She: Tamale Sauce

This isn't really tamale sauce. Its more like an overall tex-mex sauce that has all my favorites: some mole, some tomato, not spicy but tangy, nice and thick...I put the kitchen sink in this. Mark brought home tamales one night for dinner, but no sauce, and I was bound and determined to make something tasty. In retrospect, the only thing I would have done differently is to add a bay leaf to the stock for some more depth, which I went ahead and added to the instructions. So check out my madness:

Part One: Take one can of tomato paste and put in the pan, and stir while cooking on low til color changes. Then add one can of chicken broth, bay leaf, 1/2 tsp cumin, pinch of cinnamon, 1 tb ancho powder, 1/2 tsp garlic salt, 2 tb smoked cherry peppers, 1/4 tsp oregano. Bring slowly to a boil, whisking to mix spices (don't skip this!), and let boil 1-2 mts.

Part Two: bring down to a simmer, and add 1 tb dark chocolate, 1 1/2 tb honey. Stir/whisk. While its simmering, grab a bowl and add 5 tb of cold water, and mix in 5 tb of flour, one at a time to make a lump-free paste. Kick the temp back to a boil and add this bit by bit.

The flour thickens the sauce, so if you don't use the sauce immediately it'll create a skin. I just added a little water when it got too thick. The only thing that might be hard to find is the smoked cherry peppers. I found them at a spice shop in Seattle, but I'm pretty sure you can get something like it from Penzy's, too. They were a great addition, and I'm hoarding the rest from Mark. Snicker.

She: Cous-Cous Method

When my mom told me she was buying cous-cous for meals, I promised to add this post. Mark showed me a great way to make cous-cous very fast and simply, and even better, virtually mess-free...my favorite! This method just steams the cous-cous in a ziplock baggy, which you can then chuck into the fridge inbetween meals. Get: 1 cup cous-cous, 2tsp olive oil, 1.5 cup boiling water, 1 small cucumber, 1/2 onion, small handful of mint (or basil), 1/2 tsp cyanne, 1/2 tsp salt, and fresh pepper.

Thats the most basic list of ingredients. Everything than can be cut/diced, including the mint, should be. Put the cous-cous and the oil in the baggie first. Then add all the veggies and the salt/peppers. Pour in the boiling water and seal the bag. Let it sit for a few minutes, and voila! I personally add some apple and/or roma tomato (but add those after it steams), but dried cranberries or raisins are also nice, especially with mint! This is very healthy as a side dish, and a nice alternative to something mayo-heavy like coleslaw. Best of all, besides the knife and cutting board, there's nothing else to wash. :)

She: Mexicali dinner

So, last week we made a Kick. Butt. Dinner. It was fabulous. and I can actually say we split duties. Usually he does most of dinner and I do dessert and random tasks. But this was great. Mark made some turkey that he did his little ziplock technique to...he posted that Sous Vide? Anyways. We had that, and he cooked black beans, and I made the corn bread and guacamole, and whatever it was I made for dessert which I can't remember.

Almost everything came from our farmers market. The honey for the cornbread, the corn, avacados, cilantro, etc. That was really nice, and I felt good about the organic local stuff. Now we go to our little market off sunrise every saturday morning and get our veggies. And right now, cherries. I should get Mark to post his cherry custard, which kicked butt...but back to this meal. I'll let him explain the meaty stuff should he desires, but I was really pleased with the guacamole--my first attempt. I thought I'd give ya the recipe.
Two avacados. I sliced 'em in half and twisted. I scooped it all out in small chunks with a spoon and put it in a bowl. Then I took the cilantro, twisted it up in a bunch that I folded twice and cut it up (faster that way). I added one sweet pepper, 1/4th to 1/2 tsp salt, a tad bit of ground black pepper, and I squeezed one lemon to mix it up. I actually like lemon in it better than limes--it has more zing, I think. Stir it up and mash just a little.

The thing I remember was at the market I was about to pick some that were too hard or too soft. Mark picked one up and showed me where to poke it gently--near the stem. You want that to give slightly, and mostly ignore the rest of the fruit. Oh, and he swore that keeping the pit in with the guacamole would keep it green, but I looked it up. Its an urban myth, about nitrogen or something keeping it fresh, but in reality it doesn't. So if you have leftovers, press plastic wrap to the surface. The citrus juice helps the color stay green, too.
Doesn't dinner look beautiful? It was great, cheap, local, and healthy!

He: Coco Cafe Rehersal Dinner

Okay this post is only just barely about food. This is mostly about our rehearsal dinner at this really tasty little spot on Kauai called...yep Coco Cafe.

Without going into all of the reasoning why we picked this one let's just say that it really suited us well, and the price was right (inexpensive..evrything else was going to be $50 + a person...not cool). We loved the open air part of it, we loved the lack of alcohol sold on premise (actually I loved it...my whole family seemed to be against it...that's all they seemed to talk about).



This is one of our best friends Kris, Krumrie to all of his friends and the name that he was introduced to me as. That's his girlfriend Naiomi....the first one that Brandy and I both approve of. The last one is Domo...if you don't know Domo I feel sorry for you ha! ha! Actually look him up, and all of his small furry buddies (they're just some of the many neat little toys that we have in collections here at the house). The other site that sticks out in my head is a designer in L.A. called the monster factory...or something like that?

At some point later on I'm sure that Brandy will put up some more pictures of Domo's fabulous Hawaiian vacation. The shots are just hilarious. But I digress....

That's some more of the family. The one with the camera is Amber...and the one that looks a little too white is Brandy's mom (it's just the flash...she has a fabulous tan).

Brandy has the great idea to get a bunch of disposable cameras and give them out to everyone to take pictures of the wedding, and the reception and whatever else. on the packaging for the cameras we taped on a message to give them back to us at the end of the reception. Brandy's family latched onto this idea and went nuts. We gave 'em 5 cameras and they filled 8 or 9...along with a ton of shots on their own digital cameras. Can't say the same thing happened with my family...they didn't like the cameras...couldn't figure out how to use them....blah blah blah. I don't know what the deal was, but it was really disappointing. I guess I've lazily protested it all by not talking to any of them since we got back. I will, I'm just bad about communicating...and talking to most of them is just dysfunctional and painful.

Okay so I have no idea how any of this has anything to do with food...but I don't care. If you don't like it...tough.....I will post more important things in other posts. This post is just for us.

She: NC and food

We have pics from fabulous restaurants and all, but I thought I'd add a post on WHY we were in NC and the food along with it...we were there for a wedding. Mark was part of the wedding party--his best friend was getting married! Important foodie things: the rehersal dinner had an interesting cake based off the bride and groom hitting it off at a carwash. Then there was the dinner. I laughed at the southerness of it: fried chicken, green beans, hush puppies and bbq.

Now, I MUST protest this, much to Mark's annoyance. My family is from the bbq capital of the world...Kansas City. (thats right, I threw down that glove). This...meat that they call bbq in NC is NOT bar b que! Period! Its shredded meat. There's no rub, not basted with sauce...nothing. They just have some vinegar you can put on the side with some chilli flakes in it. THATS NOT BARBQUE! Okay. I'm stepping off the soap box now.

Last there was the wedding cake. It was a lovely layered cake--each layer was a different flavor. I had the carrot cake. It was moist and yummy. AND pretty without a lot of fake icing. I haaaate that serious buttercreme stuff that tastes like shortening. In between the festivities we went tooling around town to different restaurants. Niiiice stuff. We'll post'em soon.

He: Corn Quiche Crostada

Anyone that knows how to bake will look at the header and wonder what the heck I was thinking and how the freak is this going to work? Well the thought was to try and come up with a crust for a quiche that would be low fat, high fiber, and high in good fats. Enter the crostada crust....slightly modified of course. The other big thing that I was trying to do with this is come up with a quiche that I could use as a meal (getting enough protein in 1 slice for me, makes that slice dowright huge...not so appealing).

6 ea. lg eggs
1/2 pound of lowfat cottage cheese
1 pound of organic tofu
1/2 C. rolled oats (nothing flavored...just plain 'ole oats)
1/2 C. plain raw nuts (I recommend pistachios, hazelnuts, walnuts, or pecans)
2 Tbsp. plain lowfat yogurt
1 tsp. salt
2 ea. ears of corn (roasted and kernels removed from the cob)
a few dashes of hot sauce

1) Add the oats, nuts and yogurt to a cuisinart and pulse to combine (you want the nuts to be broken down, but you don't want the oats to be total flour.
2) Press this mixture into a pie pan until you've reached a consistent thickness
3) Bake at 325 degrees for 8 minutes
4) Blend together the eggs, cottage cheese, tofu, and hot sauce until smooth in a blender.
5) Transfer this mix to a bowl and stir in the corn
6) Transfer the egg mix into the cooled, baked pie shell and place in the oven at 325 degrees until lighly browned on top and the whole mass jiggles just a little when you shake the pan
7) Cool and serve

The beautiful thing about this quiche is that it comes together in just a couple of minutes (minus roasting the corn). Also it satisfies all of my rediculously healthy diet stuff too.

She: Tomato Soup

Normally I hate tomato soup. I couldn't put my finger on why, until I told Mark. He summed it up for me: tomato soup usually tastes like nothing but tomato acid. So true! Well, I visited my folks back in KC recently, and had great soup. I had been in the airport and on planes all day. I had some trail mix with me, but I didn't eat since the Denver airport *sucks* unless you like McBurgers or gelatenous stirfry. So instead I left the airport ravenous, and when my sis brought me home, she didn't have much readily consumable except for tomato soup...so I shrugged and chowed down. And it was brilliant! I finally begged for the recipe, so here it goes:
1 LB    roma tomatoes
1 LG    red bell pepper
1 LG    red onion
2 cloves garlic
1 tbsp  olive oil
5 cups  vegie stock
pinch   sugar
1 cup   small pasta (optional)
salt and pepper to taste, fresh basil leaves (garnish)

Preheat oven to 375. Half the tomatoes, pepper, onion and place on foiled roasting pan or cookie sheet.  Add the garlic cloves. Drizzle olive oil over vegies and cook 30-40 until edges of vegies become blackend. In a blender (food processor), add 1 cup of vegie stock. Add roasted vegies while still hot from oven. Puree. Strain blended vegies into pot.  Add remaining 4 cups of vegie stock, sugar, salt and pepper.  Bring to boil. Add pasta. Cook for 7-8 minutes. Garnish with fresh basil leaves. And here's a pic of the sis as I show her the blog at the airport..obviously she is amazed at the sheer beauty of my laptop. Snort.

He: Chicken Stock

Okay...Okay...I put up a post about how to make chicken stock. Brandy pointed out to me that people in the regular world don't make their own stock. They don't? Why the heck not?.....oh I know....they just don't know how. Well once you read through this you will be amazed at how easy it really is.


3 lbs. chicken bones(or turkey bones)...wings, necks, backs...whatever...skin is okay too
1 onion
1 carrot
1 stalk of celery
2 bay leaves
8-10 whole black peppercorns
a few(2-5) parsley stems (no leaves)

1)Stick all in a pot and add enough water to cover
2)Bring to a boil uncovered, over high heat
3)Leave at a boil for 1 minute
4)Reduce heat to as low as it will go, and allow to cook for at least 6 hours(it's okay at this point to cover it, just not tightly)....I usually let it go overnight
5)Strain out all of the solids, saving the liquid (toss the solids out, they're not good for anything else now)
6)Place in the refrigerator until cold, and gelled
7)Skim off all of the fat and use as needed

Okay, this is just slightly simplified from how it actually is, but it will make a great stock. If you need a stronger/more intense stock than this, use more bones and a little less water(although you still need enough water to completely cover the bones). If you need a slightly weaker stock use more water and less bones (again the bones still need to be completely covered by the water when you start to heat it from cold).

One more little tidbit...chicken bones are hollow...they float. Don't freak out when they start to float up as you're heating the stock up to bring it to a boil.

He: Roasted Summer Vegetable Salad

There are some of the great things that are here in Sacramento. One of those great things is the local farmer's market. Not to get into detail about the market, I will just say that it's year round and has all the good stuff that is growing in the immediate area. I LOVE to go to the market. Really this is all beside the point of this, which is this roasted summer salad that I threw together last night.

The original base idea for this is born from a cookbook written by a mentor of mine, Scott Peacock. He wrote this beautiful cookbook that you really should check out sometime called The Gift of Southern Cooking (click here for Amazon book link) His is based on roasted okra and heirloom tomatoes, and shallots and field peas (which are completely not available around here...damn). Mine is based on what mood hit me while we were at the market.
The only things that I would probably change about this salad are, that I would like it to be a little spicier (Brandy doesn't do spicy food well, and I can always make something hotter just for me), and I wish that the string beans at the market weren't soo bloody expensive (they were going for $4+ per pound...highway robbery if you ask me). Well here's the recipe the way that you see it pictured.

2 lbs Small summer squash(crookneck, pattypan, zucchini, whatever looks nicest)...just make sure they're small...big will be too starchy
1 lbs Red torpedo onion
1 lbs Sugar Snap peas
6 ears yellow corn
1/2 C. Fish sauce
2 Tbsp. soy sauce
1 Tbsp. peanut oil
4-5 coarse grinds of black pepper

Roast the corn still in the husk at 350F for 30 minutes, then cut the corn off the cob. Slice the onion into rings 1/4" thick, toss with the summer, squash snap peas and oil. Put on cookie sheet and roast at 500F until squash is lightly browned (maybe 5 minutes). Cool and toss all together with soy/fish sauce.

She: Non-Desserts

Recently I talked to my sis, who said she hadn't tried any of my recipes since they were mostly desserts. (eep) Weeeeelll, I DO cook, but I just like desserts, so I tend to post those. But I will henceforth scatter my recipes with entree blogs as well. For tonight, I'm making quiche.

Quiche was one of the few things my mom would make that I loved as a kid. Usually she made it with shrimp, crab and cream cheese. Yummy, but laden with calories, so I try for other stuff instead. I wanted a meal I could eat for breakfast, lunch or dinner and something that had lots of protein, and this fit the bill. Now, this recipe calls for tabasco sauce, but don't think that makes it spicy. It just gives the dish a very very subtle zing. Same goes for the garlic salt, too.

Here's the list of ingredient: 1 frozen pie shell (I'm feeling lazy), 4 eggs, 1 cup milk (or soymilk), 1/8th tsp tabasco, 1/8th tsp salt, 1/4th tsp garlic salt, dash of pepper, 1 cup sliced mushrooms, 1 small diced onion, 6 or 7 chopped basil leaves. I also added 1 oz mozzerella in blocks.

Instructions: First, put the onions in a frying pan over medium heat with cooking spray or oil and cook til translucent. When they are, add the mushrooms and toss them in the pan til golden brown, then remove from heat. In a bowl whisk eggs, milk and tabasco, then mix in the salt/pepper. Place half the onion/mushroom mix in the bottom of your pie shell, then add on half the basil. Pour in the egg mixture, then put the rest of your veggies, including basil, ontop. Put in the oven and cook at 375 for 35 minutes, or until knife comes out clean. You can replace the mushrooms/onions with anything--I also like bell peppers, sun-dried tomatoes and scallions and a bit of goatcheese. See? I can write healthy!

She: 4th of July and recipe justifications

This blog needs ceremonial meat, and who doesn't bar-b-que during the fourth? We didn't have a grill, so I got one at lowes. For some reason Mark had been saying a true dome top is better for some reason...don't remember WHY, but did remember he said that. Anyways, I got one for 10 dolla that was small enough to hide away, and it works great. Of course, I made my best buddy Justin put it together (one little grill, sooo many parts). We made burgers with grilled pineapple slices and cheese. MMMMMMM.

Well, as he put together the grill for Mark to slave over later, I was fixing an upside-down pineapple cake. For Mark's b-day Justin got us the Amy Sedaris cookbook, so I cracked it open to find a recipe. Of course, what that recipe called for DIDN'T WORK. You take 4 tb of butter in a skillet and mix in a cup of brown sugar til it dissolves...except IT DOESN'T. I tried this frickin thing twice (no one every said what temp to heat it at, so I tried a few times) but it either doesn't mix or makes candy. It sucks. If you know something I don't then lemme know. I'll also say that the cake ended up a little dry, so I'm changing the heat temp for the cake. Here's my altered version:

The upside down part: Lay 5 pineapple rings in 9 inch cake pan. Mix 1 cup brown sugar with 1/4 cup pineapple juice from can (unsweetened) until it dissolves (hah! take THAT recipe!) then mix with 4 tbs of melted butter in a pan and reduce. Pour it all in the pan with the rings.

The cake part: Mix dry in a bowl: 1 1/2C flour, 2 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp salt, 1/2C sugar. Get another bowl--Melt 8 tb butter, add in 1/2C milk and 1 egg. Mix wet and dry, then spoon over pineapple stuff in cake pan. Cook for 30-35 mts at 375F.