Not Muffins

So, one of my friends caught wind of my baking frenzy and started sending me recipes that I should try, aka make for him. They actually turned out pretty well and were fun to make though!

S'more Bark

Cinnamon Apple Pie Egg Rolls

Unusual recipes but man were they good. The s'mores bark was so easy to make and tasted great. I ended up making them without graham crackers because they're so thick with them but they do add a good layer of flavor. The marshmallows were a little more fun when they were the mini rainbow kinds because of the variation in fruity flavor. Regardless, they're super easy because you just pour melted chocolate over marshmallows and call it a day!

The Apple Pie Egg Rolls however, are a completely different story. Let's just say that years of making real egg rolls with my mom came in handy. While it's pretty time consuming to make them, they came out delicious and were really fun. They're like apple pies to go! Just add whipped cream to dip and they're great!

Muffin Monday Part 2

Since muffin monday continued onto fall semester of third year there are quite a few more recipes I tried. Here are the images. 

Muffin Monday 1: Coconut Key Lime Muffins

Muffin Monday 2: Grapefruit Poppyseed Muffins

Muffin Monday 3: Monkey Bread Muffins

Muffin Monday 4: S'mores Muffins

(Birthday) Muffin Monday 5: Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes for my Birthday

(Birthday) Muffin Monday 6: Mint Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

(Birthday) Muffin Monday 7: Cookies and Cream Cupcakes

Muffin Monday 8: Bacon and Egg Muffins

Muffin Monday 9: Potato Bacon Muffins

Muffin Monday 10: Ham and Cheese Muffins

Muffin Monday 11: Pumpkin Donut Muffins

Muffin Monday 12: Lemonade Muffins

Muffin Monday 13: Chocolate Salted Carmel Cupcakes

Muffin Monday 14: Chocolate Chip Coffee Muffins

Muffin Monday 15: Orange Cranberry Muffins

Muffin Monday

Muffin Monday 1: Streusel Muffins

Muffin Monday 2: Snicker-doodle Muffins

Second year I went through a break up. I spent fall/winter wallowing and tying to focus on school but by New Years I'd had enough. I was tired of thinking about it so I decided I would take up some hobbies to better myself. This was the year that I decided to be like the rests of America and vowed to work out, so I started going to the gym for the first time in my life. Even Now I still flip flop around and haven't stayed consistent with a schedule. Glad to know I fit in. The second hobby I picked up was baking; Usher in Muffin Mondays!

Muffin Monday 3: Gingerbread Muffins

Muffin Monday 4: Vanilla Cupcakes

So after new years, I'm guessing by spring quarter, my schedule opened up and I didn't have classes on Mondays. I took this as an opportunity to spend the day baking. I would wake up Monday mornings ready to take on the world! (or at least the kitchen). 

Muffin Monday 5: Banana Muffins and Banana Nutella Muffins

Muffin Monday 6: Apple Cranberry Muffins

I found a mini recipe book from a magazine. One of those inserts you find in food magazine or something of that sort. '50 muffin recipes'. I was determined to try making them all (okay maybe not ALL of them.. some of the flavors were a little odd and or were slight variations on each other.) Still, I was going to bake most of them! And I did. Then I didn't really stop. 

Muffin Monday Week 8: Cherry Chocolate Muffins

Muffin Monday 7: Nutella Muffins

I spent every Monday of 2013 baking at school. I tried to stick to the theme of muffin mondays but I varied with cupcakes for weeks where someone had a birthday or I found a cool recipe. I became the baking girl! People from high school would see me during breaks around Rochester and were so I'm pressed I found the time to bake every week. 

My cousins now make fun of me a little but they all still beg for me to bake whenever they're in town or have special occasions. I've branched out to breads and pies, brownies and cakes. I haven't quite mastered things yet. Sometimes my baked goods are dense and I've been having problems getting the consistency of homemade frosting right but I'm still trying.

For me baking has become a cathartic thing. Who need's therapy when I can make a pie. 

It's also made me quite a few friends. People see my food on social media and ask if they can come and have one. I would blast friends at RIT with snapchats telling them to stop by when I was pulling cupcakes out of the oven. I've set up mini dates inviting people to come over and help me make cookies. 

Nothing beats when I'm in the kitchen by myself playing music and rolling dough with my hands. Baking has become my stress relief, my thing. My roommates may not like me tempting them with muffins but I could bake for days and never want to stop.    

My cousins now make fun of me a little but they all still beg for me to bake whenever they're in town or have special occasions. I've branched out to breads and pies, brownies and cakes. I haven't quite mastered things yet. Sometimes my baked goods are dense and I've been having problems getting the consistency of homemade frosting right but I'm still trying.

Muffin Monday 10: Candy Cane Muffins

Muffin Monday 9: Chocolate Macaroon Muffins

For me baking has become a cathartic thing. Who need's therapy when I can make a pie. 

It's also made me quite a few friends. People see my food on social media and ask if they can come and have one. I would blast friends at RIT with snapchats telling them to stop by when I was pulling cupcakes out of the oven. I've set up mini dates inviting people to come over and help me make cookies. 

Muffin Monday 12: Maple Bacon Muffins

Muffin Monday 11: Pineapple Muffins

Nothing beats when I'm in the kitchen by myself playing music and rolling dough with my hands. Baking has become my stress relief, my thing. My roommates may not like me tempting them with muffins but I could bake for days and never want to stop.    

Muffin Monday 13: Cider Connamon Muffins

Muffin Monday 14: Salted Carmel Muffins

Muffin Monday 15: Spice Muffins

Muffin Monday 16: Ginger Pear Muffin

Muffin Monday 17: Pumpkind Muffins

Muffin Monday 18: Dounut Muffins

S'mores Cookies

When I first found this recipe online I was beyond ecstatic. What this is, is a s'more stuffed chocolate chip cookie. Now, just to clarify, I love baking. As a little kid my mom used to sit us down in the kitchen with one of those little box cake mixes to keep us busy while she cooked and cleaned and was just being a mom. The odd part was that none of us really eat desserts. Honestly between me, my mom, and my dad, we could share one slice of cake and all still be satisfied. Those cakes usually ended up being eaten by my cousins or other relatives. Still, baking has stuck for me and been something I really enjoyed to do. More about that another time. 

Second year of college, one of my best friends and I got into stuffing other desserts into chocolate chip cookies; s'mores, peanut butter cups, etc. I don't know if I ever finished one of these cookies but they sure are fun to make! I was saving this recipe for a fun occasion and summer after school was it. I was visiting my then boyfriend whom I hadn't seen in 2 months and i thought cookies would be cute surprise to bring with me as a thank you for letting me invade his hometown for a week. 

What I didn't realize was that these cookies are massive. I mean it. Since there's a whole 'mini' s'more on the inside of the cookie, it didn't really flatten out too much. The marshmallows also caramelizes and kind of disintegrates. Still haven't figured out how to make them better. They ended up being rocks. He ate them and claimed that they tasted good and were totally fine. I'm pretty sure he was just making me feel better. I tried.  

ROC - Garbage Plate Pt.2

There's a great line of little restaurants in Rochester. Cozy little places lined up next to each other with really great food and a fun atmosphere.

This happens to be a mexican restaurant called Dorado, and me being the fearless bottomless pit that I am decided that this plate would be a fun idea. Challenge accepted. The 'Plato Grande' is just a big mix of rice, guacamole, salsa, sour cream, tortilla chips, melted cheese, and my choice of meat aka chicken. Again this is a lunch with the same best friend who tackled the 13 minutes garbage plate with me but this time around she chooses something else. We also have our other best friend with us. The little lunch trio. 

Proud to say that this plate is now one of our favorites whenever we frequent Dorado. This day was the first time any of us ordered this plate. 

The outcome? 20 minutes. Not as fast as the garbage plate but still pretty impressive. I'm a champ!

ROC - Garbage Plates

For those of you who are unfamiliar, this is a garbage plate. Of course the food that Rochester is home to has the word garbage in the name.... typical. Generally a garbage plate for me is mac salad, home style fries, and two hamburger patties covered in a meat sauce. Of course there are some variations, i.e. hotdogs, cole slaw etc. and tons of combinations. I'm not personally a fan of condiments so hold the mustard and ketchup. The goal if a garbage plate is to mix it up and get a little bit of everything in one bite. As you can tell, it's a lot of food. A lot. It's also pretty unhealthy for you. This thing has enough calories for the rest of your life on one plate but man.. is it good. 

I'm slightly ashamed to to say this was my first whole garbage plate. It only took me 19 years until I finally mustered up the courage to eat one of these things but it was a good day. Since then I've had quite a few more from various locations all over Rochester. Not gonna lie, it's kind of hard to mess one of these up, so I haven't had a bad one yet.

Now for the impressive part. We know that I'm not a particularly healthy eater, as I've mentioned before. I had been planning on eating this garbage plate as a 19th birthday lunch date with one of my best friends. My birthday is in September. This was taken about 2 or 3 months after. Nailed it (not really). Since I knew this was the mission of the day I hadn't eaten all day. It took us both 13 minutes to clear our plates, I timed it. 

To anyone who's ever had a garbage plate before, you know how impressive this is. We were pretty proud of ourselves. And slightly grossed out, but that's besides the point.

Now a days, I try to space out my garbage plates and only eat a few per year. It's pretty incredible how much I can eat though, and these things are so great and fun to make visitors try. It's like a Rochester right of passage for all of my cousins who come to visit and for all of my friends from college who are new to the area. I've taken quite a few people to get their first garbage plate. Spreading the over indulgence all around. Yum.

ROC - Owl House

Let's just start this off by saying I'm not a particularly healthy eater and have never really gotten into any diet fads. Growing up I always ate whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. My parents were from Vietnam and I am a first generation American but my mom is quite odd and let us eat tons of American (junk) food growing up. Luckily for me I was a small kid with a fast metabolism and always stayed under the normal weight for my age/height leading my pediatrician believe I wasn't getting enough food. (Believe me.. I was..I really really was)

Flash to freshman year of college when one of my high school friends is back home for a visit. She suggests we eat at this place called Owl House. What she then adds is that this place has a lot of healthy vegan and vegetarian choices. I'm skeptical. I like my junk food. Carbs and starch are my friends. Pasta and some form of potatoes are a nice choice when I'm not inhaling my mountains of white rice.

We get to Owl House and she suggests we start off with the flatbread special of the day as the appetizer to split. The waitress comes out with this piece of perfection on a board, glistening with vegetables and melted cheese and I'm sold. Of course before eating, all of my friends from high school know to wait and let me take pictures before we start eating. A habit that I still have to this day. The flatbread is delicious and the rest of the meal is too. After that day Owl House became one of my favorite places to eat and I'm never let down when I go there. The health benefits are just a perk.     

PA - Lititz, Pennsylvania

I have just returned from my first trip to Pennsylvania! Seeing as it's literally the next state over it's pretty sad that it's taken me 21 years to make it there but it's finally happened! I made it! 

5 hours from Rochester to little Lititz to visit one of my dear friends, it was a solid drive I managed to make without stops either way on my own. I love driving by myself. It gives me good time to think and I feel that driving helps me appreciate landscape photography a little more. 

This amazing weekend included a lot of shopping and eating but I only managed to be inspired by my sushi the first night there from a restaurant called Mojo's.  

I feel this happens quite often. Sushi as in art from is incredible and I still have yet to stop appreciating the skill behind making sushi. My roll this time was called a Tokyo and included tempura shrimp, eel, and of course avocado (something I've been obsessed with this year). 

I actually did not enjoy sushi before college and always stuck to my classic shrimp ebi at family dinners where my cousins ordered huge sushi boats that filled the table. Now I can't resist! While I still stray from raw fish (not a fan, though I have tried giving it a chance) the fun rolls with shrimp, crab, and eel always get me. It was a wonderful start to my first trip to Pennsylvania and one that I hope to make a few more times this semester.  

Ice Box Cake

So it turns out when I was going through my archives that I failed to save digital copies of anything before fall of 2011 (before I started college at RIT). Because of this, my high school antics aren't available without extreme effort to be posted (darn?). Fun fact, I didn't get my first camera until I turned 16 (a little sony point and shoot) very exotic, I know. Photography wasn't really on my radar before then so all of my starting images were me learning about art and photography and myself as a photographer. Very amateur stuff (imagine giving a 5 year old a camera now - that's the kind of stuff I was shooting back then). 

So these images images above are I guess that start of who I am as a photographer now. My food with my DSLR just for me. 

Now for the actual images. Ice Box Cakes! Ice Box Cakes were actually the start of me baking and cooking for myself. Ironic since they require no actual cooking or baking. Tip: these are a great present to give to people or to bring to potlucks and parties. Super easy to make and delicious, though they do require some time in advance to set. All they are, are cookie wafers (like oreos minus the filling) and whipped cream. Layer them one after the other, then put the cake in the fridge for a few hours or overnight and voila! deliciousness minus all the dishes and the prep work and ingredients. Once they set, they cut just like a cake; hasn't failed on me yet. 

Freshman year of college I made at least 6 of these as presents for Christmas. They were such great hits and perfect to make in my kitchen-less dorm room! Ive tried making vanilla versions.. not as good but still not bad either. 

The Start

I'm not really the blogging type. I love writing to get my thoughts out, but blogs are commitments and I don't always have the time. 

But it's the new year. Everything is fresh and I have this space for it so it's worth a shot right? 

I already have a tumblr blog but it's been primarily for my outtakes. Assignments I've done in the past that I like but didn't quite make the cut for my website. This blog will be something different (because I just need another form of social media to occupy the non-existant free time I have)

So this is what this blog will be - a space for my photography (the snapshots and the behind the scenes) and my food (my baking, cooking, and just out in the world eating). 

I'm considering going through my archives, let's see what I've done so far....