Little Saigon

A couple of weeks ago my father took my younger sister and I to what he called a "Thai" restaurant When he pulled up to the restaurant I asked him if we were in the right place because the area looked.....rough. When we walked inside the Vietnamese (thanks dad)  restaurant I felt like Dorothy stepping into Oz for the first time. It looked nothing like what I thought it would. It was beautifully decorated with tiny Christmas bulbs and it smelled wonderful. This "gem of Atlantic City ", as it is commonly referred to,  is located on 2801 Arctic Ave (on the corner of Iowa ave) in Atlantic City, NJ. The owner is extremely nice and will explain everything on the menu. I can't remember the names of the items we ordered but every was delicious and I will be returning very soon!

My dad's soup, I was some type of beef soup with mint leaves

I've never had a cold shrimp roll before and this one was pretty
good, the only thing I disliked was that the rice paper was
 extremely thick and it was hard to chew.

Kayla's dish was some type of shrimp, beef ,and
chicken soup with noodles

This was my dads main meal, the brown sauce was so good,
 I put it on  my white rice.

My meal, it was really good. It's whole fried fish that came with white rice.
 Each table has a range of sauces  that go from sweet to really spicy to tangy.
There are four and I tried each one!

 

Nigerian Meat Pie

On our first food post I will share my mom's recipe for meat pie. Meat pie is a traditional Nigerian dish, many people make it differently and while the recipe list may seem simple and easy to make, in my opinion this is probably one of the more difficult Nigerian pastries to make. I wasn't going to add the measurements for the ingredients because it is very difficult to gauge what you need for these types of recipes because the size of your potato or pack of beef my differ from mine, so keep that in mind when re-creating these recipes. This recipe is time consuming but the results are great. Even if you don't get it perfectly right remember errors are the gateway to success. Enjoy and discuss in the comment box!

Ingredients 

7 cups of flour

4 sticks of melted real butter

1 can of condensed milk

12 eggs

1 pack of ground beef

4 potatoes 

1 can of carrots

1 can of peas

1 can of peas corn

spices (tyme, accent, curry, bouillon cube, salt)

extra virgin olive oil

Step 1

 Filing

In medium sized skillet put in beef, accent, curry, tyme and bouillin cube. Cook for 5 minutes or until slightly brown. Add teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil. Lower heat and cook until brown. Add potatoes. Prep your carrots, peas, and corn by draining the water out of the cans. Add vegetables to skillet. lower heat until it is very lower. DO NOT COVER. cook for 10 more minutes. Cool over night (it is very difficult to make meat pie with boiling hot filling, if in a time crunch, cool in the freezer for a couple hours. The filling MUST be cooled).

Finished product, although you probably will not use all of it.
Be prepared to freeze the leftover for next time.

Step 2

Dough

In a mixing bowl add 7 cups of flour, a pinch of salt, 8 eggs, 4 sticks of melted real (my mother told me to emphasize the real in real butter lol) butter. Mix. Preheat oven to 375. 

This is a small piece of what yours should look like

Step 3

Glaze

Crack open 4 eggs and only put the egg white into a cup. Mix

It should be more than this I just took this picture
 halfway through the baking process,
 that is why the glaze is so low

Step 4

Using a rolling pin flatten dough. Using a circular object (the circular object usually changes but this time my mother used a pot over) press into the dough.

 

Step 5 

Add a small amount of filing in the center of the dough. Fold over the dough until edges are together. Using a fork, make indentation on the edge of the dough as to seal it. 

Step 6

Spread the glaze onto the meat pie, lower the oven to 350, place meat pie on a pan and let bake for about 10 minutes. Take out the meat pie, glaze again and cook for an addition 10 minutes or until golden brown. 

                            

This recipe will make about 30 meat pie with the dough, you will have leftover filing though so make sure you freeze it so you can use it next time. It will last for a month or more when frozen.  Remember to fully thaw it out when ready to use it again. 

Tools

To make the eggs whites for the glaze fluffier, my mother uses this instrument to mix and

this is her mixing bowl

DIY

So.... I'm kinda new to customizing but there was this particular shirt I bought from Macy's Bar III collection that I loved. The only problem was that the buttons on the shirt were really flimsy and kept getting unbuttoned. I was going to take it to the dry cleaners to fix but I decided to do it myself and I think it turned out pretty well. I used two packs of buttons, they came in packs of three but I only ended up using five buttons. I bought them from my local Joann fabrics. Joann's always has coupons and I ended saving 40% on each pack. Both packs came out to less than 3 dollars ---- way less that what I would of paid for the cleaners. Excuse the chipped nail polish.

                           

Welcome!

Welcome to Cream and Cloth! I've had the idea to create a blog for years but I have only now summoned the courage (and energy) to do so. This blog will be a all around lifestyle blog that focuses on makeup and beauty, clothes, and food. I am new so please work with me, I know I will make errors in the beginning but how else will I learn. Anyway welcome and take a peak around!