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Celebrating "Dia de los Muertos" at Dirt Candy

11/7/2016

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The day after Halloween is a tough day. We are all tired from last night's trick or treating, and we need to rest.  You may think that, but what we really need to do is party!  We have to celebrate a holiday called Dia de los Muertos, otherwise known as Day of the Dead.  Day of the Dead is a Mexican holiday that celebrates, and honors relatives that have died.  A lot of people on this holiday make altars, and offer bread and flowers to welcome the spirits into their homes.  People dress up and share food with neighbors and paint their faces like a skull.  People often try to feel the presence of their loved ones. This holiday lasts for two days: November 1st and 2nd.

Now you might be wondering, what does this have to do with food. Well, for Day of the Dead, my dad took me out to a special dinner at Dirt Candy where we had a special Day of the Dead themed dinner. This was a special event so you had to get a special ticket for an eight course meal.  Dirt Candy is a vegetarian restaurant owned, and run by Chef Amanda Cohen.

The first course we had was a corn brioche with elote butter.  The brioche was a warm, spongy bread that had a slight taste of lemon zest in it.  The elote butter was a creme fresca, with cilantro oil in it. It did give off a little tang but it was nice.  The butter was creamy and light. The warm spongy bread with the light creamy elote butter went great together.

The next course was beet tacos.  The dish was a beet infused taco, and in it was creamy chipotle, salt roasted beets, and purple cabbage.  I honestly thought that I was not going to like the dish but it was really tasty.  The dish was crunchy, soft, and spicy. It was like a party in my mouth.

This third course was my favorite.  The dish was tostilocos with chipotle, jalapeño, and orange jicama sauce.  I am not kidding when I say this the only thing that was wrong with the dish was that there was not enough sauce!  My dad and I cleaned the plate.  The flavors in this dish popped. It was spicy, crunchy, smooth, and the pickles on the dish made it stand out.  I thought that the chipotle and the jalepeño were really spicy but that the orange jicama sort of cooled it down.  That was the end of the appetizers.

The first entree was a pumpkin ceviche.  Well, if you do not know what ceviche is, it is usually a fish appetizer that is made of raw fish and has lime juice on it.  So, now you can probably guess what this dish was.  It was raw pumpkin with avocado and lime juice. There were sunflower seeds on it with some fresh herbs.  The pumpkin was cut like a carpaccio and was very smooth and thin. When I had it, I could taste a hint of olive oil, and it was seasoned very nicely. I got salt and pepper with a bit of lime or lemon juice on it. Simple but tasty.  I also want to say that I really liked the sunflower seeds. It gave it that balance of crunchy and soft.

The next dish was a sweet pea enchilada.  An enchilada to me is like a burrito, but cut into slices, so this one was no different but I liked it a lot.  It had a very soft outside and a more crunchy inside. It was also a little bit sweet and a little bit sour.  There were also different sauces on the plate that I dipped peas into and it was really good.  I especially liked the sour cream and hummus.  This was a fun dish that I enjoyed, and would love to come back for more.

This third dish was called Pepper.  It was not exactly pepper though. It was beans in a little skillet with pepper “life savers” all around it which I thought was clever.  The beans were in a sauce that was a five pepper sauce.  This dish, specifically the sauce, reminded me of oyster sauce and was very smooth.  I also thought that the salad with the beans and the sauce was stupendous.  I know I said the “life savers” were clever, but they were also really fun to eat.  Overall, I thought this dish was the most fun dish with the “life savers” and the tiny skillet.  


Now, this last dish was my favorite entree, and my third favorite after the tostilocos and the pumpkin semifreddo that you can read about in my next paragraph.  It was the brussels sprout tacos!  The dish was a “make your own” taco which I love when we have taco night at my house.  So, the layout was the brussels sprouts were on a really hot plate that you could not touch like a bibimbap bowl.  To the side of the brussels sprouts were lettuce leaves they were the shell.  Then, the rest of the plate had toppings on it; creme, radish, sour cream, crunchy corn sticks...etc.  I went all out. I took the lettuce leaf put brussel sprouts and all of the toppings on it.  The taco was delicious. It was smooth, spicy, and creamy.  The brussels sprouts were packed with a nice kick, that made me want to eat them all day long.  Just typing this paragraph makes my mouth water.  Before my dad and I went to Dirt Candy he kept saying how much he loved the brussels sprout tacos, so I waited all night long for them and it was well worth it.

Last, but certainly not least was dessert.  It was a pumpkin semifreddo pie with mango and chili.  The semifreddo was like a frozen pumpkin pie with a slab of crust under it which gave it a cool hip style.  I tasted like pumpkin ice cream and the mango and chili was a nice compliment with the pumpkin.  The crust was so good it was hard and flaky just the way I like it.  With the semifreddo we also had a mexican hot chocolate that we shared.  It was very heavy with a little bit of paprika in it and not watery at all. It was perfect.

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Overall I had a wonderful meal and would love to come back to Dirt Candy with my whole family including the new addition, Josie.    
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Halloween Treats

10/30/2016

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Halloween is a super fun holiday especially when you make treats. But when you cannot have treats because of allergies, that is not fun.  My brother has a tree nut allergy and cannot have the treats his class brings in because it risks him having an allergic reaction.  So I decided to make him treats that he can have and share with his class!  I was going to make him mummy Rice Krispie treats and if you have an allergy to peanuts or tree nuts this is a good recipe for you.

I started off by melting three tablespoons of butter on low heat.  I stirred them until they melted completely and then added a bag of mini marshmallows along with some rainbow sprinkles to add some color.  You want to keep stirring until it is completely melted before adding six cups of Rice Krispies.  Then, you want to keep folding the mixture until the marshmallows look like they are stretching the Rice Krispies.  After it looks like cobwebs, turn off the stove. Then get a pan and spray it with cooking spray.  Slowly start pouring the mixture into the pan.  You want them to cool so put them in the fridge for fifteen minutes.  When you take them out of the fridge, you want to put parchment paper over a cutting board. Then, you want to flip the pan onto the board and tap it a few times.  Lift the pan, and it should have come out nice and clean.  You next want to cut the treats into even squares. Heat up a bowl of chocolate until it is silky smooth.  After you heat up the chocolate, you want to take a knife and spread the chocolate on one side of the Rice Krispie treats. To add the finishing touch, cut a mini twizzler in half and stick the two pieces on the treat to make creepy eyes!  Keep repeating until you have finished all of them.  I hope you will use this recipe and enjoy it just as my family did.  Happy Halloween!!!!!
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Thanksgiving Dinner

11/29/2015

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For Thanksgiving this year we went to my cousin Rita’s house.  They decided to make a fried turkey this year which my cousin Bruce and my cousin’s fiance John were going to make. The first thing they did was get a big pot and put peanut oil in it. They were outside and it is important to be outside to make sure there are no fires.  I was excited and nervous when they were making it because it could have blown up, and trust me, I did not want that to happen.  Luckily, it did not blow up. After they got the oil boiling, they lowered the turkey into the pot, and then they had to wait for the turkey to be done.  In the meantime, my cousin Rita was making her special sweet potato fluff.  When you bite into the fluff it is the taste of heaven and coming from me that is especially good since I’m not a huge fan of sweet potatoes. First, you peel the sweet potatoes, and then you boil them until they are soft.  Then you've got to mash them up so they are soft, but not liquidy. Then what you will find below is the topping to this heavenly dish. This dish was so good that I learned how to make it the next night for my family. I got permission from my cousin Rita to post this recipe for you all to make next year for Thanksgiving. The recipe is down below if you would like to use it.

There were a couple of other side dishes we had, I had the green beans, mashed potatoes, and fluff.  The green beans were, so delicious, because they had this little bit of spice to them which made them irresistible I had at least five helpings of it.  It was the spice that was, so good that explains all of the string beans I had.  Next, was the potatoes, they were the creamiest mashed potatoes ever which was why I loved them the creamier the better for me.  The only other thing that I had was the fried turkey which was off the hook good. It was so crispy and oily (in a good way). Yummy!  Overall it was a delicious meal, and I really want to come back to Thanksgiving at their house next year again.  

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A Passover Seder - Chocolate Style!

4/3/2015

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Tonight is the first night of Passover.  Passover is a holiday to celebrate the freedom of the Jewish people from Egypt. The Passover seder is a festival meal.  Sometimes it can be boring for kids at the seder, so to make it more fun, grown ups throw special kid seders.  At my Hebrew school, they make it more fun by throwing a chocolate seder for kids.  The seder is all about chocolate.  Chocolate prayers, chocolate matzah, chocolate seder plates, chocolate everything.  To start off the seder, we said our first prayer about chocolate, then drank our first sip of chocolate milk.  After we said our prayer, we had the dipping of the strawberry in the chocolate sauce.  Then we broke the chocolate covered matzah in half the bigger half of the chocolate matzah would get hidden for the afikoman.  The smaller piece of matzah we would eat.  So, everyone at my table just started grabbing at the matzah and just handed it to everybody.  After the chocolate matzah, we told the story of the four different kids and their opinion of chocolate.  Then we tried all of the different types of chocolate: white chocolate, milk chocolate, dark chocolate (my favorite type of chocolate), and baking chocolate.  When I tried the baking chocolate, it tasted so bland. It was terrible, I think everyone who tried it would agree with me.  Next, we did the chocolate four questions and four kids read them aloud.  After the questions, we made s’mores and we were allowed to take candy from a different table so everyone went crazy.  People filled their plates with candy and and put chocolate seder plates in their mouths.  It was really nuts.  While everyone was being crazy, they went around with raffle tickets.  Then, everyone got settled down and we did the raffle.  The prizes for the raffle were two giant gummy bears on a stick, a giant rice krispie bar, and a five pound Hersheys chocolate bar.  One of my neighbors Josh won the giant chocolate bar. After the raffle, we did our last prayer and left.  I can’t wait to go again next year.
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A Very Special Valentine's Day

2/21/2015

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This Valentine’s Day was really special.  The morning of Valentine's Day, my dad didn’t get me an ordinary present.  He got me flowers.  That might seem like a really ordinary present for Valentine’s Day, but they were roses.  But not just regular roses. They were bacon roses which is the best present a bacon lover can have! Then my dad and I decided to make a special Valentine’s Day dinner for my mom.  We looked up some good recipes for a surf and turf.  We decided on a Moroccan styled theme.  We decided to make lamb and shrimp.  First we seasoned the lamb with salt and Ras el hanout.  Ras el hanout is a Moroccan spice blend which reminded me of Indian and French spices.  For example when you smell the Ras el hanout you could smell the paprika because paprika was in it.  It also had cumin, cinnamon, ginger, coriander, turmeric, black pepper, cardamom, allspice, mace, white pepper, rosebuds, nutmeg, cloves, saffron, and bay leaves. After we rubbed the spices on the meat, we put it in a plastic bag and added prunes and honey.  Then we put the bag in a vacuum sealer to seal the bag. Once the bag was sealed, we put it in our Sous Vide Supreme machine.  The Sous Vide machine will cook it for two hours the way we want it to be cooked without overcooking it.  It has water in it and the water is heated to the exact temperature we want the meat to be. Once the machine had the right temperature, we put the bag in. Many restaurants cook using machines like this so that when you cut into the meat it will be the perfect color you want.  Then we peeled carrots because we were going to make carrots along with the shrimp and lamb.  After we peeled the carrots, we made a paste to put on the carrots.  The paste was made out of butter, maple syrup, and harissa sauce.  Harissa sauce is a Moroccan pepper sauce and it will give the carrots a kick while the maple syrup gives it sweetness.  After we got the paste on the carrots and got them in the oven we had to do the shrimp.  So, we got the shrimp and cleaned them under water. Then we put it in a bowl with scallions, lemon zest, ginger, garlic, and sesame oil.  Then, I mixed it all together with my hands and then I smelled the bowl and said, “Dad, come over here and smell the bowl, it smells amazing!”  My dad came over and smelled the bowl and called out for my mom and they thought it smelled amazing too.  After that, we put it in a plastic bag and did the same thing we did to the lamb.  Then after we did the vacuum sealer, we put the shrimp in the Sous Vide machine and took the lamb out.  For dessert, my mom made chocolate lava cakes. I helped by melting the chocolate.  After we finished the shrimp and did the finishing touches we were ready to dig in.  When we sat down I tasted the lamb it was sweet and really tender.  Then, I tasted the shrimp and it tasted the way it smelled and the carrots were soft and sweet.  Then, after we ate and cleared the table, my mom brought out dessert.  When I sliced through my chocolate lava cake, a puddle of chocolate came through.  When I tasted the cake it was dense and rich.  I hope that we all remember this lovely dinner. I hope that everyone else had a cool Valentine’s Day like me!

Here are links to the recipes we made:

Moroccan Lamb Chops with Prunes and Honey
Baby Carrots Glazed with Harissa and Maple Syrup
Shrimp with Lemon and Ginger
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Valentine's Day Truffles

2/9/2015

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It’s getting close to Valentine’s Day and, in my house, Valentine’s Day treats are a big deal.  So, we decided to make truffles this year. There are only a few ingredients: Oreos, cream cheese, and melting chocolate.  You could also add sprinkles if you want to. First, we crushed Oreos and we had to get them really crushed, so it took a couple minutes. Then, we added cream cheese and mixed it really well with our hands until it was a dark color.  We rolled them into balls and put them into a bowl. While my brother and I were making Oreo cream cheese balls, my mom melted the chocolate in the microwave.  My brother was done before me with making his chocolate balls. The melting chocolate had been sitting out for a few minutes. That stuff dries quickly.  So, when my brother dipped the truffle in the chocolate it was stiff, but it still worked out fine. When it was my turn to dip my truffles in the chocolate, it was the exact opposite of what happened to my brother.  My truffles had been sitting out too long, but not my chocolate.  So, we had to put my truffles in the fridge and make another batch of melting chocolate.  Instead of putting the chocolate in the microwave, we put it in the double boiler on the stove. A double boiler is used so that you don’t have to put the chocolate in water. You put it in a pot above water so it melts. We mixed the chocolate in the double boiler until it got smooth.  Then, we took the truffles out of the refrigerator and applied chocolate onto them.  After that, we added sprinkles and put them in these cute little cupcake wrappers and we were done! Try this recipe for Valentine’s Day for a little extra love. We learned this recipe from our friend Amy Justiniano. Please keep up with my next few blog posts about my exciting adventures in Vietnam.      
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Passover Latkes with Peepa

4/20/2014

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A lot of people celebrate Easter, but my family celebrates Passover. Every year we have a Seder with a lot of food. This year, we had a Seder with my dad's side of the family. I know this may sound crazy but my great-grandma is still alive! For Passover, she came over to teach me how to make latkes (potato pancakes). We are changing it up and doing our first video instead of a regular blog post! Hope you like it!
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Baking with Grandma: Hamantaschen Time 

3/16/2014

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You might not know this about me, but I want to be a pastry chef when I grow up. That’s why I try to bake a lot. I am Jewish, so that means I celebrate Jewish holidays. The holiday that’s coming up is Purim. We bake because there is a bad guy in the Purim story called Hamen and we eat hamantaschens because Hamen’s hat was shaped like a triangle. We eat them to get the bad thoughts away. 

So right before Purim, my grandmother and I made hamantaschens. First, my grandma rolled out her handmade dough. Second, we cut the dough into circles. Then we put jelly in the middle of the circle. We picked a lot of different jelly flavors. First, we used Knotts Berry Farm Boysenberry preserves. Next, we added apricot preserves. Then we added prune jelly and lastly we picked chocolate chips. The final step, we baked them overnight. 


Last of all, we ate them. MMMM! They were delicious. Even if you are not Jewish, you can try this and celebrate Purim, which is on March 15th and 16th.

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    My name is Jordan. I am a 12th grader and I love food!

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