More crap I eat at school (baking surprise)

More of a teaser post than anything, I'll update later on... if you can guess what it is (and you aren't already aware), then I'll give you a prize. Serious. In another installment of 'Crap I eat at school...,' Chris and I decide to make another dinner that I'm pretty sure almost every person we know would call disgusting. Our glorious concoction was one in which there was an overabundance of bacon, hot sausage, way too much bell pepper, and really a bit too much of everything. It was a starchy mess that, strangely enough, included graham cracker crust (meant for pie baking). Are you confused yet? Yeah so am I. In any case, we set out for Appletree Deli, our new go to supermarket (screw you Morton Williams and your outrageous price gouging! I'm well aware you get all your crap from Shoprite), and collected our ingredients and began to go to work. For the record, this wasn't some sort of intimate experience Chris and I shared alone, but rather... a gathering of 'has been' rowers, as we were joined by Davenport (who I should mention has the coolest name I've ever heard), and Dominic. Really it was a sausagefest brofest more than anything else.


I'm also including another photo of Chris', so whoever keeps clicking on his picture can continue clicking *wink. So I'm finally getting around to finishing this post. Have you figured out what we made yet? Yeah, homemade pizza. I actually have no clue what went into the crust, Chris handled that part, the toppings though... all me baby.


So yeah... we made a lot of dough, I think we actually doubled the recipe given on some random site. When it came time to roll it out into our baking pan, it felt really thin and weak. It was really a struggle to get it to stretch to the edges, but after baking, we realized we basically made a pan pizza. The dough was not as we expected at all... that is to say, thin, slightly charred, and kind of crunchy.


Um... this is my friend Daven. He is hands down the most Asian white person I know. He speaks Japanese and Chinese that could probably rival my own. How did I come across such a character? Former rower. In addition to being one of my favorite people to talk to about Japanese or Chinese culture, or random stuff in general, he's also one of the few people who will openly try virtually any Asian food I find. Oh, and he's also the jerk who started me on my killer 20k erg a day program last year. I really should thank him and Chris for helping me shed myoutterfatty. Look at the picture, did I mention he's really Asian?


Right before we shoved her in the oven. Just a final rundown on our awesome ass pizza. Start with enough dough for 3 pizzas and stretch them over a baking pan dusted with graham cracker crumbs (no flour, that can be construed as healthy). The dough should seem like it's not enough, but trust me, it's plenty. Top this with a full jar of pizza sauce... which I think was supposed to be enough for, you guessed it, 3 pizzas. Spread on half a pound of mozzarella... a.k.a. the entire package. This only happened because our 'back of the envelope calculations' suck ass (not mine, I never took Frontiers of Science). Throw on 3 strips of bacon, browned enough to crumble, stuff 4 more strips of bacon into the crust :D... secret twist there. Then brown an entire red pepper and 2 hot sausages in said bacon's fat, and throw all that on too. Bake for... I actually forget how long, until it looks right, and voila. You're well on your way to becoming obese.


There's the final product on the left, and the up close shot of the crust, so there's proof I actually stuffed bacon in there. How was it? Excellent. The crunchy bacon provided a nice contextual contrast to the soft pillowy crust we had made. The sausage and peppers gave just enough heat to offer a variation on plain bacon pizza, and the bacon in the crust... ugh, just a nice way to finish off a slice. Come to think of it, I wish every one of my meals ended with bacon. Oh wait...
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Dear whoever...

Someone from Columbia, I'm not sure who... keeps clicking on my buddy Chris' picture (the one of him making burger patties). I just wanted to let you know, that's kind of creepy, and his number is (601) 26... ha, just kidding. No seriously, that's really weird.
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KFC in Taiwan... moderately awesome

As per some sort of unspoken rule, no fast food chain in Taiwan can have a menu without adding some sort of weird twist item. McDonald's ups the ante by featuring a 4 layer Big Mac, a double layered spicy McChicken, as well as a green tea flavored McFlurry. Burger King wasn't as adventurous, but even so... they added a honey mustard chicken burger. Pizza Hut? All they did was stuff hot dogs in their crust (review to come btw). Now, 7-11... that's a whole 'nother level of amazing. Finally, let's not leave out Mos Burger in the discussion of specialty fast food. Where else in the world can you get an octopus burger where there are actually visible chunks of tentacles in the patty? In any case, I don't normally go to KFC, but it was raining, and I was kind of forced into it (which I don't really regret btw). It was there... that I realized how KFC could change something plain into something sort of amazing.


I know that KFC in America has those small snacker sandwiches. They're, well... okay? They tend to be unsatisfying though, and nothing really new. Chicken strip inside of a small dinner roll drenched in BBQ sauce has been done already. What you see above is the Taiwanese variant of the snacker. If you're familiar with Japanese style donuts, that is... airy dough made with the addition of rice flour... which is then fried, then you probably have an idea of what this entails. Plain chicken strip (or hot dog) is stuffed inside a 'bun' made of Japanese donut bread. Then instead of sauce, they use Kewpie mayo. That's pretty much it. Instead of dismissing the idea right away, consider the fact that this is a fried chicken cutlet (or processed stick of meat) stuck inside more fried bread. That's a lot of frying... awesome. They cost 39 NT a piece ($1.10 or so), which was their sale price... down from 45 NT, so they are essentially equivalent to the snackers in the US. They taste as you would expect. Somewhat oily, but incredibly satisfying. The one negative though? They're tiny as hell, roughly the size of an iPhone. That said, I never went back to have it a second time, not because I didn't like it, just because there were so many better things to eat at similar cost. Still, I thought something like this deserved its own post... so yeah.


Yes that picture above is my hand, and no I do possess the hands of a carny (neither oversized nor petite). This is purely for size comparison lol.
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以利泡泡冰 (Yi Li Bubble Ice)

So I'm a shaved ice fanatic. I don't think there's any denying that. If you shred up ice and put sugar of some sort on top, I'll most likely put it in my mouth, that's just how it works. I am also a fan of ice cream, I can polish off a half gallon container fairly easily. If only there were some sort of awesome intermediary between full out creamy ice cream, and the characteristic crunch of shaved ice. Oh wait, there is! Originally a store that was only open at 士林 (Shi Lin), 以利 or 'Yi Li' is a store that specializes in something they call bubble ice. Okay, so a cultural lesson now... shaved ice is traditionally served just as a giant plate with toppings on top. This is all well and good, but when you go to eat it, you're supposed to chop up the toppings into the ice, so that it's fully integrated. By the time your done 'playing' with it, the heat in Taiwan will most likely have melted part of it, so your final product is watery, but still semi-viscous, and retaining chunks of unmelted ice. The annoying thing here is that the ratio of topping to shaved ice is sometimes inadequate, leaving you a pool of ice water at the end. This makes me sad. Yi Li takes the guess work out of it. They mix the ingredients with ice and milk to make what is essentially a more watered down ice cream, but somehow manage to freeze it so that it's softer than a sherbet, but still firmer than a shake (note: do not tell me that this is just soft serve, because I assure you it's not). The flavors range from egg (I think they mean vanilla custard), red bean, peanut, taro, mango, Japanese plum, passion fruit, and a whole lot that I'm forgetting right now, each for 40 NT ($1.25 or so). So is it good?


My mom insisted on passion fruit, so I got 2, since I wanted taro myself. Um, I wouldn't go here if I didn't like it haha. The flavors are subtle, but distinct enough that you know what they are (which is to say, taro has a clear aftertaste that is undeniable). The texture is like having ice cream... with fiber added lol. What I mean to say is, it doesn't melt instantaneously like a Mister Softee does in your mouth, nor does it retain it's structure like Italian ice. It just kind of, becomes soft and creamy. Passion fruit was pretty win, as is taro... actually, there isn't any single flavor I dislike. Would I recommend this place? Yeah I would, especially if you're in the area. There's a couple locations, the first across from 台大 (NTU) in the 公館夜市 (Gong Guan Night Market), and another in 西門町 (Xi Men). I think there are more... but those 2 places tend to be bunched around more food, so I go more often.
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