Naturally since coming back to Penn, food blogging has been put on hold (my iCal seriously looks like a rainbow exploded into continuous slews of colored blocks). But being that our hometown friend Angela came to visit us this past weekend combined with the fact that today is the Mid-Autumn Festival, I just couldn’t help but document our latest kitchen creation, mooncakes!

For us, the beginning of a new school year necessitates lots of grocery shopping, which is great because we LOVE grocery shopping! Kashi cereal and nut butters from Whole Foods, frozen veggies and quick cook steel cut oats from Trader Joe’s, blueberries and sweet peppers from Reading Terminal Market, kabocha squash and Japanese eggplant from the Asian market in Chinatown (hey we even brought back frozen salmon fillets and matcha green tea packets from our Costco back home)… As you can tell, we certainly don’t mind dashing around the city to find our favorite items. So after our back-to-school trips to the Asian market and Frogro, we were fully equipped (alkaline water, golden syrup, and all) to make ourselves some homemade mooncake.

Freshly molded

Recipe for the dough

For the red bean filling: 1 can sweetened red bean paste (510 g) + 750 g cooked and pureed azuki and kidney bean mix (~1:1) + 1 cup chopped walnuts (so no extra sugar added)

Instructions to cook the beans (steps 1-8)

Freshly baked

First legit creation from our tiny dorm kitchen

Filling: Red Bean + Walnuts

This weekend was also the first time a friend came to visit us at Penn and so naturally all our outings revolved around food. Although there’s an inexhaustible number of stellar food places in Philly, Felicia and I managed to narrow down a nice sampling for our Princetonian visitor.

Day 1: Dinner + late night snacking like a Penn student = Bobby’s Burger Palace (LA Burgers all-around) + gelato at Capogiro

Day 2: Dinner at Dinic’s Pork and Beef (pulled pork sandwich with provolone cheese and broccoli rabe, not pictured) + Dessert #1 at Audabon Bakeshop (salted caramel and oreo ice cream macaron sandwich, pictured) + Dessert #2 at KC’s Pastries (taro bun, not pictured)

Day 3: Brunch at the newly rennovated White Dog Cafe on campus (waffle with candied bacon and sweet corn ice cream, chicken & biscuits, assorted breakfast breads, steak breakfast burrito)

Well hope you had as much fun visiting us as we did hosting you, Angela! This fun-filled weekend surely was jam-packed; however, it’s exciting to know it’s only the first of many. Cheers to lovin’ junior year already. ^_^