a day in the life of this pastry student November 9, 2009

My days start at 6am. I wake up after having hit the snooze button at least 2 or 3 times. I get dressed and wear my chef uniform. No need for makeup and all I do is twist my hair up into a low bun we are out the door no later than 6:40am or whatever time I have finished packing the lunch bag for myself and my mother.

We then arrive to school sometime around 7:30am or whatever time we have finished getting the 20oz cup of café mocha from Walgreens (don’t judge, but the closest Starbucks is 2 hours away). I then make some instant oatmeal in the microwave at my mother’s office. The secret is to nuke it in increments of 60, 25, 20, 15 & 10sec. After that, believe me when I tell you that I take my time slowly eating my oatmeal. I am often late to class even though all I have to do is go down a flight of stairs to reach my classroom. But at least I make it there in time to slip on my skill cap and tie on my bistro length apron before the real work starts.

Over the span of 5 hours we plow through theoretical material as well as get our hands dirty. Today, for example, we made bread by hand and decided to make crepes. I was not very impressed with the latter so I won’t share the recipe but the stack of crepes we made will be shown below. They tasted yummy, by the way, when we ate them with whipped cream.

Meanwhile, this bread dough was just amazing! The rolls came out so light and soft. I recommend everyone make these! The average yield of this recipe is about 17-2ounce rolls.

So let’s see if I can summarize the whole bread making process for you. Maybe in the next day or two I might write out a lesson in the basic steps in bread making, so that no matter what bread recipe you come across, you will always know how to form the perfect dough.

Egg bread rolls
– 9 1/2 oz water
- 3/4 oz Yeast
- 1lb 5oz bread flour
- 2t salt
-2 oz sugar
- 1oz milk
- 1oz butter
- 1oz shortening
- 1 large egg

1- proof yeast in water with a few pinches of the sugar.

2- make a well of the dry ingredients and cream the days with the sugar with the palm of your hand. Blend all wet ingredients in center.

3- slowly incorporate flower by working fingers around the well until the consistency thickens and you can incorporate flour. You can take your time with this step as it helps for the flour to become hydratef before kneading.

4- knead the dough for 5-10min until it comes together in a smooth ball.

5- place on a floured baking sheet, flour too and loosely place plastic wrap over. Allow to rise until double in size, approximately 1hr.

6- punch down and round the dough, place back on floured baking sheet, with loose covering of plastic wrap and allow to rise again for approximately 30min.

7- divide into 2oz portions or approximately 16 balls. Fold each portion until smooth then round by making counter clockwise circles under cupped palm of hand.

8- allow balls to rise again for 20-30min or until double in size.

9- brush with an eggwash and sprinkle with sesame or poppy seeds as desired.

10- Bake at 400 F for 20min or until bottoms are a golden brown.

Enjoy!

the perfect cornbread November 5, 2009

For the longest time I have been hunting for the perfect recipe for cornbread. I had tried quite a few and was never satisfied with the end product. To me, the perfect cornbread was one that was sweet, light and fluffy. I don’t like it to be dense or filled with chunks of real corn. I suppose I wanted a cornbread recipe not from a box that was almost like a fluffy delicious cake.

But no matter what recipe I tried, the result was either grainy or too dense. I still had one recipe as my go-to even though it didn’t produce the airy light product I wanted.

Then suddenly, about 2 weeks ago I decided to make the recipe with a sudden adjustment. After having taken a class on bread development and gluten and the perfect bread crumb, I felt there was something instinctual. This time it would be perfect.

Want to know what the secret ingredient was?

Butter!

Yes, butter.

The secret to life is always butter.

Just a single ounce more of butter made all the difference. Who knew?

The reason I believe is that the layers of the fat from the butter better coat the proteins in the flour. When the cornbread mix is baked, the fat melts and air is released to fluff it up.

I also discovered how just one tablespoon more of sugar to this recipe makes for a very crunchy crust. The sugar caramelizes on the crust and adds a nice crisp. I prefer it without that crunch but my mother prefers it with.

So I urge everyone to try this recipe and let me know how it goes.

To have the perfect cornbread, I baked it in my trusty cast iron skillet.

Ivy’s Prefect Cornbread @ 400 F

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
3 oz (6 tblspn) butter
1 cup milk
2 eggs, lightly beaten

1- In a large bowl, place all dry ingredients and whisk together until it looks evenly distributed. Leave a small well in center.
2- Slice butter and place in skillet. Place over med-low heat and allow to melt. Swirl bitter around in the skillet to cost the surface and sides.
3- Pour milk, eggs and butter into the well of the dry ingredients.
4- Whisk together, starting in small circles in center and making larger circles until incorporated. Once fully blended, mixture will look thick and butter will have been absorbed.
5- Pour mixture into skillet and bake immediately at 400 F for 20-25min or until top is golden and middle springs back to touch.
6- Scrape edges with a spatula, working it under the cornbread to loosen it from the pan after 5min. Turn out on to a plate or serve straight from skillet. Best when eaten nice and warm!

Flan! for the win! July 9, 2009

You can never go wrong with flan.  Some people, like Tania (@lovebig) mentioned that they have loved it and never made it.  Now this I consider quite a crime.  Anything that translates to caramel custard is OK by my books.  So, to help entice her to add it to her extensive baking list, I’m including two flan recipes.  They are both for flan de queso, but one is with condensed milk (which she has an abundance of) and the other is with evaporated milk (which is the one we usually make).  A difference between the recipes is the end consistency.  The one with evaporated milk is a lighter sort of custard in texture and the one with condensed milk has a weightier feel to it.  (That likely made no sense, but if you went and made both, you’d TOTALLY see what I’m trying to convey) In fact, I can usually tell when a recipe was made with either one.  I did this to my gay hubby’s amusement one weekend when he brought some flan back after his weekend in Adjuntas and a little was saved for me to try.  I pegged it after a spoonful or two the difference the recipe I usually have because his mother uses sweetened condensed milk.  

(I was supposed to post this up last night after work but I was trying to dig through my random picture archive to see if I had a picture of flan somewhere. My search came up empty.  I did try though!)

So I urge you to give either one a try, you won’t be sorry!

Both recipes use a 9″ X 2″ round pan and you will use the bath-Marie method when baking.  So save yourself the trouble beforehand and be sure you have tested out which pan fits which and will allow you to pour some water to reach 2/3 up on the mold without making a steamy mess when the time comes!  This way you can premeasure the water (by pouring some water into your baking mold then pouring enough on the outside to desired height, then remove the mold set for the flan) and have it ready.  Also, I’m writing the recipe with the 1cup sugar to be used to caramelize into the pan but you can skip this step by just pouring a sort of thick caramel (like dulce de leche) to coat the bottom.  You just place the pan over the burner on low and let it just ooze over to coat. 

The recipes can be halved with much success but I recommend baking them in smaller ramakins if you need smaller portions most.  You won’t be sorry that you have so much flan!  You can NEVER have too much flan, if you ask me.

 

Flan de Queso con leche condensada

1cup sugar- for mold

8oz Cream Cheese

1 1/4cup water

1/4 tsp. salt

1tsp. vanilla extract

1 1/2tsp. fresh lemon/lime zest

5 large eggs

1/2 milk

1 can (14oz) sweetened condensed milk

- To caramalize mold: Place mold onto low burner and place sugar in a mound in center of the mold.  Allow the sugar to heat and turn slowly to caramel.  Once proper golden consistency, spin mold to coat bottom.  CAUTION: caramel is EXTREMELY hot.  Do not touch and while you may use a spoon to help coat the bottom, by NO means try to lick the spoon.  If the caramel gets on anything, soak in water immediately.

- Preheat oven to 325F and place the container for the bath-Marie with the amount of water you have tested beforehand that will reach 2/3 up your baking mold on the outside. 

- Cut cream cheese into 6 pieces and place into blender container.  Add the water, salt, vanilla and lemon zest.  Blend on low for 1/2 minute.

- Add eggs and blend again for 1/2 minute.

- Add the condensed mil and regular milk, blending again for 1/2 minute. 

- Pour contents into the prepared caramel baking mold.  Place into bath-Marie (if you are nervous about the water, you can leave the pouring of boiling water until after you’ve placed the pans in the oven) and bake for 45minutes.

- Raise temp to 350F and bake for about 10-15min more or until it passes the clean toothpick test.  

- Allow to rest two hours before placing in fridge to chill.  This is an important step!  This is the step that allows the caramel to release from the mold.

- Chill in fridge until ready to serve.  Turn over onto a plate when ready to serve.  Enjoy!

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Flan de Queso con leche evaporada 

1cup sugar- for mold

4oz cream cheese

1cup sugar- for flan

1/4tsp. salt

5 eggs, lightly beaten

1 can (13oz) evaporated milk

1/2cup water

1tsp. fresh lemon/lime zest

1 tsp. vanilla extract

- To caramalize mold: Place mold onto low burner and place sugar in a mound in center of the mold.  Allow the sugar to heat and turn slowly to caramel.  Once proper golden consistency, spin mold to coat bottom.  CAUTION: caramel is EXTREMELY hot.  Do not touch and while you may use a spoon to help coat the bottom, by NO means try to lick the spoon.  If the caramel gets on anything, soak in water immediately.

- Preheat oven to 350F and place the container for the bath-Marie with the amount of water you have tested beforehand that will reach 2/3 up your baking mold on the outside.

- Cream the sugar and cream cheese and salt in a mixer until soft and smooth.

- Lightly beat eggs and mix with the milks and water.  Mix well and strain over cheese and sugar mixture.

- Add vanilla and lemon zest.  Blend together and pour into mold.  

- Bake in bath-Marie at 350F for 1 1/2 hours or until toothpick test comes clean.  After first 45minutes of baking, place an aluminum foil tent over it to avoid forming an upper crust, bake for the rest of time covered.

- Allow to rest two hours before placing in fridge to chill.  This is an important step!  This is the step that allows the caramel to release from the mold.

- Chill in fridge until ready to serve.  Turn over onto a plate (it MUST be turned over to allow caramel to be poured over the custard) when ready to serve.  

 

Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can never go wrong with flan.  Some people, like Tania (@lovebig) mentioned that they have loved it and never made it.  Now this I consider quite a 

crime.  Anything that translates to caramel custard is OK by my books.  So, to help entice her to add it to her extensive baking list, I’m including two flan 

recipes.  They are both for flan de queso, but one is with condensed milk (which she has an abundance of) and the other is with evaporated milk (which is the 

one we usually make).  A difference between the recipes is the end consistency.  The one with evaporated milk is a lighter sort of custard in texture and the 

one with condensed milk has a weightier feel to it.  (That likely made no sense, but if you went and made both, you’d TOTALLY see what I’m trying to convey)  

In fact, I can usually tell when a recipe was made with either one.  I did this to my gay hubby’s amusement one weekend when he brought some flan back after 

his weekend in Adjuntas and a little was saved for me to try.  I pegged it after a spoonful or two the difference the recipe I usually have because his 

mother uses sweetened condensed milk.  

(I was supposed to post this up last night after work but I was trying to dig through my random picture archive to see if I had a picture of flan somewhere.  

My search came up empty.  I did try though!)

So I urge you to give either one a try, you won’t be sorry!

Both recipes use a 9″ X 2″ round pan and you will use the bath-Marie method when baking.  So save yourself the trouble beforehand and be sure you have tested 

out which pan fits which and will allow you to pour some water to reach 2/3 up on the mold without making a steamy mess when the time comes!  This way you 

can premeasure the water (by pouring some water into your baking mold then pouring enough on the outside to desired height, then remove the mold set for the 

flan) and have it ready.  Also, I’m writing the recipe with the 1cup sugar to be used to caramelize into the pan but you can skip this step by just pouring a 

sort of thick caramel (like dulce de leche) to coat the bottom.  You just place the pan over the burner on low and let it just ooze over to coat.  

The recipes can be halved with much success but I reccommend baking them in smaller ramakins if you need smaller portions most.  You won’t be sorry that you 

have so much flan!  You can NEVER have too much flan, if you ask me.

Flan de Queso con leche condensada

1cup sugar- for mold

8oz Cream Cheese

1 1/4cup water

1/4 tsp. salt

1tsp. vanilla extract

1 1/2tsp. fresh lemon/lime zest

5 large eggs

1/2 milk

1 can (14oz) sweetened condensed milk

- To caramalize mold: Place mold onto low burner and place sugar in a mound in center of the mold.  Allow the sugar to heat and turn slowly to caramel.  Once 

proper golden consistency, spin mold to coat bottom.  CAUTION: caramel is EXTREMELY hot.  Do not touch and while you may use a spoon to help coat the bottom, 

by NO means try to lick the spoon.  If the caramel gets on anything, soak in water immediately.

- Preheat oven to 325F and place the container for the bath-Marie with the amount of water you have tested beforehand that will reach 2/3 up your baking mold 

on the outside. 

- Cut cream cheese into 6 pieces and place into blender container.  Add the water, salt, vanilla and lemon zest.  Blend on low for 1/2 minute.

- Add eggs and blend again for 1/2 minute.

- Add the condensed mil and regular milk, blending again for 1/2 minute. 

- Pour contents into the prepared caramel baking mold.  Place into bath-Marie (if you are nervous about the water, you can leave the pouring of boiling water 

until after you’ve placed the pans in the oven) and bake for 45minutes.

- Raise temp to 350F and bake for about 10-15min more or until it passes the clean toothpick test.  

- Allow to rest two hours before placing in fridge to chill.  This is an important step!  This is the step that allows the caramel to release from the mold.

- Chill in fridge until ready to serve.  Turn over onto a plate when ready to serve.  Enjoy!

Flan de Queso con leche evaporada 

1cup sugar- for mold

4oz cream cheese

1cup sugar- for flan

1/4tsp. salt

5 eggs, lightly beaten

1 can (13oz) evaporated milk

1/2cup water

1tsp. fresh lemon/lime zest

1 tsp. vanilla extract

- To caramalize mold: Place mold onto low burner and place sugar in a mound in center of the mold.  Allow the sugar to heat and turn slowly to caramel.  Once 

proper golden consistency, spin mold to coat bottom.  CAUTION: caramel is EXTREMELY hot.  Do not touch and while you may use a spoon to help coat the bottom, 

by NO means try to lick the spoon.  If the caramel gets on anything, soak in water immediately.

- Preheat oven to 350F and place the container for the bath-Marie with the amount of water you have tested beforehand that will reach 2/3 up your baking mold 

on the outside.

- Cream the sugar and cream cheese and salt in a mixer until soft and smooth.

- Lightly beat eggs and mix with the milks and water.  Mix well and strain over cheese and sugar mixture.

- Add vanilla and lemon zest.  Blend together and pour into mold.  

- Bake in bath-Marie at 350F for 1 1/2 hours or until toothpick test comes clean.  After first 45minutes of baking, place an aluminum foil tent over it to 

avoid forming an upper crust, bake for the rest of time covered.

- Allow to rest two hours before placing in fridge to chill.  This is an important step!  This is the step that allows the caramel to release from the mold.

- Chill in fridge until ready to serve.  Turn over onto a plate (it MUST be turned over to allow caramel to be poured over the custard) when ready to serve.  

Enjoy!

  

You can never go wrong with flan.  Some people, like Tania (@lovebig) mentioned that they have loved it and never made it.  Now this I consider quite a 

crime.  Anything that translates to caramel custard is OK by my books.  So, to help entice her to add it to her extensive baking list, I’m including two flan 

recipes.  They are both for flan de queso, but one is with condensed milk (which she has an abundance of) and the other is with evaporated milk (which is the 

one we usually make).  A difference between the recipes is the end consistency.  The one with evaporated milk is a lighter sort of custard in texture and the 

one with condensed milk has a weightier feel to it.  (That likely made no sense, but if you went and made both, you’d TOTALLY see what I’m trying to convey)  

In fact, I can usually tell when a recipe was made with either one.  I did this to my gay hubby’s amusement one weekend when he brought some flan back after 

his weekend in Adjuntas and a little was saved for me to try.  I pegged it after a spoonful or two the difference the recipe I usually have because his 

mother uses sweetened condensed milk.  

(I was supposed to post this up last night after work but I was trying to dig through my random picture archive to see if I had a picture of flan somewhere.  

My search came up empty.  I did try though!)

So I urge you to give either one a try, you won’t be sorry!

Both recipes use a 9″ X 2″ round pan and you will use the bath-Marie method when baking.  So save yourself the trouble beforehand and be sure you have tested 

out which pan fits which and will allow you to pour some water to reach 2/3 up on the mold without making a steamy mess when the time comes!  This way you 

can premeasure the water (by pouring some water into your baking mold then pouring enough on the outside to desired height, then remove the mold set for the 

flan) and have it ready.  Also, I’m writing the recipe with the 1cup sugar to be used to caramelize into the pan but you can skip this step by just pouring a 

sort of thick caramel (like dulce de leche) to coat the bottom.  You just place the pan over the burner on low and let it just ooze over to coat.  

The recipes can be halved with much success but I reccommend baking them in smaller ramakins if you need smaller portions most.  You won’t be sorry that you 

have so much flan!  You can NEVER have too much flan, if you ask me.

Flan de Queso con leche condensada

1cup sugar- for mold

8oz Cream Cheese

1 1/4cup water

1/4 tsp. salt

1tsp. vanilla extract

1 1/2tsp. fresh lemon/lime zest

5 large eggs

1/2 milk

1 can (14oz) sweetened condensed milk

- To caramalize mold: Place mold onto low burner and place sugar in a mound in center of the mold.  Allow the sugar to heat and turn slowly to caramel.  Once 

proper golden consistency, spin mold to coat bottom.  CAUTION: caramel is EXTREMELY hot.  Do not touch and while you may use a spoon to help coat the bottom, 

by NO means try to lick the spoon.  If the caramel gets on anything, soak in water immediately.

- Preheat oven to 325F and place the container for the bath-Marie with the amount of water you have tested beforehand that will reach 2/3 up your baking mold 

on the outside. 

- Cut cream cheese into 6 pieces and place into blender container.  Add the water, salt, vanilla and lemon zest.  Blend on low for 1/2 minute.

- Add eggs and blend again for 1/2 minute.

- Add the condensed mil and regular milk, blending again for 1/2 minute. 

- Pour contents into the prepared caramel baking mold.  Place into bath-Marie (if you are nervous about the water, you can leave the pouring of boiling water 

until after you’ve placed the pans in the oven) and bake for 45minutes.

- Raise temp to 350F and bake for about 10-15min more or until it passes the clean toothpick test.  

- Allow to rest two hours before placing in fridge to chill.  This is an important step!  This is the step that allows the caramel to release from the mold.

- Chill in fridge until ready to serve.  Turn over onto a plate when ready to serve.  Enjoy!

Flan de Queso con leche evaporada 

1cup sugar- for mold

4oz cream cheese

1cup sugar- for flan

1/4tsp. salt

5 eggs, lightly beaten

1 can (13oz) evaporated milk

1/2cup water

1tsp. fresh lemon/lime zest

1 tsp. vanilla extract

- To caramalize mold: Place mold onto low burner and place sugar in a mound in center of the mold.  Allow the sugar to heat and turn slowly to caramel.  Once 

proper golden consistency, spin mold to coat bottom.  CAUTION: caramel is EXTREMELY hot.  Do not touch and while you may use a spoon to help coat the bottom, 

by NO means try to lick the spoon.  If the caramel gets on anything, soak in water immediately.

- Preheat oven to 350F and place the container for the bath-Marie with the amount of water you have tested beforehand that will reach 2/3 up your baking mold 

on the outside.

- Cream the sugar and cream cheese and salt in a mixer until soft and smooth.

- Lightly beat eggs and mix with the milks and water.  Mix well and strain over cheese and sugar mixture.

- Add vanilla and lemon zest.  Blend together and pour into mold.  

- Bake in bath-Marie at 350F for 1 1/2 hours or until toothpick test comes clean.  After first 45minutes of baking, place an aluminum foil tent over it to 

avoid forming an upper crust, bake for the rest of time covered.

- Allow to rest two hours before placing in fridge to chill.  This is an important step!  This is the step that allows the caramel to release from the mold.

- Chill in fridge until ready to serve.  Turn over onto a plate (it MUST be turned over to allow caramel to be poured over the custard) when ready to serve.  

Enjoy!

  You can never go wrong with flan.  Some people, like Tania (@lovebig) mentioned that they have loved it and never made it.  Now this I consider quite a 

crime.  Anything that translates to caramel custard is OK by my books.  So, to help entice her to add it to her extensive baking list, I’m including two flan 

recipes.  They are both for flan de queso, but one is with condensed milk (which she has an abundance of) and the other is with evaporated milk (which is the 

one we usually make).  A difference between the recipes is the end consistency.  The one with evaporated milk is a lighter sort of custard in texture and the 

one with condensed milk has a weightier feel to it.  (That likely made no sense, but if you went and made both, you’d TOTALLY see what I’m trying to convey)  

In fact, I can usually tell when a recipe was made with either one.  I did this to my gay hubby’s amusement one weekend when he brought some flan back after 

his weekend in Adjuntas and a little was saved for me to try.  I pegged it after a spoonful or two the difference the recipe I usually have because his 

mother uses sweetened condensed milk.  

(I was supposed to post this up last night after work but I was trying to dig through my random picture archive to see if I had a picture of flan somewhere.  

My search came up empty.  I did try though!)

So I urge you to give either one a try, you won’t be sorry!

Both recipes use a 9″ X 2″ round pan and you will use the bath-Marie method when baking.  So save yourself the trouble beforehand and be sure you have tested 

out which pan fits which and will allow you to pour some water to reach 2/3 up on the mold without making a steamy mess when the time comes!  This way you 

can premeasure the water (by pouring some water into your baking mold then pouring enough on the outside to desired height, then remove the mold set for the 

flan) and have it ready.  Also, I’m writing the recipe with the 1cup sugar to be used to caramelize into the pan but you can skip this step by just pouring a 

sort of thick caramel (like dulce de leche) to coat the bottom.  You just place the pan over the burner on low and let it just ooze over to coat.  

The recipes can be halved with much success but I reccommend baking them in smaller ramakins if you need smaller portions most.  You won’t be sorry that you 

have so much flan!  You can NEVER have too much flan, if you ask me.

Flan de Queso con leche condensada

1cup sugar- for mold

8oz Cream Cheese

1 1/4cup water

1/4 tsp. salt

1tsp. vanilla extract

1 1/2tsp. fresh lemon/lime zest

5 large eggs

1/2 milk

1 can (14oz) sweetened condensed milk

- To caramalize mold: Place mold onto low burner and place sugar in a mound in center of the mold.  Allow the sugar to heat and turn slowly to caramel.  Once 

proper golden consistency, spin mold to coat bottom.  CAUTION: caramel is EXTREMELY hot.  Do not touch and while you may use a spoon to help coat the bottom, 

by NO means try to lick the spoon.  If the caramel gets on anything, soak in water immediately.

- Preheat oven to 325F and place the container for the bath-Marie with the amount of water you have tested beforehand that will reach 2/3 up your baking mold 

on the outside. 

- Cut cream cheese into 6 pieces and place into blender container.  Add the water, salt, vanilla and lemon zest.  Blend on low for 1/2 minute.

- Add eggs and blend again for 1/2 minute.

- Add the condensed mil and regular milk, blending again for 1/2 minute. 

- Pour contents into the prepared caramel baking mold.  Place into bath-Marie (if you are nervous about the water, you can leave the pouring of boiling water 

until after you’ve placed the pans in the oven) and bake for 45minutes.

- Raise temp to 350F and bake for about 10-15min more or until it passes the clean toothpick test.  

- Allow to rest two hours before placing in fridge to chill.  This is an important step!  This is the step that allows the caramel to release from the mold.

- Chill in fridge until ready to serve.  Turn over onto a plate when ready to serve.  Enjoy!

Flan de Queso con leche evaporada 

1cup sugar- for mold

4oz cream cheese

1cup sugar- for flan

1/4tsp. salt

5 eggs, lightly beaten

1 can (13oz) evaporated milk

1/2cup water

1tsp. fresh lemon/lime zest

1 tsp. vanilla extract

- To caramalize mold: Place mold onto low burner and place sugar in a mound in center of the mold.  Allow the sugar to heat and turn slowly to caramel.  Once 

proper golden consistency, spin mold to coat bottom.  CAUTION: caramel is EXTREMELY hot.  Do not touch and while you may use a spoon to help coat the bottom, 

by NO means try to lick the spoon.  If the caramel gets on anything, soak in water immediately.

- Preheat oven to 350F and place the container for the bath-Marie with the amount of water you have tested beforehand that will reach 2/3 up your baking mold 

on the outside.

- Cream the sugar and cream cheese and salt in a mixer until soft and smooth.

- Lightly beat eggs and mix with the milks and water.  Mix well and strain over cheese and sugar mixture.

- Add vanilla and lemon zest.  Blend together and pour into mold.  

- Bake in bath-Marie at 350F for 1 1/2 hours or until toothpick test comes clean.  After first 45minutes of baking, place an aluminum foil tent over it to 

avoid forming an upper crust, bake for the rest of time covered.

- Allow to rest two hours before placing in fridge to chill.  This is an important step!  This is the step that allows the caramel to release from the mold.

- Chill in fridge until ready to serve.  Turn over onto a plate (it MUST be turned over to allow caramel to be poured over the custard) when ready to serve.  

Enjoy!

  

About cooking and other randomness June 24, 2009

Can you believe that I’ve got a list of blog titles so to keep myself writing?  

Well, I do.  

And still I seem to manage to forget to blog!  

I think it had to do with the difficulty of putting up pics with my purse.  I’m on dial-up, so its dern near impossible to get things to upload (and don’t even get me started about how I can’t watch video on here unless I wish it to be an endeavor of 3 hours to wait for it to load).  With these difficulties, my blog posts will have to be more word heavy and less slideshow.  I’m not sure how I feel about that because I love speckling my entries with a random picture here and there.  However, I’m not the best photographer; so perhaps its for the best.  

Now, with that in mind, I’m working out a list of how I should lay out my days of the weeks and more consistently post.  I notice a lot of other blogs have themes.  Mine has always been an eclectic mix of baking, sewing, beauty, rants and reviews.  I have no intention of picking just one topic and blogging about that.  That’s not my life and it wouldn’t be my style.  

So I’m just going to pile it all on here and hope you can sort through the mess.

And perhaps even be a little entertained by it.

(Super Secret news: I’ll be churning out a writing series involving cooking and family. Tune in tomorrow for first installment.)

Meanwhile, I’ve moved so far away from the purpose of my original post that I almost hit PUBLISH on this thing without even getting to it.  

I’d meant to tell you all about how I’ve been cooking a lot more and baking a lot less.

Now you see, I have a work schedule that has 12 hour windows of availability.  My window is from 8am-8pm PST (which, when y’all in the States spring ahead with daylight savings time, it’s the equivalent of 11am-11pm for me) and, while I have a preference set to work at the beginning of this window, my time can be shifted around in between with the 9hr block of work schedule that I have.  Its 9 hours because they divide up my hour day to allow me an hour break(unpaid) and two 15min breaks(paid) throughout the day.  

Since I work in my pjs from the comfort of my own room, I don’t have to worry too much about my meals.  I just hit the fridge for all my meals and snacks in between.  But with only an hour for dinner, it doesn’t allow for too much time to make anything spectacular.  My hours rarely coincide with my mother’s Mon-Wed since she has a typical work week of Mon-Fri.  Meanwhile I work Sat-Wed.  So our respective days off are different and on those days, we each take the task of ensuring the other has a nice home-cooked dinner.  

As some who follow my tweets have noticed, I’m a girl who scampers about doing her errands on Thursday and Friday, then comes home to rustle up something delicious.  Sometimes I just throw some chicken and potatoes into the oven and call it dinner.  Other times I take the time and effort to pull together a delicious pot pie.  I usually don’t plan my menus while my mother has what she will make over the weekend all planned out by Friday.  My style of cooking has always been to just work with what I have on hand.  I joke that I often just wait for the food to speak to me (no cracks about this one, please) but it seems to work.  I can pull a cohesive and delicious meal from a pantry that seems to have nothing edible (as my sis in law can well attest to).  

While I don’t think I actually use recipes when cooking, I do search on Slashfood/AOL recipes for something that will inspire me to work with what I have on hand.  

Her name might be Cow, but she is neither steak nor beef.

That is what I tell her every time she tries to come up on the counter to help me cook.

I feel as if this post would be quite empty if I did not include some sort of recipe, I will include two.  One is for the way I happen to like to have my oatmeal most mornings and the other is for a turkey breast I made last week (mostly impressive because my mother came home with the turkey breast and proceeded to look at me like “Well, what are you going to make with it?”, so I had to pull something out of my recipe McGuyvering (sp?) hat).

Cinnamon- Brown Sugar Oatmeal

single serving

• 1 cup low-fat milk
• 1tsp cinnamon
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
• pinch of salt
• splash of vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup  and a pinch Quick Cooking Oats 

1. In a small saucepan place milk with everything but the oatmeal over medium-high heat.  Stir to ensure cinnamon gets blended completely.
2. When mixture begins to foam, pour in oats and lower heat to medium.  
3. Stir until mixture begins to bubble all gloopily (aprox. 5-6min).
4. Cover while you get the spoon and bowl, allowing to rest for a minute or two. 
5. Serve and enjoy! I usually have mine with some sliced bananas under the oatmeal, my lil bro likes it with chocolate syrup and my mom likes to sprinkle it with raisins.  So you can add anything you like with it or have it alone!

 

Herb Cordon Bleu Stuffed Turkey Breast

serving: 4-6 (depends how hungry they are)

 

• 3lb turkey breast (skinless, boneless. Mine had a bone and I pulled it out and boiled it up for stock)
• 1/2 cup low-fat mozzarella cheese, shredded
• 3oz smoked ham, cubed
• salt
• garlic & herb seasoning (mine was from McCormick but you can use fresh if you have them)
• cotton string (I stole the one my grandma uses to tie pasteles)

 

1. Pre-heat oven to 325F.
2. Lay out some plastic wrap to cover your work surface and lay out the turkey breast. Cover with another layer of plastic wrap and then pound them until they are a more even and expanded surface area. (I took out all my aggressions and used the back of our cast iron skillet pan.  Its sturdy and heavy and just felt right for the job.)
3. Once done bashing, remove upper layer of plastic wrap and lay out about 24″ of the cotton strings under the turkey breasts.  Arrange the breasts so that lengthwise is facing you, then sprinkle with just a hint of salt.  Liberally shake on the garlic/herb concoction and rub into the meat. 
4. Arrange the ham amongst the surface, then sprinkle the cheese.  Leave about half an inch of border from the edge of the meat to keep things neat. 
5. Use bottom layer of plastic wrap to assist in rolling the turkey breast together and tying it off.  Tuck in the outside corners for a neat roll.  
6. Place on a roasting pan with just enough turkey stock to barely cover the bottom of the pan.
7. Bake for 75-90 min until outside is deliciously golden brown.  
8. Turn off oven and allow to rest for 10min before carving since there is cheese inside and you want it and the juices to settle before serving.
9. Eat and enjoy! I served this with some doctored stuffing from a canister (meaning I added lots of sauteed minced up veggies and used the turkey stock) and french cut green beans(from a can).  I used the remaining turkey stock by making it into a gravy (bringing it to a boil, seasoning it, a dash of browning sauce and 2tbsp cornstarch mixed with 1/4cup water until perfect consistency).  

Bombshell Delights: Polish June 16, 2009

Every girl has a list of things that she loves and, when she finds a good thing, she should have no qualms in sharing her secret.  Though some of the sharing isn’t quite the absolute truth, like when I share what color lipstick I’m wearing.  I may say that I’m wearing… say, Mary Kay Sunset, in all actuality I’m also wearing some lipliner and lipgloss over it to give it a slightly different shade.  So while the color is true, there is a different effect than just the color cannot simply provide on it’s own.  

However, some things are a lot simpler.

As of late I’ve acquired some favorites, so let me share one of these good things:

For about a year I would actually get my nails done every 3 weeks with the acrylic and the airbrushed designs.  I wouldn’t keep my nails too long but they were long enough for people to notice them.  But for the summer I just wasn’t feeling it to go keep going to the salon and having the fake nails.  So I was wandering about the local shopping center on the search for some pretty nail polish colors.  Previously I’d never really had a real love for a particular brand.  I sort of liked a few, mostly I went by shades of interest.  But I stopped into Sally’s Beauty Supply for the things I needed to remove the acrylic and I noticed there was a sale going on for China Glaze  nail polish.  So I thought to peruse the stand of colors.  

The array was colorful and caught my eye.  There was another display right next to this one but the colors for China Glaze appealed to me because there was a wider variety than just the pinks, browns, beiges and reds.  Not knowing anything about it, I picked out just two bottles of polish for the discounted price.  

 The Fast Forward TopCoat since I like my nails to be glossy when I’m done

Being a Bombshell, I needed a gorgeous red polish, so Ruby Pumps it was  

 

And since I really liked using those two, I went back and got 3 bottles more:

Tempest appealed to me, I had a yearning for something purple but not

I don’t know why but For Audrey really called to me

Though this one is called Frostbite, I would actually call it SuperHero Blue.  I swear, this would be the sort of electric blue that those spandex costumes are made of. 

The colors are vibrant, the consistency of the polish is even when applying and they have a wonderful shine to them.  I had some chipping with Ruby Pumps but mostly because I kept breaking my nails.  Wearing Frostbite this week and my mother can’t understand why I want blue nails.  But these vibrant shades are very hot colors to be wearing.  They work well on short, rounded nails.  It’s fun now for the summer (or like me where it’s perpetual summer) when we’re showing off so much skin.    

I got mine from my local Sally’s Beauty Supply, but the images here are from this site and you can order the colors from there directly.

A girl giving a review on Nintendo DS games June 16, 2009

 

 

In my family, when the weeks before Christmas begin to wind down and we’ve given our gift buying some thought, we usually stop to actually ask the person 

we’re buying for what they would like to receive.  Some people have a clear idea of what they want and it’s just the job of one person to be the holder of 

their list.  This way the ideas can be dispersed and gifts are not repeated.  My mom keeps the list of things my little brother wants, I in turn keep the 

list for my mother, my sis in law for my older brother and my little brother keeps surprisingly good track of the movies that my aunt asks for.  However, not 

everyone has a clear idea of what they want to get, so then there is usually someone who knows this person best and can recommend what to give them.  Usually 

I’m the one who can give ideas of what to get for my sis in law, my aunt keeps general tab of what my grandmother may like and my mom can give ideas about 

me. 

While I think my mother is the hardest one to buy for, it’s really only in the sense that it’s hard to come up with something original to please her.  She’s 

usually very good at providing me with a list of ideas of things she’d like.  However, when you don’t want to just give those things without some personal 

thought or when you end up giving all those ideas to other people to make the shopping experience easier, then she’s exceedinly difficult to buy for.  Still, 

with every year that I “grow up” and am able to have more funds to purchase gifts for her, the better I have become at getting her some really nice things.  

This past Christmas I gave her a red Blackberry Curve phone and for Mother’s day I got her a hot pink iPod shuffle.  Both, am happy to report, she delighted 

in receiving and she’s liking how she’s evolving into a more tech saavy person.

Meanwhile, the rest of my family believes that I’m the hardest to buy for because I never ask for anything and seem not to lack anything.  But, at the same 

time, I like a lot of things but nothing enough to give a truly large and impressive gift.  My mother says that it’s fine to give me a blow dryer or a 

curling iron but what is so impressive about that?  Its gotten to the point that no one really ever asks me… perhaps only Dee still asks me but I know I’m 

impossible to buy for.  Most years I truly draw a blank when asked for what I want.  

When I asked for a Nintendo DS for Christmas, I think everyone was more than a little surprised; firstly because I never ask for anything and secondly 

because it something electronic/game related.  I can’t explain really why I suddenly wanted it but I did.  I kept waiting for someone to ask me what I wanted 

but no one did.  It was getting dangerously close to the time my mother was leaving for her holiday vacation to Texas and I was able to insinuate the 

conversation by verifying what it was that she wanted.  For her it was going to be easy since she and my lil bro would not be opening our gifts until she 

came back from Texas.  This allowed me to get paid one more time and able to better budget things.  And then I was able to turn the tables and sweetly ask 

why she hadn’t asked me what I wanted.  ”You never ask for anything! I think I know what I’m going to buy you but now that I know you want something, I’m 

open to hear suggestions.” She told me.

So I told her that I wanted a pretty pink Nintendo DS.  She was flabbergasted.  This would be the first year I’d ever asked for something as serious as that 

and being such, how could she deny getting me it.  So what she had planned to give me (a Blackberry, which she ended up giving me for my birthday) went on 

the back burner and it was pretty much assumed that I’d be getting my pink Nintendo DS, despite it being close to a month before Christmas and such things 

were quickly selling out.  It was such a given in fact that my gay hubby gifted me with a DS game when he came to bake cookies with me.  This was 

particularly funny since I didn’t have the system to play it with but it was only a matter of waiting 2 days for me to get it.  

At the time that I asked for the DS, I really didn’t know much about the games.  I sort of just had the idea that I’d play Brain Age or something on it.  I’d 

been seeing a lot of commercials for the DS and I think their ploy to appeal to female gamers really worked.  With only one game system to buy for (my gay 

posse and my lil bro all have several systems with a handful of games for each one), I try to make it a habit of acquiring a new game every month and for the 

most part that has been working out fairly well. 

With all that said, now I will go about reviewing the games I have.  Granted, I’m not a professional.  Heck, I might not even have completed all of the games 

I’m about to review, neither did I use any sort of cheat codes to gain extra things.  I’m just opinionated and like to be honest.  Some of you may care, some 

of you might not… but it might just help you next time you’re in the game aisle wondering what exactly to get amongst the multitude of titles that appear 

before you!

-Diner Dash (PlayFirst): This was the first game that I got, even before I had somewhere to play it on.  I had both parts one and two on my cell phone and I 

suppose it was for that reason that my gay hubby believed that I would like it for the DS.  I find the game highly entertaining because it’s pretty 

engrossing and can get rather fast paced.  The object of the game is to help Flo work the tables by seating, taking orders, providing food- sometimes even 

drinks, appetizers and desserts-, giving the bill and clearing out the tables so that she can get enough money to get her own place.  You have to do these 

things quickly and you gain bonuses (ie: higher tips) for color matching, stacking repeated actions and keeping people happy.  There are even different types 

of customers so that you learn how to manage seating since each one takes a different amount of time eating and not everyone can be seated next to one 

another depending on their noise level.  You also decorate each restaurant as you like with a few basic options and you get to dress Flo with a new outfit 

she gains after completing a restaurant.     

Final Review: I have yet to finish this game to the end but I do enjoy Diner Dash.  Its a fun way to pass the time and the best part is that the 

levels get saved and you can always just pick it up whenever you like just right where you left off.  There is even the option to play continuous service, so 

even if you’ve done all the levels you can just return for kicks.  

-The Quest Trio (Activision): If anyone has spent hours playing JewelQuest online, than you’ll definitely love this trio game.  Not only does it have the 

funny little jewel board you have to switch around, but there is Jewel Solitaire and Jewel MahJong.  If you play them quests in the order I have just 

mentioned, then you will get this amazing story of adventure and romance, which for some reason get moved along by you playing out these puzzles.  But, for 

those of you who do not know anything about this particular games, lemme give a quick rundown.  

JewelQuest: Different colored jewels fall into a grid which vary in shape.  When you match 3 or more in either a vertical or horizontal line, the 

panel behind it gets a color change and the jewels disappear, dropping down the ones above it and refilling the board.  The object is to match so that the 

entire panel gets changed to the right color before time runs out.  Sometimes a single matching will do the trick but later on, you need to match it at least 

twice to gain this objective.  Other times there are jewels that are buried and you need to match them first to uncover them and still other times there are 

bombs in your way that, if matched, they take away the gold of the background, making you have to rematch on those squares.  There is even the little deal 

with the gold coins that, if matched, give you like a gold coin counter.  What took me MANY levels to learn was that if you find yourself unable to match a 

square or two and time is running out, all you need to is touch the coin counter and it will transform those random squares for you.

Jewel Solitaire: By far this is my favorite one.  This one is played with cards and they come in the full assortment of numbers and different 

jewel/color combinations.  The point of it is to clear out the cards on the board by dropping them down into your main  pile in either ascending or 

descending order.  You can go up and down, play wild cards or draw from your deck to help you along.  There is no timing to this but do it wrong and you’ll 

be out of cards in your deck and unable to match the cards to clear the board.  As the game progresses, the card layout become more complex and intricate, 

but you also gain interesting wild cards that allow you such things as playing duplicates by stacking them together, creating other piles or peeking at the 

top card of the deck.  If you play this in quest mode, then you get to play both a card layout and a jewel board.  How well you manage to pattern the cards 

is how well laid out you have the jewels, plus it decides just how many moves you can make to change your board colors.

Jewel Mahjong: This is the game that I play the least, so I’m not really sure what the whole quest angle is about.  Mostly it’s like most of the tile 

matching games with some added prophesies, balloons and even bombs breaking up walls.  The effects are rather pretty but I like the number game more than the 

tile matching. 

Final Review: I suppose that each game on its own can be rather entertaining but this game has all 3!  So I like how you can cohesively play 

the whole story.    

-Syberia (DreamCatcher): This was also part of my holiday haul and I have to same the most random game gift.  I’d never heard of this game and since I’ve gotten it, I’ve still not heard of it.  Its supposed to be one of those games where you play this character who wanders about town, finding clues and solving these mechanical puzzles.  You end up in Syberia in hopes of finding the heir of some company that you are hoping to acquire for the company you work for.  The scenes are rather lovely, but I have to say that it’s rather confusing.  There seems to be a certain order to things and if you don’t do them exactly right or touch something in just the right minute spot then it won’t work or make any sense. 

Final Review: I’m sure the game could be fun for other people, but it doesn’t seem to be the right sort of game for me.  Perhaps I don’t have the patience but it seems to take forever to talk to people and even more time to accomplish or learn anything.  Even from what I’ve read about the game online there doesn’t seem to be much that recommends playing it. 

-Brain Buster: Puzzle Pack (Agetec.): My mother got me this game for Christmas.  I have to say that I’m not a big fan of the games that are on it.  It’s supposed to be about 5 games, Sudoku being one of them.  I’m not a fan of Sudoku enough to really play this game much and I think the other 4 games on this bundle game are so obscure that they have gone and escaped me as to what their names are.

Final Review: I’m sure my mother meant well because I think she thought that I enjoyed playing Sudoku like everyone else in the family seems to.  I really don’t though and I feel like it might be lost on me.  The visuals are rather basic and the grids not that interesting.  It turns out she gave it to both my sis in law and myself, as long with the next game, as a grand joke of her’s… so that each of us could have someone to talk to about the games.

-Cooking Mama2: Dinner with Friends: When it comes to this game, you either love it or you hate it.  The premise of it is that you are letting Mama teach you some recipes.  Each step of the process can be chopping, stirring, adding things in order, cooking/baking/grilling and so on and so forth in a series of screen taps and strokes of the stylus.  It really makes good use of the second screen touch pad.  You really need to have some finesse with it.  So, you practice and learn techniques and then later try them all on your own to impress some judges to win some prizes.  The food you try to make is truly international cuisine.  Do them right and you get Mama’s praise.  Do it wrong and you will get the evil glare that is Mama’s wrath.  There is also the neat function that you can change out the appearance of Mama and of the cooking items that you use, like the knife handles or the cutting board colors.  There are something like… 70 recipes for you to “learn” to make and you can retry them all to be sure that you gain gold medals (perfect score) in all.  Not to mention that if gives you the ability to practice the steps as many times as you like until you feel confident that you can pass them. 

Final Review: I hated this game so much when I first began to play it.  When you play a game, you want to feel rather brilliant passing the levels, but if you don’t know the right squiggle techniques with the stylus or what the signal on the screen is to indicate done-ness, you sort of have to wing it and hope Mama doesn’t get mad at you.  Once you get the right techniques down (and these I learned by comparing notes with my sis in law about how to do them), I found that I actually enjoyed the game.  Funny how so many people can hear the little music and recognize the game now!  I had a cook at Denny’s suddenly stop and emphatically proclaim how much she hated cooking with Mama!  While it was strange to hear her initial outburst, in the end it amused me.  Your enjoyment is based entirely on your ability to master all the touch screen techniques necessary.  While you can’t actually learn a recipe, it does give you an idea on how certain things get made which can be fun too.

Brain Age2: This was the first game I bought for myself.  I had played the first Brain Age game on Dee’s DS over the summer and had thought it fun enough.  Its a fun way to spend about 10-15min of every day to go through different games that are supposed to improve your memory and brain function.  there are some days you will be faster than others and sometimes your competitive edge will get you to try and beat out your previous day’s score.  Over all, I think I would keep trying to improve my numbers constantly if it weren’t for the fact that it only takes one record per day per game.  There are such things like date memory, sign selection, word scramble, piano, number race, block count, et al.  You can play any alternation of 3 per day, which is the recommended amount that you should play.  Then there is a special test that gives you three random skills test, either verbal or non-verbal, to determine what your mental age is.  The age of 20 is supposedly the best age you can be, but I never aimed for it.  Really I just tried aim for my own age when it came to the test.  There was the very cool rock-paper-scissors game but you could only play it with the microphone while testing your brain age.  

Final Review: Its easy to begin the habit but I guess my memory did not improve enough for me to remember to do it every single day for extended periods of time.  The Doctor makes me feel bad for not having seen him in some time.  You do better with your scores if you do them later in the day because you’ve given yourself time for your brain to really warm up and be at optimum performance rating.  A lot of the things are timed, so I find it hard to do them while I’m working.  This did affect my numbers for a while.  Over all I have to say I liked most of the little 2min games.  When it came to using the microphone, it seems I just could not get the hang of it.  It would not recognize my word and it would cost me time.  This did not gratify me in any way.  Overall its a good game to have if you want to do a little something everyday.  Its also a cool way for you to realize what your strengths are, whether it be in memorizing/recognizing numbers or letters/words.   

-CakeMania: I bought this game for myself.  I had played it online through MSN games.  It has the whole order sequencing thing that Diner Dash has.  Your character is trying to bake cakes to buy back her grandparent’s bakery from some Mega-Mart conglomerate.  So you take orders and then bake the cakes to order.  You have to do them quickly and learn to mutli-task since you need to bake, frost and decorate cakes, later you stack them, all before the client gets too terribly impatient and not pay you the complete amount.  And you actually do need to make as much money as possible per round on this one because you actually use it to buy things for your bakery.  You need more than one oven and frosting station and you want to get it working as fast as possible.  You can upgrade your shoes, the ovens, the frosting, the cupcake oven, get a cake stand or a tv and buy all sorts of cake toppers to go with all occasions.  There are different sort of clients as well with different tastes when it comes to selecting cake shapes and decorations and are equally as varied when it comes to their degree of patience.  There are even seasonal characters as well, but most of those seem just like grumpy-pusses.  Seriously, cupid should make the customers fall in love, not get all hissy-fit because the cake is taking too long.  Don’t even get me started about the Easter Bunny.  Seriously, he should have been cute and cuddly, not like some sweaty, disgruntled, fat man shoved in a pink costume.  

Final Review: On a whole I find the game vastly entertaining.  You can save the same game on different tracks so that way you can backtrack should you have purchased the wrong upgrade.  In the end, as much as I like the game, once you complete the levels, there isn’t much else to do.  There is a bonus CakeMania 2 part to it, but its really just more of the same but at different locations.  

Professor Leyton and the Curious Village: I was given this recommendation from the Panda before we broke up.  He’d sweetly taken an hour of his time to research a possible game recommendation for me.  I’m apparently a rather picky puzzle/strategy gamer.  After he’d recommended it was when all the commercials for it started coming out.  When I got it for myself for my birthday, it was a relatively new game and I didn’t have a real clue as to what it was all about.  But the general premise of the game is that you go along with Professor Leyton and his assistant to the Curious Village.  Professor Leyton is not a detective, just a master puzzle solver.  So he arrives to this mysterious village in the hunt to the answer of the golden apple.  Along the way you have to solve puzzles in order to get info, get objects or just plain go ahead.  The puzzles vary from everything from mathematical, logical, optical, mazes and jigsaw.  So it really depends on what your forte is as to how well you do on this.  With each puzzle solved from the various curious villagers you get paid in picarats.  What the real point of this money system is, I’m not sure.  Along this the main mystery, there are also little side quests as well as bonus puzzles unlocked if you complete them… such as complete the gadgets, the jigsaw painting or furnishing the rooms.  

Final Review: I have to say that this game delighted me to no end.  I loved solving the puzzles and wandering the village.  The designs were just cute and Professor Leyton an absolute gentleman.  There were certain puzzles that I had to go off and find the solutions for.  But that doesn’t detract from the general fun of the game.  I did not manage to unluck all the puzzles and the absolute end of the storyline was so enchanting that I’m absolutely looking forward to the next installment in the Professor Leyton series.  I will likely play this game again once I’ve let my memory forget some of the answers to the puzzles, otherwise I don’t know if the game is worth keeping once you’ve completed the storyline. 

Hell’s Kitchen (Ubisoft): This was a birthday present from my gay hubby and I knew that the game had come out but I had had no clue that it had come out for the DS.  Based on the series, Gordon Ramsey (whom I absolutely adore and would love to just be able to stare into his hunky eyes and share a gloriously elegant meal with) is trying to get you to run his restaurant.  It has the same Diner Dash concept that you have to seat customers, take their orders and serve them but it has the Cooking Mama concept of having to time and prepare the food.  Its not as complicated as cooking mama, mainly because the ingredients are generalized and all you have to do is tap them and get them cooking in the right combination and order for them to be perfectly done and on time.  The funniest part is that Chef Ramsey is standing at the top screen giving you insults or compliments based on your performance.  Angry customers will make the flames grow and give you a lower score rating.  Served perfectly, the flames will go down and you can advance to the next levels.  It does take some practice to get the whole timing thing right but once you do it’s really quite easy to get it all together.

Final Review: I adore Chef Ramsey and I was watching that season of Hell’s Kitchen when it came out.  The levels are fairly easy to beat overall, but darn hard to do if you go back and try to beat each one at 100%.  The best part of this game is that there are actual recipes from Gordon Ramsey on there.  Unlike Cooking Mama, the recipe book is actually useful and there are quite a few dishes on there that I would love to try.  There is this added feature of being able to just do continuous service in the kitchen and it can get bloody hard!  I’m still trying to get above 37pts and have been unable to.  So this is what has me keeping the game around.  

My French/Japanese Coach (Ubisoft): These are actually two games and not a coach to teach you to speak Japanese from French or vice versa.  I had heard from my friend Benji that the French coach was a lot of fun.  I do know some French so on the diagnostic test I got a 48/50 but the Japanese one I got like a 7/50 but I think I got that many because I managed to get a few lucky guesses.  When you get two in a row wrong then the diagnostic test is over.  I only began the Japanese one but then I realized I should probably practice one language at a time.  Both games are essentially the same, you have this lovely and nice coach/sensei to go through the lessons with you.  You start with the basics and learning levels, from infants through the grades and onward.  The games are things like whack-a-word, memory, bridge building, matching, mutiple choice and word search.  The difference is that Japanese has an added element of learning how to write the characters as well.  

Final Review: The games are very neat.  There is this option to record your voice and compare it to the recording of just how to say it.  They really make you drill the repetitions until you get it right.  They should be played with headphones so that way you catch the full nuances of the language.  Overall, you do as well as the practice you put into it.       

In my family, when the weeks before Christmas begin to wind down and we’ve given our gift buying some thought, we usually stop to actually ask the person we’re buying for what they would like to receive.  Some people have a clear idea of what they want and it’s just the job of one person to be the holder of their list.  This way the ideas can be dispersed and gifts are not repeated.  My mom keeps the list of things my little brother wants, I in turn keep the list for my mother, my sis in law for my older brother and my little brother keeps surprisingly good track of the movies that my aunt asks for.  However, not everyone has a clear idea of what they want to get, so then there is usually someone who knows this person best and can recommend what to give them.  Usually I’m the one who can give ideas of what to get for my sis in law, my aunt keeps general tab of what my grandmother may like and my mom can give ideas about me. 

While I think my mother is the hardest one to buy for, it’s really only in the sense that it’s hard to come up with something original to please her.  She’s usually very good at providing me with a list of ideas of things she’d like.  However, when you don’t want to just give those things without some personal thought or when you end up giving all those ideas to other people to make the shopping experience easier, then she’s exceedinly difficult to buy for.  Still, with every year that I “grow up” and am able to have more funds to purchase gifts for her, the better I have become at getting her some really nice things.  This past Christmas I gave her a red Blackberry Curve phone and for Mother’s day I got her a hot pink iPod shuffle.  Both, am happy to report, she delighted in receiving and she’s liking how she’s evolving into a more tech saavy person.

Meanwhile, the rest of my family believes that I’m the hardest to buy for because I never ask for anything and seem not to lack anything.  But, at the same time, I like a lot of things but nothing enough to give a truly large and impressive gift.  My mother says that it’s fine to give me a blow dryer or a curling iron but what is so impressive about that?  Its gotten to the point that no one really ever asks me… perhaps only Dee still asks me but I know I’m impossible to buy for.  Most years I truly draw a blank when asked for what I want.  

When I asked for a Nintendo DS for Christmas, I think everyone was more than a little surprised; firstly because I never ask for anything and secondly because it something electronic/game related.  I can’t explain really why I suddenly wanted it but I did.  I kept waiting for someone to ask me what I wanted but no one did.  It was getting dangerously close to the time my mother was leaving for her holiday vacation to Texas and I was able to insinuate the conversation by verifying what it was that she wanted.  For her it was going to be easy since she and my lil bro would not be opening our gifts until she came back from Texas.  This allowed me to get paid one more time and able to better budget things.  And then I was able to turn the tables and sweetly ask why she hadn’t asked me what I wanted.  ”You never ask for anything! I think I know what I’m going to buy you but now that I know you want something, I’m open to hear suggestions.” She told me.So I told her that I wanted a pretty pink Nintendo DS.  She was flabbergasted.  This would be the first year I’d ever asked for something as serious as that and being such, how could she deny getting me it.  So what she had planned to give me (a Blackberry, which she ended up giving me for my birthday) went on the back burner and it was pretty much assumed that I’d be getting my pink Nintendo DS, despite it being close to a month before Christmas and such things were quickly selling out.  It was such a given in fact that my gay hubby gifted me with a DS game when he came to bake cookies with me.  This was particularly funny since I didn’t have the system to play it with but it was only a matter of waiting 2 days for me to get it.  

At the time that I asked for the DS, I really didn’t know much about the games.  I sort of just had the idea that I’d play Brain Age or something on it.  I’d been seeing a lot of commercials for the DS and I think their ploy to appeal to female gamers really worked.  With only one game system to buy for (my gay posse and my lil bro all have several systems with a handful of games for each one), I try to make it a habit of acquiring a new game every month and for the most part that has been working out fairly well. 

With all that said, now I will go about reviewing the games I have.  Granted, I’m not a professional.  Heck, I might not even have completed all of the games I’m about to review, neither did I use any sort of cheat codes to gain extra things.  I’m just opinionated and like to be honest.  Some of you may care, some of you might not… but it might just help you next time you’re in the game aisle wondering what exactly to get amongst the multitude of titles that appear before you!

• Diner Dash (PlayFirst): This was the first game that I got, even before I had somewhere to play it on.  I had both parts one and two on my cell phone and I suppose it was for that reason that my gay hubby believed that I would like it for the DS.  I find the game highly entertaining because it’s pretty engrossing and can get rather fast paced.  The object of the game is to help Flo work the tables by seating, taking orders, providing food- sometimes even drinks, appetizers and desserts-, giving the bill and clearing out the tables so that she can get enough money to get her own place.  You have to do these things quickly and you gain bonuses (ie: higher tips) for color matching, stacking repeated actions and keeping people happy.  There are even different types of customers so that you learn how to manage seating since each one takes a different amount of time eating and not everyone can be seated next to one another depending on their noise level.  You also decorate each restaurant as you like with a few basic options and you get to dress Flo with a new outfit she gains after completing a restaurant.     

Final Review: I have yet to finish this game to the end but I do enjoy Diner Dash.  Its a fun way to pass the time and the best part is that the levels get saved and you can always just pick it up whenever you like just right where you left off.  There is even the option to play continuous service, so even if you’ve done all the levels you can just return for kicks.  

 
The Quest Trio (Activision): If anyone has spent hours playing JewelQuest online, than you’ll definitely love this trio game.  Not only does it have the funny little jewel board you have to switch around, but there is Jewel Solitaire and Jewel MahJong.  If you play them quests in the order I have just mentioned, then you will get this amazing story of adventure and romance, which for some reason get moved along by you playing out these puzzles.  But, for those of you who do not know anything about this particular games, lemme give a quick rundown. 

1. JewelQuest: Different colored jewels fall into a grid which vary in shape.  When you match 3 or more in either a vertical or horizontal line, the panel behind it gets a color change and the jewels disappear, dropping down the ones above it and refilling the board.  The object is to match so that the entire panel gets changed to the right color before time runs out.  Sometimes a single matching will do the trick but later on, you need to match it at least twice to gain this objective.  Other times there are jewels that are buried and you need to match them first to uncover them and still other times there are bombs in your way that, if matched, they take away the gold of the background, making you have to rematch on those squares.  There is even the little deal with the gold coins that, if matched, give you like a gold coin counter.  What took me MANY levels to learn was that if you find yourself unable to match a square or two and time is running out, all you need to is touch the coin counter and it will transform those random squares for you.  
2. Jewel Solitaire: By far this is my favorite one.  This one is played with cards and they come in the full assortment of numbers and different jewel/color combinations.  The point of it is to clear out the cards on the board by dropping them down into your main  pile in either ascending or descending order.  You can go up and down, play wild cards or draw from your deck to help you along.  There is no timing to this but do it wrong and you’ll be out of cards in your deck and unable to match the cards to clear the board.  As the game progresses, the card layout become more complex and intricate, but you also gain interesting wild cards that allow you such things as playing duplicates by stacking them together, creating other piles or peeking at the top card of the deck.  If you play this in quest mode, then you get to play both a card layout and a jewel board.  How well you manage to pattern the cards is how well laid out you have the jewels, plus it decides just how many moves you can make to change your board colors.   
3. Jewel Mahjong: This is the game that I play the least, so I’m not really sure what the whole quest angle is about.  Mostly it’s like most of the tile matching games with some added prophesies, balloons and even bombs breaking up walls.  The effects are rather pretty but I like the number game more than the tile matching.   

Final Review: I suppose that each game on its own can be rather entertaining but this game has all 3!  So I like how you can cohesively play the whole story.   

• Syberia (DreamCatcher): This was also part of my holiday haul and I have to same the most random game gift.  I’d never heard of this game and since I’ve gotten it, I’ve still not heard of it.  Its supposed to be one of those games where you play this character who wanders about town, finding clues and solving these mechanical puzzles.  You end up in Syberia in hopes of finding the heir of some company that you are hoping to acquire for the company you work for.  The scenes are rather lovely, but I have to say that it’s rather confusing.  There seems to be a certain order to things and if you don’t do them exactly right or touch something in just the right minute spot then it won’t work or make any sense. 

Final Review: I’m sure the game could be fun for other people, but it doesn’t seem to be the right sort of game for me.  Perhaps I don’t have the patience but it seems to take forever to talk to people and even more time to accomplish or learn anything.  Even from what I’ve read about the game online there doesn’t seem to be much that recommends playing it. 

• Brain Buster: Puzzle Pack (Agetec.): My mother got me this game for Christmas.  I have to say that I’m not a big fan of the games that are on it.  It’s supposed to be about 5 games, Sudoku being one of them.  I’m not a fan of Sudoku enough to really play this game much and I think the other 4 games on this bundle game are so obscure that they have gone and escaped me as to what their names are.

Final Review: I’m sure my mother meant well because I think she thought that I enjoyed playing Sudoku like everyone else in the family seems to.  I really don’t though and I feel like it might be lost on me.  The visuals are rather basic and the grids not that interesting.  It turns out she gave it to both my sis in law and myself, as long with the next game, as a grand joke of her’s… so that each of us could have someone to talk to about the games.

• Cooking Mama2: Dinner with Friends: When it comes to this game, you either love it or you hate it.  The premise of it is that you are letting Mama teach you some recipes.  Each step of the process can be chopping, stirring, adding things in order, cooking/baking/grilling and so on and so forth in a series of screen taps and strokes of the stylus.  It really makes good use of the second screen touch pad.  You really need to have some finesse with it.  So, you practice and learn techniques and then later try them all on your own to impress some judges to win some prizes.  The food you try to make is truly international cuisine.  Do them right and you get Mama’s praise.  Do it wrong and you will get the evil glare that is Mama’s wrath.  There is also the neat function that you can change out the appearance of Mama and of the cooking items that you use, like the knife handles or the cutting board colors.  There are something like… 70 recipes for you to “learn” to make and you can retry them all to be sure that you gain gold medals (perfect score) in all.  Not to mention that if gives you the ability to practice the steps as many times as you like until you feel confident that you can pass them. 

Final Review: I hated this game so much when I first began to play it.  When you play a game, you want to feel rather brilliant passing the levels, but if you don’t know the right squiggle techniques with the stylus or what the signal on the screen is to indicate done-ness, you sort of have to wing it and hope Mama doesn’t get mad at you.  Once you get the right techniques down (and these I learned by comparing notes with my sis in law about how to do them), I found that I actually enjoyed the game.  Funny how so many people can hear the little music and recognize the game now!  I had a cook at Denny’s suddenly stop and emphatically proclaim how much she hated cooking with Mama!  While it was strange to hear her initial outburst, in the end it amused me.  Your enjoyment is based entirely on your ability to master all the touch screen techniques necessary.  While you can’t actually learn a recipe, it does give you an idea on how certain things get made which can be fun too.

• Brain Age2: This was the first game I bought for myself.  I had played the first Brain Age game on Dee’s DS over the summer and had thought it fun enough.  Its a fun way to spend about 10-15min of every day to go through different games that are supposed to improve your memory and brain function.  there are some days you will be faster than others and sometimes your competitive edge will get you to try and beat out your previous day’s score.  Over all, I think I would keep trying to improve my numbers constantly if it weren’t for the fact that it only takes one record per day per game.  There are such things like date memory, sign selection, word scramble, piano, number race, block count, et al.  You can play any alternation of 3 per day, which is the recommended amount that you should play.  Then there is a special test that gives you three random skills test, either verbal or non-verbal, to determine what your mental age is.  The age of 20 is supposedly the best age you can be, but I never aimed for it.  Really I just tried aim for my own age when it came to the test.  There was the very cool rock-paper-scissors game but you could only play it with the microphone while testing your brain age.  

Final Review: Its easy to begin the habit but I guess my memory did not improve enough for me to remember to do it every single day for extended periods of time.  The Doctor makes me feel bad for not having seen him in some time.  You do better with your scores if you do them later in the day because you’ve given yourself time for your brain to really warm up and be at optimum performance rating.  A lot of the things are timed, so I find it hard to do them while I’m working.  This did affect my numbers for a while.  Over all I have to say I liked most of the little 2min games.  When it came to using the microphone, it seems I just could not get the hang of it.  It would not recognize my word and it would cost me time.  This did not gratify me in any way.  Overall its a good game to have if you want to do a little something everyday.  Its also a cool way for you to realize what your strengths are, whether it be in memorizing/recognizing numbers or letters/words.   

• CakeMania: I bought this game for myself.  I had played it online through MSN games.  It has the whole order sequencing thing that Diner Dash has.  Your character is trying to bake cakes to buy back her grandparent’s bakery from some Mega-Mart conglomerate.  So you take orders and then bake the cakes to order.  You have to do them quickly and learn to mutli-task since you need to bake, frost and decorate cakes, later you stack them, all before the client gets too terribly impatient and not pay you the complete amount.  And you actually do need to make as much money as possible per round on this one because you actually use it to buy things for your bakery.  You need more than one oven and frosting station and you want to get it working as fast as possible.  You can upgrade your shoes, the ovens, the frosting, the cupcake oven, get a cake stand or a tv and buy all sorts of cake toppers to go with all occasions.  There are different sort of clients as well with different tastes when it comes to selecting cake shapes and decorations and are equally as varied when it comes to their degree of patience.  There are even seasonal characters as well, but most of those seem just like grumpy-pusses.  Seriously, cupid should make the customers fall in love, not get all hissy-fit because the cake is taking too long.  Don’t even get me started about the Easter Bunny.  Seriously, he should have been cute and cuddly, not like some sweaty, disgruntled, fat man shoved in a pink costume.  

Final Review: On a whole I find the game vastly entertaining.  You can save the same game on different tracks so that way you can backtrack should you have purchased the wrong upgrade.  In the end, as much as I like the game, once you complete the levels, there isn’t much else to do.  There is a bonus CakeMania 2 part to it, but its really just more of the same but at different locations.  

• Professor Leyton and the Curious Village: I was given this recommendation from the Panda before we broke up.  He’d sweetly taken an hour of his time to research a possible game recommendation for me.  I’m apparently a rather picky puzzle/strategy gamer.  After he’d recommended it was when all the commercials for it started coming out.  When I got it for myself for my birthday, it was a relatively new game and I didn’t have a real clue as to what it was all about.  But the general premise of the game is that you go along with Professor Leyton and his assistant to the Curious Village.  Professor Leyton is not a detective, just a master puzzle solver.  So he arrives to this mysterious village in the hunt to the answer of the golden apple.  Along the way you have to solve puzzles in order to get info, get objects or just plain go ahead.  The puzzles vary from everything from mathematical, logical, optical, mazes and jigsaw.  So it really depends on what your forte is as to how well you do on this.  With each puzzle solved from the various curious villagers you get paid in picarats.  What the real point of this money system is, I’m not sure.  Along this the main mystery, there are also little side quests as well as bonus puzzles unlocked if you complete them… such as complete the gadgets, the jigsaw painting or furnishing the rooms.  

Final Review: I have to say that this game delighted me to no end.  I loved solving the puzzles and wandering the village.  The designs were just cute and Professor Leyton an absolute gentleman.  There were certain puzzles that I had to go off and find the solutions for.  But that doesn’t detract from the general fun of the game.  I did not manage to unluck all the puzzles and the absolute end of the storyline was so enchanting that I’m absolutely looking forward to the next installment in the Professor Leyton series.  I will likely play this game again once I’ve let my memory forget some of the answers to the puzzles, otherwise I don’t know if the game is worth keeping once you’ve completed the storyline. 

• Hell’s Kitchen (Ubisoft): This was a birthday present from my gay hubby and I knew that the game had come out but I had had no clue that it had come out for the DS.  Based on the series, Gordon Ramsey (whom I absolutely adore and would love to just be able to stare into his hunky eyes and share a gloriously elegant meal with) is trying to get you to run his restaurant.  It has the same Diner Dash concept that you have to seat customers, take their orders and serve them but it has the Cooking Mama concept of having to time and prepare the food.  Its not as complicated as cooking mama, mainly because the ingredients are generalized and all you have to do is tap them and get them cooking in the right combination and order for them to be perfectly done and on time.  The funniest part is that Chef Ramsey is standing at the top screen giving you insults or compliments based on your performance.  Angry customers will make the flames grow and give you a lower score rating.  Served perfectly, the flames will go down and you can advance to the next levels.  It does take some practice to get the whole timing thing right but once you do it’s really quite easy to get it all together.

Final Review: I adore Chef Ramsey and I was watching that season of Hell’s Kitchen when it came out.  The levels are fairly easy to beat overall, but darn hard to do if you go back and try to beat each one at 100%.  The best part of this game is that there are actual recipes from Gordon Ramsey on there.  Unlike Cooking Mama, the recipe book is actually useful and there are quite a few dishes on there that I would love to try.  There is this added feature of being able to just do continuous service in the kitchen and it can get bloody hard!  I’m still trying to get above 37pts and have been unable to.  So this is what has me keeping the game around.  

• My French/Japanese Coach (Ubisoft): These are actually two games and not a coach to teach you to speak Japanese from French or vice versa.  I had heard from my friend Benji that the French coach was a lot of fun.  I do know some French so on the diagnostic test I got a 48/50 but the Japanese one I got like a 7/50 but I think I got that many because I managed to get a few lucky guesses.  When you get two in a row wrong then the diagnostic test is over.  I only began the Japanese one but then I realized I should probably practice one language at a time.  Both games are essentially the same, you have this lovely and nice coach/sensei to go through the lessons with you.  You start with the basics and learning levels, from infants through the grades and onward.  The games are things like whack-a-word, memory, bridge building, matching, mutiple choice and word search.  The difference is that Japanese has an added element of learning how to write the characters as well.  

Final Review: The games are very neat.  There is this option to record your voice and compare it to the recording of just how to say it.  They really make you drill the repetitions until you get it right.  They should be played with headphones so that way you catch the full nuances of the language.  Overall, you do as well as the practice you put into it.

Food Review: Heladeria Lares May 18, 2008

My mother says that I’ve been here before.  I must have been a lot younger because I don’t remember going.  But this ice cream shop is very famous for making interesting flavors of ice cream.  On any given week you can have things like carrot and sweet potato to shrimp, avocado or rice and beans.  #6 and I played it safe, she went for coquito acanelado and I had dulce de leche. 

Now, coquito is a big thing here on island.  During the Christmas holidays, instead of eggnog we have coquito.  It’s a coconut milk drink laced with lots of rum and cinnamon.  I like it a lot.  Last Christmas, my SIL and I got nice and drunk on it while wrapping the presents.  The ice cream version was very delicious.  And I’ve made it no secret of my love for caramel.  So dulce de leche was a good choice for me. 

Believe me, we must have sampled at least a dozen ice cream flavors.  We could have been more adventurous but we played it relatively safe.  Actually, nothing in the freezers seemed too crazy.  But the line was pretty sizable.  There was a flurry of activity as people tried to look into the freezers and make their choice. 

The actual place is pretty big.  The freezers are the first things you run into and they run along the left side.  The other side is a wall full of lots of pictures.  I didn’t bother to get a closer look at them.  I’m guess it might have to do with Lares, its rich history and stuff from the island.  Towards the back, the place opened up to tables so people can sit to enjoy their cool treats. 

#6 ended up knowing two of the girls who worked behind the ice cream counter.  They were very friendly and handed out the samples very kindly.  The prices were pretty reasonable, though I was too distracted with all the talk for me to truly notice just how much I paid for my large cup of ice cream.  But, all the same, we enjoyed it and ate it outside in the plaza.  I like that it’s right of the town plaza because it gives it a tranquil old-world feeling to the place. 

Mother’s Day Breakfast May 11, 2008

Every year my aunt and I are the ones who pull together the meals for Mother’s Day. We usually just think about it and on the Friday I travel home, we compare notes and buy whatever ingredients we need. Lately, we’ve unofficially agreed that I’m in charge of breakfast and dessert while she’s in charge of the late lunch/early dinner. This usually has to do with the fact that I need to travel back to my apartment on that day and can’t deal with that meal and packing all at once. I tried it one year and just about lost it. So it’s just best if we both stick to our strengths (even though my aunt is reknowned for her ‘cooking’ which usually involves her phone and some take-out menu, she has mastered a few dishes which are really quite delicious).

As you have seen so far, I spent Friday evening baking the bread to go with my aunt’s meal. Yesterday I spent it on the brioche and cupcakes. I worked all through the night. By the time I was finished it was 7AM and I didn’t wish to sleep through breakfast. So I stayed awake and began breakfast at 8AM. The brioche was already made so I just had to worry about the frittata.

Spinach and ham egg white frittata

Serves 6

• Sautee some diced white onion until transluscent.
• Add about 10oz. defrosted spinach into the pan and mix.
• When spinach is heated, add about 10 slices turkey ham.
• Place mixture into the bottom of a square casserole pan.
• Cover with sharp cheddar cheese, approx. 6 ounces.
• Beat 12 egg whites with a hand mixer on medium speed until the mixture is white and fluffy. It shouldn’t reach soft peak stage.
• Add a large dollop of the egg white mixture to 7 egg yolks which have been lightly beaten. Slowly fold together.
• Add the lightened egg yolk mixture to the egg whites and fold gently together.
• Smooth egg mixture over the rest in the casserole dish,
• Bake at 400F until the top is golden brown and the egg foam has cooked thoroughly, approximately 20-25 minutes.

Final Review: This breakfast was a huge hit with the mother’s and everyone else. It was light and yet very filling. We’re huge fans of spinache, but because my grandmother cannot have anything with high levels of potassium, I actually made a small loaf pan for her with everything but the spinach. It was also very delicious. The bottom layer can be anything you want it to be so don’t be afraid to mix it up. The whites are super fluffy and you needn’t use so many of the yolks. I usually just use enough to show a slight yellow tinge to the mixture.

The funniest moment was when my grandfather took my elegant breakfast and just made it into a sandwich. Got to love the man. He did the same thing for dinner, where he shoved some of the meatballs into his french bread and consumed. I wonder if it’s from him that I get my love for sandwiches.

PS: Check back to last week because I did a backpost about going to karaoke. Don’t want any of you to miss any posts!

The “that looks about right” pasta salad April 22, 2008

Most of you already know how I refer to my brand of cooking as college student ingenuity.  I cook with whatever I happen to have on hand, I don’t often have much of a budget to buy anything in accordance to what I hope to make… and anything in my pantry was most likely stolen from my mother’s or grandmother’s at some point.  Baking usually makes me go out and get ingredients.  After all, you can’t fake the carrots in a carrot cake or something like that. 

But when it comes down to cooking dinner, especially since I’m often just cooking for me, I really don’t bother.  I just stare at the food I have and try to let it “speak” to me.  And because of this I usually end up tossing things into the pot and eating it, no matter how odd it may look.  It definitely does not hold up to the beautiful standard a lot of other food bloggers have.  While I do not think any of the other bloggers are actually snooty in anyway, my humble looking bowls just dont measure up.  It’s a good thing I don’t pretend to be in their league. 

Sure, I can pull off delicious and spectacular food.  But like everyone else, that isn’t a daily thing.  I would bet that some people’s daily food looks a lot like mine.  In fact, my almond chicken looked a lot like CB’s cashew chicken and in fact the recipes are very similar.  And very few beside the puptart are willing to admit that their refined palette does not revolve around high snobby sort of food.  

So where does that leave me?

Throwing random things together with pasta, of course!  I should have been born italian.  If I have nothing but pasta on my shelves, I’m still a happy girl.  I cook using just a skillet and a pot full of salted boiling water.  For tonight’s meal I did the following:

• Caramelized sliced onions and minced garlic.  Set it aside in a medium bowl.
• Cooked up chunks of chicken breasts seasoned with just some adobo.  Set aside with the onions.
• On high heat, brown some butter and toss in a can of corn.  Fuly heat until the kernels are beginning to brown and add roasted red peppers until fully heated.
• Boil up elbow macaroni pasta.  Cook and then toss with some olive oil.
• Toss everything together into the bowl.  Add some splashes of balsamic vinagerette salad dressing.
• Right before serving add some cubed cheese.  In my case, I had cheddar on hand.
• Serve and consume with glee.

 

The inner sauce debate for chicken April 20, 2008

For some off and inexplicable reason, I find myself truly craving either soy sauce or barbecue sauce.  I can’t explain it.  It’s a weird craving to have.  And since all I have in my freezer is chicken, that’s just what I’ll have to use them on.  The odd thing is, that even when I’ve had one or the other… I still want it. 

First I made almond soy sauce chicken.  (I thought I had taken good pics of it, but it just didn’t seem to work out for me)  And this was very good.  I wondered why I didn’t slice up almonts more often and just dredge them in soy sauce and sesame seed oil more often.  This I made with some ramen noodles.  I think it would have come out better if I had had some scallions and onions and stuff to add to it, but my pantry was pretty bare when I made this.  But it was still damn good.

Then I switched over and made some bbq chicken pizza.  The premade pizza crust is always a handy thing to have around.  I loaded it with cheese and tons of chicken.  I use the Jack Daniel’s bbq sauce.  It’s not too sweet and has a good tanginess to it.  I’m very fond of it. 

The following day I made soy sauce chicken wings.  I let them slow cook in a pot and I wished I had had some brown sugar to sweeten it ever so slightly.  But still, they were tender and good and seemingly hit the soy sauce spot. 

Afterwards I grilled up some chicken breasts and again broke out the barbecue sauce.  I had a very simple meal with just some corn on the cob. 

Interesting how I spent 4 days going back and forth with these dinners. 

Do any of you find yourself suddenly craving such flavors for several days?