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!