Red Velvet Cupcakes and Squirrel

This afternoon I found myself in the kitchen with Squirrel, not a squirrel but Squirrel. She is a long time friend of ours better known as Carey, but we prefer to call her by her nickname.

This after noon Squirrel came over and we tried our hand at making Red Velvet Cupcakes. Since The Bubs' wedding (in which Squirrel married us) I have been obsessed with cupcakes. Let me recap by saying that at our wedding I had the best cupcake I've ever had in my life (this thought is shared by many people). The wonderful baker at Tiers for Two in Modesto, CA produced some red velvet cupcakes with chocolate chips with a cheesecake frosting. Yum, I drool just thinking about them.

Well today I decided it was time I stop fearing the red velvet and try my hand at it. Squirrel showed up just in time to bake. So we gabbed about life and got down to business. It was a lot of fun to share the kitchen with someone who loves baking as much as I do.

After doing weeks and weeks of research, I made up my own recipe. I ended up looking at probably 15 recipes, a billion blogs and my bosses red velvet recipe. It's hard to say where I got what ideas. I think it might need a little tweaking but that's ok!

Overall the cupcakes came out very enjoyable. I would have liked them to have been a bit more red, Squirrel suggested a little moister, and Mario said "this is delicious". I also invited a friend and her son over to have some cupcakes and they seemed to really enjoy them. I'm going to say that this recipe was a success, and with some minor tweeking I think we have a winner on our hands.

Red Velvet Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Makes about 20 cupcakes
Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 c. flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
• .50 fluid ounces red food coloring (we used 1.5 of the little red food coloring bottles you buy at Easter)
  
• 1 stick butter (room temperature)
• 1 1/2 c. sugar
• 1 c. milk chocolate chips
• 2 eggs (room temperature)
• 1 Tbsp pure vanilla extract
• 1 c. buttermilk (room temperature)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp white vinegar

Instructions:
Line cupcake pan with cupcake wrappers.

Sift the first three ingredients together and set aside. In a small bowl mix together the cocoa powder and red food coloring and set aside.

In a large bowl cream the butter and sugar together. Next add in an egg and thoroughly beat, then do the same with the second egg. Next add in vanilla extract and half of buttermilk, mix. Add half of the flour mixture and beat. Add cocoa powder mixture. Repeat second half of buttermilk, then beat in remaining flour mixture.

With a spoon mix in chocolate chips. In a small bowl mix vinegar and baking soda together, then add to batter, stir well.

Fill cupcake wrappers 2/3 full. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Let cupcakes cool then frost.

The cream cheese frosting comes from Jacki's Bento Blog. It was perfect!

The Secret of The Spinach Dip Queen

Here's hoping that everyone had a sane and joyful holiday! We sure did. This year's Christmas for us seemed to fly by. We were lucky enough to spend the holiday with both sides of our family on Christmas Eve.

It's funny because the holidays bring out a lot of love and warm feelings, but it also means a lot of food and traditions. This year I decided that it was time that I give out my beloved spinach dip recipe. In my family whenever there is a holiday or event I am always asked to bring a spinach dip, thus dubbing me "The Spinach Dip Queen". But I have a small confession to make, my recipe comes off the back of a Knorr Vegetable soup mix *gasp* I know, my secret is now out, I sure hope I don't lose my title.

I believe that it is not always the recipe that makes it the best of something but more about the love and thought put into it. Therefore, I have no shame in sharing my spinach dip secret.So without further adieu The Spinach Dip Queen's version of Knorr Spinach Dip:
Ingredients:

1 (16 ounce) container low fat sour cream

1 cup low fat Best Foods Mayo

1 (8 ounce) package vegetable soup mix

1 (10 ounce) package chopped baby spinach, thawed and squeezed dry. Then I re-cut the spinach again to insure that it is cut nice and small.

1 (8 ounce) can of water chestnuts, drained and cut very small, almost minced (I tend to use more like 6-7 ounces. I rarely use the entire can of chestnuts)

4 green onions, chopped

Instructions:
Mix all of the ingredients together in a medium bowl. Chill in the refrigerator for at least two hours allowing the veggie soup to rehydrate.

Then serve in your preferred method. I don't usually make a bread bowl. I like to take the bowl the dip is in and put it on a plate and then surround it by cut sourdough bread.

Happy Holidays!

To all of our Family, Friends and Readers,
Here's wishing you and yours a very safe and happy holiday season!
P.S. don't forget to eat some good grub!

Always,
The Bubs

Quick Meal: Loco Moco and Fruit Salad

In a world that is super busy it is easy to ditch the weeknight meals and rely on pre-made dinners or fast food. Unfortunately, for us this is not an option for The Bubs. We are in a constant state of maintaining or attempting to lose weight. The key for us during the week is make sure that our meals are light, healthy and will take on average no longer than 30 minutes to cook up. We tend to be pretty ravenous when we come home from work.

It is difficult at times to make sure that meals don't get redundant and boring. In talking with our friends we hear, "I don't have any time to cook." or "I never know what to make." Our solution is simple: meal planning! Every Sunday morning we sit down and plan our week of meals (this takes us about 30 mins) then go shopping. We often reference cookbooks, online recipe sites, cooking light, or whatever we make up in our heads. Then we write our menu and post it on a white board in the kitchen, this tells what we are having for dinner every night and what our lunch will be.

So in celebration of our simple weekday meals we bring you The Bubs' Quick Meal ideas. This means we will share our weekday meals and weekday tips with you readers in hopes to bring back weeknight meals!

Quick Meal: Loco Moco and Fruit Salad

The Bubs Loco Moco Recipe:
Ingredients:

• 1⁄2 lb Ground Sirlion
• 1⁄2 Small Onion
• 1 Celery Stalk
• 2 T Worcestershire Sauce
• Salt and Pepper
• 2 Eggs
• 2 c Cooked White Rice
• 1 cn Pre Made Beef Gravy

Instructions:
Cook white rice according to package.

Mix ground sirloin, onion, celery, salt, pepper and Worcestershire Sauce. Make 2 Patties.

Fry up patties when the patties are almost cooked fry up eggs to your liking and heat up gravy in microwave.

We arrange our Loco Moco in this order: Rice, Patty, Gravy and Egg on top.

For the Fruit Salad we cut up 3 different types of fruits and mixed them with 1 tablespoon of Honey. There you have a quick fruit salad.

Total Cooking Time: Under 30 Minutes

Clams Casino and Christmas Crabs

This weekend was our 3rd annual Christmas Crabs night. Christmas Crabs night usually consists of us getting seafood from Race Street Fish and Poultry. We eat up some yummy crabs and then decorate our house for the holidays. Except, this year we skipped the Christmas decorating (because we will be moving soon).

As always the crabs were delicious and the Pinot Grigio was paired perfectly! In addition to our tradition we decided that it was time we made our own Clams Casino Recipe. Oh my, they were delicious. If you love seafood and love bacon then you will adore Clams Casino.

Unfortunately, while we were cooking we realized that our stove's bottom element went out. So we had to alter our cooking method just a little bit. Instead of cooking it for 10 minutes we had to used the broiler. Luckily, it was still tasty and wonderful.

The Bubs Clams Casino Recipe:

Ingredients:
* 12 Little Neck Clams
* 4 cloves Garlic, minced
* 1⁄2 c Shallots, minced
* 1⁄2 c Red Bell Pepper, minced
* 3 slices Bacon, raw and minced
* 1 tbsp Bread Crumbs
* 2 c Kosher Salt

Instructions:
Line a cookie sheet with 1/2inch of Kosher Salt. Shuck and clean clams. Place on salted cookie sheet.

Cook bacon and reserve fat, set cooked bacon aside. Sauté remaining vegetable mixture in rendered fat until soften and slightly browned.

In a medium bowl mix together bacon, vegetables and bread crumbs. Salt and Pepper to taste.

Fill each clam shell with mixture (it will likely be about 1/2 tsp. to 1 tsp. per clam).

Cook in oven at 450 degrees for 10 minutes.

Offbeat Grub

After we had our adventure in eating Rambutan, we decided that it was going to be our mission to try some sort of new food monthly (this is our goal anyways). We officially introduce our Offbeat Grub commentary.

This month we decided to try Bitter Melon. One of Mario's Indian coworkers suggested this fruit. Tonight we decided we'd give it a try. We went to our local market, and bought two. We got this bitter melon for about $3.49 per pound. Two pieces actually weighed in at about 1 pound.

In preparation for eating this new food we did some research and found a recipe. This recipe seemed to be taking us down a yummy path. Mario followed the recipe as suggested.

Unfortunately, it is unanimous that bitter melon is not something The Bubs will be eating again. I'm guessing that the consumption of this fruit is definitely an acquired taste and depends on your culture!

The seeds are a bit tough and require some major chewing. The melon starts off with a very subtle taste that is almost enjoyable, but the more you chew the more bitter it gets. In my experience when I got to that really bitter state of chewing I just wanted to swallow it in order to get away from the taste. After eating the bitter melon there was a little bit of a lingering aftertaste. It was also interesting that after 45 minutes of cooking the texture of the melon was still firm and had a crunch to it.

While this fruit may not be suitable for our pallets, we do not discourage anyone from trying bitter melon. We are actually interested in hearing more about this offbeat grub! Got an experience with it? Leave us a comment.

Vietnamese Night!

While we were in Maui the first place we ate (by chance) was a great little Vietnamese restaurant. It had the word Saigon in it. We were tired from our travels and this place offered us a great hands on meal. We had what they called "Vietnamese burritos" and a Vermicelli Salad. (the pics are from our honeymoon)

Since being back on the mainland we often find ourselves wanting to run away and become island people. In our small attempts to find our inner islanders, we do things that take us back mentally to Hawaii. So, for this little trip back to Maui we decided we would recreate this meal!

First, we had to figure out what the heck it was we ate and then figure out what they were actually called. After a bunch of research and looking at the picture above we came up with our menu.

Our menu consisted of Bún Thịt Nướng (Vietnamese rice noodles with bbq pork and vegetables), and Nuoc Cham (Vietnamese salty-sour dipping sauce) along with Shrimp and Ground Pork on lemon grass skewers (this was supposed to be sugar cane but we couldn't find it) wrapped in rice papers with a variety of vegetables..

This meal was relatively easy to cook. So simple, yet so flavorful. The idea with the shrimp and ground pork was that you cut off chunks of the "log" and put it into a rice paper. At our dinner table we had dry rice papers and dipped them into a bowl of boiling water. I'd show pictures of this but they did not turn out well at all. This was a great hands on meal with tons of fresh flavors ranging from mint to fish sauce.

I think we have a new favorite recipe! In comparing the pics of the "salad" I think we did a pretty good job! This meal actually turned out to be a really great lunch also! We cooked this on Saturday and had it for lunch on Monday. It tasted just like it did the day it was made.

Flash Back!

Life has been busy and back to normal as of late. Baby pictures always make me smile. So here are a few! I'm guessing we are both under the age of one in these pics. I don't know why but I feel the need to disclaim that Mario is five years older then I am. But oddly, I think my head was larger than his. Anyways, enjoy the photos.

p.s. thanks to our moms for hooking us up with a bunch of childhood photos. They were for the wedding but got ditched at the last second. At least we have the photos scanned and saved for ever. Along with a few of our favorite pictures of our grandparents.
~N

Happy Halloween

Usually, for our favorite holiday we have some where to go and something to do. Well not this year. This year is very mellow for us. This is the second year in a row that we have not gotten to partake in our big day. The last time we got to dress up was in 2006 as Night and Day. We didn't even do our pumpkin carving like normal. And even sadder this year we did not get
1 trick-or-treater.

Unfortunately, due to lack of parties to attend we sat at home and ordered our annual pizza. We sat here watching Chuckie and The Cell. We also made special tinfoil hats to celebrate the day. My uncle jokes about his special tin foil hat that keeps him safe. So, we made our own versions. How sad are we? Well, in 2009 we are taking back our holiday!

~N

1 month

Wow, we have been married for one month! I won't dwell on EVERY month so don't worry. It seems like we just got married. Yet, Maui seems so long ago.

I guess here's to many more months of The Bubs being married ;) (well you get what I mean).
~N

Strange Fruit...

After being in Hawaii and giving dragon fruit a try we decided we'd try more tropical fruits. So, recently we saw a new exotic fruit at our local grocery. This week when we went to do our Sunday shopping they still had this odd looking fruit called Rambutan. So we picked two up at $9.99 a pound. For two it cost us approximately $2.00.

I did some research on how to open and eat this fruit. So, we enjoyed it with lunch. It has a sizable seed in the middle. Mario ate the seed and I did not (he said it was a little bitter). The fruit itself is an interesting texture (much like stiffer gelatin). The flavor was very mellow, refreshing and very enjoyable! We will be having this yummy fruit again!

It's all in the details...

I keep thinking over our wedding in my head. I often find myself thinking about what made our wedding different and personal. I think for us with every aspect of wedding planning we looked at it and asked, "How can we make this more personal."
We decided that in order to pull off a personal wedding we had to state that right in the beginning. We decided to do that with handmade invitations and a personal website. As people began to RSVP they got to see some of our personal touches. We wanted to know what kind of music people enjoyed hearing at a wedding. This was the basis for our DJ list. (Even our DJ was a friend of ours!)

After that we had to figure out how were we going to convey who we are as a couple. Our favors/ center pieces were photos of us over our 7 years (some taken by us and some from others). I had also decided that I wanted to put my abilities to the test and began doing things like making wine charms, creating a card box, embossing napkins by hand,etc. We even made sure that everyone who checked into a hotel (that we knew about) received an Out of Town bag with goodies and a welcome letter that included directions to the site. Looking back it doesn't seem like much but during the planning process it seemed like a ton to do.We also needed to make sure that in the wedding planning process we did not loose sight of the things that we love and what we believe in. We provided trail mix in cups made my the students at Acheivekids (where I work) to represent our love for the outdoors. We jumped a broom that we decorated with our old rings to represent our leap into the future. We ate a sweet potato in honor of the different cultures we have learned about in higher education. As many people already know we wrote our own vows that included the thigns important to us such as Health, Equality, Love and a list of other things.
We even had a special cake topper that were manatees made from a nice lady in Florida (for some reason manatees are special to us. I adopted one for Mario one year). We had a kids table that let the children that were there know we were thinking of them even during the planning process.
It's funny because as I think of what we did I can't help but think about the personal touches others also put in. Our Officiant is a dear friend of ours who preformed and contributed to our ceremony so beautifully!Our engagement photos and signature board were put together by my cousin Raquel. My mom made both the ring bearer pillows and the flower girl baskets. My dad built signs to let everyone know where the site was. My Cousin Anita (and maid of honor) wrote us a beautiful poem to toast our new marriage. Mario's cousin as stated before, used her photo journalistic style to document our day. The ladies in our wedding party helped put together invitations, tie bows on favors and to also help decorate and set up (never mind the countless hours spent on the phone we me). Not to mention the monetary help that Mario's parents offered us. The amount of help we received really did fill us with love!
Family and friends the day of our event even chipped in. We had Uncle Art and Uncle Rob from each side of our families speak as part of our ceremony . We luckily had people helping from making sure we had what we needed for our cake cutting, to people taking gifts back to our room, to even helping us break down and packing up. Everyone's help was just so greatly appreciated! It was amazing the out pour of support we had in planning and making this wedding happen!

~N
(Photo Credits in Order: Meg Perotti, TheBubs, Sabrina Lott, Meg Perotti, Raquel Walton, Meg Perotti)

Adventures in Tortilla Making

Life seems to be getting back to normal! And with normal for us includes home cooked meals! On Friday night we decided it was time to try making corn tortillas.

A couple months ago we had gone to the San Jose Flea Market and bought a tortilla press. Finally, it was time to break that bad boy out and see it in action.



We found a tutorial online and started making our tortillas. They are super easy and super yummy. I don't know that we will buy corn tortillas ever again. Now, of course our tortillas were not perfect.

We thought they needed to be cooked a lot longer than they did (that's why you follow directions folks). We also ran into the issue that they a bit jon the small side for tacos.

So because they were smaller and a little over cooked, we turned dinner into tostadas.

In the end, it has us super charged to make corn tortillas again. And we encourage anyone who has ever wanted to do them to do it. We invested a little bit of time and made something that taste wise blew the supermarket tortillas out of the water.

~N

The Bubs made a blog!

It has been so crazy getting back to real life that I keep forgetting to post this!

We were featured on Meg's Blog. Please head on over to see her beautiful work and look at our day. She's amazingly talented! While your there leave a comment they make her smile!

http://megperotti.com/blog/

A Bride's View Part 1

Today I feel like talking about the wedding. It’s funny heading into the wedding I tended look down my nose a little when people would tell about their wedding and how it was the “Most Special Day of their Life”. I had a hard time believing that. Well, I have to say that it was one of the most special days in my/our lives.I cannot even pin point one moment that was the most special, the entire day just makes my heart sink in love every time I think about it.

The ceremony was beautiful and wonderfully unique and emotional. Carey a.k.a. Squirrel did a marvelous job. I got to be walked down the aisle by both of my beautiful parents and so did Mario. Our bridal party and groomsmen all looked GREAT! Meg (Mario's cousin) was an easy and very pleasant photographer to work with.

The reception was a lot of fun. The introductions went smoothly to the Friends Theme (if you don’t know Mario is a Friends fanatic). Then we got to jump the broom and neither of us fell on our faces :) Our cake and cupcakes were amazing (the red velvet with chocolate chips yum). For me hands down the best cupcake I’ve ever had in my life!

Our first dance (I don’t Want to Miss a Thing by Aerosmith) was cheesy at first then Tommy had our guests come out and it just became this grand emotional moment for Mario and I. We filled with tears of joy and love. A moment that I will not quickly forget.

The food was tasty, the beer and wine flowed freely. People danced and we had a blast! I know I'm glossing over the events but it really was just so special and great!

And best of all the general consensus was that people had fun and felt the amount of personality we put into our wedding planning.

~Nicole Perotti

(Photos in order taken by Mike Graben, Meg Perotti, and Sabrina Lott)

Alo-ha

Wow, what a whirlwind of a few weeks. After 10 glorious days on the island of Maui we are home and acclimating back to the mainland (without a wedding to worry about). I have to say that Mario is taking this change back to reality a lot easier than myself.

Our trip was so amazing and wonderful. We ate at some great places (Cheeseburger in Paradise, Kimo's, Kobe Steak House, Aloha Plate Lunch) and did some awesome adventures (Feast at LeLe, Atlantis Submarine, Driving the Island).

A huge thank you to all of our friends and family who gave us honeyfund gifts and gift certificates. It really did make for a great time. We had enough stuff to but also allowed us to have some time to lounge and sink into being beach bums.

It's hard to believe that after a year plus of planning that all things wedding and honeymoon are over. I guess that means it's time for us to start sharing our stories and adventures in wedding/honeymooning.

Mr. and Mrs. Bub

9.27.08 We did it! We are married and now sitting in our condo in Maui. We will definitely blog about all of our wedding details as we have time. As of right now all I can say is that we had a blast! And from the sounds of it our family and friends also had a great time. Our day was beautiful. Things went wrong and details feel short but all in all we had a wonderful time. Our ceremony was emotional and truly special! The reception was a blast and we danced like it was the thing to do. I'll say it a million times over but Thanks to all of our friends and family's hard work we got to have a beautiful day that was tons of fun.

Anyways,. right now we are running on island time and it's 9:40 in the am and we are just watching the waves roll in from our ocean front condo. Enough of this computer stuff we are off to put our feet in the water.

~N
(Photo taken by Sabrina Lott)

and breathe...

With only 5 days to go, life around Camp Bub is a bit stressful and tense. The motto of this past weekend became "Take a deep breathe"

This weekend was filled with a billion little details, writing our own vows, going to half moon bay and a slew of other projects. We were dealing with wedding from the minute we woke up till the minute we went to bed. Talk about wedding overload!

Now we are on to the point in this planning process that we have to finish a few loose ends but mostly we sit and wait. And stress and over work all the details and time lines over and over and over *lol*.

On the bright side the stress is about to melt away and we will find ourselves on a beach in Maui. Participating in all the glorious Honeyfund gifts that are and have been given to us. We have some massages in store, a beautiful luau, eating at Cheeseburger in Paradise, Snorkling and a bunch of other wonderful activities.

1 month till the big day!

It is so crazy how quickly a year of planning can dwindle down to being one month away. We are in the home stretch. The majority of the stressful wedding planning is done. Now we are just finalizing and confirming a lot of things. Oh, and hounding people for their RSVPs (such a tedious lame job to do).

I have a feeling this month is going to fly by! Then suddenly we will be sitting in Hawaii. Ahhh, this is so exciting.
~N

Celebrity response #1

It's official we are in our last month until the wedding. The past two weeks have graced our door step with wonderful gifts, cards with honey fund gifts and lots of nifty things.

Yesterday, we received a letter from the Governor. Oddly, it was very exciting. It has our wedding date and Mario and Nicole Perotti on it. Wow my name in print with my new last name. Exciting.

Needless to say yes we did send him an invitation and this is what we got in return. It has his signature on it and we keep debating if it is a stamp or something. It really doesn't matter, the fact that we got a response is good enough.

While we know that they will not be showing up to the wedding (thank gawd it'd be a total media circus) it was still nice to be recognized by our childhood friend.

I think it excited us more knowing that Kindergarten Cop signed the paper than the actual Governor. What can I say we love Kindergarten Cop!

The Bubs: Battle Tomato

Every so often Mario and I put our cooking talents to the test in good ol' Iron Chef style. This past weekend we decided to participate in battle tomato. Our tomato variety ranged from Heirlooms, Cherry Tomatoes, Sun Dried, Tomato Paste, etc.

Whenever we do these little battles we have three categories in which you can win: Best Presentation, Taste and Creativity.

Mario presented a menu of Heirloom Tomato Sliders, His version of a Tostada with a side of fried plantains, and Chilean Sea bass on a bed of pasta covered with a tomato mint salsa.

My menu consisted of a Tomato Ceviche with Flour tortilla triangles, Roasted Heirloom Bisque and Sun dried tomato pasta with Gorgonzola and flank steak.

In the Category of Taste we had a draw. Neither of us were willing to let the other one win. Both of these dishes were fabulous.

His tostada layered with grilled chicken, peppers, tomatoes and a slew of other great flavors all topped with a flavorful tomato based salsa.



My dish the Bisque was rich with the flavor of roasted tomato, pine nuts and butter accompanied with a parmigiana crouton.

The other categories were split right down the middle. Mario's tostada won also for creativity while my Ceviche won for best presentation.

Now with all this creativity flowing around sometimes dishes just suck. Well during this battle we both had dishes that did not do so well. His Sea bass and my flank steak dish both were not very good.

A labor of love...Part 2

First I must say that I have the greatest mate in the world and he helped out with this "labor of love" sooo much. I can proudly say that this was a task done by both of us. At times I felt as if i was doing it alone (only because I embossed for months) but then we got to the RSVP portion of the invitations. This was largely done by Mario.

Once we had decided to make our own invitations we also decided to be non-traditional and do a website where people would RSVP and get the most personal experience possible. It was also a neat little way to show Mario's talents, save some trees, and not have to wait for snail mail RSVPs.

So, that meant that by the time we sent out the invitations our website had to be done and all of the personal urls had to be set up and ready to go. Then he had to make each persons RSVP card with their personal url. I was so proud of Bubbie! Not only did he get all of this done on time he also clipped all of the edges on the RSVP cards and all of the purple cardstock.

Granted, we did have a few rough spots along the way, like the mook at Kinko's who did not cut the RSVPs correctly. This was a lesson in wedding planning 101 on "don't sweat the small stuff". We just ran with the mistake and went with another option. To our guests they wouldn't know the difference. And the guy felt so bad that he didn't charge us for all the cutting he did.
After all of the cutting and prep work was done I headed up to my girl crew in Modesto (Mom, Tena, Rosie, Neet, Idie, Re, and Raquel). Mario and I cannot begin to thank these ladies enough. They sucked it up and assembly line style whipped these bad boys together. We ran out of glue at one point so Tena ran to the store and saved our production line.

After about two hours of assembling, addressing and embossing envelopes we were done. They were proudly boxed up and were sent out on that Monday. And by Tuesday we were actually already getting RSVPs.