Bento-D

February update, lovely things to eat.

2010-02-01T23:58:00.000-08:00

Ok, I might be getting quite lazy with this blog so I'm starting to change it by posting a selection of delicious looking food. Later on I'll post about the New Year's Eve cake adventure (at February, yeah... I know, I KNOW). Also I'll be uploading some pics that I took from homemade pizza. yum.
Also, I'm not sure what I'll be planning for Valentine's I've been very dissapointed for years so I might just NOT do a thing. Otherwise I might get depressed for the millionth time. But that doesn't mean I won't do an interesting meal. Even one for the month shall do it I believe.
Keep in touch!

This is okayu, the japanese version of porridge... Basically rice with lots of water so it's moisture and soggy and I actually found it really nice. It's said that okayu is generally made for sick people, so if you've got flu you get this and it's good for your health. Also people only eat this while sick and tend to go down in weight so when you get well people ask you "How many pounds did you loose?" instead of "are you feeling well now?" It's pretty funny.

This is mom's b-day fruit tart, we had it for late supper so she didn't want something heavy like cake. Sorry for the pic, the flash messed it up badly but hey, it was nine o'clock into the night. I couldn't help it. (u_u);

Here's one of my most favorite desserts, it's called 'pumpkin' thought it has nothing to do with real pumpkins, this is a delicious bread bun cut open and filled with custard, coverred with nice icing sugar. My mouth starts melting just thinking about it.

This is a lovely dessert I bought long time ago, strawberries and cream, all covered in chantilly cream. I admit I didn't like the chantilly since it was from those disgusting cans instead of fresh made, but the strawberries were absolutely delicious! Really worth the cost (about 2.7 dollars), i'm definately buying them again.

This is a project I did the other day, transparent noodles salad mixed with sweet chinese beans and grilled salmon covered with a nice sour ponzu sauce. Mom didn't really like it at first while looking but after tasting it she absolutely loved it. It has that oriental taste but is not overwhelming and the ingredients go really well toghether. You can have this as a whole dish but I like having many different dishes so I made some miso to go with it.

Azul y Oro

2009-09-16T20:35:00.000-07:00

Ok, this time I'll rant about a really nice place called "Azul y Oro" this place is located inside CU and has some of the best and most economic dishes I've ever seen. The place's motto is "No dish has to be expensive in order to look well" and they really stick on the philosophy.
All of the dishes look amazing and taste delicious and the most expensive one cost 98 pesos. Desserts were a bit on the pricey side but they also are really good and the coffee beans they use come straight from Oaxaca.

Ok, first pic is a 'Chile en Nogada' which basically is a large chile, roasted and filled with prepared ground meat. Garnished with a tomato sauce and white chestnut sauce. This was my mom's dish, she loves this kind of chile.

This was my sister's dish, the Tikin-Xic fish is absolutely delicious, covered with adobo and filled with black beans, this fish has fried tortilla, tomatoes, avocado and fried banana wedges as garnish.

Going to my dad, here's a beautiful salmon, bathed in another type of adobo, this had steamed vegetables and creamed spinach, the plate also had a balsamic reduction. It also tasted niceeee, and the salmon was not over cooked, just delicious.

And here's my dish, fried ravioli filled with duck meat covered with mole. I have to admit that the duck lacked a bit of salt and the mole needed a tid-bit more chocolate, but then again, I like my mole on the sweet side so it was obvious that it wasn't just the way I like it. I had a glass of jamaica with my dish and it was great, very refreshing and cool.

Ok, now we'll head on to desserts, my all times favorite. I can tell you that I could fall in love with a guy who'd take me to a place just to have a nice dessert and tea... This cake here is filled with milk and it's soft and delicious. The raspberry sauce that garnished it was also really great and the right accent for the sweetness of the cake.

Ok, here's a guanabana mousse, the guanabana is a tropical fruit that looks rather odd for many people, it's green and covered with lumps, but it has a nice fresh and soft taste. It was a very light mousse so we found it really nice, plus it looks beautiful.

Aaaand, this is my dessert: soft centered chocolate torte, it was a really delicious and sinful warm chocolate cake with a smooth and velvet melting center. It was really strong! And don't be fooled by the ice-cream ball, that's no vanilla flavour, oh no, thats a gorgonzola cheese ice-cream!
To be honest, this is the first time I actually get to try the chocolate/strong cheese combo many gourmets and tv shows talk about as heavenly creations and I have to admit that it was a bit too much to my palate. I think that one of the main reasons is because I simply don't like strong cheese, and even though we're talking chocolate here... Anyway, I accepted the challenge and finished it all. The cake was of course the best part and many times I saw a spoon or two stealing bits of my cake. hehehe

Of vacations and leftover muffins

2009-09-06T12:59:00.000-07:00

This year our family went on vacations to Puerto Vallarta and got the all inclusive so we had buffet breakfast meals and dinners all days. But it wasn't that bad, actually not at all. Everything was delicious and the meals restaurant was right beside the pool so we could go there when we started feeling hungry, from it all I believe that it's what I liked the most. They had everything! Pasta, pizza, salads, sushi, grilled meats and seafood, desserts, you name it. The only problem was that I couldn't eat it all unless I wanted to feel terribly guilty after. One day there was french food buffet for dinner and I thought it was ok, but then at the end of dinner I headed out for the desserts and there they were, profiteroles! Filled with whipped cream or chocolate cream! I had tons of them and couldn't help it, they're just so soft and light and sweet!
I could rant about them all day long but I didn't take a picture of them so I'll stop and rather show what I did take pics of.

This was my favorite breakfast buffet mix, chilaquiles, potatoes, mashed beans and sausages. Add to that fresh fruit with cottage cheese before and a glass of orange or carrot juice and it's the best thing ever. Besides I really, really REALLY love those small buffet sausages, I've never known where they get them from so I've only had them in buffets but if I could get them at the store I definately would.

One night we went to a really nice restaurant, it was great to dine there and the salad was awesome, it had two types of lettuce (though I don't really know their names in english) and portobello mushrooms grated with cheese, the dressing was sweet and delicious.

Although the trip was absolutely great, we went there by car and it was really tiring! Ten whole hours to get there and another ten on the way back. But we had a nice and sweet reward for the effort. They were selling strawberries half the way from there when we came back in cute weaved baskets at 4 bucks by kilo it was a great bargain!
They were truly delicious and we had strawberries the entire week. Alone, with cream and sugar and the last ones, the slightly less sweet ones were done in a milkshake. Yum!

Ok, and here's the leftover pic I had in storage. I've always wondered how cornbread tasted like so I went and had a look at some recipes in search for an easy start at the misterious thing. I found two different recipes and started to bake my own corn muffins.
Basically I did this Honey Cornbread Muffins recipe but instead of adding the cup of milk I added 1/4 and then 1 cup of sour cream which I had bought beforehand since I was planning on doing the Sour Cream and Lemon Corn Muffins instead. Why I changed my mind? Well, the first recipe looked easier (if that is even possible!).
The result is as delicious as it seems. The muffins were soft and sweet as honey (quite literally) and they were not dry at all so they lasted quite a bit. We don't eat much pastries or bread at home so I was afraid some of it would get old and dry. But I kept them in a sealed glass container and they lasted me the entire week! I don't know if they could last longer since that's when we finished the batch but I bet they could last longer.
Next time I'll add the lemon zest and see how it comes out.

Bought bento and senbei

2009-07-13T15:11:00.000-07:00

Mikasa is a place I like to visit a lot, not only for it's food but also when I'm low on ingredients it's the best place to go and stock. It's basically a japanese mart so I can find anything I need for my meals.
Also there is the fast food zone where I can buy almost anything, from sushi to daifukus. My boyfriend and I went for dinner and here's what we bought.

This is my boyfriend's california roll, he always picks it up so I'm no longer amazed he chooses it, the good thing is that they put some tampico sauce on top of each piece so it's a nice flavor.

This is mine, I've been wanting to get one of these for some time now, hence I got it. It's a bento and it has small portions of different foods to taste. There was a cucumber salad, fried pork, shrimp, salmon and some other things I don't know the name of but tasted really nice. And the best thing of this bento is that it had a small pot of camelia, a dessert I really adore consisting in coffee gelatin mixed with a sweet coffee liqueur sauce. d(>///<)b

Finally, I got myself a pack of snacks called senbei, these are rice crackers that are eaten just like chips are for us, they taste really great since they taste of soy sauce and the green dots over there are peas, toasted and with a twist of wasabi.

The Apple Adventure

2009-06-30T00:07:00.000-07:00

Yes yes... I know myself I'm not the best blogger around the block so please do spare my lazyness and lack of discipline to keep updating constantly on the blog. There are quite a few experiences I'd like to share stocked already at the incoming posts tray but making out an order from it is harder that I'd like to admit.
Anyway, here's the so promised post about my apple adventure and lo' an' see! It's nothing less than a Fake Strudel!
It all began the moment here at home we began to get fed up of apples all the time, so I decided it was a better bet to try and make a sweet out of it before the apples were (literally) gonna be left to rot. So next time we went to the supermarket I bought half a kilo of puff pastry and got myself to work.
Doing this dessert is awfully easy actually. You just chop around 4 apples (depending on size), season it with sugar and some cinnamon and stew it, add some raisins and nuts at the end.
Roll out the puff pastry long enough and around 1/4 inch thick. Place the cooled apples in the middle and close the puff pastry. Use some water to help it stick toghether and the brush it all over with an egg white.
Then place it into the over, around 375 ºF and 20 minutes or until the puff pastry has puffed and goldened enough.
Aaaand here's the result:

Not too bad for a fake one, right? The taste was great and remember not to use too much sufar at the beginning since raisins tend to be sweet and those are added in the middle of the preparation.

And here's the delicious inside. You can see my pastry didn't puff, well that was my fault, I tried to make as much space as needed... And there were a fairly big amount of apples. >.<;
It taste well, but I felt the lacking of puff in the puff pastry more than other's.
That aside, it was an absolute hit. Gone in a flash. ;3

Recovery and restaurants

2009-04-26T16:40:00.000-07:00

Well, it seems I'm getting over my last episode of depression, yay me!
ヘ(^_^ヘ)(ノ^_^)ノ

And here I am to show you some new food pics, they are from a very nice place called Nube Siete, which is located in a recently opened museum, which is the MUAC. This is a very interesting museum where a diversity of pieces are blended toghether, most of times they have a singularity which puts them toghether, like same author or same theme. We were not able to visit the whole place because of time but what we saw was pretty interesting.

There was a small but nice selection of fresh juices, one was a mix of green plants, oranges and pineapples, I liked it but it lacked a bit of sweetness.

We arrived at breakfast time, but we nearly missed it, since it was around 12:00 o'clock. It was a really nice place to go, the eating area is located outside the museum yet it is covered by the building's floor. This is because the building is located on an area that has different heights. It was a very hot day outside but as we were in the shadow it was nice and the soft breeze was relaxing.

This is my plate, a truly large mushroom omelette, it had some baked potatoes as garnish and I loved it! I ate he whole thing! In the end I thought my tummy was gonna burst but it was worth it. It's been a while since I tasted such great omelettes.

This is Marianita's plate, delicious hot cakes made with wholegrain flour. They tasted pretty nice if you ask me, and they had a delicious strawberry marmalade (which is not shown) to go with them. She only got to eat two of them so I was the lucky one to have the last.
...And yes, I even devoured a piece of hotcake after that huge omelette, you can tell how tasty everything was by that.

This was my dad's omelette, it had ham and cheese inside and tasted just as great as mine. But it lacked a bit of salt... Which is weird because ham tends to have an enough amount of salt.

Last but not least was my mom's plate. It's sunny-side-up eggs covered in guajillo sauce. Accompanied by smashed beans. A typical mexican dish which was delicious.

Oh and if you were wondering what is a guajillo, it's what we call a 'chile'. Here in Mexico we have loads of different chiles. Guajillo is a chile that is commonly left to dry. There are two ways of preparing them for whichever thing one wants to do and that is to toast it and then put it into hot water. Or just putting it in hot water.
It has a nice smoked taste and is really good. And here's a pic of it (beware, it's pretty large):

Feeling Down

2009-03-17T17:00:00.000-07:00

I've been feeling down lately, I'm not sure why though but it happens most times. Whenever I start to feel responsible or mature I back out from everything and run away. I believe I cannot handle anything and that I'll be crushed in the real world (if there is one). And I'm not proud of it but I hope I could stop myself before things go wrong.
I've got some pics to share that have been forgotten here and though I don't feel like saying a lot, I think this will help me a bit to get over the 'depression' I currently have.

Pasta with salmon sauce, it's always been a personal favorite. This was took on a trip to Cuernavaca.

In Cuernavaca as well, a plate with some cheese selection, grapes and small bits of bread covered with cream cheese and smoked salmon.

A croissant wannabe, it looks quite funny, doesn't it?

Espresso latte, mom loves this. I like how the swirls look, so I'd take any coffee shot as long as it's got swirls on it. XD

Sweet crépes, sprinkled with nuts and topped with an almond & vanilla ice cream.
This is from Neve Gelato, a very nice place to have a sweet delight. *o*

Neve Gelato as well, this was my dessert, cheese & raspberry pie; along with a delicious mint & chocolate ice cream. The tea is a ginger infusion, absolutely delicious as well!

And your classic moka chocolate cake, garnished with a cute music key made of wite chocolate.

Well... I'm not feeling specially fine but at least I'm less hysteric, hopefully I'll stop this stage soon.

My Boyfriend's B-day and Checkered Cookies

2009-02-09T01:59:00.000-08:00

Last week was my boyfriend's birthday, he's 22 now.
My cooking adventure started when I realized I didn't have any spare money to buy him a present and then I thought, hey it doesn't have to be expensive in order for it to be a great present.
So I went and searched for my all-times butter cookies recipe. I had been surfing on the net and found a quite easy way to make them look great. Be warned, the next recipe make a large batch of cookies, the original was only half of what I use, but I love cookies so I always double proportions.

The close-up. :3

Ingredients are:
200 gr. butter
100 gr. sugar
300 gr. flour
1 tsp. vanilla essence
25gr. cocoa

Mix the sugar and butter until you have an even mixture, leave the butter ouside the fridge for some hours before. Then add the previously sifted flour and vanilla essence to the mixture and mix.
Now comes the fun part, separate the dough in two and mix one with the cocoa. Flaten each dough until they're 3/4 inch (1.5 cm.) thick and cut square straps, put them toghether and use egg whites as glue, these will make checkered cookies. Wrap them in plastic foil and place them at the fridge for at least 20 minutes, pre-heat the oven to 180 Cº and after the dough is cold, cut them in 1/2 inch (1 cm.) thick slices. These will double their size with the cooking so be sure to leave a fair amount of distance between them.

There was another tray full of these in the oven when I took the picture.

To make the rolled dought flatten both doughs and place the smaller one into the larger, to make the spot in the middle use a long cilinder of chocolate dough and start rolling.
To make cinnamon roll cookies flatten the dought and sprinkle cinnamon all over it, then roll.
All doughs shal be placed into the fridge before cutting.
Leave cookies in the oven for 15-20 minutes.
...Enjoy.

I had to put them in a platic bag as the recipient I used was a gift cardboard bag, in the end some broke during the journey. My boyfriend loved them anyway. <3

National treat, International delight

2009-01-25T21:21:00.000-08:00

One of the reasons I barely achieve to go into a diet must be my love for sweet. It's one of my passions in life, tasting delicious food specially sweet food. And today was no exception.
We happened to go out to a small town called Tepotzotlán very near to the city. This is a very cute town, it has a huge monastery and Mexico's greatest collection of sacred art within it's walls. That however is not my favorite part of the town.
Each sunday, like in most towns, there is a market in the center of the town and loads of different things to buy, hand-made bags, blouses, carpets, paintings, accesories and many more. Also as you might have guessed, there is plenty of food, natural ice shaves, corn, fried potatoes, fried bananas... and a whole lot of traditional treats, tamarindos, cocadas, pepitorias, alegrías and many more.

Always colourful in Mexico!

From all of these variations and delicious treats, there has always been a personal favorite. This is a sweet I find so tempting and delicious that I must have it anytime I see it. That sweet is called muégano.
Muéganos are made by deep frying small bits of a paste, stack them in a small mount and then covering them in hot syrup made with piloncillo and water which is our version of common sugar syrup. After pouring it, the syrup will eventually cool and harden. Thus making very nice mounts of a hard crusted soft insided sweet.

Left's my mom's unopened one, right's mine... being eaten *¬*

Later on the evening, when we came back from our trip, dad wanted to have some pasties for dinner and stopped by a very well know pattiserié of Mexico, El Globo. And again I delighted myself with a delicious sweet called Napoleon made of layers. First and base level is a very thin layer of phyllo paste, second is a sponge cake, third is a deliciously (and sinfully fat filled) whipped cream layer that then is topped with another thin layer of phyllo. All covered in icing sugar.

Ah, such a delicious pastry...

Meat Cake Nostalgia

2009-01-15T15:36:00.000-08:00

It's been days since I started feeling like I needed something different than the usual. And I definitely knew what it was that I missed.
My godmother used to make this particular meat cake when I was a child and I loved it, it was on my top favorites list, right next to the bread crumbles deep fried chicken (ah, how I yearn youth, not having to worry at all of oversaturated oils...).
I kept talking and talking about the meat cake for a whole week until we went to the market and bought some grounded meat. So I called my godmother and asked her for the recipe. I'm so excited that I'm posting the recipe and the results. By the way, I'm not sure whether it's a real meat cake or has any other name, but that's the way I've know it for my entire life.
With no more a-do, here's the easiest meat cake recipe in the world (or at least I think so):

600 gr. grounded meat.
1 diced carrot (into really small dices)
1 diced potatoe (into really small dices)
1/4 finely chopped onion
1 smashed garlic clove, be sure to have it like a paste or else the taste will be unbearable.
1/4 tsp. cumin (or less if you don't really like cumin)
1 tbsp. concentrated chicken broth
salt
pepper

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl and place them in a cake mold (20 cm with or larger). Cook it over boiling water for 40 minutes. To check it's done insert a knife in the middle, if it comes out dry then it's done.

Now, I'll give you some hints for this one, first of all, don't tell your family what the cake's got in until they taste it, my mother hates cumin but as I never told her the cake had cumin she loved it.
Second is... never ever of your life use a 2 pieces cake mold, I used one and after the cooking I realized that a lot of the boiling water had leeked into the cake. It was still very tasty but the water was definately not expected. XP

And here's my meat cake, ready to be eaten.

Bon Appétite!

Of cookies and sickness

2008-12-15T18:05:00.000-08:00

My dad always gets some x-mas gifts at work, and most times they're edible stuff like a huge ball of cheese (which hasn't been opened yet) or a box of dried fruits.
This time he got something else, he got some x-mas cookies! They had these cute x-mas related shapes like bears, gingerbread men, socks and x-mas trees. But what I really really loved of them was the glazing they had, I promised myself I'd have to go searching for the recipe of that glazing because it's delicious, it's sweet and lemony.
I still wonder how is it that they lasted so many days, a whole week, no less! With so many food lovers in the house it was some sort of holiday miracle... But maybe the fact that we tried to not get carried away with the holidays dishes and end up fatter helped the cookies too. =P

The yummyness *w*

And so here I was having some nice winter days when I fell sick. I can tell you, falling sick is definately not the happiest thing in life when your boyfriend's bedroom is as cold as a fridge. I have somehow managed to get used to it but it still is awful somedays, specially when he leaves me to sleep alone in order to keep on with his websurfing affair. It's not like I hate him doing it, I actually like being in front of the pc with him a lot. But when it begins to get cold I resent it a lot. T_T
So this day I practically didn't even want to get off the bed and slept... and slept... and slept a lot. Of course my boyfriend was pretty worried but I was so sick I just could bother with trying to go and sleep once more. Apparently I even had a fever without noticing it.
The good thing of this all was during supper, because my mother in law made a delicious chicken broth, even looking at it made me wanna have some. And that's saying a lot when you're sick and want to do nothing but sleep.
So I heated some broth and had the most delicious supper I could ever have.

One of the most delicious broths ever <3

I felt better after that, still sick but livelier. My boyfriend was happy of that too. =P

It's cheesecake time!

2008-11-19T17:18:00.000-08:00

I wanted cheesecake so badly... It all started with a tv show I saw where a low calorie raspberry cheesecake was being made. A couple of weeks later I saw a magazine with a double crust cheesecake recipe. I love cheesecake and having such temptations right in front of was too much.
And so I started to work.

These are actually all the needed ingredients for the cake, except raspberries, looks easy even from start, right?

At first I wanted to prepare the double crust cheesecake but after reading the amount of ingredients, time consuming and calories I remembered seeing the low calorie one and searched for the recipe on the web. I made several changes, like having whole cream cheese rather than light and using sugar instead of artificial sweetener. The only thing that went "wrong" was the sugar part because I didn't use enough for the whole cake. But serving it with raspberry marmalade made the trick and helped sweetening it.
I liked the experience by itself, my child finished her homework really fast in order to help me do the cake, which was an unexpected plus, and I learned to work with some ingredients I had been wanting to use. I believe that the best part of this preparation was that it took me a fairly small amount of time compared to what a normal cheese cake does.

The cheesecake ready to go into the fridge.

I think some of my final notes about this recipe are: First, I definitely have to buy some Grand Marnier to do this kind of stuff, I used Curaçao which was what I had and the crust ended up green... it doesn't taste bad at all and I love the green/pink colour combinations (see blog here =P) but it's definately too much to have this kind of colour in a cake. Second, next time I must use more sugar, at least doubling this time's amount. And third; to be honest, the cheesecake has more of a mousse consistency rather than the thick creamy cheesecake I'm used to. However, I really liked the flavor.

Ready for the yum?

I shall put the recipe later, because I have to translate it to English first, the original is in Spanish.

Japanese again =3

2008-11-10T18:16:00.000-08:00

I like japanese food, I think everyone notices that by now. Last day I decided to prepare a japanese breakfast and made some misoshiro. I lacked some ingredients but it was absolutely delicious. A great start for the day. On the other hand, I could never be full with just a bowl of soup for breakfast so I also made some tamagoyaki (egg omelette) to go with it.

I cut an avocado for presentation. Also because I like it =P

Now, my true problem here is that my tamagoyaki never EVER looks right, of course the taste is great, I have managed to find the exact point of salty and sweet that I like. Presentation on the other side is awful. I believe one of my biggest problems there is the fact that in the whole family only I eat tamagoyaki, mom and dad don't like the taste of it and my daughter generally makes a fuzz of eating egg before going to school (I'm not sure why though... because she does like it.). Also I don't like to eat more that one egg because I believe two are far too much cholesterol in my organism. Oh well... let's hope I make it right one of these days.
Keeping on with the subject, last time I went to mikasa I bought a bag of Kabaya's Muscat Candy and I just LOVE the taste. If you have tasted Kasugai's muscat gummies then you already understand the amazing taste of this candy. And what's the big plus of it? That it lasts far more than a gummy. ;3

Sandwiches and Day of the Dead

2008-11-02T18:45:00.000-08:00

So here I am back again with new cooking adventures!
The first thing I'd like to talk about is how wonderfully chaotic children can be. Because here I was one day, minding my own busness, hurting no one; when my chid came to me and said: "Guess what! Tomorrow we'll be having a halloween celebrationg at school and they were asking who could help bringing sandwiches, and I remembered how great your sandwiches are so I took up my hand and now you'll have to do 15 sandwiches for tomorrow! Ain't that AWESOME?? :D"
I was of course struggling internally between being praised by my child and realizing I had to rush to the grocery store at six o'clock evening and make 15 sandwiches for the next day. So I went out, got what I needed and started to work.

Mayo and mustard ready for the action.

I have to admit that these are by far the better sandwiches I've made in a large amount. Mostly due to the ingredients, I bouth a flaxseed bread and other tasty stuff. I covered one slice of bread with paté and put a slice of ham, manchego cheese, salami, pepperoni and ended it with another slice of bread covered with mayonnaise and mustard.

The whole lot, waiting for the final step... and two below already done ;P
I left a couple of bread slices to try making coffin shaped snacks but decided that it was too complicated. Maybe with some more planning next year.

On the whole they didn't look astonishingly yummy, but they did taste that way. Also, my child told me that her friends liked them a lot and all my sandwhiches were eaten so I'm satisfied with the outcome.

All sandwiches ready to go! I cut them by half so the kids could eat what they wanted. And also used the same bags of the bread so I didn't have to worry for the package later. A cool thing of this brand is that their bags are biodegradable so I don't feel so guilty towards mother nature.

The other topic of this is Day of the Dead, or how we call it here, Día de Muertos. I believe it's my favorite holiday from all and one of the big reasons for it is the absolutely delicious bread that is made during these days. My boyfriend loves it as well. X3
I would actually go into more details on this but I know myself and I don't know where to start and when I did it I would never end. So I'll better leave you with a nice and tasty look of my dessert for a whole week. hehehe

It is actually a very light orange tasted bread covered in sugar, the decorations on it are designed to resemble bones and thus the name of Pan de Muerto or Bread of the Dead. Most have also another bun on top at the center, that one should be the head. This one however didn't have it. I bought it at a very well known bakery in Mexico and trust me, there's a reason for them to be so famous. yum! ;P

Aki Matsuri

2008-10-19T17:42:00.000-07:00

So this is it! The so much expected aki matsuri had come.
As we live in Mexico the festival is held on the mexican-japanese asociation and is like some sort of kermesse. There are booths where you can play and maybe win a price, food sellers, a stage and also a karaoke.
Needless to say, I went there with the single and purposeful intention of having a go at the food. As we have the Mikasa I can always taste some nice food but at the Aki Matsuri you can have some other things that are more difficult to find on a daily base, or at least ready to be eaten.

Here are the culprits of my current guilt. =P

One of those things were the odango. You know, those cute rice balls that are covered with different dressings. Mine were three, two of them had a shiromiso dressing that tasted salty yet sweet and was really good, I'm not sure of the dressing name so I think I'll have to go and make some research. The last one was of course a sweet anko covered dango. This anko was not entirely crushed and so you could bite some of the beans which was good. Thinking on how soft and deliciously sticky the odango are. I had them with some o-cha, though I'm pretty sure it was actually houji-cha and it was all good. The day was pretty cloudy and cold but everyone was having a lot of fun.
My daughter bought a bun filled with anko for herself and I got myself a daifuku, wich is currently in the fridge, because I had a lot of dangos and I'm afraid of gaining a lot of extra weight. =P

The close up. X3

We also got ourselves some candies and I already tasted the lichee one, it tastes great actually, it's a fresh flavor and the sweetnes is ok. I was afraid of it because Kasugai tends to put a lot of sugar... but it depends on the sweet I guess.

A sample of the bunch we bought.

Seven Days Diet, Day 7.

2008-10-10T07:09:00.000-07:00

Day 7. Of rice and juice.

Photo taken from HERE

Yay! I have finally reached my last day of diet and I believe this was the best day ever. I had to eat all the rice I wanted to and fruit and vegetable juices. Many might wonder how on earth I liked it that much since it seems pretty restricted but it was rather easy for me as I'm a rice lover. Specially japanese rice. So I made a huge batch (a least only for myself) of gohan and tried it in several ways.
At breakfast I had it with a bit of mirin, rice vinegar and soy sauce dressing, I know rice ain't supposed to be prepared with soy sauce but this being the only food for the day I thought "Why not?". For supper I had it with ebi furikake and on dinner I made it with green tea, like some sort of soup. It tastes great actually but I didn't have any ginger or so, hence I had to have without additional flavors. But anyways, it was cool.

Photo taken from HERE

I made myself different juices for the day. I made a tomato one, orange and papaya, papaya and mango and wanted to try a melon with apple but I was full by the end of the day. It was a very interesting way to try new things and I never felt hunger throughout the day so I daresay this day was an absolute hit.

Photo taken from HERE

Now, about the weight. I did this for loosing weight and I definitely had. I lost 3 k. Had I done this diet very strict without any sins like the cake of mom's b-day I could have lost around 5 k. So I think this is an absolute win. I shall do it again soon in order to keep on losing more of those extra kilos. For now I shall give it a rest for a couple of days.

Seven Days Diet, Day 6.

2008-10-08T00:29:00.001-07:00

Day 6. Of meat and vegetables.

Photo taken from HERE

Today's goal was to have meat and vegetables, just like that. As my diet soup has already been exterminated by me since yesterday, I sauteéd some shredded cabbage with butter and salt. The result was (as always) amazingly tasteful and beautiful. I like the translucent tone of the cabbage. I also a quite big lettuce and tomato salad and themeat I had was oven made so it tasted great and had all it's natural juices. I wish I had my camera but it's still lost with my cousins (*sob sob* u.u).

Photo taken from HERE

Anyways, as I've been craving to cook some oatmeal porridge I did it for dinner and nobody wanted to have. Apparently no one likes porridge at home. I remember I used to hate it when I was a child mostly because they gave it to me every single day and it was a very liquid porridge so I had to actually drink it. As a child, you might easily guess I absolutely dreaded the gushing feeling of liquid porridge through my throat. But I decided it was about time I got over my worst gastronomic fears and so I did a bit. I also tasted it, not even 1/4 of a cup. And I amazingly liked it. I think a very influential part of it all was the fact that I made it... Who knows. =P

Photo taken from HERE

Seven Days Diet, Day 5.

2008-10-07T07:02:00.000-07:00

Day 5. Of Meat and Vegetables.

Well, day five went out pretty dull actually. The goal was to eat from 8 to 15 oz. of meat, 6 tomatoes and 8 glasses of water (2 l. of water, that is), and of course I could have all the vegetables I'd like throughout the day.

Photo taken from HERE

The biggest problem was that we have gotten out of stock on vegetables and I realized it too late, just when I was about to have supper. I think I actually ate less meat than required but anyway I liked it a lot and I could have only three of the six tomatoes due to the lack of food at home. I have to go to the market as soon as possible. >_<* I also had trouble with the water part, as I don't like water (most might call me an heretic by this but what can I do =P). I think that I had like two glasses of water and another four of tea, which is almost like water, but tastes good.

Photo taken from HERE

Anyways, this day definitely didn't turn out well and for dinner I ate a bit of cream cheese with my celery (just a bit, hope that won't hurt), because those two flavours mixed toghether are the best thing ever.

Photo take from HERE

Seven days diet, day 4.

2008-10-05T23:36:00.000-07:00

Day 4. Of bananas and milk.

Pic taken from HERE

So, day 4 has come to an end and the basic instructions was to have 8 medium-sized bananas and 8 glasses of low-fat milk throughout the day. Including of course the soup for supper. I however don't like cavendish bananas so I ended up buying around 18 baby bananas and so I'd have 16 bananas for the day. =P
The biggest problem I saw this day was that we celebrated my mother's birthday by throwing out a party. Meaning that I was unable to avoid eating some of the great cuban food a friend of the family made for us. I had some meat, yuca and nopales; it wasn't that much, around two tablespoons each food. Anyway I decided to not eat all the 16 bananas in fear of pushing a bit too much the diet. I also had to eat some of the cake. Because I have a sweet tooth, couldn't help it. It wasn't that much but I felt as if it was a lot.

Pic taken from HERE

Anyways, this day I believe was successfully passed and hopefully the cake didn't add much. Again the pics today are not from me, pics below each.

The seven days diet.

2008-10-05T13:40:00.000-07:00

And here I am realizing that I'm overweight, and by a lot almost 10 k. from my ideal weight. So I decided to go on a diet. This specifical diet consist on seven days in which each day you are meant to eat one type of food and eventually lose 4 k. at the end of the days.
I actually have already started my diet and so I'll be posting my experiences on it and later on I'll write down the whole instructions.

Day 1. Of Fruits. Day one starts by eating only fruits, as much as I wanted, except bananas. On all days I'm allowed to eat a special soup and drink decaf coffee and tea. By eating watermelon and melon I could actually go down almost 1 1/2 k. but I could go so far. Truth is, as I love fruit a lot I thought this was gonna be easy but it's pretty hard to not eat salty stuff. The soup as nice but I was craving for some sort of crunchyness. Apart from that, everything went ok throughout the first day.

Fruit salad took from HERE

Day 2. Of Vegetables. Day two was quite better than day one. My needs for salty were filled and I was pretty satisfied the whole day. One of the things I didn't want on my diet was to feel hunger but I don't. The most recommended vegetables for this day and the whole diet are green vegetables and leaves (think of lettuce and spinach) either raw or steamed and to avoid beans and corn. The most awesome thing about vegetables is that one can actually find many different ways of preparing them without adding calories on to them. Also this day I had to eat a cooked potato with butter so it was a rather tasty day.

Vegetable salad took from HERE

Day 3. Of Fruits and Vegetables. I admit I didn't follw entirely this day's plan. The ideal is to eat only fruits and vegetables (which is definitely not bad). The problem here was that I wasn't at my home so I ended up eating three or four cookies and one quesadilla. The quesadilla is made with tortilla (prepared with a corn dough) and mine had mushroom filling so it wasn't 'that' bad; but the cookies... well, I have no way to forgive myself. >_<; Anyways, right now it's day 4 in progress so as soon as I finish it I'll post on some more stuff.
I also am dreadfully sad because I left my camera at my cousins since last week so there are no original pics this time, all pics have links. I hopefully will solve it at some point later on the week. =P Last pic took from HERE

Mikafé

2008-09-22T18:01:00.000-07:00

Y bien, el sábado pasado Kei me llevó a pasear y a tomar algo al Mikafé. De entrada no puedo dar muy buenas opiniones sobre el aspecto exterior del local ya que la calle donde se encuentra está en construcción. El interior es muy pequeño, aunque está bien arreglado, sus paredes son naranjas y tiene paneles de pvc rectangulares con imagenes de anime en las paredes.
Algo interesante es que tiene una gran variedad de revistas japonesas acomodadas en unos racks, fue interesante tomar una de ellas y hojearla, me hubiera gustado ser capaz de llevarmela conmigo.
Como era media tarde y acababamos de desayuno-comer no teníamos mucha hambre. Así que pedimos un té para los dos, takoyaki y un tampico roll.

El té en realidad se trataba de una infusión de jengibre fresco cortado en julianas largas. Lo pedí frío pero seguía tibio cuando me lo llevaron. Tenía un buen sabor aunque se sentía mucho el picante del té, afortunadamente le habían puesto bastante azúcar y era soportable.

De todo lo que nos sirvieron, el takoyaki fué lo más sabroso. Era crocante y tenía salsa agridulce, cebollinos, hojas de bonito seco y mayonesa encima. Estaban calientitos y de hecho estaba tan rico el plato que poco faltó para que me lo terminara sin haber tomado una fotografía antes.

El tampico roll estaba... 'bien'. Por no decir menos, a la salsa tampico le faltaba el chile y el arroz estaba algo seco, aunque el rollo en sí estaba bien hecho y no sabía mal. Kei y yo descubrimos que de hecho las piezas sabían muy pero muy rico aderezadas con la salsa agridulce de los takoyaki.
Nunca antes había estado en este lugar, fue mi primera vez y creo que está mucho más padre para ir en bola (aunque el espacio del local impide multitudes). A menos claro que vayas a comer algo en serio y quieras disfrutar un rato con tu pareja. Otra cosa que lamento es que no tenían luz en el local así que no pude comer postre. Quería un pan con crema pastelera pero no tenían donde calentarlo.
En fin, para pasar un rato con Kei fue una experiencia divertida, pero creo que tendremos que volver en un momento en el que ya no tengan problemas de electricidad y el pavimento haya sido colocado para poder dar una revisión.

My first bento!

2008-09-21T16:07:00.000-07:00

My daughter is always picky when it comes about food. I try my best to give her nice looking food but one way or another she always ends up not eating the whole thing. Mainly because she plays so much she forgets to eat (or so she says).
Last wednesday I did a small bento for her and weirdly enough I had the feeling inside telling me 'Today is the day!' and so I took a pic of the succesful winner on beating Mariana's uneven feeding.
It's nothing elaborate, but she ate the whole thing so right now I feel quite glad and self-satisfied.
The bento consisted in a sadwich roll, made with a flattened slice of integral bread, cream cheese and ham; garnished with a couple of baby spinach leaves. On the second tier I placed some aliced apricot for her.

As you can see, it' not as big as it seems.

A close up so you can look better.

En Cancún

2008-09-15T13:14:00.000-07:00

En nuestras última vacaciones decidimos irnos de vago a Cancún. Pobrecitos de nosotros. Y debo admitir que comimos muchas cosas deliciosas pero solo unas cuantas gozaron de obtener una foto. Más que nada porque para el momento que recordaba tomarles la foto ya me lo había comido todo por completo. =P
Pero bueno, varias cosas se salvaron y me enfocaré en ellas.

El segundo día, si no mal recuerdo, fuimos a playa mamitas, una playa muy bella donde había palapitas frente a los restaurantes. Tenían unas aguas naturales muy sabrosas (yo pedí una de sandía) y el pescado que probé estaba delicioso. El nombre del plato era Pescado al cardenal cubierto de camarones, y era una pescado cocido a la plancha aderezado con salsa bechamel y camarones encima, sus guarniciones eran unas deliciosas verduras al vapor y un arroz exquisito. Tenía un gusto a paella excelente.

Como se darán cuenta, apenas me acordé a tiempo de la foto. XP

Esa misma noche fuimos a un lugar muy lindo llamado Ah Cacao donde el café es excelente y el chocolate ni se diga. Lo más llamativo del lugar es que venden cosas hecha con cacao, desde barras de jabón (que por cierto compré), aceites de aromaterapia e incluso frascos con ramas de vainilla.

Hubo una noche en que comí un delicioso sushi de atún con salsa agridulce de jamaica y el de mi papá era de salmón ahumado con salsa de tamarindo. Camila se echó una arrachera entera y Mariana un pastel de chocolate. Mamá y Olguita se tomaron un caldo de pollo.

La última noche salimos a un lugar llamado La Madonna donde naturalmente se especializan en comida italiana. Todo estaba delicioso y debo admitir que bastante llenador, como casi todo allá estaba caro, sin embargo las raciones eran bastante grandes y de hecho a mí me sobró tanto que pude desayunar más pasta al día siguiente. Mariana por cierto actuó como una adicta a la pizza de pepperoni y los nuggets de pollo, ya que no comió absolutamente nada más.

Solo la mitad sobrevivió. O_o

El 'pequeño' plato de Camila, brochetas de camarón y filete de res.

Boquinete al perejil. X3

Tagliolini de albahaca a dos salmones. Mi plato. *drool*

Creo que lo más sobresaliente del viaje en lo que a alimentos se refiere, es que la cocina en casi cualquier lado es excelente, con buen sazón y muy agradable. Imagino que ello es precisamente por la zona turística pero debo admitir que si así fuera en todas partes del mundo la gastronomía tendría una cara completamente diferente por lo menos en lo que a México se refiere.

Un Cosmopolitan de cortesía, delicioso y en su punto. Perfecto para refrescarme en la noche.

Aunque eso sí, al final del viaje, nuestra última comida en Cancún consistió en una sencilla hamburguesa del Burguer King y una pizza del Pizza Hut... Vaya manera de acabar. =P

Villa María

2008-08-17T23:36:00.000-07:00

Some time ago we went to the Villa María restaurant to celebrate my aunt's birthday and we had a great meal, I had a delicious fish au gratin and in the end we ordered some desserts for all, they started to eat it so fast that I barely had time to take a pic.

Pescado de la noche del fandango.

Chocolate cake.

On a contrast I had my first go at roasting a chicken, seasoned with fine herbs and it came out awesomely well, the chicken was tender, juicy and flavorful. But the mold was too small and the potatoes that I had to put on the chicken were still raw and hard. XP

Just out of the oven... :3

Finally, the other day I had an AWESOME strudel that my cousin's friend brought, apparently he found out a great german bakery and had to share the discovery with us.

All about stickers.

2008-08-14T16:37:00.000-07:00

I don't know why but I really love food related stuff, and when you add the 'kawaii' adjective before it it becomes even more desirable. So I bought some really cute stickers the other day that came all the way directly from Japan and currently am feeling so spaced out for them. Can't stop looking at them. XD
I also bought a small memo pad and a mini note. But right now I fell like just sharing one part with you all.

I don't know what to do with them though... XP

Wagashi wallpaper!

2008-08-14T02:02:00.000-07:00

Yay! After three hours of research, selection and edition of images I now have a wallpaper I like a lot in my blog, it's not that I dislike green, it actually is one of my favorite colours but ALL green was also a bit too much.
Now, this one portrays some tasty springy wagashi next to a nice cup of matcha tea, recently done. Thinking that I actually wasn't payed for the work I made quite a lot. But this is my blog and it deserves just the best. =P

First Post

2008-08-05T00:54:00.001-07:00

I want to make this an all-food-related blog and so I might just start with a few pics of my memorable encounters with food, I hope That everyone enjoys what they see and experience here.
Also I hope I'll be able to start making some bento for real.

I can't help to eat inbetween meals, sometimes it's a cracker or something like it, sometimes I just have some tea, but this time I wanted so mucho to eat some of those delicious strawberries, I ended up preparing some.

I love sushi, and my daughter loves it too, I just wanted to make something artsy and different for us to enjoy a bit more the experience. Next time I want to make some hanamaki. I bet she'll be truly impressed. X3

The older pic, I remember I went having lunch with my boyfriend this particular time (thought back then we still weren't a couple yet. I miss the daifuku for tea, I gotta go get some soon.