I love this man!!!!

Anything that has Bobby Flay I'm addicted to. I watched 4 episodes of Throwdown with Bobby Flay after work one day! From "Boy meets Grill" to "Iron Chef"....I can't get Bobby out of my head! I want to taste his dishes and conquer the world with him!!!!!

I must go back to NYC and eat at Bar Americain!! I must meet him!!!!

Spinach and Feta Salmon

We cheated this week with dinner. Instead of making our own fish cuisines we bought pre"gourmet"ed meals at whole foods. Delicious though!

Glenn made some baked sweet potatoes fries: seasoned with brown sugar, cinnamon. Very good! I've always made mine spicy, with black pepper, seasoning salt, and garlic so it was a good change to have something sweet on the plate.

On right: We bought these salmon pinwheel things at Whole Foods. Ring of salmon with spinach and feta cheese stuffed in. Very good! The feta cheese after awhile was a bit salty and heavy but still tasty. I think next time though, Glenn and I could easily whip this up ourselves.

Waffle Maker Alert!

Lauren and Bob gave us their waffle maker a couple of weeks ago and I haven't had time to try it out. After a trip to whole foods this weekend, I got a rush of inspiration and cooked up a great breakfast for Glenn and I!

I cooked cherry tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, and chicken sausage (which were stuffed with spinach and feta cheese).

After the waffles were cooked I put a dollop of Greek yogurt on top and drizzled some warmed up maple pumpkin butter on top.

Lordy lordy! I love peanut and almond butter but when we saw maple pumpkin butter at whole foods we knew we had to try it! It's so sweet and rich! We didn't even need syrup!

It was a great breakfast but I think I could make the waffles a little crispier next time! I'll definitely be using the waffle maker on a weekly basis!

Yama Sundays!

It was a Yama Sunday and Tom and Azeem actually decided to join us! Glenn and I are always psyched to help our little restaurant succeed!



Azeem was being sophisticated as usual. Cap and tongue out was necessary of course.













Our usual waitress brought us out FREEEE Edamame to start out with. Glenn and I were craving the duck roll but we knew they only served that Monday through Fridays....but WOWZERS! They made us 4 duck rolls as appetizers! Not on the menu!! We were so excited. So fresh, crunchy, salty yet sweet. We love the duck roll. The meat was a little on the fatty side this time though. :(






The only thing new was the Catepillar Roll we ordered. Traditional roll of eel inside with avocado on the outside. I actually enjoyed this roll more than the Dragon roll...although they are almost identical. Not too much eel sauce on the outside so I could really enjoy the eel NOT just the eel sauce.

Luke's Grilled Chicken Kabobs

UFC 97 took place at Seth and Luke's! Awesome house with "stadium seating". Last time we went we had chips and dip but this time Luke made grilled chicken kabobs for us


Grilled chicken pieces, squash, red and green pepper, onions. Great flavoring but a little on the dry side. He cooked it on the grill outside then finished it in the oven. The vegetables were perfect, just the chicken was a little too done. Tasty none-the-less!

Tomodachi Sushi

Tomodach is a Sushi restaurant on Parmer in North Austin. It's right behind Riata Park so we've been there before with Jay. We enjoyed ourselves last time and since we couldn't go to Yama, we decided to come here again!

Sushi Bomb: Tuna, white tuna, salmon, and red snapper sushi. Ponzu and a spicy chili sauce was drizzled on top. The taste was INTENSE. It tasted good but I usually like to eat my sushi and sashmi with very little sauce so I could enjoy the fresh fish. Very flavorful but definitely not for real sushi lovers.

Dynamite bowl: Shrimp, mushroom, roe, calmari mixed a cream based sauce on top of a bed of rice. Very tasty! Huge chunks of shrimp. The creamy blend of sweet rice and the seafood was very satisfying. A must try!

2 pieces of Eel sushi

Mt. Fuji roll: soft shell crab, spicy crab, avocado, and escolar on top. This roll was topped with one of my favorite fish! It was delicious and I could taste both the crab and the fish at the same time! The only downside was the creamy sauce that was drenched on top and on the bottom of the whole roll!

Our food was great at Tomodachi....the only thing I would ask next time would be for less dressing on EVERYTHING! Let's enjoy things simple okay? :)

Robertson's Choppin' Block

On our almost weekly trips to Austin, we always see Robertson's Choppin Block off of I35. Allison told Glenn they made good jerky so we decided to stop by and check it out.

What a quaint little place. Not only do they have sausages, beef jerky, fresh ham sandwiches but they also sell an assortment of nuts, chocolates (yum!), candies, candles, lotions, etc. Definitely a place to go to for gifts and Christmas/Kwanza!

We ordered a bit of the beef jerky and turkey jerky. At $25 a pound I expected deliciousness that is off the charts! Alas....the beef jerky was in thin pieces that were really hard. I think a tooth broke! The turkey jerky was more moist but to tell you the truth, I would perfer to buy myself some teriyaki beef nuggets they sell at the local 7-11!

Turkey Sausage always on my mind!

Glenn found sound turkey sausage at HEB (our local grocery store) and we've been cooking up a storm with them! We cooked them in eggs and as a snack! I had bought some whole wheat wraps and I was craving something filling and cheesy!

Turkey Quesadillas! Whole wheat wrap with 2 slices of colby jack, cut up cooked turkey sausage, onions, mushrooms. For toppings: guacamole and salsa.

I first cooked the turkey sausage, mushrooms, and onions with: seasoning salt, black pepper, chili powder, cumin, and cinnamon. I placed this all on one side of the tortilla, folded the tortilla over, and cooked it in the oven at 400 degrees for 5 minutes.


This was sooo good! Spicy, FILLING, and cheesy! Glenn and I made this 3 more times that week! We varied the spices and cheeses each time!

Regular Yama Sunday

On the way home from McAllen, I met Glenn for sushi...where else??? YAMA! My friends are beginning to call my blog "The Yama Blog". We can't help but eat there cause it's so good! Sara Sahm thinks we order "a gourmet meal each time" we are there!!! As Cartman would say "I do what I want!"

We ordered more than pictured here but I will only feature new dishes on The Yummy Blog.

Gyoza: pan fried pork dumplings. Very soft won top exterior, not too oily. Tasted like gyoza at any other Asian restaurants but very tasty.

Futo Roll: egg, shrimp, crab, cucumber. Very plain roll but it was still great tasting. More of a pallet cleanser since it was a slightly sweet roll with not much fish. Very filling and thick pieces!

I can't believe Glenn let me order Salmon fried rice! It was very good! Huge chucks of salmon in fried rice! I love it when fried rice has bean sprouts in addition to the regular vegetable mix! Very good! Not too greasy and not saturated with the taste of soy sauce!

Le Lai in McAllen, Texas

It was a food fest when I went home for Easter. I ate Double Daves, at Roxann's BBQ, homecooking and all but I went to Le Lai for some Thai Food! I've been here before but only ordered Mandarin cuisine so I was excited to try their thai plates.



Of course I ordered the Tofu Pad Thai. The noodles were thinner than I am use to and the sauce was more sweet than spicy. It tasted good but it didn't satisfy my "pad thai craving".

Chicken Mango Salad: I could NOT stop raving about this dish. It has sweetened dark pieces of chicken on a bed of shredded red onions, MANGO SLIVERS, carrots, cucumber. A garnish of peanuts and basil top it off. It was so tasty! I was eating thin slices of mango with my meal and it just came together! It was extremely fresh and crunchy! Dipping each biteful in the traditional thai fish sauce added additional flavoring! YUMMY! I will definitely come back for this dish!

Yummy Yama

Wednesday and I'm off. Why not drive an hour to get sushi? Glenn and I walked into Yama and the owner immediately recognized us! We were stoked!!! We had never been there for their lunch menu before so we were excited to try some new items on it!





Tuna tartare. Didn't taste any different than what I've tried at other restaurants before. Still good but nothing unique. The peppercorn encrusted thin slices of tuna were lightly pan seared.








We had never ordered the sashimi deluxe before today! Came with tuna, salmon, red snapper, escolar, and white tuna. Big chunks that tasted so fresh!









Roasted duck roll bento box. Glenn is NOT a fan of duck so when he LOVED this dish I was quite surprised. Bento box came with vegetable tempura, sushi rice, japanese salad, pieces of california roll. The main dish was AMAZING. Pieces of roasted duck with a light layer of sweet sauce (I think hoisin sauce), onions, and romaine lettuce wrapped in a chinese pan fried pastry. It was a little greasy but the sweet yet salty flavors of the duck were to die for! It came with 2 big pieces and Glenn and I were pretty full after this!




The owner kept persisting dessert and said it was on the house! So of course...we couldn't say no. Red bean ice cream. Not a very strong "red bean" flavor to it so it was light and not super sweet. Very good!







What a fabulous lunch! Glenn couldn't stop talking about the duck roll and I'm sure we will be back on Sunday! I'll be in the Valley this weekend but I might stop by Yama on my way back home! Mmm....typing about the duck roll is making my mouth water!

Till next time.

Oikos Shrimp and Salmon Chowder

I have been obsessed with Greek yogurt for about 2 months! It's creamier than regular yogurt so I feel like I'm having a sinful cup of full fat ice cream. It tastes delicious and is oh-so-satisfying. Glenn enjoys it as well and we saw a recipe for Oikos Shrimp and Salmon Chowder on one of their containers!

http://www.oikosorganic.com/Recipes/recipe_Shrimp_Salmon_Chowder.cfm

Link to their site! We actually used sweet potatoes instead of regular potatoes!




































































The final product. I messed up!!! The last step is to "fold" the greek yogurt into the soup slowly so the yogurt doesn't "curdle". Well...it curdled!! So sad! It still tasted really good but as you can see, it doesn't look like traditional creamy chowder. :( Next time I'll cool the soup down significantly before adding in the yogurt! The spices with the seafood still tasted great!

























Azeem came over and brought over a dish! He made green bean casserole but added turkey sausage to it! It was really rich and satisfying!

Everyone thought it tasted good...but the curdling ruin the presentation! :(

Katie's Custard

I love dessert!!! After going to Kitok we decided to try Katie's custard. Their radio commercials are always heard! The place is an order and sit outside custard stand. They have a variety of menu items you can order such as banana splits, fudge sundaes, custards with mixings, etc.























I ended up ordering the vanilla custard with Heath in it. I think it was just an excuse to eat a Heath bar any way I could get it!

The texture was pretty creamy. Azeem got vanilla custard with peaches and Glenn got the turtle sundae which had caramel syrup, pecans, and chocolate syrup. I enjoyed my concoction but Glenn and Azeem were....once again not impressed. It tasted like Shakes. This wasn't anything special...yet again. Sorry Waco!

Kitok's

There's this place in Waco that my technicians rave about. It's Kitok Restaurant. It's a place that serves greasy burgers, oriental fries, and oriental food! It's not a fusion restaurant! Just a diner that serves burgers AND Chinese food. Odd combination which sounded enticing. Azeem and Glenn drove up to meet me for dinner after work one night. We've been wanting to try this place out for awhile.





















The famed Oriental fries. Basically a bunch of onions and carrots shredded up, dipped in tempura, and fried. Pretty tasty! It was something different but not something to stop the presses about. Would I eat this again? Yes but on the other hand, anything fried is delish.





















I ordered the egg burger. What a fat ass!!! A regular ol' burger wasn't bad enough, I added a fried egg and cheese to it! Very good! The bun was greasy with butter and the meat was tender and well seasoned. The cheese and egg added a kick of creaminess to it! Very good...a mid-step above a Sonic burger.

I'm glad I finally got to come here. Overall, if someone from work was to get something to go from here I would order something. I wouldn't go out of my way to try this place though. Interesting concept but just not as impressed as I was wish I had been. We also ordered some chicken and fried rice....too bland. Azeem and Glenn liked their burgers but they wouldn't want to come all the way to Waco for a "Sonic burger" again.

Rachael Ray's Ground Gyros

So Glenn and I watch the Food Network channel about 2 hours a day! Seriously. Anyways, we caught an episode of 30 minute meals and wanted to try this ground gyro recipe that was featured on there. I love gyros and it looked easy!

http://www.rachaelray.com/recipe.php?recipe_id=1648

There's the link to the recipe! We didn't make the waffle fries with gravy but we made everything else! We also used ground turkey meat instead of lamb! Lamb is better but turkey (to Glenn) is healthier.




















Toppings we put in our gyro. Banana peppers, tomato, cucumber slices.
Tazaki sauce: Greek yogurt, cucumbers, lemon juice, cumin.
Turkey loaf which will be sliced: ground turkey, spinach, feta cheese, spices.





















Placed the turkey slices, toppings, and tazaki sauce into a slice of pita.

The tazaki sauce "made it". Turkey isn't a meat known for it's flavor so it didn't really have any flavor!! :( Next time I will definitely stick to the original recipe. It still didn't taste bad but it didn't turn out as flavorful as I would like.