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