanut oil, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes. Bake for 40-50 minutes, until they are crispy and golden.

2. When the potatoes are almost done, begin to cook the pork over medium-high heat. Heat a drizzle of peanut oil in a large skillet and add the ground pork. Break it up with a wooden spoon as it cooks, and when it is no longer pink, add in your bell pepper, onion, carrot, and garlic. Cook for about 5 minutes, then add in the white pepper, oyster sauce, soy sauce, and sesame oil. Cook for another 5 minutes to allow the sauces to reduce a bit.

3. When the meat is ready, take the potatoes and add them to the skillet. Toss to coat everything well and serve.

Meatloaf Cupcakes

Meatloaf cupcakes are so wrong, but so right. I've seen these around on several food blogs and knew I had to try them. I used the Souperior Meat Loaf recipe on the back of the Lipton Beefy Onion Soup box for this, but you can use any recipe you want.


Mix 2 lbs of ground beef, 1 envelope Lipton Recipe Secrets Beefy Onion Soup Mix, 3/4 cup plain dry bread crumbs, 2 eggs, 3/4 cup water, and 1/3 cup ketchup. I made one and a half this recipe which is why it looks like so much.


Scoop a heaping 1/3 cup of the meat mixture and roll into a ball. Put the ball in cupcake pan and gently smash it down with your hand so the meat fills the whole cup. There should be some meat over the top and you just kind of form that into a mound. Make sure you put the cupcake pans on a rimmed cookie sheet so the oils don't spill over in the oven. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.


When the meatloaf is cooked, remove from pan onto paper towels and let it soak up the extra oil.


Put your mashed potatoes into a piping bag with a tip of your choice.


And pipe like frosting!


You can either sprinkle with paprika...


...or put it under the broiler for a bit until the mashed potatoes get some color.


You could also do a ketchup drizzle, which I had planned to do before I realized that I had used all my ketchup to make the actual meatloaf.