Friday, July 19, 2013

Mexican Red Rice Recipe

We live in Northern California, my family (wife's side) lives in Southern CA, and my husbands family lives in Ontario Canada. Anytime we visit either place, we try to get our moms to teach us their homemade recipes. Several weeks ago, we visited Southern CA and I asked my mom to teach me how to make the rice. I've tried it on my own before, and for some reason it never comes out. So this time I watched closely. 
For those of you who would like to make it, here are the ingredients and steps.

 As a reminder, my mom does not measure any of the ingredients. I tried to measure them before she used them, and she was getting frustrated hahaha.

Mahatma Rice
 (measurements on the package can be used for this recipe)
Vegetable Oil
Diced Onions
Salt and Pepper
Small Can of Tomato Sauce
Water
Knorr Chicken or Tomato Flavored Bouillon (powder or a square of bouillon)

First you have to toast the rice in a little bit of oil (she was also frying some chicken on the other pan). Heat some oil and add the rice. 


Seems like a lot of oil, but your going to take the excess out.

After the rice is a little browned, add the chopped/diced onions.


Tilt the pan and take out the excess oil.


Add in the can of tomato sauce.


 After about 3 minutes, add in the water, just enough to cover above the rice.


Add in some Knorr Chicken Flavored Bouillon and Tomato powder. She uses both kinds, but you can choose just one. Slowly mix it in.


My mom, Love Her!


Bring to a boil, and reduce hit and cover. 


After about 15-20 minutes it's done!
I had already grabbed some, hence the missing section on the right :)


Hope you enjoyed this recipe!




Sunday, July 14, 2013

Weekend Cooking with "Chef" De Sousa

As soon as Friday mornings arrive I get a little to excited. Not only because the weekend is around the corner, but because the hubby gets a cooking! He plans 3 meals for each day. 
Which sometimes for me it's a bit overwhelming. He tends to cook some filling and fancy meals, which, don't get me wrong, they are great, but I don't want to gain the weight that I had just lost during the week. 
It's very rare that he actually makes all 3 planned meals. Sometime from breakfast I'm so full that I can wait till dinner to eat again. 

So here's what he cooked this weekend:

Friday night:
Inspired by Bone Fish Grill, he made the Bang Bang Shrimp. 
Super easy to make. It turned out Spicy,Tangy, and Sweet.
Recipe can be found here.


Saturday morning the hubby didn't cook. We took our little guy to taekwondo class and decided to go for breakfast,

For a late lunch early dinner we had Mussels with a spicy chorizo sauce. After having the meal, we decided that the next time he makes it we would pair it with a angel hair pasta or a rice. The sauce is great and would go great over the rice or pasta. Or this dish can be made as a just an appetizer.
Recipe can be found here.


For Sunday morning, we decided to have brunch. Only because we slept in and it was brunch time lol.
I love french toast, and my stepdaughter uses a simple recipe that I love, so I was a little sketchy about this one. It included almonds, so I wasn't sure if I was going to like it or not. 
Turns out that I love it! Such a yummy recipe, the only thing missing was a Mimosa :)
Almond Toasted Brioche recipe can be found here.


For lunch and dinner we had nothing fancy, we just had left overs. I couldn't eat too much anyways, I was stuffed from what we did eat!





Very Hungry Caterpillar Tri Fold Invitation

 I wish I new how to draw. My stick people drawings are even a little questionable. I love to design party goods, but I can't rely on any of my stuff. So, I find some incredible artists and with their permission I use their clip art to create my party goods. Thank goodness for them :)

This past week I put together this tri fold invitation with the Hungry Caterpillar theme. It works great as a neutral party them for baby showers and birthdays.
The invitation is available in my etsy shop.

This image is great for a Twins Birthday. I added my name and my sister's name since were fraternal twins :)





Cute Right?

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Pork Ribs: Honey, Ginger, and Orange

I normally go grocery shopping on Monday for all the meals I'm going to cook for the week. This time around I had to get rid of some ingredients. We hate throwing out food, so I went onto Pinterest to find a recipe.
I had some oranges and some sliced ginger on hand, and that's exactly what I typed in "orange and ginger recipes". Tons of stuff came up, including this recipe. Our little guy loves ribs, so I thought this would be perfect. 
I stopped at the store and picked up some pork ribs.

Now let me tell you in advance, anytime I'm doing someone else's recipe, most of the time it doesn't look the same, which means the taste might be different as well. But, at least I tried it right? Who knows, mine might just taste better, hehehe!

The ingredients on their website are slightly different from mine. They used blood oranges, I used regular oranges. They used ginger root, used already sliced up ginger in the jar. I didn't add the chili flakes because it would be to spicy for our little guy.

3-4 Servings 30-40 minutes
Ingredients

2 1/5 pounds of pork ribs 
3 oranges zested and squeezed 
(squeeze out the juice, and zest them for the sauce)
2 TB of chopped ginger
2 TB of honey
Salt and pepper to season
1 TB of dried chili flakes (optional)

Preheat oven to 475 degrees Fahrenheit

Place a piece of parchment paper on the tray, place the ribs on there and sprinkle them with salt and pepper. Put them in the oven, and cook them for 30 minutes.



While the ribs are cooking you can make the sauce in the meantime. I had a little bit of trouble with this step, but it turned out good.

Here is the chopped up ginger and the orange zest.


In a pan/sauce pot put in the orange juice and bring to a boil. Bring down to low heat to a simmer until the liquid reduces and throw in the ginger, orange zest, and honey.



It's supposed to thicken up and get sticky, mine didn't, so I added more honey :)
 You can also add the red chili flakes if your using them.

I then transferred the sauce to the pan so I can toss and coat the ribs
It looks a little watery right?


By the way, you can do the whole sauce in the pan if you'd like (less dishes to wash in the end).
It still didn't look like the websites picture, but I continued.

Once the ribs were done (cooked and crispy), I placed them in the pan with very low heat. 



 Got a spoon and spooned the sauce on both sides. 
At this point the sauce did thicken, and it looked a little better.
I took out a couple for our son, and I then added the chili flakes, I like spiciness.


I paired the ribs with some broccoli and that's it. The taste was good, but I think I over cooked the ribs just a little.


I had to add some bbq sauce to our little guy's ribs because to him ribs don't come with out bbq sauce.

I hope you try this recipe and let me know what you think.

Enjoy!


Sunday, July 7, 2013

Circus, Confetti, and Ninja Turtle's Oh My!

I just added these items in my Etsy shop. I love how the confetti invites turned out. Not really a theme, but I love the color schemes. Sometimes you don't want to do a theme but want a certain color pallet. Confetti/Sprinkles is a perfect theme. You can add all sorts of colors and patterns to the party.
Circus theme is always fun and bright colored. I opted not to put clowns on the invitations, considering that I'm a bit afraid of them and a lot of little kiddos are too!

I have also added some Ninja Turtle Invitations that will go great with the ninja boxes I have in the shop.

Any of these themes can be used for any birthday age, baby showers, baby announcements, etc.
I hope you like them, and as a reminder most of the invites can be customized to your color palette, I can add on or remove items. 

                                              












Diamond Ring Fell Off!

I wanted to share my scare that I had yesterday.
I was washing dishing yesterday afternoon, and as I was drying my hands I realized my DIAMOND had fallen off my ring! I screamed and I yelled at my husband "WTF! My diamond is missing!" He said, SHUT UP, your joking, and I immediately started to cry. Not sure if I crushed the diamond in the garbage disposal but I was freaking out.

For several hours I kept retracing back my steps and no luck. My husband kept saying don't worry about it, it's just a "Thing". Yeah right it's just a "thing", it's my diamond and I wanted to find it ASAP. I looked in every single spot that I put my hands on that I could remember.

I ended up taking a break and my husband made me a cappuccino. I laid down and I was feeling a little disappointed in my self. How could I not notice it was missing.

This is what it looks like
(don't look at my chipped nail polish)

Pretty bad right? Well, the only reason why I am able to talk about this is because hours later I FOUND the diamond. I had gone to the bathroom to get ready for bed, and realized that I had put my hand in a box under the sink earlier in the day, so I thought to check in there VOILA! My diamond was in there!
I couldn't believe it. I screamed and had my husband come over and he couldn't believe it either!
I had to take a tequila shot to calm down!

I hope I never go through this again. We went to Kay's Jewelry today and left my ring so they can put that sucker back on. My husband also left his there, their going to refinish and polish up the rings for us and they should look as good as new
I can breath again!

Friday, July 5, 2013

Rose Cake

I wanted to share real quick this cake that my niece made. It was her first attempt at making this design. She didn't think it came out all that great, but it's just adorable.




Cake was for this little cutie Victoria

Breakfast At Tiffanny's

My niece Alexa turned 4 last week, and she wanted a fancy party! She didn't a Fancy Nancy party, just a party with jewelry and dress up. So my sister planned a Breakfast at Tiffany's theme. She used the original colors, white, black, and Tiffany blue.
I helped out a bit with the invites, but everything else was all her. Oh yeah, my hubby cooked the food lol.

It all started with a little blue bag invitation!


The weather in Southern California was brutal, it was over 100 degrees that day, but somehow we all managed. Except for the dessert, the cake and cupcakes melted a little bit, but they still tasted yummy.

First off, the guest arrived in New York and took a picture inside a taxi with the Empire State building in the background.



Then as the guest walked in the "fanciness" ( is that even a real word?) began.


Glasses, bow ties, mustaches, and crowns were available


My brother was messing around and used some of the props.







We of course had to have a piñata which my sister made inspired by a photo on interest. The bottom piece is not party of the piñata, it's just a stand for it.


My sister made tutu's for all the little girls

Some of the older girls wanted some to, but they had to borrow them from the little ones.


The adults then headed to the mimosa bar. Oh yeah, I also made the Mimosa Menu Sign.



Here is the food Menu. Included in the menu was the Zuppa Toscana that everyone enjoys. You can find the recipe here.


It's been several parties now that we have not had a huge cake. We have noticed that more than half of it goes to waste. So lately, we have had my niece make us a small cake and cupcakes. Such a great idea, and I don't feel bad about throwing out food.

Due to the heat, this adorable cake started to crack, but non the less it turned out cute and yummy.




Birthday girl and her mom



Who says you cant jump in your tutu?


Everything turned out cute! Happy Birthday Alexa! xoxo
















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