IN THE KITCHEN: NECTARINE SALAD WITH BURRATA

Good morning my dear friends! I hope you're all doing wonderfully today. Like I promised yesterday (you see, I do keep my promises) today I have something really cool for you (more like DELICIOUS). 

Since lately I've become a food enthusiast, I've acquired the habit of buying bon appétit magazine to inform myself on the wonderful art of cooking. I love bon appétit magazine. It's filled with amazing food photography, easy to make recipes, and beautiful typography (I have a thing for typography). In this month's "coolest summer issue ever" of bon appétit I found what seemed to be a delicious and incredibly easy to make nectarine salad with burrata. I thought to myself: Hey, this is something I can actually do. For those of you who don't know (don't feel bad, burrata is not available in a lot of countries, like in my hometown Guatemala), burrata is a softer version of mozzarella with a near-liquid cream center. It's expensive and hard to find but it is most undoubtedly Gods gift to mankind. 

I'm going to share with you the recipe exactly how it appears inside the magazine. By the way, it not only looks good, its tastes super yummy! Don't skip on any ingredients, specially the mint leaves, which in my own opinion, it's the salads secret weapon ingredient. 

Have fun cooking friends! If you don't have burrata available where you live, try to find the freshest mozzarella possible, it's not the same but it's something. Until next!

Total 25 minutes

4 servings

Ripe peaches can be used in place of nectarines; choose whatever looks (and smells) best.

2 nectarines, thinly sliced

1/4 small red onion, thinly sliced

1/a cup white wine vinegar

1 tsp. sugar

Kosher salt

Freshly ground pepper

4 cups of mixed bitter greens (such as arugula and mizuna)

1 cup fresh mint leaves

2 Tbsp. olive oil plus more for drizzling

8 oz. burrata or fresh mozzarella cut or torn into 1"pieces

1. Toss nectarines, onion, vinegar, and sugar in a large bowl; season with salt and pepper. Let sit 10 minutes.

2. Pour off pickling liquid from nectarines and onions, reserving liquid. Add greens, min, 2 Tbsp. olive oil, and 2-3 Tbsp. reserved liquid; toss to combine.

3. Place burrata on plates, top with salad, and drizzle with oil. Season with salt and pepper and serve!

CALORIES 280

FAT 20 g

FIBER 2 g

Enjoy!!! 

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BACK TO SCHOOL: A BEAUTY DISPLAY

Ok, so maybe I got a little bit carried away with the postings today but that's just how I am. You might as well just get used to this kind of behavior. Sometimes I give you nothing, and sometimes I give you too much. I promise I'm not a crazy mentally unbalanced girl. Ok, maybe just a little bit, like any other creative person. There's just too many things going on inside our heads! I actually have something really cool planned for tomorrow. You guys are just gonna have to stay tuned if you don't want to miss it. 

Anyhow, back at the ranch. Like I mentioned on my last post (uploaded just a few seconds ago), tomorrow I have to do another visual display project for my visual merchandising class. The purpose of the project is to create a beauty display utilizing things that we can find around our bathroom. With this in mind I headed to Anthropologie on Lincoln Road to find some cute little girlie bathroom stuff for my project. Here's some of the items I'm using. I'm not showing you everything because, like I said before, I want the end result to be a surprise. However, you do get the feeling of my idea by looking at these images. How exciting! #iloveprojecting (projecting: the action of engaging in girlie crafty projects). 

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BACK TO SCHOOL: ACCESSORIES DISPLAY PROJECT

Hello there dear friends! Yes, I know, I'm a terrible friend. One that comes and goes, and sometimes just simply disappears for days without giving any signs of life. For those of you who don't know, I'm back to school. This is precisely why I'm in Miami. I'm studying fashion merchandising at the Miami International University of Art & Design. I started school in April and it's been quite an amazing learning experience. Sometimes we're wise asses and we think we know everything, but the truth of the matter is that we don't. These past 5 months I've learned more than I expected. This is also why I sometimes go M.I.A. Not enough time for everything, or maybe I just need to organize myself a little better (ok, I admit it! maybe I should just stop watching show marathons on Netflix). 

Anyhow, I wanted to share with you a project I did last week for my visual merchandising II class. This is my favorite class because it challenges my creativity and I love that. It can only make me better. The purpose of the project was to create an accessories display using things that we could find around our kitchen, or the supermarket. We had to come up with three different ways to display the same accessories, using the same props. Here's what I came up with. Hope you like it. Let me know which one's your favorite (if you have one). 

Tomorrow we have another project. I get so excited with projects. I'm a project snob. Tomorrow in class we have to create a beauty display using things that we could find around our bathrooms. For this I went to Anthropologie to get myself some cute little bathroom stuff (so girlie). I'm preparing another post to show you some of the items and props I'll be using. I'm not showing you everything because I want the end result to be a surprise. I think you guys are gonna like it.

So my dear friends, enjoy the rest of your afternoon, and until next!

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FASHION NEWS: J.CREW SEPTEMBER STYLE GUIDE

If you are a J.Crew snob like I am, then you probably already know that the company released an exclusive first look of their September Style Guide on Pinterest this past Monday (you didn't know?). If you still haven't seen it, then maybe you should take a few minutes and decide for yourself wether you like it or not. As much as I've been a fan ever since Jenna Lyons took over the reins and transformed J.Crew into something cool that you could actually be seen wearing, I will admit I'm not crazy about the September Style Guide. It all seems a little bit boring, except for the "sneakers with practically everything" concept that has been going on for a quite a while now in street style, and that obviously J.Crew is now endorsing. Who doesn't love sneakers nowadays? According to the J.Crew creative team, you can wear sneakers with your business suit. In my personal opinion you might just end up receiving a call from human resources. Better just stick to wear them for walking to work. At least sneakers are cool now. Back in the 80's and 90's you could spot women all over NYC walking around in the most hideous white athletic sneakers. Horrible! 

However, just because It looks a little bit boring at glance it doesn't mean that I don't have some favorites I would like to get for the upcoming season. At the end of the day it's J.Crew, of course I want something they have (like maybe the metallic silver Oxfords. Ummm YEAH!) 

J.Crew boyfriend fatigue jacket in camouflage.

J.Crew Etta studded heal pumps (floral printed of course).

J.Crew mirror metallic oxfords.

Yeah, for all of you youngsters out there, this really happened, like, fo real! The Sex And The City creators didn't just made it up, it's actually part of the history of fashion archives. 

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STYLE BY RED TEST KITCHEN: INSALATA CAPRESE EGG SANDWICH

Ok so I'm not turning into Julia Child any time soon nor I intend to turn Style by Red into the next big food blog so let's forget about that fried chicken with jalapeño coleslaw sandwich I told you guys I was gonna do, maybe I'll do it someday but right now let's just stick to what I'm good at (not really that good but I do my best) which is simple, healthy cooking. 

A few months ago I moved to Miami and for the first time in my life I'm living completely by myself which has turned out to be quite a challenge when it comes to cooking because everything I buy goes bad, plus every time I go to the supermarket I suffer from anxiety attacks because there are so many things and I have no idea what the hell to buy. In a perfect world I'm a graphic designer, web developer, photographer, journalist, and an experienced chef (amongst others) but in this world I'm just Maria Cristina a creative soul who wishes she knew how to do everything and stresses about it all the time. 

Anyhow, I'm not gonna share with you any new and exciting recipes, I just want to document with images (not so many words because we all know I suck at words) my own personal adventures in kitchenville. 

I'm starting the Style by Red Test Kitchen posts with today's breakfast which was insalata caprese egg sandwich. I tell people I could live out of mozzarella, arugula, pasta, and tomatoes (and of course olive oil and white wine), I'm so Italian. It looks big but let me tell you I'm already hungry and I ate perhaps an hour ago. Yes, I'm a big active girl who needs feeding. 

I hope you guys feel inspired! 

Et Voilá!

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DIY: SIMPLE ELEGANT WALL DECOR

It is true when they say that creativity works at its best during hard times. Sometimes when we feel comfortable about our current situation we don't seem to push our creativity to the limit. Today I have a brief decor story to tell you. I hope it inspires you to get creative yourself.

A few years ago (like perhaps 6 years ago) I bought myself "A" 8 piece set of Villeroy & Boch china hoping to one day complete the whole set. Time passed by and I never bought the complete set. When my mother and I moved to this apartment just right after my father passed away I was cleaning my closet and I found my beautiful set of Villeroy & Boch china set still wrapped up like a birthday gift. Obviously the amount of storage room you have inside an apartment is considerably more limited than the one you have in a big house. I didn't want to storage it away and completely forget that it even existed, which is exactly what happens with things that you hide away inside boxes. I din't want it to go to waste, I wanted to do something useful and creative with it. At that time I didn't have a lot of money to spend on new room decor so I thought why not hang it on my wall and make my room look elegant and beautiful. So that's exactly what I did. 

Do you have anything interesting boxed away in some God forsaken storage room that you could use to create simple elegant wall decor? You might just want to go check inside those boxes. 

There's a lot of history in there let me tell ya! 

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