I Am... The Saveur Best Food Blog Awards
I'm the kind of girl who talks a LOT. In fact, my first ever report card had a lovely note for my parents to interpret at will: Stephanie talks too much during circle time. I haven't changed much. I still tend to talk too much, both in and outside of circles. Of course, words elude me when I become overly emotional. At that point, my words dry up and the tears start to flow. It's happened to me many, many times, but the most recent time was so spectacularly public that I'm turning a bit red even writing about it.
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I Am... Green Bean Avocado Fried Rice Recipe
Have you ever had Chinese long beans? They're kind of like green beans, but super-long. They're a bit denser than green beans, not as crisp and a bit nuttier. I absolutely LOVE them, especially when fried up with eggs.
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I Am... The Best No-Knead Cinnamon Roll Recipe
Okay, this is going to sound crazy but my mom doesn't like cinnamon. She basically deprived me of a childhood filled with cinnamon toast, snicker doodles and cinnamon rolls. Thankfully for me, I discovered the good stuff at the mall where I would shamelessly line up again and again for the free Cinnabon samples. Those were the carefree days of samples without the question of, "Where's your mommy?" The days before constant parental supervision, rampant allergies and lawsuits.
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I Am... Sriracha Honey Lime Chicken Recipe
The weather's warming up and long weekends are on the horizon. You know what that means...grill season! I know I say I love a lot of things, but I really, really love summer barbecues. I guess I'm being slightly deceptive though because this isn't actually a grilling recipe. That's not to say it can't be for the grill though – the basic recipe is: cook your chicken, then glaze it with a sweet, spicy, tangy sriracha-honey-lime mix.
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I Am... Vietnamese Quinoa Salad Recipe
I'll take any excuse to go out and have a picnic. There's something about eating out in the open air that reminds me of carefree summer days. I'm not too picky when it comes to packing food for a picnic. Sometimes Mike and I will just grab a couple of bags of chips and a blanket and stroll on over to our neighbourhood park and have ourselves a snack outside. Sometimes we'll get a little more elaborate and actually bring out real cutlery and dishes, but more often that not, we'll just wing it.
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I Am... Oven-Roasted Eggplant with Caramelized Miso Recipe
This recipe is brought to you from Easy Gourmet, my first ever cookbook! You can preorder it here: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books-A-Million and Indie Bound. I am a huge eggplant fan, but it wasn't always so. As a super picky kid who would only eat soy sauce and rice, eggplant seemed like it was the worst vegetable ever. I totally didn't get why my mom and dad would always order eggplant when we went out for dinner. The couple of times my mom forced me to eat it, it tasted...slimy and kind of weird. It was definitely nothing to get excited about.
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I Am... The Best Enamelware
I get tons of questions about my favourite kitchen goods. In "The Best Series," I highlight my faves. I LOVE enamelware. It's durable, classic, easy to clean and super-versatile. You'll see enamelware pop-up time and time again on I am a Food Blog. There aren't too, too many enamelware companies out there - the most well known, for good reason, is British-owned Falcon. They've been around since 1920 and their classic pie set is something I truly covet. I have a couple of plates that I brought home with me from London (I use them ALL THE TIME) and if the luggage space was available I think I would have gone a little crazy. There aren't any Falcon stores on this side of the pond, but Falcon ships internationally and in the US, Pigment ships as well. Update: As Molly as pointed out, anthropologie has a red pie set on sale :)
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I Am... Caramelized Shrimp Pizza Recipe
I think pizza is one of those perfect foods. (Along with noodles, potatoes and bread. I'm a carb fiend, what can I say...) I'm pretty sure I could eat pizza every day, especially since it lends itself so nicely to variation/experimentation. I topped this no-knead beauty with some Vietnamese caramelized shrimp because I'm still on the shrimp on pizza train.
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I Am... Lamb and Peas Lasagna Recipe
I have an obsessive personality, I admit. I'll binge watch TV shows, speed-read dystopian teen novel series and spend hours googling the heck out of things like different dumpling doughs. And although I find these things immensely interesting and immersive, I can kind of understand how it makes conversation a little hard at times.
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I Am... Egg and Avocado Breakfast Taco Recipe
I like to make up dishes while I'm standing in front of my fridge in my pajamas. As much as I LOVE grocery shopping (I've been known to go to the store multiple times in one day) I also fly wildly to the other side of the spectrum and let the grocery shopping go so long between trips that the fridge only has eggs and random sauces. Not that I'm complaining. As long as I have eggs I'm a happy camper. When you have eggs, you can basically make ANYTHING.
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I Am... Sweetened Condensed Milk Recipe
I LOVE sweetened condensed milk. It's partially nostalgic and partly because it's just so delicious. How could you not love milk and sugar? I could eat it by the spoonful, but the way I use condensed milk most is in coffee. What's a girl to do though, when you don't have any condensed milk in the fridge or pantry and it's 3 am and there's no where to go for your coffee-sugar fix? (Don't ask why I need coffee-sugar fix at 3 am ...)
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I Am... Shiitake Quinoa Salad Recipe
I LOVE mushrooms. Mushrooms are pure earthy, umami deliciousness. I just don't get people who don't love mushrooms. If you're a mushroom hater it's probably because you haven't found your spirit mushroom cooking method. See, even though all mushrooms essentially have the same flavour, they taste texturally different based on how you cook them. Braising them makes them tender, roasting them can make them crisp or tender, and pan frying them, when you do it right, turns them into perfect little salty, crispy bits of goodness. They kind of turn into a mushroom chip and they're awesome on their own, but even better when paired with quinoa.
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