Christmas dinner!

Hey so I wasn't able to update you guys on how I prepared the flan because abuela went and prepared it on her own Christmas morning. I was still sleeping when it all went on. But when I got up I did help with cooking our amazing Christmas dinner. It was delicious! Abuela made everything from her gourmet pastelitos, pasteles and Virginia ham glazed in pineapple juice. I made the moro de guandules, which is a rice mixed with guandule beans. Check out the pictures and below is the recipe for the moro de guandules!

Abuela's Moro de Guandules:

1. Take a pot and pour a big spoon of olive oil.
2. Sprinkle some Goya Adobo.
3. Take a red onion and chop it in half and put half of it in the pot, do the same with a piece of green pepper and a red pepper. Let it grill.
4. Take some garlic cloves and chop them into fine pieces and sprinkle some grounded oregano and adobo on it and mash it all up. Than place it in the pot.
5. Throw in some cilantro.
6. Let it cook for a while.
7. Than pour a cap of vinegar.
8. Than take a tablespoon of tomato paste and throw it in there.
9. Stir it around for a while and throw in two cans of Goya guandules beans.
10. Stir it some more and let the guandules take in the flavor.
11. Than cover the pot and let it sit for about 5-10 minutes.
12. Than pour 3 cups of water.
14. Taste it, if it needs salt add a pack of Sazon Goya (Con Cilantro y anchiote)
15. Cover it and let it take in some flavor.
16. Than throw in the rice, in this case i poured 4 cups of rice and it served 6 and there were left overs for the next day.
17. Stir the rice around and when it begins to dry cover it.
18. When ready to serve, remove the pieces of cilantro, onion and pepper.

Non-Stop cooking and baking!

So today was complete madness. I woke up around 11 am to the sound of my cell phone ringing. My mother was calling me from the kitchen to tell me that she was about to start cooking. Abuela, mom and myself had planned to do all our baking today. But little did I know it was going to result in yelling, a lot of cursing in Spanish and my mom's nails chipping. The plan for today was to make Apple sauce, abuela's christmas cake, flan and Key Lime pie. Anyway so my mom was in the mood for cooking baked ziti. It was our first time ever making it so we didn't really know what to expect. I was a little disappointed that we didn't make our own tomato sauce, but mom complained that we weren't going to have time. So we began with the baked ziti while Abuela started measuring all the ingredients for her Christmas cake. So if you never made baked ziti before and your looking to make some basic baked ziti check out what we did.

Ingredients: Parmesan cheese, salt, olive oil, 2 packs of ziti pasta, a 2lb pack of Polly-O Ricotta cheese, a lb of Mozzarella cheese and 2 jars of tomato sauce.

1. Pour some tomato sauce onto a pyrex pan. And than sprinkle parmesan cheese on the pan.
2. Fill a pot of water and sprinkle a little bit of salt. Than pour a cap full of olive oil and set it to a boil. Once it starts to boil pour in the ziti pasta.
3. Wait until the pasta becomes al dente and than pour a 2lb pack of Polly-O Ricotta cheese and mix it with the ziti. I added some salt to the Ricotta cheese because I always feel like it taste like nothing.
4. Than we poured two jars of Ragu tomato sauce and mixed it all together.
5. Than we sprinkled some Parmesan cheese.
6. Than we took a lb of Mozzarella cheese and cut thin slices.
7. We poured some ziti into the pyrex pan and than placed some slices of mozzarella on top. Than added more ziti on top and than sprinkled some parmesan cheese.
8. Than we added another layer of mozzarella cheese.
9. We preheated the oven at 350 degrees and let the ziti sit in the oven for about 30 minutes.

While that was going on abuela had all her ingredients for her christmas cake out and measured. There was a little argument between her and mami over the amount of apples needed for the cake. Apparently mami thought abuela said she needed 8 apples when in reality she only needed about 3-4 apples for the cake. And so mami had sliced 6 apples that morning. So since there was a surplus of sliced apples abuela made some apple sauce before we began the cake. So check out how we created abuela's Biscocho de Navidad!

Ingredients: 3-4 red delicious apples thinly sliced, 1 tablespoon of Nutmeg, 1 tablespoon of Ground Cinnamon, 2 eggs, 1 cup of mixed dry fruits, 1 cup of raisins, 1 cup of liquor (we used Amaretto di Amore), 1 teaspoon of Baking soda, 1 teaspoon of salt, 2 teaspoons of pure vanilla extract, 3 cups of flour, 1 cup of mazola corn oil, 2 cups of light brown sugar, 1 cup of raw pecan halves.

1. Mix 2 cups of the light brown sugar with 1 cup of corn oil.
2. Than take a 5-speed electric mixer and start to mix
3. Than add 2 eggs
4. Slowly start to add the flour, continue to mix.
5. Than add the sliced apples, continue to add more flour and continue to mix.
6. Than start to add the dry fruits and raisins.
7. Add a teaspoon of baking soda, than add more flour, keep mixing.
8. Add 1 tablespoon of Grounded cinnamon, 1 tablespoon of Ground nutmeg
9. Add the rest of the flour.
10. Than add a cup of Amaretto di Amore
11. Continue to mix
12. Pre-heat the oven at 350 degrees
13. Let it sit in the oven for about 45 minutes.
Our cake got a little burned on the top. But we just scrapped it off with a spoon and it was fine.

So than mom wanted to make a Key Lime Pie. She got the recipe from some friends from her church. It you need to make a quick desert this is the thing to make. This took less than 15 minutes to prepare and only 15 minutes to bake.

Ingredients: 3 eggs, 1/2 cup of Nellie &Joe's famous keywest Lime Juice, 1 can of condensed milk, a ready crust graham.

1. Take three eggs and crack a hole in each one. Than drain out all the egg white so that's there is only yolk left.
2. Now take 1/2 cup of Lime Juice
3. Preheat the oven at 350 degrees
4. Take one can of condensed milk
5. Mix all the ingredients into the blender
6. Pour it into a ready crust Graham
7. And have it sit in the oven for 15 minutes
8. When its done have it sit out to cool for a few minutes.
It's as easy as that!

So making the flan was a bit of disaster. Mami started yelling about how the kitchen was such a mess and how she chipped her freshly manicured nails. Abuela and I just looked at each other smirking like...what did you expect? We're cooking. So mom started showing me how to make the flan in a really bad mood. It was kind of funny. While she was reluctantly making the flan abuela was fixing up her Christmas cake and I was watching and taking notes. So heres how the flan came about:

Ingredients: 4 eggs, 3 teaspoons of vanilla extract, premium pure can sugar, 2 cans of evaporated milk, 2 cans of sweetened condensed milk.

1. First mom took some of the sugar and poured it in a pot and had it sit over the stove. Than she poured some water over the sugar and started moving the pot over the stove until the sugar started to turn brown. The goal is to get it to turn into a caramel.
2. Once it starts to get really dark, turn off the stove and let it cool.
3. Take 4 eggs and 3 teaspoons of vanilla extract and mix it in a blender.
4. Than add 2 cans of evaporated milk, and than add 2 cans of sweetened condensed milk.
5. Mix it all up.
6. Once its all mixed pour it into the pot with the caramel
7. Than place the pot into a much larger pot, preferably a double boiler, that's what we did anyway. Because apparently you can't cook flan just in a pot just like that. So than we poured some water into a double boiler and than had it sit in the oven for about an hour.
8. Than once it was done take it out and have it cool for a few minutes and than place it in the fridge until the next morning for preparation.
Tomorrow morning we have to prepare it. So stay tuned for tomorrow's post on the rest of the preparation. It's been a long day I'm going to have some hot chocolate and call it a night!

Welcome to Abuela and I !

So 2009 didn't exactly turn out the way that I had planned. I have just recently graduated from college with a BA in Journalism. But don't see myself becoming a journalist as soon as I would have liked. I have always had a deep passion for writing since a very young age. And as a result I have always believed that I would make a career out of writing. But unfortunately due to today's current economic status my dream plans have been put on hold. So I was working part-time as an administrative assistant in a medical office and that completely turned out to be a nightmare. So I ended up quitting this week. I know it sounds strange to quit your job the week of Christmas...but lets just say that I couldn't stay there a day longer. But I have to admit that though this has been a very rough season something good did come from it all. Since I was only working part-time and I had all this spare time,early this September I decided to learn how to cook. And who better to teach me than my wonderful abuela (grandma). She is one of the best, most passionate cooks I know. And since we started cooking some time in early September not only have I discovered this hidden passion I've had for the kitchen, but have also discovered a lot about my abuela Celeste. I guess you can say the experience has even brought us closer together. For months I have been struggling with an idea for a blog. First I thought of creating a music blog, than attempted to create a fashion blog and none of it felt original. So here I am blogging about my experiences in the kitchen cooking with my amazing 81 year old abuela. So enjoy the stories and enjoy abuela's yummy recipes!