Little Italy in Minneapolis

Last night we turned the apartment into our own Little Italy and became pizzaiolo. I have been on a “make it your own” binge lately with cooking, so on our agenda was pizza making. I have a very basic taste when it comes to pizza, more of a three cheese style than anything eccentric. We decided to make two pizzas, best of both worlds.

On mine (ate it too quickly for there to be pictures) I chose to venture out and make it Hawaiian style. I picked to do a thin crust dough as well. I pan fried sliced pieces of Canadian bacon, I only placed three pieces on the whole pizza, you can add as many as you see fit, then I added chunks of sliced pineapple, making sure every piece had at least two pineapples, my love for the fruit is outrageous. I finished the pizza was putting a little mixture of three different cheeses, shredded Gouda, shredded Parmesan and large chopped pieces of fresh Mozzarella.

For his, (again ate too quickly to take pictures) there was an assortment of ingredients. Better known as the “kitchen sink” of pizzas. It was a thick crust pizza dough which included toppings of pepperoni, Canadian bacon, shitake mushrooms (which were sautéed in a pan with chopped onion), three cheeses and sliced jalapeños'. 

Both pizzas were big hits, however I think the Hawaiian beat the Kitchen Sink by a tad on the pizza scale.

I recommend this as a fun date idea, if you want to venture out in cooking skills, or if you are looking for something to do on a week night or weekend!

Bon Appetite my fellow students

College Student or Sushi Chef?

The question is, who doesn’t love sushi? If you are one of the rare specimen who doesn’t, read this blog post and I may change your mind. I felt like being adventurous over winter break and go from college student to sushi chef over night. After watching multiple YouTube videos and browsing several blogs, I gathered up enough information and ventured to the nearest Lunds & Byerlys to purchase the ingredients for each roll I was determined to create.

The rolls and the ingredients necessary:

California Roll – imitation crab, sliced (matchstick size) carrots and cucumbers, cream cheese, sliced avocado.

Smoked Salmon – sliced smoked salmon, cream cheese, avocado and cucumber.

Shrimp tempura – small cooked tempura battered shrimp, sliced cucumber, avocado and sliced carrots.

The biggest challenge that I found was cooking the sushi rice. How to perfect sushi rice (other than researching before) is to know how to prepare it after it is cooked. We decided to use a rice cooker, but you can also cook it in a regular cooking pan. It is important to remember to add half a cup more of water than rice. I made three cups of rice and used three and a half cups of water. Once the rice is cooked, and to keep it as sticky as possible, add a mixture of ¾ cup of rice wine vinegar, two teaspoons of sugar and one teaspoon of salt. Mix these ingredients together and drizzle over the rice while stirring (with a wooden spoon). Let this sit for five minutes so the rice can absorb the liquid mixture that was added.

Practice makes perfect, so start with a small amount of rice and learn how to roll with a bamboo sushi mat that you can purchase at any cooking store. We purchased ours at the Kitchen Window.

I completely recommend to try and make your own sushi. It makes for a perfect date night idea, as well as a fun holiday party activity.

Lets get rollin’

Bon Appetite my fellow students

Fad or Fatal, Gluten Free Dieting and Celiac

The gluten free trend of diet has taken over the fad dieting scene. However, there are over 3 million people in our country that can't eat gluten. Celiac is an autoimmune disease that makes the body reject any gluten that is ingested. I spoke with Jill Bradford and Kayla Rose on how Celiac and gluten free dieting has affected their every day lives.