My books!

Brownies with chocolate filling!

Lemon Bars

Pizza From Scratch

Banana Chocolate Chip Pancakes!

I always like to try new things, so this week I think it was Wednesday I decided to make Banana chocolate chip pancakes. So good! I have never made pancakes with banana so it was a new experience, it was a lot of fun and they came out pretty good. The only problem I had was that it got stuck to the pan so it got ruined when I tried to take it out:( I switched pan after that and the second once came out with no problems. I got the idea from the song banana pancakes by Jack Johnson and from my friend from work that told me she had eaten banana pancakes the previous day.

Late...

This week was an okay week, I had my older's sisters birthday on Tuesday so I had decided to make her something special. I talked over it with my mom on what to make her, we decided on these potatoes with melted cheddar cheese on top(it looked really good on the picture). I went to publix after work with my sister Camila and we got all the ingredients, came home and I started cooking. I cooked for a while and once everything was ready, all that was missing was my sister....I had spoken with her earlier and she told me she was coming home around 8:00pm. So I waited around 9:30ish she finally showed up everything was cold and I was a little upset. I ignored it we had some potato I wasn't exactly happy but what can you do? I wasn't going to ruin her birthday just because she was late. We had cake later and that was that.

Presentation

Next week on monday (May 10th) will be the day when I get the opportunity to share with everyone what I have been working on. This semester has provided me with what i want to do with my life, I got the best opportunity, I got the opportunity to cook. To do what I absolutely love to do! I love to cook, and on May 10th i will get the chance to share that passion. Cooking allows me to express myself, it's a relaxing feeling. For my presentation I am planning on making a brunch type meal, I want to incorporate fruits, sweets and salts. I have a plan and I know that it will be outstanding! 

Italian week

This past week was very hectic and surprising. As president of the Italian Honor Society I had to plan the induction ceremony for the new inductees. This week was the biggest week for me as president, I had so much to do, I wanted this ceremony to be perfect. I cooked with my mom to make Italian plates for the ceremony we made a salad, a fruit appetizer and a couple of other appetizers. By Friday which was THE DAY, everything came out beautiful:) I was really proud with the outcome. The food, the decorations, the people everything came out right, yes I was freaking out the entire day but it all came together in the end. This event gave me the feeling and the experience that I will be living later on in my life, a couple of weeks a ago I changed my major to hospitality management, and this event really made me feel happy. I was happy that people loved it and that I got to live the experience, I can't wait until I start.

Sunday

Today we had a really good lunch, we had a BBQ, but it was very simple yet very delicious. We had salad with meat, arepa and an onion soup. My mom made the onion soup from scratch and it was delicious, she's so good at cooking! She's my inspiration not only for cooking but for everything:) Later in the afternoon I made dessert which was brownie with a cookie crust, as soon as they were cooled, they were gone, I think it was maybe an hour(or less) and they were ALL gone. I'm doing a little research as well for a cake ideas for a very special day that is coming up.

a great week!

This week I did a lot of things, Orly who is one of my best friends asked me to help her make a cake for coach Love's friend. I of  course agreed I would never turn down an opportunity on something new that I could learn from. We got all the ingredients and decorations, we planned it out, and began our creation. We made a had with an orange ribbon around it with a flower as the main piece, it was white with the colors of orange and pink. We also added these small eatable pear like decorations, my mom absolutely loved it! And so did coach Love which made us very happy and proud of ourselves:) I think we discovered something while working on this, we learned to work together and we got to see our talent!

The best chef I know:)

This week I got the opportunity to cook with my mom, for me it's definitely one of the best moments. She taught me how to make a recipe, she says will make me famous. It was a corn cake, it came out perfectly delicious! I made it from scratch it was beautiful. Cooking with my mom is always a pleasure, she has basically taught me how to do everything. One of the things that surprised me was one of the main ingredients for the corn cake was cream cheese, a not so healthy ingredient but a needed one. I have learned that cream cheese is a really important ingredient when making cheesecake(duh!) but it is also used to make other types of cakes. Overall this Monday was a really good day, thanks mom:)!

Sister time and chocolate chip pancakes:)

My older sister decided she didn't want to go to work on Wednesday... so we got to hang out for a while. I made us chocolate chip pancakes and we talked while eating, it was great:) It's been a while since we hung out, so I liked that we got that chance. I told her she should have told me that she wasn't going and we could have planned out the day. Either way we had fun and we got to chocolate chip pancakes:) My next task is making banana pancakes just like the song by Jack Johnson! I don't really know how I will do that but I am willing to try.

Packed week

This was pretty hectic, I did a lot of things related and non-related to wise. At the beginning I cooked a lot and I did  some work for my BC classes. This week we worked in groups and we also have to prepare a persuasive speech and is to be presented next week...mine is about how to eat healthy. I think it makes sense considering that I will be involved with food in my future I should know what kind of ingredients are healthy and helpful for my body. I will make it very persuasive and it could be considered as a source for my presentation since I had to look through a lot of website to gather information. I'm kind of excited to present it who knows maybe people will listen and take advantage of the information, I did.

Ideas

School is soon coming to an end, graduation is approaching and a very important presentation is soon to be seen. I have giving a lot of though since the beginning of the semester of what I want to do for my Wise 2011 presentation. I want to make three different courses to present, I will begin with an appetizer/ entry, I don't really know what I want to do as my main meal, for dessert I think I will make a raspberry lemon cheesecake. After this week I have learned a lot, and one of my favorite things was preparing the cheesecake, it was really easy to make and it was delicious! I will keep practicing to get everything right, and I will keep looking for my main meal course. 

Cheesecake finally

I know I have talked about preparing cheesecake for such a long time and today was finally the day! Hello cheesecake YUMMM! I am preparing cheesecake cookie cups, which are a cup that contains a bottom crust of cookie on top of the cookie once it's cooked of course goes the cheesecake mix. I let it cook for about twenty minutes and once it's all cooked I take it out and let it cool for a couple of minutes, then I add the cherries on top and place it in the fridge that way the cheesecake gets cold. I never though how easy making cheesecake really is, all you need is cream cheese, eggs, vanilla extract and condensed milk. Mix everything together and it's done! Last night I make chocolate chip pancakes, they were so good I don't really know why I made pancakes at night? But they were good that's all I have to say.

Cooking explosion!

This week has by far been one of the best weeks in wise! I have cooked about 7 to 8 times! Amazing I must say...I prepared salads, desserts, lunch, and quick snacks. I also had my mentor meeting which went really well. I made lunch on Wednesday, I prepared pasta, salads, bread, fish, chicken pitas, cheesecake cookie cups and more salads!...I am tired but not tired of cooking I'm just tired of standing. I stand all the time while I cook and by the time I am done I am so tired! I loved this week in wise, and I hope that there are many more to come.

Sunday

Ususally sunday in my house use to mean chores day. It's supposed to be a day when we clean  the house and get everything organized. But today it was pure lazy day, my mom had to work so chores day is postpone for tomorrow, today I made myself a chicken tomatoe pita and watched movies all day. It was a very relaxing day, I also plan on going out in a little bit to meet up with some friends, we're going to catch up and hand out pretty much. This will be the perfect finally to a great sunday. I did however do research on wise so I wasn't a total lazzy person today:)

An Okay week

This week things were okay..I managed to get a lot of things done but I was also a little bummed out. I got everything done for wise and I was really proud of myself because on Tuesday I had my court ceremony to become a citizen, I am finally an American citizen:) Having accomplish that after 10 years of being here is an amazing feeling. I had my mentor meeting with Maniglia and everything went well, after meeting with my mentor I had to go see my Italian teacher because she's the Italian Honor Society sponsor and I am the president. She had a lot of things to say to me and well after meeting with her, I honestly felt disappointed in myself...I talked about it with my mom, she always lifts up my spirit when I am a little down. So I talked it over with my mom and she made me realize all the good things that I have done, and that made me feel better.

Technology...

So Monday our midterm "exam" was due, we had to create a movie trailer about our wise project that would get others interested in what we are doing. I made my ahead of time and when I had to put it on a usb to save it, unfortunately it did not. Monday when I showed up to class I had to explain to coach Love my story on how I accidentally erased imovie from my older sister's mac...I had to re-do the whole project from scratch. I think it came out better than how it did the first time, the funny thing is that my best friend and I had the same problem so at least we were both going through the same thing. We were so happy when we took it to coach Love once it was all ready. So I now know that for whatever problem I ever have with a mac computer I can count on my older sister to help me out (she got imovie back in the computer).

video

So yesterday, I finished my video, I found a song and I think it fits well. It's called good life by one republic, I was watching a live video online and the leader said the reason I want to perform this song is because we live everyday but it's our view and we make our day. It can be a good day or a bad day it depends on the attitude you have, I want to live everyday with something to look forward to the next, after all today's outcome its tomorrow's yesterday, how do you want to remember it?
I was very happy with my video I wonder if I can post it online?...I'll have to see if I can. 

Florida Finally

So two days ago I got back to Florida, I was so happy I missed sleeping on my bed with my own space! For spring break my family and I took a road trip to visit my family in Washington D.C. We went to Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Washington D.C and Maryland. We stayed in Virginia in this place called Shenandoha it was up in the mountains, and we slept in these things that looked like tree houses. After staying there for a couple of days we went to Washington to visit my grandma, uncle and cousins, it was a nice family reunion. We left on saturday and arrived here in Florida sunday night...an 18-19 hour drive!! Yesterday in my speech class I got the opportunity to share with my class my passion for cooking. I talked about these brownies I made, they are called brownies with chocolate filling, everyone seemed really interested and excited about the brownies, so I offered to make some for our next class. I hope they come out delicious!

Pita pizzas!

I made this ones on Monday, I got some pitas tomato organic sauce, Parmesan cheese (there was no other cheese..so this was the best I have), chopped onions, pieces of Italian sausages and some oregano. I got the pitas spread the sauce added all the ingredients and place them in the oven or about 10 minutes. I made three one for my mom, one for my dad, and one for myself, we all loved them:) I also can't wait for this week which is spring break! Tomorrow I am going to be in a car for about 16 hours.....yeah. For that I can wait! Anyway I am really excited because we are going to Virginia to camp in tree houses! I also get to see some of my relatives, I missed them so I'm really happy that I will get this opportunity to see them.

An omelet...Or not?

I made an omelet once for my sister when she was ill, she asked me to cook her something yummy for breakfast. I wanted to try out my skills, so I decided to make an omelet. I scrambled the eggs, cut some ham, shredded some cheese, tomato's, onions and a little bit of cilantro. I made it and it came out so good, I have kept wanting to make it. So on Thursday I took out the ingredients an began cooking. the only difference this time was that I may have used a different pan, and that screwed up everything...the omelet got glued ( not literary) but It was stuck so bad I had to make scramble eggs instead. I really wanted an omelet, from this experience I learned to not use that pan to make omelet's instead I'll use a big one. I also got the opportunity to listen to more songs for my preview, still nothing... I hope I'll be able to find something soon!

For coach Love:)

Lemon Cheesecake Bars

Today I made a dessert from Nestle called Lemon Cheesecake Bars. It was very easy to make and it came out delicious! After having my mentor meeting I got the car went to the local grocery store and got my book out and went to get all the ingredients I needed. I told coach Love I would take him a piece tomorrow I hope he likes it. It seems to be a success here at home, I was very happy that it came out just like the picture:) I took a couple of pictures that way I can also use them for my movie clip my mom kept telling me to stop but of course she didn't know that I have to record just about everything. So I also had a piece of the dessert and I must say, DELICIOUS! I loved it so I hope that those who are lucky enough to try it, will love it too:)

Dessert for calculus nerds

Since my sister Camila is in calculus and so are some of our friends. There is always calculus homework to be done and they get together sometimes to do it together. They have asked me to make them something that they can eat while they study. So I am going to make a small dessert for them, I am going to make chocolate muffins with a twist I don't know what the twist is yet...which gives it a sense of mystery. I have also been thinking on how I want to make my movie commercial, I know I will use imovie since I think it's an amazing program. I have been recording myself while I cook/bake so this way I will have a lot of footage to work with. I'm pretty excited about it, tomorrow I want to start working on it that way if I have questions I can go this week and ask coach Love.

Breaksfast my favorite meal:)

What does a breakfast consist of in my house? Well we are Colombian, so my mom makes Arepas they are this delicious corn  dough it looks like sand but of course it tastes nothing like it. We have around 90 Arepas made to last for a long period of time. So I help my mom make breakfast, one of my favorite things to do is cook with her, she is amazing, I have learned so much from her and I hope to keep on learning. We take out the eggs, tomatoes, onions, salt, pepper, cheese, butter, milk, coffee, honey/sugar and fruit. This may seem like a lot but it really isn't, with the tomatoes, onions, salt and pepper we make the eggs, crack them open in a bowl whisk them add the chopped onions and tomatoes and place it on the pan. For the Arepas we put the to warm in the stove once they are ready we put the butter and cheese along with some salt, then we make the coffee and tea(for my dad) and we put everything on the table and sit together and eat.

Again..

So this week I cooked chicken again, I made it for lunch for both my sister and myself. Lunch was chicken with veggies, and rice that my dad made. We had lunch together, I have to help around the house since my mom is working so she tells me what to do and I do it. She leaves mostly everything ready, I take the chicken, spice it up and cook it. I also had my mentor meeting with profe, we talked about some goals for this week, I have actually been looking on how to make crepes, that's something I really want to do. I want to prepare more dishes that are healthy for me and others, I started this exercise with my older sister and she's getting me in shape, she has no pity on me! Which is good, she inspires me to exercise more. So if I am going to be exercising then I should be feeding my body the right foods that way it balances out. 

Pasta for lunch:)

Yesterday for lunch I made pasta, I was with my sister and every single time we make pasta we get really excited. So we took out the pot filled it with water about half way, turned on the stove and let the water begin to boil. While it was boiling I added a little bit of oil, and salt while that boiled I took out the pasta sauce and the Parmesan cheese. I also decided to add Italian sausages, what I did was took out the pan added a little bit f oil and let it warm, when it was warm I added the sausages and the pasta sauce. took out the plates and forks and added the pasta when it was done, drained the water and added the sausages mixed it all together. Sprinkled Parmesan cheese and we served it with pink lemonade, perfect lunch with my sister.

Tuna Salad

Yesterday for dinner I made a tuna salad, I know it may not sound very appealing but it was really good. I took out the ingredients first, tomato, lettuce, onions, mayo, lemons, salt, and pepper oh and tuna of course! I chopped up the tomato, onions, and lettuce, cut the lemon in half opened the tuna cans and began mixing it all together. Once all of these things were mixed in together, I added about half a teaspoon of mayo a little bit of salt and pepper and the lemon juice. Mixed everything well together and I also made a lemonade to drink. The salad came out really good, and everyone was satisfied.

Pizza Night!

So two night ago was the first time I made a pizza from scratch! From rolling out the dough, to cutting ingredients, pre-heating the oven, shredding the cheese...a lot of things to make a pizza. So I took the dough split it in two and began with the first half, I rolled and rolled, stretched and pulled...not easy! After finally doing that for about 5 minutes I was able to get the pizza dough to look like a circle, well kind of. while the oven heated I chopped up the vegetables, shredded the cheese and began spreading the tomato sauce all over the surface. after I went on ahead and added everything else and placed the pizza in the oven. I took a couple of pictures of the three pizza's I made, I will post those later it takes too long to load them. Once that pizza was ready I added the rest and served to my family. It was a very fun experience, I remember that for my 11th birthday my older sister brought pizza dough for us to make a pizza, but now that I am older I actually feel the experience.

Chicken With Tomatoes

A few days ago my mom asked me if I could make lunch, she a couple of errands to run so she would be out most of the day. I gladly accepted, I love to cook for my family! So she pretty much left me the chicken defrosted and the rest was up to me. I seasoned it, brought out the pans placed a little bit of vegetable oil let it warm while the chicken had a couple of minutes to absorb the flavors. Meanwhile I decided to chop up some tomatoes to add to the chicken once it was ready, in my opinion tomatoes always make everything better. So once the pan was hot I added the chicken and let it cook. while that cooked I began on making a salad with lettuce, cucumbers, carrots, onions and tomatoes(of course!), we  got this new blender that makes salad dressings so I used that to make the dressing. When the chicken was almost done I added the tomatoes and lunch was served. :)

Mango!!

Mango has to be one of my favorite, if not my favorite fruit. I found this recepie online, I was searching through the foodnetwork website here is the recepie and the ingredients:

Ingredients

• 1 pound frozen mango, thawed
• 1 cup milk
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 pint soft serve-style frozen vanilla yogurt
• 1/2 cup fresh lime juice, from about 4 limes
• Lime slices, for garnish

Directions

In a blender, combine the mango, milk, sugar, and yogurt. Blend until smooth. Add the lime juice and blend.
Pour into 4 chilled glasses and garnish with fresh lime slices.

I was planning on making  this snack this weekend, my original plan was to make it yesterday but we had the team meeting so I wasn't able to.

Filling....mmmm

Yesterday, I decided I wanted to do an experiment, so for my experiment I wanted to place filling inside of brownies...I succeeded:) What I did was make the brownie mix pre-heated the oven to 350 degrees, while I mixed the brownie mix I though..how will I find a way to place the melted chocolate inside the freshly made brownies?? So what i did was let the brownies cook for about five to seven minutes took them out and with a clean knife I cut a little bit of the top, made a hole through the middle and placed some chocolate chips. After placing the chocolate morsels, I should say, I covered back the top of the brownies and placed them back in the oven. I let them cook and once they were ready I had to rush since I had to go to school for my mentor meeting, I packed two brownies for coach Love and two for m mentor. Placed them in aluminum and drove to school once I got there I ran into coach Love handed him his brownies and went to meet with Profe Maniglia, my mentor. I went back to coach Love's classroom after finishing my mentor meeting and asked him what he though of the brownies...he told me they were very good! as well as in my house everyone seemed to loved them, but the trick is to place them in the microwave/oven for 30 seconds or until warm and then eat them that way the chocolate that's inside will melt!!

Cookie Brownies!!!

I know I don't have much experience cooking but I could easy say that my cookie brownie dessert is definitely a favorite in my house. Every single time I make this dessert it never lasts a day, they attack! What I do is i make the brownie mix first, then I add the cookie mix. I made it for the place where I work,  they loved it /i had told my boss the previous day that I was thinking on bringing  a surprise something everyone would love. I took it to work and everyone loved it. Today I am making it for my family, my sister and brother-in-law have begged me to make something sweet so I think I will make it. What I love about cooking is that I can relax and it's something that takes the stress and problems away from me and I just focus on mixing the dough and watching what I have created grown into something delicious. So for today I am done blogging and ready to cook away my rejection of UF. Rejection really hurts but I have a goal and cooking is what I need to do right now it's what I'm good at:)

Almost the weekend

Today may be the day that I will make a cheese cake, it looks a little complicated but I think I can do it. It's going to be a cheese cake with fresh cut strawberries as a topping, it looks delicious!! Every week I will choose a main dish to cook and this one will be this weeks. Dessert dishes are my favorite thing to cook, I love making something from scratch and seeing it come to something delicious and beautiful. I will post back and let you know how my cheese cake goes:) I got the recipe form the nestle cookbook I got for my birthday, my only cookbook and I love it, I have more but they are not mine.

A New Week:

Today I  decided to make Hershey chocolate cupcakes! What I did was mixed the dough, pre-heated the oven, took out the cupcake mold. Added the chocolate mix into the pan, placed it in the oven and let it cook. After about 15-20 minutes I took it out let it cool and what I did was melt a little bit of chocolate morsels in the microwave, glazed it along the top of the chocolate cupcakes and gave one to each of my family members, they liked it very much. This week I want to make something challenging, for instance a pie or a new dish, I got a couple of cook books that I haven't use much of them. tomorrow I want to make something for lunch maybe some potatoes or a salad that I made previously for my sister's graduation.

Interview:)

Yesterday, I interview the best chef I know, her name is Maria Orrego. She also happens to be my mom, she cooks on a daily basis always creating new meals for us. She makes the most delicious things, and a lot of them are invented! Whenever I get the chance I love cooking with her, we both share a passion for food, eigther eating it or cooking it. Also we both love desserts so she usually ask's me to make them when we have a special occasion, she knows she can trust me. For next week I plan to challenge myself, I want to make something delicious and new. Maybe tiramisu, or something along those lines, I want to learn so that makes me want to do more than what I have done so far. 

Quiche!!

Today I made a Swiss ham quiche, it was my first time and it actually came out pretty good. It didn't get burned so that made me very happy, I took out the pie crust added the Swiss cheese along with the ham and onions and mushrooms. After adding those ingredients I added the rest and placed it in the oven for about 45-50 minutes, surprisingly it was really easy to make it. My sister and my best friend tried it and they said it was good, I'm still waiting for my mom, she is the one that usually tells me constructive advice. She will be home soon and I just hope she likes it, I liked it so for me it was a job well done for being the first time. Today I also had my mentor meeting, we talked about my goals for this week and what else I plan to do for the rest of the week and for next week.

Chocolate time!!

Yesterday I had in mind that I was going to cook a raspberry lemon pie, unfortunately when I went to Publix to get the ingredients, they had no raspberries. Good thing I took my cook book, I then decided to make a dessert with chocolate, so I got all the ingredients for a chocolate crumb tart. I got home  got everything together and began cooking. First I made the bottom which was the crumb, it baked for about 15 minutes while that was baking, i made the chocolate tart on the stove letting the chocolate melt, when everything was done. I then added the chocolate on top of the cooked crumb and placed it back in the oven for 25 minutes. When it was done I cut out a piece and took it to my friend since it was her birthday, she loved it!! Today when I went to school for my mentor meeting I took some for coach Love, I hope he liked it.

Friday:)

Finally it's Friday!!!!Today I made a pumpkin cake with icing, it took a while to cook but in the end it came out delicious! This weekend I plan to get together with Orly, my best friend we're doing research on our wise projects. I also want to go get some ingredients I plan to use next week, I think want to make a cake or pie with raspberries. I need to practice so I will probably start this weekend:) on my mentor meeting I plan to talk about my research and my new recipes!!

Research...

So I want to make this weeks goal to be research some information on baking and cooking. I have always loved cooking but surprisingly I have never done research on it, so I'm pretty interested on what I will learn. I also want to work on my wise experience this weekend, I want to start organizing the recipes that I will use next week. I received a Nestle cookbook and I can't wait to start cooking from it! So what I will focus on today and tomorrow will be to begin my research, I want to learn as much as I can because I know that this will benefit me in the future. If it's something I love why not know where it originated from?  The more I learn the more I know, and I want to feel like I know everything I need to know about my passion!

My first Wise day:

Today was my first day of wise...I'm extremely excited to start! I love the fact that coach Love will be there to help me out along with Ms. Stoklosa. I already know what I am going to do, my wise experience is going to be cooking =) I can't wait for tomorrow I already chose what I want to start with. Cooking is my passion this is what I want to do with my life and this is just the beginning!