Japanese Grand Prix

On time this time!

Tiramisu

Italian Grand Prix

Better late than never!

Better late than never!

Here's my apple strudel that I made for Germany last week.

Bangers and Mash

My house smells awesome!

I just pulled out of the oven an egg custard tart for dessert later in honor of the British Grand Prix. I'm also going to make Bangers and Mash for dinner. Yum!

European Grand Prix

I absolutely loved cooking for the European Grand Prix!  Since the race took place in Valencia, Spain, I decided to make a couple of Spanish tapas.  I went with a Spanish Garlic Shrimp and Stuffed Mushrooms.  I also made Arroz con Leche for dessert (rice pudding).  The shrimp was awesome and a bit spicy.  We soaked up the yummy sauce with crusty french bread.  The stuffed mushrooms were decent, but I think they lacked garlic.  The arroz con leche tasted so much like the one my grandmother used to make.  It's different from the kind you usually get here in the states, it's more thick, but delicious too.  This was one of my favorite meals so far.  A real treat!

Arroz con leche

Spanish tapas

With Molson, of course!

Voila!

Getting ready to cook for Canada

Tomorrow is the Canadian Grand Prix and I will be making a French inspired meal since the race takes place in Montreal.  When I was researching the food, poutine recipes kept popping up.  Poutine is essentially gravy fries with cheese curd.  I just couldn't bring myself to make that as our meal.  So, I decided to go the French route.  I am going to make Mushroom Croque-Monsieur, Mixed Greens with Mustard Dressing, and Poached Pears.  Can't wait to taste that super cheesy sandwich.  Cooking begins now!

Spain

For the Spanish Grand Prix I decided to go classic Spanish.  I made a seafood paella with some chicken in it.  I bought clams and shrimp to put in the paella.  I was so fussy over the clams.  I had to keep them alive and fresh in order to cook them.  I never worked with clams before.  Most of them opened up when I cooked them.  They were so yummy and fresh.  For dessert I made natilla, which I didn't realize was a Spanish dessert.  I grew up eating natilla that my grandmother cooked, so I just figured it was a Cuban dessert.  The natilla was awesome!  Next stop Monaco!

Paella!

Baklava

I really enjoyed making baklava.  It was a bit time consuming to put together all of the layers and filo dough is a pain to work with, but the final product looked good and tasted good.  I found out that baklava is of Turkish origin, so I finally had an excuse to make it for us at home.  It was a real treat!

Baklava in honor of Turkish Grand Prix

3 dishes down

Well, I've made it through 3 F1 races so far.  I really enjoyed cooking the Australian meal, but I didn't really care for the last two races.  The lo mein recipe I cooked this weekend was very easy to cook, but it was extremely salty!  Later that night, I started to get hives.  I swear it was the noodles that caused it.  My husband will eat the leftovers.  I'm looking forward to the next race  in Turkey.  I think I'm going to make baklava.  Now that's a dish I can get excited about!

Chinese vegetable lo mein

Malaysian Spring rolls stuffed with crabs

Cooking the pepper, onions, and water chestnuts

Authentic or not?

Well, I'm in a dilemma.  I found a Malaysian Spring Roll recipe that looks okay, but...I found a different spring roll recipe that looks yummier to me...but it's not labeled "Malaysian."  Not sure which one I will cook.  I figure so long it's a spring roll, it works!  Right?  We'll see.  Malaysia is hard.  I already have an idea of what I will cook next week for the Chinese Grand Prix.  That was easier to find. 

Looking for Malaysian Recipes

Well, it's time to start thinking about the next race.  I did a search for Malaysian cuisine and saw a lot of very unappetizing food.  Not much looked very good for myself and my family.  So, the only thing I found that looks like we can probably eat is Fried Spring Rolls Malaysian style.  I'm going to have to see if my super market has the wrappers, if not, I'll have to take a ride to the Asian food market.

One Down, 18 More to Go!

Our Australian meal was a success.  The food was fairly easy to prepare.  Not too many ingredients and very yummy.  I made the Pavlova first since it had to cook in the oven for 1 1/2 hours.  My new standing mixer made it very easy to beat the egg whites.  It was amazingly fast.  My son was very fascinated by the mixer going by itself. (He's almost 4).  After the merangue cooled, we made the fresh whipped cream to put on top and cut fresh strawberries for the top of the cake.  My son also helped to put the strawberries on top.  He was very proud of himself. 
Then around 4 o'clock I started to make the meat pie.  Again, just a few ingredients.  I had to brown the meat with onions and just a couple of seasonings.  It cooked for about 15 minutes in a broth, then I thickened the broth with flour.  I rolled out puff pastry for the crust and had some extra left over.  I decided to decorate the top of the pie with the extra dough.  I wasn't sure what I wanted to put on top. My husband and I went online to look up an Australian logo.  After checking things out, I decided to just try to outline the map of Australia.  It kind of worked, but it shrunk when I cooked it.
The meal was very delicious.  I served the pie with a simple iceberg lettuce salad and Fosters for my husband and Layer Cake shiraz wine for Southern Australia for myself. The meat pie was very mild tasting.  My son needed a little coaxing to eat the meat, but he did.  Dessert was the star.  We each ate 2 servings and will share the rest with my in-laws tonight.  It had a very light and airy texture/flavor. 
It was a fun experience.  I never would have cooked this if it wasn't for my little project here.  Next on the cuisine is Malaysia!  Who the heck knows what I'll cook for that!

Our Australian Meal

Meat pie done!

Pavlova is done!

Melbourne mobile post

Testing to see if I can post from my phone...

Decision Made

After looking on line and trying to find "traditional" Australian food, I have finally made a decision for what to cook this weekend- Australian Meat Pie and Pavlova for dessert.  I found a fairly simple recipe for meat pie on All Recipes.com that calls for it to be filled with beef - no kangaroo here.  I feel like the website was pulling my leg with comments about not being able to find kangaroo for the filling.  I also found a recipe for Pavlova which is a meringue cake with whipped cream and fruit.  It gives me a great excuse to try out my new kitchen toy - my new empire red Kitchen Aid standing mixer!  (photos to follow)

Looking for Recipes

So I really don't know anything about Australian cuisine. Naturally I go to google.  I'm looking in allrecipes.com and witchetty grubs comes up as a recipe.  It describes them as "a huge white moth grub" that can be quite tasty.  I'm not that adventuresome.  So I keep looking.  I'm finding mostly desserts - anzac biscuits, pavlova.  My search will continue later for a main course.  Worse comes to worse, we eat desserts!

Introduction

Inspired by the movie Julie and Julia, where the girl cooks her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, I decided that I would cook my way through the 2011 F1 Season.  It seems simple enough.  My husband loves F1 and I love to cook.  Cooking is kind of like a hobby to me, so I thought it might be cool to cook different foods from around the world.   I will be cooking a dish from each of the host nations of the 2011 F1 Season.  Some countries will be easy to create a dish (Italy), but some will be challenging (Abu Dhabi).  So the first meal was supposed to have been from Bahrain... well if you follow F1, you know that was canceled.  Which brings us to Australia first on March 27th!  I don't know what I'm cooking yet, but once I know...I will let you know!