Shoyu Pork
Shoyu is the Japanese word for soy sauce, and Shoyu Pork is a Hawaiian plate lunch staple. This is a version that I put together for my crock pot ’cause I had many important things to do. Like sit on my couch and watch Cake Boss…
The smell that fills your house will bring you joy forever. Well, for a few hours anyway.
ingredients:
one 3-4 pound pork butt
1 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup mirin (sweet rice wine)
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup water
4 slices of ginger
In a small bowl combine the soy sauce, mirin, brown sugar and water. Stir until the sugar is dissolved and set aside.
Butcher down your pork into pieces, I’d say about 2-1/2 to 3″. Keep some of the fat to cook along with the meat, you’ll take it out before you serve it.
Cut your ginger into slices, about 3-4 is all you’ll need and sliced about 1/4″ thick.
Place the pork in the crock pot and pour the sauce over it. Add the ginger slices, pushing them down into the mixture. Set the pot on low for 6-7 hours.
The pork will get a very dark brown as it nears the end of the cooking time, it should be tender and fall apart. It is GREAT served with hot white rice and some mac salad – voila, my own in-house plate lunch!
Cream Cheese filled Pancakes
While *I’m* not a fan of cream cheese – my cheese lovin’ son IS. And since breakfast is also his fave meal of the day, I made up some pancakes filled with sweetened cream cheese. The touch of lemon zest adds just a little kick of freshness. The perfect send off for the first week of school.
ingredients:
2 cups flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
pinch of salt
1 Tablespoon brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 egg
2 Tablespoons cream cheese
1 Tablespoon softened butter
1-1/2 cups milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup cream cheese
2 Tablespoon powdered sugar
1 Tablespoons lemon zest
In a small bowl stir together the cream cheese, powdered sugar and lemon zest. Set aside.
In a medium bowl combine the flour, baking powder, salt, brown sugar and cinnamon. Add the egg, butter, milk and vanilla until just combined.
Set your pan to medium high and add touch of butter. Watch the heat, you know how *I* am about my pancakes!
Ladle out the pancake batter. Add a dollop of the cream cheese mixture into the center of the pancake…
then top with more batter.
Once the bubbles start to pop, carefully flip the pancakes and cook the other side.
You can top these with syrup or strawberries, and you’ll be please to find a creamy center to brighten your morning!
Birthday meal
Today is my birthday.
If I were to plan and cook the perfect meal it would look something like this:
Root Beer Pulled pork sandwiches
Pasta Salad w/Buttermilk Fried Chicken
Coffee and Donuts cupcakes
Hey, it’s my birthday I can have TWO desserts in one!
Now, to get someone ELSE to cook it. Kids…where are you going?
Sanrio Cafe
I write a lot about Hello Kitty food experiences here: the VIP party for the 35th anniversary, the Hello Kitty Kawaii Tea, etc. So I thought I’d tell you where I went recently…
Last week I went to Hawaii and instead of spending time with my family and freiends, I drove straight to the Sanrio Cafe. Ok, not exactly – but I was pretty excited. I love Sanrio and try to regularly make Hello Kitty cupcakes, chocolates, Hello Kitty oreos all on my own – but here, the Cafe was doing all that an more.
Located in the Pearl Ridge shopping mall, there isn’t much around here. At first glance you’d think it was just a regular ol’ Sanrio store, but right on the corner is a tiny storefront.
When I say tiny, I mean this place was TINY. No tables or chairs, just a walk up register. There were sandwiches and coffees, but of course the desserts were the first thing I looked at. So many cute things!
Hold on to your horses, I took a lot of pictures for you…
These desserts were just the right size, TINY. Just the way I like them.
Could you die? Little chocolate Keroppis – just like the Hello Kitty ones I attempted! These were so cute, I need those molds!!
Cutest brownies ever!
OF COURSE the mochi caught my eye – you know I love mochi - I wanted to take some back to L.A. but seeing as how it had a very short shelf life, I knew it wouldn’t make it home. ~sigh~ Next time.
Instead I went for a little dobash cake. So tiny and cute. The cafe had a great array of desserts, I wish I could have tried them all. And here’s a tip for people who follow my blog – the Cafe has lots of neat hard to find Hello Kitty cookie cutters/kitchen items! So all those cupcakes I’ve made…yeah, there’s more to come for sure!
I went back a few times during my trip (how could I not?!) and the desserts seemed to change every day which was pretty neat. This is a cuteconcept that I think would do great in other cities across the country. Hopefully they’ll open one on the mainland!
Root Beer Chicken
I think you know I live and die by root beer. I drink it, I cook with it, I bathe in it…no, wait. Even if you don’t love root beer (what’s wrong with you) the root beer just adds to the flavor of the chicken and doesn’t overpower it. Plus it gives a nice caramelization when the chicken is baked.
ingredients:
8-10 chicken thighs
1 cup root beer
1 cup ketchup
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
1/4 cup orange juice
2 Tablespoons maple syrup
1 teaspoon minced ginger
2 cloves garlic, minced
salt
pepper
In a bowl combine the root beer, ketchup, lemon juice, orange juice, maple syrup, minced ginger and garlic.
Put the chicken pieces in a large freezer bag and pour in the marinade ingredients. I always put marinating meats in freezer bags in ANOTHER pan, you never know if that thing is going to leak! Let the chicken marinate in the fridge for 4-8 hours, however long you’ve got.
Drain off the marinade and lay the chicken pieces in a baking pan. Don’t reuse tainted marinade people, ew! Salt and pepper the chicken to season and then cook at 375 degrees for 30 minutes covered in foil. Take off the foil and cook for another 25 minutes.
This is a nice sticky chicken with a lot of good flavor. Really easy to make when you’re in a hurry!
Stewed Chicken + Tomatoes in the crock pot
This is a great quick dinner that you can throw together in the morning and come home to without a care in the world. Warm and flavorful, you’ll look forward to dinner being fully prepared!
ingredients:
8 chicken thighs
1 onion, chopped
6-8 tomatoes cubed
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons onion powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon oregano
14 ounces chicken broth
1 cup water
Fresh tomatoes straight from the garden make a world of difference. I know not everyone has access to that – but wow, the flavors are amazing. Luckily a little Fairy dropped off an abundance of them on my doorstep.
Place the chicken thighs in the bottom of the crock pot. Add the diced onion, minced garlic and then the tomatoes.
Sprinkle the onion powder, salt, pepper and oregano on top.
Pour the chicken broth and the water along the side of the crock pot wall, carefully not to disturb your spices too much.
Cover and cook and low for 8 hours. Serve this over rice.
The smell of this cooking all day will fill your house with deliciousness. My kids love the fact that the chicken is so soft and moist. A great meal with virtually no prep or clean up!
Onolicious Chili
In my old Hawaii cookbooks I came across a recipe for ‘Ono Chili’ only it didn’t give actual measurements for the ingredients! ~sigh~ so I cobbled together my own version and you know what – no kidding, this is some ONOLICIOUS chili! (I’m sure using three meats has a lot to do with it…)
ingredients:
4 slices of bacon
1 Portuguese Sausage
1 pound ground beef
3 stalks of celery
1 medium onion
1 bell pepper
1 28 oz can stewed tomatoes
1 14 oz can tomato sauce
1 can kidney beans
2 Tablespoons vinegar
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
2 Tablespoons Chili Powder
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
2 bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
Hold on to your heart attacks – 3 different kinds of meat? Yes. Chop the bacon into small pieces – (I like to do this raw so I don’t have to chop it afterwards – up to you) cook in a large stock pot until crispy, set aside and drain.
Drain off the fat from the pot, then in the same stock pot, brown up the Portuguese sausage – this is a Hawaiian staple and will add so much flavor. Brown the Portuguese sausage, then drain and set that aside.
Drain the stock pot of excess fat AGAIN, then go ahead and brown the ground beef until no longer pink. set THAT aside – there’s a lot of setting aside going on here.
Drain off the excess fat from the pot just one more time. Add the celery, onion and bell pepper. Cook until soft.
In a small bowl combine all the seasonings so you can just throw them in evenly later: bay leaves salt, pepper, chili powder, brown sugar, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, stir together and then set aside.
To the onion mixture add the stewed tomatoes, kidney beans and tomato sauce. Stir.
Add the seasonings you’ve mixed together, as well as the three meats: bacon, Portuguese sausage and ground beef. You can see how it’s starting to get some really nice flavor combinations going already. Cook on a low simmer for 1 hour.
I usually like to make recipes simpler to follow, but all these steps lead to a really fantastic tasting chili that is well worth the chopping and setting aside – great for cool summer nights!
Cap’n Crunch Treats
Everyone makes Rice Krispy treats, sure. But I like to change it up sometimes and the colors of the “berries” (yeah, right) in the Cap’n Crunch make this treat pretty festive.
ingredients:
1 bag of large marshmallows
2 Tablespoons butter
pinch of salt
6 cups Cap’n Crunch Crunch Berries Cereal
Grease a 9″x13″ pan with melted butter. Set aside.
In a large pot heat the marshmallows and the butter. Once it starts to break down and melt, add the pinch of salt. Stir up this sticky mess and once it is all combined fold in the cereal, careful not to crush it.
Once the cereal is coated in the marshmallow mixture, pour it into the prepared pan. Push down to even it out flat, and let sit to cool. Cover with plastic wrap until you are ready to serve. Then cut into squares.
These are definitely sweeter than your traditional rice cereal treats, but they are a yummy colorful alternative!
Hello Kitty – Tippy & Cathy cupcakes
Since the Hello Kitty chocolate heads were a bust (har har) I decided to go simple and make some very easy fondant toppers. I always tell people, working with fondant CAN be easy. You don’t have to go over the top with it, a lot can be said with a little. While it’s true, I do work with brightly colored fondant, (case in point: Superhero Cupcakes) sometimes you can convey an image simply…with white.
I made up a batch of Ovaltine cupcakes, which were delicious of course, but so dark. I wanted to play up the dark and light aspect of them and be subtle with the cuteness.
I took some plain white fondant and just used cookie cutters to cut out ‘Tippy’ and ‘Cathy’. (Those are Hello Kitty’s friends, for those in the know. I know entirely too much about Sanrio, obviously.)
The size was perfect to top a cupcake and the image wasn’t over powering, just clean and sweet. Exactly what I wanted.
I hand frosted some cupcakes, no piping just freeform – with chocolate frosting and some with cream cheese frosting just so that the box had a nice balance.
Well defined cookie cutters are great for fondant work especially if you don’t want to spend hours cutting by hand.
These would be great for a tea party! A classic black and white with just enough fun to make you smile!
Sweet Chili Sauce Burgers
I had this Sweet Chili Sauce
ingredients:
1 pound ground beef
1 clove garlic, minced
1/3 cup Sweet Chili Sauce
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
Sweet Chili Sauce
In a bowl mix together the ground beef, garlic and sweet chili sauce. Add the salt and pepper to season.
Form the meat into patties. When I make burger patties I like to slightly indent the center so that it cooks evenly with the outside edges.
Put the burgers on the grill and cook to your likeness.
I like to serve these on King’s Hawaiian rolls not only because of the size, but also the sweet bread compliments the chili sauce flavor really well. Sure these are perfect appetizers but I serve them for dinner!
