What I've making this past month

Wow! It's been more than 2 months since I last post. I've started a couple of post but never finished them. The restaurant has been taking up most of my time these days. Been posting to the restaurant's FB and blog mostly. Trying to keep the restaurant's readers interested.

I'm trying to keeping my hands busy with some simple knitting, bread making and jam-craziness. Weekend are to fill the dessert case. Been wanting to test a few recipes. Here's a few pictures of what I've been cooking.

Chi chi dango

One of my favorite food blog, JustJenn, just posted a recipe for chi chi dango. I was trying to make this for Girl's day but lost steam after my trip to the market to get a few supplies (they changed the aisles around). For those who haven't had this, it's a japanese rice flour sweet, chewy like mochi. So I guess I got my second wind and made a batch, tinted pink for girl's day. Only one day late, not that bad. It was delicious but it make so much gave most of it away.

Tsubu-an

Or red bean paste. Been trying to see how hard this was to make. We use at the restaurant for the shave ice and the canned stuff is quite expensive. Found a recipe from Just Hungry blog for Not-so-sweet tsubu-an. So not bad, just have remember to soak the bean. Maybe this could be Sunday morning chore. I want to try and use some to make some an-pan--sweet bread with red bean filling. I want to try and add some apple to it to see what it is like.

Sweet Potato Pie

I found some cheap sweet potatoes at the market and wanted make up sweet potato pie with shortbread crust. I used my mom's pumpkin pie recipe, which I loved because it so custard-y. I tried this before with some sweet potatoes freshly picked from the farm (someone at the office got some and she game me a bunch). Oven roasted potatoes, roughly mashed them and mixed in to the cream-y custard-y mix. So delicous even better than pumpkin.

Soda Bread

I'm not a real fan of this. Most of what I've tried has been dry and not too tasty. But I'd thought I'd try this recipe from King Authur's flour site for American Irish Soda Bread. I forgot to take pictures of it but this is a great recipe. Most definitely need to add the caraway seeds. We served it with our St. Patrick Day dinner special.

Lemon Bars

After a conversation with ever so young waitresses about the lemon bars I brought in the other day, I remembered it was one of the first things I baked by myself out of my Peanuts Cook Book. You know one of the books you buy from school. You still can get it on amazon. I can't remember if there were a success or not but these from Smitten Kitchen are great and so easy. I would make the thicker one, the filling/shortbread ration is perfect.

That's all for now. I have so much more to share. I just need a moment to write and that is very rare these days. Next up my knitting projects.