I {HEART} Cooking

This post is a little all over the place, sorry in advance :P
I hope you are all enjoying your thanksgiving, like I said we do not celebrate it here, but I did something a little special for our meal :D I also helped my mom make some salads because she is hosting a thanksgiving dinner at her house.

That means I have 2 great recipes for today :D YAY!!!!!

First lets start with YUMMY Chicken, Rice, Mushroom Casserole

-2 cans of cream of mushroom soup
-2 ½ cups of water
-1 ½ cups of uncooked rice
- ½ spoon of dry parsley
-1 spoon of black pepper
-1 cup of bacon, diced
- ½ cup of cooking whine
-1 can of mushroom, sliced
-1 onion, diced
-4 chicken breast

Mix all the ingredients (except the chicken) and put it in Pyrex, season your chicken like you usually do (I use lemon, pepper, garlic) and put it on top of the uncooked mix that is in your Pyrex.
This goes to your oven for 45 mins at 375˚F

Here is mine, TRUST me the pic does not do any justice to the wonderful flavor this casserole has, our house smelled like glory today –I also baked brownies for a dessert tonight so the good smells lasted long :p

And know a Holiday Salad: Cheese and Apple Salad

Ingredients
-1 can of red bell peppers
-1 pound of Gouda Cheese, cubed
-2 red apples
-1 can of sweet peas, drained
-1 can of corn, drained
- ¾ Mayonnaise

Cut everything into cubes, the peppers, cheese, and apples with their skin or peel, mix with the rest of the ingredients and serve cold.

I tried taking a good picture of it -the colors in this salad are beautiful- but they kept coming out like this:

So here is a picture of the one on my recipe book

I also did MckMama’s Corn & Bean Salad but in my style.

I am also Thankful for these cuties :P

Happy Thanksgiving!

We do not celebrate this great holiday here, sigh! I wish we did because not only there is some great food and get-togethers is also a good time to remember all the things that we are thankful for.

I'm thankful for so many things: my family, the oportunities life brings me everyday and a God that never lets me down!!

Have a Happy Thanksgiving :D

Here is a pic of the cutest little turkey -my Godson Gabriel :D We are not cooking him this year so dont worry :p

Capsicum chinense

I was cooking today some meat and decided to add this little friend to the seasoning, then I though about blogging about him, but I wasnt sure if you would know what I'm talking about...
Here we call it Aji Gustoso -tasty pepper- this little guy changes the flavor of anything in a GOOD way!!!
Read this and look for it in your local market, you wont regret it!!!

Small Fryday Contest!

Soooo who doesnt love a small fry??? I know I do!!! -but I like em' big too so I'm not even sure if it counts :p- and who doesnt love a contest on a fryday???

I do, I do, I definitly do!!!!

MckMama is having a contest, a delish fryes included contest... well is more like a MckCombo, YUMMY!!!!!!!

So do you want to try it out? do you? do you?????

All you need to do is go here!!!

That EASY????
yep it is THAT easy, write about this contest on your blog and leave a comment here.

Ohhhhh how I love Small Fryes on a Fryday with a MckMama Combo.... I mean Contest!!!

Even if you dont win you'll get to see the cutest little Small Fry. And if you keep reading you might get a MckNugget, BigMac and a MckMuffin... I mean MckMiracle!!!

I {HEART} Cooking

I’ve been wanting to post photographs of the making process of some of my recipes, and I finally remembered to take my camera down to the kitchen, first there are 3 things you NEED to know:



1) I’m not a pro photographer, I have a point and shoot camera and stink at taking good, nice pictures –I have my sister for that ;)- plus remember I’m a doctor so I have a right not to be artsy :p

2) I don’t have a nice kitchen with nice kitchen stuff; I have a plain old kitchen with old not at all sassy thing :(

3) I don’t make fancy recipes, most of them I invented or copied somewhere from a magazine or the internet, BUT they are YUMMY and you can impress some guest with them!!!


With that being said here are two great dips for you to enjoy:


Tuna Dip

First get these ingredients

1 can of tuna in oil
½ onion
½ green pepper
2 lemons
½ red pepper (the canned one)
½ spoon of dry parsley
¼ package of leek or green onion
¼ cup of mayonnaise
1 spoon of ketchup
½ spoon of mustard
½ of Chinese sauce

Drain the tuna, and cut the onion, green pepper, red pepper and green onion into small pieces.

Take it to the food processor –mine is broken so I used the blender.

You may need to move it so it won’t get stuck and you get the nice dip consistency you need.
Put a little fresh parsley garnish and it should look like this.

Serve it chilled.

Cheese Dip

Get these ingredients:

½ pound of cream cheese
½ package of leek or green onions
¼ spoon of garlic
¼ of evaporated milk (save some more to use later)
½ red pepper (the canned one)
salt and pepper

If you use fresh cream cheese get it into crumbles –if you use the Philadelphia type you don’t have to- and cut the red pepper and green onion into pieces.

Put it all in the food processor, I used the blender –remember mine is broken.

Again you may need to move it with a spoon so it won’t get stuck and you get the dip consistency you need.
Add some green onion as garnish.

Serve it chilled with some tortilla chips and cracker (I used Pesto crackers) on some nice fishy plates :p

You could also use this to make little sandwiches or get creative!!!!

update

My heart is broken for Adrienne, Jim and Owen. This are the moments where I ask myself why does God allows this to happen; I do understand how hard it most be for the birthmother, but I'm deeply sad to think about her...

I made this for her little girl and was so excited to send them...

I will be sending the last one that I did for Owen.

Please keep them in your prayers, is a hard time for them as they face the lost of their daughter.

Sad

When you follow someone thru' their blog you start feeling like you know them... well I have a Blogger Friend that is going thru' a hard time...
I felt sick to my stomach while reading this, is so sad and I cant stop crying for them!!!
She is on a trip to adopt their baby girl and know the birth mother is having seconds thoughs.
Please pray for Adrienne, she is a wonderful person.
I did the most beautiful burping cloth for her precious girl, now I'm praying I will be able to send it to them!!!

where is this?

Bayohan and I where gone for the weekend, we went to Las Terrenas here in Dominican Republic; tell me we dont have a beutiful country... some of the sights where like paradise, the pictures dont do them justice!

The beaches where great and the weather was perfect.

We stayed at a beach resort called Bahia Principe el Portillo.

In the next picture that is a river that enters the ocean, you can either swim in the sweet cold water or the warm salty beach :D

And some of the beaches where empty, just for us, we where joking that we had our own private beach :P

The next picture was taken on our way there, even in the road the sights are breathtaking!!!

This two little drinks are a Manhatan for Bayohan and a Bananamama for me, we though it was cute the way they look like a little couple, mine was the pink umbrella one, of course:) I know I'm cheesy like that!!

I'm NUTS about...

NUTS!!!

Today I realized how much I love them; anykind pistachos, almonds, peanuts... you name them I LOVE THEM.

And I love nutty things too, like salads with almonds, pistacho icecream, cashews in my chinese food and so on...

This is a weird post, but I just wanted to let you know how much I love them... and they are healthy too so its a win-win situation :p

and now a recipe:

I {HEART} Cooking

This is a really good easy snack :D Potatos Wedges My Way!!!

• 10 small potatos



• taco seasoning



• olive oil

Make sure the potatos are really small or cut them in wedges that are thin so they'll be more crispier once they are done :)

After you cut them in weges -leave the skin, they are better like that- add two big spoonfull of the seasoning, you can use any seasoning you like and splash them with olive oil, take them to the oven until they are golden brown, let them cool down and you've got yourself a Yummy snack.

Meet My Husband

Living Locurto hosted a "Meet My Husband Day", I am a little late but decided to do it anyways :D, you can meet her Hubby here.

Bayohán is his second name, he has a first name that he hates so much that I’m not even posting it here, that is how much I love him; he was born and raised in Dominican Republic, in Santo Domingo, but the first 2 years of his life where spend between here and Santiago (so he is an Aguilucho, just like me –that is the baseball team from the north of DR).

He has 1 brother and 1 half sister and he is attach to his family, just a little!!

He used to work on TV and earned a scholarship to study cinematography, he is really good at it, and he also studied theater and was the best of his class. Thanks God he decided to go into Med school (this is where we met).

He’s a General Practitioner (MD) but wants to do OB/GYN.

My mother is always saying he likes to look to good and it is true, he loves to dress to impress and is really self conscious about his looks. HE GOT STYLE!!!!

Not much of a sport person but he loves going to the gym and working out. He used to play baseball when he was younger.

He loves everything anything Mafia related, and he is obsess with his Scarface game I got him last Xmas. My little boy!!

He can go to sleep so easily and wakes up everyday really EARLY, at least for me :p

A Coffee lover!

Really smart and knows a lot about history and tons of cool facts and he is constantly investigating new things, he reads like 5 different newspapers every morning while I sleep (I told you he wakes up early).

He is a perfectionist.

He loves Mangu (Mashed plantain) and fried cheese, which is his fav meal ever. And of course a good lasagna!!

He has a smile that can buy anyone he meets he has so much charisma, he can talk to anyone so easily.

He is FUNNY; no you don’t understand he is REALLY FUNNY!

We share a love for going to toy stores and seeing new toys, we both love a good beer and a good talk :D

His fav movie is Scarface, and the English Patient. He has read every book from Borges.

He asked me to marry him on my birthday, 3 month after we started dating, we knew each other for 4 years by that time and he says that since the first time he saw me he knew he would marry me, what a sweetheart.

He is a great writer and poet.

Ever since we’ve been together I’ve known that I want him to be the father of my kids (he is a great man and will make a great father). You should hear him talking about when he has his kids, it makes my heart melt.

He was sick on our honeymoon but made sure we had a great time anyways, he is always trying to make me happy.

My husband is a wonderful man, a gift from God to me, he always wakes me up with a kiss, never forgets the things I like and he complements me in so many ways, there is no one I would rather go thru’ all of this things and life than him .

I love him!Sorry Girls he is taken!!!!

I {HEART} Cooking!

I decided to change the Friday Recipe to: I {HEART} Cooking!, because I wasn’t really doing it on Fridays anyways and sometimes I just want to share a recipe in the middle of the week –like now- and most important I really HEART cooking!!!

Here is a little background story about today’s recipe:
When I was little my mother used to make Broccoli Soufflé and I loved that thing so much, well I asked her for the recipe and she doesn’t remember it O.o not good >.>
So I started looking in the internet for some recipes and they all required either ingredients I don’t have or they where to hard for me to do it (I love cooking but I stink at “beating the egg whites to stiff peaks”, and I don’t have the cool machine to do it either), here is when I decide to do it my own way :D

First take a can of cheese soup with can of evaporated milk a pinch of salt and pepper and boil it a little until is creamy (like the regular soup) and set aside.
I boiled to large broccoli flower with seasoning until they where really really tender, I drained it and pureed the broccoli with two eggs until it look like green mash potatoes :P (not really because it still has little chunks).
Then I put it in a prebuttered Pyrex, on top you put the cheese soup and grated extra cheese, take it to the oven until the cheese on the top is golden, wait before you serve it because if you do it right there it will fall apart.

It tasted just like my mothers one, it didn’t look the same way but it turned out to look good too (I have to start remembering to take my camera to the kitchen while cooking).

ENJOY!

Beans & Corn Salad

OK so it is not Friday Recipe, but I wanted to share something I did today; when Bayo likes something a lot he says this exact same phrase: "Yo pudiera comer esto otra vez" -I could eat this again- but it's the way he says it so happy like giving me a hint to cook it again, ohhh I love this guy so much. So I did this today thinking he was going to hate (just like I know my sis will -she is a bean hater- YOU ARE!!!) and HE LOVED IT, he repeated it 3 times and kept saying the phrase over and over ;)

I cannot get full credit for this because it is MckMama's Corn & Bean salad, but I made own version because either I wanted to change it bit or they didnt have the same ingredients in my supermarket, the changes for my version I will put in red so you can choose what version to do, they are both YUMMY!!!

4th of July Corn & Bean salad, MckMama style or Vanessa style

First, gather the following ingredients:

1 can of garbanzo beans, drained
1 can of pinto beans, drained (I used red beans)
1 can of black beans, drained
1 can of corn, drained
2 cans Ro Tel with cilantro and lime (they dont sell that here so I used Mexican Salsa -the chunky one)
one leek, sliced (1 red onion chopped)
2 Tablespoons Italian Dressing
dashes of chili powder, cumin and garlic powder (I dont have chili powder so I used chinese hot pepper paste, is like a chinesse Tabasco they sell at the chinesse market, didnt used cumin at all, and instead of garlic powder I used pureed garlic)
1/2 of a fresh lime (since I didnt used the Ro Tel that has lime in it I used 4 small limes instead of 1/2)
fresh cilantro (lots of it, I LOVE THAT THING)
salt

Mix everything and serve cold, ENJOY!!!

This is the Ro Tel you use...

This is what I used instead :D

and that is the pepper paste that I used (not the same brand but you get the idea) this thing is HOT, so 1/2 spoon will do it!!!

7x7 daily prayers *UPDATE*

*There is a link button for the 7x7*



Angie from Bring the rain (the story of Audrey Caroline) came up with this beautiful idea to pray 7 times a day for 7 days for your childrens, Bayo and I dont have any babies yet, but decided to go ahead and do it anyways for us (since we are home all day we are going to do it a little bit diferent than the one on Angie's Blog, but if you want to do it for your babies she has some great verses here); like she said: If you care to join me, just copy these verses onto index cards.

Here it is what we are praying:

1) When we wake up: Let the morning bring us word of your unfailing love, for we have put our trust in you. Show us the way we should go, for to you we lift up our souls. (Psalm 143:8)

2) When we start studying in the morning: If any of us lacks wisdom, we should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to us. But when we asks, we must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. (James 1:5-6)

3) When we eat: Let us know what it is to be in need, and let us know what it is to have plenty. Let us learn the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. We can do everything through Him who gives us strength. (Philippians 4:12-13)

4) After we finish our meals: Always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 5:20)

5) When we start studying in the afternoon: Strengthen our feeble hands, steady our knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, "Be strong, do not fear; our God will come, He will come with vengeance; with divine retribution, He will come to save us." (Isaiah 35:3-4)

6) When we finish studying: May our cry come before you, O LORD; give us understanding according to your word. (Psalm 119:169)

7) When we go to bed: The LORD our God is with us, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in us, He will quiet us with His love, He will rejoice over us with singing. (Zephaniah 3:17)

Here is a cool tool you can use to create one for your special needs or situations, feel free to use mine or to link me ;)

Friday Recipe?

*The Friday Recipe was done a little sooner because I dont have time to post tomorrow*
As promised here is the red bell pepper jam…





The texture is not all that nice, but the flavor is just something else, I tried this like 10 years ago at a friends house and for Gabby’s babyshower looked for recipes in the internet and came up with my own personal one (I will give you both in case you want to try them out)
Get 4 big red bell peppers, ½ glass of sugar, ½ glass of water and ½ glass of apple vinegar (I used ¾ water and ¼ vinegar because I wanted it to be sweet, not sweet and sour, so it is your choice).
Chop the peppers and take away the seeds and the white thing in the inside, boil with the rest of the ingredients until those peppers are tender and smoshie, kind of like this:

Drain the pepper but save some of the liquid, put the pepper in the blender and liquefy them, add some of the liquid little by little until you get a jam like consistency.
Take it to the refrigerator over night and the next day put it on top of cream cheese and serve with cracker.
You can also use the jam alone with crackers or bread or ANYTHING because this thing is delish even alone :D

Snowhite

I'm always talking about Gabby (my godson) :D I also have a beautiful niece called Ella and I could not resist not sharing her pictures from Halloween (they are too cute not to share!!!)

I love all my nephews and nieces!!! Bayo is always telling me that when I have my own babies I will go crazy blogging about every little detail and pic :p He is probably right!!