As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, we went to Japan for about 4 weeks three years ago. It certainly isn’t a cheap country to travel in, so for breakfasts, and sometimes even for a small lunch, we would often go to the 7/11. This isn’t as shameful as you may imagine. At lunch time, they were always packed with local business people getting a quick and tasty lunch (7/11 sushi in Japan is better than most sushi restaurants elsewhere! I swear!).
We couldn’t bring the majority of our pantry staples with us when we moved. The movers warned us that any bottle with liquid in it was liable to explode on the way to Calgary because of fluctuations in temperatures, so as much as it was hard (and costly) to part with all of our jars and cans, no one wants fish sauce all over their things. As a result, I was ‘forced’ to go wild when it was time to re-stock our kitchen with the basics. For all of our Asian ingredients we made an excursion to T & T, a giant Asian supermarket with everything I could ever hope for. One of the things we picked up was kimchi, which I’ve never cooked with before, and I had no idea what to do with it.
I know that it is already June and I should be wanting to cook all sorts of light spring dishes but the weather here in Calgary is anything but inspiring. It has been super rainy and cold the past couple of weeks so some comfort food was in order. You can’t really go wrong with chocolate (in my books at least) and I have been wanting to try out this new baking technique for a while, hence these half baked brownies.
A few weeks ago, I was making this cake for my boyfriend’s birthday (mostly because it was described as tasting just like nutella). The recipe calls for a whole bunch of ground hazelnuts, so I was using a blender to grind-away when I realized that the hazelnuts at the bottom of the blender were being pulverized and those at the top weren’t being ground at all (I guess that is why you need to use a food processor, but you have to work with what you’ve got, right?). I was pretty annoyed that I couldn’t even get the simple part of the recipe right, when I discovered that the hazelnuts at the bottom had actually turned into hazelnut butter. That is when all of my frustration melted away in nut-buttery goodness.