tahoe=mexico?

Yes, yes it does. Every year, my family and i drive ourselves on up to tahoe and every year we get us some TASTY food in truckee at Authentic Tacos Jalisco...I'm not sure if thats the real name, but thats what we call it. This tiny little resauraunt is in the corner of a strip mall filled with some...well...some less than average restaurants and is always jam packed. This mexican eatery is one of the few in the greater lake tahoe area that offers delish and authentic mexican food, a must after a long day of skiing.

This year, we had to drive for half an hour through a snow storm from squaw villiage and then wait in line for 1293584573 years in the cold snow and then wait another couple hundred days until our food arrived. We were just getting warm enough to start complaining of hunger pains when we see the one waiter in the restauraunt walk our way with plates and plates of steaming food. SUCH good food.

Our table was soon piled high with chicken avacado quesedillas, carnitas, rice, refried beans, flour and corn tortillas, jaritos soda and WET BURRITOS.

This right here --->                                    is what remained of one of the wet burritos, which are basically a gigantic burrito topped with enchilada sauce and just that much better than regular burritos. Wet burritos = life, and the fact that this place has a good one, like the ones in mexiceo, says a LOT about how perfect this place was.

Oh, and some chips con salsa hecho a mano (house made salsa), helped too :)

ghirardelli chocolate

so after already being in the touristy location of fisherman's warf for our trip to Tanguito, my dad and i decided to stop at ghirardelli square for some chocolate decadence! now, i don't know if you caught on to this or not, but for the past month or so, i've been undergoing a severe case of the sweet tooth. it seems like no matter how many ice cream sundaes i've consumed since winter break started (4), i CANNOT get enough of them.
so i looked at the menu and was instantly overwhelmed. there are literally over 10 different sundaes to choose from, as well as scooped ice cream, milkshakes, pastries, and "chocolate drinks"!! I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TO GET. the banana hot fudge sundae looked so ridiculously good, but then i contemplated my order for a few more minutes while the cashier stood there, impatiently staring at me. finally, i decided that here at ghirardelli they are KNOWN for their chocolate. so i ordered myself a chocolate dipped waffle cone with some signature ghirardelli chocolate ice cream! without taking into consideration how much of a chain ghirardelli actually is, i ordered a double scoop.
interesting decision, zoe. IT WAS MASSIVE. i was too full to even eat a quarter of the cone because i had already consumed so much ice cream. but it was WORTH IT. the ice cream was so creamy and even though we had to stand because it was pouring rain outside and there were no seats available, i was in heaven. chocolaty heavenly goodness. the weirdest part for me was that as soon as i got home and digested a little bit, i wanted to go straight back. i was secretly hoping my parents would jokingly ask "want some more of that ice cream for dinner?" so that i could reply "YES. YES I DO." and they would've driven me right back over to ghirardelli square and i would've ordered myself the banana hot fudge sundae. that's my #1 fantasy for the time being, which i am still counting on happening sometime in the near future. 

argentinean food truck!?

half-eaten empenada

food trucks ftw. today my dad and i tried out an argentinean food truck called "Tanguito", which was located smack in the middle of fisherman's warf...aka the most ridiculously commercialized tourist destination of the bay area. but the slightly offsetting location of this place DEFINITELY doesn't define it. i ordered a simple yet delicious chicken empenada, while my dad ordered a traditional steak sandwich (argentina's famous for their meat!). he only finished half of it surprisingly, but we were both TOTALLY satisfied with our meals. this place even DELIVERS. we're def eating here again. 

http://www.yelp.com/biz/tanguito-san-francisco

i heard about this place from a youtuber/san francisco food blogger called "the food dude" (www.thefooddudesf.com), whom i believe is a very helpful source for heather and i to have for our food experiences in this city to grow! 

christmastime eating

     

After being thoroughly inspired by the below post (nice work zoe), i decided to add in my own little christmas eating adventure.


At my fathers house, christmas is a BIG DEAL. and so naturally, holiday food is an even BIGGER DEAL. we had people over nonstop for the past few days and food was being made and devoured 24/7. we would eat breakfast, do some small activity for about an hour, have some christmas cookies and hot coco, then have some lunch...almost immediatley followed by dinner and this year for christmas dinner, we really went all out.

roast beef au jus, yorkshire pudding, steamed carrots with butter: the whole meal (unfortunatley i didnt get a shot of it with gravy, THAT was eaten up too fast)

THIS right here was the real masterpiece of the meal. It was crunchy and delicious on the outside and fluffy and doughy on the inside, such a cliche i have a hard time typing it, but oh so true :) The only flaw was that there was only one pan of this divine yorkshire pudding...

and then there was dessert, my personal favorite meal of the day. We had a buche de noel   (aka yule log) which, for those of you who are unfortunate enough not to have tried it, is basically a chocolate mousse in cake form with chocolate ganache frosting. could it be much better? probably not.

not only did we have a buche de noel, our friend Jonathan brought over MACAROONS. Now, he used to live in Paris so when he says that macaroons are good, you know they are PERFECT. and these lovely little cookies from paulette in hayes valley (http://www.paulettemacarons.com/) certainly made the cut. There were flavors like vannila, chocolate and lemon, but also earl grey tea,  passion fruit and violet.

  all and all, this was one amazing christmas meal, the perfect end to my personal favorite holiday, now all there is left to do is eat up some leftovers :)

one big cupcake

christmas was a very exciting time for me this year, because it allowed me to take advantage of the fact that we were having many hungry guests coming over for dinner. of course, i took the one time we were having people over to try baking a new treat! smart plan right? i also decided that this dessert would be completely made by me. that means i ask my parents no questions and turn away any help they offered. i only suffered minor mishaps throughout the process, and i think the outcome of this cake was a COMPLETE SUCCESS! 


so, for my birthday last month heather gave me a "big top cupcake" baking set! there was the option of putting a filling in the cake as well, but i decided to start out small and just bake the cake without a filling. it was a smart idea.


for the cake, i decided to go with a red velvet because that's just a really christmassy flavor. and i like chocolate.

now, the baking process was not super tricky, but i really had to pay attention to how long everything was in there because the top of the cupcake bakes faster than the bottom. but here's where my mishaps began. when i took the top out, i decided that it was still a little too gooey (for the guests...i would eat it raw!), so i put it back in the oven. then of course i ended up burning the edges a tad. but nothing a little frosting can't cover up ;)

top=fail

after letting the cakes cool for a few hours, it was time for the most frustrating part of this whole baking extravaganza: taking them out of their pans. now the giant cupcake instructions called for putting non-stick cooking spray on the pans before putting the cake batter in, but we didn't have any of that. instead i just used crisco, which is SUPPOSED to work. apparently it doesn't work. because BOTH the base and the top of the cupcake had some massive problems coming out and they both split in half. i was about ready to give up at this point, since i assumed that the cake would no longer look like a cupcake, therefore no point in serving it. 

both top and base=COMPLETE FAILS

but i decided to man up. actually it was a combination of that and my parents' encouragement. this is when it truly turned into an art project. now it was about the presentation, not the taste. i got out my frosting and began working on reconstructing these random bits of cake into the giant cupcake they were destined to be. and ya know what? i think i did pretty good:

last but not least was the decorating portion of this adventure! i still have absolutely NO cake decorating tools at all, so i went with the old fashioned ziplock bag technique to frost. i decided to make it resemble a christmas tree to fit the occasion. after about an hour of frosting and re-frosting, and generally trying to make everything look perfect, i did it. i completed this monster of a cupcake, and thankfully, it impressed all our dinner guests! by far my most rewarding baking experience yet.

christmas cookies

my little brother and i made some SLAMMIN' sugar cookies yesterday (with the help of the trader joe's sugar cookie workshop  http://www.traderjoes.com/).

they were ridiculously good and made the house smell oh-so-christmasy

trader joe's =

holiday love!

5 minute chocolate mug cake

okay, i realize it's been WAY too long since we last posted. so i'm just going to go in and post the infamous 5 minute chocolate mug cake recipe we tried a few months ago! obviously, it wasn't amazing, considering the fact that it was heated up the microwave for a few minutes. but with huge amounts of melty chocolate chips and vanilla ice cream, this cake is truly satisfying! 

RECIPE:
4 tablespoons flour
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons chocolate chips (the recipe says it's optional, but trust me, ITS CRUCIAL)
a splash of vanilla extract
1 large coffee mug (microwave safe!!)


add dry ingredients to mug and mix well. add the egg and mix thoroughly before pouring the milk and oil in. keeeeep mixing! then add the chocolate chips and vanilla extract.
then put your mug of chocolaty goodness in the microwave for 3 minutes (1000 watts). expect the cake to rise a lil over the mug! serve some vanilla ice cream on the side for complete goodness. 

all american

tonight we had an all-american meal! along with the grilled cheese sandwiches (cheddar, swiss and brie on homemade bread from outerlands http://outerlandssf.com/) and tomato soup:

...and we got to enjoy some warm, delicious, chocolaty, chocolate chip cookies.

it was a good night.

in n' out

it would be silly for us NOT to have a post about in n' out...because, you know, we live in california, and the two kind of go together. 
and last night i went. my brother was in the mood for cheeseburgers, and the first thing that popped into my head? "IN N OUT!"

everything about this place is perfect...

PERFECT I TELL YOU

another thing i've always loved about in n' out was their fries...not the actual fries themselves, but the little message you get after finishing them. it makes me feel good about eating their food

midnight snack

one tasty midnight snack of home made ginger molasses cookies and vanilla bean ice cream sandwiches. on a school night? i think yes.


http://delectablecomestible.blogspot.com/2010/11/throwbackkk.html
^^notice a pattern?

etc.

the 'al etcetera' of the meal:

                                      

pig, a whole pig

so the latest in our food experiences is....a pig.
just like at luaus, a pig.
need i repeat? A WHOLE PIG. (including the apple in the mouth!)

holiday caffine

during a holiday caffine buzz, we made this photo:

we are having ourselves some GINGERBREAD LATTES. which are extra delish on cold and rainy sf days and are a great time waster when you have homework to get to. and they were even better because we just had some crepes form CREPES A-GO-GO (http://www.yelp.com/biz/crepes-a-go-go-san-francisco-3) 
one was swiss cheese and egg and the other was....drumroll please... CHOCOLATE.
and that was one tasty breakfast. 

FOOD WARS

us:

roasted banana ice cream with house made graham cracka pieces and house made whipped cream topped with house made hot fudge. after a three hour gymnastics. 

photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/kathyylchan/4683383839/

jasper:

whatever was in his fridge.

who won?

we did.

holiday dreams

dont get excited, i have no new posts...sadly.

i am just food bloggin to say that

1) foodporndaily.com might be  the reason the internet was created 

and

2) i really wish i had eaten some food blog worthy food recently bacasue my hands are itching to take a photo of some FOOD and then blog about it.

so in conclusion, i have nothing to say and that is no fun :(

bleeker street pizza

who do you think won? 

...(wait i gave it away in the title of this post)

during my lovely trip to new york i was fortunate enough to be able to have some tasty new york style pizza! this was called the nonna-maria and it had mozzarella, basil, and their special tomato sauce. 

HEAVEN

banana split cake

it's everything you love about a banana split...sans the ice cream....in a CAKE!
and the recipe goes:

• 2 cups graham cracker crumbs
• 2 tbsp. melted margarine
• 2 cups powedered sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 pound oreos
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 4-5 bananas
• 1 medium size can of crushed pinapple
• cool whip

first blend and press the graham cracker crust into buttered pan (approx 13 x 9 in). mix together the powedered sugar, eggs, oreos and bananas for 5 minutes, then spread that over the crust. chill for 1 hour.

slice the bananas lengthwise and place them over your mixture in the pan. on top of that place the pinapples, and then cool whip. finally garnish with ground nuts and cherries!

DESSERT

GAH third post in a row but i feel like i need a seperate one for the desserts. this thanksgiving i was blessed with the opportunity to try.....are you ready for it.......

BANANA SPLIT CAKE!!! 

(but i think i'll put the recipe for that in a seperate post)

as well as this wondrous cake, there were peanut butter bars (which tasted like reese's cups but better), mini pecan pies, and of course pumpkin pie!