Monday, January 23, 2012

Albuquerque

Albuquerque is a nice city. It also has some nice restaurants. It would definitely be a place I would visit again. Here's a recap of some eating places:

The Elephant Bar
This restaurant was pretty close to the hotel. I would consider it an Asian cuisine restaurant. An appetizer and a entree was ordered. The appetizer was Quick-Fried Soy-Ginger Calamari. These were calamari strips with marinated vegetables, crisp rice noodles and toasted sesame seeds. There was an asian dipping sauce and cocktail sauce included. The calamari strips were really tender. I've never had calamari as tender as these were. The vegetables  were also good. The asian dipping sauce was really good. The whole appetizer was fantastic.



The entree ordered was the Shrimp Adventure Platter. It's a combination of large coconut fried shrimp, grilled teriyaki glazed shrimp, and hand breaded fried shrimp. A sweet and spicy Pan Pacific sauce and the same type of Asian dipping sauce served with the appetizer were included. French fries were also served as a side. All three types of shrimp were good. The Pan Pacific sauce was excellent. I've never had sauce like that before. It consisted of a mix of pineapple and orange rinds.



The dessert selection at The Elephant Bar was okay. The first dish was a Fresh Baked Red Velvet Chocolate Cupcake Sundae. This was just a red velvet cupcake with cream cheese and butter frosting on top with two scoops of vanilla ice cream and oreo cookie chunks. This was a mediocre dessert. I've had better red velvet cupcakes.


The other was a Wonton Sundae. This was a wonton cup dusted with sugar and cinnamon with vanilla ice cream, topped with chocolate and caramel sauce, whipped cream, oreo cookie chunks, roasted peanuts, and a cherry. This dessert was better than the red velvet cupcake. It wasn't anything spectacular though.



The Japanese Kitchen
This was another restaurant that was close to the hotel. The primary purpose of going to this restaurant was to eat some sushi. The first dish ordered was the Baja California. On the inside was crab leg tempura, cucumber, and avocado. On the outside was sliced mango, tuna, strawberry. Included was mango sauce and sweet and sour sauce. The one word to describe this dish is WOW. The combination of sweet and salty was an awesome taste.


The second dish ordered was Jewel. On the inside was fried soft shell grab green chile tempura, avocado, and cucumber. On the outside was baked scallop, mustard sauce, and tobiko. Tobiko is flying fish roe. Most sushi is cold, but this sushi was actually hot. It was really good. The mustard sauce really added to the overall sushi.



Jason' Deli
This was another restaurant close to the hotel. I had the Club Royale. It was a very good sandwich. It's a toasted croissant with smoked turkey breast, ham, bacon, Swiss, cheddar, lettuce, tomato, and honey mustard.









Monday, January 2, 2012

Day After New Year's

The craziness continues. Obviously I have too much time on my hands this holiday weekend. It also shows my love for BACON!

I've seen a couple of recipes on blogs, food websites, and YouTube about Bacon & Egg Breakfast Cupcakes. I figured why not try this for the first time today. Plus, it's another good way to get started with the new year.

What you will need are eggs, bacon, and cheese. You will also need cupcake pan(s) that are sprayed with non-stick cooking oil. It's highly recommended that the bacon is cooked half-way before putting it into the cupcake pan. Once the bacon is half-way cooked, take a strip of bacon for each cupcake opening and line it around. A small piece of bacon should also go on the bottom for each cupcake opening. Once this is done, it is time to put in the eggs. There are two options, the eggs can be cracked and just poured into the openings or they can be scrambled and poured into the openings. Since the cupcake pan had six openings, two had non-scrambled eggs, and the other four had scrambled eggs. The next step would be to sprinkle cheese on top. For this time, chopped ham and black olives were added on top of the egg, then the cheese was added. Have the oven at 400 degrees, then bake for 10-15 minutes. Take them out and you have cute breakfast cupcakes.  Here's some pics of the process:










New Year's Day

For some time I've been wanting to make bacon-wrapped fried mac & cheese. Since New Year's was coming, what better way to celebrate than to make something that was both crazy and unhealthy. I enlisted the help of Greedy Eater 2 and the journey began. Paula Deen has a recipe for this on the Food Network's website. There are also videos on YouTube. The ingredients were mac & cheese (already cooked, but refrigerated), bacon, eggs, flour, bread crumbs and peanut oil. Since we didn't have the exact ingredients needed, we needed to improvise. Instead of breadcrumbs, we used croutons that were crushed. Instead of peanut oil, we used canola oil. Also, we didn't have a fry daddy, so we just used a cast iron skillet. Basically you need to cut the cold mac & cheese into squares. Wrap the bacon around the squares and secure it with a toothpick. Then coat the bacon-wrapped square with flour, then egg, then the crumbs. After that, it goes into the pan of oil. The oil should be pretty hot, around 350 degrees. The square should be cooked for about three minutes or until nice and crispy. Even with the adjustments, it didn't turn out too bad. Next time, we plan on having the exact ingredients the recipe calls for, and a fry daddy. Here's some pics:





Christmas Dinner

For Christmas, my mom visited and as usual she cooked her traditional Christmas dinner. This dinner consisted of ham, turkey, dressing, dinner rolls, and cranberry sauce. I also made a poundcake. I pretty much love anything my mom cooks. This dinner ranked as the best ever that she's made. Here are some pics: