Food Truck Bazaar #2

You may remember our post about the Food Truck Bazaar from last year in November.

Well we went again and ended up trying 4 different trucks.

Rachel and I are huge fans of this event and 

we want to eventually try to make some of our favorite foods ourselves in a post to come.

^_^

Alright the first thing we ordered was from Saigon Sizzle.

I was in the mood for some Vietnamese food so I got the Chicken Vermicelli Noodle.

(Description on the truck)

I loved it, it was a little sweet and spicy. They used lots of cilantro just the way I like it.

Rachel also tried it and loved it. We will be trying to make a copycat recipe in the future.

Rachel was next to order her meal for the evening. She decided to go with a burger, but not just any burger...

Ragnarök the Viking Burger! From SwedeDISH Food Truck.

We both tasted this burger and are in agreement.

Odin himself must have gone to the chef to give him this recipe that only the gods would normally enjoy, in order to bring a smile to us lowly mortals.

So juicy, cheesy, and crunchy. This is by far the best burger we have ever had.

If you are in central Florida and happen to see this truck, STOP, eat here. It's amazing

As I am sure you remember we always get dessert at this event.

Normally we would get one and split it, but we just couldn't decide.

Rachel ended up going to The Crepe Company for an Eclair Crepe with added peanut butter.

She really liked it.

I got to taste it and I am never really impressed with crepes, to me it taste like a thin pancake with stuff inside, but don't go off my judgement I'm not a fan of them.

And finally the last food truck we went to was the Yum Yum Cupcake Truck.

We ordered the Midnight Snack, The Ballad of El Churro, The Dough Dough Bird, and The Nannerpants.

 I am a bit of a cake snob since I bake and decorate cakes myself and I have to say I was not impressed at all. Maybe we got a bad batch or something, but I didn't really like any of them, and neither did Rachel.

The Midnight Snack, Churro, and Dough Dough Bird were all super heavy and dense. A bit hard to swallow. The Nannerpants (Banana cake) tasted like artificial bananas. The only good thing we can say about them was their icing tasted good. Will not be buying cupcakes from them again. 

This is my small herd of kitties enjoying dinner.

From right to left we have Toby, Kit, Sate, Thorin, and Salina.

Thank you for reading this week, look forward to some copycat recipes in the future.

Easter Eggs!

Easter is this weekend as almost everyone should know.
I love Easter! When I was a kid Rabbits were my favorite animal (I had over 100 bunny things)
You know when you find out Santa Claus isn't real and it make you question everything?
Ok that moment happened when I found out the Easter Bunny wasn't real. I was devastated.
But I have grown out of the sadness of this experience and grew to love Easter again.

Even though Rachel and I do not have kids yet we still enjoy dying eggs ^_^
Rachel said, "I will never grow up!"

We found some interesting egg dying techniques on pinterest and decided to try them out

Stuff you need:
Vinegar (white or apple cider, it doesn't affect the color)
food coloring
Cups
Water
paper towels
Olive Oil
Shallow plate
Hard boiled Eggs

1 cup of water, 2 tbsp vinegar, and 3-5 drops food coloring for each cup.

We threw a couple eggs in the cups to make plain colored eggs.

This first method is one my brother and I created on our own.

Rainbow eggs!

Start off by putting a bit of vinegar onto a paper towel.

like so

Using the 4 pack of food coloring we got, we did a drop of food coloring in this order:

Red, yellow, green, blue, and red.

Set the egg on the paper towel and rotate it until the entire egg is colored.

*Warning* this will dye your hands!

This next method we found HERE

Marble eggs!

We poured some color from one of the cups and added 2 more drops of food coloring.

added about 1/2 a tbsp of olive oil. (Don't add too much oil or the color will not stick well)

And swirled the egg around!

Oh, we messed up the purple dying cup somehow and the egg turned out this ugly grey color.

We dropped some red food coloring on the egg we had in it and dunked it back in the "purple" for about 10 second.

This was the result! Lava egg!

Lava egg, rainbow eggs, and solid colors.

This next method we found HERE.

A rubber band Technique

Put some rubber bands on your eggs (tight or the lines will not be solid) and dunk in the color of choice.

You can add more rubber bands and dunk in different colors.

Using the same technique as my rainbow egg we made some tye-dye eggs.

Our Easter Eggs this year.

The rubber band technique was an fun one that I think can be used when decorating with children to make some interesting eggs.

The oil Marbling technique we might not suggest for kids unless you give them a bath right after. The oil was annoying to clean off the eggs without loosing some color.

And my rainbow eggs you may want to wear gloves to make, but they make some really cool eggs.  

This was a great way to bring back some fun childhood memories,
and learn some new ways to decorate eggs.

Happy Easter from your Pandas!

Pink hair Rachel!

Loquat Jam

If you live in Florida or have visited Florida, chances are you have seen loquat trees all over the place. I have noticed in our area very few people pick the fruit from their trees and it is such a waste of delicious fruit.

There are many ways to use the fruit. you can eat it plan, put them in a pie, 

or make awesome homemade jam!

To get all the fruit needed for the jam we picked all the fruit we could reach in my tree, then we went to Rachel's parents house picked all from their tree, and went on a walk and picked some wild loquats. We got about 9 lbs of fruit doing this.

Ingredients you will need are:

15 cups pitted loquats (they can have up to 4 seeds)

5 cups sugar

1 cup agave nectar

and enough water to help blend the loquats in the blender

(about 8 cups)

the more water you add the longer it will take to cook out.

(I got a new stove!!! MEEP!!)

You start off by blending the loquats so you do not have such big chunks in the jam.

Fill your blender with the fruit and add water about a inch under the fruit line.

Once the fruit is blended put them in a large pot and bring it to a boil for 2 minutes.

Remove from heat and add the sugar and agave nectar.

Return to heat and bring back it a boil for 3 minutes.

Reduce to a simmer and stir (scraping the bottom) occasionally for 2-3 hours (yes, you read correctly)

While that is cooking you can prepare your jars.

After 3 hours the mixture should have turned a warm amber color and thickened greatly.

Remove from heat, carefully fill all your jars, and seal lids.

**Please note these are not canned for food storage.**

The jam will be good 1 month in the refrigerator and a long time in the freezer.

We filled 24 small jars with the jam to give to family and friends. 

Enjoy on some nice warm toast or in a PB&J sandwich.

Rachel says it's a different kind of jam. Defiantly not her favorite, but still taste amazing.

 I love it! It is different and very sweet. I try not to eat too much of it so I can have some until they are in season again.

After trying his entire life to keep him an indoor cat I have failed.

Thorin would run past me, go out the garage, anything he could do to get out.

He won, and mama is sad. But he is a happy cat and still comes inside when I call him so it's ok.

I hope you try this recipe if you have loquats in your area!

Thank you for reading.