Pack a Picnic Lunch. Enjoy it at the park or beach.

The weather was nice, so I packed a simple lunch to enjoy at the park with my friend and her son. The lunch was a turkey sandwich on whole wheat bread, corn on the cob, and a pasta salad with bell peppers, asparagus, and corn.

I sauteed the veggies individually and then combined it with the pasta, added salt, pepper and some olive oil. I packed a side of Italian dressing to add a little more flavor.

Yakisoba Noodles w/ Shrimp & Veggies

Ingredients:
Veggies of choice (Snow peas & red bell peppers)
Shrimp
1 Tbsp Oyster Sauce
1 Tbsp Soy Sauce
1 Tbsp Canola
1/4 cup water or more if needed

Cook shrimp in oyster sauce.  When cooked, remove from pan.  Saute veggies and remove from pan.  Add oil in pan, add yakisoba noodles and then add the water.  Let sit in pan until noodles become soft. Once noodles are soft, continue to sautee them them and add soy sauce.  Once noodles are ready, add veggies and cooked shrimp to pan. 

Peach Tartlets

I've been getting so much free fruit this summer that it's becoming a challenge for me to eat them all. In this case, it would be some super ripe peaches (I used 2 for this recipe). I try my best not to waste good food, so I decide to make some peach tartlets.

They turned out really good, like something you'd pick up at a bakery - yum. The boyfriend-wouldn't-even-share-his-last-bite-with-me good.

Start out making the dough for the pastry crust.

Pastry Dough:
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/3 cup sugar

1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 cup butter

5 Tbsp. cold water

Instructions:

Combine flour, sugar and salt in medium bowl. Cut in butter until mixture is size of fine crumbs. Stir in water until dough forms with wooden spoon. Knead dough just until it forms a ball with some flour. Shape into flat circle, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate (I left it in the fridge overnight).

Peach Filling:
2 large ripe peaches (I don't like peach peel, so I got rid of it, but it's perfectly fine if you want to leave the peel on your peaches)
1 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp pumpkin spice
1 Tbsp butter

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a large skillet, heat butter. When it foams, add sliced peaches and sugar. cook until peaches are soft, flipping once. Set aside.

Roll out dough and cut into small circles. Using your fingers, fold up the edges of the dough.

Place the peaches into the dough along with a couple spoonfuls of liquid.

* brush with eggwash (I forgot to do this) and sprinkle with a little sugar (optional)

Bake in oven until crust is brown, about 35 minutes.

Let cool and enjoy!

It's HOT out!

We're experiencing record breaking heat in the Bay Area.  What's better than some sweet and juicy watermelon chilled in the fridge overnight?

Cantaloupe Sorbet

My aunt gave me this cantaloupe over a week ago. Can you believe she paid (only) 50 cents for it at the local farmers market? I completely forgot it's been hanging out in the fridge so when I saw it, I had to do something with it fast before it goes to waste. I knew that I wouldn't be able to eat the entire cantaloupe by myself, so I thought I'd use it to make a sorbet. Because I love sorbets and it's so fun using my stand mixer!

Ingredients:
Simple Syrup (Sugar, water, and some light corn syrup), 2 tablespoons of lime juice and a cantaloupe. The one I had was pretty large, so I used a little over half of it.

Process:
- Make simple syrup (combine water, sugar, corn syrup over med heat until sugar is dissolved)
- Let syrup cool down
- In the meantime, clean and cube cantaloupe (the sweeter, the better)
- Puree the cantaloupe (I used about 4 cups of puree)
- Combine simple syrup mixture and add lime juice
- Put batter in a covered container and refrigerate overnight

This is what the batter looks like in the morning:

- Mix it up real quick and put batter in your ice cream maker following manufacturer's instructions

- Freeze for a couple hours. Serve and enjoy on a hot day.