New England Clam Chowder

First attempt @ New England Clam Chowder = success!!!

Finally got around to making the clam chowder I've been wanting to make for the past two weeks. Turned out better than I expected!


After the bacon and onions were cooked, potatoes were added along with the clam juice. For some reason, there was more water after boiling the mixture for 15 minutes....



Surprisingly, the ingredients were simple to prepare...the recipe called for bacon, potatoes, onions, baby clams, cream of celery soup, milk, heavy cream, but I decided to add corn and celery to the mix too. It's almost like a clam + corn chowder fusion. What's not to like? As long as the ingredients sound appealing to me, the end result can't turn out too bad, right?


The best part is, I didn't have to add any additional salt or pepper to the chowder. The texture of the chowder was just right. It probably would've taste better and "clamy-er" if we added some fresh Littleneck clams to it, but there's always next time!

My dad even said I'm good at cooking "western food" (西餐) that I should open my own restaurant! There's an awesome compliment to hear. I almost wish I went to culinary school to learn all the techniques of fine cooking...that'd be awesome!

Homemade

I made lasagna again last Sunday! This time I brought a batch over for my uncle & aunt, they like it! The one pictured below is the batch we kept for ourselves, since my mom likes cheese, we ended up going out to buy another pack of mozzarella cheese and used half of it for the top.


I bought whole grain + omega-3 lasanga noodles...and attempt to make this somewhat healthier. The brands of tomato items I've used probably weren't the best, since I thought the first one I made before tasted better (but my mom claims the sauce was better this time). This batch tasted a bit saltier to me...

Wednesday night I came home from work and made my first ever Mac 'N Cheese! I was researching recipes online, but there were just too many variations...so I decided to borrow the core concepts from some of those recipes, and added things I want. Maybe this should be called "Mac 'N Cheese a la Yam Yam"?


The finished product out of the oven! I had the vision of having crusty mac on the top of the dish, but the cheddar cheese I sprinkled crusted up, instead of the pasta. The white flakes are panko, borrowed from the Japanese Mac&Cheese dish I had at Swanky Bubbles in Phili last year.


A close-up of what was served. I've added bits of cut-up hotdogs and bacon which I've pan-fried beforehand while I was boiling the pasta. Next time I will use more milk and cheese and less flour because the flour made the end-product a bit too dry, and I also envisioned a creamier Mac 'N Cheese. Nonetheless, I liked it!

Nam Phuong @ Phili

Last Saturday I met up with Iman and Alexis for dinner at Nam Phuong. It's been a while since the last time we went there...they were rude to us, so to get back at them, we took like 10 spoons. Anywho, last week's visit to that place was good! Maybe because it wasn't crowded...the food tasted great, and Iman said the waiter thought she was hitting on him when she asked him how to pronounce the dish in Vietnamese. It was awesome to hang out with Iman again!!! Too bad she's so far away now...

Onto the dishes...I got there ~15minutes late, so Iman & Alexis had already ordered the summer rolls and lotus root salad appetizer not pictured below. The lotus root salad was mixed with a sour and sweet dressing, and came with awesome tasting shrimp crackers! I've forgotten what these dishes are called and I don't know how to type the names in English, so the descriptions would just have to do!


This was on the Specials board that night, flat rice flour wrapped with meat inside. I *think* the name is Bahn Cuon...it's a lot like 腸粉 at dimsum places. The slices on top are similar to luncheon meat, and fried onion bits. The ball on the plate has 2 shrimps wrapped around some stuffing-like dough that's been deep-fried. We ordered this dish from a Viet place in Flushing before, and they served the meat around the noodles, but it was actually better to eat it together like how they've arranged it at Nam Phuong. The meat+noodle wrap looks almost like spring rolls or crepes, but smaller in size. It definitely tasted better the the Flushing ones!


A vermicelli noodles dish at room temperature served with chicken, pork, and spring roll. It came with a small bowl of fish-sauce based sauce on the side which we poured on top. This was good as well!


Pork chop with broken rice. Even from the picture the pork chop looks juicy! I preferred the pork from this dish than the one in the vermicelli...this also came with the small bowl of sauce to pour over.

Based on last Saturday's experience, I would go back to Nam Phuong again...hopefully next time they'll have the Bahn Cuon too!