Mc Mansions

Uploaded on authorSTREAM by danielbretzke
This blog was posted by co-owner of this blog, Daniel, accidentally instead of his real estate blog. I decided to leave this posting although this is not food blog. (FumikoB)

Irish Soda Bread

I made loaves of Irish soda bread from BBC website. I loved the results and friends who tried approved its taste. The bread was delicious with butter. However, Karen who is from Ireland told me it is wheaten bread not soda bread. According to her, north and south of Ireland people make soda bread differently.
I found a website about Irish soda bread: http://www.sodabread.us/
Real Irish may not call this soda bread. Still I like this recipe. Here is the recipe website :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A23502908

Gaspar's Cooking class and dinner

My neighbor friend, Yami, took me to Gaspar's cooking class and full course dinner in Tuesday evening. Gaspar’s is the construction company specializing design/build/remodel houses. The attendants of the class were the employees, friends and their customers. The class was held at Gaspar’s office. There is a model kitchen installed in the office to show their customers appliances and building materials Gaspar’s use for their construction business.
When Yami and I entered to the Gaspar’s office, we were asked if we like to have red or white wine. I asked for red and Yami for white. The chef and instructor of the class was Incredible chef, Karen Rosenzweig ,(See http://www.incrediblechef.com/index.html) who is personnel chef. Karen offered us appetizer to start. It was baked Brie with Caramel with Walnuts or with cranberries served with crackers and slices of apples. The appetizer was very rich and delicious. She showed us how to prepare it. I already tried this appetizer recipe with my first home made puff pastry and brought it to the Irish dinner party. Every one who tasted it loved it very much. I thank Karen for this recipe.
After the instruction of this delicious appetizer, we learned about energy efficient and high BTU stove with the grill on the top. The next lesson was how to cook the entrée, baked chicken with tomatoes, olives and Mushrooms, Herbed couscous, and Grilled Zucchini with Feta and Mint. While we wait the dishes were ready to be served, we learned about the rest of the kitchen appliances, lighting, and environment friendly building materials. Karen grilled zucchini on the stove top grill and fry and baked the chicken using the stove and the oven installed at Gaspar’s.
Finally it was the dessert time! The dessert was old fashioned-shortbread. Karen showed how quickly the tasty short bread was prepared. We had hot freshly baked short bread. It was very tender and buttery bread. We could not resist several servings. I will try this recipe soon.
Karen was very knowledgeable and a good teacher. I liked her style of teaching and cooking.
I appreciate Gaspar’s and Yami who provided me a great time and opportunity to experience full course dinner with valuable cooking instructions from professional chef.

Japanese Breakfast Menu

<----Photo left doesn't include some dishes mentioned in the blog. This is my favorite simple Japanese Vegetarian breakfast.
I love Japanese breakfast. I was thrilled to be asked to create a Japanese breakfast menu. Japanese breakfast includes a lot of vegetables, fish, eggs, meats (bacon or ham), rice and Miso soup. I thought there should be choice of fish, meats, or vegetarian. The vegetable dishes on side can be the same in three menu items if they don’t contain any meat. I selected four vegetable dishes, the cooked spinach marinated with sweet sesame sauce, Nimono which is vegetables cooked in Japanese stock, fresh salad, and Tsukemono which is Japanese pickled vegetables. I included fresh fruit. The plate will be crowded with small portion of these things, choice of main dish, rice and Miso soup. Also I added Children plate as another menu item. Most children may not like Miso soup but rice balls and Bacon. I included these items and changed some of vegetables for Children’s plate.
My complete menu may not be used at the restaurant which asked me about Japanese breakfast menu. However, I enjoyed thinking and write down about what Seattleite will like in their Japanese breakfast and what I can introduce someone who have never been to Japan and try out something new. Japanese breakfast items above is very close what you find at Hotels in Japan and hopefully Seattleites try out these food and start eating Japanese breakfast. My another blog about Breakfast is found:
http://fumikob-foodtalk.blogspot.com/2008/03/is-breakfast-most-important-meal-of-day.html