Yosemite

Last weekend Kevin and I drove up to Yosemite for 3 days and nights of camping and hiking. It was an amazing trip. I had worked 20 straight days in a row, and Kevin and I had survived the first month of living together, we both desperately needed (and deserved!) a long weekend away.

When we got to Yosemite we went to the store to load up on food for the weekend, we kept things simple, sandwiches for lunches while hiking, kabobs on the grill for dinner, and egg sandwiches for breakfasts. We had planned on cooking the eggs on a camp stove, but our friend who lent us the camp stove forgot the regulator that connects the stove to the propane. (Thanks though Liz we still love you!) So we ended up cooking everything in a frying pan over charcoal, a little more time consuming but it turned out great. We also wound up inventing a completely euphoric egg sandwich that was way too good not to share.  So here you have it- rapture- in the form of a breakfast sandwich:

Blue Velvet Cupcakes

Recipe Review: OMG BLUE CUPCAKES! and they taste yummy too

I needed to test a red velvet recipe for some cupcakes that i'll be doing next month, and my friends birthday was this week so it was perfect timing. Well except for the fact that my friend is a guy- and red velvet cupcakes aren't really that manly. The solution- Blue Velvet Cupcakes! Ever since I stumbled upon the recipe foron Sprinkles Bakes I have been dying to try making them. I was a bit dubious- Are they really going to turn out that color? Were the colors of the photos on the blog tweaked? I had baked Blackberry Cupcakes this year an while the batter was an amazing purple color it changed a lot while baking. I went into this not really knowing what to expect. The recipe is the same as the traditional red velvet except it uses blue food coloring instead of red. The cupcakes turned out a dark denim blue on the outside and a brighter blue once you bit into them. I was very pleased with the results.

Pulled Pork Carnitas & Cowboy Beans

Recipe Review: Pulled Pork Mexican style with a sweet tangy sauce. Plus Bacon makes everything better- including Pinto Beans.

This Sunday I made a late Cinco de Mayo dinner, (Ocho de Mayo?) Pork Carnitas Tacos, Cowboy Beans, and Mexican Red Rice. I've made the pork once before- from a Rick Bayless recipe that called for achiote seasoning, that version has a slightly smoky flavor, while this one has a more true pork flavor with citrus notes. "Real" carnitas involves a dutch oven and cooking for two hours but I cheat and use a crock pot, and then finish by broiling the meat to add a little crisp.

Starting to Scallop

*** I need to vent how incredibly frustrated I am with blogger. I posted this last Tuesday, and then Blogger went down. Since then they have been undergoing maintenance, and announced that they had rolled back to an older version of blogger- aka before Tuesday, aka before I made my post. They assured people that their posts would be restored. Well I've waited a week and this post didn't come back so I had to recreate it. Blogger is posting happy little updates about how all blog posts have been restored when that isn't the case. Very very frustrating. ***

Recipe Review- Bay Scallops in a white wine and garlic sauce, simple yet elegant, a perfect summer meal

"Are you sure you want to blog this one? You do an awful lot of scallop recipes..." -Kevin
"Yes! I love scallops- the more scallops the better!" -Me
"You might have to rename the blog Starting to Scallop if you keep this up" -Kevin

So- here's yet another scallop recipe- I hope that you're not getting tired of reading about scallops because I'm not tired of eating them.

Congratulations Laura & Matt!

Last weekend my co-worker got married in a small private ceremony. Since the wedding was only for 2 people, and she can't have gluten they decided to forgo getting a cake. Well when I heard that I decided that wasn't ok, and that I would make her a cake! I had never made a wedding cake- or a cake that was gluten free before, so I was a little worried about the results. I decided not to tell her my plan just in case the cake didn't work out well. The recipes for gluten free cakes were incredibly intimidating so I went with a cake mix instead. The cake turned out spongy- but not bad tasting. I baked a sheet cake and then cut small and larger circles from that. I really had no clue what I was doing as far as the decorating went. I had never covered a cake in fondant before. I rolled out the fondant and just draped it over, then did my best to even out any lumps or folds. This worked well for the top of the cake, but the sides were a little dicey. Good thing there's decorative icing and ribbon to cover up little mistakes. Overall I was pretty pleased with the results!! I want to take a cake decorating class soon so I can learn how to do this the right way.