Bacon? Yes. Hot sauce? Yes, please. What SoCal family doesn’t have a stash of Tapatio in their fridge? Well, you should. It’s not as hot as Tabasco, and adds just the right kick. Feel the burn indeed.

ingredients:
6 eggs
2 slices of bacon
2 Tablespoons mayonnaise
1 Tablespoon pickle relish
1/8 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2 Tablespoons Tapatio hot sauce

First cook the bacon (I use the oven – recipe here) until crispy. Let drain, then crumble and set aside for later.

On to the eggs! Carefully place your eggs in a pan. 6 will fit in a saucepan, you are going to slice them in half eventually to get 12 to serve. Gently cover the eggs with about 1-2 inches of water.

Bring the pot to a boil – obviously watch it, don’t go far it will be boiling before you know it. Once it reaches a boil, turn the heat OFF. Cover with a lid, and let it sit there for 12 minutes.

Prep a bowl filled halfway with ice water, set aside. When the 12mins are up, drain the eggs and place them in the ice water to cool. Keep them in the fridge til you are ready to use them.

Once the eggs are cooled crack and shell them. If there are little pieces of shell stuck I like to run the egg under water and then dab it with a paper towel.

Cut the boiled eggs in half. Pop out the yolks into a small bowl, set the whites aside.

In the yolk bowl add the mayo, relish, onion powder, paprika, lemon zest, salt and pepper.

Using a small spoon scoop the yolk filling back into the egg white pockets. Top with the crumbled bacon, then add a few drops or five – of Tapatio sauce.

These are deviled eggs with a little something extra, your party will never be the same.

I saw these in The Manga Cookbook which has a bunch of great recipes, but more importantly they are EASY.

The thing that caught my eye about these were how cute and SIMPLE they were, using very few ingredients – and you can make a momma and a hatchling! I think these eggs would be so cute for Easter!

ingredients:
eggs
black goma (sesame seeds)
1 carrot

If you are afraid of boiling eggs, don’t be. You don’t need a special boiler or one of those floaty things that tells you when it’s done – just do it the old fashioned way, plain and simple.

Carefully place your eggs in a pan. (I usually do 6 in a saucepan, if I do more I use a large pot.) Gently cover the eggs with about 1-2 inches of water.

Bring the pot to a boil – obviously watch it, don’t go far it will be boiling before you know it. Once it reaches a boil, turn the heat OFF. Cover with a lid, and let it sit there for 12 minutes.

Prep a bowl filled halfway with ice water, set aside. When the 12mins are up, drain the eggs and place them in the ice water to cool. Keep them in the fridge til you are ready to use them.

Once the eggs are cooled crack and shell them. If there are little pieces of shell stuck I like to run the egg under water and then dab it with a paper towel.

Now to prep the other ingredients let me first tell you, quite obviously you won’t need a whole carrot. Just an itty bitty tiny piece. Cut a slice of carrot, cutting out a small wedge shapes. Set aside.

As far as Black Goma is concerned finding black sesame seeds can be hard, but usually an asian market would be your best bet. You can find them online too.

For the momma chicks:

Take a toothpick and poke two holes for eyes. Place the black sesame seeds in.

Poke a hole with a toothpick and insert the carrot for the beak.

For the baby chicks:

This time slice the egg in half – carefully so you don’t tear the yolk – then do the same for the eyes and beak.

So simple, it’s hard to not want to make an army of baby chickie eggs!

I wanted to do something different for Easter Cupcakes so I started sketching some ideas. One that stuck was using cookies along with the cupcakes. (I guess it’s still on my mind since I just did that with Praline Cupcakes.

I thought it’d be cute to have little cutout bunnies peeking out of ‘grass’ in a flower pot. (yet another one of my cupcake ideas revisited…)

They turned out just as I had hoped and as always the cookie + cupcake combo was deeelicious!

ingredients:
cupcakes (I used fresh strawberry cupcakes: recipe, here)
buttercream
green gel dye
bunny cut out cookies

Use any sugar cookie recipe and cut out bunny shapes, bake cookies and let cool.

While the cookies are cooling I made a simple mixture of powdered sugar and water, with a touch of gel dye.

Using a clean paintbrush (I have a set just for baking) I painted the ears and the face.

For the eyes I used the same technique with the paintbrush just using cocoa powder, powdered sugar and water. Set aside the bunny faces to dry.

Bake your cupcakes and while they are cooling tint your buttercream green. I didn’t want fancy piping, I just wanted it to look like crazy grass, so I frosted them then tapped at the top with a spatula until the frosting became spiky.

I added more green to the leftover frosting and added touches here and there = that gave contrasting grass colors.

Place the frosted cupcakes in the ceramic pots. You can get these at your local craft store for under a dollar. These 2″ pots are the perfect size.

Instead of just jamming the cookie in the cupcake, I cut a small slit so the cookie will be stable. Not too deep, just enough so the cookies sit nicely.

Carefully place the cookies, being careful not to break the ears off!

I added a few sugar flowers and wafer leaves which make the flower pots even cuter. Once the cookies are in you are ready to serve!

These would make cute little place settings for a lovely easter brunch!

I love Valentine’s Day because I love pink and I love hearts – it’s also a perfect time for sweets. This year I made some old favorites with a twist:

I made my Neapolitan cookies but used TEENY cutters and cut out little hearts. They look so good in the pan but unfortunately they spread like crazy…

They are still cute but it makes me want to use a miniscule cutter next time to see how small I can really get these things.

I also made up some M & M cookies but used the ‘Valentine’s mix’ which means pink, red and white. Cute idea but the M & M’s don’t show up that well. Doesn’t matter, they were still delicious.

Then I made mixed boxes of red velvet cupcakes and chocolate cupcakes. I just love how the white and brown look together with the little hearts.

Who knows if people appreciate all this work, but I had fun making all of it. Now what holiday is up next…?

Neapolitan cookies recipe, here.
M&M cookies recipe, here.
Chocolate Mascarpone cupcakes recipe, here.

Eating soba noodles on New Year’s Day is supposed to guarantee you long life. Hm. So much for ‘an apple a day’, I guess.

Anyway, I took the kids to the Japanese American National Museum where they had an ‘Oshogatsu’ New Year’s Day celebration. They showed the kids how to put together a bowl of soba noodles and then the kids got to eat it too! Not bad for a FREE museum day.

ingredients:
12-14 ounces dry soba noodles (buckwheat noodles)
dipping sauce
nori (dried seaweed)
green onions
kamaboko (fish cake)
cucumber

sauce ingredients:
2 cups dashi (soup base)
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup mirin

First make the dipping sauce, put the dashi, soy sauce and mirin in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Turn off the heat and cool. Quite honestly – I’m not gonna be a stickler here – you can get a bottle of dippin sauce for like two dollars at the Japanese market if you are so inclined. I won’t say nothin’.

Fill a large pot with water, approx 4 – 6 cups. Bring to a boil. Add the dry soba noodles and stir – usually this take only 2-3 minutes. Drain the noodles well and rinse with cold water.

You can top the noodles with anything really. Cucumber cut small, nori cut into fine strips, sliced kamaboko. Shredded chicken or char siu works too. (See somen salad recipe.)

Put some soba into bowls, top with the toppings you like and add a small ladle of the sauce. You don’t want a soup, you just want your noodles to be wet. Aaaaand…eat!

New Year’s Day for Japanese Americans is a BIG deal. You are supposed to cook for days – lots of different good luck foods – to ensure that everyone who eats them will have a prosperous new year. Yeah but what about the poor sucker who has to make it all?? Er, that’d be me. And yeah, it’s not easy.

My friends and family all love to celebrate Oshogatsu (Japanese New Year’s Day) but no one wants to do it, of course. I enjoy taking on the the task for some reason, and every year I try to outdo the year before and see how many dishes I can make. Maybe I’m trying to hedge my bets with the ‘good luck food’, that this year will be better than last. Next year I’m scaling back, um, honest.

I always make some traditional foods, some party foods, and some just cause they taste good foods – and of course, lots and lots of desserts.

So here’s all that I made for New Year’s Day – here’s to hoping for a good 2010.

Honey Shoyu chicken wings
Root Beer pulled pork
O.G.’s flank steak
Shrimp & Bacon salad
Lumpia
Potato Salad
Spam Musubi
Somen Salad (noodles – for a long life)
Tazukuri (teriyaki fish – for a prosperous year)
kuromame (black beans – for health and success)
kurikinton (sweet potato w/chestnuts – for wealth)
gobo (burdock root – for a strong family)
edamame
kamaboko
tofu
Ozoni (traditional new year’s day soup)
Broken Glass Jello
Pink mochi
Green tea cupcakes w/mascarpone strawberry frosting
Red Velvet cupcakes

**some photos by foodlibrarian

New Years Day is coming – I’m resting up for two full days of cooking. A big part of my Japanese New Years party is mochi. Mochi is a traditional Japanese rice cake – it can be sweet – but on New Year’s it’s plain, eaten with kinako or soy sauce+sugar.

In the old days my family used to pound mochi by hand with mallets. THAT’s old skool. Me? I use the new electric plugged in machine with very minimal work on my part because I live in the future.

I recently went to thefoodlibrarian’s house where they used old school machines to make their mochi. They’ve been doing it for 40 years and they’ve got the process down – steaming the rice, extruding the mochi, cooling the mochi, forming the mochi, letting it sit in a bed of mochiko flour, and then finally packaging it. We made over 250 pounds of mochi. Unbelievable.

It was a lot of work but so worth it. There’s nothing as good as fresh mochi!

Who can resist a tree made of chocolate? Buche de Noel do not have to be complicated. You can make a simple one with whipped cream rather quickly – and everyone will think you spent hours doing it!

Filling ingredients:
2 cups heavy cream
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup Valrhona cocoa powder
1/2 Tablespoon espresso powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Cake ingredients:
6 egg yolks
1/2 cup white sugar
1/3 cup Valrhona cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
6 egg whites
1/4 cup white sugar
powdered sugar for dusting

Make the filling first. In a large bowl, whip cream, powdered sugar, cocoa powder, espresso powder and vanilla. Start slow, then whip up good. This happens quickly, so watch it! Keep it in the fridge while you move on to the cake.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Prep a 10×15 inch jellyroll pan with parchment, lightly buttered.

In a mixing bowl, beat the egg yolks with 1/2 cup sugar. Carefully add the cocoa, vanilla, and salt.

In the bowl of an electric mixer whip egg whites to soft peaks. Slowly add the 1/4 cup of sugar, and beat until whites form stiff peaks. Go nuts! You want peaks baby, peaks!

Quickly fold the cocoa mixture into the whites.

Pour the batter into the jelly roll pan – using a spatula to even it all out.

Bake for 12 to 15 mins depending on your oven. Now, get a CLEAN dishtowel and dust it with powdered sugar. Turn the warm cake onto the towel. Peel back the parchment paper.

Now, roll the cake up with the towel. What you are doing is trying to form the rolled shape. Let cool in the rolled up towel for 20- 30 minutes.

Set aside about 1/3 of the filling mixture to frost the outside of the cake. Carefully unroll the cake, and spread the other 2/3 of the filling on top – keep to 1 inch of the edge of the cake. This is to prevent the ooze factor. Now roll the cake up again. Quite obviously NOT with the towel.

If you REALLY want it to look like a log, cut off about 3″ off the end of the cake – at an angle. Place that piece along the side of the log. What you are doing is trying to mimic a branch. Don’t ask why. Why are you eating a cake in the shape of a log in the first place, you know? Don’t ask.

Place seam side down onto a serving plate. Frost with the remaining frosting. You can make cute woodsy patterns if you like. Decorate with berries, or meringues and just refrigerate until you are ready to serve. Dust with powdered sugar before you serve it to look like a little snowy scene. This is an impressive dessert that takes very little time!

Just take the original recipe and make it CHRISTMAS-Y!

ingredients:
2 small boxes strawberry jello
2 small boxes lime jello
1 can sweetened condensed milk (Like Eagle or something, got it?)
2 envelopes unflavored gelatin
water

In a bowl, dissolve the strawberry boxes of jello into two cups of hot water. Pour into a flat tupperware. In a separate bowl, dissolve the lime jello into two cups of hot water. Pour into a flat tupperware. Chill the two containers overnight.

Ready a 9×13 pan. Cut the two jello flavors into small blocks. Mix together carefully in pan.

In a separate bowl, dissolve 2 envelopes unflavored gelatin in 1/4 cup cold water. Add dissolved gelatin to 1 3/4 cup hot water and condensed milk. Cool.

Pour cooled milk mixture over jello and chill overnight.

These colors look so nice for the holidays, you’ll have a festive christmas dessert table!

The kids wanted to decorate gingerbread. So I made up some dough and got out my GIANT 10″ gingerboy cookie cutter, which makes a pretty nice sized cookie. Lots of surface area for decorating!

I made up some royal icing and let the kids have at it.

The Baby went wild with the candies and was more interested in eating them than actually decorating.

I made up some Batman faces to stick on top of them, the idea was to totally Batman-them out in black and yellow, but I saw how much fun the kids were having just going whole hog with the candies, so I got caught up in the fun. They turned out not so much Batman – more like creepy Candyland. Still they were delish, then again, cover anything head to toe in candy and you can’t go wrong.