Cooking Tip

  Always let rice rest:

 "Take the pot off the heat before removing the lid and fluffing the grains. This allows any residual moisture to release itself from the air pockets in the rice. If you were to fluff the rice without letting it rest, it would be too moist and sticky. Rice grains should not stick together, unless you're making sticky rice, or sushi rice. " (Notes on Cooking)

Cooking Tip

Cook with unsalted                         butter: 

"To control the seasoning of a dish, use unsalted butter when you cook. Leave salted butter for the table." (Notes on Cooking)

Cooking Tip

                        Cook with Sugar

"A pinch of granulated sugar, like a pinch of salt, can balance flavor and brighten food. Bland tomato sauce? Sprinkle in a touch of sugar to amplify the tomatoes' natural sweetness. Sauteed onions need more flavor? Add a light dusting of sugar to enhance the caramelization process." (Notes On Cooking)*

First Catering Event

Sorry it has taken me a while to get back into this blog. I've been extremely busy with school and extracurricular activities. On June 4, 2010 I had my first...well we could call it "catering gig." I had the opportunity to make the appetizers for a baby shower. I was extremely stressed out, but in the end, everything turned out better than I expected. I always tend to not have faith on what I'm capable of accomplishing. Since this was my first official catering event, I was very nervous, because I thought nobody would want to even taste the appetizers I had made. Before I knew it, everybody was getting up from their seats and eating everything I had made. I had many compliments on the food I prepared as well as future opportunities with some of the guests that were there. They even said that I could make the appetizers for future hospital parties (special parties for Doctors). How cool is that? This was such a great opportunity, and I learned so much in the process of doing this :).

"The Beginning"

These were some of the dessert projects we have done at Idaho State University. Yummy...is all I can say! I can't believe how far I have come over the past last year. Before I began this degree, I had no clue what I was getting myself into. I found myself lost with not knowing what I wanted to study. I thought and thought and found nothing that I would want to do for the rest of my life. My family has always loved to cook and I constantly found myself watching the Food Network with them. It was one day when I got...you could say, inspiration...something told me that this was what I was suppose to do with myself. I soon became enrolled at Idaho State University not knowing anything whatsoever about cooking. The closest thing to cooking that I ever had come across was macaroni and cheese.