Whats New?

Hello Readers!

I just wanted to give you a quick update before this year comes to a conclusion.  My major is no longer in Culinary Arts...  I have stopped taking culinary classes at American River College, however I still love to cook and I will continue to post some of my favorite recipes, but I have recently come to realize that my career passion lies elsewhere.  I am now studying to become a lawyer.  A lot of you are probably wondering why I came to this conclusion... I think that this was always in the back of my mind, however discovering cooking and my talent for it blocked my passion for law for a very long time.  I came to realize this undiscovered passion in early-mid January of 2012 when I was summoned for Jury Duty! :(   I first dreaded this experience because I did not want to spend all day at the courthouse waiting all day just to be excused, but I wasn't excused... After a very long day and a lot of different breaks, I was actually selected to be on a Jury!!! Yikes! My first time ever being summoned for jury duty and I get picked!  I didn't know what was going to happen... But I got to see a glimpse of what an attorney does for a living and it is really interesting!  Then I put this experience in the back of my mind because I had classes and a job that I had to worry about! Now that both things are out of the way for now I get to focus on truly finding out who I am and what I want to do with my life!  I am very excited for this career path change and I can't wait to see where this path in life will take me!  I apologize for not posting sooner!  And last but certainly not least I hope to see more readers! I hope you come to me with cooking questions as I would still love to help you out!  My email is still the same: mystuffandcooking@gmail.com  I wish you all a Happy New Year!!!! Look out 2013! Here I come!!!

Thumbprint Cookies!

Sorry it has taken me a while to post on my blog... I have been busy and with the start of school, and I have also been trying to find a good recipe to post. So here is one!  Thumbprint Cookies! These are cookies that I have loved since I was a little girl, and where you can truly become creative with what you have lying around the house!   Adults this is a great thing to do with your kids as well!  I did not come up with this recipe so I do have to give a shout out to the beloved Paula Deen for this recipe in her cookbook: Paula Deen's Kitchen Classics! Which is a combination of two of her cookbooks: The Lady & Sons Savannah Country Cookbook and The Lady & Sons!  I made these for my friends and they were a huge hit so it finally hit me that I could have a great blog post!  True to Paula's nature they don't just have 1 stick of butter but try... 3!!!! That's right 3 sticks of butter altogether in these cookies! I think that is what makes them so delicious!!! LOL! I love you Paula Deen!

Thumbprint Cookies!

3 Sticks Butter, softened
1 C Granulated Sugar
2 Egg Yolks
2 3/4 to 3 3/4 C AP Flour (depending on the humidity)
1/4 tsp. Salt
1 tsp. Pure Vanilla Extract
Any Preserves that pleases you!

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cream together the butter and sugar.
3. Add Egg Yolks.
4. Sift Flour and salt; blend into butter mixture.
5. Spoon out into 1 inch balls and place on ungreased cookie sheet.
6. Make an indentation in center of cookie with thumb.
7. Fill with your favorite preserves... only 1 tsp. per cookie will suffice.
8. Bake for 15 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool slightly and Enjoy!!! :-)


I love making these cookies and to be honest I have even used nutella in these cookies which is good but have about three large glasses of milk on the side for just one cookie! LOL! I hope you love these cookies as much as my family, friends, and I do! Thanks for reading and sorry for the delay!!!

Pineapple Salsa

I know what you must be thinking, Pineapple..... Salsa..????! I know I thought the same thing when I was in a culinary class, called Food Theory and Preparation, in college.  It was one of the recipes that my group was to prepare in class, and the first thought that came into my head was "I hate pineapple why would I ever make this?!" I know I am a weirdo for not liking pineapple, but that is something that I have come to terms with a long time ago.  After making it I decided to try it and it was absolutely fantastic!  The first time I introduced it to my family was for my sister Lauren's Bridal Shower! And everyone loved it!  In fact my aunt loves it so much I think she secretly hopes I make it whenever there is a party that we both attend! LOL! In fact I went to my Uncle's birthday barbecue last Saturday and this salsa was specially requested! The reason  I love this salsa so much because of its many complex flavors, it's sweet, tart, spicy, savory; it has the whole package and I hope you make it for your next party.  Here is the recipe...

1 Pineapple, peeled, cored, and chopped

3 Medium Sized Tomatoes, peeled and seeded

1-2 Jalapenos, seeded (to taste)

1 Lemon, Zest and Juice

1 Bunch of Cilantro

1 Bunch of Scallions

Salt, to taste

It is also probably the easiest recipe that I will post on this blog LOL! Because it is basically chop everything up and put it together! Anyways for the tomatoes I have a great trick to peel them easily.  Get a pot of boiling water and core the tomatoes and turn them over and score them on the bottom, put the tomatoes in the boiling water until you see the peel starts to come off, about 1-2 minutes and take them out and put them in an ice bath to stop the cooking for about a minute, and then the peels come off way easier, then to get the seeds out cut them in half and scoop them out. Then they are ready to use for the salsa!  Mince the jalapenos and chop the pineapple up small!  I hope you enjoy!!!

The Best Teen Chef Competition!!!

My story continues a few years later... The reason it skips a few years is because I did not have access to culinary classes in my High School, so I spent that time cooking a little and watching Food Network for the rest of the time. When I was a senior in High School and I was looking into colleges, I knew at least one thing... they had to have an amazing culinary program!!! The main school I was interested in was The Art Institute of Sacramento, their campus was incredibly clean and beautiful and the culinary program was ingenious with their own cafe!  So naturally that was the school for me, the sad news on this was that the tuition was way too expensive  so in my last efforts to get into the school of my dreams was to enter in the Best Teen Chef competition which if I won at nationals I would  receive a full-ride scholarship to The Art Institute!!! So to enter I had to invent a recipe and write an essay of why I thought The Art Institute was the school for me to attend.  So the recipe that I came up with was a dessert that combines my favorite dessert ever with one of my favorite flavor combinations.  The recipe was for a Chocolate-Orange Cheesecake, which I submitted and I got into the semi-finals of the competition!  Now the recipe is kind of long so instead of posting it on this post I am going to give you the link so that you can take a look at it.  I put it on a website where you could freely publish recipes, and I thought that it was extremely cool that I came up with this recipe all by myself being only seventeen years old at the time!  Here is the link...  http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,236,155179-237204,00.html. For the semi-finals of this competition I had to cook four separate dishes within a 90 minute period, very Iron Chef style LOL! We could be creative and that was my favorite part of this competition! All I can say is that I made some of the best food that I could have created.  Same thing as to where I placed in the competition, all they told of the 18 competitors is   the top 3 of which I was not mentioned.  So to this day I do not know where I placed :-( but it was not all bad, of course I was disappointed; however, I knew that I would grow from this experience, and I knew that it would change my life for better or for worse.  So the college I ended up going to is one with almost the same type of culinary program but in a community college setting! I ended up going to American River College, and I am loving every minute of it! The next stories will be of my adventures in my culinary classes!

I just realized that I did not give my email address for you to email me your questions and comments on this blog so here it is... mystuffandcooking@gmail.com

Spanish Rice!!!

There is nothing more comforting to me and my family than a big pot full of rice... but if you think about it just plain rice is great with butter and salt or soy sauce, but to me that gets kind of boring after a while.  To me Spanish Rice is the ultimate way to eat rice and the flavors that are infused into it make it one of the most amazing side dishes for me and my family.  In fact my mom loves to make this with chicken enchiladas for any special dinner, but this dish goes great with tacos, or any Mexican inspired meal you plan to have.  This dish means that we either have company coming over or we just want to eat incredibly flavored food together as we talk about our day.  As much as I want to take all of the credit... I have to give most of it to the Pillsbury Kitchen's Cookbook, and I would just like to take a quick moment to thank them for an amazing recipe, and a great canvas and challenge to tweak it and make it even better.  I think I have just the ingredient that does it.  But instead of me just telling you what that ingredient is we are going to play a little game called Guess the Ingredient!
Clue #1: Red or Green
Clue #2: Spicy
Clue #3: Small
That's right it's a jalapeno pepper!

Here's the recipe:

6 slices of bacon

1 Cup White or Brown Rice

1 Medium Onion, chopped

1/4 Cup Green Bell Pepper, chopped

1 Jalapeno Pepper, halved and seeded
2 Cups of Water

14.5 oz. Can Diced Tomatoes

1/4 Cup Ketchup plus another squirt

1 Tsp. Salt

1/8 Tsp. Ground Black Pepper

1. Fry the bacon in the pan and remove.

2. Cook the rice, onion, and bell pepper in about 2 tbls. of bacon fat until onion is nice and tender.

3. Mix the wet ingredients and seasonings and add to the rice mixture and throw in the pepper and crumble 1/2 of the bacon and mix in.

4. Simmer covered for 35-40 minutes stirring occasionally.  Top with the crumbled remaining bacon. Remove the jalapeno pepper and serve.

I don't chop up the jalapeno pepper and saute it, but I halve the pepper and take out the ribs and the seeds just so I can infuse the flavors of the liquid in this dish with the warm flavor of the pepper.  I decided to add the jalapeno which is not normally in the dish because when I think of Spanish/Mexican cuisine, I think of spice and warmth and comfort. I hope that you enjoy this recipe that my family has for years!

Chocolate Chip Cookies!

There is something so American about chocolate chip cookies for dessert! I love this recipe of chocolate chip cookies that I received from a very good friend of mine named Lisa Rowlee and they come with an excellent story: One day my sister was having boy troubles, but they didn't last long because she is now happily married, and we were both hanging out at our great friend's home and she was the kind of woman that when you met her she automatically became your best friend!  As we were hanging out she was talking with my sister and she said, "What do you want right now, Lauren?" And my sister said, "Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough..." Our friend jumped right up and made a batch of her amazing chocolate chip cookies and baked off half of the dough and gave the rest of it to my sister! What a great woman!!!!  Once my mother and I tried these cookies we knew that we needed the recipe so that we could make them whenever we wanted some. So we received this recipe through e-mail.  Now you are probably thinking that if these cookies are sooo amazing then where is the recipe so you can make them at home! Well here you go!!!!!

Lisa Rowlee's Chocolate Chip Cookies:

1 Cup Salted Butter (Room Temperature)
1 Cup Brown Sugar
3/4 Cup Granulated Sugar
2 Eggs (Room Temperature)
1.5 Teaspoons Pure Vanilla Extract
3 Scant Cups All Purpose Flour
1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1 Teaspoon Salt
2-1/2 Cups of Chocolate Chip Mix (1 C Milk, & 3/4 C each semi-sweet and white)

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F degrees
2.Mix by hand butter and sugars until it becomes a smooth paste.
3. Add eggs and vanilla mix until just combined.
4. Combine the dry ingredients and whisk to sift them together. Add dry to the wet.
5. Mix until the dough is still slightly crumbly and you can still see a little bit of flour.
6. Add the Chocolate Chips and mix until chips are evenly distributed throughout the dough.
7. Spoon onto baking sheets by the tablespoon and bake in the oven for 11-12 minutes until no longer doughy and golden brown on the sides.
8. Leave the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for five minutes and then enjoy with cold milk.

Before Baking...

After Baking...

All that the word scant means is that it doesn't have to be completely 3 cups meaning if it is a little less that doesn't matter...  Also another note I have for you on these cookies is the chocolate chips, I like to use Guittard chocolate chips because they are the least expensive and they have the best flavor, however use which ever kind you like!  Hmmmm... I wonder what happened to one of the cookies on the baked side...
:-D  Thank you again Lisa for sharing this recipe with my family!

How it all got started!!!

Hey Everybody!!!

As everyone that knows me knows, I am currently going to college for culinary arts!!! Most people either just love to eat and create flavors! Me it all started in the summer between sixth and seventh grade... I was flipping television stations and there was NOTHING on and I was just about to turn the television off when I came across a show titled Paula's Home Cooking!  I was intrigued and turned it on, and of course it was half over by then, but still, I watched her make a pork chop with a mango chutney.  Those were two flavors that I had never even heard of or even thought of putting together, and it made me want to pursue a career in food.  Well that recipe and of course her charming southern wit is the start of a fascinating journey that is still happening! And I hope you will take that journey with me as I tell some stories as to how I got from a pre-teen wanting to learn how to cook professionally, and my continuing journey of going to cooking school!!!  I don't know what my future has in store for me but I am anxious to find out!!!  Don't worry I will post recipes and pictures!!!