great food!

My friend made some empanadas. Considering the fact that she's part Cuban, they're the shizzzz.

Yummy pictures from culinary(:

Lemon thins with a raspberry Melba sauce to add a dash of color. Chocolate covered strawberries - amazing!

More food from today (=

Aww, a Paradise roll. Tuna / Mango /Cream Cheese / Masago

(Masago: The roe of Capelin fish, which resides in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans.)

And last....my mom's order. Bolsot. It had this funky taste to it, like smokey. But my mom is crazy for it. Lol.

Toot-a-loo!!!

Some good eating

I spent the day with my mom. We went shopping! Ah, we're such shop-a-holics. When I stepped into global's I almost bought everything in the store.....And I got some clothes from T.J.Max....and then.....wait for it.....I BOUGHT A BIKE!!


Now we will go on bike rides, my mom and I.


We ate sushi, at one of my favorite restaurants in gainseville. Miya's has some great food!


I got the paradise roll, along with a bento box, while mom got Bolsot. We were satisfied, more than satisfied. We were in paradise (hehe, get it? I got a paradise roll!)

Below: Pickled radish.

Below: Kimchi. A fermented spicy Korean dish that has cabbage, raddish, and green onion in it. It was amazing! I could taste the spice but the tangy sour balanced it out so it didn't burn my throat.

Below: Julienned potatoes in a mayo sauce.

These were the side dishes that went along with my mom's dish. ^^

Food websites :)

http://foodgawker.com/

A website where people can post pictures of their food creations!! It's really awesome!

I fell in love with this picture. I'm such a sushi addict!

http://www.veggiebelly.com/
This website is also a good one, especially if you are strictly not eating meats. But I haven't explored it as much as the previous website, although it does look like a good one!

Cheese!

Went to a cheesemaking class at the library and learned a lot of helpful things :)

I want to make some. I need to make some.

One more exam tomorrow, and then school is gone and the Summer is here.
Going to bed!
Toot-a-loo.

Cookies

Fiddled with cookies in Culinary...well, actually, I was working a different area in the kitchen and just so happened to wander by when the 'experiment' popped out of the oven. It's sugar cookie stuffed with this jam filling. And haha, doesn't the face look like either a Pug, or a Monkey?
Chef Morris thought I was insane.

some eggs Benedict anyone??

So, CIA instructer came to EHS to do a demo for our class. He made a Hollandaise sauce, and showed us how to pouch eggs. And then we toasted some english muffins and opened up a back of really good ham slices....and asked for volunteers to make your own aggs benedict

So I raised my hand, even though I'm extremely shy.

And here's how it turned out

Sushi, where? Everywhere!

For my birthday my mom took me out to sushi. It was fantastic :P I had the Hawaiian roll and a chicken box. Mom got....well, I forget the name, but it's this hot rice and veggie bowl with a simmering egg on top. It gets spicy when you pour the chili sauce on....mom loves her spicy food, her taste buds have acquired a liking for anything spicy. (Hence her eating a gazillion hot hot hot banana peppers when she gets home from work.)

Alexis and Mack (the bf) even had sushi for a v-day special. They MADE it. So cute. I helped pick out what to put in the rolls. My favorite was the crab and mushroom. Delicious!

More pics to come...

Untitled.

Borrowed some wine from our neighbors, but my sister got the wrong type of roast when she went to the store for my mom, so that whole cooking plan that we had today was a no go. Anyways, check this out, snagged a picture of the bottle:

Low Country Boil

Made for Christmas eve - way late of me to update :)

Pasta in Vodka sauce

Went through my pictures and found some of the pasta in vodka sauce that I made for dinner a long time ago. This recipe came out of the Sopranos cookbook. And it was yummy yum yum in my tum :)

Curry Powder

I just love the smell and taste of Curry. It has got to be my number one favorite spice. I could eat curry dishes anytime and I would never get sick of the taste. One time when we were prepping for a catering, the chef made Curry chicken salad, and it was absolutely delicious!

Stuffed mushrooms

I'm making them as an appetizer for Christmas Eve, but I had to look up a recipe online. It came down to two choices. One had crab meat and the other didn't. I asked my mom and my sister what they thought I should pick, but all they said was, "It's up to you," and, "You're the chef, use you're best judgement."


Hello? I'm a chef in training. I've never had stuffed mushrooms before. I don't know what one would taste better! Crab meat or cream cheese?


Anyways, I finally exited out of the crab meat and stuck with this bad boy.


Ingredients:

12 whole fresh mushrooms
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper


Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray. Clean mushrooms with a damp paper towel. Carefully break off stems. Chop stems extremely fine, discarding tough end of stems.
2.Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and chopped mushroom stems to the skillet. Fry until any moisture has disappeared, taking care not to burn garlic. Set aside to cool.
3. When garlic and mushroom mixture is no longer hot, stir in cream cheese, Parmesan cheese, black pepper, onion powder and cayenne pepper. Mixture should be very thick. Using a little spoon, fill each mushroom cap with a generous amount of stuffing. Arrange the mushroom caps on prepared cookie sheet.
4. Bake for 20 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the mushrooms are piping hot and liquid starts to form under caps.


Hopefully, he won't disappoint.

Creamy Tomato Soup

I made it last night for dinner. I didn't particularly like it, although Alexis seemed to. I thought it was too rich, which made my stomach rebel.

All it took was tomatoes, onions, carrots, parsley, and butter. You throw it on the pot and after 20 minutes you mash it up in a vegetable mill (Which I don't have). Don't forget the half and half and the heavy cream.

Oh, and thyme, but we didn't have it so that was out of the recipe.

Again, this recipe = Not good!

The art of making sushi.

One Saturday, a long time ago when I was a mere third grader, my mom brought home sushi for lunch. I don't know what kind of roll it was, or where she got it from. All I know is that it was raw fish...and I loved it. I loved every little part of it;from the slimy-goodness of the raw fish and all the way to the salty soy sauce that made my mouth water. I Loved it so much it's bordering on obsession.

From that day on, I was completely hooked on sushi. I could eat it anytime, anywhere. My whole family likes sushi, even though my mom has begun to dislike it on account of her getting sick from eating sushi once. (I still love it though! Even if she doesn't!) I've eaten at multiple sushi restaurants but my ultimate favorite is Miya sushi. It's phenomenal eating! And when they bring out the sushi it looks so pretty laying there on the sushi plate that I almost don't want to eat it..... But I do eat it....every last piece!

On one of our many excursions to the bookstore (I believe it was Borders) I discovered that you could actually make sushi yourself,at home. How cool is that?? It came in this little kit that included--

• Two sets of chopsticks.
  
• Two chop stick rests (I had no idea what they were at first. They're just little side dishes that you place your chop sticks on when you're not using them.)


• A book on how to make sushi.
  
• Two soy sauce dishes.


• A bamboo rolling mat.
  

Everything came in this cute green box, which we still have to keep our sushi making materials in when we're not using them. (I tend to be very organized when it comes to the kitchen.)

Once I purchased the kit, I got everything else I needed to make the sushi from the grocery store. I only wanted to make a California roll-which is just crab meat,cucumbers,and avocado- because for two reasons.

1) I don't want to try making anything involving raw fish because I'm scared that I'll do something wrong that could make me sick.

2) I still need to look at other recipes,which I haven't gotten around to doing yet. Hehe. (i.e. the book about sushi that came in the kit,which explains many sushi recipes.)

The first time I made sushi I felt so sick afterwards because I was very impatient and couldn't wait for the rice to cool down. I was just so eager to roll my sushi I couldn't stop myself.

I also did not use the necessary rice vinegar that you're supposed to put in the rice. But the second time I did, and I think it made a world of a difference on how the sushi tasted!

Recipe for rice vinegar. (For two cups of rice.)

Ingredients.

• 2 tsp. salt
  
• 1/2 cup rice vinegar


• 1/4 cup sugar.

Directions.

In a small sauce pan add in the rice vinegar,salt,and sugar. You need to mix it on a low heat until the sugar and salt dissolves. Be careful not to let it come to a boil or that will spoil the vinegar.

After you have mixed it, slowly pour it over the sushi rice, when the sushi rice is cooked, and mix it together, gently folding the rice over. Do this for about five minutes and then place the rice in the fridge until it's cold, maybe for about 10 to 15 minutes.

Making sushi is a great adventure for me and everyone should give it a try! Of course, you're not going to be perfect at first. Failure is gonna happen. But as the saying goes, practice makes perfect.