12AM Cravings

Food for the late night and hungry. Amateur cooks, travelers and foodies in the works.

[12amcravings]

Experimenting with Coconut Sugar: Breaking Bread

One of the tried and true banana bread recipes that the hubby and I really like is Sunny Anderson’s Secret Banana Walnut Bread. It’s such a versatile recipe that serves out a moist and delicious banana bread. Normally I follow the recipe pretty carefully since I’m not that great at baking, but this time around after having successfully baked the banana walnut bread many times before, I wanted to try something new. 

Something a little different.

I found coconut sugar at the grocery store. It’s still sugar, mind you, but it’s more natural with more nutrients found from a coconut palm than regular sugar or high-fructose corn syrup, the latter of which I try to avoid when pursuing this healthier lifestyle. 

The substitute is 1 for 1 which means 1 cup of granulated sugar in a recipe can be subbed for 1 cup of coconut sugar. 

Sunny’s recipe called for 3/4 cups of granulated sugar, so instead of using that I used coconut sugar. For the 2 tablespoons of light brown sugar, I used light brown coconut sugar. As it turned out, we ran out of walnuts at home since we ended up snacking on the last of them without even realizing it. Instead of walnuts, I thought: what if I made it a super banana-y bread? I had extra ripe bananas, so I sliced them up and just placed them on top of the batter once I poured it into the pan. 

End result? Super delicious banana bread, yet again! The coconut sugar tasted delicious in it and the bananas that I placed on top caramelized and created this nice, tasty crust. I highly recommend you try this recipe and the coconut sugars! I’ll definitely be experimenting a bit more now that I know it works on a tried and true recipe. 

Link to Sunny’s Secret Banana Walnut Bread: HERE

[12amcravings]

Making Grandma’s Dumplings Attempt #1

With the Lunar New Years around the corner, I wanted to do something special in honor of my grandmother who I was so extremely close with. I remember sitting in the kitchen on a high wooden stool watching her as she pulled a corn strach covered dumpling wrapper from the pack, expertly spooned the pork filling into the center and then folded the edges with quick hands. She sat each finished dumpling onto a tray. Each of them were nice and plump and when they were all lined on the tray, barely 6-year-old me thought they looked like “little couches.” 

I loved those dumplings. It wasn’t just the fact that it was delicious but the fact that my grandma put in that extra love and care into making each one. I really miss them after many, many years of not eating them so I wanted to do something special. I wanted to make a treat for her, especially when we honor our ancestors!

Granted, my version is hardly comparable to hers, but I did my best to emulate what I remembered. She makes her dumplings the traditional way by boiling them. And let me tell you, the type of dumpling wrapper does matter when you boil them. It’s important to get the right one! The Northern Chinese dumpling wrappers at the Asian market are the ones you want. Of course, if you’re like my grandma, she makes it from scratch unless she’s in a hurry. But as a novice and someone who is also balancing a full-time job, I figured taking a short cut this time around would at least allow me to concentrate on the filling. 

So! Without further ado...

Pork Filling Ingredients:

Ground pork

Green onions

Fresh ginger (minced)

Fresh garlic (minced)

Maggi Soy Sauce

Oyster Sauce

Rice wine vinegar (just a splash)

Salt (careful with the seasoning though because soy sauce and oyster sauce are salty)

Pepper

Corn starch (maybe about a tsp for each pound of ground pork)

The trick to making the pork dumpling filling sticky and elastic-y which is the consistency that you want for the fillings is actually quite simple. You just mix everything up into a food processor until the meat is nice and sticky. That’ll help it stick to the dumpling wrappers as well. 

Wrapping those bad boys are tricky. I wasn’t entirely sure how to do the folding technique so my newbie brain immediately went to the trick I learned when making raviolis in Italy: crimp that shit with a fork. Hey! It worked! When I boiled the dumplings, none of the filling came out. One thing I learned was that I can use a rolling pin to roll out the store-bought dumpling wrappers such that the edges are stretchier, making it easier to do the folding technique. Another thing I learned is that it may look like a lot of filling when I initially wrapped the dumplings, but it does shrink when I cook it. I can actually fill them up a little more. 

When you boil the dumplings, you don’t traditionally salt the water because the filling itself contains the salt. Additionally, we normally eat it with dumpling sauce (whatever variation you like), so we don’t want the dumplings too salty. 

My grandma used to make her sauce out of ketchup and soy sauce. That’s it. Crazy, right? But for these boiled dumplings, that’s the perfect sauce. Perhaps I’m biased, but you can’t blame a girl for loving her grandma’s cooking. 

[12amcravings]

The Magic of Air-frying Chinese Roast Pork!

The hubby and I love Chinese roast pork. You know the one with the extremely crunchy skin and the savory meat beneath it? At Chinese restaurants and barbecue places, these are so good but also can get extremely greasy. So how can we eat what we love while still maintaining our healthy-ish lifestyle? 

One of our favorite appliances in the kitchen is the air-fryer. It wasn’t even all that expensive from Target, but we swear by that little machine. We no longer needed any other convection oven. Heck - I don’t even need a toaster! Leftovers that we bring home and store can be air-fried back to the same crispiness as if we just bought it (sometimes even better if it’s something like leftover pizza). So the more we thought about it, why not try to air-fry this roast pork that is traditionally broiled in the oven?

One of the benefits of air-frying the pork is that the excess fat drips threw the basket and onto a tray. Unlike broiling the pork in the oven, it’s not sitting in its own fat so it’s certainly less greasier than the ones we buy from the restaurant (although those are absolutely delicious, don’t get us wrong). 

I was intimidated the first time the hubby showed me how to make this, but it’s all about quality ingredients, a little love, and a bit of time!

Ingredients and Tools: 

Nice cut of pork belly with the skin. Usually I get the size of about a large rectangular tupperware. 

1 tsp of 5 spice powder

1 tsp of white pepper

1/2 tsp kosher salt

Large coarse sea salt

About 2-3 tsp of Chinese cooking wine

A few splashes for white vinegar

Air fryer, of course (although this can be done in the oven at the hottest temp, but air frying is a lot easier)

Meat poker (or whatever the term is for it)

Process:

Make sure that the pork belly is clean and dry. I use paper towels to help ensure that it’s dry enough to work with! With the meat poker, you want to ensure that the poker only pierces the skin and does not go all the way through to the meat. The idea is to puncture some holes into the skin only so that when it goes into the air fryer, it’ll bubble up and get crunchy. This is a great way to take out your aggression because pork skin is rather tough (still, just be careful!) and/or get a nice decent workout in for your arms. We just had fun with it and went at the pork skin for about a few minutes. 

On your working surface, place some paper towels and flip the pork over so that the skin is on the paper towel. From here on out, you want to keep the skin as dry as possible. The paper towel will help absorb any liquids that we use so that it doesn’t touch the skin. 

Using the Chinese cooking wine, ladle the liquid over the meat/belly side of the pork and massage it into the meat. This will help get rid of that “porky” smell while at the same time make it easier for spices to stick. 

Mixing the five spice powder, white pepper and salt together, rub the spice into the meat. Do not season the skin. Make sure you rub the seasoning into every nook and cranny of the meat!

Once done, flip the meat over and wrap it up in aluminum foil, leaving the skin exposed so that we can dry it out in the fridge overnight. When wrapping the foil, leave a little wall as we’ll need that later. 

The next day when you want to eat the pork, take it out of the fridge and splash the surface of the skin with white vinegar. Rub it into the surface of the skin. This will help it cook more evenly. 

With the large coarse sea salt, add a thick layer on top of the pork skin and then place it into the air-fryer. We set it at 350F for 20 minutes with the salt. 

Then take it out, wipe out the salt crust and remove the foil so that you only have the meat. Then crank up the heat to 400F and air-fry for another 20 minutes or so to ensure that the skin puffs up and is crispy. Now, honestly every air-fryer can work differently. 

The results are honestly so damn good! I highly recommend you try it with the air-fryer! 

[12amcravings]

Low-Carb Apple Pie with Chia Seeds

Happy Holidays! Just because it is the holidays doesn’t mean we can’t eat healthy, especially when it comes to desserts. One of our favorite desserts is apple pie, but that pie has a lot of sugar both in the crust and in the filling. There are places that make it too sweet, and honestly sometimes I just lose the taste of apples and instead end up just tasting sugar. 

So, in an effort to continue our healthy habits into Christmas, we decided to make a low-carb, low-sugar version of apple pie. There’s not a lot of ingredients to this and it’s actually quite easy to make!

Almond Flour Pie Crust:

Ingredients:

2 cups of almond flour

3 tbsp of honey (I use the local, organic honey that I find at the farmer’s market)

1/3 cup of melted butter or ghee

A couple of pinches of salt

First, preheat your oven to 365 degrees fahrenheit. That’s the perfect temperature for my oven, but others might think that 350 or even 375 might be better depending on how hot their oven got. Basically you just mix all of those ingredients together until you get this nice little ball of dough. Sometimes when I mix this pie crust, I find that I may need to add a half-cup more almond flour (or just however much to make my pie crust less crumbly and more dough-y). Once I get it to the right consistency, I press it into a greased pie dish, making the bottom thinner than the sides. Just to help prevent your pie crust from poofing up, use a fork and just punch some holes all around. 

Bake for about 20-30 minutes until your pie crust is golden brown. The length of time really depends on your oven. Once done, take it out and let it cool to room temperature.

Apple Pie Filling:

Ingredients:

8 of your favorite apples, sliced (you can peel the skin if you want. I happen to like apple skin so I just kept them on)

Cinnamon

Brown coconut sugar

Chia seeds

Ghee

This is all done in a huge skillet for me. I use about a few tablespoons of ghee and melt it down before dropping in my apple slices. It might seem like a lot of apples but they do cook down. I sliced mine, but some folks might like thicker apple chunks. It’s honestly your pie so you can make it however you want!

Right as I toss in the apple slices, I add in about 1/4 cup of brown coconut sugar. Remember that you can always add sugar but you can’t take it out! So I start with a little and then add as I taste the apples along the way. The same goes with the cinnamon. I add a few good teaspoons of cinnamon and then add more if I want to along the way. 

Once the apples cook down, you’ll notice that there’s going to be a lot of water. You know how apple pies have that sort of sugary, almost gelatinous filling? Well... here’s a simple and healthy solution to get just that! Instead of pouring the liquid apple juice into your pie dish, I sprinkle a good helping of chia seeds to thicken it up. When soaked in water, chia seeds go from crunchy to almost this gelatinous sort of form, similar to that of regular apple pie. It’s a great, healthy alternative than processed ingredients. Turn the heat to simmer and then add the chia seeds.

After the chia seeds become gelatinous, remove the mixture from the heat and let it cool down until it’s around room temperature. 

Making the Apple Pie is easy as pie (haha). All you do is add the filling to the pie crust while they’re both at room temp (or just slightly warm). Smush the apples down so that the filling is nice and tight.

And there you have it! An easy, low-carb, low-sugar apple pie!

[12amcravings]

Meatless Monday: Hot Pot Night!

It’s meatless Monday and with it now being rainy and winter in California, we decided to splurge on a hot pot bowl and make some vegetarian hot pot. It’s a highly versatile dish that you can make many different ways! The soup base is entirely up to you, but here’s how we did it and the veggies that we served alongside it.

Soup Base:

Mirepoix (chopped chinks of carrots, celery and onion)

Asian vegetarian seasoning (it was something we found in the Asian market, but if you don’t really know what to look for, just find a vegetarian bouillon)

A few splashes of Maggi Soy Sauce to taste depending on liquid amount

Konbu

Smashed whole ginger

Medjool dates

Chopped or whole crimini mushrooms

Basically all you need to do is just combine all of the above with water, bring to a boil and then ladle the soup into the hotpot bowl. The hotpot bowl will keep it night and hot for you to dump your vegetables in. 

Ideas for Veggies to Serve Alongside:

Chopped Napa cabbage (a staple in Asian hot pot)

Crown daisy leaves

Oyster mushrooms

Enoki mushrooms

White beech mushrooms

Tofu sheets (it’ll come as a dry, dehydrated tofu sheets. All you have to do is soak in a tub of water until it re-hydrates. Then you slice it up and serve)

Glass noodles (it’ll come as dry when you purchase them. Soak it in a bath of water for at least an hour. Then when you’re ready to eat, throw it into your hot pot to cook)

Dipping sauce for the veggies that come out of the hot pot soup is literally just sesame oil (or sesame chili oil), salt and pepper.

For us, we had a lot of extra soup that we happily packed and used throughout the week. It was great as a pinch dinner when we were too tired after a long day at work. It’s now essentially a staple in our household!

[12amcravings]

Work Trip Mission: To Find Nashville Hot Chicken

During a quick trip to Nashville for work, we decided to make it a mission to try one of Nashville’s most famous dishes: hot chicken. There were two places that all the tourists ended up visiting: Hattie B’s and Prince’s. Of course, with us staying at Nashville over the weekend, we were definitely planning to hit up both.

It was cold for us Californians, but we took those damn scooters from Lower Broadway all the way to Hattie B’s. It might’ve only been a couple of miles (if even), but in the cold it honestly felt like forever. Was it worth it? We thought so! For our Hattie B’s order, we ordered a side of beans and southern greens, both of which were good and hearty but they weren’t the star of the night. The star was indeed the delectable and juicy fried chicken that was seasoned with spice seasonings that burned your tongue and kick-started your metabolism. The skin was nice and crunchy and we definitely took our time eating our hot chicken in order to savor every bite. And with the weather being so cold, hot chicken tasted so damn good.

The next day, we ended up getting lunch at Prince’s Hot Chicken which is located a bit outside of the downtown area. According to our Lyft drivers, Prince’s is more visited by the locals since the original storefront is located in a suburban area. Yes, we decided to take a Lyft all the way out to the suburbs in order to try this famous hot chicken place and yes the ride was totally worth it.

Now for Prince’s, one of the things I really enjoyed is just the story and family feel behind it. It felt less like a chain and more mom-and-pop which is something that the hubby and I prefer. Honestly, the story behind how Prince’s Hot Chicken was born was something that is both hilarious and endearing, and it made me want to buy a merchandise.

The portion sizes at Prince’s are larger than Hattie B’s. I thought I ordered a single chicken thigh, but it ended up being much larger than expected - not that I’m complaining! The spice level on my chicken was just perfect for mild. Yes, I’m a wuss and didn’t want to go much hotter than that with the main reason being that I still want to be able to taste everything else.

Overall? Both places are delicious and if you’re in Nashville, I highly recommend visiting them! Now I understand why people are crazy about some hot chicken... now I certainly am!

[12amcravings]

En Papillote: Chilean Sea Bass

Twas the night before Thanksgiving. We’ve done all the prepping for the big day, but we realized that we needed to still eat dinner. For us, it was important to eat as healthy as we could before the morning Turkey Trot 5K that we’ll be running. And so what’s better than one of our favorite childhood meals: steamed fish? 

The best looking fish at the store that day was Chilean sea bass so we figured why not splurge a little and spoil ourselves with some good quality fish? And when you have fish that good, you don’t need much more than very simple ingredients in order to really let the flavor of the fish shine. And so, here’s the recipe to one of our favorite dishes cooked in a different manner than the traditional Asian sense. We decided to cook in en papillote. 

Ingredients:

Chilean sea bass fillet

Coconut aminos (substituting for soy sauce)

Rice wine vinegar

Sesame Oil

Minced fresh garlic

Fresh ginger slices

Celery, sliced as seen in the picture

Green onions, chopped

Sliced jalapenos (optional)

Sauce: 

There’s really no measurement to it. It’s all just a matter of preference and taste so taste your sauce as you combine ingredients. Remember that if it tastes too salty, you can always add a little bit of water. Also remember that when the fish steams, the juices will also combine with the sauce to help mellow out some of the saltiness. 

Combine the coconut aminos, rice wine vinegar, and sesame oil (a little goes a long way for this one) and stir. 

Mince up the garlic and add to the sauce. 

Slice up the fresh ginger, jalapenos (optional) and green onions and also add to the sauce. 

Stir to combine and the taste test to make sure it’s to your liking. 

Procedures:

Preheat the oven to 375 F.

Take a good size piece of parchment paper and place the fillet of sea bass on top. Season with salt and pepper. 

Add the sliced celery and sprinkle it on top of the fish. 

Pour the sauce over the fish and make sure it coats the entire fish. 

Fold over the parchment paper and then wrap it around tightly so that there’s no way for steam to escape. I just roll the edges so that it’s tightly wrapped into a little package and it almost looks like an empanada.

Place on a baking sheet (just in case) and into the oven for approximately 20 minutes (more or less depending on the size of your fish). 

Once done, carefully pierce or open the package and serve the fish with rice or, if you’re eating low carb like me, with a side of vegetables!

[12amcravings]

Snickers Tart: Attempt #1

I said that I was going to post the good, the bad, and the ugly. The best way to get better, especially with baking, is to just simply practice. I learn a lot more from my failures than I do my successes, and my attempt at making a snickers tart is no different!

So it all started when I found a snickers tart recipe on Tumblr. Snickers happens to be the hubby’s favorite chocolate bar... so why not? The recipe called for a lot of butter and a lot of sugar, but as I was walking through the grocery store and looking for the ingredients that I needed, I stumbled upon some better alternatives than our traditional semi-sweet chocolate or brown sugar. I found brown coconut sugar and dark chocolate that is sweetened with Stevia leaves, both of which are great one-for-one substitutes. I also bought some local honey from the farmer’s market over the weekend, so I decided to use that instead of maple syrup. 

The recipe can be found here: https://fullcravings.tumblr.com/post/188929348458/snickers-almond-tart

Here’s what I learned when attempting to make the tart:

I fucked up the crust... almost... but it was saved! It’s no secret that I am not a great baker, but that doesn’t stop me from trying. I don’t have a tart pan so instead I just used a pie dish. When I first made the crust, I forgot to push it up the sides (stupid mistake, I know), so baking took forever. Funny enough, after I took it out of the oven, the dough was still buttery and moist enough for me to mold into a tart-looking crust so... yay!

The caramel came out way better than I thought! I was afraid of it the most because I’ve never made caramel before, and it’s something that I’ve seem people mess up. The brown coconut sugar worked really well, so if you ever want to try and substitute for a healthier alternative, try brown coconut sugar.

I definitely fucked up on the chocolate ganache... and sadly it wasn’t savable. The good thing was that even though the heavy cream curdled and the ganache looked grainy, it still tasted really good. In the end, aside from appearance, it was still a nice, crunchy layer of dark chocolate (similar to that of the chocolate shell around a real snickers bar). 

Overall, the snickers tart ended up tasting really, really good! It’s definitely a recipe that I would like to try again and next time maybe I’ll even perfect the chocolate ganache.

[12amcravings]

Chaufa (Fried Rice) and Low Carb Alt: Chifa-style!

Ever since we got back from our South American excursion, we’ve been obsessed with trying to replicate the flavors that we’ve tasted in these local Chifa restaurants in Peru. The fusion of flavors was quite expert so it was only natural that we wanted to figure out how to make it at home! For this week’s meal prep, one of the foods we made was chaufa, a Peruvian/Chinese fried rice dish. So what makes it Peruvian and what makes it Chinese? Obviously, the dish itself is that of Chinese origin (fried rice, duh). The seasonings, spices and ingredients are that of Peru. There’s an earthy taste to the fried rice and lots and lots and lots of umami. It’s all about layering flavors each step of the way. Though we certainly don’t know the secrets to the perfect chaufa, we experimented with something that worked for us and reminded us of all the great times we had in Peru. In an effort to continue the healthy streak though, I came up with a low-carb version that I ate throughout the week that’s just as flavorful. 

Ingredients:

Shrimp (peeled and de-veined). I left the tail on because it keeps the flavor. 

Pork tenderloin cut into thin slices. 

Eggs (2 or 3, honestly however much you want)

White Onion, diced

Green onions, sliced

Kale, chopped (if you want the low-carb version)

Rice 

Garlic, minced

Ginger, grated

Lemongrass

Peanut butter (trust us, just a teaspoon or so makes a difference)

Marinade for the shrimp and pork:

We’ll just be honest with you, we just kind of combined a lot of ingredients until it “smelled” close to the chifa we ate in Peru. Sometimes we pulled some non-Chinese or Peruvian ingredients to assist us (we’re obsessed with fish sauce)... but the end result was delicious. We marinaded the shrimp and pork with the same formula but in different bowls and left them overnight. You really don’t need to wait that long, but we ran out of time that day. In case you’re curious, here’s the marinade that worked for us:

Oyster sauce

Cumin (be generous)

Fish sauce

Maggi soy sauce

Salt

Pepper

Lemongrass

Grated Ginger

Fresh minced garlic

Onion powder

Garlic powder

Paprika

Cinnamon

Red chili flakes (optional if you like it spicier)

How we made our chaufa:

The key for us was to cook each item individually in the same pan on medium-high heat so as to not burn anything. We would move the pan on and off the fire so we don’t have any burned bits on the bottom and instead retain the flavor so the rice/kale could soak it up later. 

Cook the marinaded pork over medium-high heat until nicely caramelized. Once cooked, remove from the pan and place into a bowl. 

Sear the shrimp and be careful to not overcook it. Right when you add it to the pan, add the peanut butter and ensure that all the shrimp is coated in it.  Once it’s nice and pink and no longer gray/opaque, remove from the pan and place into the same bowl as the pork.  We’ll be throwing it back onto the pan for a bit later on.

Crack the eggs, mix it up, and scramble it up in the pan so it could soak up the sauce. Remember to season it with salt and pepper. Once it’s just cooked, remove it from the pan and add it to the bowl with the shrimp and pork. 

Now you’re ready for the rice/kale part. Add some oil to the pan and ensure it’s nicely coated. Throw the lemon grass, ginger, and garlic all into the pan and let it cook in the oil for a bit (only for 15-20 seconds until the fragrance hits your nose). Once you smell the nice aromas, quickly add the diced onions and cook over medium heat until the onions are soft. 

Once the onions are nice and soft, add the rice/kale to the pan and sear up until the rice is nicely coated with the fragrant oil. I added just a little bit of soy sauce to season it. It’s all up to preference of course.

Add the shrimp, pork and egg mixture back into the pan and stir-fry up!

Garnish with green onions and some red chili flakes (optional) to taste!

Since this is our meal prep, we have to say that the longer the fried rice/kale sat in the tupperware in the fridge, the more flavorful it was. This was definitely worth a try and is now a new staple at our house!

[12amcravings]

Peruvian Inspiration!

The last leg our of South American expedition was Peru! Naturally, our adventures took us from Lima to Cuzco down to the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu where trout is always freshly caught from the river. There’s no stop that we wouldn’t make, and when it comes down to just buying from local street vendors, we’re down! Just to give you a walk through where our foodie adventures took us:

Inca Corn - The kernels are huge and the corn itself is meatier. It’s different from the sweet corn that we tend to grow back in the states and is great for frying or just adding some body in salads. We found this one in the archaeological town of Pisac where the surrounding views are terraces made during the Incan period and beautiful, colorful street vendors. You can either eat plain, with salt, or with the chile picante sauce that’s handmade by the vendor. 

Chicharron sandwich - Admittedly we stopped by a cafe to grab this sandwich because we were hungry. When we sliced into it, we thought that there was a thick piece of cheese, but in actuality it’s sweet potato! That sweet potato and the pickled onions were just the perfect cut for the fatty just very flavorful and beautiful cooked chicharron. The bread was perfectly toasted as well which made the sandwich all the more memorable. Eat that with a pisco sour and you’re set for lunch!

Churros stuffed with Custard - We found a tiny little local churro stand where the line of locals were definitely out the door. Naturally, we ducked in and got one of these which were more filling than bread... and it was delicious! It was a perfect snack to have when walking around Lima. 

Cuy - Aka guinea pig. It’s one of Peru’s delicacies. Depending on the region, cuy can be prepared differently. Those near the coast tend to deep fry their cuy whereas those in the Andean regions cook cuy over spitfire. Admittedly, I was scared to even try, but I mustered up the strength to do so. When in Peru... eat as the Peruvians do, right? It was surprisingly delicious and crunchy, almost like a smaller suckling pig. 

Ceviche - This was highly recommended by someone we knew who was from Peru (along with cuy and Chifa, of course). We had a trout ceviche in Machu Picchu since it was right next to the Urubamba River where trout is abundant. 

Chifa - The Peruvians definitely know how to cook their Chinese food. Chifa is a wonderful fusion of Peruvian and Chinese cuisine. The inspiration is primarily Chinese dishes but the ingredients and spices used are local. Some of the dishes we tried were shu mai with trout, shrimp, and pork, fried rice (which was not greasy and oh-so-yummy) and steamed trout in the traditional sauce that’s usually served with white fish in Chinese restaurants. The locals tend to frequent Chifa restaurants, and we met some wonderful locals while sitting down and trying to order in Spanish!

There are so many places that we wanted to try in Peru. Though we didn’t have a lot of time this time around, we’re excited to come back and explore some more!

[12amcravings]

Argentina: Meat and Sweets

Our travels to Argentina taught us that Argentinians definitely know how to cook their meat. In empanadas, the meat is flavored with punches of flavors and spices. When you’re out on the ranch with the gauchos, sometimes all you need is just a little salt and pepper and some chimichurri sauce. In Buenos Aires, we tried various types of empanadas that are either baked or fried. Both versions are good, but the best empanada we had came out of a basket from someone working on a gaucho ranch. It was a beautifully fried, golden brown, and packed with a lot of carne. It was so juicy that we needed the napkin in order to catch the juices that spilled from the bottom corner when we bit into them. One of the best empanadas we had!

Also on the ranch we saw the gauchos grilling and it smelled GOOD. The gauchos ate a fairly healthy diet with little carbs and more meat and vegetables. In addition to the meats grilled above, they made salads using fresh vegetables, cabbages, tomatoes - whatever else you could find at the local market. We tried their version of steak and chicken but the must-try meats that were being grilled were the blood sausage and the Argentine chorizo. 

The blood sausage is rich and hearty. You don’t eat the skin but you do eat the filling, and if you eat it with some bread or even your salad, it’s really very tasty. My favorite though was the chorizo. It’s not like the chorizo that we get back in the States. In fact, when you slice the chorizo you can see the pieces of cubed fat that’s rendered so nicely (crunchy on the outside and juicy on the inside). It’s one of the best and now we want to try making our own version of the Argentine chorizo!

The gauchos also prepared one of my most favorite desserts for me: flan! Even better was that they added dulce de leche to eat with it. Surprisingly, it wasn’t all that sweet and tasted really good. My inner child was so happy!

One of the desserts that we had was recommended to us by a local Argentinian woman that we sat next to on the plane. We tried to practice our Spanish with her and she was so appreciative that she told us about alfahores, a sweet biscuit dessert that’s very South American. It’s basically like a way better version of an Oreo with biscuit crackers and dulce de leche cream in between them. Sometimes they’re dipped in chocolate (like the one we tried) and sometimes the biscuits are left alone. In both versions, the dessert itself isn’t too sweet (despite the fact that dulce de leche is holding the cookies together) which is both our preference. 

Argentina is such an amazing place that we want to go back and experience more of their food!

[12amcravings]

Foodie adventures! Truthfully we were just making our way to the subway station in Rio de Janeiro when we stumbled upon a local food market in Copacabana. It was such a treat! We’re all about supporting local farmers, and it was really great to see the local fruits and veggies. Even if most of the produce is similar in name to that back home, the tomatoes look different. The apples look different. The bananas and papayas - you get the drift.

Though we couldn’t purchase any fruits and veggies since we were going to fly to Argentina the next day, we thought we’d stop to try the pastel de carne seca and the pastel queijo from a local stand. Their store front is about an hour away from the city, so we were really happy that they were here.

Honest to the Foodies, it was amazing. Forget my childhood fantasies of a taco pocket in the school cafeteria... this is how food SHOULD taste. It was fried to order and that made all the difference. The filling was piping hot and the outside pastry was flaky and crisp. The stand had pickles that you can eat with it and you really should.

The carne seca one was so good that we had to get the cheese one to try. We wanted to get the cod one... but unfortunately didn’t at the time. That just means we have to go back!

The next stand we stopped by served some homemade bolinhos. We ordered the carne filled one and got a little bit of coffee with it as well. This one was starchier but still really tasty!

Later on in the day, we stopped by a tapioca crepe stand which was something that we’ve been wanting to try. It’s slightly different from the crepes we’re used to since tapioca is chewier than the flour we were normally use. Still, the crepe was delicious and was stuffed with some meat and cheese!

Moral of the story is: don’t be afraid of street food! Don’t be afraid to try! It’s so worth it and the locals are so incredibly friendly!

[12amcravings]

When traveling, we’re all about living like the locals and experiencing local favorites. That means we do go out of our way to avoid the tourist traps to find the little hole in the wall places that serve the most AMAZING meals. This particular restaurant is located in Copacabana just a few blocks from the Hilton where we were staying. It was initially introduced to us by our guide who had the same philosophy as we do, and it was so good that we came back a second time for dinner.

Honestly, if we were walking by, we wouldn’t have looked twice. From the outside, the store front didn’t look like ones that we’re used to, but that’s entirely part of the charm. The owner is the one who preps, cooks, and serves the customer. Speaking of customers, the people who frequent this place are primarily the locals, loyal customers in fact. They just sit at the bar area and have friendly conversations with the owner and his employees. We saw tourists walking by and not even looking twice, and we would’ve been guilty of that! Thank goodness for our guide!

This particular restaurant is known for their feijoada, a traditional Brazilian black bean stew, that’s rich, hearty, and deep in flavor. It’s meant to be eaten over rice and, if desired, you can add some of the housemade chili oil.

The owner was so happy that we returned a second time that he ended up giving us a lot of food to try, all for just less than $20 USD! Grabbing a box of salad in San Francisco plus a cup of coffee would cost that much!

In addition to the feijoada, we also got some pimento soup, fried chicken, stewed chicken, roast beef, salad, sphaghetti, white rice, beer and soda water. Honestly, we only came in asking for some chicken and a small bowl of feijoada, but damn we got an incredibly delicious FEAST instead!

If you’re in Rio de Janeiro, I highly recommend visiting this little restaurant. The owner is super friendly and the food is traditional authentic Brazilian food that you must experience!

[12amcravings]

Rio’s Very Own Linguica Man!

When in Rio de Janeiro, we wanted to venture out and try some good Brazilian street food. After watching Mark Wiens’ food blog, we definitely had to try one local street stand. Unfortunately all the food blogs we watched mentioned this man but not exactly where he was located. He had a linguica stand on his bicycle, including a charcoal grill, homemade chili oil, and homemade sauces.

So what did we do to find him since no one really said where he was? We froze the videos to look at street signs (and only saw part of the name, mind you) and landmarks that could help us find him. Turns out he’s literally right off the Siqueira Campos Metro station (intersection of Rua Siqueira Campos and Ladeira dos Tabajaras) right in a pointy corner where the two roads meet next to a Claro red awning (and you’ll know it’s the right one if you notice that one of the Claro name is missing an L).

He was just as friendly in person as he was in Mark’s food blog and he even remembered me and my husband! The linguica man cuts open the bun and places two charcoal-grilled linguica into the bun so that your meat to bun ratio is spot on. Then he tops it with a homemade mayonnaise green sauce, lettuce, farofa, and more sauce!! You can add his chili oil to your sandwich too.

It’s honestly one of the best foods I had in Rio. It was so good that the hubby got a second sandwich right off the spot! The linguica man is such a friendly guy and his food is amazing. If you’re ever in the Copacabana part of Rio, check him out!!

[12amcravings]

Fall is Here and We’re Celebrating with Dog Biscuits!

12AM Cravings is not all about human food. We’re animal lovers too! Just before our big trip to South America, we wanted to make treats for our paw-ghter and bring enough for our puppysitter’s lab as well. Our chocolate lab loves pumpkin and peanut butter, so what better treat than pumpkin and peanut butter cookies for her! 

We love to use the best ingredients for our dog, and this year we grew pumpkins in the backyard. The peanut butter is organic and we try to use ethically raised eggs. Indeed our little (big) girl is special, and we have no shame in spoiling her!

Ingredients:

1/2 tsp of cinnamon

1/2 tsp of salt

2 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour

1/2 cup of freshly steamed pumpkin

2 tbsp of organic peanut butter

2 eggs

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 365*F. The original recipe asked for 350*F, but we found that increasing the heat worked a little bit better for the ingredients we used. It’s all dependent on your oven though.

The first step is to steam the pumpkin to make pumpkin puree. The original recipe we found used canned pumpkins, but since we actually grew some in the backyard, we wanted to use the fruits of our labor! First remove the seed and the guts of the pumpkin and then cut into slices before putting it into the steamer. Steam for about 20 minutes or until it’s tender when you put a knife in it. 

While the pumpkin cools, we used our kitchen aid to help us mix the whole wheat flour, salt, and cinnamon together. Mix to incorporate. 

Then add your wet ingredients to the mixture (pumpkin, peanut butter, and eggs) and then mix together until it becomes a really firm dough. Keep mixing it and don’t be worried if it looks too dry. It’ll mix. If it’s too floury, just add a tiny bit of water to help it move along. 

Remove the dough from the bowl and onto a surface where you can roll it out until it’s about a 1/2 inch thick. We have cute doggie cookie cutters that we used for our doggie. She’s also a big girl (in size) and so we didn’t mind making the cookies a little bigger.

Place the cut cookies onto a baking sheet and then bake for 40 minutes. They don’t spread too much but they do rise a little.

Once done, let the cookies cool  before giving it to your doggie (safety is everything too!). 

Our puppers kept staring at the cooling racks all night, and she’d keep taking us to the cookies as they cooled. She definitely loved them and we hope that your doggies love them too!

[12amcravings]

Pre-gaming for South America... with Brazilian Cheese Bread

After a long day at work, I was happily surprised when I came home to find Brazilian cheese bread in the oven courtesy of the hubby! Before we head off to our South American vacation, we figured we ought to pre-game before hand with some Brazilian treats. The goal was to clear the fridge. We have milk. We have eggs. We have cheese leftover from the low-carb biscuits that we made... and lo’ and behold we also have leftover tapioca flour from the honeycomb cake. It’s like the universe is telling us that we have to make this Brazilian cheese bread. 

Ingredients:

1 large egg

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

2/3 cup milk

1 1/2 cup of tapioca flour

1/2 cup of cheese (I happen to have shredded cheddar cheese on hand)

1 tsp salt

The recipe is really quite simple and the only tool we really used was the food processor. It’s literally a dump into the food processor and pulse until a smooth consistency. Preheat the oven to 400*F and grease the muffin tin. Once the mixture is smooth, pour into the muffin tin until about halfway or a little more. It only takes about 15-20 minutes to bake. You’ll know it’s ready when the outside is nice and crunchy and the inside is soft and chewy. 

It’s one of those really addicting treats that you just can’t stop eating. Definitely will be trying this again!

[12amcravings]

Konbanwa! Mock Yoshinoya Gyudon

After a long work week with extra long commutes, we decided to spend our Friday the 13th not doing spooky stuff. Instead, we were going to binge watch our favorite Japanese trash TV: Terrace House. The new season came out on Netflix and we haven’t been able to watch a lot of episodes throughout the week. We wanted to make a meal that would put us in the Terrace House-mood and let bring us back to our last trip to Japan (during our honeymoon!). 

One of the first meals that we had when we were about to head from Tokyo to Kyoto after we landed was at Yoshinoya. Both of us ordered gyudon because it was quick, yummy, and delicious! So what better way to throw us back than to make some homemade gyudon! 

It’s a really quick dish to make if you have the ingredients ahead of time and have prepped. Honestly the longest thing to make is the dashi and most of that time is just wait time. We also used whatever was in our pantry so we didn’t have to buy what we didn’t need. 

Here’s how we made it (modified for low carb considerations for me!):

Ingredients:

1 onion, slices thin and long

Thin sliced beef, I just purchased a package from the Japanese market that already sliced it thing for me. Otherwise, you can even just buy chuck beef and slice it thin yourself.

1 1/2 - 2 cups of dashi, which is a broth that we made at home with bonito flakes, konbu and dried mushrooms

4 tbsp of soy sauce or coconut aminos. Both will add lots of umami to the dish. I just kind of eyeball it and add more to taste. 

1/2 tsp of stevia. Traditionally you would use sugar, but since I’m trying to cut back the carbs, I substituted with stevia instead and it tasted practically the same!

2 tbsp sake. I just bought the cheapest one at the store.

1 tsp (or more) of grated ginger. We love ginger so we upped the amount. 

Instructions:

The first step is to make the dashi. It’s pretty easy. You can use a cheesecloth or just strain the broth once you’re done. Basically all you have to do is boil water, bonito flakes, konbu, and dried mushrooms. We added to taste and it really depends on how much dashi you want to make. We used at least a 1/2 cup of bonito flakes and 2 konbu sticks. Normally we’d add about a 1/2 cup of dried mushrooms but we didn’t have that on hand. Still tasted good though!

Slice the onion into nice slightly thin slices. 

Add 1 1/2 - 2cups of dashi into a cooking pan and then add the onions. Bring to a quick boil for about 3-4 minutes. 

Add the soy sauce, stevia and sake and cook down to reduce the sake. Taste it to see if you want to add a bit more soy sauce for extra flavor. 

Add the ginger and cook for another minute. 

Add the beef into the cooking pan and basically move the beef around until it’s cooked and not pink. It might take a few minutes or so, but it should be a really quick cook. 

Add the beef over some steamed rice and add a fried egg on top if you like! For a low carb alternative, I added my beef over baby bok choy that I cooked in the extra dashi that I made. For a little extra flavor, I added some of that gyudon liquid into the bok choy as it steamed. 

This is probably going to be one of our go-to dishes given how quick it was to make and how delicious it turned out! You can turn any dish into a low carb version by eating it over some cauliflower rice or vegetables like I did!