Kara's Cupcakes

So we went to another food truck event last Monday in San Mateo, just to see who would be out there because we just need to know these things. We're getting really into the gourmet food trucks.

Anyway, we found Kara's Cupcakes. We thought we'd try them, eventhough we just love our normal Cupcake truck. They had some flavors that were the same, and some that were totally new, so we thought we'd try a few of theirs.

We had the s'mores just cause you just have to try marshmallow on a cupcake! We bought the meyer lemon one for my mom, Phil had the blackberry creme, and I had the chocolate velvet.

The Blackberry creme was good, the frosting tasted like blackberry, and it was on a chocolate cupcake. I LOVED the Chocolate velvet. I'm not usually into the frosting, but their frosting was to die for. And the chocolate sprinkles on the top were awesome!

Here's a close up of the s'mores cupcake. I just love that it had a graham cracker crust on the bottom.

This is what it looked like cut open. It was really very good. I'm not normally too into the marshmallow either, but loved this!

And I was even more excited to learn that they have stores in the south bay and in SF.

If you're in the area, or see their truck, you should definitely try them out!

That's Sweet Desserts

So, every Thursday in Union City, they have the Union City Street Eats where a bunch of gourmet food trucks get together to sell their wares. It's a great idea, you get to try the food from all these gourmet trucks that get together every week.

Our favorite is That's Sweet! Desserts. OMG, they have the best cupcakes that I've ever had. TONS better than Sprinkles. The cupcakes are so moist, with great flavor combinations.




These two are the Salted Caramel and the Maple Bacon. I tried the Salted Caramel last week and just LOVED it. And we just had to try out the Maple bacon just because.



Phil also needed to have the Red Velvet Whoopie Pie. We tried to get these last week, but they had sold out. It's a Red Velvet cake with a cream cheese filling. He said it was super rich, but it was super yummy!

This is a close up of the Salted Caramel Cupcake.


After cutting it open, I found that they kind of cut a hole in the center and pour caramel in it, then cover it up in the most delicious caramel frosting with a drizzle of caramel sauce on top. I love this one because despite all the caramel, the salt cuts the sweetness.

Guess where we'll be next week?? LOL

Romalo's Cannoli & Spumoni Factory

Labor Day weekend, I went to Monterey with my friend Debi and her daughter Alex, and my Ashley. While we were there, we stopped into this little sandwich shop and had some lunch and dessert. Debi had a cannoli. It was this rolled pastry stuffed with something that looked like whipped cream. I've never had a cannoli before, so when she offered a bite, I tried it. And man, I'm hooked! :)
So when we got home, I thought I'd google Cannolis to see what would pop up. And Romolo's Cannoli and Spumoni factory popped up. Hmm, a cannoli factory?? Phil, of course, has had cannoli's. And when I showed him their website, he starts to describe cannolis to me in detail. So of course we had to go to Romolo's to check it out.

It's a Sunday, late afternoon, and there wasn't a line at all. Since we were Romolo cannolis virgins, the owner greets us and begins to show us what all our options are with the cannolis. Do we want plain shells, which is good if we're going to eat in right away. Or we could have chocolate lined ones, which will keep the shells crispy. And once filled, we had more options. Did we want chocolate chips, pistachios, or a cherry?


We ended up with half a dozen. 4 with chocolate, 2 without. Don't they look so yummy??

And he hand makes the ice cream there. OMG, it was the yummiest ice cream ever!! So very creamy. I know I have to go back to try the other flavors!!

After we were there for like a minute, the place started to fill up with customers, we lucked out getting there first! :) Will have to go back again to try other things, the tiramisu looks so yummy!!

Super Bowl Fry Day

This past Sunday was Super Bowl Sunday. For those of you who aren't from the US, the Super Bowl is the biggest game of the year. It's where the NFC and AFC has their final game of the season to see which is the best team. Either you're watching the game cause you love football, or you're like me, watching the game to see what was the best commercial this year. LOL

This year Phil's family decided that we'd have a Fry Day. Meaning that everything was deep fried, and pretty much finger foods. Yes, warnings went off in my head at the thought of having mainly fried foods. But of course the novelty of it won out, even though I knew I was going to have a stomach ache afterward.

One of our favorite fried foods is Garlic Steaks. Think of a chicken fried steak with a ton of garlic in it, and you have Garlic Steaks. Phil gets Italian bread crumbs and mixes in chopped onions and minced garlic. Then he dips a thin piece of steak in an egg wash, presses that in the bread crumbs, and fries it. OMG, it is so good.

We thought that mini corn dogs would taste really good. So we bought the mini smokies at Costco, dipped them in corndog batter made from Krusteaz and cornmeal. I did a half recipe and it still was way too much. They turned out pretty good.


We also had fried Raviolis. Phil takes frozen raviolis, and he breads them with the same stuff he uses on the garlic steaks. They turned out really yummy.

We also had regular cheese sticks. Those were really easy to make. Since we weren't at home, we had to make due with what was in the house. Al bought string cheese sticks, and we dipped that in the egg wash. We used the Italian bread crumbs to coat, then dipped it back in the egg wash and back into the bread crumbs. Then deep fry. Those really didn't take long at all to fry. And they tasted like any cheese sticks you'd get at a restaurant. I wish I had thought to take a picture of them.


For dessert I made Apple Zeppolis. They're from the recipe that Giada made on her show. I think I didn't squeeze out the juice from the apples enough, cause it made the dough more like a batter. So we pretty much had apple funnel cakes. They were quite good, I must say. LOL

And not pictured are the fried twinkies. We were going to use the traditional fried twinkies recipe, but there was no vinegar in the house. That's one thing about going to someone else's house to cook. I know what I have in my house, and I have pretty much everything I need. And I get a bit frustrated when I'm told to make something, but I don't have what I need. You get used to your tools, you know. Anyway, since we didn't have any vinegar in the house, and since no one was going to go to the store to get any, we used the Zeppoli batter. And you know, it turned out pretty good. Or so I was told. I'm not a big twinkie fan, so when I took a bite, it was too darn sweet for me. But everyone else liked it.

I also made some not fried things. Phil's mom had a few mini bundt cake pans that I inherited. Mainly cause I bake, and no one else does. LOL So I've been making mini bundt cakes lately. These are mocha cakes with mocha glaze and homemade whipped cream. They were really yummy.

I think that was my last fry day party! I hope next year we incorporate some veggies cause man, that was too much fried foods in one day!

Cheese stuffed burgers

After watching episodes of Triple D (Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives), Phil made these yummy Cheddar Cheese stuffed burgers. OMG, they were so yummy and HUGE!

He started by taking ground beef and making a patty. Then we cut up some Extra-sharp cheddar cheese and put it in the middle. Then you take another patty and seal up the edges really well. You don't want to have molten cheese all over the bbq instead of inside the burger.

Then he grilled them on the BBQ. I don't normally eat cheese on my burgers anymore, but MAN, this was SO good!! Having the cheese inside the burger just changes the taste of it, and made it a lot yummier.

We served them on kaiser rolls. We're gonna try grilled onions and mushrooms next.

Casper's Hot Dogs

I had a great time visiting with Kristen yesterday. She was visiting from Coarsegold. She used to live in the bay area, but moved a while ago, and I met her through the store I worked at in Redwood City.

We went to the movies and saw the Ugly Truth, good movie if you haven't already seen it, and then we went to Casper's Hot Dogs.

I grew up on the Peninsula, so I had never heard about Casper's Hot Dogs till I moved over on this side of the bay. And Kristen hadn't heard of them until her neighbor asked her about them a few weeks ago. So we thought it would be a fun place to go for lunch.

Here's Kristen enjoying her Kraut Dog. I had a Cheese Dog. I love their Hot Dogs cause they're just so good. They have the skin (or casing) on them still, so when you bite into them they Snap! I haven't been to one in awhile, especially the "Casper's with a C". We normally go to the "Kasper's with a " cause it's closer to our house. I don't think there's much of a difference, but Phil does. LOL

If you're in the East Bay, stop on by, they're a great hot dog! (they also sell them in Costco and Safeway in the refrigerator meat sections).

Lumpia

One of our friends from the tournament team, Michelle, made really yummy lumpia the other day, and she was so kind enough to give us some. Cause OMG, I love lumpia. :)

This is what lumpia looks like before you fry it:

This is in our deep fryer...

And the finished product. All hot and yummy!!
Thank you Michelle for the lumpia! It was SO ONO! :)

Strawberry tart time

It's Strawberry tart time at Nation's Giant Hamburgers. So of course we had to go get one at our local Nation's. It's a local chain that I'm finding is only in the East Bay Area (and Tracy). There are none on the Peninsula. So when I started working in Newark, oh so many years ago, I got my first taste of Nations. OMG, it is so good. Strawberry Pie time is second only to Apricot Pie time (which is only in the month of March).
I had to take a picture of their new tart container. LOL Before they would wrap the tart in waxed paper for the ride home. This was always really messy when you'd unwrap it leaving the strawberry sauce on the paper and not on the strawberries. And of course, for me, this is the "Eat just the strawberries in the tart and leave the crust behind" kind of pie.

It is just so yummy now in my tummy. The strawberries were really sweet, and they are piled high one on top of the other. As Rachel Ray would say...Yum-O!

If you go to get one, you have to go early. And I suggest that if you see them in the pie case, order them with your meal even if it is to go. Last year Phil said that he'd order it after we ate cause there were 11 of them in the case. By the time we finished they were all gone. He has never heard the end of it from me. ;)

New Deep Fryer Dishes

We made 2 new dishes in our deep fryer. One is Fried Apple pies. Phil took apple pie filling from a can, added some spices to it, and put it inside of a flour tortilla. He rolled it up like a burrito, and then deep fried it till it was crispy and warm. When he took it out of the fryer he dusted it with Powdered sugar...YUM!!


We also made corn dogs. We found a recipe for Corn Dog batter on the internet. It actually used Krustez Pancake mix! The corn dogs turned out really good. We also had the mini hot dogs in the freezer, so we thawed them out and made corn dog nuggets. And then the Hot Links came out and we made Corn Dog Hot Links. LOL

The fryer is very handy!

The Ehara/Louisiana Bakery...

This is what Phil and I have been up to the last couple of weeks. The Embroidery machine is in the shop at the moment, so we had to find other ways of making things. Above is a picture of Phil's new Sweet Potato pie. He saw Tyler Florence on the Food Network making Mashed Sweet Potatoes with Baked bananas. So of course being the sweet potato guy, he had to try it. But he put a twist on the dish, he made it into a pie. I don't like Sweet Potatoes, so I didn't try it, but they said it was good. :)

This is what I've been up to. Caramel corn. Tons and tons of Caramel corn. Before I worked at the store, I would make Caramel corn for people at Christmas time. But the last few years I didn't have the time. So I was back into Caramel Corn Production. I think I must have made about 15 batches!! It's so yummy and addicting!

Philip's co-workers asked him where he's been hiding the Caramel corn all these years. LOL

New Deep Fryer and Garlic Steaks

At Phil's family's Christmas Party they do a white elephant gift exchange. If you've never heard of that before, it's where everyone who wants to participate brings a wrapped gift of a certain value. They are all put in a pile, and everyone picks a number. The first person will pick a gift to open. The next person has the option to either open a gift or steal a gift from someone who already has one. And this year they added a twist, you had to answer a trivia question to open a gift.

Phil ended up with this really cool deep fryer with oil! :) So tonight we made Garlic Steaks. What are Garlic Steaks? Well, they're like chicken fried steaks. You take thin pieces of beef, put it in an egg wash, then in a bread crumb mixture of italian bread crumbs, chopped onions, and minced garlic. The mixture is kind of a wet mixture. So when you put the meat in the crumbs, you kind of press the bread crumb mixture onto the beef.

Here's the steaks cooking:


They're getting ready to come out. The deep fryer is great for this! You don't have to fish out the pieces of meat with chopsticks or tongs. You just lift them out with the basket!

And here are the finished steaks! They are so very yummy.

We usually eat them with cheese tortellinis. I ate them with fries tonight cause I just love fries!

Hawaiian Nachos

Today we were shopping at Takahashi Market in San Mateo, and they had the most interesting dish... Hawaiian Nachos. I wish I had taken a picture of it. :(

What are Hawaiian Nachos? Well, you start out with tortilla chips, put on a layer of Kalua Pork and then Lomi Salmon. And then you add a sort of secret sauce on top. The sauce is the same color as say a 1000 island dressing, but it is a bit spicier without the pickles.

And you know, it was really good. Lomi Salmon is pretty much like a salsa. You take salt-cured salmon and dice it, then you add tomatos and onions. So it looks like a salsa.

It was really surprising how good that was, so if you're in San Mateo, check out the Hawaiian Nachos at Takahashi Market.

Mac and cheese

Phil made this really awesome Mac and cheese tonight. He put ham in it too. He used velveeta, milk, colby jack cheese, baked it, then before it came out put cheddar cheese on top. Oh, it was very yummy, but a heart attack waiting to happen! LOL

BBQ Peaches

One of things that we look forward to in summer time is BBQ peaches. We were watching Food Network one night, and saw them BBQing the peaches. So we decided to try it, and OMG, they've been a big hit!
This is a peach after it's been on the grill. As soon as it comes off the grill, sprinkle them with a bit of sugar. And it seems like it caramelizes.
Yummy in Ashley's tummy! LOL It's one of the things the softball team looks forward to every year. When Phil goes back to practice, everyone reminds him how they love BBQ peaches!