banana cream pie

banana cream pie is a dessert that works for any occasion. saaaay breakfast. or during tv time. or howsabout any time one wishes to eat at all. i suppose it would be good for Thanksgiving or potlucks as well, but that would mean you'd have to share it and i'm not sure i'm up for that. i'm only kidding, of course. i made a banana cream pie the other day for the reason that i had ripe bananas as well as a box of graham crackers that i needed to use up. it turned out to be pretty great. and in case you're wondering...yes, i did share, though i would have preferred to just eat it right out of the pan with a fork like a savage.

*this recipe calls for mashed bananas IN the crust, which i thought was weird, but i went for it anyway. the result was a chewyish type crust that was sort of hard to scrape from the bottom of the pie tin. i thought the chew was kinda odd, but everybody who tried it liked it and some even preferred it over your standard graham cracker crust. either way, it was delicious so go about it however you'd like.

for the longest time i would smash graham crackers into crumbs using a heavy bottle of olive oil until one day a light bulb lit up and i realized that that rolling pin i've had for so long would probably do the trick more efficiently. how did that not register in my brain sooner?

custard in all of it's perfection

if you don't do this the top layer will turn into a "skin" which disgusts me. correct me if i'm wrong, but i've heard that the "skin" part of homemade puddings is something that people fight over in (please excuse me...) white people households. i just can't wrap my my around that.

i followed this recipe i saw on Epicurious to a tee, except that i added whipped cream on top.

banana cream pie

ingredients:

crust

- 2 /12 c graham cracker crumbs

- 1/3 c sugar

- 1/4 c mashed banana

- 1/2 stick unsalted butter, melted

filling

- 1/2 c sugar

- 1/3 c cornstarch

- 1/4 tsp salt

- 1 1/2 c whipping cream

- 1 1/2 c whole milk

- 3 large egg yolks

- 1 vanilla bean

- 2 tbs unsalted butter

- 1 tsp vanilla extract

- 5 ripe bananas

directions:

for crust:

1. preheat oven to 350 degrees F

2. in your pie pan, mix graham crackers, sugar, and mashed banana until thoroughly mixed

3. mix in melted butter so that all elements are moist

4. evenly press into pie pan 

5. bake for until light golden brown or about 15 minutes

6. allow to cool completely

for filling:

1. in a medium saucepan stir together sugar, cornstarch and salt 

2. gradually whisk in whipping cream and whole milk

3. whisk in egg yolks 

4. cut the vanilla bean in half lengthwise, scrape the seeds and add everything to the saucepan

5. whisk over medium high heat until the custard thickens or comes to a boil

6. remove from heat

7. whisk in butter and vanilla extract

8. discard the vanilla bean

9. transfer custard to a bowl and cover with plastic wrap so that it touches the surface of the custard. allow custard to cool competely

assembling the pie:

layer one cup of custard on the bottom of the pie, then a layer of sliced bananas (use 4 of the 5), and continue to alternate until you've run out of ingredients. spread a layer of whipped cream atop the pie (i whipped up 3/4 c whipping cream, 2 tbs sugar and a splash of vanilla extract, whipped until stiff). adorn with last banana, sliced and extra graham cracker crumbs if you've got them.

"but i'm pretty f*cking stellar"

today the words "but i'm pretty f*cking stellar" came out of my mouth.

truth be told, the truth has been told.

i knooooow. nobody should be so cocky. but i work pretty hard at being a good person. and a respectable one. and a thoughtful one. and that's all it really takes to make you stellar. so please pardon me as i continue to realize that i'm a pretty decent person.

the people i surround myself with are pretty f*cking stellar themselves. so *virtual* pat on the back friends and family, for being amazing beings!

yep, this happened....

friend: i can just imagine you hopping around in your room

me: i'm not saying it didn't happen

have a good weekend! 

Gialina

Gialina is my favorite place for artisanal pizzas in San Francisco. they use what is in season and the food is pretty simple. you know how with thin pizzas sometimes you pick it up and it flops all over the place, spilling the contents of the top layer back onto the pizza tray? theirs aren't like that. they're more crisp on the bottom, nearly cracker-like. so if you like that then, you'll like Gialina.

 fortunately for me (and unfortunately for my waistline) they've got a sister restaurant called Ragazza a few blocks away from my work that is equally as good. if you find yourself in need of a good thin pizza, i recommend these two places.

please excuse these pictures. they were taken with my phone. 

a salad with persimmon, pear and gorgonzola

good, but easily made at home. nothing stunning about this dish. 

pork belly with chard and polenta

this dish completely reminded me of a chinese dish that has braised porkbelly with pickled mustard greens (one of my favorites!). they did something with the chard that gave it a really asian flavor.

heirloom tomato pizza with bacon, arugula, basil and mozzarella 

like a really good blt. the heirlooms were so sweet and full of flavor

don't actually just say "cheese"

the not-smile smile

i'm sure everybody has been met with the question "what do you first notice in someone of the opposite sex?" for me, that answer is their smile and eyes. i pay attention to everybody's smiles because they are so telling of how the person feels at any given time. typically people look great when they're smiling, right? because it shows a happiness or lightness in their demeanor at the time. but my point to this specific blog post is that people should look better when they're smiling than when they aren't smiling. 

too many times i've seen guys "smile" in a picture and it looks like the photo above. i cannot understand this. that is not the image of happiness, fellas. i can't describe that type of face to be anything other than "yikes!" as in "yikes! i probably shouldn't have gotten into that cake before we sang Happy Birthday," or "yikes! that cat is about to pounce on me and scratch my face up." well lemme tell you, if that's your "smiling" face, then i say let the cat have at it! i'm only kidding, of course. but why oh whyyyyyy do you guys do this? it's awkward and not in the slightest bit attractive. telling you to say "cheese" is only a saying. nobody really wants you to say "cheese" with such an exaggerated horizontal pulling of the sides of your mouth. but if that's your method, then at least be happy about the cheese, mmkay? otherwise you may as well just sit there stern faced because it's likely going to be more attractive than that mess you see above. 

walkin' round Chinatown

ummm i didn't intend on that title to sound rhymy like that but it is what it is. 

so, guys. i've recently decided that i'm going to start learning how to properly use my dslr. i've never really taken the time to figure out it's functions because photography can be heavy monetarily so i've always just pushed it aside. but i really love photography. if i'm ever at a museum, i'm more drawn to photographs than paintings or sculptures. also, i feel like photography is just more real. 

with that said, you'll likely start to see posts of random photo sessions as i learn to properly use a dslr. hopefully the pictures will get better and better but i'm not making any promises here. also, my camera is cheap and i don't own lenses so i've got to work with what i've got. lucky for me i'll have some opportunities to borrow lenses from somebody who has actually invested in the hobby. also lucky for me that he trusts me to handle his equipment. i really do hope i get better at it. remember when i showed you all of my favorite snapshots? just imagine if i took those photos with a decent camera and some know how. they'd be so so much better. 

so today i took a stroll around Chinatown in SF and snapped some pictures with my cheapo camera. i've found that for every 100 pictures i take, i'm bound to like maaaaybe two or so. i don't particularly love these photos below but they're the best of the bunch, so here you go! (and some are just cultural references that aren't great photos)

all of the lights

there are always a ton of people at the park in Chinatown and people end up leaving stuff behind all over the place. this magazine or whatever looked like it'd been there for a while.

focused on the panels rather than the people on this one

i took this just to show the culture of immigrant Chinese. the older generation goes to the park on a daily basis. they bring little seats or stools to sit on and lay out some cardboard to play cards, checkers, chess or other games. yeeeaaahh gambling is prevalent in the Chinese culture. 

where a ton of people wish to have their wedding banquet. i don't know if i've ever been up there but apparently it's sort of a big deal. 

dried salted fish. looks gross and creepy but i grew up with it so......yeah

i wouldn't recommend it to anybody who isn't really adventurous food-wise

well isn't this a shitty picture! the sun was shining directly in it's direction so it washed out the top portion of this pic. apparently you can fix this using a gradient filter, but i don't have one of those. and i didn't feel like waiting another 45 minutes for the sun to lower.

this mural holds near and dear to my heart because the man on the bottom left looks exactly like my grandfather who's passed. it's not likely that whoever painted this mural had a photo of my grandpa to paint from, but who knows. anyhow, anytime i pass this it makes me think of him, so i hope that they never ever paint over it.

fortune cookie factory!! less a factory, more like a one woman show. 

you see these imitation jade rings all over the place in Chinatown

i also took a few pictures with my phone just because i instagram good food....

a fresh, warm, unfolded fortune cookie. i could eat like 10,000 of these in one sitting. 

i like southern style fried chicken, but NOTHING beats these chicken drumettes from New Golden Daisy. i shit you not, these are theeee best version of fried chicken ever in life. 

i took this in the car while sitting in traffic. 

sooo you're telling me it's almost nighttime and it's only 5pm?? 

cookie towers make the world a better place

#yeahistagemyfoodphotos

lately i've found myself face to face with chocolate chip cookies more frequently than i've ever noticed before. the other day i ate a couple of cc cookies that were clearly of the break-and-bake or squeeze-from-plastic-sleeve variety, which i am not fond of. not that they aren't delicious, but i just can't appreciate it when people bring that sort of thing to a potluck. this then got me thinking about the last time i baked cc cookies and i couldn't recall baking cc cookies that weren't the Tollhouse recipe right on the back of their semi-sweet chocolate chips, years ago. well that's a half lie. i did make the cookie dough for the bottom layer of slutty brownies, but that doesn't quite count. anyhow, this got me wanting to bake some cookies. and what better day to bake cookies than a day in which teeth cannot be saved from a journey into rottenness, Halloween! slightly crisp, with a chewy center and loaded with chocolate and walnuts. waaay better than any snickers bar i got while trick-or-treating as a kid. now, chop up that snickers bar and throw it into a cookie and then we'll talk...

chocolate chip walnut cookies

ingredients:

- 2 1/4 c all purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 2 sticks unsalted butter at room temp.
- 1/2 c granulated sugar
- 1 c packed light brown sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 large eggs
- 2 c semisweet chocolate chips
- 1 c chopped walnuts

directions:

1. preheat oven to 350 degrees F
2. in a small bowl combine flour and baking soda. set aside.
3. in a large bowl cream butter and sugars
4. add salt, vanilla and eggs to creamed ingredients and mix in
5. add flour mixture and mix until just combined
6. stir in chocolate chips and walnuts
7. roll cookie dough into 1" balls and put on baking sheets (separated by 2" between balls)
8. bake until cookies are golden around edges but soft in the center (approx 8-10 mins)
9. remove cookies from oven and allow to cool on baking sheet for a few minutes
10. transfer cookies to wire rack to allow cool completely

...OR just shove them in your face while they're still warm because fresh baked cookies right from the oven are theeeee best!!