It's cheesecake time!

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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