Showing posts with label Cooking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cooking. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

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

Monday, March 1, 2010

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! :)

Sunday, January 3, 2010

¡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. :)

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

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. :)

Monday, November 9, 2009

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!

Monday, August 31, 2009

Katie's Pizza Adventure

Yesterday afternoon we got home from a trip to New York and I suddenly wanted to make pizza. Rafael was very nice and walked with me to the grocery store to get ingredients. Then I started my pizza adventure! I made two kinds of pizza - grilled and in the oven. This was my first time eating grilled pizza, but I had seen it and I wanted to try it. The grilling was really fun! I don't have a real grill so I used this cast iron stove top grill that Mom gave me for Christmas. It worked great! I just rolled out the dough and put it on the grill. I liked how it got so bubbly! I put some olive oil on top and flipped it over. I didn't get a picture because I wanted to put the toppings on right away so the cheese would melt. The grill marks look cool and they taste delish. I put on fresh mozzarella, regular mozzarella, tomato sauce, tomatoes, and basil. It came out light and crispy. Next time I think I'll put grilled veggies on the cheese instead of sauce. Maybe I'll add some goat cheese too. Raf and I both really liked it!

I also made pizza in the oven. I had made pizza before on a cookie sheet but I thought that the bottom got too hard so I decided to try something different. If I had a pizza stone I would have used that, but I thought a casserole dish would be similar. I didn't really know how it would turn out but it ended up being sort of like a deep dish pizza, but not so deep and without so much sauce and cheese. I rolled out the dough, put it in the dish, and added tomato sauce, chicken sausage, fresh mozzarella, and regular mozzarella and put it in the oven.Then I realized I forgot the tomatoes and basil so I took it back out of the oven and added them.This one took a lot longer to cook than the grilled pizza, but I think we liked it better. The crust had a really nice texture and tasted great with the toppings. I'll definitely make a pizza like this again.
I really liked my pizza making adventure! Thank you Rafael for being my loyal taste tester!