Cooking by myself

I cooked Bulgarian Cheese Scrolls, but it didn't turn out well. When I baked, all the stuffing come out from the phyllo pastry. I wonder what was wrong.


I used this phyllo pastry for wrapping cheese stuffing.




Cooking start --> -->

Brush over butter on phyllo

Wrap carefully...

Bake 20 minutes in 375F

Walnuts breadstick

I looked over Catherine's cooking recipes and my notes on the weekends then I finally tried one of it. I just bought Dough Blender, so I wanted to use that one, too. I picked up very simple one. It took only 30 minutes to bake it from scratch.

I did "Walnuts breadstick" from "Italian olive breadstick" recipe.
I was out of olives that time, so I used walnuts instead. That worked well and it tuned out nice breakfast for me. Also, Dough Blender was so easy to use it. I enjoyed cooking!

This simple cooking can be done every day:)

Luxurious meal - Beef Wellington

It is amazing to know a recipe of luxurious dish like Beef Wellington. Catherine selected high quality of ingredients all the time. Tender beef, pork pate & mushroom were wrapped by pastry. That looks gorgeous and taste wonderful. Once you know how to cook, you just need to have all the ingredients and have some party with wine. Everybody would enjoy it:)


To learn how to cook this meal, you can take Catherine's cooking class. You may contact Catherine, Cookatcats@yahoo.com , for more detail.

Russian Beef Stroganov

Today I learned how to cook Russian Beef Stroganov and Bulgarian Cheese Scrolls. It was amazing how quick Catherine can demonstrate for us. She prepared all the ingredients in the kitchen and just cook with her magic hands.

Beef Stroganov: It was discovered one of the chief in Russia long time ago. Russian always serve this meal with potatos. Also Stroganov has tomato paste for flavor. If you see both combination on the plate, it is Russian style.
I used to see Beef Stroganov with pasta in U.S. I guess it was not traditional way to eat.
She recommended to use fillet or rump steak. Try to avoid over cook with this beef. I enjoyed tender meet with nice Russian flavor.

Bulgarian Cheese Scrolls: It is cheese stuffing wrapped by Phyllo pastry. It looks easy to make staffing with feta cheese and egg. Phyllo pastry is so thin, so she was gently wrapping it. After wrapping stuffing, she twisted like left picture. And put on chopped scallions and some spices. This picture is before baking in the oven. It will bake around 20 minutes to be brown on top. It was so tasty, I loved it. I can make it as a starter when I have a party at home .

Catherine's kitchen(cookatcats@yahoo.com) locates in San Jose. We learn cooking procedure and recipe in her class. Then tasting all the food she cook for us. Wish many people share this experience with me.

Beginning of the lesson

Catherine's class always have some desserts for us.
When I get there, there were nice whole cake and tarte on the table.
She prepared nice berry tea for us. Catherine and attendees visited each other beginning of the class. This is nice idea to meet new friends and also be relaxed before class.

I could taste 2 kinds of cakes, Coconuts & pecan sponge cake(right side on top) and Pumpkin & almond tarte(below here) today.


Catherine said whatever inspire of her that day, she bake for us. What a nice extra food! I love it.
She also have some class for sweets on the weekday evening. That would be nice to attend because I could get some tip of baking cake.

If you would like to get a schedule of this cooking class, please contact to Catherine's Kitchen (cookatcats@yahoo.com) now.

Found cooking class in San Jose

I found this Catherine's Kitchen, one of the private cooking class through Japanese SNS called Mixi. This SNS is similar to MySpace in U.S.

This class is locating in San Jose.
Look at left picture, you go through this neighborfood for her class.


Catherine has so much experience of cooking and she has quite unique style of teaching.

Here is nice table set for our meal tasting, review today's class with Catherine and visit attendees. It looks like one of the picture from magazine. But it is real!
I think you could tell this class is something different from others from here.
I believe main idea is learn western meal recipes. We learn not only the recipe but also how to do the western style of table set, quality of the hospitality from her.

I will post more detail of cooking class day by day.