Ca Kho To - Vietnamese Catfish In Caramel Sauce

This post comes with a stink factor warning. For those of you unfamiliar with the pungent odor of fish sauce you must prepare yourself for this recipe by opening some windows and turning on all fans in the house full blast. Now, it doesn't stink like durian or anything, but the fishy-ness has been known to be a sticking point in some relationships. Phu Quoc is a island of Vietnam where the fish sauce made is supposed to be especially tasty aka stinky. I heard from someone that it had something to do with the fish diet of squid, but don't know if that's true. Do you know if it is true?

I must admit that I used this recipe but added some vegetables because I am from the "more matters" school of thought. More vegetables that is and not just more of everything!! Now this dish is traditionally made in a claypot, but since I am not lucky enough to own one of those, I made it in my medium sized metal pot and then transferred into a ceramic dish to serve.





The recipe that I followed said something about "smoking slightly", but I would like to vote for more of a moderate smoking factor when I added the fish sauce to the caramelized sugar. But the finished product sure was worth it!

Oscartinis!! An Oscar Party Celebration.

My friend F wanted to roll out the red carpet for us... mostly because her and her man friend were going to have a Super Bowl party for the grand debut of their new HD mantastic television but didn't get it together in enough time for that event.

So the next logical TV event was the Oscars. I don't usually watch the Oscars because all the fluff in the middle just makes me sleepy, but really how can one turn down food and martinis?!

The red carpet led up to the spread which was a make-your-own-pizza buffet! This was perfect as the party included some supreme meat eaters and some vege-types.



Even this feline (nominated for the category of Best Bad Kitty), Biscotti, got to participate as he managed to leap on the table during the preparatory stages and placed a paw on two pieces of prosciutto. Those two pieces got put in his bowl and he was banished to the bedroom.



Here is my yummy pizza - eggplant, olives, basil, mozzarella and a few dabs of tomato sauce. A couple of martinis to wash it down and the good company made watching the best sound, lighting and make-up tolerable. I guess I better go out and see Slumdog Millionaire now!

Japanese Hot Pot Party!

Before I attended this feast I was ignorant to the fact that Japanese Hot Pot and Shabu Shabu are two separate things. Both involve cooking at the table, but in Japanese Hot Pot everything is put in at the same time, whereas with Shabu Shabu, the meat is put in at various times throughout the meal. The thinly sliced meats make a specific "swishy" sound which is where the name comes from. Ponzu sauce is an integral component of this meal as it lends a lot of flavor to the meat -- in this case it was halibut and chicken meatballs. Towards the end of the soup-fest, we added udon noodles. Yum!

Our gracious hosts had us over in January, at a time in Boston when hot soup is very much appreciated! They had a very fancy hot pot apparatus which they brought with them from Japan when they moved over here.



There were several tasty appetizers - an asparagus dish and a tasty Japanese fried chicken that Japanese boys have a particular liking for. My friend Mayumi (the chef), claims this is very easy to make and that her husband can even make it, so has challenged the other boys to also make it for themselves. That sounds like a Japanese fried chicken throwdown!




Some happy hot pot participants!

A Budding Tea-rista!

My niece, Fionna, really likes preparing people beverages. I remember when she was not even the ripe old age of 2, if you were hanging out in the kitchen she would ask you, "Kafeee?", which translated from toddler-speak into "Would you like me to help you make some coffee with the Starbucks Espresso machine?". She even knew the steps involved and the correct order to perform them in. Should you deviate from the plan, she would waggle a little scolding toddler sized index finger at you and redirect.

Now she has moved into the specialty teas. My brother was having some friends over for the weekend, probably to play some nerd-tastic role playing games or something, and Fionna thought they would enjoy some refreshments!

How lovely! Everyone is amazed when they see these flowering tea balls and even more amazed when they are presented to you by a preschooler! They start out looking like this.

Kinda looks like an owl pellet if you ask me!



Then... wait for it...



Wait for it...(Fionna is looking a little anxious that her guests won't be enthralled)



Tadddaaahh!



What a lovely hostess!!

Burnt Marshmallow Hot Chocolate (parental guidance advised)

I bought a bunch of Halloween themed Peeps intending to make Ghost Hot Chocolate, but everyone was too stuffed after eating the food that we never got around to making it. A few years ago, we inherited a culinary torch from a friend that was moving overseas. I don't make many desserts that require torching, so the torch has stayed in the original packaging until I had a very morbid yet delicious idea for its use.

I was a bit of a pyromaniac as a child. I never really burnt anything of significance down, but as my older brother will tell you, we used to spend a lot of time frying various critters of the insect kind with a magnifying glass in the backyard and also putting grapes in the microwave to start little mini-globe shaped fireworks. I also distinctly remember my brother putting a piece of raw meat near an open window with a screen and flaming the mosquitoes that landed outside with a lighter and an aerosol can. It's a wonder that we didn't turn out to have antisocial personality disorder with all the torturing of insects we did as children, but I guess that applies more to kids who torture animals that are cuter than bugs. Anyway, I digress.

I much prefer the taste of charred marshmallows to just melty ones. I know that the carbon is a carcinogen, but it's not as if burnt marshmallows are a staple of my diet, so I figure just once in awhile is okay.

So here goes, step-by-step:

1) Make some hot chocolate and buy some marshmallows (peeps or otherwise)



2) Float marshmallows in HC



3) Fire up your torch! Boooooooooo!!!



4) Ooh! A little too burnt, but smells lovely!



5) Turn crisped mallow over to get other side which will be a little harder to torch because it is wet, but will look quite lovely and inviting to drink!

Boo!

Oh my! I just realized that it has almost been a month since my last post. Things have been busy at work and after reading and staring at a computer screen, I guess I haven't felt motivated to do more computer related activities once I get home. Or maybe my lack of posting was because I was so consumed with planning for my Halloween/Housewarming party!

I admit that most of my ideas for food were stolen from a Taste of Home Halloween magazine. I also admit that I was more amused with preparations for this party than a person over the age of 30 should be.

On a trip to Target, I picked up some pretty awesome Halloween themed sodas. Jones soda has several different limited editions for various holidays and themed events. Want some turkey and gravy soda for an upcoming Thanksgiving or Christmas party? Well, you may be able to find it here!



Here are the rest of my spooky offerings:

Severed Hand Punch - a big hit! Easy to make... all you need is a latex glove. Wash it out to rid of powdery rubbery taste. Turn inside out and fill with liquid. I chose a mixture of cranberry juice and water so that it would freeze quickly, but not water down the punch upon melting. Float the resulting frozen hand in whatever liquid concoction you desire. I also had pomegranate floating in to represent miscellaneous body bits!



Mummy Turkey Dogs - or Halloweenies! Any variety of tube steak will do. Simply wrap with Pillsbury bread stick dough and dot on eyes with mustard.



Bleeding Heart Brie - Brie with cherry preserves wrapped in crescent roll dough.



Eyeball Taco Salad. This was supposed to be cut into individual "faces" for serving purposes, but by the time we made this, most of my guests and my sous chef were too in the bag to care. They just wanted to shove nachos in their gullets.



Halloween shaped tortilla chips! These were harder to make than I thought they would be because my cookie cutters were not very sharp. I think metal ones would have worked better, but I only had plastic. I sprayed them with olive oil and sprinkled with a creole spice mix that I had made for something else and then baked them at about 375 for 12 minutes. They may not look so pretty, but they tasted good.



Here's some of the spread.



And some of the spread eaters!

The Shrunken Head Aging Process

As promised, here are some updated time lapse photos of my apple crafts.

One week old:



And two weeks old:



The red one is especially more deflated with age. I realize I should have been more scientific about this and put in a measuring tape for scale or tried to be more consistent about the distance between the camera and the heads, but I think you get the idea.

Along the lines of science, I may have inadvertently started a fruit fly breeding colony in my kitchen as I found one little drosophila having a little snack on the green apple's face. For all you science nerds out there, my new "friend" had the cinnabar gene for eye color.