strawberry and white wine terrine

after a couple days of having ice cream for dessert (damn you, 10 for $10 deals!) i decided maybe it was time for something with a lighter (or at least something that seemed deceptively light) taste.

hence, strawberry and white wine terrine.

i know, i know. there are 7 calories per gram of alcohol. whatevs, you guys! in my mind, jello is light, no matter what it's made from. besides, i've wanted to make a fruit terrine for a while, mainly after seeing this beauty in one of my mom's Good Housekeeping magazines years ago (the colors!). so after realizing i had a box of gelatin and a package of strawberries just sitting in the fridge (because for some reason my family doesn't seem to like strawberries unless they're put IN something else or ON something else), i decided it was time to give it a go. i haven't really gotten a good chance to work with gelatin by myself anyway.


i made both a mini terrine (using a ramekin) and a large one in a loaf pan, for the pamilia :)

side view, so you can see both the strawberry (red) and the white wine (clear) layers.

aerial view. note to self: learn how to plate, woman! i guess i just got lazy this time and plopped it on the bowl. if i were to go all out, i would probably have added some chantilly cream and a mint leaf on top, and maybe a strawberry coulis on the side (also, if i were to go all out i probably wouldn't have been impatient while unmolding it and the edges would probably look more crisp haha).

yummm :p the wine taste actually wasn't as strong as i thought it would be (because apparently i haven't acquired a taste for wine yet), and it actually tasted pretty damn good. one thing i also needed for this was more strawberries -___- i only had one box, and the recipe called for 2 pints + 1/2 cup of strawberries so i ended up stealing a few from my uncle (shh!). oh well. i think it tasted totally fine, and it sure as hell did NOT need 6+ hours to set, like the recipe said. sighh.

as for my life, there's not much to really update on that you guys don't already know. we haven't moved yet, although we're trying to get ready for that (albeit slowly). i have a couple of projects due in the next coming weeks, and guess what? it turns out that working ahead of time (as opposed to procrastinating, which is what i usually do) really pays off. one of my baking 2 projects is due this wednesday and i pretty much had it finished last month. yay for not panicking last minute! :) i also have an anthro and psych project due, but i don't even wanna get started on that crap. basically, anthro = the death of my GPA. hopefully i'll do well enough on tuesday's test; i don't want to drop out of the class because i won't have enough credits to be a full-time student and i don't want to try and find another class so late in the semester. arghh. apparently the later in the semester it is, the lazier i am. :/

raiding the library and an update on moving

on saturday my sister and i went to the Walnut library for the first time in FOREVER, and they had a bunch of books out in the front for their april book sale. guess what my new source for cookbooks is? $1 a book? hell yes. as i didn't have any cash on me at the time, my sis agreed to get me one book and after looking through every single page and picture, i finally decided today on what i wanted to make first.

flourless chocolate cake :p

a close-up of the magnificently rich and chocolatey goodness, dusted with cocoa powder and topped with caramelized sugar. when we ate it, the inside was still warm and gooey, just as god intended chocolate cakes to be :p

all six cakes, with random sugar designs. i baked them in little ramekins this time instead of the regular 8" pan the recipe asked for, not only because i thought they would look cuter, but also because i can't seem to find my cake pan... this seems to be one of the disadvantages of moving and packing things: i can never find what i need when i need it :/

oh well. smaller things look cuter anyway :)

i'm so glad we just happened to have all the ingredients for this. plus, it totally made up for my partial disaster when i tried to make Lengua yesterday (must find grandma's recipe!)

as for how things are going with the moving: we found a place! yay! it's further from my school! WHAT? dammit. yeah, that's kinda how things have been going lately. i wasn't really fussing with my parents about the whole moving thing in the first place, and all i really asked for was a place that was somewhat closer to my school. so of course, the opposite ended up happening, and now i have 10 miles added on to my 28 mile commute -___- at least my parents seem to be confident in the new house, and they said it was better than the one we live in now (it's in north west covina).

so far i haven't actually seen the place (i've only seen pictures), but i've been trying to look on the brighter side of the whole situation (like how i'll finally have my own room again teehehee). plus, i guess i shouldn't be complaining too much about the distance. i know a girl who goes to my school once a week and lives in Riverside, and last semester i met a guy who goes there and lives in Chino. so i mean, it could be worse.

for now, i just want this all to be over with. we'll start actually moving our stuff in the new place on the 23rd, and my school semester is over at the end of may. it was raining this morning, and now i just want it to be summer already :)