Here’s my latest video from Good Bite – a roundtable with friends Matt Armendariz and Julie Van Rosendaal and we talk about S-S-S-SOUP!

I’m a lazy souper.

Well, let me rephrase that. I’m a forgetful and highly distractable gal and anything that sits on the stovetop for more than 30 minutes tends to be forgotten about, and that means long simmering soups.

So I have to use shortcuts like the pressure cooker or longcuts like the slow cooker (but at least there’s an auto shut-off) or better yet, I make soups that only take 10 minutes from start to finish….like my 10-minute miso soup recipe!

But watch and find out what Matt and Julie love about soup!

And here we have lovely Aarti showing you how to make the miso soup:

The recipe for 10-Minute Miso Soup is on Good Bite

David Lebovitz, Deb Perelman and I shot this GoodBite.com video about Birthday Cakes to Die For last month, and I think I’m going change the title to Birthday Cakes to Live For because that’s the point of a birthday, isn’t it?!

And it just so happens that my birthday is tomorrow, and if I could have just one silly birthday wish, it would be a homemade birthday cake. Actually I wouldn’t mind one of each of these:

Birthday Cakes To Live For Roundtable

Barefoot Contessa’s Strawberry Country Cake

Last month, Andrew and Nathan made the same cake for Andrew’s own 6th birthday, except the little boys they requested fluffy marshmallows stuffed inside the cake! The boys insisted that THEY bake the cake and assigned me role of videographer.

But watch as Chef David of Forking Delicious shows you the grown up version of Barefoot Contessa’s Strawberry Country Cake.

A little over a year ago, I met Chef Martin Yan for the first time at a Publix Aprons event. I was so girly-giddy that I breathlessly told him that he was my “culinary superhero.”

And if that didn’t scream, “freaky-fan-stalker!” then maybe he got a clue when I got a little so close trying to videotape Yan carving a chicken in 15 seconds that I almost got my bangs thwacked off. But nope, because that same evening, when I mentioned I was writing a cookbook, he actually said, “Send me a copy to review, I’ll write a quote for the back of the book.”

There was a chance that Chef Yan was just sayin’ that to be nice. I mean, he’s a celebrity chef who meets hundreds of people every day, he couldn’t possibly have remembered what he said to whom? So, two months ago, when my book was complete, I prayed that he really, really meant what he said and sent him a copy of the book galley with a kind note.

He remembered. And Martin graciously penned, “Jaden Hair delivers beautiful, simple and delicious food that will bring famly and friends to your table. She is the real deal who learned from the best, her mom. – Martin Yan.”

My publisher slapped that endorsement on the back cover of the book…and then I nearly fainted. The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook hits the shelves in mid-October, and I think the moment I see the real book at a real bookstore, I’m going to personally kiss the back of each book, right where Martin’s quote is.

A couple of weeks ago, Martin came back to town for a class…of course I attended and I gave Martin a big hug and thanked him profusely, freaky-fan-stalker style.

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Martin Yan China Cookbook Giveaway

Martin Yan’s sponsor, Tsingtao Beer has kindly given me two autographed books to give away. CONTEST OVER…WINNER ANNOUNCED!

He wanted to send a little message to you, as he autographed these two books:

I’ll randomly choose 2 winners on July 31st. Just comment below with a nice little note for Martin Yan! What do you want to say to him? I promise he’ll read it.

CONTEST OVER…WINNER ANNOUNCED!

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If Yan Can…

carve a chicken in 19 seconds…SO CAN YOU!

This is the second time I’ve seen him do this – just simply amazing. Hear that camera-clicking? That’s me, multi-tasking. Camcorder in left hand, heavy camera in right hand. Hold still….don’t get too close to that cleaver!

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It’s another episode of Good Bite, this time our topic was shrimp, which is such a biiig….wiiiide…topic! I continued my lovefest with Dr. BBQ and chose a recipe from one of his cookbooks, Grilled Shrimp with Chili Lime Butter, a seriously easy yet cool-looking recipe because you serve the chili-lime butter in a shot glass! Genius.

Since it is in a shot glass, I wonder if a splash of tequila would be appropriate in the chili-lime butter? Well, if not in the butter, then at least a shot of tequila for the chef BEFORE cooking?

Here’s our roundtable, the lovely Shauna of Gluten Free Girl and Catherine of Weelicious:

The recipe video for Grilled Shrimp with Chili Lime Butter from the sexy David Lawrence of Forking Delicious. I say forking-hot!

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Win Diane’s Sweet Heat!

Hot topic: tail on or tail off?

So, there was a hot topic that I brought up in the very beginning of the video – so hot and controversial that it got cut out from the main segment for fear of protesting and rioting. I love tail-on shrimp. No, let me be truthful – I love tail-on, shell-on shrimp. Screw table manners, I want to lick, suck, peel and wrestle with my seafood! It’s just part of the family eating process, to eat with my hands and DEVOUR.

It’s also an Asian-thing…and a Southern thing…

Nothing makes me happier than having a big ‘ol pile of shrimp, crawfish, lobster, crabs, etc. and having to work at it! Yes, even at restaurants. BETTER at restaurants cuz I don’t have to clean up!

BUT- I get tons of emails and comments from people asking me, ” Why the seven seas do you leave the tail on the shrimp? You just have to cut the darn thing off anyways!”

Well, you know my answer…I wanna hear…what’s your opinion? Tail on or tail off?

Answer below in a comment and I’ll pick 3 random winners to win a jar of (Sorry! CONTEST OVER!)

Diane’s Sweet Heat Habanero Jams.

I met Diane via Twitter, and she asked me if she could send me some of her habanero jams, Sweet Heat. Hell yeah! Love them spread on crackers with a little cream cheese. Anyways, Diane is from McKinleyville, a small town in Humboldt County, California, where the redwood forest meets the Pacific Ocean. These are all hand-made in small batches. Flavor come in Blackberry Habanero, Blueberry Habanero, Peach Habanero, Raspberry Habanero and Strawberry Habanero.

I love her jams so much that I’m buying these for you guys! Three winners will get a jam of their choice, my treat. I’ll pick winner on July 24th. CONTEST OVER!

UPDATE: The winners of the random drawing are:

LIZZIE LONGNECKER “I swear I’m not lazy, but…. tail off ”

IOWA FOOD GEEK “leave ‘em whole! as long as they are fresh and as big as the palm of my hand, I’m a happy happpy woman.”

TNLOCAVORE “Tail-on but I’ll be completely honest. I’m a little squeamish about shrimp with the veins in. It’s trauma from childhood. Shrimp veins are full of shrimp poop, the reason why fig newtons are crunchy are because they have bugs in them and raisins in rice pudding are really big ticks! As much as I try to get past those ideas planted in my impressionable young mind, they still creep me out to this day.”

Congrats! Look for an email from me!

My parents live in Los Angeles and until just recently, so did my brother. About three times a year, I go back to LA to hang out with the family, get my In-N-Out Burger fix and get the very important big dose of smog and traffic. It’s important because it gives me that fantastic talking point when the Los Angelenos ask me, “why the heck did you move to Bradenton, Florida?” Hmmm…well, let me cough the reasons!

Just a few days ago, my brother, Jay, packed his bachelor belongings in a moving truck and moved to Wichita, Kansas to start a brand new fancy job as a Doctor of Cardi-$dollar$-gy. At first, I was like, “Are you crazy? Giving up living in Beverly Hills to go live in Kansas?”

Not that I have anything against the good state of Kansas, it’s just that it’s a totally different lifestyle than the fast-paced, Botox’d, diamond-studded city of Angels.

Last night, Jay called. He’d just arrived after a couple days of driving to his new home, “Hey sis, you must come and visit. FOR THE BAR-B-QUE!!!” He went on to describe the pulled pork and smoked ribs that he’s sampled in the past 24 hours.

That was a good enough reason to commit one of the most important holidays of the year, Thanksgiving, to haul my family to Wichita, Kansas for a week’s vacation. And it got me thinking. Take award-winning barbequed pulled pork and combine it with an Korean style barbeque sauce and a puckery Asian cucumber relish. The result is something you’d find on the street corner of Cahuenga and Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, the Kogi BBQ truck.

As I’m sure you’ve heard, Kogi is the hottest thing to hit the streets of Los Angeles (literally!), smashing standard taco truck fare with the zing and spice of Korean flavors. They use Twitter to announce their itinerary for that evening and serve hundreds of people at each stop. Sometimes, the lines form an hour before the truck even arrives and snakes carelessly around cars, fire hydrants and benches.

I haven’t sampled their fare, I gave one of the owners, Alice Shin, a call and told her that I’d like to make a pulled pork taco from smoked pulled pork. Alice was able to nudge their chef, Roy Choi, into creating a BBQ sauce to match the deep smoky flavor of traditional BBQ’d pulled pork.

This recipe is mid-west meets Los Angeles. Good luck with your new adventure, my brother.

Korean Style Tacos with Kogi BBQ Sauce on Daytime TV

I would have loved to pair good ol’ spicy kimchi with these tacos, but my local Asian store had really sad looking kimchi. So, last minute, I decided to create a quick cucumber pickle for television as well as the photo shoot.

Dr. BBQ and I tag teamed that morning on a Daytime segment – he made his very famous pulled pork smoked in the Big Green Egg in a Carolina Pulled Pork Sandwich with Spicy Tangy Slaw (I also posted the video) – and I took his leftovers to make these Korean Style Tacos with Kogi BBQ Sauce.

hey, p.s. the video shows you what happens when you forget your dang mandoline and end up slicing cucumbers by hand in a hurry. They look like hockey pucks. Use a mandoline.

Thank you Sur La Table for providing the Shun Perfect Paring Knife and the beautiful Foldable Grilling Tools

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Other great recipes from around the web

Kimchi Recipe by David Lebovitz
Bulgogi Kimchi Tacos by My Korean Kitchen
Korean Beef Tacos by Week of Menus
Korean Short Rib Tacos by Tasty Eats at Home
Kimchi Pork Belly Pizza by No Recipes