Tag Archive | Italian Food

Recipe: One Pan Caramelized Onion Pasta

Chan loves onions so when I saw this recipe for a one-pan caramelized onion pasta – I had to make it!! I don’t know how you folks cook but when I follow someone else’s recipes – I follow it to a T in the beginning. After the first try, I will then know what tweaks I need to do to make it better. Chan’s comment was that there was something a bit off about this dish, when I told him I squeezed an entire lemon into it – he realized that’s what it was. He added a bit of MSG afterwards and liked it. I liked it with and without the MSG – I like that it is a very savory dish and I didn’t miss not having meat in it. It’s a very easy dish to make other than cutting up like 5 onions…the onions and garlic roasts up very nice in the oven for the hour.

Look at all those onions…yes, I cried

Onions with the bulb of garlic and seasonings ready for the oven…

Out of the oven after an hour (stirred it around 30 minutes in)…doesn’t that look great??

One Pan Caramelized Onion Pasta

Ingredients
5 small yellow onions sliced, or 3 large
1 head garlic top sliced off
½ cup sun dried tomatoes chopped
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 tbsp paprika
1 tsp dried parsley
½ cup coconut milk
3 cups farfalle pasta cooked
1 handful fresh parsley chopped
1 handful fresh basil chopped
1 lemon juiced


Instructions
Preheat the oven to 400F.

To a casserole dish, add the onions, sun dried tomatoes, paprika, salt, pepper and dried parsley.
Toss, and then place the whole garlic head in the middle. Drizzle the entire dish with olive oil or the leftover sun dried tomato oil, cover with foil, and then pop in the oven for 1 hour, tossing halfway through. The onions should be caramelized by the time it comes out of the oven.

About 20 minutes before the casserole dish is done, prepare the pasta according to package directions, reserving up to a cup of pasta water.

Remove the garlic from the casserole dish, and when safe to handle, squeeze out the cloves. Add the fresh parsley, basil, lemon juice and coconut milk, along with the cooked pasta and pasta water as needed. Stir and enjoy!

Full Recipe Credit: plantyou

Mariposa – Ala Moana, HI

A delayed birthday celebration but no less special. Chan took me to Mariposa for my birthday dinner and I was quite excited! Mariposa is located in Neiman Marcus and from Friday-Sunday, they have a sunset lounge menu and that’s the only menu you can order from. It’s okay, I could have ordered from either menu and have been happy!

Complimentary Popover with Strawberry Butter

I believe they used to only serve the popovers with their lunch menu but I am happy to report they served it to us at dinner. Am I the only one? I don’t see the big deal with these popovers and everytime I get them, they seem to be raw in the middle. Not a huge fan, I wouldn’t mind just some plain bread. Sorry to be a party pooper. The strawberry jam butter is nice but also nothing special.

Truffle Fries | $18.00
parmesan cheese, rosemary aioli, chives

These fries were it man. So good, fried perfectly and nicely seasoned. The aioli to me is a bit much since the fries are already rich. The ketchup is a good accompaniment to cut into the richness of the cheese, truffle and fried potato! Would order this again.

Braised Pork Belly & Scallops | $26.00
island watercress, lilikoi brown butter, pickled onions

Good, not great. The watercress was awful, super bitter and pretty old looking. Some sad greens. The braised pork was good and the scallops were great! Glad I tried it, probably wouldn’t order it again.

Lion’s Mane Mushroom Bruschetta | $24.00
sauteed “super food” mushrooms, brandy green peppercorn sauce, grilled bread, truffle whipped cream

Big disappointment. And you know what? I got myself mixed up, I thought it was going to be the same lion’s head mushroom I got in Korea, I read it wrong. This dish certainly SOUNDS good but it wasn’t. There was something very sour about this dish, not sour as in gone bad but just a sour taste. It wasn’t good. Do not order this.

Lobster Fra Diavolo | $44.00
maine lobster meat, spicy pomodoro sauce, spaghetti pasta

Our main dish! Chan and I split this pasta so this is my serving of it. They offered to split it into two plates and me being the good Chinese girlfriend I am – I asked if there was a charge for that (there isn’t!). This was a delicious dish. I love pasta and love seafood so I knew we couldn’t go wrong. I probably could have downed the entire entree myself, don’t tell Chan.

While we were stuffed with this dinner, I was surprised they didn’t serve a complimentary dessert since we booked it as a birthday reservation. It looks like they used to but we didn’t get anything. It’s okay, the waitress we had was very good so it was a nice dinner.

Spam Musubi Rating:

Mixed Plate Friday

Happy August! Oh my, is it already August? This is crazy. I feel like summer just started and here we are again. I love summer traffic so much, I need to appreciate the next few weeks until all the schools start up again! Sniff…

Sing Cheong Yuan Bakery | Assorted Dim Sum Items

Baked Char Siu Manapua | Winnah’s (big competition to U-Choice In)
Custard Tart | Just okay (not the flaky pastry crust I like)
Char Siu Su | I didn’t even get to try this. Ugh, too much food for the past few weeks so I let it go bad. My chinese self is kicking herself!
Custard Bun | Okay, this was GOOD. It’s the pineapple bun with custard inside, so so good. Even better than the dim sum restaurants!

Fresh Peach Burrata Salad

In line with the season, I saw this fresh peach salad on TikTok. It’s fresh peaches, burrata cheese, prosciutto over arugula greens. It’s topped with a balsamic vinaigrette dressing. If anyone asks, I can post the recipe. Super easy but the ingredients can get pricey. Chan loves arugula so he liked this salad!

Wea da noodles?

Inside joke with V. I made this really refreshing soba salad the other week to eat with Chan. It includes yuzu kosho dressing mixed with perilla oil and is topped with fresh cilantro. So good and refreshing, get noodles in there some place. Simple recipe, maybe I’ll post it one day. 🙂

Adela’s Country Eatery – Kaneohe, HI

Chan and I were in Kaneohe and decided to grab some lunch from Adela’s Country Eatery – I’ve heard about this place for many years but never got to try it. They make their noodles fresh and have different varieties like ulu/breadfruit, kalamungi/moringa, kalo/taro, ube/okinawan sweet potato, etc.! It was a super hot day and I really didn’t know what to expect. I put our order in with the incredibly sweet woman at the front, she then asked me for my phone number so she could call me when the order was ready. Hmm…I usually stick around for take-out orders but their space is very small. It was so hot that we returned to the car to sit in the AC. I decided to look them up and then read that since every dish is cooked fresh to order, it takes 40-50 minutes. Aiya! No wonder there were so many phone orders, we know better for future! All in all, I think our order took about 40 minutes.

Ube (Noodles) Special | $27.98
with lechon (pork belly) & local stirfry style

Chan loves lechon so this dish was definitely winners. The pork belly is deep fried and served up with a thickened vinegar sauce. The noodles are also nicely seasoned but this is definitely a very rich dish.

Garlic Ulu (Noodles) Portabello | $25.98
with portabello mushroom

We got the two pastas to share but this is the one I wanted mostly. The noodles just taste like regular noodles, I don’t know what I was expecting but man the noodles were so buttery and garlicky. They were seasoned so well (a lot like the garlic noodles at Paradise Poke)! The mushrooms were surprisingly bland – definitely need to get noodles in the same bite as the mushrooms to get the full garlic butter taste.

Would I try this place again? I think so, Chan enjoyed it too! I would probably try another pasta dish. My friend told me that their braised short ribs on the moringa noodles are good. I guess this just means I have to return! This time I just know to order it through the phone an hour ahead of time. Pricey but gotta support local small business. Also, their parking lot is a crap show. You have been warned lol.

Spam Musubi Rating:

Mixed Plate Friday – Trader Joe’s Edition

Peanut Udon Noodle Salad

Meh. Just okay, not great.

Lemon Basil Pasta Salad

Not good.

Truffle Mousse Pate

Yes. A million times yes. This one is made with chicken. Since Chan was not feeling well, I ate this entire thing over the course of the trip. Yeah. I did. Ate it with some golden round crackers (think Ritz Crackers). No regrets here. Chan told me probably get this kine in Hawaii but I haven’t tried it locally yet. IT WAS GOOD AND A GOOD PRICE AND I LOVED IT.

Mixed Plate Friday

Just wanted to share a picture of a beautiful sunset when I had dinner at the Kahala Hotel & Resort. I ran out onto the beach to grab some shots before the sun went down.

Spaghetti Aglio e Olio

This is one of my favorite all time pasta dishes. Very simple dish with minimal ingredients; buttload of garlic sliced thin, dried red peppers (we used red pepper flakes), fresh parsley and of course a lot of olive oil. Such a good dish…Chan and I enjoyed it! Thank you for making it lol.

Sushi Robot | Breakfast Bento | $6.00

I talked about Sushi Robot in previous posts, but this was the most recent one. It used to be $5 and I was surprised when the cashier told me $6.00 last week lol. They don’t put prices up or anything but I’ll just have to guess that inflation and egg prices got to them. Still a good deal!

Mixed Plate Friday

Sunday Breakfast

This is me trying to take a bougie picture of breakfast I made for Chan one Sunday morning. I made this pesto tomato mozzarella salad that I served up with toasted french bread. I put a bit of olive oil on the bread and put it in the air fryer to toast. I then rubbed raw garlic onto the toasted bread immediately while it was still warm so the garlic would melt into the bread. Smart yeah? I also fried up two eggs for each of us (in this economy??) and it was good. Well I don’t know the dosage of his salt grinder so I went a bit too heavy handed – he didn’t say anything but mine was salty lol. Good breakfast!

Sausage, Egg & Cheese English Muffin

Seasoned Potatoes

Did you know Wendy’s served breakfast? I didn’t! I saw it on one of Chan’s YouTuber videos and the guy was trying all the fast food breakfast joints. I decided to pick some up for us for a weekend breakfast. The sausage english muffin was just alright. Not great, I prefer McDonald’s. The seasoned potatoes were good! Not what you would expect from the name of it, and they look like potato wedges but they are actually sliced quite thin length wise. They were good!

Recipe: School Kine Pizza

Do you folks remember the school kine lunch pizza? I sure did. The rectangular slices of pizza that had a super soft and bready crust with the pizza sauce, cubed pepperoni and cheese on top? Simplicity at its best! Well I am WELL out of school age but still think about this from time to time. Apparentely I am not the only one since there are many recipes out there. I went crazy and bought all the ingredients to try to make this at home. The recipe calls for a “pourable” crust, I’m intrigued. So how did it go?

Dry Ingredients! It didn’t call for sifting but I did it anyway.

Grease your pan and add a thin layer of cornmeal.

Yup, it’s a pourable crust. Here it is! Let it rest in the pan for 20 minutes before baking.

I made this recipe twice, the first time – the crust was not enough so for the second time, I made 1.5 of the crust recipe and I think that did the trick in terms of thickness of the crust. The first time it was much too thin and burned at the edges.

Spices for your homemade pizza sauce!

Oh my gosh, this pizza sauce recipe was so easy to make. Who knew?? It was mainly a can of tomato paste but you have to buy a bunch of seasonings including marjoram which I never used before. But boy was it easy to make…

I went a little hog wild with the toppings, I wanted pepperoni and italian sausage for the second round but they don’t sell the italian sauage little balls in stores! You know? Like the ones you get when you order pizza?? So I had to buy a tray of the italian sausage myself and then ball them and fry them up before using them. Ugh. But here is the meats and sauce on top of the pre-baked crust…

So. Much. Cheese. You use a lot of cheese for this recipe. You actually add a bit of cheese to the pizza sauce too and then the rest goes on top. How much did I use? Well the big two pack shredded mozzarella cheese from Sam’s, I used a full bag.

Voila! All baked and ready to eat. What was the verdict? Mixed. I didn’t care for it myself because the crust isn’t what I liked or remembered, wasn’t soft. This crust is kind of hard and super bready/doughy. The brothers, devoured it. My coworker, she liked it! Chan? I think he just thought it was just ok. So yeah, not much of a winner. Perhaps I could just buy the Pilsbury pizza crust in the can and just make the pizza sauce myself next time. I’m glad I tried it to finally simmer down my interest but I don’t think this recipe matches what I had in school.

School Lunch Pizza

Pourable Pizza Crust
Ingredients

  • ½ teaspoon (7 g) Active Dry Yeast
  • 1 ⅔ C (375 ml) Warm Water (110 °F)
  • 2 ½ C (320 g) All-purpose flour
  • ¾ C (55 g) Instant, non-fat dry milk
  • 2 T (25 g) Sugar
  • ¼ t Salt
  • 1 ½ t Vegetable Oil (or more, enough to grease pan)
  • 1 ½ T (15 g) Cornmeal

Revised Crust Recipe (1.5 size measurements)

  • 10.5 g Active Dry Yeast
  • 2.4 C (562.5 ml) Warm Water (110 °F)
  • 480 g All-purpose flour
  • 82.5 g Instant, non-fat dry milk
  • 35 g Sugar
  • ½ t Salt
  • 2 ¼ t Vegetable Oil (or more, enough to grease pan)
  • 22.5 g Cornmeal

Directions

For best results, have all ingredients and utensils at room temperature.

  1. Dissolve dry yeast in warm water. Let stand 4-5 minutes.
  2. Place flour, milk, sugar, and salt in mixer bowl. Using a whip, blend on low speed for 4 minutes.
  3. Add dissolved yeast and oil. Blend on medium speed for 10 minutes. Batter will be lumpy.
  4. Coat sheet pan with oil and sprinkle cornmeal on pan evenly.
  5. Pour batter into pan. Let stand for 20 minutes.
  6. Prebake until crust is set: Conventional oven: 475 °F for 10 minutes. Convection oven: 425 °F for 7 minutes.
  7. Top each prebaked crust with desired topping or use Pizza With Ground Beef Topping recipe (see D-31), or Pizza With Cheese Topping recipe (see D-30).
  8. Bake until heated through and cheese is melted: Conventional oven: 475 °F for 10-15 minutes. Convection oven: 425 °F for 5 minutes.
  9. Portion by cutting each sheet pan 4×5 (20 pieces per pan).

Recipe Credit: Tasting History with Max Miller

Mixed Plate Friday

Marron & Tiramisu Cream Bread

Were you folks into the Culinary Class Wars craze when the show first premiered? Chan and I was, it was a great show! I am so excited for season 2. I liked Edward Lee but I was actually happy Napoli Matfia won – though I wonder how he would have fared if he had to take part in the tofu challenge. Sorry, are these spoilers? You should have watched it already!

Anyway, one of the dishes Napolia Matfia won was for his chestnut tiramisu recipe where he utilized ingredients from a convenience store. Korea is so smart, they were able to turn it around and create the dishes for sale in their stores real quick. Of course it was always sold out. I never found the tiramisu dessert but found the bread and had to try it!

How was it? Eh, just alright. It’s a very rich and dense chestnut cream in soggy bread. Not great. I wonder if I would have liked the actual tiramisu dessert if I found it. Maybe I should have just tried the cheetos ice cream (lol).

Fred Pizza

This was our last dinner before our trek out to Busan/Jinju/Hamyang! Food delivery of course and we went for Fred Pizza. Korean interpretations of American food can vary in success as you saw with our BHC chicken experience. Here is what we got to try!

Half Mega Deluxe | Half Garlic Shrimp Flex Pizza

Garlic shrimp sounds good right? No can lose right? Can lose. I mean it wasn’t awful, but don’t expect a garlic scampi like topping. I don’t know what kind of sauce they used but yes, it was sweet. Not as sweet as the BHC chicken but it just didn’t taste great. I ate it but I definitely wouldn’t order it again. The Mega Deluxe is basically a supreme pizza so that was good.

Smoked Chicken

This was a very good side dish! Imagine huli huli chicken, nice and moist with great smokey flavor!

Bacon Cream Spaghetti (Rose Sauce)

Yum. Usually creamy dishes would send me running (to the bathroom) but this was good! A nice little zing of spice (okay maybe not so little zing for me). Very good! We said we should order from this place again (spoiler: we did). Good dinner before our travel day!