Sunday, September 22, 2019

Amazing Meat Sauce

Browning the beef
Getting ingredients ready

Simmering away...

Pressure canning. Sixty minutes
at 12 psi.
The finished product.


If you know what Borries marinara tastes
like this will be familiar to you. It's a unique 
meat sauce. Tomatoes don't dominate it, other 
flavors definitely shine through. The only
change we may make is more garlic in
the next batch.

*The mushrooms and olives should be
16 oz. cans.

Tuesday, February 19, 2019

Hot Pot!


Chubby Cattle is a Mongolian style hot
pot restaurant. The difference between 
Japanese and Mongolian hot pot is in the
broth. Japanese is generally simple with
minimal flavorings where Mongolian has
bold,  spicy flavors. Chubby Cattle has a 
great variety of items from simple to exotic.
Everything we have experienced is very
fresh and flavorful. As you are eating a 
refrigerated conveyor brings selections
for your hot pot by. You grab what you
want and are charged by plate numbers
and colors at the end. They also have a
sauce bar where you can custom make
your dipping sauce. This is one of Dawn
and I's favorite new restaurants and we
highly recommend it
Beef and mushrooms...my favorites.
―――

We discovered East West Shabu Shabu 
while on a Disneyland vacation a few years
ago. It's only about 10 miles from Disneyland 
and definitely worth the drive. We've been
back several times since. It's one of our
favorites.
―――

The top left and mine on the right below is
sukiyaki. Sukiyaki is cooked in a skillet 
with a much more flavorful cooking liquid.
The sauce is usually made from soy sauce,
mirin, sugar and water. Mirin is a Japanese
rice wine with a low alcohol content and a
high sugar content. I tend to like sukiyaki 
more then shabu shabu. To me the flavors 
are bolder.
Swish is a solid Japanese hot pot restaurant 
that we have been going to for years. They
specialize in Shabu Shabu and Sukiyaki.
The meat we've gotten over the years is
generally high quality as are the vegetables.
Prices are reasonable for what you get, and
they also have a menu of sides and sushi. If
you are in Las Vegas give them a try...I recommend it. Click here for
a short video overview.
―――


Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot is an all
you can eat hot pot restaurant in Calgary.
They have a good selection of items and
everything came out fresh. The broth
was tasty and we both enjoyed it. Being all
you can eat we were both stuffed at the
end. This generally doesn't happen with
hot pot. The only negatives were no ponzu 
sauce or onions. Other then that it's definitely 
worth checking out.
―――


Sushi Maru serves Sushi/Shabu Shabu in
Northgate, just north of Seattle. There is
also a location in Spokane. I don't think the
Spokane branch has hot pot though. It's 
been a few years since we've tried this 
restaurant. It's a conveyor type sushi 
restaurant that also does Shabu Shabu.
It was good, you may want to check out
some newer reviews before trying it though.
Here  is a video of our experience there,
which was around four years ago.


And finally we come to our homemade 
hot pot. Ours is always tasty and fun. The
only thing we struggle with is getting the
meat sliced thin enough.


These are our favorite hot pot restaurants.
We have tried a few more (Shanghai Lilly
comes to mind), but these are the best. I 
encourage everyone to give hot pot a try.
Get out of your comfort zone and try 
something new. Hot pot is flavorful to
eat, fun to partake in and also pretty 
healthy. Give it a try!




🔗Links...🔗


Tuesday, February 12, 2019

Wrapping up the Trip at Universal Orlando!


A very nice day for early February!


The beautiful Royal Pacific Resort.
Breakfast in the Island's Dining Room at
the Royal Pacific. I had the Eggs Benedict 
 and Dawn had the buffet. This is a great spot
for a tasty, relaxing breakfast.

Lunch at the Leaky Cauldron. Dawn had
the Ploughman's and I had the fish and
chips. We shared the Scotch Eggs. Everything 
was good but honestly this place is more about
the atmosphere. If you are a Harry Potter fan 
it is very cool.


Hogwarts Castle 
The Sweet Shop...check out all the cool
candies below. Can you find the chocolate 
frogs?

Cheers...gotta love butterbeer.

Going to Universal brings out the caveman 
in me. I have to get one of these huge, smoky 
delicious turkey legs. I think Michael had one
too....Yum!
This has to be the highlight of the day.
Michael and I love Beetlejuice and were
thrilled to see him on the way out of the
park. He couldn't have been any cooler.

Ahhh..the legendary Lard Lad donut. If
you're at Universal Orlando it is a must
try. The Lard Lad big pink is a giant donut.
It will easily feed two to three people. The
best I can describe it is a cross between a donut 
and a cake. Either way it's delicious. Try one,
you won't be sorry.
Michael hanging with his good buddy, Milhouse.
A few of our favorite rides. The Hollywood 
Rocket...You pick your own music to listen to
on this roller coaster. The Incredible Hulk
is another wild coaster. Spiderman is one
of my all time favorite rides. Here is a video 
of Dawn, Michael, Yosh and Logan on
Storm Force Accelatron. As fast as they were
spinning I thought they would all be sick.
Men in Black...this is a fun ride. You
compete against other riders. As you
go through the ride you shoot aliens 
and it tallies your score. At the end it
displays every one's scores and the
highest wins.

For the last meal of the trip Mom and Dad
bought everyone dinner at Toothsome 
Chocolate Emporium. It's a steam punk
themed restaurant that specializes in
desserts and huge milkshakes.

Pretty tasty food. The french onion soup
was really good. I had the forest mushroom 
flatbread. It was good. I think Dawn had the
shrimp and lump crab macaroni and cheese.
That's a big bite Yosh!
Dessert is the real star at Toothsome. I had
the banana cream pie sundae. It was very
sweet, but tasty. Dawn had some kind of
brownie sundae.
Michael and Dawn in front of Mel's Diner.
Giordano's Pizza, just down the street
from the Royal Pacific. Look at all that
cheese!
Citywalk at night...



And that brings to a close a wonderful 
vacation. Universal Studios was a great
way to wrap it all up. For thrill rides it's 
hard to beat Universal. The two Harry
Potter rides are cutting edge. The Hollywood 
Rocket is one of the wilder rides I've been
on and you can't forget Spiderman and
Jurassic Park. Unfortunately Jurassic Park 
was closed for renovation while we were
there. Simpson's land is another very
cool thing about Universal Orlando. The
food at Universal is quite good. I would
say they are giving Disney a run for their
money. All in all a great vacation that our
entire family will always remember.

Links...



Otter's Fizzy Orange Juice