Thursday, August 30, 2007

Pets of the Month- Mirror Mirror On the Wall

Who is that handsome pooch who is now sporting a new hair cut?

We took Ziggy to get groomed recently. I decided he needed a little trim. Groomer asked me how much to cut off. I swore I said 2 inchces (The skirt of his mane was about 6 inches long). Well, when I picked him up, I was shocked. She left 2 inches. He's still cute and probably more comfortable.



Another month end and Peanut Butter Etouffee is hosting another Food Bloggy Pets of the Month event. Go by their site and see who is spotlighted this month.

Friday, August 17, 2007

Too Much time On My Hands? Naw!


I am having the hardest time writing this post. That probably is because I can't seem to organize what it is I want to blog about this subject. I have been cooking and documenting the results photographically but just can't pull it together. How do I attempt to explain to you how I made sushi from "scratch". Scratch is an old time way of saying I made it from raw ingredients and not a store bought kit.

Well here it is. G went fishing for a few days and came back with an some amazing catch. Included was yellowtail, tuna, halibut and bass. Needless to say, the prep of some of this sea food catch will have to be presented at a later date.

We invited some friends over to induldge in very freshly caught treats. J doesn't eat raw fish so the California roll below was the only imitation on the table. That is imitation crab in the California Roll created by me. G, P and I eat raw fish.

Short Grain rice prepred in a rice cooker.
Electric fan on the short grain rice after a little seasoned rice vinegar with some salt
Paddle used to fluff the rice
Ingredients for California roll
1/4 in of prepared rice on dry roasted seaweed

Bamboo sushi roller

Cut sushi roll
Presentation and ready to eat

Yes, that's Soul Fusion cooking.


I took this a few steps further. We had lots of choices for sashmi but chose the yellowtail (was swimming the day before). I previously purchased a "whatcha ma callit" to make perfect sections of rice.





Ice cooled yellow tail (YT)

I forgot to take an individual picture of the sliced yellowtail.

This is a picture of the feast we had with yellowtail sashimi pictured at the right corner and a platter of sushi at the left. Oh yes, I forgot to add that I included all this as a Shabu Shabu meal with fresh vegetables, shrimp, scallops and sliced shabu beef. Sake to drink.

Wasabi and pickled ginger

Lonely rice.

The perfectly sliced Yellowtail was placed on top of the rice and Voila!



Dessert consisted of s variety of red bean paste cakes- strawberry, vanilla and sesame seeds.

Sunday, August 05, 2007

Kick the Tires and Light the Fires

Another successful backyard BBQ event was hosted by CRocke this past weekend. This event gave us Southern California BBQ teams a chance to receive feedback from some official KCBS judges and new teams a chance to get a taste of competition. Two of us from Four Q competed and what an experience.



Big Mista prepared the ribs

and chicken while I did the


tri tip

and "anything but" (Korean Short Ribs).


BigMista also prepared pig candy using apple cured bacon with brown sugar and cayenne smoked in the UDS (Ugly Drum Smoker).

A couple of weeks ago I posted about my attempts to perfect lemon squares/tarts for the anything but category. Well after looking at my practice results and considering who were the judges, I decidwd to drop the lemon stuff and go with Korean BBQ short ribs. Those who were there know I really didn't make a choice until the last mninute. I went from lemon sqaures/tarts to rose water creme brulee to lemon sour cream pound cake with marshmallows and lemon curd to the final choice of Korean short ribs. Yes I even had homemade marshmellows in the shape of pigs which I was going to plate with the lemon sour cream pound cake. I forgot to take pictures of the piglts but take my word, they were cute and tasty.

A number of folks took photos of the event. I have listed the links below:

Survival Gourmet
Sylvie's Flickr Photos
Leanza's photobucket

Results: Well, we got 2nd place in Tri Tip. I as well as most of the participants who tasted the chicken agreed that the chicken was also first class. We went out on a limb with presentation which seems to have not been a good thing with the judges.

For complete results see the CBBQA wiki site. Hope you all (non-members)can open this link.

Thursday, August 02, 2007

Pet Blogging

Please check out Peanut Butter Etouffee for "Dog, Cat and Bird Days of August" where we once again have the opportunity to showcase our loved pets. Ziggy is excited about the opportunity to be lead in this showcase. There are some real cuties posted.

Thank you ladies for hosting.