Hope everyone enjoyed their weekend!

We had a bit of an unusual one. On Saturday we attended a yo-yo competition!…….

We heard about it online from someone that was hosting it and decided to drop in and see what it was all about. It was at PushPush Theater near downtown Decatur and was basically several hours of competitive yo-yoing! We got there towards the end so we got to see about an hour of competition and the winners announced.

There were kids of all ages with some pretty impressive yo-yo collections…..

One kid even won a $200 yo-yo! I didn’t realize there was such a thing as a $200 yo-yo, but apparently there is.

The competitors twist and flip the yo-yos so fast that I couldn’t even snap any photos of the action. It was pretty amazing to watch and I’m so glad we took a chance on checking out this unusual activity because it was a blast to watch and the music was rockin’.

I almost bought a yo-yo while we were there but I restrained myself.

That night we went out on a little date to a restaurant I’ve been hearing rave reviews about from so many people – Escorpion.

This place is known for their tacos and ceviches. But first, they started us out with an amazing salsa, you could tell that the ingredients in it were roasted and charred, very interesting.

The cocktail menu was too good to pass up. I got a drink called the El Chamuco that had tequila, blackberry and cassis in it. It was fantastic! So often drinks like this can be thick and syrupy, but this one tasted fresh and crisp. Jeff got a cocktail infused with rosemary. It had just a hint of herbal flavor without hitting you over the head.

The first thing we ordered was the tuna and watermelon ceviche with serrano chilis and smoked sea salt…

Isn’t it beautiful?!?!

This was incredible. We were both unsure of how the watermelon would go with the tuna, but combined with the sour and salty brine it was the perfect balance of flavors.

Then we got three tacos to share. Clockwise from the back these are goat, grilled shrimp, and beef tongue.

Unusual, right?

The goat had a flavor like it had been stewed in milk, very flavorful. The shrimp were perfectly bouncy and you could taste the slight char from the grill. The tongue was my favorite. If you’ve never tried tongue you are missing out, it is one of my favorite meats. It is meltingly soft and has a buttery flavor, delicious!

We also shared a pork tamale. Sadly, this wasn’t wonderful. Usually tamales have the problem of having too much masa and not enough meat. This one had the opposite problem, it was almost entirely a giant slab of flavorless overcooked pork with very little masa to balance it out. It wasn’t awful, just a little dry and heavy.

We were having such a good time that we ended up ordering two more cocktails to chill out with. Jeff got the traditional margarita which was easily the best margarita I’ve ever tasted, mellow and not too sour. I got a drink called La Dahlia that had hibiscus syrup in it. I felt like such a girl with my sweet pink drink. 😉

Overall, I was knocked over by how awesome Escorpion was. We will definitely be back!

A weekend of yo-yos and tongue tacos, definitely a little different. 😉

Do you have any unusual hobbies?

July 25, 2011 Alayna Discussion 3 comments

Jeff and I have been craving potstickers lately. I used to make them all the time, so much so in fact that we got sick of them. Now though, they’re sounding good again.

Well, I bought some ground pork to use for the potsticker filling and didn’t realize that I’d bought way too much until I got home. Ground pork tends to spoil pretty quickly, so I needed to come up with something to do with the other half of it right away. I decided to season all of it in the same way that I season the potsticker filling and then just roll the other half into meatballs.

With fresh veggies and some sweet and sour sauce, it became this…

To make, I mixed ground pork with garlic, ginger, scallions, sesame seeds, and spices and rolled them into little meatballs. These got baked at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes.

While those were baking, I sauteed broccoli and shiitake mushrooms in sesame oil with some red pepper flakes. When the meatballs were done, I added them to the vegetables and glazed everything with sweet and sour sauce.

It was so good over hot rice.

Sweet and sour pork meatballs

A new take on sweet and sour pork with flavorful pork meatballs and fresh vegetables.

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Yield: 2-3 servings

Ingredients

• 1/2 pound ground pork
• a 1 inch piece of ginger (grated)
• 3 large cloves garlic (minced)
• 3 scallions (chopped)
• 1 tbsp. toasted sesame seeds
• 1/8 tsp. chili garlic sauce
• 1/2 tsp. soy sauce
• 1 tsp. mirin
• 1 small head of broccoli (cut into florets)
• about 6-8 shiitake mushroom caps (quartered)
• 1/4 cup sweet and sour sauce
• 1/8 tsp. red pepper flake

Cooking Directions

1. Mix ginger, garlic, scallions, sesame seeds, chili garlic sauce, soy sauce, and mirin into ground pork.
2. Roll pork into small meatballs and bake on a foil-lined tray at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.
3. Sautee broccoli and mushrooms in sesame oil and red pepper flake until cooked through.
4. Add cooked meatballs to vegetable saute and add sweet and sour sauce, stir to coat.
5. Serve over rice.

I love recipes like this that come out of nowhere. What started as a problem with too much ground pork turned into a really unique dinner idea.

Have you ever had a stroke of cooking genius?

July 22, 2011 Alayna Discussion, Recipes 3 comments

Around 3 o’clock yesterday, I had a sudden and intense craving for blueberry muffins. It was like, panicky intense. So bad that I actually looked up a recipe and drove straight to the grocery store to buy what I needed to make them.

Ahhhhhh……blueberry muffin crisis averted…………..

Is that not the most gorgeous thing you’ve seen all day? To me, it’s just not a real blueberry muffin without a crumb topping, so I made a basic brown sugar crumb topping and added it to this recipe to form the perfect muffin!

This one was really interesting because you actually make a blueberry jam to swirl into the batter, yum! We almost ate them for dinner because I wasn’t in the mood to cook.

Sadly, we have an ant problem in our kitchen right now. I thought I’d found what had attracted them and eliminated it but they won’t completely go away. I’m sure having sweets in the house doesn’t help to convince them that there’s nothing for them here.

Anyone have any good DIY ant killer recipes? I’ve found a bunch online for how to kill an anthill outside, but not too much good advice about something to spray directly on them indoors that is non-toxic for food surfaces. I’m hoping they just go away on their own.

For now, we’re hiding the muffins in the oven to keep them from the ants!

Ever have a craving so bad you made it immediately?

July 22, 2011 Alayna Discussion 6 comments