Sunday, May 16, 2010

Dinner Party: Pasadena



The theme of the dinner party in Pasadena was Japanese food, and the star of the night was the salmon noodle soup, or udon as they say in Japan. Imagine teriyaki marinated salmon, bok choy, spinach, green onions, shiitake mushrooms daikon sprouts and nori on top of a fluffy bed of white udon noodles. Ladle onto this homemade dashi or broth, and you've got yourself an amazing soup. To accompany this, we had steamed kabocha and potato croquettes. You can view the full recipe here.

Salmon Noodle Soup

(make 4 servings)

Ingredients:
2 packages udon noodles
4 cups of dashi
6 shiitake mushrooms (sliced)
2 tablespoons miso
1 cup teriyaki salmon (cooked and flaked)
2 handfuls spinach
2 green onions (chopped)

Also added...
daikon sprouts
nori
bok choy
spinach

Red Velvet Cake Balls


This weekend a couple of friends invited us to a dinner party in Pasadena. Our friend Fran made these addictive and decadent red velvet cake balls for dessert. They looked so pretty! Inside a chocolate shell is melt in your mouth red velvet cake mixed with cream cheese frosting. Yes, the frosting is already mixed into the cake! So unbelievably good. You must try this! For a variation, she said that you can put them on lollipop sticks. Genius.

Click here for the full recipe.

Ingredients

1 box red velvet cake mix (cook as directed on box for 13 X 9 cake)
1 can cream cheese frosting (16 oz.)
1 package chocolate bark (regular or white chocolate)
wax paper