Usually, I would use my adapted sablé cookies recipe from linuxhacker since I’ve already made so many variations of it; however, I came across a cookie box recipe on YouTube and wanted to try it out after reading all the positive comments.
I went ahead and decided to make 5 different varieties using half the recipe: cranberry-orange, chocolate chip, classic chocolate and vanilla, strawberry-jam linzer, and holiday gingerbread.
Unlike the old recipe I usually used for these kinds of cookies, this recipe used raw eggs. This saved me some time since I used have to boil and grate the yolks of boiled eggs in the old recipe.
In the video, Emma stacked two cookies to make the jam-centered cookies. I chose the lazy route and stamped some hearts into cut cookies instead and fill the indentation with jam. It still worked 😆 but the jam didn’t fill as cleanly as if I were to cut and stack two cookies together.
Emma also made gingerbread flavored cookies in her video. She used a little bit of cocoa powder to add color to the gingerbread flavored cookies. I thought this was a great idea, so I also did the same. However, I didn’t have ginger powder nor cloves, so I used a bit of pumpkin spice mix with some extra cinnamon powder. I don’t recommend doing this for a true gingerbread flavor since mine tasted predominately cinnamon-y.
Overall, it was a great recipe, and my mom even thought it was better (cause it was softer) than my adapted recipe from linuxhacker. Personally, I couldn’t really tell since they were both delicious! Anywho, thank you Emma, for sharing your wonderfully versatile recipe– it’s definitely a keeper!
DIYed some cookie boxes to give away the cookies to my friends.
There were two motivations in making this recipe- the first, as always, was due to the fact that I was craving japchae but didn’t have immediate access to any Korean restaurant. The second motivation stemmed from my own guilt that the bag of glass noodles or sweet potato noodles that I had bought more than two months ago went neglected for as long as it did.
Perhaps you are unable to relate to my motivations stated above, but hopefully, you have landed yourself on this blog post because you at least love or are interested in learning how to make japchae with limited time and effort. If so, you’ve come to the right place.
As the title suggests, this recipe requires one wok, or a really big skillet. I would not consider this recipe traditional by any means since it skips a lot of steps (mainly parboiling the different vegetables separately), but the end result, in my opinion, is just as satisfying. Also, because this recipe is all done in one wok, it requires less oil than it’s traditional counterpart in which sesame oil would be added not only to the noodles, but to each different vegetable category as well.
I did not include any meat in this recipe because I don’t like cooking meat, but feel free to add your own spin with meat if you’d like.
I love meal prepping japchae because it can be eaten both hot or cold- which means that I can eat without worrying about finding a microwave between classes.
Marinate the shiitake mushrooms: in a bowl, add mushrooms, 1 tbsp soy sauce, 1/2 tbsp sesame oil, 1 tbsp brown sugar, 1 tsp garlic and 1/2 tbsp red chili powder. Mix and set aside for about 15-20 minutes.
In a medium-sized wok, heat up 1 tbsp of vegetable oil. Sauté carrots on medium-high until cooked. Season with salt. Set aside on a designated “prep” plate.
Return the wok to medium-high heat. Cook the marinated mushrooms until marinade is absorbed and mushrooms are cooked, about 3 minutes. Set mushrooms aside on “prep” plate.
The wok should still be hot, so there’s no need to turn the heat back on. Quickly add spinach and a dash of soy sauce and sauté until just barely cooked, about 1 minute. Set aside on “prep” plate.
Add another tbsp of vegetable oil in the wok. Add in the green onions. Sauté on high until fragrant.
Add onions and 1 tbsp of garlic to the wok and cook on medium with the green onions until onions start to become translucent. Set aside on “prep” plate.
Boil water in the wok. When it boils, add the glass noodles and cook for 2 minutes or according to the time on the packaging.
Strain the noodles under cold, running water. Add sesame oil to keep the noodles from sticking to each other. Set aside.
Add 1 tbsp of oil to the wok and set it on low. To separate the egg white from the yolk, barely crack the egg on the kitchen counter and, using your fingers, gently pry the shell apart over the wok. Let the egg whites drip onto the wok, being careful not to puncture the egg yolk. Set the egg yolk aside in a small bowl.
Cook the egg white with the lowest heat possible. When cooked, set aside.
Remove the white parts from the egg yolk, then beat the egg yolk until smooth.
Cook the egg yolk on the lowest heat possible. When cooked, set aside.
Slice the cooked egg white and yolk into thin strips, set aside on the “prep” plate.
Add 1 tbsp to the wok and 1 tbsp of garlic to the wok. Set on medium heat. When the garlic is fragrant, add the glass noodles back to the wok. Add 2 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tbsp brown sugar, some cracked black pepper, and 1/2 tbsp red chili powder. Stir and cook for about 1 minute.
Add everything except for the egg yolk on the “prep” plate back into the wok. Stir until homogeneous.
Serve on a large plate, or 2 plates for 2 servings. Top with the egg yolk strips and sesame seeds.
Thank you to a dear friend of mine, SP, whose enthusiasm gave me the strength to finish writing out this recipe. ❤
Kimbap is an easy and healthy make-ahead meal. You can make lots in one go, then stick them in the fridge for consumption throughout the week. It’s also great for potlucks or parties!
One day after class (I was studying abroad in Paris), a staff member from the school was running a table full of food samples. Each food sample was supposed to be from a different part of France. The whole idea behind the event was to widen the students’ knowledge of French culture beyond that of Paris – which has vast differences. I remember sampling sparkling cider from Normandy, canelés from Bordeaux, nougat from Montélimar, and many other delicious goodies. The first time that I ever had tapenade was on this day. While tapenade isn’t from any particular region in France, I think they just included it because it was so…French? Afterall, I decided to go out of my way to make tapenade because of my Paris withdrawals. I was really craving a good baguette and tapenade to go with it, and thus, this recipe was birthed.
Anyways, each food sample on the table was labeled not only with its name and origin, but also with its key ingredients (in case of allergens). The key ingredients for the tapenade that day was anchovies and olives. As someone who has liked olives since their diaper days, the realization that there aren’t many people who like olives didn’t dawn on me until fairly recently. I may have been in denial of this sad statistic, but it was confirmed when I witnessed the tapenade looking alienated by the students. Perhaps it was also the mushed anchovies in the tapenade that further decreased its appeal. Anywho, if you’re reading this, I’m assuming that you, reader, don’t mind olives at the very least. This recipe does, afterall, contain olives. In fact, it is 80% olive and entirely forgoes both anchovies and capers, essential ingredients in a traditional recipe. If you didn’t catch it, that was my disclaimer that this recipe is not traditionalor authentic.
While I usually strive to make food as authentic as possible, I did not feel it was necessary this time around because I wanted something fast, simple, and easily attainable. While I did say that I like olives, it isn’t something that I usually have in my pantry. I don’t usually have capers or anchovies either. When I set out to the grocery store, I had a budget and felt too lazy to carry three heavy jars back home (especially since I walk to and from the store). If you, reader, are afraid of anchovies, then fret not, because while I would like to include anchovies in this recipe, I couldn’t afford it (or capers), but found that the recipe was still tres bien~!
This is a very rough recipe so adjust to taste! Add more or less olives or garlic if you’d like. I also don’t add salt since I think it’s perfect without, but feel free to add some if you’d prefer it saltier.
Ingredients
1/3 Cup pitted green olives, roughly minced
4 Tbsp garlic, minced
4 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 Tbsp lemon juice
Directions
Infuse garlic with olive oil in a small pan over low heat until fragrant. Cool to room temperature.
Mix olives, garlic, and oil in a container.
Add lemon juice. Mix until all ingredients are well combined.
Serve with some bread or plain crackers. I even made a salad using tapenade as a dressing!
Once again, I made a variation of sablé cookies using only the vanilla portion of the recipe. I made lemon, “cherry,” and “strawberry” shaped cookies to give away as thank you presents.
The red parts (“cherry” and “strawberry”) were made with red gel food coloring and roughly chopped dried cranberries. The green parts were colored and flavored with only matcha powder (too much matcha powder creates a bitter flavor, so substitute with some green gel food coloring if this bothers you). The yellow in the lemon shaped cookies were colored with yellow gel food coloring and flavored with lemon zest!
Note: I would like to use all-natural food dyes, but I didn’t have any on hand (except for green matcha) so I had to use gel coloring. Use whatever dyes you prefer!
The “strawberry” and “cherry” cookies were free-form, meaning I shaped each one of them by hand- the bodies and the stems! Armed with the red and green dough, a lined cookie tray, and a good TV show (like The Bold Type), I went to work. All the while, the checkerboard shaped cookies and the cylindrical lemon cookies (encased in a paper towel roll with a slit lengthwise) were chilling in the freezer.
I highly recommend watching The Bold Type for some womanly empowerment!
By the time I had finished shaping a satisfactory amount of cherries and strawberries, the cookies in the freezer were hard enough to slice. I cut up some checkerboard and lemon cookies into 1/4 inch slices and added them to the empty spaces of the cookie tray.
Once again, I baked the tray at 350°F for about 7 minutes or just until the edges begin to brown.
Finally, I made a quick icing with milk and powdered sugar to pipe on the strawberry seed and lemon wedges.
It is honestly a tedious process but so worth it for all the smiles you get when you give them away
I made little turtle sablé cookies inspired again by linuxhacker.ru!
To make the dough, I used my adapted recipe found here, but only the vanilla portion of the recipe.
First, I split the dough into three parts: (A) 1/3 to make the turtles’ head and limbs, (B) 1/3 for the inner part of the body, and (C) 1/3 for the green shell. I colored the 1/3 reserved for the shell with 2 drops of green gel coloring and flavored it with 1 Tbsp of matcha (green tea powder).
To make the turtle bodies, I rolled out (B) vanilla dough into a long cord measuring roughly 12 inches. Then, I rolled out (C) the matcha dough until it was flat, but measured 12 inches long and ensured it was wide enough to wrap around (B) the vanilla cord.
Next, I dabbed a tiny amount of water with my fingers onto (B) the vanilla cord and firmly wrapped (C) the matcha around it, squeezing gently to seal the doughs together. To ensure that the dough kept its cylindrical shape, I inserted it inside a paper towel roll with a slit lengthwise that I had previously cut. Finally, I let the dough rest inside the freezer still encased in the paper towel roll for at least 3 hours.
With (A) the remaining vanilla dough, I divided it into two parts. One part would be to made the heads. The other part would be to make the fins and tail. At this part, I roughly estimated that my dough would yield about 40 baby turtles, and set off to make 40 small balls of dough out of the dough reserved for turtle heads. Once I was done with the heads, I put aside 1/8 of the dough reserved for the fins and tails. This 1/8 would be used to make 40 tails. The remaining 7/8 would be turned into 160 tiny balls that would become the turtles’ fins.
After 3 hours of rest, I took out the “body” dough from the freezer and cut the dough into quarter inch slices, rotating the dough between slices to minimize warping the cylindrical shape. If the dough yields more than 40 slices, then I would just make the leftovers as “non-turtles.”
I assembled the body slices onto a sheet of parchment-lined cookie tray and attached the head, limbs, and tails with a tiny bit of water from my fingers to help adhere the doughs better.
Using small chocolate sprinkles, I inserted two on each side of the heads to make “eyes.” I baked the turtle cookies at 350°F for about 7 minutes or just until the edges of the fins started to brown. After the cookies are cooled to room temperature, I melted some chocolate and filled a small piping bag I made out of parchment paper. I cut a very small tip off the piping bag so that I can pipe precise lines on the turtles’ bodies. The lines weren’t always clean, but it did the job!
Finally, after hours of hard work, the turtle cookies are complete!!
👈 This was my first crepe that I made successfully. It was my third attempt making a batch of crepes, so this was probably crepe #18. The skin was thin, not egg-like, and best of all, it was perfectly circular.
The idea to make my crepes came to me in high school when I was watching Yumeiro Patissiere. In the very first episodes of the show, the main character, Ichigo, pursues her dream to become a great pastry chef like her late grandmother. Her first challenge? Making crepes.
Ichigo really struggled making crepes. However, with the help of her friends and lots of practice, she got better at it quickly.
Since Ichigo was able to succeed pretty quickly, I figured I could do it too. So I did. Except that it did not go well. I ended up with some really thick crepes that tasted more of eggs than of a thin pancake.
After the first attempt, I decided that crepes were best left to the hands of chefs who know what they’re doing. I didn’t keep practicing like Ichigo. I was immature and afraid of failure because I didn’t know how to deal with it. And, due to my conclusion that I would never be able to do it, my excuse was that I couldn’t afford to waste more ingredients. Looking back, I realize that it wouldn’t have been “a waste” had I stuck with it and learned how to do make crepes properly. Think about it as investing for a better future.
I can’t say that I decided to try making crepes again to prove my younger self wrong– although that would be cool.
Like the majority of creations, this endeavor was also motivated by my strong sense of gluttony and love for making food affordable. I was just a broke college student that really wanted a good crepe without the guilt of spending too much money on one food item.
And thus, I challenged myself to learn how to make crepes. This time, I would persist. I can’t say that I’ve mastered crepes now, but I am pretty satisfied with where I’m at. I did practice a lot.
Subtle flex: I can make a mille-crepe cake now!
I also experimented a lot as I did practice a lot. I’ve folded crepes in different ways, incorporated different flavors, made some sweet and some savory, and even made them dairy-free with soy milk and vegetable oil. I use almond milk in this recipe because it’s what I had in the fridge, so feel free to use whatever milk fits your fancy. You could also substitute the butter for vegetable oil to make it completely dairy-free (I see you, lactose-intolerant folks)
Banana-Chocolate (Dairy-Free)
Spinach-Ham (blended spinach into the batter to make it green)
Breakfast Crepe (2nd attempt)
I must admit though, that the recipe varies a little every time I make them, so I must tell you what to look for when making a crepe batter so you can adjust accordingly.
Pointer Tips:
Expect the batter to be runny. It should be only slightly thicker than water and thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. If it’s too thick, add more water or milk.
Resting the batter in the fridge thickens the batter slightly, but resting the batter helps the flour bind to the other ingredients and produce a more cohesive batter that doesn’t separate. If you chill your batter and it comes out too thick (see point #1), don’t be afraid to add more water/milk before cooking.
You don’t need to chill the batter, but I’d recommend it.
Finally, let me stress that cooking the perfect crepe takes practice. Don’t expect to get a perfectly thin and round crepe on the first try. I would recommend using a round, 8″ non-stick frying pan; a 1/4 cup measuring spoon; and a thin spatula. Scoop the batter with the 1/4 cup to get a consistently even amount of batter per crepe.
There isn’t a set way to get circular crepes because I found that everyone does it differently. I had to find the method that was most comfortable to me. Personally, I find that pouring the batter slightly off center and then quickly tilting the pan counterclockwise works.
Heat-control is also really important because if the pan is too hot when you pour in the batter, it’ll be hard to make a thin crepe since the batter will cook on contact and will be less likely to spread. I like to keep my heat on low and cool the bottom of my pan with a wet towel between crepes.
Substitute the milk with your preferred milk-substitute. Here, I’m using almond milk. Use a lightly oiled 8-inch skillet. Pouring the batter using 1/4 Cup measuring spoons will help make the crepes look uniform.
Crêpes
2 eggs
1/4 Cup sugar
1/2 Cup almond milk
1/2 water
1 tsp salt
1 Cup flour
1 Tbsp melted unsalted butter
Directions
Beat eggs and salt together until homogeneous.
Add sugar, flour, milk, water, and melted butter. Stir to combine.
Chill the batter in the fridge for at least an hour.
Lightly coat a frying pan with oil.
Heat the frying pan on low heat and have a wet towel on standby.
Pour about 1/4 batter onto the pan and immediately tilt the pan in a circular motion.
Cook the crepe for 2-3 minutes or until the edges become easy to lift up with a spatula or your fingers.
Flip the crepe and cook for an additional minute.
Set the crepe aside on a plate. Cover the crepe with plastic wrap/foil.
Cool the pan by placing it on the wet towel for a few seconds.
Repeat steps 6-10 until batter is used up.
While I made the crepes, I made the fillings conveniently in the microwave. Feel free to use water fillings you want, but I wrote out the recipe for custard and mixed berry compote I used this time:
Filling for Berry Crepes
Custard Filling
1 egg
2 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 Cup almond milk
1/4 Cup flour
2 Tbsp unsalted butter
Directions
In a microwave-safe bowl, whisk the egg with all the ingredients except butter.
Microwave in 10-15 seconds intervals, whisking the mixture in-between.
When the mixture starts to become thick (after at least 3 minutes of microwaving–yes, it’s a long process, but it saves a lot of dishes), add the butter and stir to combine.
Set aside to cool.
Berry Compote
1/4 Cup frozen strawberries
1/4 Cup frozen blackberries
1/4 Cup sugar
Directions
Add all the ingredients in a microwave-safe bowl.
Stir to combine.
Microwave in 30 second intervals for at least 2 minutes, or until berries become soft and liquid is released.
Set aside to cool.
Toppings
1/2 Cup chopped strawberries
1/4 Cup blueberries
1/4 Cup blackberries
Chocolate syrup
Powdered sugar
Directions
Assemble toppings onto the crepe after they have been filled!
HUNGRY CRAVING 
