Bravo for Restaurant Week

 "Bravo" for Restaurant week Mikey says, Dine LA celebrated it 5th anniversary
this year and in honor of their celebration they have given southern California residents a break by cutting the prices on their menu for one week only. We were able to take advantage of a full 3 course meal at a less expensive price. We choose Il Fornaio located in Pasadena.

like any great Italian restaurant, we started off with french bread, Mikey is a big fan of bread he seen the waiter bring out the rolls and he said 'bravo"

First course: Bruschetta Callada [basil and kalamata olives topped on garlic ciabatta bread] and Insalata del fornaio [mixed greens, croutons and shaved Parmesan] Mikey choose Chicken tenders and french fries.

The Second course:
Conchiglie Al Pollo [shell pasta, chicken and broccoli and sun dried tomatoes on pecorino cheese] and Salmon on Spinach insalata

Third Course:
Zabaione alla Gritti [ Bellini Sorbet with berries and whipped cream] by looking at Mikey's facial expression I'm sure you don't need any words to describe these yummy desserts.

Crespelle di Mele [crepes filled with pastry cream, vanilla gelato and caramel]

After we enjoyed all these fine foods, we really needed to walk off our stomachs and do some shopping. I know what your all probably thinking, they took the elevator after eating all this food? yes we did only because, I wasn't going to carry the stroller up all the stairs at H&M and Forever 21 so yes we did, and he loved the ride going up.

Valentine's Day Crayons

You first peel off all the wrappers off the crayons the adults part of course

Mikey helped me out till he got a little tired and decided to eat them instead so that's when I had to take over

he enjoyed this part, which is where you can break the crayons to make them smaller to fit in the mold.

place in the oven for 15 minutes at 250 degrees and let cool so all the colors combine, we used darker shades of colors like blues, black and greys so the crayon is going to melt at a much darker shade than if using brighter colors. Allow the crayon to cool for more than a hour before coloring with it.

Finally the part we have all been waiting for, let's see how it work, he seems to enjoy it.

Valentine's Day Rice Crispy

In Today's Blogging & Baby Sitting Mikey and I decided to make food crafts and since its Valentine's Day coming up we thought we would make heart pops form rice crispy treats.

Supplies:

*butter
*Rice Crispy Cereal
*Wax Paper
*heart cookie cutters
*sprinkles
*food coloring if you want to dye the crispy mixture
*frosting
*white marshmallows
*spatula
*thin baking rack to flattened out cereal

This is a great way to get the kids involved when its time to decorate and cutting up the crispy, since Mikey is still young I allowed him to decorate everything and I cut up the rice crispy since they are a little tough to apply force for such a small child.

In a large pot melt about half a stick of butter depending on how many rice crispy you want to make I only used half a bag of cereal therefore half a stick of butter otherwise if I was to use the whole box I would use the full stick of  butter. Avoid the butter burning this will cause the marshmallow's to brown and start adding in the cereal

once its all sticking together similar to the consistency above

 take it out of the pot and empty it all on to wax paper.

In order to flatten out all the cereal find something with a flat surface I used a baking sheet without the raised edges then let it cool for about half hour or till cooled. Using a spatula apply a thin layer of frosting

 Place it in the refrigerator for at least an hour till it hardens and then your ready to decorate.

Once your done decorating place them back into the refrigerator so the frosting and all sprinkles will set and enjoy your dessert.

Creme Brulee

The next two weeks I am on baby sitting duty so from time to time I will be blogging about my adventures with the 2 year old toddler. He is a very animated kid we have plans of whooping us some crafting some food crafts and we will see what else is in store for us the next few days. Yesterday we attended a birthday party for one of my cousins, I wanted to make something so, I decided to make  Creme Brulee because I have always wanted to try it.
I watched a YouTube video on how to prepare everything since, this was my first time making creme brulee, I knew it was going to take me about 4 hours to refrigerate so in the meantime Mikey and I ran a few errands, we headed to Trader Joe's. He noticed the samples and quickly told me he wanted some, sure enough he was quiet a good few minutes as he devoured the Macaroni & cheese.  Once he finished he said "yumm thine um hum good" I was kinda busy looking for a particular cereal as I noticed my basket full of food I didn't put in there. Mikey had choose a bunch of snacks and tossed them right in. I thought to myself we better get out of here before this kid breaks my bank ha ha. I wait till he turned to start putting back some of the "yonke" (Spanish for junk).  He is a great helper and knows exactly what he wants when it comes to shopping. He threw in berries, macaroni & cheese, nuts, and fruits that we had stocked up on at home. Our cashier gave him a roll of stickers, and he immediately had a huge smile on his face and began peeling them off and sticking them to his sweatshirt.

Once we got home there were stickers stuck to the window, I told him "oh noo were going to get in trouble" and had this confused look on his face and replied to me "huh? no thine the humming bird in trouble" of  course I'm not sure what he was talking about or trying to tell me but, later I learned that he was watching an episode of  Wonder Pets and the pets rescued a humming bird because the bird couldn't fly or something it was just funny to see the connection he tied in when i mention were in trouble. This day and age allot more kids are so much smarter, he knew that by telling me about the humming bird story I would probably forget about the whole sticker situation,  and yes it worked because, I was too occupied trying to figure out what he was talking about.

wallah creme brulee...

Happy 16th Birthday Joe!!

  purchased from The Phoenix Bakery