Hello! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I know I've been away but I've been busy with a new project.

In October I moved from Vancouver, BC to London. London, Canada. I left behind Paris. Paris is my cousin and best friend. She is also my other half. We grew up together. If we didnt live together, we lived down the road from eachother our whole lives. She's got 2 kids, 4 yrs old, and 2 yrs old. She is 29, same as me. We talk everyday for hours a day. She is a fantastic cook, always trying something new. She makes almost everything from scratch. And we started a joint blog! Its called MY COUSINS KITCHEN and its gonna be delicious.

I'm going to be takin it up a notch tho cuz I got this mixer from my wonderful boyfriend(Picture Below). It's changing my life. And Im going to be eating at my new old kitchen table(Picture below again). It makes food taste better. So come and join us. You wont regret it.

Homemade Peanut Butter Cups

Do I even have to say anything??  Good, cuz I cant.  My mouth is full.
 

1.  Melt milk chocolate chips.  Coat wrapper.  I used a baby spoon.  Let set.

2.  Mix natural smooth peanut butter, a quarter of the amount of peanut butter of cream cheese, and a bit of icing sugar.  Just enough to make it dough like and not sticky.  Place in chocolate shells.

3.  Cover with chocolate.  Dont rush, or they'll look ugly.  Spread with back of spoon so the chocolate seals to the wrapper.  Let set.

Potato and Pea Soup

Its minus 19 where I live today and the snow is deep. This soup is cheap, healthy and hot.

1/2 Ham
6 Cups Water
1 Large Potato
1/2 Onion
1/2 tomato
1 Stalk Celery
2 Cloves of Garlic
1-2 T. Salt or To Taste
Pepper to taste
2 Cups Dried Peas

Put ham in pot. Cover with water. Bring to a boil and simmer for 1 to 2 hours. Remove Ham. Dice ham. The smaller the better. Reserve.
Add Peas, Potato, Onion, Celery, Garlic, Tomato, Garlic. Bring to a boil. Simmer until potato and peas tender. Add ham. Garnish with green onion.

Almond Roca

If you could see me right now, you'd see that I have my proud look on.
Look at this.
Almond Roca.
I made it.

From My Kitchen Cafe. I didnt change a thing, made it exactly like she said. Recipe Here.

Spicy Hot Chocolate

My friends dad is a detective. He once said to me "If you can think of it, it's been done". I pretend in my head like he was talking about recipes. Which brings me to this spicy hot chocolate. Ive had spicy hot chocolate before, Im just not sure if its been done this way. So this is the way I did it and you could sell it. Heat 1 cup milk in a sauce pan. Add 1 1/2 T. Cocoa Powder, 2 t. brown sugar, 1 t. Vanilla, 1/8 t. allspice (or to taste) and a couple shakes of cayenne pepper. Top with whipped cream and and you have chocolate hot.  Really good, tastes professional.

Mushroom, Onion and Garlic Baked Brie

Saute 1/2 onion and 1 1/2 Cup sliced mushroom in olive oil, salt and pepper. Add 2 cloves of garlic. I prefer to cut the rind off the brie so its not tough when youre digging in. Place cheese in center of puff pastry. Top with mushroom mixture. Wrap pastry around to make bundle cutting off excess. Bake at 400 for 20 mins. Broil to brown. Quite the crowd pleaser.

Chocolate Eclair

When I first moved to Vancouver I lived in an apartment on Main Street above a second hand store, a way too hip coffee shop, and a kinda dirty little bakery.  The bakery made eclairs that were like nothing I had ever tasted.   They only made a few a day and they'd usually be sold out by 9 in the morning.   The unspoken competition between me, my friendly cross-dressing neighbor, and a few other weirdos in the building to buy one and eat it was fierce.  Until the day the bakery shut down.  Since that day I've been searching for those eclairs.  It's been 10 years and never has anything come close.  Until now. 

The cream-puff pastry is from "Mad Hungry" by Lucinda Scala Quinn.  Recipe below.  But the filling is just real whipped cream.  And the chocolate is just melted chocolate chips.  I tried Lucindas pastry cream recipe but it was difficult and really wasn't the taste or consistency I've been searching for.  


Cream-Puff Pastry

1 Cup Flour
1/4 t. salt
1 Cup Water
8 T. Unsalted Butter Cut Into Small Pieces
5 Large eggs-Room Temperature

1. Preheat to 400.  Prepare a pastry bag with 1/2 inch tip.
2. In small bowl, whisk together flour and salt.  Place water and butter in a medium sauce pan and bring to a boil.  Add the flour mixture and beat vigorously with a wooden spoon for several seconds, until the dough is smooth, pulls away from the sides of pan, and begins to form a ball.  Remove from heat.  Cool the dough for a couple mins.  Beat in eggs one at a time, until smooth and glossy.
3. Place dough in pastry bag.  grease baking sheet.  Pipe desired shape. 3 to 4 inch oblong shapes.  Bake for 10 minutes then turn heat up to 425 and bake for 15 mins total or until puffed up, golden brown, and firm to touch.  Cool on wire rack.