Posts from — January 2008

Many successful people say that one of the keys to success is to love what you do for a living. Real life shows us that most of the people don’t like what they do, they just do it for the money. Well, if you dare to step out of routine, and if your dream is to master the art of cooking and to create masterpieces which will enchant your clients, you can enroll in a culinary school, to learn from the pros.

There are many cooking schools out there, with lots of specifics, so you’ll probably have to do some proper research before deciding which one to join. I can give you three examples: The Culinary Academy of California, The Hospitality Institute of Chicago and The California Culinary Arts School. Each school has its own, customized cooking classes, like Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Arts at the Culinary Academy of California. This culinary program takes 60 weeks to complete and it integrates classical and modern culinary techniques. Moreover, this class includes a module of kitchen management, thus offering the students the required skills and training for a future career at different levels within a restaurant, or a hotel, or any other cooking-related business.

But the course is not only theory. 12 weeks of on-site externship will provide the students with skills which cannot be acquired through theory only. For those of you who are interested in more details, you can take a look at this culinary course outline.

What if you cannot pay for your education? Most schools offer financial aids to their best students, or to those who qualify for a state tuition, according to local laws. Besides, there are facilities of scheduled payments, which will allow you to work and gradually pay for your classes.

What about your social life? 60 weeks is quite a big amount of time, and you wouldn’t like to live like a hermit for all this period. It is useless to worry, at least if you decide for the Culinary Academy of California. Here you’ll have access to all entertainment facilities in the bay area, you’ll meet other students, you’ll be able to join the club activities, and you’ll be able to go to trips to Nappa Valley.

Well, if your dream is to become a culinary artist, you see that education is available. All you need is hard work and a bit of talent.

Kindly brought to you by the Culinary Academy of California

Ingredients

• 350 g. of bacon
• 8 chicken joints
• 400 g. of mushrooms
• 300 g. of cream
• parsley
• olive oil
• salt, pepper

How to cook it

1. Fry the bacon for 2 min on each side.
2. Salt and pepper the chicken joints.
3. Fry them in olive oil until they are ready.
4. Boil the mushrooms for 5 min.
5. Fry them in olive oil for 3 min.
6. Pour the cream and stir for 2 min.
7. Cut the parsley.
8. Put on the plate first the bacon, on top the chicken joints and on top of those the mushrooms with the parsley.

Ingredients

For the meatballs:

• 500 g. of pork and cow minced meat
• 3 potatoes
• 1 small carrot
• 2 eggs
• flour
• vegetable oil
• salt, pepper

For the sauce:

• vegetable concentrates or boils vegetable: 2 carrots, 1 parsnip, and 1 parsley root
• 2 onions
• tomato sauce
• few laurel leaves
• 1 spoon of flour
• paprika
• vegetable oil
• salt, pepper

How to prepare the meatballs:

1. Grate the carrots and the potatoes very small. Salt them.
2. Squeeze them to remain dry.
3. Scramble the eggs. Add salt and pepper.
4. Mix up the minced meat with the carrots, the potatoes and the scrambled eggs.
5. Take bit by bit from the mixture and make round meat balls.
6. Then press them, to be 1 inch thick.
7. Fry them for 3 min on each side.

How to prepare the sauce:

1. Grate the onions big. Add salt.
2. Fry them in vegetable oil for 3 min.
3. Boil the vegetables concentrate in 250 g. of water (or grate the vegetables and boil them in ½ l. of water, at medium temperature, for 20 min.)
4. Pour 1 cup of it on top of the onions and boil for 10 min.
5. Add, bit by bit, flour and water from the boiled vegetables.
6. Pour the tomato sauce.
7. Put the ready cooked meatballs in the sauce.
8. Add the laurel leaves and put the food in the oven, at medium temperature, for 15 min.

Ingredients

• 800 g. of pork brains
• 3 eggs
• dried crust
• 400 g. of potatoes
• butter
• parsley

For the salad:

• tomatoes
• cucumbers
• vinegar
• olive oil
• vegetable oil
• salt, pepper

How To Cook It

1. Scramble the eggs. Salt and pepper them.
2. Pass the brains through the dry crust.
3. Then, pass them through the scrambled eggs.
4. Put them in a pan with hot vegetable oil.
5. Fry them for 3 min. on each side.
6. Cut the potatoes in medium cubes.
7. Boil them until they are ready.
8. Put them on a plate. Salt and pepper them.
9. Put butter on top.
10. Cut the parsley small.
11. Put the parsley on top of the buttered potatoes.

Make the salad:

• Cut the tomatoes and the cucumbers.
• Mix them up with the olive oil, the vinegar, and the salt.

Serve the brains with the boiled potatoes and the salad.

Ingredients for 6 persons

• 600 g. of pork sirloin
• 4 eggs
• bread crumbs
• 500 g. of potatoes

The salad:

• 1 small cabbage
• 4 tomatoes
• dill
• salt, pepper

Cooking procedure

1. Scramble the eggs.
2. Slice the pork sirloin 1 inch thick.
3. Beat it on each side.
4. Salt and pepper it.
5. Pass it through the bread crumbs and then through the scrambled eggs, while turning on each side.
6. Put it in hot oil, 3 min. at each side, at medium temperature.
7. Slice the potatoes. Salt and pepper them.
8. Fry them.
9. Grate the cabbage. Salt and squeeze it.
10. Cut the tomatoes and the dill.
11. Mix them up.

Ingredients for 6 persons

• 1 kg. of leek
• 300 g. of cow cheese
• 200 g. of goat cheese
• 4 eggs
• dill
• olive oil
• pie leaves
• salt, pepper

Cooking procedure

1. Cut the leek 2 inch thick. Salt it.
2. Fry it in olive oil with 1 cup with water until it becomes soft.
3. Strain the leeks.
4. Cut the dill.
5. Scramble 3 eggs.
6. Grate the cheese.
7. Mix it up with the eggs, the leeks, the dill, salt and pepper.
8. Separate the pie leaves in half.
9. Lubricate the pie leaves with olive oil.
10. Put the mixture in the middle.
11. Scramble 1 egg and pour it on top of the pie.
12. Put the pie in the oven for 30 min., at medium temperature.

I don’t know about you, but my phone rings exactly when I cook, and many times I can’t even hear it. For such situations, a cordless phone is the best solution: you get rid of those long wires, and you have much more freedom. Depending on the broadcasting range on such phones, you can go out of the house and still be able to speak.

But when it comes to which cordless phone model to choose, there are so many possibilities and so different prices, that you start to ask yourself what’s the difference between all those phones, since they all allow you to talk and they are all cordless.

For your need of information, there is internet. For finding out other people’s opinions there are forums and consumer reviews websites like WizeRank, which gathers together opinions from both consumers and experts, translating them into the so-called WizeRank, a score which indicates if you could buy that product with confidence, or if it might meet your needs, or if it is not recommended.  If you want to be part of WizeRank, you need to open yourself a free account, and if you need further instructions you can read the Help page.

If one site is not enough to calm down your suspicions related to a certain product, you can search the web for more sources, and then draw an informed conclusion about your eventual shopping.

Weight Watchers is a community of people who decided to change their eating habits, with the purpose of attaining an optimum weight without losing their nutritional balance.

Nearly 35 years after the UK launch, Weight Watchers launched a revolutionary diet which allows you to eat anything you like. The diet is based on points given to each food in accordance with their calories and saturated fat content.

Joining the community is not free, but there are lots of Weight Watchers points meals recipes given away for free on their website.

For readers who are interested to try a few of these meals, I put together a list for you. The cooking procedures and time can be seen if you click on each recipe:

Curried butternut squash soup – 0 points

Minestrone soup – 0 points

Pumpkin, ginger and apple soup – 0 points

Porridge with raspberries and golden syrup – 4.5 points

Cheesy veggie pasta salad – 4 points

Turkey and mushrooms curry – 2.5 points

Salmon risotto – 7 points

Shepperd’s pie – 3.5 points

Vegetable lasagne – 3 points

Mexican chilly chicken – 5 points

Banana berry smoothie – 3.5 points

Lychee Martini – 2.5 points

This is only a short list of Weight Watchers Points based recipes, but their website contains many more. Too bad only a few are free, for the rest you need to subscribe.

If you don’t know how to cook salmon, you definitely have to learn the secret. Salmon makes a great dish and it can be cooked in so many ways that cooking almost becomes an art. The best salmon recipe I’ve ever tasted was a smoked salmon one, but I’ve also eaten good grilled salmon. I’m not even mentioning here the salmon caviar which is absolutely delicious.

I’m giving you here a salmon recipe for the main dish, tasty, easy to prepare and also easy to digest.

Ingredients for two persons

• 600 g. salmon
• 400 g. asparagus
• 300 g. tomatoes
• 100 g. leek
• 40 ml. balsamic vinegar
• 50 g. rucola
• 20 g. fresh basil
• 10 g. fresh mint
• salt, pepper

The basil sauce:

• 80 ml. oil
• 400 g. sour cream
• 1 lemon
• 120g. butter
• 1 orange for decoration

Salmon Cooking Procedure

1. Put the salmon in the oven, at medium temperature, for 20 min.
2. Turn it on both sides.
3. Fry the tomatoes. Peel them off and cut them in thin blades. Leave part of them for the salad.
4. Cut the leek on its length in thin slices. Leave part of it for the salad.
5. Add the tomatoes and the leek with the salmon.
6. Put it in the oven for 15 min.
7. Blend the asparagus.

For the basil sauce:

1. Melt the butter.
2. Add the cream and the lemon juice. Stir.
3. Leave it to diminish for 5 min.
4. Cut the basil.
5. Add salt, pepper and the basil.

For the salad:

1. Cut the rucola, the mint and the basil.
2. Mix the up the slices of the tomatoes and the leek.
3. Add balsam vinegar.

On a plate put:

• The asparagus.
• On top the salmon.
• On top the sauce and the salad.
• The slices of orange, round about.

I hope you’ll manage to prepare such easy salmon recipes in very little time, for your guests’ pleasure. I’ve heard that there are chefs who cook some extraordinary salmon cakes, but I very much doubt I’d like to try cooking salmon that way. I’ll stick to smoked salmon for now.

How many times did you ask yourself (or your partner) where to go out for a nice dinner? You’d like to try something new, but you are afraid of all sorts of lousy cooks that are waiting for you to almost kill you with their talents. You could call some friends and ask them for reccomendations, but if you don’t want to bother them, what do you do? Use the internet, of course (assuming you have a connection)!

Well, at least for San Diego restaurants, you have a help: CafeSanDiego.com is a index of all restaurants in San Diego, with four possibilities of filtering your search: by cuisine, by neighborhood, by atmosphere and by special features (like banquets, brunches or delivery). If you don’t care about such details, and you want to see the whole list, just press GO without making any filter selection, and you’ll be able to browse all San Diego dining possibilities. Another search possibility, for those of you who care for their money (and who doesn’t?) is by coupons offered by various restaurants.

Each restaurant has its own page, with description, address, contact data, plus the rating given by CafeSanDiego.com readers. You can rate any restaurant, if you ate there and you want to share your experience with others.

If you are a San Diego restaurant owner,  you can update the listing of your restaurant, so you make sure that all information offered is correct and actual. All you have to do for this is to create yourself a free account and wait for a CafeSanDiego.com to contact you to confirm your data and provide you with access to your restaurant’s page.

This article is brought to you by CafeSanDiego.com