White Carrot Food and Travel Blogging Community

I know things have been rather “slow” here at WhiteCarrot.com for the past couple of months…We moved to a new host (I hope none of you guys noticed) and my other blog’s been pretty much absorbing most of my free time (technical issues). Now, with the Holiday Season upon us, I’m getting ready for my trip to Taiwan and wrapping up any lose ends before the month ends.

The good news is that I did get to do a lot of things this month despite the fact that I was pretty busy with work and other hobbies (like shopping), the problem is that I didn’t get a chance to blog much about it. Last Friday I went to the Sarah Brightman concert at the Honda Center. Phenomenal show! Not to mention the food was catered (Luxury Suite BABY!) Free booze and free food, can’t beat that. I did take a few pics of that, but it will have to wait. Hopefully I can do it before I go on vacation.

In any case, this post is meant to be about Balboa Island here in Southern California. If you have never been to Balboa Island, you aren’t missing too much. It is basically a little island with a bunch of multi-million dollar homes and some quaint (and expensive) mom and pop shops and restaurants. This past weekend, the wife and I decided to pay a little visit to this place (I’ve personally never been there) and kill a little bit of time.

We ate lunch at this restaurant called “Wilma’s Patio”. From the look of the number of people waiting for a table at this place, we figure it would be a pretty tasty restaurant. I was wrong. I’m going to get right to the point. It isn’t HORRIBLE, I’ve had worse food. The issue I have is the price. We shared a chicken fingers appetizer. I had a chicken sausage omelette and hot cocoa. My wife had carnitas enchiladas and lemonade. Total bill? $49 bucks with tip! Remember, this is breakfast we’re talking. What made matters worse was my omelette was bland as can be while the wifey’s enchilada was swimming in too much cheese. I did have a bite and I thought it had a lot of flavor, but yeah, too much cheese. The best part of this meal, and I not joking here, was the chicken fingers. Which may not look anything special, but were juice and flavorful.

My verdict? I’d say skip this place. Grab some frozen bananas (over at Sugar ‘n Spice) and take a stroll around the island instead! (see below)

For the past three years, the “Family” and I would embark on a camping trip into the “wilderness” during our Thanksgiving weekend. This year’s third annual trip was at McGrath State Beach near the city of Oxnard, CA. The fun thing about our trips is that it always revolves around food. This year was no exception! Just check out the pics below to get an idea of the goodies we had during our Thanksgiving getaway!

(top) Sweet Rolls, (top-right) Green Bean/Potato/Egg salad, (middle-left) Aged-Smoked Gouda Cheese, (middle-right) Scalloped Potatoes, (bottom-left) Lemon Bars, or what’s left of them, (bottom-right) Cranberry Stuffing, (way on the bottom) Pumpkin Bread

Lemon-Pepper Salmon

Ribeye Steak with Montreal Seasoning

(left)Chimichurri (right) Hmmmm Steak…

Dutch Oven Jambalaya

(left) Dutch Oven! (right) My Cousin Michelle’s Ultimate Salad

Most of the stuff we made was pretty easy. Salmon is pretty much lemon zest, salt, crushed peppercorns and minced garlic. Steak seasoned with Montreal Seasoning then served with Chimichurri sauce . The other goodies were pre-packaged foods we either had to just reheat or bake, nothing too difficult. The one thing we made from scratch was the Jambalaya. If you have a Dutch Oven and are interested in giving it a try, here is what you’ll need.

1. Dutch Oven Pot with Lid (seasoned).
2. Cans of diced Tomatoes. Or you can just dice like 3-4 large Tomatoes yourself.
3. Chili Powder (to taste)
4. Two Onions, I like the white ones personally, but you can use yellow ones too.
5. Salt & Pepper (to taste)
6. 2 packs of sausages (4 sausages each pack) and cut into pieces.
7. Fresh or dried Thyme (around 2 tablespoons)
8. 1 cup of chopped parsley
9. 4 cups of rice
10. 4 cups of water
11. 4 cloves of chopped garlic

You can also add seafood like shrimp, crawfish, lobster, muscles and clams. We opted not to in order to keep thing simple.

Preparation

Use a seasoned Dutch Oven and put over coal. You could do this on a gas stove or gas grill, but I think it sort of takes away from the whole “Dutch Oven” experience.

Put all sausages in and cook for about 5 minutes. You don’t need to add oil since the saugages are probably pretty fatty already. Add onions and stir them a bit until the onions soften and look semi transparent. Add garlic and parsley, cook and stir some more until parsley softens. Add diced tomatoes, thyme, rice, water and bring to boil. Add your chili powder, salt, pepper to taste.

Cover dutch oven let it simmer. Put a few pieces of charcoal on top of the lid to distribute heat more evenly. You might want to check occasionally to make sure it doesn’t burn. Stir it a bit so the rice cooks evenly. Just be careful not to get any ashes into your food. Check the softness of the rice. Once is starts to soften a bit, you can add your seafood into the mix. Stir again, cover, put the coal back on the lid and wait around 5 minutes or so until it’s cooked.

Be sure to remove the Dutch Oven off the coals and don’t burn yourself! Serves around 6-8 people.

Enjoy!

Well guess what? WhiteCarrot.com turns one years old today! Yey! To celebrate this wonderful anniversary,  Yokomo and WutDaPho should be on a Cabo San Lucas Cruise next week. BaketheKitty will be freezing her Hawaiian self in Las Vegas on her long awaited mainland appearance. While I, G-lato, will be revisiting Taiwan once again to blog about some good eats and some nifty travel destinations. I will also travel to Ankgor Wat in Cambodia for some ancient monument exploration. Armed with my new toy (Canon Rebel XSi), I should be able to sharpen my photo skillz and snap some worthy pics for the blog. No word on what LeOnion, Angelcake & Lychee are doing this holiday, but I’m sure “family” is involved. Hope you all have a wonderful holiday season!!

A few years ago I found a recipe on the internet for Kahlua-Vodka Cake and decided to make it in mini muffin form for a potluck party I was having with friends.  It turned out to be a hit and has been one of my standbys for potluck items.  They’re especially good for end of the semester class parties as the muffins will keep for a without refrigeration and can be served at room temperature.  I’ve modified the recipe a bit from the original cake recipe and opted not to put frosting on these.  They’re good as mini bites.  The trouble is you keep going back for more.

Ingredients:
1 box (18.25 oz) yellow cake mix (make sure it says with pudding inside)
1 box (3.9 oz) chocolate pudding mix
4 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup Kahlua
1/3 cup Vodka
7/12 cup water (I’ll explain this in the directions, there’s a method to my madness)

Directions:
Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix well.  To measure the 7/12 cup of water… pour the Kahlua and Vodka in a measuring cup.  You should have liquids hitting up to the 2/3 mark.  Now add enough water until it hits 1 1/4 cup.  That’s the total amount of liquids going into this batter.

If mixing by hand with a whisk, do so for about ten minutes.  If by electric mixer, about five minutes.  You’re looking to combine the ingredients and to introduce air into the batter.  I usually beat mines by hand (and gives your arms a workout) so I can’t vouch for the electric mixer.  It should be relatively smooth and you may see a few little lumps, don’t worry about it.

Preheat the oven to 350F degrees.  Set the rack to the middle.  If you plan on baking two racks at a time, try increasing the time by a few minutes.

Line the mini cupcake pan with mini cupcake liners.  Because this is more of a cake recipe than a cupcake recipe, the cake itself is fluffier and thusly not as tightly structured as a cupcake and will fall miserably without a liner to grip onto and to hold it up.  Pour batter into each liner about 3/4th of the way up.  Any more and you will have an inflated muffin top.  Though it will look yummy and nice in the oven, that sucker will deflate on you as soon as cold air hits it and instead of a round top, you’ll have a flat squished muffin top.  Not as appealing and not as yummy.

Put the pan into the oven and bake for 15 minutes.  Toothpick test it by inserting a toothpick into the center of the cupcakes.  If it comes out clean, you’re done.  If its a little crumbly, let it sit for a few more minutes in the oven.

Once they’re done, take them out and put the cupcakes on a cooling rack to cooldown.  Sneak one for yourself to do a taste test.  Once they’ve cooled enough, put them in a large plastic container and take it with you to your potluck party.

And now some personal notes:

• Yep, you can definitely increase the alcohol content.  You can put more of one than the other.  Just remember to decrease liquids from others if you increase another.  I have a friend who loves vodka so I increased the vodka content and decreased the kahlua content.  They came out smelling like vodka and were just as yummy.  Though take a note here… I have never completely taken out the water component and used all alcohol.  You can try and let me know.  The original recipe called for 1/4 cup vodka, 1/4 cup kahlua, and 3/4 cup water.
• Originally I started making these in mini cupcake form because I had a Betty Crocker muffin magic pan and that takes 7 minutes to bake up each time.
• I think Betty Crocker cake mixes make cupcakes that are more tender.

Habana is located at The Lab in Costa Mesa (California), right off Bristol Street. At first, we got a bit confused because we kept seeing The Lab’s sign next to Habana’s sign. Well as it turns out, The Lab is the name of the shopping center where Habana is located! Hah! It sure fooled me! Anyway, the location itself is a bit inconspicuous and easy to miss. We ended up walking in a circle before we noticed where the restaurant was located. Parking is not abundant, but this isn’t a busy shopping center we didn’t have any problems finding a place to park.

Habana offers indoor and outdoor sitting, being lunchtime, we opted for outdoor sitting. I kind of regret not sitting inside since there interior decor seemed interesting. It had a very “old world” feel, complete with candles, aged walls and dim lights. On second thought, I had to rely on my trusty iPhone’s 2-megapixel camera for pics so being outdoors was probably the better decision.

There wasn’t any wait so we were sat promptly and our drink orders came quickly. I ordered the “Ropa Vieja” (Old Clothes in Spanish) and my wife and friends ordered the Paella (serves two) and the Skirt Steak, which was a brunch entrée.

The Ropa Vieja, which is a traditional Cuban dis,h consisting of shredded pork in a tomato sauce base with black beans, rice and plantains. The pork was a bit on the sweeter side but not enough to gross me out. I did finish the whole thing so I can’t say I didn’t like it. I haven’t had Ropa Vieja before so I couldn’t really tell if that’s how it’s supposed to taste like. I love the plantains! Wish they gave out more.

I did try a spoonful of my wife’s paella. I think they did a good job with it because the rice did not come out too soggy and they didn’t skimp out on the saffron and seafood and meats. It would have been nice to see some lobster and crab in there, thought.

I didn’t have any of the Skirt Steak dish so I can’t comment. It does look pretty good though, specially that egg on top…hmmmmm

Our entrées were accompanied by a couple rounds of Mojitos (traditional, rasberry and blueberry) which were “okay”, I have had better Mojitos elsewhere. My main complaint was that there wasn’t enough sugar cane juice in it, but there was plenty of mint and rum!!! After few rounds we had a lot of laughter and smiles. Wife was in a very funny-mellow mood that whole afternoon. Good Times!

Unfortunately, I didn’t take any pictures of dessert. Wife and I ordered the Fried Bananas, while our friends opted for a Chocolate/Coffee Mouse Cake. The bananas were battered and deep friend and served with free fruits and vanilla ice cream on the side. Tasty! No complaints there.

Tasty entrées
So-so Mojitos
Great ambiance and good service
Expensive! The bill for a party of 4 was $135 + tip

Habana Cuban Restaurant
2930 Bristol St # A110
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
(714) 556-0176

MAP IT

Every so often, I come across a foodie site that really blows my mind. For this month, TasteSpotting.com was it. Not only does this site feature very creative dishes from foodies around the world, but it also features one of the best food photography I’ve come across. The fact that the folks at TasteSpotting.com hand pick their “featured” blog posts and photos clearly help this website maintain that “gourmet” feel. There are some very talented folks out there, both behind the camera and inside the kitchen. I’m really hoping that LeOnion and bakethekitty (the two White Carrot bloggers that actually know a thing or two about photography) to participate and try to get some of their recipes, restaurant review pics posted. They are fairly talent photographers and writers, so I think it shouldn’t be too big of a problem. I, on the other hand will pass since I only have a trusty Canon Digital Elph which performs admirably in most conditions, but fails miserably in low-light situations.

If you are up for the task, you too can sign up for an account with TasteSpotting.com and submit your own blog post and entry. I can only imagine how much traffic you can get in one day if you get featured on their homepage. Definitely worth a shot. Here are their submission guidelines. They are fairly strict with the content that goes on their site, so you must follow the guideline to the dot. Best of luck to you and let us know if you manage to get your blog and photo on their website!

Pepperoni Mushroom and Margherita

Ever since I heard about stone ovens and baking stones, I’ve always wanted to try making pizza at home.  You control what goes into it and you can load as much as you want into it.  What fun is that!  So after a bout of reading the Rachel Morgan witch series by Kim Harrison (the main character makes pizza in her kichen a lot), I finally got off my butt to try and make it.

In my eagerness to give this a try, I manage to forget the baking stone and made do with a baking sheet.  Though your results will be better with a baking stone (fluffier crust), you can still do it with a baking sheet.

I followed the Crusty Pizza Dough recipe on page 145 from Donna Rathmore’s The Bread Machine Cookbook, revised edition.  I found that making 1/3 or 1/4 of your recipe with wheat bread flour and the rest with regular white bread flour makes for a smoother dough to work with and I feel less like I’m eating pizza on wheat toast.  I recommend letting the dough rise a good 1.5 to 2 hours before working with it.  I made about five 10″ pizzas with this recipe.

If you’re like me and this is your first time making pizza, I suggest you go with making personal (about 10″) size pizzas.  A 15″ pie is really really hard to toss!  I kept ripping holes in the middle and overworking the dough.  I watched this video to pick up some tips: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjYqw1CLZsA&NR=1.  This guy makes it look easy.  When he’s pushing and turning out the pizza, what I do instead is to pick up the dough and use both my hands to gently stretch out the edge area without pinching the edges.

First two, baked for 10 minutes.

There’s a lot of control like this because I noticed the wheat flour does make things a little lumpier.  When he’s “hand stretching” the pizza, I do the same but with the dough draped over my knuckles and stretch it slowly by moving my hands apart or moving my fingers apart.  No tossing involved, no big motions to look impressive but I get no holes and more control.

Now comes the fun part, toppings!  Anything goes!  But I’m pretty traditional.  I like the whole fresh idea on top of a raw pie and everything getting cooked.  So I went with my favorite: pepperoni mushroom and the margherita.  The tomato sauce base I used was Prego’s Traditional and Classico regular.  Put enough on the pie so you still white dough here and there.  Put too much and the middle will get too soggy.

Fresh tomato and basil

Margherita is basically fresh basil leaves (italian), fresh tomatoes, and fresh mozzarella slices.  I went with pre-shredded bagged mozzarella and  roma tomatoes (deseeded so things don’t get soggy).  This combo is great on a thin crust.  If its not salty enough for you, sprinkle a pinch of salt.

Pepperoni mushroom is basically what it is.  The pepperoni is salty enough that you don’t need any extra flavorings.

Baked for 18 minutes

As you can see in the picture on the left, ten minutes wasn’t long enough to wilt the tomato.  I overcompensated in the next two pies, as shown on the image to the right.  The crust was really crispy though!  I think 13-15 minutes might be a good time to stick with at 500 degrees.

On a different night (when I forgot my camera), we had baby spinach leaves, minced garlic (not bottled), italian sausage, tomatoes, pepperoni, and mozzarella.  Though the spinach makes things a little soggier, lots of spinach, garlic, italian sausage, and mozzarella is a killer combo.  Make sure you cook the italian sausage first though!  That or you make sure you spread it pretty thinly on top of your pizza and not buried under other toppings.

Homemade pizza is a definite must try.  The taste is much better but the downside is that it can be quite a bit of work.  Make sure you use lots of cornmeal on the bottom of that pie so it doesn’t stick to things!

Margherita at 18 minutes at 500 degrees

Week 0.5

I’ve been thinking about it for a while - nearly a year.  Everytime I go buy groceries I was reminded again to join a CSA.  No, it’s not some super secret society or league of super heroes.  CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture and it was first made known to me through the speech by Michael Pollan.  I have since read many books including :

• In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan
• The China Study, T. Colin Campbell
• What to Eat, Marion Nestle
• Chew on This, Eric Schlosser

The reason for finally trying out a CSA subscription was that I wanted higher quality, organic foods while supporting local farms and reducing my carbon footprint at the same time.  Here are some other benefits of buying from local organic farms:

• Free of Chemical Pesticides
• No Genetic Modifications
• Seasonally Grown Produce
• Encourages Biodiversity
• Cleaner Air and Stewardship of the Land
• Tastes Better

If you’re interested in trying it out, most CSA farms have a trial period which is usually a month long.  It’s totally worth it and highly recommended.  I placed my order on Monday and it showed up on my front door on Wednesday.  Now that’s service!  Keep in mind that these farms have routes and may not be able to deliver to your residence.  However, a lot of them have convenient dropoff locations that should be able to match most people’s schedules.

After doing some research, I decided to go with Seabreeze Organic Farms here in the San Diego region.  This is what showed up on my doorstep today:

Seabreeze Organic Farms bag of goodies

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