A Little Breakery

This is just a little heads up that I wont be able to post anything for a couple of days. I will be celebrating New Years at the mountains with some faves. I baked some of my original recipe Candycane Chocolate Chip cookies and made some Puppy Chow (Muddy Buddies) for the road trip.

When I come back on Sunday I promise and update with a good recipe for dinner. Until then... HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!

The title is supposed to be a play on break and bakery.

HAPPY COOKING!

OO vs. EVOO

I recently learned what the difference was between Olive Oil and Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

EVOO is oil that comes straight from the olive fruit and it is in its purest form (hence the extra virgin). Since it is "extra virgin" the taste is far more superior than light olive oil or plan olive oil. Therefor, it should be used to accentuate dishes as a dressing (like in my Shrimp and Mango ceviche)

Regular Olive Oil is refined and blended from EVOO and goes through a chemical process. Therefor, it losses some of its taste and should be used mainly as a fat to coat pans when frying.

You can basically follow this rule..."EVOO for cold, Olive Oil for hot"

I hope I educated some of you today. I used to use EVOO in everything from pan frying to accentuating dishes...now I know better.

Happy Cooking!

Welcome! nom nom nom nom nom

Welcome everyone to my new blog that deals with one thing and one thing only: food! The main reason why I am creating this blog is because I am going to back to school to obtain a degree in Culinary Arts. That's right! Imma be a chef!

I got accepted into the Art Institute of Orange County in their Culinary Arts program. I will be going to back to school on a part time basis while still maintaining my job at the YMCA. I wanted to create a blog to chronicle my adventures on what should hopefully be a tasty adventure.

As you can probably tell, writing is not one of my strong suits. I got a B in English; however, I got an A in list making. So most of my posts will be in list form. Like this...

Things that I plan to post on my blog:

- updates on my Culinary Arts classes

- recipes (both ones that I came up with and ones that I use and the dishes turn out great)

- restaurant reviews (if I ever want to become a judge on Iron Chef I should probably start practicing)

- How To Videos (I really want to try and do a follow along cooking video, don't know if anyone would watch it though)

- anything else food related...who know I may even pull off a Julie & Julia (maybe a Kelson & Giada) she's pretty nomnomnomnomnom

Also here is a little FF (fun fact about my blog title for anyone who doesn't know what "nom nom nom" means.) Urban Dictionary--nom nom nom.

"Represents the sound made when someone is eating or chewing something and really enjoying it."

That's all for now, and as a way of saying "Thank you" for reading this far...

Here is a my own recipe of a Shrimp and Mango Ceviche.

Shrimp (peeled and deveined)

Tomatoes

1 jalapeno

1/2 cucumber

1/4 red onion

1 avocado

1 mango

Cilantro

Mint

Lemon juice (also Lime juice if you want)

garlic salt

EVOO (extra virgin olive oil)

Boil water and add shrimp for 2-3 minutes. Shock it in cold water with some ice to stop the cooking. Soak it with lemon and lime juice for 30 min in refrigerator.

Cut cucumber, jalapeno, and red onion and add to shrimp. Let soak for 15 min. Cube up tomatoes, avocado, and mango and add to shrimp. Chop up cilantro and mint and add to shrimp. Sprinkle garlic salt and evoo to taste. Enjoy!

My only thing is if you do use a recipe that I post, all I ask in return is a little note saying whether you liked it or loved it, because seriously, it will be one of those two.

Happy Cooking!