Cooking for friends: Bacon and mustard rolls

If you like bittersweet flavour you´ll love this rolls.
There are made with Scons dough recipe, bacon, mustard and sparkled with a bit of brown sugar.

Cooking for friends: Lemon pie

I love lemon pies!, so fresh, sweet but no too sweet, ideal for the summer. I made this one for the nurses at the Day care Unit.
I know that in Argentina, everybody says that his own Lemon pie recipe is the best. But I´m sorry, this is the best recipe ever!

(sorry for the bad quality pic!)

If you want the recipe, just ask for it!

Cooking Fever

Some people eat, some others play sports, or drink, or take Yoga lessons...
When I´m under stress, I cook, bake, etc...

I´m very stressed about finishing the Residency and looking for a new job..., but when I cook, I don´t know, I relax, I forget about everything, even it´s only for a while.

(My flatmate is worried about me and all this cooking)

Cooking for friends: pink cupcakes and baby Sunday

This Sunday I´m going to visit Patricia and her baby, Vera. I made some pink cupcakes to share with them.
(vanilla cupcake with cream-cheese frosting)

Cooking for friends: Owl Cupcakes

Last Sunday on call. Bake some cupcakes to have breakfast with my nurses and cheer up the morning...

Cooking for friends: Zucchini and onion pie

Karem and Isa came for dinner the other night.

I prepared my special quiche recipe..., I mean, this is so easy, everyone can make it!

You can use this base, and the use your imagination and fill it up with whatever you want!!!

I bought the pastry dough at the supermarket, and put it on a 24 cm olied tart pan. 

For the filling:

-3 large eggs

-salt-pepper-herbs

-50 cc cream

Mix these ingredients and you´ll have the plain filling that would work for anything you want for your pie.

(My favorites: BBQ cooked chicken in strips, broccoli and cheese/ roasted red peppers and tuna/ zucchini and bacon/etc...)

-1 small onion

-1 zucchini (sliced)

-1/2 red pepper (sliced)

-bacon (in small dice)

Saute the onion with a sprinkle of salt, add the bacon and then the pepper and the zucchini, cover the pan and let it cook until the zucchini is tender. Spread this filling over the dough and then pour the eggs and cream mix on the them. Spread some Parmesan or Emmental cheese on top. Cook in 200ºC oven for 20 minutes.

Cooking for friends: Spinach and goat cheese creps

I really wanted to eat some creps lately! So, with the excuse of Isa coming home for lunch, I decided to release some stress and cook.

This is nobady´s recipe, I mean, it´s just mixing some ingredients together that I knew they would matched.

First you have to prepare the creps, and then you can fill them in with whatever you want. In this case, some onion lightly fried with spinach and goat cheese. Then I used an instant peppercorn sauce (a bit of cheating...) and gratined them in the oven. And..., enjoy!

(And for dessert, nothing better than "panqueques con Dulce de leche", typical dessert from my country: just a crep filled with dulce de leche)

Spinach and goat cheese creps

For the creps:

-2 large eggs

-500 cc milk

-1 tablespoon Butter

-150 grs flour

Mix the eggs with the milk and add the flour, stir only for a few seconds, then add the melted butter. Use a pan with a little butter on it and put 1-2 tablespoons of the mix on it, spread it and let it cook until it´s firm, the flip it over and cook it o the other side for a few seconds.

For the filling:

-1/2 small onion

-half zucchini

-200 grms spinach

-1 tablespoon olive oil

-pepper, salt, oregano, nutmeg

-50 cc cream

In a saucepan put the olive oil and cook the onion with a sprinkle of salt till it´s golden, then add the zucchini cut in small cubes. Cook until it´s tender, and added the spinach (it´s really magical the way spinach leaves kind of melt!). Season to taste. And add the cream.

Put 2-3 tablespoons of filling into the crep, add the goat cheese, roll it, and put it on a tray. You can use whatever sauce like, spread some grilled parmesan cheese on top. Cook it in the oven for 15 minutes. And...bon appetit!

the creps!

the filling!

ready for the oven...

ready to eat!

Cooking for friends: Strawberry Summer Cake

The other day I cooked the perfect Strawberry summer cake (from Smitten Kitchen). The best recipe ever! So simple, but so tasty!
I tried it with strawberry, cherry, peach, banana and caramel...the possibilities are endless. the trick of it it´s to bake it for an hour in a 150º C oven. And the fruit turns to marmalade!
It´s always a great hit. Thanks Smitten Kitchen! (http://smittenkitchen.com/2011/05/strawberry-summer-cake/)

Preparations for New Year´s Eve

My holiday´s finished today. Yes, it´s a pity. Tomorrow´s back at everything: the Hospital, preparations for London, studying and more…

If anyone of you likes these weeks in which the world seems to be finishing 31 st December, please, raise your hand! However, this sensation was even worse in Argentina, where December meant running against time with a hot sticky summer on your back, melting while you tried to leave every business solved in the old year.

Yesterday, I went to the cinema to see New Year´s Eve. I liked it. If you knew me by now, you´d realize I love this kind of movies. I don´t know. There´s  something inspiring about this Holiday movies.  Like they give you the idea that everything´s gonna be fine next year. That sharing, forgiveness and love will surround us and make this world better. That´s why I like them. Of course, there´s always the romantic theme, I´m not gonna deny I also enjoy this subject (I love cheesy things  nowadays). But, all the sudden, watching a movie in which you´d like to be living on, it´s nice.  I went  to the cinema with my mother, and next to us there was a couple of fifteen-year-olds, that spent almost the entire movie talking and kissing. I felt a little old. And a little sad (not having a boyfriend by my side to kiss during the movie…), but it´s OK. Going with my mother has the advantage of talking of how hansom can Josh Duhamel be, and discussing Sarah Jessica Parker´s shoes. So, it wasn´t that bad at all.

I´m on the train to Madrid now, I´m carrying my hugeeeeeee suitcase I bought for the London trip. And I don´t even wanna think how I´m gonna pull it throw the Underground. That makes me also think, of how I´m gonna move with this large suitcase in London. Don´t worry, I´m used to moving big lugagges in public transport.

This New Year´s Eve,  I´m also on duty.  Dinner with the nurses  (the most funny, caring and nice crew!).  I hope this year for a quiet night, and please,  not a very sad one! I have to take the dessert. I´ll make the Smitten Kitchen´s NY cheesecake. And I´m also preparing some chicken and bacon rolls, and homemade flavored bread. This means, Friday´s afternoon I´ll be cooking like crazy.

And what about New Year´s Resolutions?

This year I´m so nervous about the London thing,  that my resolutions are kind of forgotten. Not caring about the ones from 2011, and somehow, not making new resolutions for 2012. Tricky, isn´t it?, and a little disturbing I might say.  But still I don´t forget I have to finish a proyect about Invasive fungal infections (or the Doctor responsible for it would kill me!) before the end of 2011.

To sum up: this year was a good year.

-I presented my Thesis (predoctoral, but still a big effort!)

-I´ve started using my Lomography camera.

-I´ve travelled with friends.

-I´ve met a lot of interesting people.

-I had so much fun.

-I´ve practiced a lot (and I really mean: a lot!) my English.

-I´ve started my Blog (now´s when the guy with the “applause sign” comes in!!!, so clap your hands!)

And I don´t know. I still have to find Prince Charming. I hope 2012 will bring him to me. While waiting, I have new Projects, and that´s the most important. It´s going to be a hard year, I know. I´m finishing the Residency program on June, and my life will change a little. But even if I´m a bit scared, I trust everything will work out fine. I have a feeling.

Enjoy what´s still left of 2011!!!

The Julie and Julia project

Have you ever watched a movie that inspires you?

Well, lately I´ve been feeling a little worn out, like nothing could catch my attention, and everything seems too much work. All that I loved is kind of lost in the daily routine and everyday worries. It doesn´t matter, I continue doing things that I like. Somehow, stop painting is one regret I have. But I never find time to do it, and I don´t really know why. And this movie really inspires me to do things I enjoy and paint again!

The other day I watched Julie and Julia. What a great movie!!!, I loved it! Julie is kind in my situation, she´s not entirely pleased with her life, and she´s turning 30.She needs to find some goals and make a change soon. She loves cooking, and when her husband gives her the idea to blog about it (which she loves) and her Idol and roll model Julia Child (an important icon in American cooking) it seems like a perfect task to take charge of her life back .

The plot develops between 2002 in NY and the early 50´s in Paris. Mixing Julie and Julia´s stories.  Julia arrives to live in Paris with her husband. She loves eating and she loves food. So she decides to start taking French cooking lessons. But she wanted the real deal, so she takes a French cooking class for professionals in the Cordon Bleu. With some friends she stars writing a book of French cooking for the servantless American people. And that book and its recipes become her life during 8 years working on it, and then, opening for her the possibility of teaching people how to cook. The couple is really in love (I must admit I felt a little envious about that…), and her husband is adorable. And when on Valentine´s day he says to her: “you´re the butter to my bread and the breath to my life”, even if it sounds cheesy, I found it lovely.

Julie starts writing the blog. At first, not even her mother reads it. But she enjoys the cooking so much that she doesn´t care if she leaves half of the payroll at Dean and Deluca buying ingredients. And the meals she prepares look delicious!

And so the story goes on. Julie´s house is great, I mean, the style is great, I´d decorated my entired house like that if my flatmate let me. And her style, her clothing: so fancy and funny! She wears a lot of brooches like I do, and she has some really good ones. And the food looks  so delicious that I´ve already decided that “Mastering the art of French cooking” by Julia Child is on my X-mas  wishlist!

I recommend it. It´s a fantastic story. And, yes, it´s inspiring for me.

Cooking with friends: German X-mas cookies

Christmas time is here!
And even if this year I don´t want December to come along, I can´t deny it, I love Christmas!

X-mas decoration and lights have already invaded the city. And if you can´t resist to this fact, well, join it!

With Isa´s mother´s recipes for Christmas cookies we decided to drop out the Grinch spirit and bake!
(I can´t give right now the recipes, because they´re in German, once translated, if you wanted them, you should ask me).

Original German Chrismas cookies

Orange cookies, glazed and with candied orange peel on top. And Butter cookies with colored icing.

I gave them as a present to my mother yesterday, and we´ve already eaten them all.

Goluptious!!!