Food From Peru!

As you know, Rafael and his family went to Peru in January. I think they had a great time. Here is Raf at Machu Picchu. Can you believe there are llamas walking around? I was so surprised!

They visited lots of family members including Rafael's Great Aunt Victoria and a sweet little one. :)

Rafael brought back beautiful decorations and lots of delicious food including tamales made by Aunt Victoria! They were super delicious. I couldn't believe I got to eat homemade food from Peru! Have you ever had tamales? I love them. The Peruvian kind have meat, eggs, and olives.
Yummy!

My New Favorite Marshmallows

I have three favorite foods. They are tomatoes, macaroni and cheese, and marshmallows. Now homemade marshmallows are my favorite marshmallows. Rafael and I made these for Valentines Day using this recipe. I made them at Christmas too but I forgot to take pictures. We actually made two batches and layered them on top of each other. The top part (pink) was mint flavored and the bottom was vanilla. So yummy! They're fun to make and I would have taken more pictures but it was pretty messy and sticky and I forgot. They were delicious by themselves and in hot chocolate. I want to make more and more! haha

Goodbye February!

Hi! Did you have a nice February? I did! The best part was Valentines Day. Rafael bought me these beautiful flowers! I couldn't stop looking at them. :)

We made delicious ravioli!

And celebrated at home. It was fun!

The Prudential was red for the day. :) Now I am ready for Spring! I made these springy brownies with this recipe yesterday.I love sprinkles! :)

Some Decorating

This weekend I was a little bored so I decided to do some decorating. Lots of our decorations are still packed from when we moved and I've been meaning to put them up for a few months now. Hopefully I'll keep going now that I've started. I bought the two paper lanterns in the photo below at Abode in Portsmouth a few weeks ago. It was hard to figure out how to arrange them. I think I like how they look, but they kind of remind me of balloons and I'm not sure how I feel about blocking the window. I think I'll leave them like this for awhile and see how I feel. What do you think?I was making the bed on Saturday and decided that it was time for new sheets, so I immediately walked to the mall and got these:
It's nice to live so close to the mall. :) The sheets are Martha Stewart from Macy's. They don't quite match the yellow blanket we already had, but I think they're close enough. I like how bright they are. I always like things that remind me of summer in winter. Btw, the afghan was made for my by Mom and Grandma (and maybe other people?) when I went to college. I love it, especially how it has my name on it. :) Mom also made the blue flower pillows for me. I finally put up this wall hanging that Sarah brought me from Chile:I love it! Maybe Raf will bring me something similar from Peru (hint hint!). Mom gave me the beautiful plant stand from Abode for my birthday when I lived in Brighton. I think it's so pretty. I finished the little table myself, but, as you can see, it needs a repair. I'll let you know if I decorate more!

Family Fotos

I have to admit, I'm glad the holidays are over. Sometimes they're just too much! For example, look what happened to Raf: So dramatic! (Just kidding, he really just likes how his new indoor sweater soccer ball feels on his head.) Now that we're past New Years, there's plenty of time to do fun winter activities like getting cozy on the couch! (Unless you're like Sarah and need a pillow barrier.)And eating delicious Florida grapefruits! Yummy!

¡Pixa!

Mom gave me a really nice pizza making set for my birthday in November. I used it the other night to make a pizza for Raf and me! It was really fun. I forgot how easy pizza is to make! We bought our crust at the grocery store but I want to try making my own sometime. Our pizza had chicken sausage, tomato sauce, mozzarella, ricotta, and fresh pineapple. Raf's favorite kind of pizza is sausage and pineapple, and my favorite has ricotta so it was a compromise. :)It was beautiful and delicious! I might have used a little too much sauce. And it had a really big bubble! Here is a close-up:Thanks Mommy for the pizza set! In other news, the sun came out! I can't believe it. :)

Happy Snowy New Year

Happy 2010! I'm excited for the new year, are you? I have about 30 resolutions, but I like all of them. :) Rafael and I moved to a new apartment this fall on the 3rd floor with a super cool view! We love it, especially when we can watch fireworks like New Years Eve! Here's what it looked like this Fall: In the distance, from left to right, we can see the old Hancock building (with the weather beacon), the new John Hancock building, and the Prudential! Out another window we see this: The little light in the middle is the Zakim Bridge. We can also see the Science Museum and the Cambridgeside Galleria. Out other windows we can see the TD Banknorth Garden, State Street Financial, the Schrafts Building, and Route 93 (how exciting haha). And today, here is what I see:Lots of snow! Blur!!!! (As Raf would say :).) Unfortunately for me, Raf is on his way to Peru today. :( Where, fortunately for him, he will be enjoying Summer weather!But he left me with a beautiful snowflake! (See the cutie d-dog?) Happy Winter everyone! xoxo

Merry Christmas

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas! We did lots of fun holiday activities this year, but I was bad and barely too any pictures, except for when we went to the Christmas tree farm. We don't have a Christmas tree, but I love to go to the farm to look at the trees and smell them. Isn't that the best smell? Mom and Raf were very nice and went with me. We all had fun! Mom got a wreath. It was really sunny. We had to take this picture like, "One, two, three... OPEN YOUR EYES!!!!" haha The Christmas trees are really pretty and so is the farm.It also has a beautiful view!Happy Holidays everyone!!!! xoxo

Making Pasta

A few weekends ago it wouldn't stop raining so I decided it was time for another cooking adventure. This time I made pasta because I love home made pasta. I seem to be into carbs lately. :) The only special ingredient I used was semolina flour. I love my blue measuring cups!
I think that traditionally pasta is made by putting eggs in a crater of flour on the counter. I tried it in a bowl because I was nervous. It wasn't as hard as I thought though so maybe next time I'll try the other way.

I also added a little olive oil and mixed it all together. It was fun to see it come together! Since I don't have a food processor I had to knead it by hand for about 10 minutes. My arms were really tired the next day! hahaAfter I let it sit for awhile I rolled out the dough. It was really elastic! I'm not sure if it's supposed to be or not but it seemed okay. Then I rolled it up and cut slices to make fettuccine. I realized that it's better to roll it up loosely so the noodles are easier to unroll. I unrolled them all except a few because I was lazy and I wanted to see if they would unroll themselves while they cooked. They didn't, but they tasted good rolled up too, just thicker. Some of my noodles came out like zig-zags. Then I boiled the noodles. I forgot how much fresh pasta grows! I ended up with some giant noodles. hahaThen I added some sauce and parmesan and we were ready to eat.... at 10. Oops! I didn't realize how long it would take. It was super delicious! I just love the texture and the flavor. Looking at these pictures makes me want to eat it again. :)

Happy Birthday to ME! :)

I had a super fun birthday celebration at Mom's house this weekend. Everyone gave me really cool presents, including this beautiful afghan made by Sarah and Mom! We ate enchiladas and Grandma Estelle's chocolate cake!
We even had mini sparklers! So cool :)

Baking Challah

Last week I decided I needed a new project, so I made Challah! It was my first time baking bread and it was really fun! I used the recipe in this article from the New York Times. I wished I had a family recipe, but I did have family dishes! The bowl was Susie's and the spoon was Grandma's. :) Next time I'll have to ask for the recipe.

The recipe says to let the dough rise 3 times: once after everything is mixed together, once after you punch it down, and once after it's braided. I didn't really know how to punch the dough so I looked it up on Youtube, but I'm still not sure if I did it right because it didn't seem to get much smaller. After the dough rose again I started the fun part, the braiding!

I learned how to do a 6 strand braid on Youtube too. I watched this video maybe 7 times, including once mid-braid. It can get confusing!

It was really fun to braid the bread. I even impressed myself with how it looked when I was done! haha.

Then I made a round raisin version, which is usually made for Rosh Hashana, I learned. I guess I was a little late. Here it is with egg wash #1:

Then I let them rise again. I couldn't believe how huge they got this time! It was so exciting. :)

After I gave them egg wash #2 I baked the stick shaped loaf. But....Oops. I forgot to pay attention and baked it too long. I think I have a hot oven. The round raisin version came out much better. I love cooked raisins, don't you? This took a long time, but it was really fun and definitely worth it. I want to make it again and maybe other kinds of bread too! Have you ever made challah? Do you have any tips or recipe recommendations? Thanks!

Cute Animals

We went to the fair a long time ago, but I've been bad about blogging lately so I didn't post any of my pictures. My two favorite things about the fair are food and animals, especially petting the animals. Petting the sheep is my favorite. It's like petting dogs but they're much more calm and warm and their woolly heads feel nice, even if they're under a jacket. They like to sniff like dogs too, but so much more air comes out!Mom and Sarah patted the sweetest sheep of all. It stood up on the fence to visit them!This one really liked to pose. Such a sweet face. :)The cows are pretty fun to pat too, but they make me more nervous. This one licked Raf:And then it licked me! My bag was a little dirty after but it was worth it.We got to pat these two too. They were really soft. They were about to go in a competition. I think cows (or oxen, in this case) have beautiful huge eyes. I'm always amazed by how bony they are!These cows (or I guess oxen) had a goat friend. It reminded me of Seabiscuit, except I think his friend was a sheep. Remember how they lived in the same stall? That was so cute. Here is the cutest picture I took at the fair. Cows (I mean oxen) kissing! I couldn't believe it. :)