Food & recipes » Hip to be Mom

I recently rediscovered grapefruit and now we officially heart fresh grapefruit juice. Grapefruit on its own is alright but it tastes so much better when juiced. It’s a little bitter so some sugared syrup can go a long way in taking some of that edge off. But I prefer mine neat though .

Obviously grapefruit, like all other fruits, comes with a whole bunch of benefits. Having said that, not all fruits are created equal and we definitely have a winner here. Besides being a powerhouse of Vitamin C, grapefruit juice also ranks among the highest in antioxidant activity. Its rich pink and red colors are attributed to the heavy presence of lycopene, a antioxidant with anti-tumor qualities.

On top of that, grapefruit does a great job of lowering your cholesterol and preventing kidney stones. It all sounds really good but before you go off looking for Surgical Technologist Jobs or on yet another taxi run, you’ll want to have a glass of fresh grapefruit in the fridge awaiting your return from all that running around.

So do you care for grapefruit juice? If not, what’s the favorite juice in your household?

This is how we eat our French fries.

Dipped in ice cream. Mmm, the clashing flavors. How do you eat yours?

Well, these may look be quesadillas to you but to me, they’re kissadayas. Read on…

Months ago, I tried my hand at homemade quesadilla. I used pizza base then as I didn’t have any tortillas�and my quesadillas were so ugly . But this time, I’ve got the tortillas so I made meatless quesadilla for our vegetarian Saturday!

You know me, I don’t really have a recipe for anything. I just kinda slap everything together. Spread some pasta sauce on and have the girls layer on the onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, bell peppers and way too much cheese. Fold, press, shove into a preheated oven and wait impatiently for it to beep four times.

Man, these quesadillas are dabomb! Raine couldn’t resist lifting up the top of the crunchy shell to take a sneak peek inside. Scrumptious and healthy! Better yet, I earned myself a cheekful of cheese-y kisses from Skye for a meal she can’t wait to eat again. Go kiss-adayas!!

The good news is I’ve got 4 more of these amigos in my fridge ready to pop into the oven tomorrow. Worth at least 4 more cheese-y kisses !

We finally decided we had to get out of the house, sniffles and all, or risk cabin fever. Japanese, anyone? In our household, no one says no to Japanese. So we headed for the unknown, a restaurant we’ve never been to.

As we entered, a line of restaurant staff quickly formed to bid what we assumed to be a very warm welcome even as they started relieving us of our jewelry and items of value. We were led inside. The place was empty because well, we were early. Or could there be another reason?

Flipping through the oversized menu, we were both impressed and overwhelmed by the choices. It wasn’t easy to decide.

The tri-fish sashimi came with 3 slices each of salmon, salmon belly and tuna. The presentation itself, as you can see, is worth 20 pictures (according to Raine, our resident photog), what with the dried branches and yellow chrysanthemum (a real flower, yes!) providing such a rustic backdrop to these tasty morsels.

Then came the assorted set that included a stone slab of sizzling wagyu beef. Wagyu beef comes from pampered cows who’ve lived the good life of air-conditioned comfort and routine body massages ~~and spa treatments~~ to ensure their meat would be beyond tender.

Flipping the beef over, listening to the sizzle and flipping it back to see a nicely browned other side was half the food adventure. We’re simple folks and little things such as a few slices of beef can get us all excited. By the way, when savoring this melt-in-the-mouth morsel, it’s best not to linger on details like, um, the price .

And finally for tempura freaks like us, what’s a Japanese meal without this?

It was only when the check arrived that it became clear to us why we had to leave some sort of collateral at the door. Safe to say, our next trip back there will be delayed indefinitely, at least till my credit card recovers from the damage!

It’s been a while since we were this crazy. Set us loose in a newly-reopened grocery store and this is what happens.

We filled our tray with… well, these are veggies disguised to look like pastries. I swear there’s so much variety to choose from we had to flip a custom coin to help us decide!

And these are, well, I know what you’re thinking. Sushi, right? Heck no! Look again, see, they’re good old cauliflowers topped with peaches (some folks call them smoked salmon) and um, mushrooms (sometimes called unagi or eel, I think)?

Going bananas

Posted by Clairity 14 Responses »

Aug 082011

This is our third baking weekend in a row. The girls are really getting the hang of it and we decided to be bold and bake a banana cake this time.

Now and then, we do buy the occasional commercial banana cake with the artificial flavoring and sugar overkill. But enough of that. We’re baking our own, or at least making this our first attempt at banana cake, and if all goes well, we may open a bakery down the street , just kidding.

Okay, on with the good stuff…

1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking soda
4 ripe bananas, mashed
2/3 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup chopped almonds (you can use walnuts if you like)

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugars till light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time.

Add in the bananas. We used Dole, I think they’re sweeter maybe. Everything went well up to this point. This is where we got clever and tossed in an extra banana . Clearly a case of going bananas with the bananas!

Then in another bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. Add flour mixture, then buttermilk to the creamed mixture, alternating between the two. Stir in chopped almonds.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes or until done. The end result is this moist banana cake. Looks pretty good, huh? For a first attempt, I mean.

Actually it doesn’t taste too bad either and my girls love it. We would so make this again. Just a couple of things I would do differently next time – reduce the sugar because well, the bananas themselves are naturally sweet, and avoid that banana overkill which I’m thinking, might’ve contributed to the slight sogginess in the final product.

So can we consider this a success? Oui?

Yeah, I definitely think so. It looks, smells and tastes like the real thang. So goodbye, store-bought banana cake?