Life in the Kitchen

Today, we somehow ended up spending over three hours in the kitchen doing various things and had fun doing it! The first thing was that Jason decided to spoil me with Porcini-Crusted Lamb and Asparagus & Bacon Risotto. He is such a spectacular chef!! The lamb was a Williams-Sonoma recipe we used when making our Valentine's Day dinner, we just omitted the sauce since we didn't really care for it the first go round.

While Jason cooked, I continued the job we had started on Sunday of organizing our pantry. We already can't wait till we have a much, much bigger kitchen!!! So, here's a picture of our pantry as it is now. Honestly, it shares quite a lot about Jason and I, individually, and how we have influenced each other. I'm super organized and Jason is a food guru. So, now we have all our foods in awesome containers and we have an amazing selection of foods to choose from when cooking. I mean, how many pantries have four different kinds of flour, five different kinds of pastas and six different types of grains? So, Jason's love for cooking and gourmet foods is quite evident in our pantry!

After all that was done, I decided to continue my cupcake experiments and decided to try Boston Creme Cupcakes. They were quite easy to make and yummy! I think we'll be experimenting with the recipe to see if we can get more of a custard taste and may try to thicken up the ganache frosting, but it was a great first try. Much better luck than I've had with some of my other cupcakes!

Savory Delights

I was super excited when Rocco Dispirito's new cookbook Now Eat This! Diet came out. So we ordered it and the other day I picked out some recipes to try. So, last night we tried making the "Flash-Fried Chicken Carnitas" and the "Chicken and Cheese Jalapeño Poppers". Overall, I'd say they were a success.

The poppers were fantastic. They were yummy and looked great and they were easy to make. You can find the recipe here. Chicken and Cheese Jalapeño Poppers.  

The carnitas definitely were more time-consuming and a little more difficult to follow since you have to make sure you have the correct temperatures when heating the chicken stock and the grapeseed oil. And they were way too salty, so we'll probably cut down on the adobo and the salt next time. Here's the basic recipe although the directions aren't as detailed as in the book. Flash-Fried Chicken "Carnitas"

So, while we were waiting for the chicken to cook, we went outside and I took pictures of Jason and Titan. There were storms nearby so the lighting outside was really cool.

These are a few of my favorite things...

So, two of my most favorite things are good friends and sushi! And last night, Jason and I were able to enjoy both. We both love entertaining, and since I am finally back home from my training in Dallas, we decided to have two of our favorite married couples over, John and Amy (top) and Eric and Ashley (bottom). And since Jason is a 5-star sushi chef, we had to treat them to some yummy sushi!!

We started the afternoon off at Super Cao Nguyen in OKC. This Asian supermarket is brimming with all kinds of international foods, so we stocked up on sushi essentials and headed back home.

After Jason had prepped all the food and John and Amy had arrived, the sushi rolling began! Amy wanted to get a crash course in sushi-making, so she tried her hand at the art, and she was a quick learner! While they were making sushi, my parents stopped by with Aunt Debbie, one of my mom's best friends who was in town for the weekend. Aunt Debbie had never had sushi before, so she watched Jason make some rolls and tried a couple, and she liked it!! It was definitely fun having them over for a little bit.

After several hours of hard work and 16 rolls of sushi, made with love from Jason, we all finally sat down to a delicious dinner. Also, since John is not a sushi fan, we bought some Rudy's barbecue for John and tried to make him feel like part of the sushi club. :)

After dinner, we watched the basketball games and had mochi, a Japanese rice cake that has sherbet in it. But that wasn't before we all tried some durian. It's a stinky fruit that is popular in Asian countries. Amy and John were kind enough to bring it so we could indulge in this fruit. It was quite the experience! Eric likened the smell of the fruit to mildew and I thought it smelled like a dirty locker. But the taste was quite offputting. Now it's not quite as revolting as I had imagined it was going to be, but it tasted pretty bad.

Last night was a fabulous night! I could not be more proud of Jason and his amazing sushi-making skills. He undoubtedly exceeded our guests' expectations and it was a yummy meal. And last, but not least, I could not be more thankful for the sweet friends and couples in our lives. It was so much fun spending time with them and talking about all kinds of things, and watching the Final Four games. I definitely hope this becomes a routine event, because friends and sushi are a few of my favorite things. :)