My Slow Video Uploading :/

So I have a bunch of videos piled up that I haven't uploaded. And I want to go ahead and start doing regular, on time videos! So here's my latest video for now. I hope to be uploading all the ones I have hanging there at least one a day or once every two days!

Bye Beautiful!

And Today I...

Just had to write a blog post. You guys have no idea how sucky I feel when I don't write one! I don't care if I have nothing to say! If it's nothing, then YES, I WILL sit here and write about nothing! Grrrr! Okay, sorry, I'm crazy. Please excuse me.

Let's get on with the small happenings in my life!
I should start out with yesterday I guess right? Even though the thing that is freshest in my mind is today. But for the sake of chronological order here goes!

So yesterday I...

had to wait for the bus FOREVER. It came like 20 minutes late, I was so angry. But then I figured it was stupid getting angry over things I couldn't control, besides they'd give me a pass if it was the buses fault and not mine. I just hate awkwardly walking into class and having everyone stare at you. Like, must you? I do the same thing but... that's not my point. -_-
I don't even remember my school day, and it was only yesterday. But apparently I did go to school, no worries!
It was raining when it was time for me to head home, around 2pm here's a picture of the sky, oddly enough I really like it when the above has this shade!

After waiting for my mom we headed out. I had to buy black leather shoes for culinary, so I packed my gear and headed for the hunt! And was completely unsuccessful.
You know what sucks the most? When you walk into all these stores with no money, only for what you HAVE to buy, and the most cute fudging shoes you've ever laid your eyes on are EVERYWHERE. And of course when you do have money, everything is not-so-pretty.
A short summary of my day yesterday, pretty darn busy for me. I got home late, ate late, did homework late, slept late, and woke up late for today, which obviously, brings me to today.

So today I...

woke up 20 minutes late (do you see the irony?) but being as I am, calmly went about my morning routine. Which only lead me to having to rush at the end, with no breakfast in my stomach, no lunch for my stomach, and no energy for the bus that decided to come early this morning. Like really? I had to run like a crazy person to catch that thing! No fair! :x
I basically starved all day, but thank God for my culinary teacher and friend. She split a sandwich with me during our break and our culinary teacher gave us yummy fresh bread. Needless to say, I ate three.
When I arrived home, I had this huge urge to construct a vanity for my make up. I have no clue why, but I felt like it. Maybe watching other YTers vanities made me want to make my own? Subconsciously? So as I said I did.
It took my quite a while. I had no idea how I wanted to organize it, or how I was going to do it. So I YTed some D.I.Y's, got some inspiration, scissors, and any type of cardboard boxes and got working!
I won't blabber to much about this, seeing as how I just realized this could be a pretty good blog post for my other blog, but I'll leave you guys of my work in progress of today!
I had to do a mountain of homework. Le sigh.
(I should still be doing it teehee. My mommy is giving me that you-better-do-your-work-or-leave evil glare)

Remember it IS a work in progress! Haha! (Have to cover that ugly cardboard! But check my other blog tomorrow for more info! :D)
Good night and

Bye Beautiful! :)

Di French Crepe! Vwualaaa! ;D

So this Friday, just before school let out, our teacher said that, of course you didn't have to do this if you didn't want to, but if we cooked something at home and took a picture of it, the person with the best food made thing would get a prize. Of course, that was just her secret way of saying "Here, Nathalie, make a blog post, and I'll even give you something for it!" Yeah, I was totally in my kitchen today.
What my moms been saying she's been kind of craving for a while are crepes, or as I saw one video the person kept calling them "craps" haha. xD
Well yeshh, after much searching of my own, I have molded my own recipe from theirs and here is what I have for you all today! Yippie! So let us beggin!

Crepe Butterfly!!~

Ingredients:

3/4 Cup Flour
1/2 Cup Milk (get ready to use more just in case!)
3 Large Eggs
4 Tbsp Butter
1 Tbsp Sugar
1/4 tsp Vanilla
Pinch Of Salt
*Cinnamon

For Filling:

Nutella
Dulce De Leche

(This was all we had, but PLEASE if you have fresh fruit, caramel, whipping cream, pecans, etc., get that in there! The more the better!)

Directions:

If you have a proper filling, unlike me, start off by cutting your fruit, or setting it out. So you know where it is and it's ready for when you need it.
Next you want to grab a small pan and heat the milk and butter inside untill it's fully mixed together.
Whisk up all your dry ingredients. (Flour, sugar, salt, *cinnamon)
When your milk and butter have mixed, I like to just whisk the eggs up in the same pan. I do one egg at a time, and before adding the next one, make sure the one you're working on is fully incorporated! Don't forget to add your vanilla!
Now you want to add in your wet mixture into your dry ingredients, start off whisking slowly, then work on to your full on batter. If you're batter doesn't seem liquidy enough like mine, just grab some extra milk around here and whisk it until it's the desired consistency.
 Heat up your pan, here you can either use butter so your crepes don't stick, but egh, I'll stick with my trusty PAM!
Grab a nice spoon full of your mixture and place it in the middle, spreading it around by tilting the pan. Is what I'd like to say but I found out I like to start pouring my mixture with my pan already tilted, and not from the middle but from a side. I just feel that the batter coats the pan better this way. But choose whatever way fits you!
Now once you'll notice little bubbles when it's time to flip your crepe. There are three ways you can do this.:
1) If you're a pro, do that pan turning flippy thing and there you go!
2) If you're courageous, grab the crepe with your fingers around the edge, and flip it over.
3) If you're like me, just grab a good spatula and flip that baby.
Crepes cook very quickly, so you don't need to wait too long before it's ready. And don't worry, the first couple of ones you do will suck. It take some time to get the hang of it, just practice!
Lastly, just fill up your crepe with whatever you would like, fold in your desired way, and eat up!

Our lovely ingredients!

Butter and milk just added

After they have melted beautifully together!

Our dry ingredients!

Incorporating one egg at a time!

Don't forget to add your vanilla!

Whisking the wet with the dry

Hmmm a little too doughy, needs more milk.

Still a bit too thick, tinny bit more leche. :P

My nice hot and ready pan

Make sure you have a plate ready, and some cut up paper towels to put between your crepes, this way they stay warm and don't stick to each other!

Getting ready to pour into the pan

Ahh, the crappy first one! Don't worry it gets better.

It's time to flip!

I just love how it reminds me of the moon!

My oh so creative fillings~

You can either cover the whole crepe, or just half if it's too much for you. :)

Fold that in half

And in half again! Now you have a regular folded crepe at home! You can also just roll them up like I did for the butter fly picture! :D

I hope you guys enjoyed this, I know my stomach did!
Remember to have fun in the kitchen but be careful!
Have a great day and...

Bye Beautiful!

California Gir- Rolls! Hehe :)

I'm doing it! See!? I promised you guys! Time for the lovely California Rolls. Just like in my last sushi related post, I'll be writing the directions below the pictures. For those of you who might not necessarily like all the space between directions (you know under the pictures and such) I'll also do an over view after the ingredients! So yes! (Or maybe you just want to read the recipe first, whatever works! :P)
Do you guys like the new look of my blog? I feel like it looks a lot more... full I guess? Haha, not as empty looking, I'll update a nice picture for the title later, but anyways...
(*QUICK!: NatillaTIlla Beauty [Beauty Blog Here!] so not everything is all jumbled up! Hope you likey!)

Really quick and random. But too me a good California Rolls is just like a yummy chocolate bar. Now you say Nathalie, how so?
Well simple
The nori is the chocolate on the outside that holds everything together.
The rice is that yummy filing that sometime you don't even know what it is.
The cucumber is that yummy crunch, like the nuts.
The avocado is that creamy goodness.
Lasty, the imitation crab is what gives everything a really good flavor.

I dunno, maybe that's just me? Anyways... xD

Things You'll Need:

Cutting Board
French/Chef Knife
Bamboo Mat Covered W/ Plastic Wrap
Bowl
Plate

Ingredients:

Sushi Rice (Click HERE for recipe!!)
Nori (Seaweed)
Water
Rice Wine Vinegar
Cucumber
Imitation Crab (Or the real kind?)
Avocado
Sesame Seeds (*If you have them, I didn't... -_-)

(Skip this part if you're cool with the directions under the pictures :D)
Summarized Directions:

Before anything, make sure all your ingredients are cut up into the way you want them. Normally for sushi, thin skinny slices. Place on separate plate.
On your plastic covered mat place a sheet of nori, with the siny side facing in the downwards directions. (In other words, you don't see it.) Here, you can either cover your hands in the water/rice wine vinegar mix and grab a medium amount spreading it over the nori. If you're like me, and by this point your all sticky enough, dip your rice spatula in the solution and spread the rice with that. (Check video for visual.)
If your doing a regular nori-on-the-outside roll you can skip this next step.
Now if you're doing it with the rice-side-out, your nori sheet should be cut in half, if you didn't buy it that way. Spread your rice over, and if you have some, you can choose to add some sesame seeds now, or wait till the end. Although when I do add them, I perfer to do it now. Carefully grab everything and flip it over, with the rice side facing downwards. The purpose of the plastic wrap is so that your sticky rice doesn't stick to the mat as you roll.
What you want to do now is add your ingredients/filling on the edge of your nori/rice. Some like to place it in the middle, whatever method works best for you! With your pointer fingers, slip them under the nori, and with the others, use the mat and fold the roll. Try your best to keep it tight, and don't let too many ingredients slip out!
Place that aside, and continue till you are out of rice. When done cut the sushi roll in half through the middle. (Of course.) and then, place them together and cut out the size of the sushi you would like. Make sure to clean your knife after every cut, so that you can have nice, none sticky cuts!
Serve on a plate with a side of soy sauce, and that's about it! :)

Directions W/ Pictures:
(*Directions ABOVE pictures!)

My plastic wrap covered mat, chef knife, and nori! (Seaweed)

[Haha, those cut up nori pieces are for onigiri! :D]

My wooden cutting board, and my bowl with some water and rice vinegar.

Crooked cucumber: Check!

Imitation crab: Check!

Yummy avocado: Check!

Make sure to slice up your ingredients the way you want them! Thin or thick? I like right in the middle! :)

Place your nori sheet on the mat, the shiny side facing downwards!

Add your rice ahhhh'top!

Place it's yummy insides!

With my first roll of a roll looks like! :P

I had a lot of rice hehe.

When cutting the rolls, try starting in the middle!

Then place the two middle sides together and cut out how thin or thick you want your slices.

You should get about 6-8 little sushi babies out of each roll. Plus two ends!

And if you followed all the correctly, you should get what looks a little something like this! :D

Yum. Yum. Yum. Time to eat those babies with some soy sauce!

HOW TO ROLL SUSHI VIDEO!:

I hope you guys give sushi a try! It is REALLY delicious, and it doesn't bite, I swear!
Have lots of yummy eating, be carefull but creative in the kitchen, and...

Bye Beautiful! :D

It's Just One of Those Days... :P

Wow, I feel like I've really been slacking with my posts. And you know what? It sucks. Blog posting is so much fun for me! A lot more than having a YouTube channel I might add. The process is much quicker, I don't have to be all dressed up to type up a blog post, and I can edit a blog post, and lemme tell you, a heck of a lot quicker than a YouTube video. A. LOT. FASTER.

So anyways, right now I should be taking a shower *sighh* But eghh.
I've been slacking with my eating lately, I chugged like 5 Oreo cookies yesterday, not to say I regret it, but I really shouldn't do that. Processed foods are no good for my body, or any one else's for that matter. I also ate a bunch of yummy coffee flavored ice cream, can you say sugar rush?
And because of school, exercising has been little. Even if I can't set up time I do try to do random exercises around the house. Sometimes I just drop down on the floor for a couple push-ups. Or while I'm waiting for something to heat up in the microwave I'm doing some crazy psycho jumping jacks! Good times.

School has been keeping me majorly busy though, and I hate it! While I'm super glad to be in culinary (Did I mention I got my uniform!? :D) I don't seem to be talking to many friends, and homework is keeping my home time super busy. Imagine if I still had my FB? Whoa, that would be such a time waster.

For school I have been reading quite a bit though, currently I'm one two series. The first being Pretty Little Liars, which I'm just on the first book, and the second, Blue Bloods, which I'm on the second.
Really glad to be reading again, have to work those brain muscles of mine! Or brain muscle? Simply?
Ahhh.

Ooo, I got my new phone today, I ended up going to Virgin Mobile. Their plans are pretty cheap and the phones nice. (Although it's extreamly similar to my old phone, which today is our last day together haha) What sucks is the thing barley has any memory what-so-ever! Ugh, all the music I collected on my other phone through out the last two years is going bye-bye! But oh well. I'm thinking of it as going along with my fresh start!

I really should get to going today on business, but a blog update was a must!
I've been procrastinating with my sushi, post, I know, I'M SORRY! I will make sure that sucker is up this weekend!

That's all, love ya'll, bye beautiful! :D

Short grain/ Sticky/ Sushi Rice!

It's time for my obsession to take route! Root? Hmm, I dunno. Anyways! Finally got around to taking pictures of the making-sushi-process. Since it's such a long one it would be kind of a hassle for such a lazy person as I to do it all in one post. Thus, I'll make it two, for the California roll!
That being said, this post is all about the fundamentals of sushi, the rice. Being as that, even though in the past this was not the case, now the rice is one of the most important parts of sushi. It's only deserving that it gets a whole post to its self! Haha. For the following posts about sushi, I'll be posting the recipe first, and explain the process with the pictures, and an occasional video, personally, because I think it's much easier to learn how to do it that way, then with my just blabbing a lot in one big paragraph. That's bound to get confusing. Let's start!~

First thing is first, how much rice are you going to make? In the pictures that follow I used 2 cups of rice, that exploded into I have no clue how many afterwards. If it's one of your first times making sushi, I suggest going for a simple 1 cup. This way it's a fairly good amount, you get a couple tries at making sushi, and if you fail all of them and screw up horribly, at least you didn't waste that much rice!

I always make my rice in a rice cooker, much much easier than the stove top. Actually, come to think of it, I've never made rice on the stove top. It seems a lot harder than just pressing a button or flipping a switch. But for those of you who may not have a rice cooker, here is what the instructions on the back of my rice say.:

"COOKING DIRECTIONS
Combine 1-1/2 cups Botan Calrose Rice and 2 cups water in medium saucepan. Bring to a boil; reduce heat to low and simmer covered 20 minutes, or until moisture is absorbed. Remove from heat; let stand covered 10 minutes. Fluff with fork and serve. Makes about 4 cups cooked rice or 6(2/3 cup) servings."

The supposed way of measuring the amount of water to the amount of rice is by half of a cup. In other words, always add in half of a cup more water than rice. However, I personally don't really like doing that, whenever I add that full half a cup more, I feel as  if my rice is much too fat, if that makes any sense. If you're making onigiri, it's a lot harder to shape too. So what I like to do is add in the exact same amount of water to rice, and then about 1/4 of a cup extra. But you should try out the regular amount first, if you're happy with it, then there is no need to change it, if you feel what I feel, then feel free to make adjustments to get your perfect rice!
For the purpose of this blog post, I did follow the regular 1/2 cup extra water, still workable, but like I said, not my favorite texture. Who knows, maybe what I think is right may be wrong, but it's my kitchen, so I don't play fair teehee!

First thing is first. I don't care what the instructions on your rice may say, I ALWAYS wash my rice, especially if I'm going to make sushi rice. As I said, the most important part of sushi is the rice, take your time, clean it make sure it's perfect, even before cooking!
When making about 2 cups of rice I wash it about 5-6 times. Until I feel that the water is as clear as it's going to get.

^ This is the rice I use.

^ Here are my uncleaned 2 cups of rice.

^ Do you see how nasty that water looks?

How to clean your rice:

Fill the bowl containing your rice with water, then just stick your hand in there and start shaking it around like a mad women!

^ My flash was a bit too strong, but notice how you around the rims the water is actually clear.

^ When making sushi (if you don't make it often) forget faucet water! Use the cleanest water you have! For me that would be lovely bottled water.

^ Lovely flip of a switch and my rice is a cookin'!

^ When your rice has finished cooking, carefully put some/most/or all of it in either a glass bowl, or one of those wooden sushi bowls if you happen to have one.

^ You can either add the rice vinegar following the directions on the back of the bottle, or just eye ball it like me, until you feel as if all the rice has a nice light coating of it.

^ Once your rice and the vinegar are all nice and mixed together, cover the bowl with a clean table cloth, preferably moist, but it doesn't have to be. Mine above isn't!

And that ladies and germs, is how I make my sushi rice! In reality, it is very easy, but you do need patience. Take your time washing the rice, don't just go psycho and leave the poor thing dirty. You take a shower every day don't you? :P

Well that's all lovelies! Stay tuned for post number two, how I make my California Rolls!
Ohhmmmgee! Did I mention I went to Sephora today!? Well, that's going to get it's very own blog post anyways!

Have fun in the kitchen and see you later!
Bye Beautiful! :)

No-food-processor-needed Pear Tart! :D

Yippie! Okay, there is seriously something wrong with the pears at WalMart. Seriously. I always buy a couple, because besides apples, these are my go-to snack. But I've noticed that whenever I buy them at WalMart, the darn things are harder than a rock. And stay that way for over 2 weeks. But of course, the moment you stop caring for them and remember they exist, they're like darn mashed potatoes on the inside. So anyways, while I'd love to eat them fresh, I was watching a manga today where the main character likes to bake a lot. While they mostly showed cakes and such, there was one image of a tart. I ladies and gentlemen, aliens and squids, have never made a tart before. Okay-- scratch that. I DID make one oh so very long ago, but the crust was store bought graham cracker crumbs, and the chocolate insides never set. needless to say I ate a lot of raw egg that day, but contrary to what people say, I've never felt or gotten sick because of it. Am I resistant to raw eggs? Cool. But I still promise to be careful! And so should any kids or dinosaurs reading this blog post. Okay well, I think the dinos could pull it off if they wanted too.
Wow, I seriously need to cut down on the blabber huh? Or maybe add a lot of "enter" so it doesn't seem that long.
Like this?
Guess that's cool.
So unlike most people apparently, I don't own a big food processor, so I was very happy that I found a recipe for this tart without the use of a food processor. That by the way explains the "Yippie!" at the beginning of this post. Of course I must credit where I got this, even if it's their original recipe or not. And yes of course I did change it to fit my own needs, because I don't have some things that, that particular recipe calls for.
The one I found can be found by you by clicking on the following link right here...!
Turns out I happened to feel the urge to make this tart on the Costa Rican Mother's Day, so I guess everything worked out perfectly for her! Since I don't believe in coincidences! ;) *8.15.11*
Okay let's get to the recipe! :)

I need you guys to forgive me here! I was so caught up in making the tart, I completely forgot to take step-by-step photos! I'm sowie! :'(
BUT! I did take a couple, so I hope they're useful in some way! Anyways enjoy! :)

Before jumping in the oven!

Freshly Out! (Ignore the black edges, my oven is way hot haha.)

Cooled and sliced!

Ingredients:
1/2 Cup (or 1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 Cup All-Purpose flour
1/4 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 Cup Sugar, + 1 1/2 Tbsp for on top of pears
1 Large Egg
2 Pears (Any kind) Peeled, Cored, &Sliced
1 1/2 tsp Ground Cinnamon
1/4 Cup Jam (I used Strawberry jam oddly enough! Hehe)

Directions:
Preheat your oven to 350 degress F. Make sure to keep out your sugar and flour out just in case! The pan I used for the was a _____, it was the only thing I could work with! Butter it, and/or PAM it like mee! Combine the flour and baking powder in a separate bowl and set aside. With an electric mixer cream the butter and sugar at a high speed in your mixing bowl. Lowering the speed add in your egg and make sure it is fully incorporated. Add the flour in three parts until that is fully incorporated, and don't worry, the dough has a very soft texture. Put your dough onto your pan and with floured fingers form the crust. If you don't want to get your fingers dirty, you could also use the back of a wet spoon, or a regular wooden spoon, whatever you prefer. Arrange the sliced pears however you would like, just make sure you cover up the tart yummishly! Sprinkle the cinnamon and the remaining sugar over your pears. Bake in your oven for about 40-45 minutes depending on how hot your oven is. Your tart will be ready when the crust turns a pretty golden brown color, after it's done, let it cool down for a couple minutes.
At this point I just heated up the strawberry jam and poured it over my tart! <3
As my inspirational recipe says, you could use the jam they used, add feel free to add whip cream if you wish!

Can I just say this is seriously one of my favorite batters/dough/etc, ever? I LOVED it!
And I will definitely be making it again, so I can update the process with the pictures!

I hope you guys have fun in the kitchen! And please try out the recipe if your in for something yummy! Have a great day guys and tah tah for now!

Bye Beautiful! :)

Havin' a Beachy time! :)

My mom and I have been planning to head to the beach literally, since the beginning of summer. But due to her school having a much shorter summer break than mine, we had to wait for those glorious last two weeks to go together. (The weekends weren't an option, she was tired, and we cleaned the house and such.) So a couple weeks ago we decided that no matter what, this very Thursday, we would head off to the beach. We even planned getting up nice and early around 8 am packing our things and heading out. Needless to say, waking up at 8 am proved impossible for all three of us, but it wasn't going to hold us back!
I was planning on just taking a small sandwich, towel, sunscreen, etc. The basics, but apparently my mom had a whole camp set up! Haha, it was fun though, the only thing we forgot to bring was our napkins, and boy were they missed. Ahhh well, we made it through.
Once we got there the day started off not so nice. It was kind of cloudy and from far away you could see small lighting bolts, still it never rained.
I took my time and read a book my mom recommended me called "Who Moved My Cheese?", which I highly recommend! Since I was at the beach, I'm on the last section of the book, but supposedly if you sit down you can finish the whole thing in an hour, hmmm, I think I'll do a review on this book. Both as a video and blog post, sound nice guys? So I'll stop blabbering about it here hehe.
In our last couple of hours, around 4, the sun finally decided to spring up, not extremely, but you could definitely feel the heat. Did I mention the water felt really nice? Not too hot or cold, I mean personally, I wasn't in love with it, but my mom sure was. Still it was really nice!
Towards the end of our trip I decided to take some pictures, because hey, if I'm going to talk about the beach  so much I might as well show it to you guys huh? Here they are!

I thought the clouds in the sky looked amazing! I know it wasn't the sunniest day ever, be we were going to go to the beach today no matter what!
Can I just say that cockroaches seem to be following me around everywhere though? While we were setting up our "camp" there just happened to be a lovely dead one for me to see in our exact spot. Yippie. There was a serious amount of red ants there too, while they didn't bother me too much, my brother was freaking out over every single little red ant! Made me laugh and annoyed all at the same time. Little brothers.

Well that's all about my day today, gonna sit down, catch up on my shows, get prepared for a long day of editing tomorrow, and so on.
Ohh I might be filming a "What's in my beach bag?" later on.
AND! I'm finally going to Sephora (I really hoped that's spelled right!) for the first time ever with the best friend! Can't wait. Even though I have no money teehee!
I seriously need to stop the blabber!

Bye Beautiful! :D