Birthday Cake

Recently my family got together to celebrate my mom's birthday. We went out for a fantastic seafood lunch at one of my family's favorite spots, El Barco. When I say fantastic, I should say feast....we're talking huge portions! No birthday is complete without birthday cake, so we headed back to the house and indulged in a fabulous organic chocolate birthday cake from Colleen's Pasty Lab. 

My mom's favorite color is red, so I had asked Colleen to incorporate red flowers on the chocolate cake. I loved how the cake came out! The bright red of the flowers was perfectly complemented by a pretty damask cake plate. 

Happy Birthday Mom! 

Maui, part 1.

We went away for a little vacation time, but we're back. Maui was simply, awesome. I've said it before, and I'll say it again....we love to eat. So obviously I need to tell you about some of our favorite spots for food on Maui. 

LOCAL FOOD - LAHAINA

First on the agenda was nabbing some Spam Masubi. My family had been raving about this tiny little place where a woman makes the Masubi to order and it's served all nice and toasty warm. Yum! LOCAL FOOD is located in Lahaina in a nondescript strip mall. You order at the window and take your food to go or pop a squat at one of the two picnic benches. 

LOCAL BOY - LAHAINA & KIHEI

You can't go to Hawaii without getting shaved ice. And, you need to get it Hawaiian style because when else are you going to?? Hawaiian style means starting with ice cream, loading that with Azuki beans, then your ice, then your flavors, and topping it all with Kauai cream. We also liked adding mochi to our shaved ice. I swear it's heavenly. Our favorite is LOCAL BOY SHAVED ICE. There are two locations in Maui: 1 in Kihei and the other in Lahaina. We hit up both. Yep, we liked it THAT much. 

BRADDA HUTTS - HANA

During our trip to Hana we got hungry. Luckily I had read thumbs up reviews on YoungHouseLove for Bradda Hutts, a little bbq place at the end of Hana. Thanks guys! They were so right. This place rocked. We shared one order of chicken and it was perfect. Hands down the best chicken we had the whole trip. And surely the best chicken I've ever had from a blue mini bus. 

eating in the car because it was raining.

this is how much I liked the chicken platter, & I don't even like chicken.

PITA PARADISE - KIHEI

I wish we had discovered Pita Paradise in Kihei earlier in the trip. Our meal there tasted so fresh and light. Plus, we got to sit outside and enjoy the Hawaii air. The owner serves a fresh catch of the day. He either catches it himself or gets it from a friend that has caught it. How rad is that?! We ordered the catch of the day on pita, a pita pizza, and a size of hummus. Not a bad one in the bunch. 

72 hours

This week I must have had my crazy hat on or something because I decided to try to go carb-free for 48 hours. What was I thinking??! Let me tell ya, I AM A CARB LOVING FREAK! Rice, pasta, bread, chips. I love them all and eat 'em up everyday. 

Moral of this story, I survived! After I hit the 48 hr. mark, I figured, what the hay. Let's get super cray and go for 72hrs! So yes, I made it 72 hrs. I honestly wasn't sure if I could really do it. And, I did find myself standing in the kitchen scratching my head and wondering what I was going to eat. I have to give big props to my hubs for helping me out and supporting my efforts.

Curried chicken, green beans, sweet potato mash w/ cinnamon, agave nectar & almonds

Hawaiian Quinoa (our version of hawaiian fried rice): peas, onion, egg, spam, pineapple

WHAT I LEARNED:

-I really did feel less bloated without the carbs and tons of sugar.

-My sugar cravings decreased. I never craved soda or juices.

-I kind of hate to admit this, but it made me stop and think about my food choices. It made me think of other options rather than revving up the rice cooker or boiling a pot of pasta. Sure, those options are tasty and easy, but they all leave a puffier version of moi. I'm still going to eat them, but now I realize I can make better choices when I do. Now I'll eat them less frequently and when I do, I'll try to eat them at lunch rather than dinner. Eating them at lunch is a much wiser choice because it will give me more hours in the day to burn them off.

-I blossomed a new friendship with quinoa. Quinoa is yummy yummy seed folks and I can honestly say that substituting it for rice does curb my carb craving. Read more about it here. You can even make it in the rice cooker! 

portion tip: making 2 cups is enough to feed us both for dinner and each have lunch the next day.

Thanks for letting me share my 72 hr. food journey with you. xo, Megan

Spring Rolls

My last post was about an annual potluck holiday party we went to. The week of the party all I could think about was what to make for that darn potluck. Now I wanted to bring something that was yummy, of course, but I also wanted to bring something that wouldn't taste craptastic if it got cold. After much debating, we finally settled on what to bring. Low and behold, the Vietnamese Spring Roll!

We eat them all the time at my mother in law's, and in many different varieties, but we decided to go the  vegetarian route this time. 

Here's what we used in ours:

-Rice Paper *

-Vermicelli Noodles *

-Fried Tofu *

-Lettuce

-Bean Sprouts

-Cucumber

-Carrots 

*Available at most Asian grocery stores.

Pierogi

If I haven't said so already, I LOVE food. I love to eat. I love to cook.

On that note, this morning we went to the farmer's market and couldn't resist picking up some homemade meat pierogi's. As soon as I put them in my bag, I started daydreaming of how I was going to prepare them for our lunch. They came out deeee-lish!

Ingredients:
Meat Pierogi's
Butter
Onion
Chives
Arugula
Garlic
Morningstar Bacon

I sauteed the thinly sliced onion and garlic in butter. Then I added the pierogi and 1 slice of Morningstar bacon chopped up, and waited for both to crisp up. Lastly I added coarsely chopped arugula and chives, and waited until the the arugula cooked down.