The Little Ruby

Food, Recipes

Chocolate Chip Mocha Cookies

Food, Recipes

Homemade Extracts (Chocolate and Coffee)

Food, Recipes

The Best Baked Char Siu Baos (Baked Chinese BBQ pork buns)

Food, Recipes

Churro Waffle

Food, Recipes

Pork and Bok Choy Noodle Soup

Food, Recipes

Swiss Meringue Buttercream

May 2, 2017
Making cupcakes or a cake for upcoming Mother’s Day? If so, I highly recommend this frosting! When I think of cupcake frosting, I think of extremely sweet buttery frosting, because the typical cupcake frosting around here tends to be “American Buttercream”. While most kids and plenty of adults prefer that super sweet frosting on cupcakes, there are plenty of people that find it to be too sweet to eat. In the past, when I cooked cupcakes, I always made American Buttercream,  ...

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Food, Recipes

Waffle of Insane Greatness and Vanilla Whipped Cream

April 7, 2017
I love a good waffle as much as anyone, but I just could not get the crispy and delicious waffle at home that I get from restaurants. Why? Because most of the time “waffle” recipes that I had found were basically just pancake batter cooked in a waffle iron — not the same thing at all. Pancake batter cooked in a waffle iron produces a soft, cakey waffle just like a pancake is. I went through so many recipes while on my search for the perfect waffle recipe to go with our  ...

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Food, Recipes

Loco Moco

March 7, 2017
If in need of some island comfort food, this is the recipe. My favorite Hawaiian foods include: spam musubi, loco moco, and kalua pork (my friend makes the best kalua pork I’ve ever eaten. I tell ya, nothing compares to kalua pork cooked in a pit in the ground — nothing). I’ve had so many loco mocos from around here in Seattle and in Maui. Most of the Seattle ones lack something, but I can’t quite put my finger on it, although I still order them, because they are still  ...

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Food, Recipes

Sous Vide Crème Brûlée

February 14, 2017
Crème brûlée (French for ‘burnt cream’) is one of those desserts where you usually need to be ok with the taste of egg. I know there are some people that are not crazy about a strong egg flavor in their desserts and crème brûlée usually isn’t a dish I would recommend for someone opposed to it. But this particular recipe does not give off an egg flavor, IMO. It’s much more creamy than eggy. The ratio in this recipe is different than most crème brûlées,  ...

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Food, Recipes

Sous Vide Eggs Benedict

February 11, 2017
Eggs Benedict is probably one of my top 3 favorite breakfasts. Creamy, runny, gooey poached egg topped with a slightly tangy, creamy Hollandaise sauce over tender slices of ham and a buttery, crunchy English muffin. Perfection. I grew to love eggs benedict since it was my dad’s absolute favorite breakfast choice whenever we’d go to a brunch. When I was younger, I had a hard time enjoying the “undercooked” runny yolk pouring out of the pouched egg soaking the ham  ...

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Artwork

Digital Watercolor Print – Disney quotes

January 20, 2017
Last year for my daughter’s school, my school committee job was (and still am this year) yearbook lead. While I’m sure most parents in my position would most likely do it the easy way and use templates provided by the yearbook printing company, I, as always, make things difficult on myself by wanting to do EVERYTHING. Well, almost everything. One parent from each class would take photos and upload them to the yearbook, but for every other aspect of the yearbook I had to design  ...

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Food, Recipes

The Best Chocolate Chunk Cookies

December 29, 2016
I’ve always loved to bake. So naturally, I’ve baked a lot of cookies over the years. I’ve tried so many different chocolate chip cookie recipes and while some are very tasty and chewy (just the way I like it), I wanted them to be a little thicker and resemble a specialty cookie like from a bakery or cafe. So I tried this new recipe and holy cow I’m in love. Beautiful thickness, perfect chewiness yet still soft, just the right amount of sweetness, and, oh yea,  ...

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Food

Almond Cream Puff

May 6, 2016
Spending the morning with family is always wonderful. Spending the morning with family while stuffing your face with an amazing brunch is the best. We went to a pretty good Mother’s Day brunch spot this year, Portage Bay Cafe in Seattle. Unfortunately, my gift giving skills seriously lack, but I tried to think of something that could be given to all the mom’s in my close family rather than buying different gifts for each person. Sweets. Sweets is always the answer. The ladies in  ...

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