Morel Mushroom Risotto

True to form, Choi and my most vivid memory of the night we got engaged revolves around food. We got engaged on the L'Enfant map of DC on Freedom Plaza. After that we walked over to The Willard Hotel to have dinner in the The Willard Room. During dinner the waiter told us a story of how the mushrooms in the risotto were available only to the Willard room because they buy every mushroom that a secret farmer in a secret location finds.
Needless to say our pallets were ready for some secret mushrooms in risotto. At that time in our lives neither of us had ever had Morel Mushrooms. We quickly joined the ranks of Morel devotees. I highly suggest them. They're delicious. Here's a photo from our latest batch of Morel Mushroom Risotto. We used an adaptation of Michelle Walton's Mushroom Risotto Recipe. Thanks Michelle!!

Kiwano Fruit

The commissary is a great place. With all the different ethnicities in the military family, the commissaries try there best to bring different foods from around the world to make us happy. We like to indulge in these every once in awhile. We picked up a new fruit the other week just because they looked cool. Bright orange with spikes. After looking it up online we learned that you eat them like natural push-pops. The little sacks of yummy goodness rise to the top as you squeeze. I advise you eat them outside (see image three: "Oops... too hard").

Mango Rice

We had this at a Thai restaurant one time. After we ate it we came home, found a recipe, made it at home. It's absolutely delicious. The mango and coconut flavors really play well together and the texture is wonderful. Highly recommend it.

http://thaifood.about.com/od/thaidesserts/r/thaidessert.htm

Crispy Kale

A few months ago Bon Appetit had an article on Kale. One of the things it said you could do is bake them and they become a healthy alternative to potato chips. We've been meaning to try it. We finally did tonight. Yummy... as long as you can stand the greeny flavor. Kind of like a cross between potato chips and seaweed.

Wash and Cut the Kale into bite size pieces
Place on a parchment lined pan
Bake at 350 for about 10-15 minutes until crispy.
Enjoy. They're very loud to eat.

The Rise of the Souffle

One dark and cold friday night I thought it would be fun to make a souffle. Souffle's remind me of the episode of Recess the cartoon when Vince became the teacher's lounge chef. He challenged the lunch ladies because how hard could it be. He turned out to be so good that he ended up making lunch for the superintendent. He made a souffle. Because of that I think souffle's will always have a special place in my heart (because Recess was one of the greatest cartoons ever). It was quite fun. Just like Julia says, a quick chef can have it ready for the oven in 20 minutes. Then the fun begins. I prepared a photo collage. Enjoy. There's a surprise at the end... and many souffles in the future. Hopefully they don't deflate.

Yeast Banana Bread

I love bananas. On days I don't eat at least one I feel like junk. They're good in a lot of stuff... cocktails... cereal... cocktails (mmm... brings back memories of a Banana Margarita at Margaritaville in Key West we're I almost at the glass)

and bread. But for almost all my life I've only know banana bread as a dense piece of bread that you warm up spread so butter on and enjoy. Although good, I think my inner foodie (not to be confused with my outer foodie) has know there's more to this.

So after a quick google search.... wham... bang.... Yeast Banana Bread. The lid is off the can. There's so much you can do with a nice fluffy banana bread.
PB&J with a hint of banana that you can't really find.
Stuffed french toast.
Normal french toast.

I going to try and put so chocolate chips and pecans in it to. I love this. But it puts me in a dilemma... eat the bananas or let the ripen until they're ready for bread.

Happy eating.

Adam

Drunken Amish Friendship Bread

So two weekends ago I started an Amish Friendship bread starter. After the 10 days of waiting I made a cake. Before I started the cake though I noticed the starter smelled like alcohol. Don't know why, but the cake didn't turn out well. Kind of tasted like a vodka version of rum cake.

Any ideas?