Food Attempt: Chai Tea from scratch

I have been constantly craving chai tea since the start of spring. I remember trying my friend Jane's homemade chai tea 2 Thanksgivings ago and it was amaaazzzing! However, the thought of making chai tea from scratch (or anything for that matter) sounded so overwhelming. So I never tried to make it myself. Instead I would secretly hope that someone would make it for the next get together or holiday party. 

I went through several containers of Trader Joe's spicy chai tea latte, but my tastebuds are becoming harder and harder to please. No longer satisfied by the powdered mixes, I decided to ask for the recipe. Above are my results of another attempt at making edible things!

Major takeaway from this experience:

1. Cardamom seeds look like mini poops. 

2. Sometimes things can sound more intimidating than they really are. 

Anyways, happy weekend!

Food Attempt: Clam Chowder

Ok. Let's start by clarifying that I do not consider myself a cook. I mostly just rely on online recipes or easy recipes from friends. If I could choose, I would prefer you cooking for me. I am intimated by all things complicated in the kitchen (I pretty much shut down if there are more than 5 ingredients in a recipe), and the one thing that I am afraid to cook is seafood, specifically shellfish. I have had glimpses of my parents making lobsters and crabs several times, and they were some of the most traumatizing moments of my life. But the ironic thing is that I LOVE shellfish. I love shrimps, crabs, clams, lobsters, mussels, you name it. Those are some of my constant cravings. 

After a cookout over the weekend (which I was only in charge of making chicken wings), I ended up with a big bowl of leftover clams. I begged people to take it home with them at the end of the night but no one did. So I was left with a bunch of yummy clams and zero ideas as to what to do with them (besides reheating them in the microwave...) I searched and searched and finally stumbled upon this clam chowder recipe from the food network. See recipe here. 

Feeling courageous the next day, I decided to give it a try. Here are the results.

Voila! 

Despite of the multiple freak out moments during the process, I managed to make clam chowder from scratch! I ended up improvising majority of the recipe but I think it turned out pretty okay!