half & half teahouse

I heart boba. Like really like it. And I'm a boba snob, as people say it...but I'm not that bad!!!

I first tried Half & Half Tea House in San Gabriel during Hunt and Eileen's wedding. I am a die hard Ten Ren's fan, but this place was comparable! I've always wanted to go back but it's soooo far from my house and since there's a Ten Ren's right next to my house, there was no reason to venture out. BUT, they opened a Half & Half Tea Express in Rowland Heights! So I went and tried.

Look at that, it's humongous. Actually it was different than what I remembered but I think they're using the trend in Taiwan and their 胖胖杯. It is quite fat and this was the smaller size.

Comparison in size to the drink from Phoenix, it's ridiculous. I always get green milk tea with boba. It's good, not too sweet, tastes of tea and the boba was the right q consistency. Go check it out!

Half & Half Tea Express

17575 Colima Rd
Ste C
City of Industry, CA 91748

pulled pork tacos w/ guacamole and mango salsa

Pulled pork tacos. I'm not sure where I got an itch to make this, but I did. And it was easy, especially with a slow cooker (which I borrowed from tammy). I had more pictures but jwoo did not give them to me, so you'll have to settle with my ugly looking pictures.
I bought this humongo 10 pound bone-in pork shoulder. Way too big to fit into the slow cooker (it was a 6 quart) so me and jwoo went through this whole ordeal with chopping it in half. In the process, we de-skinned and de-fatted the pork (leave some fat because it tastes good). After, I made a mixture of cumin, brown sugar, salt, black pepper, paprika, oregano, and cayenne pepper and let the pork marinate overnight.

The next day, all I did was line the bottom of the slow cooker with quartered onions, lay the pork shoulder on top, cover the pork halfway with red wine, water, and salt mixture. Turn on the slow cooker, put it on low, 8 hours and leave it!
This is what it looked like after the 8 hours. The cool thing about the slow cooker is that after the time was up, the setting was turned to keep warm, so the pork was kept warm. It was beautiful. The meat was falling of the bone and it was nice and tender.
To shred it, we used two forks and just went at the pork.
Our final product. Or just the pork....
I served it with guacamole and mango salsa, which are so easy to make, cilantro, cabbage, and onions and mushrooms.
This picture is really sucky, but that's our taco!

So I didn't really follow a recipe, I looked at a lot of different recipes and created my own, so measurement wise...I wouldn't say it is super accurate.

Ingredients:

1 5-6 pound bone-in pork shoulder

Spice rub (recipe below)

2 cups red wine (can use red wine vinegar)

half a chopped onion

half a cabbage - shredded

approx. 50 torillas (corn or flour, I personally like flour better)

Guacamole (recipe below; optional)

Mango salsa (recipe below; optional)

Directions:

Take pork (this is de-skinned and de-fatted, unless you want to keep it) and massage spice rub into pork and cover in plastic wrap or in a zip lock bag. Refrigerate and leave to marinate overnight.

The next morning, line the bottom of the slow cooker with onion. Place the pork on top of the onion layer. Pour in the red wine, if it does not cover up to half, then fill it up with water to halfway. Cover with the lid, and turn your slow cooker to low for 8 hours and THAT'S IT!

After 8 hours, take pork out of slow cooker. Let it rest so the juices can flow into the pork and keep the pork moist. Shred the pork using two forks and there you have it!

Spice rub:

1 tbsp black pepper

2 tbsp salt

3 tbsp cumin

1 tbsp oregano

2 tbsp paprika

1 tbsp cayenne pepper

1/4 cup brown sugar

Mix all of this together in bowl and set aside until ready to use.

Guacamole:

4 ripe avocados

half a lime juice

1/4 cup diced onion (can add more or less based on your preference; can use red onion)

1/4 cup diced tomato (can add more or less based on your preference)

1 tsp salt

Mash the avocados up (depending on how textured you like it). Add in lime juice (this I eyeballed entirely since it depends on your taste) and salt. Mix in onion and tomatoes. Taste it and adjust accordingly.

Mango salsa

1-2 ripe mangoes diced

1 lime

1 jalapeno diced (may remove seeds for less heat)

1/3 cup diced tomato (can add more or less based on your preference)

1/4 cup diced onion (can add more or less based on your preference, can use red onion)

2 tbsp chopped cilantro

1 tsp salt

Mix everything together. Taste and adjust accordingly.

These are easy to make and all depends on how you like your food!

To put the taco together, take the warmed tortilla and place as much pork you want, then add the extras: guacamole, mango salsa, and shredded cabbage.

Sunday Brunch: Salmon Quiche

I really enjoy cooking for my friends and family, but with work and life in general, I haven't had very much time to do anything remotely fun in the kitchen. So, I was very happy to make a simple brunch for Jen recently. Inspired by a recent post on Tartlette blog, I decided to make salmon quiche, with a few modifications.

Rainbow swiss chard is so pretty, right? I love the color that it adds to any dish, but more importantly, I like that it packs a lot of nutrients. In fact, it is second (only to spinach) in the running for healthiest vegetable. Up until this adventure, I hadn't ever cooked it, but after a little bit of testing, I now know that it is a bitter, bitter plant that tastes strongly of chlorophyll. And even though I am a lover of all things fatty, I have to admit, swiss chard is rather delicious!

This quiche is so simple! The hint of dijon in the crust combined with the simple filling of onion, swiss chard and salmon was irresistible.

Quiche Crust:

• 4 Tablespoons butter (room temp)
• 1.5 Teaspoons Dijon
• 1 egg yolk
• 1.5 cups loosely packed flour
• 1/4 cup of milk or water

Mix butter and dijon in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Add in egg yolk and mix until combined. Once combined, add flour to mixture. Since the dough is rather dry, add water or milk in a slow, slow stream until the dough starts to better clump together. (You may not need the entire 1/4 cup.)

Plop dough onto a lightly floured area and roll into a ball. Wrap ball in plastic and refrigerate for an hour or until cold.

Remove dough from fridge and roll out dough until it is about 1/4 to 1/8 of an inch thick. Press rolled out dough into desired tart or pie pan. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes or until bottom of the dough is golden brown and cooked through.

Quiche Filling:

• 4-5 leaves swiss chard, chopped
• 1/2 medium sized onion
• 1/2 lb. salmon, cut into small squares or pieces
• 3 eggs
• Salt and Pepper
• 1/2 lemon

Preheat oven to 375 Fahrenheit.

Saute onions until translucent and then add in the swiss chard. Continue to saute until wilted. Once everything is cooked down, take it out of the pan and place into the base of the quiche crust. Layer the salmon on top of the swiss chard and onions.

Whip your three eggs until fluffy, then season your eggs with salt and pepper. Carefully pour (seriously, really carefully - my eggs overflowed onto my clean kitchen counter, sadness) over your quiche filling. Squeeze lemon over the quiche.

Put your quiche into the oven and bake for about 30 minutes or until the center is cooked through.

national almond day

it was february 17th...

and i missed it.

i love almonds. i seriously love almonds and i missed it.

i'm sorry almonds, i will make it up to you.

s'mores cupcakes

I've been wanting to make s'mores cupcakes ever since I had it from Cupkates. Her's are so yummy and everything about is delicious. Anyways, so I tried...and it turned out not bad...not super great.
I made mini cupcakes because they're so much cuter. I liked my cupcake liners too, which are from Joanns.
I made the graham cracker crust and it was pretty oily. I used some salted butter since I ran out of unsalted and it tasted fine. It was kinda hard to use my fingers to press it in, so I used a teaspoon which worked pretty well.
Okay, so the chocolate cake mixture was really runny and water-y. I think I didn't like this chocolate cake, I would use a different cake next time.
Out of the oven! They're kinda funny looking.
My marshmallow frosting. I think it was too soft, so maybe if I let it on the heat longer, it would've been better.
Yeah, they didn't look too pretty. My piping skills are lacking for sure...
We didn't have a torch so we used a gas stove. It was pretty dangerous, but not bad and it worked! (Plus, having jwoo do it for me, made it dangerous for him, not me :])
I topped them with graham crackers and Hershey's chocolate. They looked way cuter, covering my ugly piping skills.

Here's the recipe:

Makes 48 mini cupcakes

Ingredients:
1 cup PLUS 2 Tbsp graham cracker crumbs (from 16 to 18 squares)
3 Tbsp sugar
5 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, roughly chopped

1 cup PLUS 1 Tbsp sugar
3/4 cup PLUS 2 Tbsp flour
7 Tbsp cocoa powder (not Dutch-processed)
3/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 large egg, room temperature
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup boiling water

Marshmallow Frosting (Recipe below)
Extra chocolate or graham cracker pieces, to garnish

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 standard muffin pans with 18 cupcake liners; set aside. Place the graham cracker crumbs, 2 tablespoons sugar, and melted butter in a large bowl; stir until well combined. Place 1 tablespoon of the graham cracker mixture prepared earlier into the bottom of each prepared muffin cup. Use the bottom of a small glass to pack crumbs into the bottom of each cupcake liner. Reserve remaining graham cracker mixture for topping. Place 2 teaspoons of chocolate in each muffin cup. Set pan aside.

Sift the sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together into a large bowl. Mix these together until evenly combined. In a separate large bowl, mix together the egg, milk, oil, and vanilla. Add the liquid mixture into the flour mixture and beat on medium speed for 30 seconds. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and continue mixing on medium speed for 1 to 2 minutes. Add boiling water and stir to combine; set cake batter aside.

Transfer the muffin pans prepared earlier to oven and bake until the edges of the graham cracker mixture is golden, about 5 minutes. Remove from oven and fill each cupcake liner three-quarters full with cake batter. Sprinkle each with the remaining chocolate and graham cracker mixture. Return to oven and bake until tops are firm and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, 18 to 20 minutes. Transfer muffin pans to a wire rack and let cupcakes cool in pan for 10 minutes. Remove cupcakes from pan and let cool completely.

Transfer marshmallow frosting to a large pastry bag fitted with a large plain round, star, or French tip. Transfer cupcakes to a baking sheet or other heatproof surface. Pipe frosting in a spiral motion onto each cupcake. Using a kitchen torch, lightly brown the frosting, taking care not to burn the cupcake liners. Top each cupcake with a piece of chocolate or graham cracker, if desired. Serve immediately or store in an airtight container for up to 2 days.

Marshmallow Frosting
5 large egg whites
1 1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Place egg whites, sugar, and cream of tartar in the heatproof bowl of an electric mixer. Set over a saucepan with simmering water, making sure the water is not high enough to touch the bowl. Whisk constantly until sugar is dissolved and whites are warm to the touch, 3 to 4 minutes.

Transfer bowl to electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, and beat, starting on low speed, gradually increasing to high, until stiff, glossy peaks form, 5 to 7 minutes. Add vanilla, and mix until combined. Use immediately.

s'mores cupcakes courtesy of 6 bittersweets

*update*

Look at other people's baked goods here!