Zuppa Tuscona made light

I apologize for these pictures. But the soup is amazing even without the cream!  Here is the original recipe I make LINK. The bowl above has a kale chip on top. That I made with bacon grease. I know right, but they were so good. I did use bacon grease in the soup for flavor because I subbed Italian sausage for ground turkey.

Tang Zhong Starter

This is my first time making the Tang Zhong  starter for breads. Honestly I didn't want to pull out my thermometer but I probably should have and heated it to 65 C instead of guessing. What is Tang  Zhong starter? It is a water and flour starter that is heated to 65 degrees Celsius. 
WHY and I trying this method/starter? Because I love Chinese bakery bread, it has this amazing soft texture, soft, chewy and just good. We have a Chinese bakery here that is amazing actually a few, but sometimes you just want to make your own bread.  Not that I'm a great bread maker, but I'm up for a challenge. I googled, searched, skimmed through a You Tube video where I didn't understand a lick of Chinese in. Then I came across some blogs. Christine's Recipes, Angie's Recipes,  Do What I Like. So I thought, that's enough info to help me get started.
Click here for Vanilla Bean Bread with Tang Zhong Starter

1/3 cup bread flour

1 cup water

Stir the water and flour to get the lumps out in a small pot.

Heat and stir until you get lines or the mixture reaches the 65C. I might have overdone it. We'll see.

I say I might have over done it because as with most things, it kept cooking while I pulled out my drinking glass to put it in. OH well.

I covered it up and put it in the fridge...
Now to use it.

Crock Pot challenged. Thai Basil Chicken

OK, you might have noticed that here is a lack of crock pot recipes on this blog (there are 13 tagged/filed under crock pot and about 500 posts) . If you're wondering why it's because I SUCK at crock pot cooking. I don't know what it is. I can make things like roasts, carnitas, stuff like that but for the most part everything I make is over cooked, and feels/tastes all mushed together. I've tried it all. I've used frozen meats to make sure it's not overcooked (which is perfect for roasts).  I've tried cooking them lower and for shorter periods. I've tried adding ingredients at separate times. But really all that effort is absurd. The whole point of a crock pot is to throw everything in and forget about it until dinner time right? There have been two meals I can clearly remember that DH and I- even the girls are like this isn't good. AT. ALL. There are many recipes I just don't even blog because they didn't work for us. I've looked through books, blogs galore, gotten recipes from people. Remember the lasagna? It looked great in the crock pot. We just threw out over 2/3rds of it out. What a waste! That's not like us,  we usually eat stuff anyway. The other meal is this one. It was edible and we ate it. God bless DH because he ate it all without a word. He never complains but he does rave at times. After dinner I asked him how the food was and he said, "not good, kinda gross" LOL! I said, "yeah, I thought the same." 

Crock pot 1

Me 0

Bento 2010-59, 60

 Holy bento fail. Diva asked for her favorite sandwich.

Turkey, cheese, sprouts, and usually cucumber and tomato. I didn't put a food pick through the sandwich and she said she had to eat it in pieces, but she ate it.

Mini apple

Simply fruit- fruit roll up

Noodle soup, cream cheese, pretzels and little fish snack.

Caution... and lunch.

I saw this sign at the market and had to take a picture of it. It makes very little sense. But it was humorous.

The girls love seeing the Blue Crab and Razor Clams when we go.

 Yummy bowl of Pho.

 Hands OFF my food.

YUM. (yes, she still uses a fork. Not sure why, her older sister was a pro with her chopsticks at this age)

Dinner 2010-10-25

 Dinner.

Chicken drumettes and wings - one Teriyaki batch and one Sweet Chili with garlic.

 I broiled the chicken. 

 Tum Mac Houng.

Khao Neow.