Study Break at Otafuku

Being cooped up in a depressing apartment all day studying began to have an effect on me and Lilly, so we decided to take a break and go look for something delicious to eat. Having heard about takoyaki from a friend, Lilly suggested we go to a little hole in the wall in the East Village called Otafuku. I've never had takoyaki before, I only knew that they were some form of Japanese octopus ball, so I didn't know what to expect. But oh my goodness was it delicious! I now know that it's like a fried round pancake made with batter, diced or whole octopus, tempura scraps, pickled ginger, and green onion. It's topped with a okonomiyaki sauce, mayo and katsuobushi(fish shavings). Does it sound odd? Yes, maybe a little, but when you bite into it, you're mind will change. It's short of gooey from the batter and salty and a little sweet from the okonomiyaki sauce.
I'm not too sure how to describe it, but if you're ever near St. Marks and in need of a snack (I imagine this would be delicious at 3 a.m. after a long night of drinking) visit Otafuku!
Note - there's not much of an ambiance though. It's a hole in the wall with a little bench inside and minimal decor. Their other stuff looks great too, I'll have to do some more sampling next time!

Otafuku
236 E. 9th Street, New York NY 10003 (nr. 2nd Avenue)

Pumpkin Chocolate Chunk Bars

I live in a dorm, and sometimes they host events that promise free food! Most of the time, the offerings are quite dismal, but there are a few that totally exceed expectations. The one I went to a couple of days ago was one of the most underwhelming. I was lured by the promise of good coffee and delicious baked goods. What I got was mediocre coffee and a boxful of Entenmann’s Donuts. I guess I shouldn’t complain though, since it was all free. But I was still disappointed. Me and Lilly were craving something sweet and delicious and this did not satisfy us at all. Lesson of the day: don’t have high expectations or you will surely be disappointed!
When we got back to our apartment, we were quite depressed. So, I decided to make these delicious Pumpkin Chocolate Chunk Bars. And believe me, these were delicious. We ate them so fast that the whole trayful was gone by the next day. There were a total of 36 bars….I only have 3 other roommates!!!
So yea, they really hit the spot. And they made the apartment smell like fall! I got the recipe from Cook Woman Food but adjusted it to what I had. The bars were a bit cakey, which I have no complaints about. But if you want something a bit more chewy, I would either omit or lessen the amount of baking powder and soda in the recipe.
I used chocolate chunks, but you can use chips. The chunks just make it seem more chocolatey. I added vanilla extract because vanilla just belongs in baked goods. I also lessened the amount of sugar from 1.5 cups to 1 cup and added 3 eggs instead of 4 (because I only had 3 eggs in my fridge). In addition, to lighten it up, I substituted ½ a cup of oil with ½ a cup of applesauce (trust me, it works!).

Below is my version of the bars, but if you would like the original visit CookWomanFood.

Gather all your ingredients and preheat that oven to 350*!


Sift the dry ingredients together in a large bowl


It's like snow!


In a seperate bowl, combine your wet ingredients.


Mix Well!


Add the dry to the wet and stir until just combined


Add in the chocolate!! Yumm, you can be assured that a handful missed the bowl and landed in my mouth. Whoops!


Pour into a greased 10x15 baking pan and bake for 35-40 minutes at 350*F


Cut them into bars or whatever shape you like!


And eat them like they're gonna disappear right before you're eyes,because trust me, when people smell them, they will disappear very very quickly!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chunk Bars
(makes about 36 bars in a 15x10 pan)

2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
3 eggs
1 16 oz Can of Pumpkin
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
½ cup applesauce
2 cups semi sweet chocolate chunks
1. Combine the 1st 5 ingredients. Set aside.
2. Mix together eggs, pumpkin, sugar, and oil. Beat well. Add in the dry ingredients, stir just till combined, but don’t overmix!
3. Stir in chocolate chips.
4. Spread in a greased 15 x 10 pan. Bake in a 350* oven for abbut 35-40 minutes.

These bars are great unadorned. But you know what? I wouldn’t be opposed if you decided to top it with cream cheese frosting. Oh how I love cream cheese frosting!!!! Too bad I didn’t have any on hand=(

This is Lilly.


I think she ate half the tray!


Sneaky girl!

Potatoes...yummm

Oh potatoes how I love thee. Let me count the ways! Fried, baked, mashed, smashed.... However it's prepared, I will eat them. I just bought a huge ass bag of potatoes so I'm trying to think of creative and delicious ways to cook them. Any ideas? The other day I made Garlicky Oven Fries=)
Potatoes and Garlic. Together - they are magically delicious. Drizzled with olive oil and baked in the oven? Crispy and scrumptious strips of awesomeness! I used 6 potatoes and 8 cloves of garlic for this recipe (yes I reallllly love garlic). It can probably feed 5 people as a snack. But me and my two roommates devoured these in 5 minutes and we still wanted more!
I got the recipe from The Purple Foodie. She uses cornstarch, which I never would have thought of! It makes the fries more crunchy=) So if you have a craving for something crunchy on the outside but soft on the inside and delicious all over, try this recipe out!

Garlicky Oven Fries (from The Purple Foodie)
8 garlic cloves, minced
6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
5 Medium sized potatoes - (I used Idaho but whatever you have is fine)
3 tbsp cornstarch
1 1/2 tsp coarse sea salt
1 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
½ tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

Preheat oven to 475° F.
Combine the garlic and oil in a large bowl, warming it in the microwave until the garlic is fragrant, about 1 minute.
Transfer 5 tablespoons of the oil (leaving the garlic in the bowl) to the baking dish, coating it well.
Add the potatoes to the bowl with the garlic mixture and toss to coat. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and microwave on high power until the potatoes are translucent around the edges, 3 to 6 minutes, shaking the bowl to redistribute the potatoes halfway through cooking.
Combine the cornstarch, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and cayenne in a small bowl. Sprinkle over the hot potatoes and toss well to coat.
Arrange the potatoes in a single layer on the prepared baking sheet and bake, turning once, until deep golden brown and crisp, 30 to 40 minutes.

I love eating my fries with plain old ketchup, but if you want to get upscale try what I did. I mixed mayo with a bit of lemon zest, lemon juice salt and pepper. The citrusy notes go well with the slightly spicy fries.

Enjoy!!!

Name Change!

Just to update you guys in case you haven't noticed, I changed my blog's name. I thought Baking and Beauty was a bit too tame. So now, it's officially The Bitchin' Kitchen!

Lemon Crisps(??)

So the other day, me and my roommate both had an intense craving for something sweet. We didn’t have chocolate to make chocolate chip cookies or brownies, but we did have all the ingredients for these very simple Lemon Crisps. I saw the picture for the recipe on Tastespotting and I just could not resist. The photo was so cute. The recipe is from Whisk Kid. She calls them Crisps, but I feel like they only stayed crisp for a little while. They were crispy around the edges and soft in the middle. I think they tasted better the next day though because, although they lost the crisp, they got a lot chewier. My roommates devoured them HELLA FAST!
They are topped with a delicious lemon icing, making the cookies twice as lemony! I piped the icing onto the cookies using a Ziploc bag but you can just drizzle for a more free form look! Feel free to add more zest or juice if you like your cookies extra tart, I know I do! The sweetness of the icing balances it out=)

For the cookies (courtesy of Whisk Kid)


1 stick unsalted butter, room temp
¾ c sugar
1 egg, room temp
1 ½ Tbsp lemon juice (I just used the juice of half a lemon)
1 ½ Tbsp lemon zest (I used the zest from the whole lemon)
½ tsp vanilla
½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp soda
¼ tsp salt
1 ¼ c flour
Preheat oven to 350F.
Cream together the butter and sugar, then add the egg, juice, zest and vanilla. Sift in the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Drop by rounded tbsps onto lined baking sheets and bake 10-12 min until lightly golden around edges. Let cool on sheets one minute before placing on racks to cool completely. Makes about 2 dozen.

Lemon Icing
1 c icing sugar
4-6 Tbsp lemon juice
Just beat together and drizzle over cooled cookies!

Enjoy!!

Broke in the City -_-

It really sucks being broke in New York City. *tear* I returned at the beginning of September for my Sophomore year and things have been pretty (culinarily) depressing.
The first couple of weeks were ok, but then I ran out of money! *tear* So i ate eggs and kimchi for a long ass time. Like, seriously, it was a fried egg and some kimchi almost everyday. I switched it up some days though and experimented with kimchi soups, kimchi/egg sandwiches, and kimchi fried noodles/rice. But for a couple of weeks, it was just that combination.
Then I went back to California for my brother's wedding! I was so happy and I ate so much food! I honestly don't know how I managed to cram in pho,my daddy's chicken congee(chao ga), seafood noodles (hu tieu) and vietnamese sandwiches (banh mi) along with morning wedding food and two wedding dinners all in the span of 3 days. I seriously did not stop eating. And I was so happy! Not just for the food, but to see my family. I feel like I'm more homesick this year than I was last year. I really missed my daddy and I honestly did not want to leave him again. At that moment, flying back to NY meant being broke, deprived and overall just a little bit sad.

Now that I'm back, I stopped eating kimchi! But that doesn't mean I'm any better off. I flew back with a 70lb suitcase full of food. And since then, I've been mainly living off of it. Have you ever had cha lua? It's a vietnamese steamed pork sausage and it's so good. I love it! SO much that I bought back 8 rolls of it! =) I've managed to eat 2 within the past week but I need to pace myself so I can make it last till christmas. I have 6 rolls sitting in my freezer right now.

So this time around, my diet consists of cha, eggs, noodles and cereal. Yep, one can manage to live off of $12 a week haha. There have been some surprising culinary moments though! For example, the other night, I made these surprisingly good soup noodles that tasted almost like home. It was inspired by a dish my dad makes called bun thang and is basically noodles in broth topped with egg, pork sausage and chicken and flavored with fish sauce. I did not have chicken and I did not want to defrost the sausage in my freezer so I made do with eggs and tofu. It's very affordable to make and quite delicious! If you are vietnamese like me, this could seriously bring back intense feelings of homesickness. The ingredients, as always, are approximate and are really based on your preferences.

Ridiculously Cheap Homesickness Inducing Bun Thang
Ingredients
2 Servings of a noodle of your choice.
Traditionally, vermicelli rice noodles are used, but if you only have instant ramen noodles, go ahead!

For the soup:
1 tsp ginger, minced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 of a small onion, sliced
2-3 Cups Chicken broth (mine was homemade but any will do)

For the topping
1 egg (made into an omelet)
1 Block of firm tofu, cut into thin strips
Fish sauce
Sliced Green onions, chopped cilantro, and fried shallots if you have any!
Lime, chili, and additional fish sauce if needed

For the noodles
- Boil the noodle of your choice in a pot of water according to the package instructions and rinse and drain.

To make the soup base
- pour a bit of oil in a small soup pot and fry the garlic and ginger and onion till fragrant and slightly browned.
-Pour in the broth and season to taste with fish sauce and pepper.

For the topping
- Crack an egg into a bowl and season with pepper, fish sauce, and a little bit of milk(for fluffiness).
- Fry into an omelet in a pan and when cooled, cut into strips.
- Oil a pan liberally and when hot, throw in the strips of tofu. As they begin to crisp up, toss in some fish sauce (about a small spoonful) and fry till it is golden brown and crispy.
- Allow to drain on a paper towel.

To assemble
Place a serving of noodles into a soup bowl.
- Pour broth in and top with the egg and tofu.
- Garnish with the green onions and cilantro
- Season with chili and a squeeze of lime, if desired


Enjoy!