Winding Down…Finally!

Life is finally winding down!  I've had a VERY exhausting month.  Lots have happened in this past month and the last part of October.  Let's back track…

October
I celebrated my 24th birthday.  It was quiet and spent with close friends and neighbors at my favorite restaurant Carrabbas.  My husband surprised me with two beautiful Pandora bracelets with a few charms and a delicious Tres Leche cake (my fav!!!) to share with all our friends.  =)

November

So you might be wondering who these wonderful ladies are above…well they are my Line Sisters!  Yep!  I pledged a sorority! Lambda Theta Alpha Latin Sorority Inc to be exact!  I might have brought it up a few times before last semester but this semester is when I actually underwent the pledge process.  I won't say it was easy but it was definitely worth it.  I stressed a lot because of how busy I already was before the process but those ladies pictured above helped me sooo much and I love them even more for that.  =)

Here's some pics from our probate which was performed early November:

In cognito!!!  ;-)

Locked up!

Removing my mask!

Finally wearing my letters!

Hubby is so proud ;-)

Whoooooshhhh….let's fast forward now to last week.  Ok so I got into a pretty crazy car accident the weekend before Thanksgiving and what I'm about to explain all took place in just 10 minutes time.  I was on my way to an FTX for ROTC at 4ish in the morning and go figure a deer runs straight into the side of my car.  I can't steer right since the deer hit my right fender so I move to the median in the middle.  I put my panic lights on and call my 1SG and let him know what happened and then get on the phone with USAA.  Another cadet who happens to be my neighbor happened to see me pulled over so he stopped to help me out.  No more than two minutes after my neighbor pulled over to help me another car comes down the road and my neighbor was able to warn me and tried pulling me out of the way.  The car (who was in the lane I was in) rammed straight into my car.  My car hits my neighbors car and then turns into the median, knocks me over and flies straight into the opposite direction of traffic.  Time is now 4:59 AM.  What a way to start my morning.  Two hours later, my car, in pieces, is towed away and my husband is driving me to the ER.  Thank God I had no broken bones or internal bleeding but I am still very stiff from the impact of my car.  If it wasn't for my neighbor I wouldn't be alive today.  I'm very thankful that he stopped.

This my car after the accident:

I am walking and on muscle relaxers.  I'm hoping to be healed by the time Spring semester starts.  Unfortunately I can't participate in our Record APFT because of this so my last scores will have to go in my evaluation.  =(  I was shooting for a 290+ for this APFT but I guess a 285 will have to do.  Wasn't my fault you know.

Ok so Thanksgiving!!!!  The best part =)

Due to the accident we didn't go to Orlando as planned but we had a great day with our neighbors.  There was sooooo muuuuuch foooooood lol.  We ate…and ate….and ate….
Everything was amazing.  The apple cake I made was a hit!  I will have to share the recipe with you all soon.

I made the rice and roast pork

My neighbor's husband deep fried a 24 lb turkey!

My first time making pumpkin pie

Uncle Bob's Fresh Apple Cake

After dinner we relaxed and prepared for…..Black Friday.  Now I'm not big on this American event but we did end up going to Wal-Mart Thursday night.  My neighbors were going because they had a 60" Vizio smart TV on sale for $688.  ?!?!?!?!  YES!  We wanted in too! lol So we got there at 6:30 and "camped" out for this TV.  It's a good thing we got there early before the chaos broke out.  Wal-Mart did two releases…one at 8 PM and one at 10 PM.   The TVs were at 10.  So we waiting…only about the 10th people in line for the TVs…got our TVs and were out by 10:35.  Sweet!

Black Friday Camping!

Didn't waste time setting it up haha

And last but not least…always a tradition in my family.  We put up our Christmas tree.  It's something my family has always done back home putting up the tree right after Thanksgiving.  This is Chris and my first actually Christmas tree.  Last year our tree was tiny and that is what we used for the last three years of our marriage.  This year we decided it was time to get a real tree…and we meant it!  My neighbor took me to a local place and we picked out our trees.  It was so much fun.  When I got back Chris and our neighbors taught us how to put the tree in the stand.  My hands were covered in sap lol.  Then we decorated our tree and now our home is ready for Christmas.  =)

I hope everyone is doing great.  I know this was a long blog but I had a lot to catch you guys up on!  Talk to you all soon! 

Pampered Chef Toys: Beer Can Chicken

I have a confession to make...I love Pampered Chef!  Haha yes, I love ordering their cool make-life-easier cooking tools.  Their recent catalog introduced tons of neat stuff to use on the grill.  One of my most recent purchases was the BBQ roasting pan & can holder.   One thing I love about ordering new things from Pampered Chef is that most of their items come with a recipe that you can use with you new tool.  My roasting pan came with a recipe to make Beer-Can Chicken.  It came out amazing and now I'd like to share with you all my edited Rican version.  Happy grilling to everyone this weekend!

Beer-Can Chicken

Ingredients:

 Adobo

1 tsp black pepper

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tbs minced onion

Montreal steak seasoning

 1-2 tbs olive oil

5-6 red potatoes

3-4 lb whole fryer

1 can of your preferred beer

1. Prepare grill for indirect cooking over medium heat (350-400 degrees).  Rinse and cut potatoes into wedges.  Combine Adobo, black pepper, garlic powder, minced onion, and cayenne pepper.

2. Trim excess fat from chicken and sprinkle combined seasoning onto the chicken.

3. Combine potatoes with olive oil and then sprinkle the Montreal steak seasoning lightly.

4. Pour out about one-fourth of the beer from the can and place the beer can in the can holder.

5. Place the chicken over the can holder so that the can is upright in the cavity  of the chicken.  Place the potatoes around the chicken.

6. Place the roasting pan on the grid of the grill.  Cover and grill for 65-75 minutes or until the thermometer reaches 165 degrees in the thickest part  of the breast. Make sure to rotate the pan at least once (preferably 35-40 minutes in).

7. Carefully remove the chicken and serve with potatoes and iced tea! =)

Get in touch with your Rican: How to make Pastelon

Long time no blog!  Ok so I've been a busy body as usual but I have been cooking/baking up storms in my kitchen...just no time to blog about them!  I will make sure to find time before I kick back up with ROTC in August.

So one of my husband's favorite dishes is called Pastelon (pronounced paust-teh-lone).  The ingredients are quite simple but it is a long a tedious process.  I call this a weekend dish because it can easily take an hour and half to two hours to make by oneself.

Now forgive me for my photos.  I've made this several times but picked my best photos from each to show you the process.

These are the explicit tools you will need:

10" skillet

pot (to cook ground beef)

12" skillet (for frying)

tongs or fork (I use both!)

basting brush

a roll of paper towels

1 cookie sheet

And your ingredients:

1lb of ground beef

2 cups of shredded cheese

1 raw egg scrambled

5-6 sweet plantains

 (make sure the plantains are yellow on the outside and a little soft when pressed)

2 cups of oil (to start)

1 tbs of Adobo seasoning

1/4 cup of Goya Sofrito

1 envelope of Goya Sazon

1 bulb of garlic minced

4 olives sliced

The first thing I do is cook the sweet plantains. Get your 12" skillet ready with 1 cup of oil heating on medium.  Also take your cookie sheet and place two layers of paper towels down on it.

1. First you have to peel the skin.  I cut off both ends first and then peel.  

2. Once all the plantains are peeled begin to slice them the long way about 1/8 inch in thickness.

3. Once all your slices are ready to fry, start placing them in your 12" skillet.  Each side should fry about 2-3 minutes.  Stay on top of them though, you don't want them to burn, just slightly golden and soft. Use your tongs and/or fork to flip them gently.

4. After frying both sides, carefully move the slices of plantain from the frying pan to the cookie sheet to let the slices dry.  Once you run out of room, do another two layers of paper towels on top of those slices and keep stacking.

Once all your slices are done frying, set them aside to cool and begin on the ground meat.  Take your pot and set it on medium heat.  

5.Place your ground beef in the pot with begin to mash and mix your Adobo seasoning into the meat.

******I love using the Mix 'N Chop from Pampered Chef for this!  Grinds of the meat just perfectly while mixing the seasonings in!******

6. After the meat is fully cooked, drain out the fat and place the meat back into the pot.  Change the heat from medium to low.

7. Take your envelope of Sazon, the Sofrito, the minced garlic, and the olives and mix them into the meat.

8. Let this cook for about 5 minutes, then remove from heat and set aside to cool.

Now comes the tricky part!  Molding your Pastelon into that beautiful pie shape!

9.  Take your 10" skillet and place it on medium low heat.  Start taking your plantain slices and forming a sort of crust around your skillet.

10.  Once you have a nice layer of "crust", take your basting brush, dip it into your egg wash, and baste  the plantains.  This will act as a glue to keep the plantains together.

It will look like this, but remember to create the side of the crust as well.  (This is just the bottom):

11.  Next you will take a handful of shredded cheese a spread it on top of the plantains.  (Another way to "glue" your plantains together)

12.  Take your warm ground been and fill your plantain crust evenly.

13. Next, take the rest of your shredded cheese and spread it evenly on top of the ground beef.

14. Lastly, take your remaining pieces of plantain slices and cover the top like a pie crust.

15.  Take you brush and baste the top with egg wash.

16.  Cover it and let it cook for 5 - 10 minutes until the egg wash is cooked.

It should look like this:

Once, it's all cooked, you can now flip it onto a big serving plate!  This is the easiest part.

Make sure to have an oven mit for this though!  Place your serving place over the top of the skillet. Take your skillet and pan together and then…FLIP!  Viola…you have yourself an authentic Puerto Rican tasting Pastelon!

Enjoy!

I must warn, this is not an easy dish to make.  It took me several tries after making it one time with my aunt.  But trust me, this indulgence is definitely worth it.  A perfect combination of savory and sweet for dinner!  I serve with rice, and steamed veggies.

Restaurant Review: Mi Pana

Hope everyone had a great fourth!  It was pretty hot outside and a perfect day for a restaurant since most people in the Fayettevile Metro were grilling or having fun at the Fort Bragg celebration.  We went to the celebration last year and it was lots of fun but this year we went to Carrabas with a close neighbor of ours.  Her husband is deployed right now so we try and have dinner with her as much as possible.  She's practically family to us now.  I know she would do the same for us any day.  Anywho we're saving our grilling and fireworks show for tomorrow.  It just seemed weird to celebrate the fourth in the middle of the week lol.  I already have some baby back ribs marinating in the fridge right now.  Mouth watering...I know lol.

So today was pretty lax.  My husband had off so I took off from work as well to spend the day with him (and lengthen my weekend haha).  We decided to check out a new restaurant that opened up close to our house.  A Latin-Caribbean Cuisine restaurant called Mi Pana.  Here in the Fayetteville Metro, there aren't very many Latin cuisine places...at least not like the variety we have in my hometown Orlando.  And the ones we do have are at least 25-30 minutes from our place.  Mi Pana was much closer so we've been anxiously waiting for it to open.  About a week or two ago, they finally opened the doors to the public.

This is their mobile trailer where they started.  They now have a stationary location on
7599 Rockfish RdRaeford, NC 28376 

The place was not packed but steadily busy as we came in.  It's a very comfortable setting, lots of fans which is good to keep the place cool while the kitchen is going.  The waitresses were all very friendly...definitely reminded me of the atmosphere at our Latin restaurants in Orlando.  I was pleased with the customer service and the menu as well.  The owners are Panamanian but the menu has a great variety of Latin cuisine...emapanadas de maize (corn) which is Colombian style, empanadas frita (fried) which is how us Ricans like it, and even baked empandas which is how Cubans make them.  They also has chivo (goat) which is a popular Dominican entree and jerk chicken (a popular Jamaican entree).  They served Caribbean beverages like sugar cane juice and passion fruit juice.

So what did we order?  Well I order 3 empanadas frita de carne (beef), tostones (plantain), and passion fruit juice.  My husband ordered chivo (goat) with white rice and beans (it also comes with sweet plantains) and sugar cane juice.  The food was AMAZING.  The chivo was very tender (even better than mine!).  Now I have to warn, it's made with curry in case some of you don't like curry but I thought it was delicious and I'm not a big curry fan.  The beef empanadas were awesome too and I can tell it was made with curry too (maybe it's a Panamanian thing).  The passion fruit juice was great.  The sugar cane juice was a bit on the sweet side.  If you don't like it very sweet, I would ask for a side glass of water, that way you can dilute it a little.

Overall, the food was at a 9/10 for Latin cuisine in my book.  The service was great, we didn't wait long for the food or for our check at the end.  The prices are decent too.  Most of the entrees $10-$15, appetizers $4-7, extra sides around $3 each.

I encourage all who live in the Fayetteville Metro to try this place out!  Have a great weekend!

Avengers: Captain America Blueberry Cupcakes

Ok So I know I'm late on this but Happy Memorial Day to everyone!  So on my last post, I talked about making some yummy treats dedicated to Avengers.  I decided to go with Captain America first since Memorial Day just passed honoring our soldiers and military history.  Ok and maybe because he is super handsome too.  :-)

So for my treat, I decided to make blueberry cupcakes with white buttercream frosting and a slice of strawberry for taste and decoration.

My awesome neighbor came by to taste test for me too.  =)

As the military would say...IT'S A GO!  :D

 Blueberry Cupcakes Recipe


1 Box of White Cake Mix (follow mix direction on the back)
2 cups of frozen blueberries
1/4 cup of sugar
1/4 cup of water
Neon blue and Blue food coloring

(Preheat the oven to 350°)
1. Combine ingredients following box directions. (set aside)
2. In a saucepan, combine blueberries, sugar, and water. 
3. Let this mixture simmer stirring occasionally until you see the liquid come to a slight boil.
4. Once the mixture has come to a slight boil, remove from heat and let it cool.
5. Blend the blueberry mixture until finely chopped and then add the whole thing to your white cake mix.  (This will turn your mix purple but not to worry!)
6. Now add the food coloring to until you get a nice vibrant blue.  I used a mix of the neon and regular blue.
7. Pour the batter into a prepared muffin pan or cookie sheet with aluminum liners.
8. Bake each batch for 20 minutes.

 After letting them cool from the over, ice with buttercream frosting.  I like the one from Chocolate and Carrots.  And then top with a sliced strawberry for decoration.

And viola!  You are done! Captain America cupcakes. =)

Heavenly Breakfast: Avocados, Eggs, and Stuffed French Toast!

So this morning I got experimental.  I found some more yummy recipes online and decided to pick two of them to make this morning.  Eggs and avocado with strawberry stuffed french toast.

The first one is from a blogger I follow.  Yummy avocados and eggs.

Here's my edited version

1 avocado

if you are making for two like me, 3-4 eggs

5 cherry tomatoes, halved

1/4 green pepper

1/8 sweet yellow onion
Adobo to taste

1 tsp of olive oil

1. hard-boil your egg(s) using your preferred method. let cool, peel and mash roughly (you’ll want it to be chunky).

2. slice the avocado open, scoop out the innards, and dice.

3. rinse and halve your cherry tomatoes. dice the bell pepper.

4. place all veggies in a small pan and sauté with olive oil and sprinkle with a few shakes of Adobo.

5. mix all ingredients together.

6. eat.

The recipe for the french toast comes from tastykitchen.com

I used a recipe from allrecipes.com for the batter.  

You'll also need:

- whipped cream cheese

- sliced strawberries

- sliced bread (I used Sara Lee Soft & Smooth bread)  

1. Spread cream cheese on two slices of bread.

2. Place sliced strawberries on one of the slices of bread. Then place the other slice of bread on top (cream cheese sides facing inwards...like a sandwich)

3.  Dip each side into the french toast batter.  

4. Cook each side in a frying pan until golden brown.

Ok so there are the recipes...and here is the finished product!

Again with my rainbow fetish :)

So my rainbow cake was a hit yesterday at my neighbor's birthday party.  All the kids loved it and so did all the parents.  Everyone wanted a piece!  There was none left by the end of the party so my husband didn't get a slice by the time he showed up haha.  Next time I'll make a 9 x 13 instead of a 10" square.

So this morning I was still in my rainbow mode and so can you guess what we had for breakfast??? LOL  Yep rainbow pancakes.  I decided to get a little creative and cut out little stars from the pancakes.  You might be thinking I made these pancakes for my kids except I have none aside from my lovely chihuahuas. Yep, a grown woman and man ate rainbow pancakes from breakfast haha.  My chihuahuas ate the cut-out leftovers from the pancakes.  My husband says I'm going rainbow crazy.  Maybe I am haha!

Rainbows Everywhere!

Lately I've been obsessed with rainbow treats.  I've discovered a recipe website called Tablespoon.  This website has so many neat recipes and especially rainbow treats!  My neighbor is having an early birthday party for her daughter before her husband deploys so I volunteered to make the cake for the party.  Last night I attempted one of the rainbow treats I found on Tablespoon.  The recipe I used was actually to make mini rainbow cakes but instead of making the cake into small cakes, I left them as is.

The first step was to make the colored cake batter.  I used classic and neon food coloring for the colors as directed by the recipe.  For the orange, I used a 2:1 ration of classic yellow and red.  This gave me a nice vibrant orange.  Depending on how much batter you are using (I used a little over a cup of batter each), you'll need between 15-30 drops to make sure your cake gets a nice bright color.

This blue came from the neon food coloring set.  I only need about 15 drops to get this color.

The green was a mixture of classic and neon greens.  I didn't actually record how much of each I needed. I just kept mixing until I got a bright and vibrant green.  I think I used about 25 drops.

Next was to bake each color separately.  First, I put parchment paper in my baking pan and then spread one batch of cake batter.  The parchment paper helps with easy clean up and faster baking.  Once the batter is spread out on the parchment paper, it may not look like much but once the cake is done, it will be a nice thick cake.

Each layer bakes for only 10 minutes.  Like I said, the parchment paper made for faster baking.  I was able to switch the layers out quickly to cool.  Let each layer cool for at least 10 minutes.

Once all the layers have been baked and cooled, it's now time to stack and frost!

At first, it's going to look messy but once all the layers are stacked and frosted, I put the cake in the freezer for two hours.

After 2 hours in the freezer, I took the cake out and cut off the sides to make the layers even.  Next I frosted the top and viola!  You have yourself a rainbow cake!  It's not the most amazing but hey it looks pretty good for my first one!  I chose not to frost the sides because the colors were so pretty.

You can check out this recipe here.  Try it for yourself.  Post a comment and let me know how yours comes out.  =)

Sweet Basil Cafe

Hey everyone. Its been almost two weeks since my last post.  I have a lot to catch up up but I will separate them into separate posts since they are all about different subjects.

So last weekend my husband and I drove out to Southern Pines and spent the morning exploring the downtown area.  We had a acquaintance recommend a small cafe called Sweet Basil to us if we were looking for a good place to eat lunch.  We to the cafe around 10 but it doesn't open until 11:30 am on Saturdays so we walked the shops to kill time.  The downtown area is small but very pretty.  All the shops are locally owned.  Some make quilts, others were small Christian bookstores, we found a hippie/antique style coffee shop called Swank.  I had a delicious coffee there.  It tasted like an Almond Joy.  I also got an oatmeal chocolate and walnut cookie too.  It was delicious!  We got back to the cafe around 11:15 and to my surprise there was already a line of people waiting outside the cafe for it to open.  You could also smell from outside all the amazing aromas coming from the cafe.  We were both starving and mouth watering by the time we sat down to eat.  There isn't a big variety on the menu but you can tell that everything is freshly made there.  Everyday they have a different soup of the day (the only soup option on the menu too).  That day, it was asparagus soup.  This was the first and the BEST asparagus soup I've ever tried.  My husband and I were in heaven with the soup.  I also ordered a margarita pizza and my husband ordered an swiss and roast beef sandwich.  Everything was amazingly fresh.  It's a small mom and pop cafe and you can tell that many of its customers are regulars by the way the customers and waitresses interact.  I really enjoyed outing morning outing.  We plan on doing this again soon.  :)

Sign outside the cafe

Asparagus soup

Margarita pizza