The McDonalds of my people

Pollo Campero is THE fast food place of El Salvador (actually I think it started in Guatemala and technically I ate this in Honduras but those are just details). I have so many memories connected to this fried chicken; picnics, airplanes that smell of chicken because people are bringing family members in the states food, and high school saturday nights eating chicken and watching movies with friends (yes we were cool like that).


Of course I had to relive the memories and had the nuggets, fries, and horchata (a typical drink that kinda tastes like sweatt, cold chai). I realize it doesn't look all that appetizing, but the chicken is perfect and you can't put a price on memories.

p.s. sorry I haven't actually been cooking recently but I've been traveling, but I have big plans for when I get home, get ready! and have a wonderful new year, see you in 2012 dawgz, peace

Tiramisu Cupcakes

If it's not obvious by now, I'm kinda a fan of baking. I found this recipe on Gojee that combines two of my favorite things and had to try it.

The sour cream made the cupcake not too sweet and the mascarpone cheese of the internal filling was just perfect. I had to make my own ghetto fab coffee liqueur from espresso, brown sugar and rum... which actually worked out pretty well! I was expecting a fail. Steamy Kitchen Tiramisu Cupcakes

Food Organized Neatly: Eggplant Lasagna

This is an idea I got from GoEun who suggested I use the blog Things Organized Neatly as inspiration for a food post. Now I realize this reads a tad like "How to make a lasagna" but oh well, its a first go. I also need to refine my technique a tad, this may have been easier with a tripod....

What-do-we-have Pie

So brings the end of the semester and the random food that it leaves in the fridge. Andrea and I decided to make a pie with a crust I had brought over. So we added what we had that seemed like they might work together: apples, pears, lime (of course), oatmeal, sugar, blueberries, cinnamon. And it ended up kinda delicious, like a berry strudel apple pie dealio.

Zucchini "Noodles"

This break I'm trying to experiment and cook new things. Already committed to attempting risotto, also want to start making homemade versions of candy bars. I've always wanted to make a homemade baguette maybe thats next?

Today for lunch I made zucchini "noodles" which I've seen on several food blogs. Sometimes they're cut into actual strings like spaghetti other times cut in ribbons, sometimes blanched other times raw. So my version is a combination of all the recipes I've seen. The zucchini was cut into ribbons because it was just easy to do with a vegetable peeler, you just peel around and throw out the core with the seeds. Then I heated up sun dried tomatoes in their oil, plus garlic and basil took it off the heat and tossed the zucchini strips in the hot oil. Finally topped it all off with parmesan cheese.


I am now in love with this dish, its light but full of flavor from the sun dried tomatoes and the zucchini still had a bite to it (I cannot stand mushy zucchini and its often so hard to find that perfect balance between textures). I had it for lunch but its better suited as a side dish, maybe for steak?

Luna

These two weeks I am visiting my mom in Colombia and I want to go back and visit some of my favorite restaurants. First night out we went to Luna. During the summer it was one of my favs because it had Italian pizza, the real stuff that I could pretend I was back in Firenze drinking wine by the liter with all my lovely friends. Anyways, last night my mom and I went to Luna actually to try their chicken but apparently they only serve that for lunch. For appetizer we shared a classic: prosciutto and melon, brilliant combination but its better when its actual wedges of melon.


For the main dish we shared a spinach and mushroom risotto. I was craving risotto because that afternoon, I was watching Nigella (in Colombia instead of food netwrok I watch FoxLife which has all british cooking shows) and she made squid ink risotto. I've already had the whole squid ink thing which I recommend just for the fun of your tongue turning black.


The one we ordered wasn't too special, it was just kinda salty, didn't taste very much spinach or mushroom flavor. My new culinary goal is to make amazing risotto. I tried once but got a little too carried away with the cheese.... sorry Kelley you had to eat it. At least it wasn't as bad as when I tried to make Indian food from scratch at home which was either unidentifiable or it morphed into Mexican. Italian seems more attainable, I'll keep you all posted on the experimentation.

Oh and the blue glow is Christmas lights on the sidewalks, didn't get a chance to take pics because it was pouring rain and I may have been a tad lazy.

Thanksgiving Feast

Again I know a tad let especially since its already mid December, but here is my thanksgiving spread. This is the third year I have cooked the entire meal, now I admit I had some help with chopping and pealing but I was the recipe decision maker. (For the select few who follow my blog regularly, notice in the last picture that I’m basically wearing my nerd costume from Halloween but as an actual outfit)

Now for the food. My mom suggested this year we cook turkey breasts instead of a full turkey and ever since I saw Rachel Ray do it on the Food Network do it, I’ve wanted to try. So it was turkey breast with cranberry, pistachio stuffing. For some reason we still don’t have a meat thermometer, every year we stare at the turkey and poke it to guess if it’s done and every year we never buy a thermometer. Hopefully we gain a few brain cells by next holiday season.

As for sides, cranberry sauce is my favorite and I always get too excited and make too much. When I saw Alton Brown (apparently food network has a great impact on me) make it from scratch, I was converted to a “from scratch only” cranberry sauce server. Next I think my second favorite of the feast was the balsamic glazed mini onions. I’m a tad partial to cooked onions and the balsamic glaze just took them over the top.

Moving on we have mashed sweet potatoes. For me, they are hundred times better than the normal white version, plus I’m not a fan of the whole marshmallow topping thing. I'm sorry but I believe they should just stick to smores (or my smore ice cream pie). The secret to these particular potatoes was rum and orange liquor (yes I managed to booze up the potatoes). The other stuffing that wasn’t actually stuffed anywhere was a sausage and apple cornbread stuffing. Again who can complain when there's sausage?

Here is Andrea’s plate of food, there’s the green beans who unfortunately do not have a photo solo. Up to this point all photos were taken by Andrea (I was a tad busy).

Dessert was pumpkin pie brought by my aunt and pecan pie that I made. OK so time for slight tangent: When I am on the elliptical at the gym, I read girly magazines and since the gym lacks a huge selection, I read practically every article. Every year during this season without fail, these magazines have an article on the “smart food choices for the holidays.” When it comes to dessert, pumpkin pie always wins since it has something like 300 calories whereas pecan pie has over 700 per slice. Do you think this stops me? Of course not but I really wish they would stop reminding me.

Finally after all this food, there’s still more, my version of hot white wine. I thought hot wine was only for red wine but I tried its sister for the first time this summer in Prague. Still just as warm and comforting but a lighter citrusy version. Of course I didn’t use a recipe and just threw spices, ginger, and fruit in the pot with white wine.

Well that was it, all the multiple course of food. Sorry that was such a long post, but Thanksgiving is probably the most food centered holiday out there. I will leave you with a lovely picture of the “kids.”

Fruit!

I have not had the time to go grocery shopping so now that I'm home, I'm overly excited to eat fresh fruit. This is just a basic yogurt and fruit breakfast. The plain yogurt wasnt sweet enough so I blended in a frozen banana and topped it all off with some lovely blackberries.

Christmas Cookies

So these were actually made two days after thanksgiving (the pics will be uploaded soon) but these past two weeks of school have been way too hectic to post or even cook anything. So now that everything has settled down a bit, I can show you these lovely cookies.


Christmas time is my favorite holiday and food is a major part of the season so its my happy cooking time. These were some cookies I baked with my mom. The other cookies were chocolate hazelnut biscotti and sugar cookies, tasty but nothing too special. The real star were the gingerbread cookies. The "gingerbread" ended up being ginger lemon cookies. they were too soft to roll out, but nonetheless they were absolutely divine. No joke, you must try them; so moist and rich with a wonderfully tart kick to round it out.