Before there was bubble tea

Tapioca pudding has long been a "thing." For whatever reason, the tapioca rounds have a very pleasant mouth-feel for me (and my older son who is a fussbudget about food sometimes...he never used to be as a little kid).

It's not hard to make but does involve an extra step of whipping up egg whites which always seems like a pain in the butt to me, so I don't make it often. But when we have 12 dozen eggs in the fridge, I break down and make some tapioca pudding.

whisking egg whites

the main mixture with tapioca pearls, milk, and egg yolks

folding yolks mixture with egg whites makes for a fluffy pudding

We get Bob's Red Mill tapioca which has a recipe on the back of the package but I imagine there are tapioca recipes elsewhere.

Do you like tapioca pudding? If so, do you have a favorite recipe?

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

That's how I roll

I've made sponge cake a number of times to use in place of store-bought ladyfingers for tiramisus, but I'd never attempted a jellyroll before. I was inspired by watching The Great British Baking Show (I am so in love with that show) to try making one. Although it started out fine, it turned out...just okay.

folding meringue into yolk mixture

shiny, captain!

pulling a Cleopatra

 I put Costco's orange-mango jelly in the center and it tastes fine, but the roll wasn't tight enough and the skin had stuck to the towel it was rolled in (not enough icing sugar, I suppose), so it looked like it was recovering from a bad sunburn. *sigh*

less than picture perfect

If I make this again, I'm going to make cream roll so I can put chocolate frosting all over the outside to hide the ugly parts. Hah.

Have you ever made jellyroll before? Do you have a favorite recipe?

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

Coconut Cheese Pie

First of all, before we get to food -- yes, I'm cruel -- I want to put in a plug for my wonderful, talented, and amazing sci-fi critique group captain, Russell James. This guy is so creative and prolific, he really writes circles around anyone else I personally know. For only 99cents, you can get a few hours of wondrous adventures of the imagination with his latest anthology, Outer Rim.

And now, what you came here for...Coconut Cheese Pie!

1 1/2 T butter, softened
2 2/3 C (approx) coconut (I used shredded but I'm sure you can use flaked)
4 eggs
1/2 C sugar
1 8-oz package of cream cheese
3 T lemon juice

Spread butter evenly over the bottom and sides of a 9" pie pan. Press 1 1/3 C of the coconut into the butter, forming a shell. Place 1 C of the coconut, the eggs, sugar, cheese and lemon juice in a blender or a food processor. Blend until smooth. Pour into the coconut shell. Sprinkle remaining coconut in a ring around the top and center. Bake at 325F for 30 minutes. If the coconut on top browns too fast, cover with a circle of aluminum foil.

Serve warm or cool; refrigerate leftovers.

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

Chocolate Coconut Bars, a drool-fest

I am honestly losing my mind. I could have sworn I posted this recipe before, but a search turned up nada.

Per several requests on Facebook, I am sharing this recipe which is one of my favorites: it's easy to make, always turns out, and tastes amazing. Those of you with coconut aversions, I'll see you next week. ;)

Chocolate Coconut Bars - adapted from Martha Stewart's website

3 C finely ground graham cracker crumbs
3/4 C unsalted butter, melted
1 C chopped pecans
1 C semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk
1 C shredded coconut (I use unsweetened, but you can use sweetened if you like)

Preheat oven to 375F. Lightly splash a 15"x10" rimmed baking sheet with water, then line with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, stir together crumbs and butter until combined. Evenly press onto bottom and up sides of the baking sheet. Bake, rotating halfway through, until firm, about 10 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and cool for 20 minutes.

Spread the pecans and chocolate chips evenly over the cooled crust. Drizzle the condensed milk over the pecans and chocolate to completely blanket crust (but not over the edges). Sprinkle coconut on top.

Bake until coconut is toasted, about 10-15 minutes. Transfer to rack to cool completely.

Hope you'll like this as much as my family does!

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

The Trip, Part 2: The Food, the Bad, and the Ugly

Let's start with the Good stuff, and go down hill from there.

My sister treated us to a lovely lunch at Salmon House on the Hill in West Vancouver. Ds#2's mushroom ravioli was to die for (don't ask how I know, but let's just say that I'm not above shoving a child out of the way to get to good food), but the dessert was equally amazing. Here it is, the tiramisu of your dreams:
Because there is a huge Italian population in Vancouver (this is especially for Diane), we can get some great Italian food. If you think this looks great, you should see the duck prociutto. Mmmm.

The guys walked nearly every day to a gelato place, Dolce Amore, which is about 15 minutes from my parents' place where we stayed. Here's the sampling from one evening: blackberry/cherry, menta, and passionfruit.Aside from the lamb kebabs we ordered at the Afghan Horsemen, ds#2 ordered an appetizer sampler which included hummus and sabzi mast (a spinach dip):Other good things to have in Vancouver are seafood. One night we went to Monk's Upstairs for dinner, and I ordered sole, which came with roasted purple potatoes, beets, and sea asparagus:Ds#1 ordered mussels:Ds#2 ordered oysters:A visit to see my parents would not be complete without some roast meats, the most popular of which is roast duck (the top hanging carcass; the bottom ones are chicken):Also a must have is dimsum. I believe outside of Hong Kong, the best HK-style dimsum is to be found in Vancouver.
And now for the Bad (I apologize in advance for grossing out the vegetarians in our midst). 3 guesses as to what this is:
Anyone who's seen Bizarre Foods on the Travel Channel will recognize it as swallow's nest, or as I like to call it, bird spit. Talk about gross and not environmentally friendly.

Other weird things that Chinese/Asian people eat? How about boneless chicken feet? As if regular chicken feet isn't strange enough. Chicken feet not your thing? How about pig feet, then? We had this pig feet dish at a Shanghai-style dimsum place:If animal extremeties don't appeal to you, then they've got internal parts to offer. How about tripe? It's just offal! (Sorry, bad pun!)
Lastly, we have the Ugly category. At the Granville Island market, ds#1 took some photos of things that aren't very attractive. I'll only share one here:

Speaking of ugly, although we didn't eat it, here's a leopard slug we came upon on one of our hikes to Lynn Headwaters:To finish up on a "happy" note, here's one of the interesting signs at the food court at Crystal Mall in Burnaby, a suburb of Vancouver:
"To accomplish great things, we must dream as well as act." ~ Anatole France (1844 - 1924)