Red and Easy Spaghetti

Holaaaaaa, I’m back with a recipe for the easiest red spaghetti 🙂

Today I would like to share with you guys this recipe that I remember my mom making for me all the time,for lunch mostly, but I would have it as dinner as well watching t.v. at night, and for me when I was little this was the best spaghetti ever!!! (Even now that I’m older I still love to sneak at night to watch t.v. with a big bowl of this haha).

Now my 3-year-old nephew loves it just as I did, and always asks my mom or his mommy to make him more 🙂

So of course I had to share this recipe with you guys! Hopefully you’ll enjoy it as much as I do.

Ingredients:

1 pkg dry spaghetti uncooked

Tomato puree (I used 3 little packages of 210 grams each)

1 Garlic clove

Pepper

Butter

1 teaspoon of Oregano

1 teaspoon of chicken soup powder

Preparation:

First cook spaghetti as directed on the package.

Beat tomato sauce, butter, garlic, pepper, chicken soup powder and oregano, in a medium saucepan with whisk until well blended while spaghetti is cooking.

Cook over medium heat 5-7 minutes, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to low; simmer 3-5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Drain the spaghetti, place in a serving platter and add the tomato sauce all over and your done!!!

Yummy!!!! 😀

Source: My Mom.

Dealing with Panic Attacks & Anxiety.

Hello everyone!

Today I’m not sharing any recipes but instead a very personal stuff that I’ve wanting to share with you since January but been a little bit afraid. It’s kind of scary to just put myself out there and tell you what I’ve been through and opening up, but I feel it will turn the negative into positive stuff, I just want to let it out of my system and maybe help you guys understand if you have anyone going through this issues or even if your going through this.

So let’s talk about this… I think I’ve always been a really nervous person, I remember the first days of school I would not have breakfast and would feel like throwing up, the way I’d express my anxiety or my nervousness if that’s a word haha, would be that way, not wanting to eat or feeling like throwing up.

When I was in kindergarten I’d throw up literally the first weeks of school, I just couldn’t control myself, and when I turned 6-7 years old when I began to go to elementary school I controlled wanting to throw up which mas an awesome thing, I would just felt like not having breakfast and it would last me only 2 or 3 days.

A while ago when I was 15 I graduated from the school I was for almost 10 years and transferred to another school for “High school” (we have a different education system here in Mexico) and let’s just say I wasn’t well received in that school, in other words they would bully me.

It was a hard period in my life and the throwing up began to appear again, not wanting to eat, and just feeling really insecure and helpless, 2 or 3 months later I came home crying to my parents and told them what was going on, that I felt horrible going to school and that my classmates bullied me, my parents took me out of that school and I lost a year but that’s a different story.. Since then I started having panic attacks every now and then in places too crowded, in church, at the supermarkets, even at my friends party’s.

Let’s clear things up a little bit and define what a panic attack is:

“Generally, a panic attack happens as a result of extremely heightened anxiety. Any of us have the potential of experiencing a panic attack. However, for those who do not suffer from any anxiety disorder, a panic attack is only likely to happen if triggered by an anxiety-provoking event. 

A panic attack can come on very suddenly and have no obvious triggers. Although a panic attack episode may appear at random, they come from our evolutionary response to danger. Having a panic attack is said to be one of the most intensely frightening, upsetting and uncomfortable experiences in a person’s life. The American Psychological Association says the symptoms of a panic attack generally last for about 30 minutes, although the attack itself may only be 15 seconds long. Some panic attack can last for much longer, even hours. 

Panic attacks are associated with agoraphobia – fear of open spaces, as well as the fear of being unable to escape from a dangerous situation. People who have experienced a panic attack often say afterwards that they felt trapped.”

It’s such a horrible/uncomfortable situation to be in, I just hated the fact that I would fear going outside my house because I didn’t want to have a panic attack, feeling like nobody understood me and my friends would come to visit me only at my house because of this, in a way it was kind of positive, cause I realised who were my true friends you know the ones that were by my side even when I didn’t feel the best, even if they didn’t understand what I was going through they would be there for me always.

Thankfully now im back on track with school and my classmates are awesome people, this year im graduating and going to college so that’s exciting, but it’s been a long journey trying to not have panic attacks, this january I went to see a psychiatrist who gave me some pills for my “wanting to throw up” issues and explain me what was going on, He told me I trained my stomach to feel sick when nervous and I would always swallow things because I didn’t want people to notice what was happening with me, and that explained a lot of things for me, he recommended me to do some relaxing exercises and listen to relaxing music as well, I adopted the reading hobbie as one of my relaxing methods and I’ve felt that’s worked for me really well, now I go outside with my friends: to the movie theater, to their houses, to the park, I just go out more and I love it, being able to not have panic attacks and really enjoy what I’m doing makes me feel so good words can’t explain it.

So I felt I wanted to share these things that have been happening with me, and maybe that’s why I’ve left the blog for a while without posting anything.

Now I feel like I want to start blogging again and make this as often as I can, I loved sharing recipes, but I have found that I love to talk about things as well that’s why I’ll start writing stuff that happens to me, for a way to let it out and express myself, isn’t that what blogging is for? expressing ourselves without being judged.

Expect to see me here more often and as always thank you for reading my blog, it truly makes me happy 🙂

I want to leave some helpful links below so you guys can inform yourself better with anxiety and panic attacks!

I’ll write you guys soon 🙂

– Maggie.

Sources: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/8872.php

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/panic-attacks/basics/definition/con-20020825

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/info/anxiety/

Machaca Burritos

Hello guys!
I can’t believe it’s already October.. talk about how time flies.
I turned 19 this past september. Which it’s kind of surreal, when someone asks me how old I am I always rethink my answer
I always want to say that i’m 17 I think i’m stuck in that age, but oh well haha.
Today I want to introduce to you this amazing “Burritos de Machaca” dish, okay, so I know you might be wondering:
¿What’s machaca?
Machaca is a dish prepared originally most commonly from dried, spiced beef or pork, then rehydrated and pounded to make it tender. The reconstituted meat would then be used to prepare any number of dishes.”

I remember when I was little and we used to go on roadtrips my Mom would prepare this Burritos which had machaca and potatoes and they were so good. Until this day I still love them and find them comforting.
Where I live they sell this meat everywhere but I know that in some parts of Mexico you can’t find it, I have some family that don’t live here and when they come they always take some with them. It’s one of those dishes you grow up with.
I didn’t know if I should blog about this cause I know some of you may not find this exact meat but If you can’t find anything like this where you live you can use regular meat. Burritos are amazing and easy to make, I just love them 🙂
So here is the recipe:
Ingredients:
Flour tortillas
1/4 kilo machaca (meat)
2 large potatoes (cutted in cubes)
1/4 of an Onion
1 Tomato
1 Serrano chile (this depends how spicy you’d like it)
250 grams of tomatoe puree (or a little bit more)
Pepper

Preparation:
Cut the potatoes in little cubes and fry them with a little bit of pepper, add the onion,tomato, serrano chile and half of the tomato puree, then add the machaca and add the other half of the tomato puree so it’s juicy.

Grab a tortilla and add a little bit of the mixture and fold them like this:

Then in a “Comal” place the burritos and let the tortilla toast a little bit on each side and then serve 🙂

Note: As you can see we didn’t use any additional salt cause this type of meat it’s salty enough.

This is how the Machaca meat looks:

I know it looks so weird but I can assure you it is delicious! 🙂

I also wanted to let you guys know i’m on twitter: http://www.twitter.com/maggiecooks so if you guys haven’t followed me you I’d love if you did I really enjoy interacting with you 🙂
I hope you guys have a wonderful week!

– Maggie.

No-bake cheesecake

Hello everyone! I haven’t posted for months! I have lots of stuff to talk about with you, but first of all this blog turns two years old today, I can’t believe it’s been two years that I started this blog, my life has changed so much since then, I was homeschooling two years ago and now im going to a regular school which is awesome cause I have new friends and great teachers I love my school, and next year im going to college yay!!!
This past year I turned 18 years old, and here in mexico that means your called an “adult” so I got a job and well I don’t have as many free time as I used to, that’s why I have left this blog very lonely with my job and school its has been getting pretty complicated, but the nice thing is that im going on summer vacations next month so I hope I can do more posting on here 🙂

I wanted to come back with a super easy but delicious recipe that I’ve been making for a long time ago, I think it was one of the first things my mom would let me do by myself soooooo here it is No bake cheesecake!

Ingredients:
1 pie crust ( you can make this by mixing some Maria cookies with melted butter )
1 cream cheese (190 grams)
1 condensed milk
3 lemon juice
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
Optional: An envelope of gelatin (only if you want the cheesecake a little stiffer.

Preparation:

I bought the pie crust (I know I cheated) but I really wanted to make a very easy dessert 😛

To make the filling: Grab a blender and blend the cream cheese, the lemon juice, the vanilla, and the condensed milk and mix. (If your going to use the gelatin, there are some envelopes with the gelatin powder, mix it with 2 teaspoons of water and then use another 2 teaspoons of really hot water to melt it and throw it in the blender and mix with everything else)

Condensed milk is sooo good don’t feel guilty if you want to lick the can after you pour it all in the blender 😛

Now that is all blended in we’re going to pour the filling mixture into the pie crust.

We’ll even it a little bit so we can put it in the freezer for a couple of hours, I usually make this cheesecake pie at nights so that in the morning they are ready to decorate and of course eat ;).

I decided to decorate it with this:

and that’s about it, we decorate it with some fruit or you can eat it just like that it tastes so good, and I can assure you that everyone is going to want more than one piece of it! 🙂

I hope you guys try this and if you do don’t forget to tell me how it goes! 😀

I also wanted to thank you guys for being my little friends in this journey of blogging, I really enjoy sharing this recipes but I love that people actually email me with questions about the recipes or just comment on my posts, so thank you! 😀

See you guys soon!

Maggie.

Cinco de Mayo Recipes

What are you guys planning to do this Cinco de mayo weekend?

I am planning to make lots of mexican food, even thought I am mexican our food just never gets old, I have posted some great mexican recipes on this blog and thought i’ll post some of them right now so you can make for this awesome holiday 🙂

Entomatadas

Arroz con Leche

Guacamole

Pastel Azteca

Chicken Enchiladas

Nopales

I hope you guys have a great cinco de mayo fiesta! 🙂
I’ll see you guys on Monday with a new recipe.
Maggie.

Entomatadas

Hello everyone long time no post, but I am here now to introduce you to one of my favorite dishes “Entomatadas” you might think what is that? well… entomatadas are a typical dish from here they are made of a folded corn tortilla which has first been fried in oil and then bathed in a tomato sauce, this dish looks like enchiladas, but the taste it’s completely different, its sooooo good! The secret is using this “salsa” that my mom recently discover and adds to it to make it a little spicy that’s what makes it really good. so here’s the recipe 🙂

Ingredients:

610 Grams tomato puree

100 Grams Salsa pato

3 Garlic cloves

2 Tablespoons of flour

1 Teaspoon chicken soup powder

Pepper

Oil

Cheese

Sour Cream

Corn Tortillas

Preparation:

on a saucepan place some oil in a medium-high heat add the garlic cloves until light golden then put away and add the flour until it thickens then add the tomato puree and half of the salsa el pato, pepper, chicken soup powder and if you want the sauce to be more liquid you can add 1/2 cup of water or more.

Now that our sauce is done, grab some cheese and cut them in sticks, then fold them in the corn tortillas and fry them with some oil.

Grab a bowl and place some napkins on the bottom so it will absorb the excess of oil.

and dip them in the tomato sauce add some cheese, and cream 🙂

This is the “salsa” that i’m talking about:

I don’t know if you guys can find it in the US im hoping that maybe they sell it on walmart in the mexican/hispanic aisle.

So now we can enjoy a delicious Entomatada!!! 🙂 Yummy!

Source: My Mom.

Cupcake Pull-Apart Cake

As you may remember I posted a few weeks ago that I went to a class of “Cupcake Pull-Apart Cake” It’s basically just cupcakes with buttercream frosting but the cool thing is to learn how to draw in the cakes.
So I learned and I was so excited I came home with my Hello Kitty Pull-Apart Cake, in the afternoon my cousin came to the house and saw it, she fell in love with the whole concept and told me to make a cake for his son’s first birthday party, I of course said YES! immediately, I sent her some pictures of a few kids characters and she decided that she wanted Mickey Mouse, I bought all the things I needed and I was ready, as the days went by I felt so nervous I mean what if it didn’t come out as planned? It was going to be the first cake I sell, What if they don’t like it? I decided to organize myself so I baked all the cupcakes in the morning, and by the night they were all cooled down and ready for me to decorate them, My mom was looking at me in every move I did, she helped me a lot, but if that wasn’t stressful enough my dad came and he didn’t leave the room until I finished it, It was kind of funny to see my dad that interested about this cake I was making haha, finally at 11:30 P.M I finished the cake.

And it looked like this:

(Sorry for the darkness of the picture I took it with my sister’s phone)

I think it turned out better than I ever thought it would, My Aunt came for it this morning and she was so impressed by it, she took it to my Cousin’s house and she called me to tell me that she loved it!
So I’m really excited about this kind of cakes, I think it’s amazing for kids they get impressed really fast so hopefully all kids love the cake!

What do you guys think? Would you ever make one of this? Maybe I’ll post a tutorial for it, would you guys be interested?

Happy Friday!!!! 😀
-Maggie

Tuna Empanadas

or Empanadas de Atun as we call them!

On friday my mom showed me how to make this empanadas and I was surprised at how easy it was to make them.
Since we are not able to eat “animal meat” on friday’s except for fish because of our religion (we are catholic) we eat lots of fish during this month.
This empanadas are really versatile you can add or take some of the ingredients in the tuna mixture to please your liking, If we make this again this friday I’ll be adding some kernel corn, everyone loved them they were so good! and they went by really fast, so I really hope you like them! 🙂

Ingredients:
For the tuna mixture:
2 cans of tuna
Green onion to taste
1/2 chopped tomato
olives to taste finely chopped
1/2 chopped red pepper

For the Dough:
500 grams of Maseca
1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
1/2 cup of liquid Chile Colorado
Salt
Pepper
Water

Preparation:
On a saucepan cook the vegetables with some oil and add the tuna. Set Aside.

In a bowl add the Maseca, baking powder, salt, pepper, and the liquid chile Colorado, mix with some water until you get a kind of soft but still crumbly texture.

Make little balls and flatte them up with a Tortilla Presser or you can roll them with a rolling-pin (just make sure you do it with parchment paper on both sides of the mixture so it wont stick.)

Place a tablespoon or so of the Tuna mixture and make the empanadas

Fry them with oil and your ready to serve!

I cut the empanadas in half so you can see how it looks inside 🙂

Yummy!!! 😀

Hope you try them and enjoy them as much as we did!

Happy Monday 🙂

Source: My Mom.

New Header and Buttons

Hello everyone!
I’ve just uploaded a new header and some buttons for pinterest and twitter!

Do you guys like it?
I’ve been into designing for a while now, but now that im co-working with my sister’s friend I’m just loving everything about designs and decided it was time to give my blog a new look 🙂

Have you guys made a pinterest account? I thought i’ll never made one and well I now have one hahaha, and im obsessed with it!

If you guys need an invite please dont hesitate to ask! 🙂 and if you already have one follow me, i’ll follow back!

Other than that hope you guys are doing great!
a new recipe will be up soon,

Maggie.

Cupcakes

Hello everyone! I hope you had a great valentine’s day! 🙂

Today I want to share with you what i’ve been up to.
I went to a cupcake class on january to learn how to make cupcakes, fill them, and I learned a new buttercream recipe!

Then I decided to sell cupcakes for valentine’s day, it was a chaos but I made it and I loved it.

Yesterday I went to another cupcake class, but this time we learned how to make “cupcake pull apart cake”, here in Mexico it’s really common for kid’s parties to have this types of cakes to match with the theme of your parties, I decided to make a “Hello Kitty Pull apart cake” haha my little nephew sunk his finger in it. we learned another buttercream frosting recipe, and I can’t wait to share all of this with you guys! 🙂

I’m going to be practicing this new cake and i’ll be making a tutorial really soon.

Would you guys be interested to know how to make this type of cakes?

I think its a fun idea for kid’s to each take their own slice of “cake” and cupcakes are always fun 🙂

I’ve also been loving “pinterest” I wanted to resist the temptation of making one, but I think I might have to surrender! It’s amazing! 🙂

Hope you guys have a great weekend!
Maggie.