Posted on 12th April 2008 by james - the dad in Uncategorized
food, grilling
To go along with our nice new backyard we finally went out and bought a new grill. After a lot of research I had the choice narrowed down to a Weber gas grill or one from Sam’s Club. They both had good reviews but the grill from Sam’s came with more features for the price.
I’ll get a picture of our grill soon but for now here’s a picture from the Sam’s website.

Here are some of the important “deets:”
Large 1,065 sq. in. total cooking area
Large 72 sq. in. infrared searing burner
Infrared rotisserie burner
Stainless steel Savor Plates
72,000 total BTU performance
Side burner with griddle
Push button ignition system
Halogen grill light on rotisserie motor
Includes grill cover
To “break in” the new grill we bought some T-bone steaks, potatos, zucchini, and squash. I seared those bad boys on the infrared sear burner but wasn’t successful with the grill marks. I’ll have to keep working on that. I also grilled up the veggies to eat on the side. Everything was really good and it make a perfect first meal for our grill.

Since then we’ve cooked fish a few times, chicken, pork, and some more steaks. Everything has turned out pretty darn good and I’m having fun learning how to cook on a gas grill. In the past I’ve only cooked on a charcoal grill but cooking with gas is just so much easier. I’ll still go back to the charcoal for some things but probably not too often. I’ll post more about my grilling adventures as they happen.

Posted on 12th April 2008 by james - the dad in Uncategorized
baking, recipe
OK, just catching up here. So here goes a few posts that we’ve been too busy to write!
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So, we ended up back in Southern California for Easter, partially because I had some customer work to do in San Diego. We figured we would just drive out there so we could spend some time visiting our families and hanging our for a bit.
We celebrated Easter at Chanin’s parent’s house with lots of family and food. Of course, I forgot to take pictures of all of the food but we had ham, potato cheese casserole, yams (with marshmallows), corn, deviled eggs, and lots more! I can’t seem to remember what else we had but I assure you it was a FEAST!

I was charged with making dessert and decided to make carrot cake since it seemed “Eastery.” I love carrot cake and hadn’t made it before so I scoured the ‘net for recipes and found one that looked good on Chowhound. My bro and sis in law suggested cupcakes since they’d be easier to eat so I went with that approach. I must say they turned out really good. I think I outdid myself! Even Chanin said that if she liked carrot cake then she would’ve liked mine!
Here are a few pictures of the cupcakes. I’ll post the recipe further below.



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