How 'bout some sushi?

Lately I've been in a killer sushi mood. Since I found this place at Col. Roma, I can't stop thinking about breaded california rolls, how amazing does that sound? It tastes better, I can assure!

So with all this, Mr. Universe said- let's get this gal sushi-sick- But, hey Universe, that didn't happen. I tell you this because I recently had to cook some sushi @ school, it tasted real nice, and they allowed me to be creative with a few ingredients, salmon, surimi, avocado and cream cheese... infinite combinations, right?

So, back to a serious topic...

I'm going to share with you our sushi recipe. That recipe said 6 portions... yeah right, if you're like me, 2 makis are just for you, so where the heck do we get 5 more portions? I don't know. But even with those details, it came real good. So let's get rice cookin' and some sushi rollin' (:

Salmon / Crab sushi

Ingredients:

• 185 g sushi rice
• 125 ml vinegar (really? I used waaay less)
• 10 g sugar
• 5 g ajinomoto (optional) it is MSG
• 100 g crab surimi*
• 250 g avocado (1 piece is enough)*
• 5 sheets seaweed (nori)
• 100 ml soy sauce
• lime juice (1 piece)
• 100 g smoked salmon*
• 190 g cream cheese*

Note: The last two ingredients are for salmon sushi, but you can make the combinations your cravings shout for. * these ingredients must be cut into sticks (:

Method:

1. Soak rice in cold water, until water comes clear. Cook in a pressure cooker for 8 minutes, with water covering rice 1 cm top of it.

2. Mix vinegar, sugar and MSG.

3. Spread cooked rice onto a tray and sprinkle with vinegar mix. Let cool.

4. Put a seaweed sheet over your sushi mat with bright side facing it. Put some rice on top and cover all the surface (except for borders) pressing for making a flat surface. Fix your favorite ingredients on top, in the side that's closer to you.

5. Start rolling the sushi pressing so it sticks together. When you first start rolling, you should wrap the sticks of whatever so that it stays in the center. Press well and keep rolling in the deep...

6. Cut your maki in half and the resulting parts in half, then in half again... until you have the number of sushi slices (nigiris) you like (:

7. Mix soy sauce with lime juice. Dip your sushi and enjoy!

Lots o' love

V

Choux pastry as final exam!

Hey there!

Guess what? I'm a little too happy today! Why? Because today was my final exam of Culinary Technics. First it was my oral exam, where I had to take a paper from a bag and start talking about that topic. That paper also included the recipe I had to make the next day, and as you can see in the title, the topic was CHOUX.

Do you know choux? (Say it out loud, who?) I hope you have eaten at least once some custard filled choux pastry. It’s a very tasty treat, sweet but not so much.

The story for today goes like this:

When I first arrived I realized I didn't have partner to cook with. I asked my supervisor and no one told me anything, until I was about to enter the lab, chef Cris told me -I don't know if you have noticed, but you are going to cook by yourself today-

I was in shock, I wanted to cry, laugh, scream or do everything at the same time. I wanted to know what I was going to do after working with someone during all this term. Everyone had partner but me. This was a real challenge, but I told myself I could do it. I had to.

Really determined I started cleaning my unit, preparing my mise-en-place and talking to myself.

I started preparing choux pastry and everything was awesome until the time to add the last eggs arrived, as some of you may or may not know, you have to be careful to get the right amount of egg in your pastry so you can reach the appropriate point. After 3, almost 4 eggs I couldn't get to the point and my time to get them to the oven had arrived. Geez!

Some more mixing, some more beaten eggs and it was done. As fast as I could I managed to get my pastry in a piping bag, made choux and went for the oven.

While my choux were in the oven I had to do the custard filling, so I started that task. I thought I was good with time, but uh-oh it was like… chasing me, real fast! So I couldn't wait until the consistency was filling-like, it was time to put it in the blast chiller and get choux out of the oven.

I couldn't take a picture of my plated dessert, but here's what went home with me

I went for them, opened some, filled them with custard and added some strawberries inside and a fan shaped strawberry, everything in a rectangular white plate. I was happy. I had completed my recipe and my unit was just a tad dirty.

Lucky me, some friends came to help me with the cleaning stuff. I’m still very grateful with them for their support!

Finally, the time of hearing our feedback and grades came. I was super-duper nervous! As we all heard each other's grades we became more and more tense. Soon Amanda got to me and she started the feedback by saying: -Congratulations, you worked alone and did an amazing job, finished on time with everything clean. The only thing is: I would’ve liked more consistency in your custard, but overall, congratulations, you scored 98/100-

I wanted to cry when she told me that, I was like – I can’t believe it, I did it! I really did it!

When the assessment was over, I went with chef Cris and Amanda, they both congratulated me, and I started crying. (You knew I was gonna cry sooner or later). All the other girls in the lab also said nice things to me and I was just… astonished with everything that had happened.

After all I shared choux with my friends and I’m still happy about today.

One word for today: SURREAL.

I hope you didn’t find this story boring, as this is on my top 5 of best & proudest moments. Don’t know which are the other 4, but…meeeh.

Lots o’ love ♥

ps. i won´t leave you just with the story, i'll share both, the custard and choux pastry recipes with you.

Another Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe & a Journey For The Future

So, here I am, I've been having a hard time writing and baking. Have you ever had a time when you are totally up to doing something but it always ends up badly or you don't even have a chance to start? (This has been one of my longest questions ever!) Well, I'm in this time. Now I've been more into writing my personal feelings about what is going on in the other side of the screen; trying to combine that with food sounds easier than it is, at least for me.
It's been a while since I wrote my last post, and today I felt like I should finish this one that has been saved as draft for so long now, that I don't even remember what I was thinking when i started typing.

They're awesome in flavor

Well, in my Journey for the Future I've been looking for a place to live now that I'm leaving to college, actually it's harder than I thought. There are a couple months left for me to enjoy in my hometown, but it feels like time is running out, almost like water in my hands. I have a lot of things planned here, that I don't even know if I'll get to do half of them, so much pressure is on me right now with final exams in high school, all the paperwork that has to be done for college, housing, etc. But another thing that's been in my thoughts lately is finding the Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe that makes me go wild, the One! And it's not like I'm not going to bake when I'm gone, but the new tiny apartment kitchen and limited tools will make it very hard.

My goal for this summer vacation is to find THE recipe and bake a lot other things. I have a huge list of "What to bake next..." that I want most of the recipes there crossed by the time I'm in another city.

But let's get to the fun stuff, OK? The next Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe, that has been the one with the best flavor so far. This recipe is from David Lebovitz's Ready for Dessert: My Best Recipes. One more time they were flat. What’s wrong with my karma?? I'm starting to think it may have been because either one of these things: