Momofuku Pork Belly Buns

After making the Pork Steam Buns awhile ago, S suggested that I test out the famous Momofuku's Pork Belly Buns by David Chang. She sent me the recipe here. It was simple enough and did not require that many ingredients, but there were a lot of steps.
My initial thought had been to make the brine for the pork belly on Monday night and have it sit until Tuesday after work, where I would roast the belly and make the dough. However, after making the brine and then reading through the entire recipe, I realized if I started at 5:30pm (usual time I get home after work), we would not actually eat until midnight. Thus, I had to push the work off to T, who graciously accepted and they turned out great!
I have never actually had Momofuku's before, but my sister had. I asked her if they were the same and she said no. She said Chang's were very greasy and fatty and the ones we made were not. She didn't actually say which ones were better, but she did say these were very good. Success!

They were absolutely delicious. The fattiness of the pork, lightness of the buns---heaven. I stopped my inner fat kid though and only had two buns while T had six! If it didn't take hours to make or was not so fattening, I would want to eat them all the time! I saw that the cost at Chang's restaurant was $9 for two buns. I think this cost us about $10 for over a dozen buns and we still had pork belly leftover.

Note: I used my light box and my sister's digital SLR camera to take these photos. I still cannot get the lighting the way I want it (why is it so yellow/orange?), but I think they turned out better than my usual iPhone photos. The second photo was without the lights and just the camera's flash.

New Glasses, Finally

After an unfortunate accident last May where my glasses broke in half in my purse, I finally got a new pair (10 months later).

They look weird though, huh? N said it looked like a butterfly and I thought it had its own nose. T said the lady at Costco had to bend the sides that way because the distance from my nose to my ear was very short. Hmph.

School Lunches, Fruits and Vegs

I've been reading the Fed Up: School Lunch Project pretty regularly since I saw it in SE two months ago. It's a blog created by an anonymous teacher who has decided to eat a school lunch every day in 2010. It's pretty interesting and gross to see what her school offers. I remember my school lunches in elementary and middle school being more appealing and healthier. It was definitely not that prepackaged either.

She posted a link from Health Child, Healthy World that listed the 10 fruit and vegetables you should buy organic based on studies from the Consumer Union and the Environmental Working Group. I like to go to Farmer's Markets but I am not an avid organic buyer at all. Mostly because it's more expensive and I really am not that concerned healthwise. BUT after reading this, I am definitely only buying organic for these items.

Here is their list (click link above to see why):

Peaches


Apples

Nectarines

Strawberries


Pears

Sweet Bell Peppers

Celery

Imported Grapes

Spinach
Potatoes


Biology Raps

I saw this posted on facebook awhile ago and it's so funny.

I went to their YouTube site and they have two other videos, one on DNA and another on TAQ (some other DNA bio thing from what I watched). But the one posted above was the best.

Kind of made me wish I was a science person so I would actually understand what they were saying. Or wished my business professors had been this creative...

What A Pretty Girl

My sister bobby pinned some pink bows to Soba's head the other week and it was so adorable. However, the bobby pins do not stay on very well because Soba has very short hair and it's very soft and silky.

We went to the mall last weekend and picked up cute little flower clips at Claire's. I was a total tomboy when I was younger, but I loved that store. We had to get two packs because each one came with two different colors (makes no sense at all). They make Soba so pretty.

She does not really like to wear them though and always shakes them off. Guess she doesn't understand the price of beauty.

.

But you can get them to stay on if you clip them while she is eating.

She now weighs in at hefty 36 lbs (31.1 lbs more than when we adopted her).

My Very Own Croquembouche

I went home this past weekend to run the Great Urban Race with N in downtown Phoenix and to celebrate Chinese Lunar New Years with my family. When I got home Sunday afternoon, I found this on the counter:

T had made me my very own croquembouche! A croquembouche is a french dessert piece that is a cone of cream puffs and then decorated with spun sugar, nuts, caramel, chocolate, and whatever else.

T's version was a complete tower (no holding structure in the middle- that's skill) of cream puffs filled with strawberry whipped cream, sugar cookies, and spun sugar. I was most impressed with the spun sugar because it not only looks really cool, it tastes really good. It was a nice treat and a surprise because T rarely ever makes desserts and when he bakes, its usually bread. But his cream puffs are delicious and of course, I could eat spun sugar all day long.

I hope everyone had a fantastic holiday weekend. It was a big one. Happy late Valentine's Day, Chinese Lunar New Year, and Arizona's Birthday!

Light Box

I finally made my light box! I have been talking about making one forever so I finally got around to it a few weekends ago. I googled "how to make my own light box" and followed the DIY instructions from the site Digital Photography School. You can find the directions by clicking here.

I went to Joann's Fabric and picked up four yards of the cheapest white fabric I could find and a .59 poster board from Walgreens. I took a large UHaul box I had laying around in the garage and carefully drew out even rectangles on four sides. The most tedious task was cutting out the holes, but other than that, I think it only took about an hour to get the whole thing put together.

The poster board was actually shorter than the size of my box, but I figured I only needed the bottom half to be covered, it should not matter too much.

I wanted to take a photo of something right after I got it up, but since I had not made anything, I thought these tomatoes will do. This only had one small lamp on it. The coloring is yellow and not pure white at all. Not good at all.

This has two small lamps on it, but it still does not look too good. I think I am going to buy a bigger and brighter lamp and continue to play around with it some more. Overall, I am really happy with it and excited to take some nicer food photos!