Sunday Mornings

Everyone has their special Sunday morning traditions.  For some it's going to church, for others it's reading the morning paper with a good cup of coffee, but, for me, it's being spoiled by having scrambled eggs made specially for me!  Rudy and I will sleep in on Sundays, and, when we decide to finally roll out of bed, I'm starving!  Rudy goes into the kitchen and starts going through the refrigerator, looking for all the leftover veggies and meats and cheeses that we have from the previous week.  I never know what combination he's going to come up with, and every week it's a big surprise.  I am usually sitting down on the couch surfing the web, enjoying the smells coming from the kitchen.  Then, I am presented with a plate of the most delicious scrambled eggs!  I am really bad at making scrambled eggs: they always end up too dry or too watery.  Rudy, however, is the master of scrambled eggs.  They are never too dry, are never browned, are fluffy and moist, but not sopping wet.  I don't know how he does it, but I am sure glad he does!

Happy Sunday to everyone!

Tikka Turkey Wraps

Tonight's dinner was probably my favorite dinner ever!  It was like a flavor explosion in my mouth.  Seriously.  I am still dumbfounded by it, and I really have no idea where to start.

So let me describe to you this deliciousness that I concocted.  It started out as a plain turkey burger, but then I had to add some feta cheese to the patties.  But then I remembered that I wanted to use the leftover tikka I had made earlier in the week.  So I added coriander, cumin, and turmeric powder to the patties.  I wrapped up the patties with a healthy dose of salt and pepper.  Now let me tell you, the flavor didn't end there...

What did I spread the tikka on?  I slathered that delectible sauce all over the outside of one of my pitas.  Yes.  The outside.  Here's why:  I wanted to make the dish resemble a hamburger, and sliding a patty inside the pita just didn't seem hamburgery to me.  So I decided to fold the pita instead.  Hence, the spreading of the tikka on the outside of the pita.

Hamburgers always have lettuce (unless you don't like green veggies.  Then I guess there isn't any lettuce...), but unfortunately I was too lazy to go out to the grocery store to buy some.  Instead, I used the rest of the baby spinach I had chillin' in the fridge (Get it? Chillin'? Fridge?).  I dug more in the veggie bin and found I still had some potatoes left and a little red onion.  The potatoes became fries, because, lets face it, hamburgers are just no fun without fries.  The red onion was sliced up super thin and got to play in the spinach with the patties.

Once I put everything in my mouth, I literally stopped chewing and just the flavors sit on my tongue.  It was that good.  If you don't try any of the other recipes in this blog except for one, make sure this is the one!  And just to help you out, you can go here to get the tikka sauce I used for tonight's dinner.  It came from another amazing dinner I found, where else, at Epicurious.  Just don't add the sauce to the chicken.  Add it to your wrap instead!

Tikka Turkey Wrap

1 lb. ground lean turkey
2 oz. crumbled feta cheese
1 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. tumeric
1 tsp. corriander
1 1/2 tsp garlic salt
1 1/2 tsp. ground pepper
1 cup baby spinach leaves
1/4 red onion, sliced paper thin
4 pitas, or other flatbreads of your choosing
1/3 cup tikka sauce

1. Mix the first 7 ingredients together until just blended.  Don't over-do it unless you want really tough burgers.  Put this in the fridge and let the ingredients hang out for an hour (or longer if that's the way you roll.)
2. Divide the turkey mixture into fourths.  Form each quarter into a patty about 1/2 inch thick.
3. Heat a skillet over medium heat.  Spray the skillet with cooking spray (turkey is so lean, it sticks to the pan) and place the patties in.  Cook the patties for 8 minutes on one side, then flip and cook for another 8 minutes on the other side.
4. While the patties are cooking for the last 5 minutes, assemble the pitas.  Spread a thin layer of tikka sauce on each pita.  Then spread a layer of spinach leaves on top of the tikka.  Then spread the onion slices over the spinach.  Easy!  I know!
5. Lay each patty onto one half of each pita.  Fold the other half of the pita over, and voila, tikka turkey wrap!

Easy Fries

8 medium-large red potatoes
drizzle of canola oil
garlic salt
pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees farienheit.
2. Scrub any dirt off the potatoes under cool, running water.  Then slice the potatoes into wedges.  You should get about 8-12 wedges from each potato.
3. Place the potato wedges into a large zip top plastic bag.  Drizzle canola oil over the potatoes and add a few shakes of garlic salt and a few grinds of pepper.  Smoosh it all around until the potatoes are completely covered.
4. Lay the potatoes out onto a baking tray, making sure the wedges are standing up and not lying down (they get stuck to the tray if they are lazy and lay down).  Roast the potato wedges in the oven the tops of the wedges start to get crispy and brown, about 30 minutes.
5. Take out of the over and let them cook down for about 5 minutes before you enjoy.  Serve with your favorite burger or chicken.

Just Call Me the Pita Master!

Not only do I have the recipe fully memorized (3 cups + a scant 1/4 cup flour, 2 tsp. yeast, 2tsp. salt, 2 Tbs. olive oil, and 1 1/4 cup water, kneed for 10 min, let rise in the fridge for 3-4 hours...), but I have also developed amazing pita forming technique, and have pulled together an awesome pita assembly line!  I also apparently have no shortage of hungry tummies to find my pitas a home.  Rudy would eat these all day if he could (darn those 5 a day rules!!!), Natalie finds them sooooo soft, and my new, 7-year-old friend Haley couldn't say anything at all because her mouth was always full!  So even though I may be a one trick pony right now, I am damn good at that one trick!!!

So from here on out, please do not call me Lauren.  Simply address me as Pita Master.

The Golden Spatula

Every semester, Nimitz teachers get together to develop units during their time off.  This little get together lasts a solid week.  This does a few things:  gets me prepared for the upcoming semester, lets me make all of my first day of school copies, and I get to gain about 10 pounds from eating all the tasty homemade treats my colleagues bring in to share.  In addition to sharing our treats, there is a competition for the best of the best treats.  This coveted award is known as the Golden Spatula Award.  I want it.  Bad.

This time around, I am not going to hold back.  None of this healthy crap that never gets me anywhere.  I am going to bust out my secret weapon:  malasadas.  Oh those poor unsuspecting teachers!  They will never know what hit them after tomorrow morning!!!  I plan on showing the other competitors no mercy.  I'm not even waiting for the official sign up before I spring these on them.  My devious plan must work!  It must! 

Unfortunately, I must also wait until Thursday to find out if I win.  I can be patient...

A pile of 72 delectable delights!

It's All Greek To Me!

Tonight, we're having Greek food!  Well, what I consider Greek food.  From what I can remember Greek food tasting like.  On the menu:  marinated chicken, a quick salad, minted bulger, and, or course, pita and hummus.  Oh!  All this with a side of wine!

Greek Chicken

1 lb. chicken breast
1 lemon
2 Tbsp. olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 Tbsp. dried oregano
1/2 tsp. Salt
1/2 tsp. Pepper

1. Slice the chicken into 1/2 inch strips across the breast.  Place the pieces in a large plastic bag.
2. Into the same bag as the chicken, add the juice from the lemon, olive oil, minced garlic, oregano, the salt and pepper. Seal up the bag, squeezing out all the air, and squish the chicken and marinade around to mix it.
3. Let the chicken marinade in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
4. After 30 minutes, place the chicken and all of the marinade in a skillet heated over medium-high.  
5. Cook the chicken until in starts to brown a bit on the sides and the marinade is reduced by at least half.

Quick Greek Salad

1 cucumber
1/2 large red onion
12 cherry tomatoes
2 oz. feta cheese
2 Tbsp. olive oil
Salt
Pepper

1. Peel and chop the the cucumber into 1/4 inch cubes and place into a bowl.  Cut the red onion into similar sized pieces and add them to the cucumbers.
2. Cut the tomatoes in half and add them to the cucumbers and onion.
3. Crumble the feta cheese over the veggies.  Add the oil and stir the mixture together.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Roasted Red Pepper Hummus

2 cups canned garbanzo beans (also knows as chickpeas)
6 strips of roasted red bell pepper stored in oil
1/4 cup oil from the red bell peppers
2 cloves of garlic
Juice from a lemon
1 tsp. cumin 
Salt
Pepper

1. Drain the garbanzo beans, saving the liquor from the can.  Add the drained garbanzo beans to the food processor.
2. Add the bell pepper strips, oil, garlic cloves, and lemon juice to the food processor.  Blend all these ingredients together.  Add some of the garbanzo bean liquor to the mixture to make it smoother in consistancy.
3. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Rebel With A Pita

I was flipping through my Bread Bible a few days ago and found a recipe for pita bread.  The recipe even promised that my pitas would come with a convenient pocket!  I decided I needed to try this out and see if I could successfully make not just a pita, but a pita with a pocket.  I was excited, and a bit scared.

The final products.

I was a bit confused at first about how much rise time was needed to make these pita-pockets.  I found several options listed, ranging from 1 hour to 3 FREAKING DAYS!!!  Every time I found the words "letting the dough rise" there was a different set of numbers.  So me, being the patient person I am, decided that after 4 hours of letting the dough rise in the fridge I couldn't take it any more!  I was not going to wait 3 days to have my perfect pitas.  The idea of those yummy pita pockets consumed be and I succumbed to my impatience and plowed on ahead with the recipe.

The pita rounds before I roll them out flat as a pancake.

If that doesn't sound impatient enough, I even said, "Screw it!" when the recipe told me to preheat my oven for at least an hour before baking.  I fortunately read ALL of the directions (not something I can say for most of my students, unfortunately...) and found an alternative method of cooking up the pitas that was much quicker:  cooking them in a frying pan on the stove.

Again, the directions were a bit confusing when it came to cooking these babies up.  I was instructed to oil the pan, place the pita round in the pan for 20 seconds (What can I say?  It's very precise.), then flip the pita and let it cook for a minute.  Then I was to flip the pita again, letting it puff up.  The "puffing" process should take about a minute.  But the confusing part was when the directions stated this whole process should take close to THREE minutes.  Um, no.  According to my calculations, it takes closer to TWO minutes.  What was I supposed to do with those extra 40 seconds???  I decided to let them brown a little bit, even though the directions told me not to.  I'm such a rebel.

The last 40 seconds...

All in all, the pitas turned out great!  They really did have a pocket (it's so cute!), and I'm really looking forward to all the tuna sandwiches I'm going to be making this week!  To go along with my rebellious/impatient mood, I whipped together some hummus with my last can of garbanzo beans (I like the name garbanzo beans better than chickpeas.  They aren't peas anyway.  They're beans!) because I didn't feel like throwing on some sandals and driving the whole whopping 5 minutes to the store to buy some.

I know.  I'm really living on the edge.

You Know You Are a SoCal-er When...

You bake all day in a bikini because it's too Goddamn hot both

inside AND outside.

Happy Birthday Pops!

Apparently in my family, we like to spread out the birthdays pretty evenly throughout the year.  Rudy's family, however, likes to have a marathon of birthdays.  The Taracena Birthday season starts in May and ends in September with Natalie's official birthday (although we pretty much celebrate her birthday year-round...).  This month, it was Mr. Taracena, Rudy, Pops' birthday, and he was turning the BIG 5-0.  So Rudy, Alejandro, Kid, decided that we needed to make a cake for this momentous occasion.  That, and we just really like making cake now and have a reason (other than we are crazy over anything sweet) to make one!

Originally, we were going to make Pineapple Upside-down Cake, but decided we didn't have the proper hardware or money to buy the proper hardware to make it.  That, and it's not really a "birthday cake" cake.  So Rudy decided to do a little research and found an AMAZING Carrot and Pineapple Cake he found on the Food Network website.  When he told me it was created by Ina Garten, Ms. Barefoot herself, he need not say more!  You seriously need to try this cake, it was that good, so go here to print off a copy of the recipe yourself! 

Now go! 

Well, finish reading this, then go!

So here is our Carrot and Pineapple Cake...

And the side view...

I feel that this is a true work of art since it is perilously leaning to one side, much like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.  I say this only because we couldn't get it to stand up straight to save our lives, so I am going with the story that we meant for it to lean and I am sticking to it!  In reality, we have a hot apartment to thank for this leaning beauty.  We tried putting the cake in the refrigerator for 20 minutes after each time we applied frosting.  We tried working really quickly and only working on the cake for 5 minutes at a time then putting in back in the cooler.  We were going to try toothpicks to keep this sucker up, but thought that might be a bit dangerous for the unsuspecting eaters.  We just couldn't get the damn cake to stand up straight! 

To make matters worse, we tried to decorate the top of the cake with pineapple slices too.  That was a huge disaster!!!  Those slices kept sliding off, ruining our frosting job.  The plate kept turning green as more and more frosting was slopping all over it.  Rudy tried to do some repair work by adding more frosting to the top of the cake that I had stored in a piping bag.  But Rudy did not know he needed to grab the end of the piping bag and not the middle.  So aaaaallllllll this frosting came out the backside of the bag and ended up covering the plate, the counter, as well as covering Rudy up and down.  He almost had to take another shower there was sooooo much green goop everywhere.  And I was completely useless because I was alternating between cursing him and laughing at him.

In an homage to Kyle from Southpark, I have this to say.  You know, I learned something today:  hot apartments make leaning cakes, pineapple wedges slide really fast, and Rudy should not handle a piping bag.  But most of all, I learned today that it doesn't matter what the outside of the cake looks like as long as it tastes AMAZING!!!

Not So Fishy Packets

Rudy really only eats fish one way:  raw and on top of a bed of sushi rice.  So it's a challenge for me sometimes to come up with fish dinners that do not taste "fishy".  I really like the idea of cooking food in packets.  It's better than a one-pot wonder because the pot you have to wash; the packets you just through away. 

Tonight's dinner was spot on, not fishy at all, and left you wanting more even though you are stuffed to the gills.

Yes, those are staples.  Gotta keep those packets closed!

Not So Fishy Packets

2 4oz. Red Cod fillets
1 large red potato thinly sliced
1/4 yellow onion, thinly sliced
1 cup arugula
12 Kalamata olives, pitted and sliced in half
Pepper
Garlic Salt
2 large pieces of parchment paper
Stapler

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  
2. Take one of the parchment papers and lay out half of the potato slices in the center.  Top the potato slices with half of the onion, then half of the arugula.  Lay one of the cod fillets on top of the arugula, then sprinkle half of the Kalamata olives on top of the packets.
3. Season with the garlic salt and pepper to taste.
4. Pull the two longer sides of the parchment paper to the center, then roll the paper down until it loosely touches the fillet.  Then fold over each side and secure with 3 staples for each side.
5. Place the parchment packets on a cookie sheet, then place in the oven for 30 minutes.  Once 30 minutes are over, take the cookie sheet out and transfer each packet to a serving plate.  Open the packets carefully because they will be steamy!

Cooking Classes

So my cousin Salomon will come over and have dinner with us every once in a while.  He was over when I made the Mango Salsa and Tilapia.  He was in the kitchen talking to me as I made dinner, and he saw how easy it was to make tasty food.  So he asked me to teach him how to cook.  How could I say no when I get to call him my protege?!
I asked Salomon what he wanted to learn first; he wanted to learn how to make this fantastic chicken dish that my mom taught me how to make (many moons ago...).  It looks fancy, tastes great, and is easy to do if you have a little bit of patience.  Rudy and I went to the store and took Sal along with us so I could go over the ingredients for dinner.  Once we got home, the real learning began.

I showed Salomon how to chop potatoes, butterfly chicken breasts, make the cream cheese mixture, saute green beans, and make mashed potatoes with gravy (Sal loves gravy).  Because all the cooking was being done by someone else, I took this as an opportunity to exploit memorialize the help.

Butterflying a chicken breast.  

And then I asked him to cut all the way through.

Loading up the chicken breast.

Ready to get their bake on!

Whipping up some creamy mashed potatoes.

Working it at the stove.

We even at the table!  

I think it was something like the 5th time we have used it to eat at...

Even Lola joined us for dinner.

Ta-da!  The finished dinner!

Mamma's Bacon Wrapped Chicken

4 chicken breasts

8 slices of good bacon

8oz. cream cheese

4 green onion stalks, chopped

3 Tbs. Worcestershire sauce

1 Tbs. Tabasco sauce

8 toothpicks

1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Butterfly open the chicken breasts, then cut them all the way through.  You should have now 8 chicken breast pieces.
3. Mix together the cream cheese, the green onion, Worcestershire, and Tabasco sauce.  You can add more or less of the sauces to please your taste.
4. Take one of your chicken pieces and place a spoonful of the cream cheese mixture in the middle of it.  Carefully roll the chicken around the creme cheese, making sure you don't squish the cheese out.  
5. Wrap a slice of bacon around the chicken and secure with a toothpick.  Transfer to a baking pan.
6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 for the remaining chicken pieces.
7. Place the chicken in the oven for 20 minutes.  The bacon should be a darker pink the the chicken should be golden around the edges.  Let the chicken rest for 5 minutes before transferring it to a serving plate.

Great first lesson Salomon!

Moroccan Chicken

I love trying food from other cultures.  If I can't travel abroad, at least I can let my taste buds take the trip for me.  I have been watching a lot of HGTV (it's either this or soap operas for day time TV, and I'm not really the soap opera type...) and they keep talking about Moroccan design.  Moroccan this.  Moroccan that.  I finally got fed up with every one having or doing something Moroccan without me.  So I whipped out my phone and did a search on Epicurious (seriously my FAVE!).  What did I find?

A very yummy chicken and fennel dish that I served with Indian paratha and quinoa.  I don't know if the Moroccans eat either of these, but they were a tasty addition to the chicken.  And the best part was, I had a bigger audience for this dinner too!  Salomon and Rudy both had this, and I'm pretty sure they were both finished eating before I even sat down.  They both inhaled it and then promptly asked for more.  Unfortunately, they would have had to go to Morocco to get more because I ran out.  Next time, I am going to have to make a double batch!

So until I can save up enough money to buy a plane ticket to Morocco and good walking shoes, this dish will satisfy my travel temptation.  The only question left is, where am I off to next?

Epicurious

After seeing this application in many magazines, I finally decided to download it.  To my surprise, it was free!  Yay!  My favorite aspect of this app is the "Search Recipes".  You can search recipes that have certain ingredients that you already have, or you can search certain cuisines from around the world, or you can tailor your recipes to certain dietary needs.  Heck, you can even search a combination of all these!  I was really excited to search Portuguese/Spanish dishes for dinner that was low cal. 

I bought Mahi Mahi fillets from Fresh and Easy when they were on sale (oh how I love a sale!) and was really exicted to find a good looking recipe that included Mahi Mahi on this app.  Not only was the Mahi Mahi with Gazpacho delicious, it was pretty to look at. Rudy ate every last bite!  As he put it, "Baby!  This doesn't even taste fishy at all!"  All I have to say:  Mission Accomplished.

 

Dreamy Bagels

I just finished making bagels for the first time ever!  And to tell you the truth, I will be dreaming of their soft and squishy insides just as much as I will be dreaming of their crisp and supple crust.  I took a very big risk by not following the directions exactly, but I was desperate for bagels and I didn't have all of the exact ingredients.  These bagels are so good, in fact, that Rudy started eating one of the bagels I had set up for pictures.  He thought I had set them out for him to eat.  To make matters worse, he continued to eat them even after I told him they were for pictures!  Now, all I have left to do is to close my eyes and await the Bagel Fairy to bring me sweet dreams.  Maybe the Philly Cream Cheese Angels will join in on the action too...

Breadmaking Day #2

It seems I just can't get enough bread making!  Maybe it was making the malasadas.  Maybe it was talking to a family friend who used to own a bakery.  Maybe it was finding my Bread Bible dusty and neglected.  I don't really know what it is that has sent me on bread making overload, but I'm glad it happened!  My latest creation:  Sacaduros.  They are little dinner rolls from some fancy restaurant the author of The Bread Bible went to and got the recipe for.

But I put on my own little twist.  Remember that Pancetta I used to make the shrimp?  Well, I happened to have some left over!  And after a little digging in the fridge, I cam across a very special gem:  fig spread!  Figs and Pancetta.  Pancetta and figs!  You couldn't go wrong!  I wrapped the doughy little rolls around a drop of fig spread every so lovingly.  Then I topped  my creation with a ribbon of Pancetta.  Put them in the oven for 20 minutes, and what comes out is a fun and fanciful treat!  Lets just say, after having The Cuh's over, I have only 5 plain rolls left, and only 1 fig roll left.  That's out of 2 dozen rolls!  And, I have been requested to make another 2 dozen today!  Maybe I should take that family friend's advice and open a bakery...

I have another great achievement to share!  Rudy made a delicious stir-fry for us yesterday for lunch!  It was really delicious!  It had all sorts of vegetables in it, with little shrimp popping up here and there.  All of this with some brown rice...  I was in heaven!  Needless to say, by the time I was able to get my camera out, I didn't have much to take a picture of.  It was all gone!  Maybe on top of running a bakery, I will become a food forensic scientist...

Foccacia and Shrimp

After making the malasadas, I wanted to make another yeast bread.  I heart baking.  Plain and simple.  There is nothing better than seeing your golden brown and delicious concoction coming out of the nice, warm oven smelling delectable.  I would bake steak if I could (I really have trouble cooking red meat of any kind).  So I went flipping through my Bread Bible (it's a real book.  Check it out on Amazon if you don't believe me!) and found a recipe for Rosemary Focaccia bread.  A little bit more reading, and I found a variation that used poached garlic.  Poaching garlic in oil sounds easy enough (it was only a three sentence segment in the whole recipe, so how hard can it be really???), but apparently it is really easy to screw up!  Case in point:

Just for the record, burned garlic does in fact tastes nasty. I do not recommend it.  After walking down to the grocery story and buying six more heads of garlic (I was a little scared I would mess up again.  Chances were good after all!), I made my second attempt.  Success!

Golden brown and soft, not smushy.  Just like the Bread Bible says.  I knew the Bread Bible wouldn't do my wrong!  So once the garlic was poached, it was time to make the focaccia.

First rise -- Very soupy.  Very stretchy!

Look at all those cute dimples of garlic! 

Ta-da!  Complete and tasty and warm.  Just like I like it!

Now I had a dilemma.  What am I going to eat this bread with?  I guess the easy answer is, "By itself stupid!"  But I wanted more than that.  I had to design a meal around this.  A meal that could stand alone, but also is greatly benefited by having this garlic foccacia as a side.  What did I come up with?  Shrimp wrapped in pancetta.  Can't go wrong there!

This is a super easy meal where boiling the water is the most difficult, most time consuming task.  If you don't believe me (again with you non-believers!) try it yourself.

Shrimp and Pancetta

10 large shrimp (peel off, deveined)
10 thin slices of pancetta
1/4 box angel hair pasta
1 cup frozen peas
2 Tbsp. garlic infused oil* (I made this when poaching my garlic!)
2 Tbsp. butter
1/2 tsp. red chili flakes
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 pinches of Parmesan cheese

1. Put your pot of water for your pasta on the stove and set it on high.  Additionally, get your grill warming up.  I use my George Foreman, but an outdoor grill or grill pan work too.  Just get the sucker hot at this point.
2. While the water is boiling, carefully wrap 1 shrimp in 1 piece of the pancetta.  Put in on a skewer, then repeat with the remaining 9.
3. In a pan, add the oil, butter, chili flakes, and garlic.  Let the butter melt, and the flavors mingle.
4. Once the water is boiling, your grill should be hot.  Add your shrimp skewers to the grill.  Let it cook 3 minutes on each side. 
5. While the shrimp are cooking, add the angel hair pasta to the pot of water, and cook according to the instructions (it cooks fast, so you should really only be cooking it for 4-5 minutes)
6. Halfway through the pasta cooking, add the peas to the pot.  You should also be flipping your shrimp if you haven't done so already.
7. Drain the pasta and peas.  Add the oil and butter mixture to the pasta and peas.  Divide the pasta and peas onto two plates.  Top with a pinch of Parmesan cheese.  Rip the shrimp off the skewers and place 5 shrimp on each plate.  Grab a fork, and get your grub on!

Really, this meal takes 20 minutes or less.  And if you have a garlic press, then you can make this and not even get your hands dirty!  And, it makes a perfect accompaniment to garlic foccacia. 

* You can use regular oil, but you may want to add two extra cloves of garlic for the extra flavor boost!  Or not.  Whatever floats your boat.

Malasadas

No, malasadas are not "badly grilled".  They are Portuguese doughnuts (minus the hole and fillings)!  My family fell in love with these tasty treats on one of our adventures to The Big Island.  There, we found Tex's... Think of them as a Krispy Kreme but for malasadas.  I could have stayed there all day if I could, just watching them make the malasadas.

Imagine how excited I got when on our last trip, I saw that Tex's put together all the dry ingredients for their malasada dough!  I had to buy one so I could make these delectable doughnuts at home.  So what did I do?  I bought two of course!

Well, I found out yesterday that it was a darn good thing I splurged and bought not one bag of malasada mix but two.  I totally screwed up the first batch!  I was supposed to let the dough rise for 20 minutes, and I think the dough actually started shrinking instead!  I let it sit there for 15 more minutes, and still nothing happened.  I went back to look at the recipe, and I forgot an ingredient.  1/2 teaspoon of sugar.  That was all that was standing between me and the fluffy goodness of malasadas.  Time to start all over.

So after about an hour of trying to make the dough correctly, and after painfully throwing out the first batch of dough, I successfully made almost 3 dozen, 2-bite-sized malasadas!  Rudy and I could not wait to try them!  It's a good thing we taste tested them at home before we took them to the family pool party, because we did not get a chance to eat any once we got there!  Those malasadas were gone soooo fast!  I think they were eaten faster than I had made them!

So I learned a few things in this adventure. 

1. Malasadas need a lot of sugar.  If you think you have enough, check again!
2. My family, who loves to share what they have with as many other people as possible, refuses to share malasadas.  It is every man, woman, and child for themselves!
3. I need to find Tex's recipe online somehow, because I am already hankering for some more!