French night :) NatsuRina Kitchen – Vol.1 ♡

I’ve celebrated our 1st wedding anniversary today 🙂

I can’t believe that it’s already been a year passed since our wedding day!! We had really a good meal in the city, and I hope to spend this wedding anniversary filled with love, happiness, laughter and joy for ever with you 😀 ♡

Thank you for being such a wonderful husband to me 🙂

 

A few days ago, I and my good friend cooked together for our husbands. Our theme was to cook something we didn’t cook very often and to make our husbands surprised and impressed 🙂 ♡ We secretly planned our meals, and cooked everything on the day !!!

We cooked al lot!!! This is my friend, steaming the shrimp mousse 🙂 I had so much fun to cook with my friend, but we were a little bit stressed to set up everything by the time our husbands got back home … 😦

 

After cooking everything except for the main beef, we prepared the table 🙂 We also prepared paper fans for guys since it was extremely hot that day!!

 

The place card. Inside the card, I put short “thank you” messages to my partner 🙂

 

This was the menu for the day!!

 

Here we go!! “Mousse of green vegetables and shrimps”. Everyone got amazed how good it tasted!! 🙂
Can you notice that we poured a little bit of love on the plate? Actually the guys didn’t notice… maybe look closely on the plate around the left-top corner? 🙂

 

Bagna cauda dip with assorted vegetables and shrimps. The anchovy did really a good job!!! Yummy 🙂

 

Asparagus soup. There were lots of asparagus, onions and celery in it. Healthy and tasty!!

All those appetizers went really well with a bottle of white wine 🙂

 

Then, for the main dish, we prepared beef steak!! Of course, we had a red wine with the meal 🙂

 

Then, we had a dessert plate 🙂

We prepared mille-feuille!! We placed a little bit of carrot jelly, ice-cream and peach aside. We had a cup of coffee and tea 🙂

 

The night was brilliant!! We, the chefs, enjoyed cooking and tasting all the dishes and the boys looked enjoyed our meals with nice bottles of wines 🙂

We did French dinner, so maybe we’d try some other nationalities’ dinner and make our husbands surprised again 😀 ♡

Smells yummy! And some monsters came…!!

I did a baking party with two young moms 🙂 I showed how to knead the dough and they did pretty well while also taking care of their babies. Hmm, moms always have multiple tasks to do… they are great!!!

 

TA-DA!!!! We successfully baked melon breads with chocolate chips as well as cookies with macadamia nuts!! 🙂 We all did a good job!! While baking them, they were smelling so good and the entire house smelled like a bakery shop. Yummy!!

 

The nice smell attracted not only us but also some creatures…!!! Can you guess??  It was the creature who loved cookies a lot… Oh well, it was a baby cookie monster 😀

 

“Me want cookie!” “Me eat cookie!” “Give me more cookies!”

 

“Why? Why are you eating cookies alone? Can I join you?” His best friend , Elmo, has joined him now.

 

Cookie monster was very kind so that he shared his cookies. Nom nom nom…

 

“Oh, this cookie is so yummy!!” Elmo looks so happy 🙂 Is Cookie monster a little bit jealous now?

 

Both of the cute little monsters enjoy cookies. “Hmmm… yummy!! There are nothing better than cookies!!”

 

A while after, Elmo was stuffed. She wasn’t interested in cookies anymore. You know Elmo is always curious about everything!! Yes! Curiosity is good 🙂

 

So the blue monster was left alone…

 

“Give me high five!!”

 

The little Elmo girl loves doing “high five”.

 

“Yeah!!!” Seems like this is the best thing to do right after eating cookies… 🙂

 

“Can I switch to be Elmo now?? That looks fun!!”

 

“Sure, you can use mine!! Here you are.” Oh, she is also very kind!! 🙂

 

“Hmmm…I think I should be Cookie monster! I shouldn’t be Elmo! I want to take off this cap!” He tries to take off the cap.

 

“Oops!!” He couldn’t take it off…

 

“Did you see that? Oh I’m shy!” His smile is so cute 😀

 

The two little monsters played happily together 🙂

 

I had so much fun 🙂 I had great breads and cookies, and I finally met two cute monsters 😀

 

Maybe those who want to see those cute monsters are now thinking about baking something yummy?? Enjoy your foods and smile a lot ♡

A turtle bread brings big smile :)

Recently, I’ve got to know a nice lady with a cute little boy at a cafe. I was working on my crochet project there, and the boy sitting behind me started talking to me, showing his brand-new toy. His face was filled with an extraordinary cute smile!! Soon after that, I and the mom started talking to each other and we became friends. What a nice day it was!! I think it’s much better to go out than staying at home even when you have to work on something 🙂

She told me that he loved melon breads. This was the reason why they were there on that day. The cafe had nice melon breads. I’ve never baked melon breads but after hearing her stories how much he loved them, I felt like making one for him!! This is how my journey with melon breads began… lol

 

The first time, they came out okay but they were just like “cookies on breads”. They didn’t have deepness in the taste. I also didn’t do so well with baking part.

 

The second time, I asked my aunt’s help. She loves cooking and baking and she pretty knows a lot about those things. She gave me her recipe via Email, so I tried to follow them… but out of curiosity, I couldn’t resist to add a real melon juice to add a flavor in them, and I believe this destroyed the balance… it looked better than the first time but the bread was harder and not perfect either.

 

The third time, I modified my aunt’s recipe just a little. I felt that they were working quite well this time, so that I decided to make an original one for the boy!! A turtle bread 🙂 They turned out perfect for me!! I also added chocolate chips for some of them and they were really good!!

 

I gave it to his mother and she told me that he loved it!! He played a lot with the turtle bread before eating it, and also enjoyed eating it.

What a cute smile he has!!! I’m now quite satisfied with my journey of melon breads!!  His big happy face rewards my effort 😀

Handmade items and cooking/baking are not so easy and time consuming but always fun because they allow us to be creative!!

Elmo Strawberry manufacturing :)

Let’s decorate your cake with some fancy strawberries!! I’m sure everybody will love them!!

Prepare all the ingredients and tools, and let’s get started 🙂

 

◇ Ingredients ◇

• Strawberries
• White chocolates chips (for eyes)
• Orange button shaped chocolates (for noses)
• Dark colored chocolates (for the eyes and mouthes)
• Whipped cream

 

◇ Tools ◇

• Knife
• Baking sheet
• 2 bowls

 

◇ Recipe ◇

Step 1. Wash strawberries very well. Then, take off the stem and cut the bottom part of the strawberries slightly diagonally (so that strawberries can stand by themselves and they can show their faces).

**In the picture below, you will notice strawberries slightly tilting toward their back.

Step 2. Put 2 white chocolate chips and 1 orange chocolate nicely on the strawberries, using whipped cream as a glue.

Step 3. Melt dark color chocolates. Put dark color chocolates in a bowl, and you will put a warm water into another bowl below that bowl. (Make sure not to let the water come into the chocolates bowl!!)

Step 4. Roll one sheet of baking sheet nicely into circle so that you can use it as a chocolate pen. It will be better if you roll the edge sharp with just a tiny hole for the chocolate to come out. Pour melted chocolates (made at step 3) into the pen-shaped baking sheet.

Step 5. Draw black eyes with the chocolate pen made at step 4 in the white chocolates. You may also draw their mouthes.

Step 6. You will put whipped cream on your favorite cakes, and put your sweet Elmo strawberries!! Done ♡

Aren’t they too cute to eat?? It’s a little bit of effort, but your cup cake will look a lot more prettier than just normal strawberries on, isn’t it??
Happy tea time with extra smiles 😀 ♡♡♡

A taste of heaven…♡

I’ve been in love with cakes as almost all of the other girls are. My favorites are especially cheese cakes, chocolate cakes and fruits tarts. Since I had my husband’s birthday party recently, I made a cake for his birthday.

These days, it’s getting hot, so I thought something not too sweet would be good. Also, I wanted to make something looked nice. Then, I made this: A rare cheese cake. I didn’t bake the cheese part, and I just harden it with gelatin. So, it’s actually very simple but a bit time consuming. On the top, I put jelly made of white wine, sugar and lemon juice. Overall, this cake tastes super great!! It’s like a taste of heaven!! A sweetness and sourness get along really well here 😀

I brought those little cakes to one of my friends’ house to share and we had the bigger whole cake at home. With a nice cup of tea…♡ Hmmm, I believe in heaven… 😉

My husband even said it was the best cake I’d ever made…!! Also, it’s even better than some cakes served at cafes!! He might have been just being nice to me, but I am still happy with what he said. I was happy that I could do something to make him happy on his birthday 🙂