Category Archives: Recipes

American, Poultry

Roast Chicken with White Bean Stew

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Beans, beans
Good for your heart
Beans, beans
GREAT for your heart!
— from the “Bean Cafe” skit on SNL

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We had finished gorging on the heavenly porchetta from Roli Roti at the San Francisco Ferry Building Farmer’s Market. Now we came to the real reason for going to the market – Rancho Gordo‘s heirloom beans :

After talking with the Ranch Gordo bean evangelists, Annie bought several packets of different kinds of beans, including kindney beans, Navy beans, and their most popular seller, Cannellini beans. We brought them home, and Annie found a recipe on Epicurious that she decided to adapt. Continue reading Roast Chicken with White Bean Stew →

Noodles, Pork, Tofu, Tomatoes, Vietnamese

Bun Rieu Cua

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Here’s a tip for any would-be bloggers out there: never say you’re going to blog about something "coming up next." You’re just setting yourself up for serious trouble when Murphy strikes you with a serious case of writer’s block.

It’s been a month since I put in that darn scrolling marquee, proclaiming the soon-to-be posted memoir of our visit to Scott’s Seafood. I thought it would motivate me to keep up with the regular posting. Instead it has been mocking me the whole time.

"C’mon already! What, can’t even put two sentences together? Neener neener neener!"

Bleah. I’ve gotta get over this funk. And the only way to do it is just get posting again. So, I’m going to put the Scott’s Seafood post on the back burner and pull something up to the front burner. A post that has been waiting just as long as the Scott’s Seafood post to see the light of day, but at least hasn’t been thumbing its nose and blowing raspberries at me.

Continue reading Bun Rieu Cua →

Bakes, Vietnamese

Pandan Waffles

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We all know waffles, right? A light, slightly eggy cake cooked in a waffle iron so that it’s crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. We enjoy it with a pat of butter and real maple syrup. Some people eat waffles with fried chicken as a savory Southern twist.

The Southeast Asians put their own twist on the waffle by adding a bit of pandan extract to the batter. Pandan, or screwpine, is a tropical plant that has fans of long, green leaves that, when cooked, imparts a sweet, pleasingly fragrant aroma to whatever it is cooked with. We used whole pandan leaves to infuse our nasi lemak coconut rice dish.

Here’s a pandan waffle recipe that makes a delicious breakfast, snack or dessert so good, you won’t want to stop eating them. It is a tried and true recipe, something we make quite often. The recipe comes from food blogger Andrea Nguyen of Viet World Kitchen, who is the author of “Into the Vietnamese Kitchen“.


Continue reading Pandan Waffles →

Egg, Tofu, Tomatoes

Tofu, Tomato and Egg Scramble

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Sometimes, you look in the fridge and you just don’t know what to cook. There are the usual basic ingredients in there, plus some ingredients that have been partially used up for other dishes. But what can you do with that?

For Annie, it’s all instinct. Or, “simply hantam“, as she calls it.

Here’s how she came up with this “Tofu, Tomato and Egg Scramble”
Continue reading Tofu, Tomato and Egg Scramble →