Last month London hosted the 2009 Gymnastics World Championships and I just wanted to share some videos of some of the outstanding performances IMHO!  I would have prefered to use the NBC coverage but they're pretty good about having their videos removed on YouTube! 

Men's Individual Event Finals - Floor

Marian Dragulescu, 28 yrs old from Romania, has always been one of my favorite gymnasts.  I was actually very surprised to see him competing because he announced after the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games that he was going to retire.  It's a darn good thing he didn't because he ended up capturing the gold medal in this event last month!  Take a looksie at his routine (2 minutes, 8 second vid) that earned him the gold and note the really nice press handstand at around 50 seconds:

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nBjf2gMSu0

You'll have to click on the YouTube link to see this video because of the way its embedded but do so...you won't be disappointed!

Men's Individual Event Finals - Vault

Once again Marian Dragulescu dominated this event winning yet another gold medal and this is why I love this guy:  both of his vaults are crazy hard.  The first vault is called a (wait for it.....) Dragulescu (double with a twist), his signature vault, and it's nearly flawless -- a little leg separation going onto the vault and in the air as well as just one little step back on the landing.  Oh, the skinny line on middle of the landing mat is for the women's vault and the men don't get deducted for landing off center of that line (however if they enter into the red zones on the edges of the mats, then the judges will start taking deductions!).

Marian's second vault looks like he's in a blender on puree.  He does a 1/2 onto the spring board, another 1/2 onto the vault table (Are you counting?  That's 360 degrees and he hasn't even done the actual vault yet!) and then does a 2 and 1/2 twisting vault!

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s60NdcaSTow

You need only watch the first 3 minutes of this vid to see Marian.

Men's Individual Event Finals - High Bar

The most exciting men's gymnastics event -- the high bar.  There were some really great routines at worlds.  I want to show you something amazing, though.  USA gymnast Danell Leyva in his first World's on high bar does some pretty incredible stunts including a hop with a hand inversion during one of his giants!  Look for it at 55 seconds.  Then, he sticks his landing perfectly!  The guy on the sidelines doing a touchdown-type dance is his coach/dad.  Danell placed 4th and I hope he continues improving on high bar because he was such a delight to see!

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paW0fHhghnM&feature=related

Second place went to an incredible gymnast from the Netherlands, Epke Zonderland.  He was only .325 away from Zou Kai's gold medal score and was quite the high bar showman.  Zonderland is incredibly fast and with really good form despite a few form breaks (leg separations).  You gotta see this guy:

Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wg6z8Zk1JyA

Unfortunately I didn't find any complete video of Zou Kai's gold medal performance on YouTube.  To recap, though, it was very similar to his 2008 Beijing Olympic gold medal routine.  The routine was loaded with connections which resulted in huge bonus points however it wasn't a real crowd pleasing routine like what I saw with Zonderland and Leyva or even Igor Cassini's routines (Cassini received the bronze medal).  But, there you go.  Hope you enjoyed my favorite highlights of the men's individual apparatus finals! 

As some of you read over in Jet Li's forum, I was blessed with a harvest of zucchinis this year.  I grew them because my aunt gave me this fantastic zucchini bread recipe and I wanted to bake several loaves to freeze so we could enjoy them throughout the fall and winter seasons.  I had enough zucchini to bake 10 loaves! 

Zucchini Bread - makes 2 loaves

3 eggs

1 cup oil (I use olive oil)

2 cups sugar

2 cups grated zucchini

1 teaspoon vanilla extract.

3 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

3/4 cup choped walnuts

Beat 3 eggs until light.   Add oil, sugar, grated zucchini, and vanilla extract and mix until blended. 

Add flour, salt, soda, cinnamon and baking powder.  Mix until well blended.  Fold in the chopped walnuts.

Lightly grease 2 loaf pans and pour the mixture evenly into each pan.  Bake for 1 hour at 325 degrees Farenheit (Note:  my oven bakes fast so my bread usually gets done 10 minutes sooner.  If in doubt about your oven, check the bread at 50 minutes by inserting a tooth pick.  If it comes out clean it's done!). 

Remove the pans from the oven and let them cool for 10 minutes.  Then, invert the each pan and cool each loaf on a rack.

For easier cutting, wrap the loaves in plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator overnight.

It's gotta have butter!  Oh, yum! 

If you only want to do 1 loaf of zucchini bread, here's the conversion:

2 eggs, 1/2 cup oil, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup grated zucchini, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract, 1 1/2 cups flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/8 teaspoon baking powder, a heavy 1/4 cup chopped walnuts.

Okay...dessert time! 

Cheese Danish

2 packages (4 sheets) puff pastry - thawed in the refrigerator

1 egg beaten in a bowl

8 ounces cream cheese at room temperature

1/2 cup sugar

2 tablespoons ricotta cheese

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon Kosher salt

2 extra large egg yolks at room temperature (or 3 medium sized egg yokes)

1 tablespoon grated lemon zest (use 2 lemons)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Farenheit.  Zest the lemons!

Mix cream cheese and sugar in a bowl on low speed.  Add egg yolks, ricotta cheese, salt, vanilla and lemon zest and continue mixing on low speed.  DO NOT WHIP MIXTURE!

Roll out one pastry sheet on a lightly floured surface and cut into quarters.  

Place a heaping tablespoon of the mixture in the middle of each puff pastry quarter. 

Brush the perimeter with egg wash.

Fold the opposite corners together.  Brush with egg wash again and place on a cookie sheet covered in parchment paper.  Repeat with each pastry sheet.  Refrigerate for 15 minutes before baking at 400 degrees for 10 minutes.  Rotate pans and bake an additional 10 minutes or until puffed and golden brown.

Serve warm!!!! 

These are really rich and are excellent with some tea or coffee. 

Well, I hope you enjoyed these recipes using puff pastry from my uncle (pictured below.)  He's not a professional cook, he just enjoys preparing wonderful food and there's nothing wrong with that! 

As Keith would say, "It doesn't get any better than this!" 

Sorry I'm a day late with this....my day didn't go as planned yesterday.  ANY-WHO.....without further ado, may I present to you THE best Chicken Pot Pie recipe on this planet! 

Chicken Pot Pie

6 chicken breasts with skin and bone

5 cups chicken stock

2 cups par boiled carrots (medium chopped)

2 cups frozen peas

2 cups yellow onion - chopped

1 and 1/2 sticks of butter (Edit: 1 and 1/2 cups of butter)

3/4 cup flour

2 teaspoons Kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1/2 cup fresh parsley chopped (or 1/4 cup dried parsley)

1/4 cup heavy cream (or milk but heavy cream is better!)

1 package puff pastry (2 sheets) - thawed in the refrigerator

1 egg - beaten in a small bowl

Note:  You will need about 7 - 9 ramekins as the yield of this recipe is quite enough to feed a big family.

Rub chicken with evoo (extra virgin olive oil) and Kosher salt and pepper.  Bake at 350 degrees Farenheit for 1 hour or until chicken has an internal temperature of 170 degrees Farenheit.  When chicken is cooled, remove skin and bone (above), cut meat into large bite-size pieces.

Chop your parsley.  My uncle grows parsley in a small herb garden right outside his kitchen so this was fresh!

Chop carrots and bring them to a boil in a separate pot.  The purpose is to make the carrots tender.

Heat 5 cups chicken stock in medium saucepan on left).  Note:  do not bring the chicken stock to boiling. 

In a dutch oven or large stock pot (like the blue pot pictured on the right), saute the chopped onion with butter until translucent, approximately 12 minutes.  To your sauted onion mixture add the flour and stir continuously for 2 minutes. 

Add heated chicken stock and stir for 1 minute.  Add chicken pieces, softened carrots, peas, parsley, salt, pepper and heavy cream.  When thoroughly mixed, ladle mixture into oven proof ramekins and set aside.

Roll out puff pastry and cut circles 1/2 inches larger than the ramekin (Note:  it helps to have 1 extra empty ramekin for this!).  Brush egg wash around the outside edge of the ramekins and place the puff pastry on top, pressing the sides down over the ramekins into the egg wash.

Cut 3 vent holes in the top of the puff pastry for ventilation.

Brush the tops of the puff pastry with the remaining egg wash and then lightly add salt and pepper to the top (the seasoning part is not pictured here).  Note:  it helps to have heavy duty pans to place your ramekins in for cooking as they will bubble over.  These ramekins are very heavy so a flimsy cookie sheet is NOT recommended.

Bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes or until the top is golden brown and juices are bubbling from the vent holes. 

Ta-da!!!!

Extreme close-up....

We ended up with 9 ramekins' worth of Chicken Pot Pie which fed 9 people!

If you want to only do a few of these at a time, I would suggest only filling up as many ramekins as you need.  The rest of the chicken pot pie mixture can be frozen in Tupperwear-type containers for later use.

Looks like somebody couldn't finish their chicken pot pie! 

I cannot even begin to describe how wonderful this recipe is.  It is by far the best I've ever had which is saying something because previously the best chicken pot pie I'd ever had was at Disneyland at Carnation Restaurant on Main Street...something they don't make any more, unfortunately, called Mickey Pot Pie.  Anybody familiar with that?

What's for dessert?  How about a decadent Cheese Danish!!!

Tune in tomorrow to find out how to prepare it!