Tag: dessert

Mary, Recipes, Cooking with Jake, Miscellaneous

peanut butter and chocolate potato chips

I’m sorry, what does this post title say?

Peanut Butter and Chocolate covered what?

Potato Chips.

Yep.

Totally Jake’s idea. I just executed it. (Jake helped, too).

He got the idea after a recent trip to Trader Joe’s. I had bought a bag of milk chocolate covered potato chips, which I really liked. Jake put together the idea of my love of peanut butter + chocolate with the potato chips and viola!

A delicious idea was born.

You don’t need a whole lot for this recipe. It’s mostly just melting and waiting. Also, I used about twice as much chocolate as shown (of each kind).

First things first: melt your peanut butter. Just scoop out a few spoonfuls and nuke it for a about a minute.

And then do this:

Dip it! I liked a few that weren’t dipped all of the way, but Jake liked to cover them up.

It’ll look really weird at first. Just trust me.
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San Diego County, Mary, Downtown

dinner at cremolose / downtown – san diego, ca

Near the beginning of May I made a return visit to Cremolose on another invitation, this time to try out their restaurant and receive the full “dining experience”. I took Heather with me this time around and it also doubled as a birthday dinner for Heather, who was celebrating another year older that weekend.

There wasn’t anyone really in the restaurant, so the hostess pretty much ignored me when I told her we had reservations for dinner that evening… which led to an uncomfortable conversation at the end of our meal in which I’m pretty sure I freaked out our poor, shy, and somewhat awkward waiter.

Cremolose is located where the old San Diego Hardware store used to be Downtown. The old sign is still there, with the new restaurant and storefront appearing the old signage. I think it’s a nice homage to what it used to be. We were seated in the spacious upper level which looks out over the rest of the place.

Here’s the semi-lofty view, which looks down on the bar, their very large wine cabinet, and the dessert bar (which houses all of the gelato and desserts).

Since I was with Wine Girl (aka Heather), we both got glasses of wine. Hers, red; Mine, white. I cannot for the life of me remember what my wine was.

[Burrata – Fresh “butter milk” mozzarella served with grilled eggplant, zucchini, roasted pepper and heirloom tomato, drizzled basil olive oil and fresh herbs]

We started off with the Burrata since there’s nothing I love more than cheese. And burrata is definitely one of my favorites.

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San Diego County, Mary, Clairemont, Linda Vista

homestyle hawaiian and rockie’s frozen yogurt / clairemont – san diego, ca

Homestyle Hawaiian is a tiny little place near Mesa College serving up some grand Hawaiian food. It’s not in the strip mall where K Sandwiches is, but in another strip mall behind that one. The first time Jake and I went here we passed it a few times before we actually found it. It’s totally tucked away in the corner and there don’t seem to really be any other businesses operating on that side. But, this tiny little joint does put out some tasty food.

I originally came here with a Groupon and then forgot to do a post about the food there. Since my hard drive crash, I lost a lot of data (*silent weeping*) and no longer have those photos to share. But I do remember that Jake and I both got lemonades and some of the Kalua Pig. The Kalua Pig is very tender and moist from what I remember.

On our next visit, we had yet another Groupon and Jake, S. and I shared a couple of plate lunches and some more of their fine lemonade.

[Peach Lemonade and Strawberry Lemonade]

These are big 32oz suckers. They’re made by hand right when you order them. They squeeze the lemons fresh and then add the flavoring and some kind of sugar syrup and mix the drink up in a big container they just shake, shake and shake some more.

Jake got the peach and I got the strawberry. Mine was a little too sweet this time (versus the last time we had it) but it was still delicious. I like it to have a little more tartness, just so you know you’re actually drinking lemonade. I love that they put the lemon rinds into your drink as well.

[Lava Chicken plate – $7]

Jake ordered the Lava Chicken plate, which comes with a scoop of macaroni salad and a scoop of rice (you can also get a little salad of greens if you don’t want one of those). The lava chicken is the katsu but with a “lava” sauce on it, a spicy sauce that’s tossed over the chicken katsu.

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Mary, Recipes

peanut butter + chocolate rice krispies treats

I kind of want to go and make these again. Right now.

These are super tasty and super easy treats that you can make. I brought them to the San Diego Food Blogger’s Bake Sale last month and am finally getting around to posting about them! I first spied this on Brown Eyed Baker’s website and knew I had to try it.

Peanut butter and chocolate is, after all, one of my all time favorite combinations.

Make the rice krispies!

Get yourself a bag of Reese’s peanut butter cups. You can tell this was right after Easter, since I used peanut butter eggs instead. They were on clearance! And yes, you need a whole bag.

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San Diego County, Mary, Clairemont

mr. steve’s famous bbq at the hungry stick / clairemont – san diego, ca

Okay, now that I have my trusty laptop again, let’s play catch up!

Last month Jake and I were out and about in Clairemont and I was hungry. I thought it might be a good time to finally try Little Sheep and we headed over there. Jake looked less than enthusiastic about the place, especially after we saw the prices. I yielded and decided I’d try it on another day and instead we walked over to another restaurant in the parking lot – The Hungry Stick.

I’ve driven by the Hungry Stick a few times before. It’s always look like a dive to me but the name has always amused me. Is it a stick that’s hungry? Do you hold the stick to indicate you are hungry? I have no idea. These are the kinds of things I think about.

We walked in and noticed about half of the place was in renovation. The upper part, the bar area, was open with a few pool tables, booths and long, dark bar. There was a menu and a sign talked about “Mr. Steve’s Famous BBQ”. I thought we were at the Hungry Stick?

No matter. We braved it and I’m sure glad we did.

[The Menu]

We found out from our super friendly waitress that The Hungry Stick had very recently abandoned their old menu in favor of doing BBQ with Mr. Steve. He’s even won a few trophies and awards (that you can see as soon as you walk in) for his BBQ. Our waitress told us that they had tried so many different types of food at that place and were trying to do so many different things that she was glad to see them do something a little simpler – and something that’s really tasty.

[Pulled Pork Dinner – $11.99, plus extra side]

We had originally ordered the beef ribs, but Mr. Steve wasn’t happy with the way the ribs came out and told our waitress he couldn’t serve them. Instead of selling us product he wasn’t happy with, we were kindly asked to choose another dish. Our waitress had raved about the pulled pork so we gave it a shot.

We got 2 sides with it – fries and corn bread – and added on potato salad as an extra side ($2.50).

[Close up of the pulled pork]

Jake and I shared the plate… I’m pretty sure we had plans later that day and sharing made the most sense. The pork was so tender and delicious though, we almost didn’t want to share anymore.

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Banker's Hill, San Diego County, Mary

ave 5 / banker’s hill – san diego, ca

I had been hanging onto a LivingSocial deal for Ave 5 for quite awhile and I figured out that it was about to expire on me. I tried to find someone to join me for dinner that night, but it just didn’t work out and I ended up taking myself out to dinner. I’ve dined alone many times for lunch so it didn’t feel too different to me to end up doing it for dinner as well. I had my Kindle at hand to entertain me in between courses and had a lovely night out by myself. I like to think that I’m pretty good company, even if it’s just myself.

View from the back of the restaurant.

I sat in the back up against one of their cushy bench seats. It was very cozy back there.

Since I had $45 dollars to spend, I decided to start off with a drink. This was a blueberry infused drink with (I believe) vodka. There were also a few blueberries bobbing around in my drink. It had a nice, sweet taste of the blueberry and the alcohol was hard to detect – which is how I like my drinks. I had to drink this very slowly since but it was delicious and a nice way to start off my meal.

I got a little basket of sliced french bread to start with a cup of pretty swirled butter. I used this bread along with my appetizer below.

[Ravioli with Grapes – corn, mushrooms, arugula, Madeira cream – $9]

My waiter recommended this appetizer to me. I got to say, it sounded really weird to me at first. Ravioli… with grapes?

I asked if the grapes were inside the ravioli but he explained that they were on sprinkled on top of the dish and that the ravioli were filled with mushrooms. Well, damn. You had me at “mushroom”.

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Miscellaneous, Mary

Food Blogger Bake Sale Recap

I’m a little late on my bake sale wrap up post – but at least I have a good excuse! It’s a quick recap though, with lots of photos!

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The things I bought from all of the other wonderful bakers!

The things I made and sold at the sale!

Pretty packages of baked goods, ready to be sold.

Orange ribbons and samples!

I love raffia. I don’t know why. I hate it when I’m trying to take it off of packages, but I think it’s so pretty and rustic looking, especially on these awesome, exotic sounding cookies from Dooley Noted.

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Los Angeles County, Mary

eating in la: broome street general store / silver lake – los angeles, ca

Our post-felting class excursion led up over to Silver Lake to Broome Street General Store. We passed right by it without even seeing it since the sign out front was angled weird – you could pretty much only see it if you were heading down the street in a particular direction. Very odd.

Broome Street is named for a street in Manhattan where the owner once lived. It’s filled with various vintage kitchen items and sundries and various artisan goods (such as pickles, sauces, spices and other items).

I bought some smoked sea salt from Wales. It sounded really interesting. I have yet to actually try it though.

Alyssa and I browsed through the whole shop before heading over to the front counter to look at the ready to eat goodies they had for sale.

There were various tarts, yogurt and granola and brownies on this side.

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Atwater Village, Los Angeles County, Mary

eating in la: the village bakery & cafe / atwater village – los angeles, ca

Time for another road trip! This time to hang out with my cohort, Alyssa.

I drove up on a Saturday morning to her house just outside of Downtown LA. I always go up Saturday morning because Friday afternoon traffic makes me very, very sad. There was a slight drizzle when I left and I encountered no traffic on my way up. I got to her house just under 2 hours. That’s the way to go!

After I got there, we got ready to head out for the day and went out for breakfast. We were taking a felting class in the early afternoon and gave ourselves enough time for breakfast and a little window shopping before our class started.

Our first stop of the day was to The Village Bakery and Cafe in Atwater Village.

This is what we looked at while we stood in line to order, trying to decide what we wanted to eat for breakfast. This case contained cupcakes, tarts, and various brownies.

We’ve only scratched the surface! There were also all kinds of muffins, cinnamon rolls, mini pies…

Cookies and cakes…

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Little Italy, Downtown, San Diego County, Mary

dinner and a show at anthology / little italy – san diego, ca

I was recently invited to Anthology to try out their newest menu items by Chef Todd Allison. I’d always been interested in going to see a show at Anthology. This proved to be a stellar way to try out some new eats and to catch a show all in one.

Anthology is set up with three different levels – the main floor near the stage, a second level with just a few booths, and a top level. There’s also an upper level GA admission area with no view of the stage and monitors instead.

Laura and I arrived well in advance of the crowd and snagged some nice seats up front on the floor, near the stage. Getting there early was nice since we were able to chat and eat most of our food before the show began. The waiters are pretty good about letting you have your space when the show begins and only come by to check on you when necessary.

I had picked a date arbitrarily and we ended up seeing a band called the Robert Glasper Experiment – a mixture of jazz, soul and a little hip hop all thrown into the mix. I can honestly say it was like nothing else I had heard before with the mixtures of genres all rolled into one. It didn’t quite make me a new convert, but I enjoyed seeing them and experiencing something new. I’ll leave the music reviews to others.

[Sake Steamed Black Mussels – Ginger, Mint, Basil, Hearts of Palm]

We started off with these steamed black mussels, which our waiter told us were locally grown from Carlsbad. I had never had mussels before, but I was feeling adventurous – and I’m glad I was because I ended really liking these! The flavors of the ginger, mint and basil all showed through giving them a really deep and wonderful flavor. The mussels reminded me of oversized clams – similar texture with a nice, sweet flavor.

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