I’m not sure how to continue this blog… even though I started it out of my passion for food & photography, it also became an archive of the foods that Chris and I had explored and eaten together, whether cooked in our own kitchens or consumed in our quests for new & interesting culinary expeditions. So along with the pictures, there is a history of our relationship too. We are no longer together…and it’s difficult trying to figure out how to transition certain things (like this website) forward by myself without erasing the archives.

For now, I will let the archives remain. Not sure what the future holds yet, but I will try to continue posting because this site was something I enjoyed tremendously updating in my spare time. The only way that I found myself able to come back here was to use a new template (tweaked a bit) to sort of “start afresh.”

To end this post, I leave you with a picture of a gummy hamburger that my brother’s girlfriend, Sue, bought for me at her local Asian grocery store. I was feeling very down and it was a little gesture that cheered me up.

Very cute, no?

And I would recommend taking the burger apart to chew each section. Unlike me, who popped the whole thing in my mouth and tried to chew it entirely. Not a good idea.

After the last cheesecake post, this is another one….. I swear, I don’t eat cheesecake everyday!

It was my brother’s girlfriend’s birthday this past weekend and for her birthday cake, he picked up a red velvet cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory.

The cake had layers of cheesecake and actual red velvet cake, which was a nice touch because the overwhelming rich cheesecake flavor was not too much. The white chocolate shavings on the outside were also very yummy! I love white chocolate!!!

Chris and I split this piece because I know that a big slice of these Cheesecake Factory cheesecakes often run 1000 calories a slice!!!!!!!!!!! That’s just nuts…

One of the perks from Chris’ job is that he gets occasional gifts from vendors. For the upcoming holidays, he got a huge cheesecake! It was flown in from Chicago and packed with dry ice! When he first told me that they had given him a cheesecake, I thought it was a packed slice, not an entire cake! Though, the cake was pre-sliced… as pictured below.

The cheesecake was creamy but not too rich tasting which was quite enjoyable! We are normally not big cheesecake fans, but this was yummy.

Right before Thanksgiving, I showed Chris the guest post on Pioneer Woman’s blog for Pumpkin Leche Flan and he immediately (and very excitedly) said, “Let’s make it!” I had no idea that he loved flan so much! It’s not exactly a dessert I look forward to eating, though I don’t necessarily mind it too much.

We didn’t have time to try it for T-day, but accomplished it the following Sunday. Hah, we even braved the outlets on that busy shopping weekend to buy a set of ramekins just for the flan!

Honestly, I was a little skeptical about attempting flan because it seemed way too complicated and involved techniques that we don’t normally do in the kitchen. But this is all about trying new things together! In the end, we found that this recipe is pretty darn easy.

Warning: This is going to be a long post with photos!

First up, making the caramel. Um, we had to make-do with a nonstick calyphon frying pan because we didn’t have a sauce pan. But hey, it worked!

The corn syrup and sugar bubbling up..

We were afraid of burning the caramel (and the pan) so we did it slowly over medium heat (instead of medium-high). It took awhile before the mixture started to brown and actually look & smell like caramel.

Voila! This is the first time that I’ve ever had homemade caramel. So much better right out of the pan than the gooey crap in stores.

We quickly poured the hot caramel into six 6oz ramekins. (I couldn’t find 8oz ones)

While the caramel cooled and hardened in the ramekins, we got working on the pumpkin mix. Instead of a strainer, we decided to use a cheese cloth instead.

Look at all that gunk left behind on the cheese cloth! We strained it 4x before the mixture looked very smooth.

Time to pour the mixture into the ramekins! I lined a casserole pan with a dishtowel as suggested. This is to ensure the ramekins do not get too hot from directly touching the pan.

Wrapped each ramekin individually tightly with aluminum foil before pouring in a hot water bath (not pictured). Then into the oven for 35 minutes!

And here is a ramekin, right out of the oven! It was jiggly but firm enough for us to know that it was done cooking and time to sit in the fridge.

After sitting in the fridge for 2-3 hours, we ran back to the fridge and inverted one of the ramekins out onto a plate. Beautiful! And it tasted delicious too! Before making this flan, I was not a big fan of said dessert…always tasted way too rich and sweet, but this was just perfect. The sweet smokiness of the caramel added such a nice flavor to the pumpkin flan.

Look how awesome the top looks! The hardened caramel had melted and infused into the pumpkin flan while in the oven. Y’know, I never really knew how flans had that caramely top until now. Was always a mystery!

Taking the first bite…

Mmm it was rich (but not overly) and so creamiliscious. The pumpkin flavoring was very subtle. Next time, we will try a regular vanilla flan though.. just to see the difference.

Two big thumbs up! This was not only fun to make, but the end result was pretty and delicious. Mucho kudos to IvoryHut (the guest contributor on PW) for thoroughly explaining each step of the way. This helped to ease my intimidation of making what appeared to be such a delicate dessert.

During a visit to his grandma’s one week, Chris had mentioned that he loved her Rocky Road bars. Then, on our next visit she brought out a container of them for him to take home!

Very yummy and oh so rich… chocolately with a hint of peanut butter. They taste awesome with a glass of milk or eggnog.

Bagels for breakfast! Chris and I split two different bagels so that we’d each have a half of each. Top is a toasted everything bagel with regular cream cheese. Bottom is a toasted cinnamon raisin bagel with strawberry cream cheese.

I ate the regular one first so that I could savor the sweeter one. Also, it probably would’ve messed with my tastebuds eating it the other way around.

A very pretty fruit tart pie that my sister-in-law brought over for Thanksgiving. It was a nice treat and not too heavy on our stuffed tummies.

I love what she did with the sliced peaches!

Normally for Thanksgiving, I buy frozen rolls and bake them in the oven. But this year… one of my favorite food bloggers posted a recipe for buttered rosemary buns that baked in a cast iron skillet. The pictures and description made it sound SO awesome. Plus Chris and I had bought our first cast iron skillet a couple months ago and have been trying to use it more often in our cooking endeavors.

I did run into some glitches trying to find frozen pre-baked roll dough at the supermarket though. Very aggravating.. I eventually found them at a different store Thanksgiving morning, but the dough was ROCK SOLID FROZEN! So I actually bought alternative already cooked rolls as a backup, thinking there was no way the dough would thaw and then have time to rise before lunch would be served.

The dough was bought at 7am… and surprisingly, by 10am, it had thawed out just enough for me to use. I followed the recipe and placed them in the skillet under a cover to rise for a couple hours. We have a much bigger skillet than the one PW used, so I placed 13 balls of dough.

Around noon, when everyone was just about to eat, I put the skillet in the oven. The dough hadn’t risen as much as it could have, but I thought it would be okay. And it was!

And the result… (I removed the buns from the skillet, as it was scorching hot and not something I wanted to place at the table.. even with a plate underneath):

The buns didn’t come out looking like PW’s, but the taste was probably very similar! Buttery with the fragrant rosemary.. and the coarse salt was a great addition!

LOVED this recipe and will make it again and again and again!