Lemon Pound Cake Again!

Pound Cake has a special place in my heart. My mom always made pound cake so when I eat pound cake, my memories of childhood come back to me. Well actually, when I smell pound cake in the oven, I alway feel at home filled with happiness with my family.

Anyways, if you are interested in my mom's pound cake recipe, click here. It is super easy recipe and always delicious.

But lately, I am making lemon pound cake more. One of the reason is lemon flavor is more refreshing in summer. Other reasons are my husband and my new bundt pan. (my husband loves lemon and I like making lemon glazing for my bundt cake.)

For this lemon pound cake, I use this recipe. Click here for the recipe from Land O Lake website.

This time, glaze was better and it looks prettier. Actually, my husband drizzle the glaze this time.

Last time, the glaze was bit too loose and it didn't come out as pretty as this time. If you are interested in how it looked my last lemon pound cake, click here.  You will find the picture of lemon pound cake almost at the end of the post.

This time it looked better and the cake was moist and very good. Since this is a huge cake, we gave some to our neighbor and my husband also brought some to his office.

It is quite hot right now in NY so I don't bake too much lately but if I am baking something, I tend to bake something with lemon or lime which is very refreshing in how summer weather!

Easy and Delicious Japanese Beef Bowl

This dish is something I make when I don't have much in my fridge or when I don't have desire to cook something complicated. This is super easy yet very delicious dish which my husband and my son love.

When I go to Japanese grocery store, I usually buy one or two package of very thinly sliced beef and freeze them for later use. I find it difficult to get this kind of thin sliced beef in the U.S. sometimes. But, I have seen them in Trader Joe's and some other place. I think if you go to Korean grocery store, they have these also. It is like beef for Philly Cheese Stake. The one I normally buy has some fat on them and I think this is the key for great beef bowl.

Anyways, it is super easy and I just make this without measuring anything but I thought maybe someone will be interested for this recipe so here I go.

Japanese Beef Bowl (For 3~4 people)
Thinly Sliced Beef   about 0.8 pound
Onions                      2
Ginger                      about 1~2 table spoons (Chopped or julienned)
Vegetable Oil          1 Table Spoon
Soy Sauce               2 Table Spoons
Sake                        2 Table Spoons
Mirin                       2 Table Spoons
Sugar                      1~2 tea spoons
Cooked Rice          about 3 cups (before cooking)
Picked red ginger   (optional)

1, First of all, slice onions and chopp or julienne ginger)

2, Add oil into the pan and fry onion. When it is softened, add ginger and fry little more.

3. Then, add meat and Sake.

4. When the meat is cooked through, add soy sauce, mirin and sugar. Bring to a boil and turn the heat off.

5. Add rice into a bowl and transfer some of the meat and sauce.

6, Add picked red ginger on top and serve.

My husband and I love ginger so I normally add lots of them in and also add picked ginger on top but if you don't like ginger, you can just add a little bit.

This is a super easy dish which taste really good. This is kind of a Japanese fast food. You will find some beef bowl fast food chains in Japan. They are cheap and good!

If you can find thinly sliced fatty beef, you should try this dish!

Ricotta Cheesecake

It has been quite hot these last few days in NY but how is everybody doing? Mausi family is doing great. Enjoying summer!!

Anyway, the other day we went to this Italian deli/pizzeria close to our place. This place has really good pizza and they also make fresh mozzarella and ricotta cheese.

We had small pizza (which is big) with mushroom and onion. What I love about this pizza is the crust is thin. I like thin crust pizza!

At deli section, they have different kind of fresh meat and cheese. One of my neighbor told me that their Mozzarella cheese and Ricotta cheese are really good so I bought those cheese.

I didn't take pictures of these cheese but we had Mozzarella for salad. Ricotta cheese was creamy and sweet and I could just eat it as is but since we had lots of them, I decided to make ricotta cheesecake.

This cake is not too sweet and have lots of ricotta and egg with little bit of flour.

The recipe I used was the one I found in All Recipes. Click here if you would like to jump to the recipe. 

It said Sicilian ricotta cheesecake so the recipe muse be from Sicily. This is very different from American cheesecake. It was light and bit dry. My husband loved it. I liked it but I think I prefer something little bit sweeter and creamer.

It was very easy to make and tasted great. Maybe I will add little bit more sugar next time ;-)

It was really hot when I baked this cake so we couldn't stay in the house. My son and I played in front of the house while the cake is baked.

I think cheesecake is great for summer because you can eat it cool!

Well, if you like light cheesecake, try this one!