Cooking and Having fun

I was in my course other day (who doesn’t know, it is a Digital Content Strategy extension course that I am doing here in Toronto), and we were arguing and creating a campaign for a traditional Canadian food, it calls Campbell`s. This is a kind of fast meal, soups in a can, as far as I know this kind of food it is nothing healthy, normally they have a lot of sodium and preservatives. We were trying to find the perfect persona who it will fit well for this brand (target).  Most of the students said: the perfect persona is a business and busy mom. What???? I didn’t agree with this choice.  I believe, the perfect persona is a single man or a student. In my view who will eat this food, it is someone either doesn’t know how to cook and it is a lonely person. But in their view the persona it is mom who wants spend more time with her kids than cooking. For her cook it is a waste of time.

FORGIVE ME MY SCHOOL FRIENDS, BUT THIS IS NOT RIGHT!!!

First of all, cooking is not a waste of time. I understand that some people they don’t like to cook, or they don’t know. But a mom needs to know or needs understand what is the best food to feed her kids. The best time for a person to educate and understand which is better to eat is in the childhood. If a mom doesn’t teach her kids well, probably they will have problems in the future with food.

  

                                                                                

These sites below it will give more information about healthy children, and why it is so important to pay attention on it:

Healthy Children Org

Healthy and Parenting

What I am trying to say to you guys and I tried to say to my school friends is; cook can be fun and in the same time you can share this moment with your family and friends. Cooking together it is much more fun than cook alone, you can share the recipes, and also you will understand what you are eating. The nutrients, how much cost to prepare that recipe that you really like. Actually one of my favorite hobbies is cooking with my friends. Sometime I prefer having a dinner at home that go out to eat. It is cheaper, no lines, no stress if the food is not exactly what you thought. One day I will be a mom, and I will try to feed them with a real nourishment. It is far from my life plan to give them fast food, or ready food in a can. 

 COOKING WITH FRIENDS IT IS MUCH BETTER...

            

 

                  

I wanted to share with you guys this story, because I want to say: go try to cook something and have a real meal with your family, or date with friends and try to cook together. Never prefer to buy ready food or go out to buy Mc Donald’s. The only people in the world that can do that are: single men, students or a lonely person, and in this case they deserve that!!!!;)))

Healthy Turkey Burger

Today I made some Turkey Burgers, you can watch the video and see how easy, simple and fast it is.


I was feeling like eating hamburger so bad this week. My weak side always been cheeseburger with french fries. But I never was a person that I liked Mc Donalds. I always preferred to eat a homemade one. Taste is much better, it is healthier, and you don't feel that you are eating garbage.



I am not the person that like beef a lot, but I am not vegan either. Sometime I like to eat beef, but just some kinds of beef. And if I can, I always will prefer to change the beef for fish, chicken or turkey. My digest is much better with this types of meat.



If you are like me, want to change some ingredients to help you to digest or feel better and with more energy ( digest beef use a lot of your energy, and than you will feel tired and sometimes depress), you need to try to make this recipe.



As you can see on the video, I like to eat my burger with salad and my homemade "french fries", I will feel satisfied with the desire to eat junk food and in the same time I eat healthy.



My "french fries" is so easy to make as well. I make in the oven with rosemary and love a lot. Actually I prefer more than the way that I make than the french fries. I will teach you guys the next time how to make it, and how to make some chips in the oven as well.



I hope that you enjoyed again and had some fun!!!!



Bye bye and Beijos

MY FIRST RECIPE, MY FIRST VIDEO!!!

Guys I can’t believe that I did it! But did it, my first
recipe video. I know that’s not perfect yet, and it is far from that. But I am
happy that I have you guys with me. And I know I will have your help to grow
and make something much better together!!!!

If you are curious to watch it, go on my channel
on youtube right now! Or if you already did that and you are coming here to get
all the recipe or details, I am really happy for that!!!!

HOMEMADE PEANUT BATTER

What You Need

Ingredients

2 cups (16 ounces) raw, shelled peanuts (See Recipe Notes)

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste

1-2 tablespoons peanut oil, coconut oil, olive oil or canola oil.

1-2 tablespoons honey or other sweetener (optional, for sweeter peanut butter)

Optional Add-Ins: 1-2 tablespoons cocoa powder, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon or other
spice, handful of chocolate chips, a few spoonfuls of nutella

Equipment

Baking sheet

Food processor or blender

Spatula

Container with lid

Instructions

1.    
Roast the peanuts
(optional): Heat the oven to 350°F and toast the
peanuts on a baking sheet until lightly golden and glossy with oil, about 10
minutes. You can skip this step if you prefer raw nut butter or if you're using
pre-toasted nuts; roasting gives the peanut butter a deeper flavor and also
helps make the oils looser and easier to blend into a smooth butter.

2.   
Pulse the peanuts
until ground: Transfer the peanuts to a food
processor or blender. If you toasted your nuts, do this while the nuts are
still warm. Pulse a few times just until chopped. → For chunky peanut butter, remove 1/2 cup
of chopped nuts and set aside.

3.   
Process for 1
minute: Run the food processor or blender
continuously for 1 minute. Stop and scrape down the sides and bottom of the
bowl. At this point, the peanut butter will look gritty and dry, almost like
couscous.

4.   
Process for 1
minute: Run the food processor or blender
continuously for another minute, then stop and scrape down the sides. At this
point, the butter will start clumping together. It's not quite peanut
butter, but it's getting there!

5.   
Process for 1
minute: Run the food processor or blender
continuously for another minute, then stop and scrape down the sides. At this
point, the butter will be glossy and soft, like very thick peanut butter.

6.   
Add the salt, oil,
sweetener, and any other extras: Sprinkle
the salt, oil, sweetener, and any other extras over the top of the peanut
butter.

7.   
Process for 1 to 2
additional minutes: Continue processing
the butter until it becomes completely smooth. Homemade peanut butter will
still be a little more gritty than Skippy peanut butter, but should be
spreadable at this point. Taste and add more salt or other add-ins to taste. If
you reserved some nuts for chunky peanut butter add them now and pulse a few
times to incorporate.

8.   
Transfer the peanut
butter to storage container: Scrape
the peanut butter into a storage container, cover, and refrigerate. The peanut
butter can be used immediately and will keep for several weeks in the fridge.

Recipe Notes

·      
Using Toasted Nuts: You can also use nuts that come pre-roasted from
the store. I still like to give even pre-toasted nuts a quick trip through the
oven to warm them up and help the oils loosen up.

·      
Other Kinds of
Nuts: You can absolutely substitute any nut
you like in this recipe. The method is exactly the same for making almond
butter, pistachio butter, or any other kind of nut butter

·      
Making More or Less
Peanut Butter: You can use this technique with any
amount of nuts. I find that I typically end up with about a half-cup less
peanut butter than the amount of nuts I originally started with (for instance,
2 cups of peanuts makes about 1 1/2 cups of peanut butter).

That’s it! Get a pan and note it.

I am so glad, that I am sharing this with you!!!!



See u next time!



Bye bye and Beijosssss

My Adaptation in the Canadian Culture and Their Specialties

I came to Canada for the first time about 3 years ago, and I could delight in almost all the Canadian’s dishes. I need to confess, I didn’t know at that time too much about the traditional dishes. I always thought that Canadian food was pretty similar to American, and it is. A lot of junk food, frozen food, and the fresh foods are expensive. But I discovered that here in Canada, they have a strong influence from Europe and others countries all of the world. Because of the immigration, you can find everything that you want, especially here in Toronto, you can find food from everywhere: Italy, Ethiopia, Thailand, Vietnam, Portugal, Mexico and Brazil. I love that! It’s like when you go to The Epcot Center at Disneyworld, and you can choose which country you want to visit, here it is a little bit of that. Don’t you think is amazing? 

LITTLE ITALY

 LITTLE PORTUGAL

 CHINATOWN

TRADITIONAL ETHIOPIAN RESTAURANT

But coming back to my Canadian experience, it was disastrous! First I don’t like bacon, actually I don’t like pork food. Poutine, Canadians love poutine, but for me it is not fun, not at all. It is soggy french fries, gravy and cheese on top. I believe that the real poutine recipe is not so bad, it could be good. But the way they are selling it here, it’s just bad fat and no taste. If anyone could give me a tip where to eat a real good one, I would love to know and try it.

Poutine was born in rural Quebec in the 1950's. The most widespread is that poutine originates from a restaurant formerly called Le Lutin qui rit in Warwiick, In 1957 a client named Eddy Lainess would have asked to owner Fernando Lachance to mix the cheese curds with fries. 

POUTINE PIZZA???

Today I am living in Toronto, and I had to learn how to enjoy the Canadian Cuisine. So, I started to eat pork, some I liked! I read in an article that pork is not too bad for your health. Actually pork is one of the best meats that you can have these days. Poutine I had to have, to adapt it to something that I really can like, and that’s worth it. I will do a tutorial soon on my videos, how to make a good one.  With real gravy, crispy french fries and for cheese I will use a real one, not a fake cheese or processed cheese. And bacon, I need to tell you guys, I’m still trying, just the smell makes my stomach wrap. For my diet, to have for breakfast bacon and eggs; hash brown potatoes and coffee with cream, it is little bit heavy. I still prefer my tropical breakfast: fresh orange juice or coffee with skim milk; french bread with butter and scrambled eggs.

                 

                                    

                                                              CANADIAN BREAKFAST 
                                                                                  X 
                                                               BRAZILIAN BREAKFAST

                                 





I am very happy to be here and be able to enjoy all this culinary difference. What I said in one of my posts before, is that I love learn. Every week I can try and learn something different, and see if I like it or not. But the best thing for me is how to improve the dishes. You can change the recipes a little bit, add some ingredients, or change the way to prepare it, it is just up to you. It’s just about TRYING IT!

How to choose and buy your food

Let’s start with the most important thing about healthy nourishment, I will give you some good tips:

1^st:: How to choose the ingredients, fruits, meat and vegetables. First of all always prefer local food. If you can support and afford local companies or locals producers it will be really good for you. Because you know where the food comes from, and also you can stimulate the economy of your city. Another thing is never buy food from China or Vietnam, especially fish. Those countries are very polluted, and all the fish farms are dirty and the way they feed the fish it is disgusting. If you can buy wild fish or have your own aquaculture (aquaponics) it is much better. They are trying to change and improve the farms, but I still not believe that is 100% truth.

 If you guys want know more about it, I posted some articles and documentaries about this:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/14/china-agriculture-pollution-idUSL4N0XA3CO20150414#ZzLTsrUfYLAwRy9f.97

http://www.snopes.com/food/warnings/tilapia.asp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdoVgveiZO0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3lBrqnq-Sg

2^nd:  Never try to buy cheap or be economic when we buy food. The best investment in the world is you, your health. It is better to spend your money in good and fresh food, than in a car, TV, clothes, cosmetics, whatever, when you eat well, you feel better, you will be healthier. If you spend more money in good and fresh food, in the future you will spend less in health treatments and hospitals. I believe when you combine good vitamins and proteins in your meals you can prevents many diseases. A great documentary that explains very well the healing of diseases made by feeding is FOOD DOES MATTER, find on Netflix.

3^rd:  Before you buy any products, always check it out the NUTRICION FACTS, there you can see what it is really important for you. Some have more calories but more nutrition; and also you can see how many sodium, trans fat, Lipides, that product has.

This is a Nutrition Facts from a Light Rye Bread. I've been eating this bread since I arrived in Toronto, I never ate it before in Brazil, actually I don't know if we have there, But I liked a lot.

Another thing: I really like to check, in the list of the ingredients. The ingredients list is an amount of scale which the product possesses:

Be careful which comes first, this will be the largest amount of ingredient in food, and so will come forth.

4^th: Try to grow your own food, you can save money, you can enjoy and you can eat well. Even if you live an apartment, you can make a small garden or if you live in house you can make something more creative and maybe you can have a chicken cop (my dream). Today you can learn many ways how to create your own garden by greenhouse, hydroponics, and aquaponics. The way that you choose only it is up to you, but the most important thing is: BE HEALTHY!

                 

 A 14 years old boy growing your own aquaponics!

How to create you own garden in your apto!