Gourmet food truck lunch - First Friday with Phoenix Street Food

Sunshine and Spices-
tacos and samosa

I'm a self-proclaimed foodie.  Not only do I enjoy cooking and baking, but I'm always looking for new and interesting places to eat.  I've been watching EatStreet on Cooking channel and lamenting the fact that I never see any good food trucks around Phoenix. I do see the occasional roach-coach, but what they serves doesn't count as "gourmet food".

In my search for food trucks in Phoenix I came across First Friday and event in Phoenix, held, of course, on the first Friday of the month.  During lunch a bunch of "gourmet food" trucks gather to offer lunch for the hungry masses. Phoenix Street Food helps to get the word out about all the vendors. Jack pot!!!

I actually took today off of work, not just for the Phoenix Street Food lunch (but mostly).  I needed a break and today seemed like the perfect day to take it.

Kiki, her two youngest and my mom joined me for a little field trip into downtown Phoenix.  The weather really wasn't too bad. It's June, in phoenix, so we were expecting it to be at least a little warm.  Finding the Phoenix Street Food location wasn't too difficult.  All the trucks were at the southeast corner of 1st Street and McKinley in downtown Phoenix.

A covered parking area was converted into an outdoor eatery complete with misters and outdoor air conditioning units.  Fortunately we got there early enough that we got our food before the rush of people arrived.  By the time we left, the place was packed.

We had one rule - we all had to order our meals from somewhere different.  This way we were able to try several different things.  Of course I took a bunch of pictures.  You'll have to check out my pictures and read to the captions to see what I thought of the food.



Bottom line...loved the food at the Phoenix Street Food event.  If you get the chance, check it out.

A food post because of my dad

This is a food post, which I would normally save for my food blog - Cre8ToEat; however, this is mostly a blog about how awesome my dad is.

I, in some fit of insanity, offered to cook teriyaki chicken for the ward luau which was scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 19th.  Mostly I offered because I can't stand bad teriyaki chicken.  I also offered to make some Hawaiian style salad dressing. Agghh!!!

So this last week was crazy busy (way crazier than usually). I've been working late every night.  I bought 8 giant bags of chicken thighs from Costco on Thursday and stuck them in the fridge at home (thankgoodness for the extra fridge in the garage).  Friday after work and before my RS Presidents meeting and before all my VT sisters were coming over for game night I went shopping for teri-marinade ingredients.  Had my meeting, had my fun VT friends come over.  We played games until 10:30pm at which point I chased them all home.

This is where my dad flies in with his super cape.  My dad helped me make marinade and get all 160 pieces of chicken de-iced, and into the marinade.  We're were up until midnight.  I went to bed with cold stiff fingers.

The next morning at 7:30am, we got up and played an hour of Wii fit - he kicked my butt at golf and hula-hooping. Then he fired up the grill and the two of us spent the next 3 1/2 hours grilling chicken.  I know that had my dad not helped me I would have been in tears, and only half-way done, by lunch time.

My dad ROCKS!!!!  I bought him a Chipotle bowl for lunch to thank him.

By the way, everyone at the ward party LOVED the chicken.

Tomatoes and Peel

Just a quick note...you remember those tomato plants I've been babying, waiting for the "big harvest". Well, it was TODAY!!

The difference between these fresh home-grown tomatoes and the things you buy at the store is HUGE!  These actually taste like tomatoes!

And you may have noticed they are sitting on my new pizza peel which I'll be using as I explore Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes A Day -- head on over to my food blog to read about my newest adventure in baking.

Halloween - Halloween - My Favorite Time of Year

I Love Halloween!

I really, really do! Who doesn't love a holiday where people give out free candy and you get to dress-up anyway you want, call it a costume, and wear it around all day and have people tell you how "Spectacular" you look. :)

I'm getting ready for my Annual Aunt Megan's Halloween Party, next Wednesday. And I decided I wanted another excuse to try some more Halloween recipes, and get more mileage out of my decorations, so I'm throwing a little Visiting Teacher "Gouhl's Night Out" with ghoulish desserts next week as well.

Here are the invitations to the Annual Aunt Megan Halloween Party:
I made little paper coffins, filled them with gold coins and skulls and pumpkin candy, and wrote the invite inside of the lid. The coffin was super easy to make. I got the pattern from Martha Stewart. Here's the coffin pattern. It would be totally cute with double-sided paper, maybe next year.

Then I found this awesome recipe for cinnamon candy popcorn - ya know that stuff the Harry & David's makes called Moose Munch that tastes wickedly good but they charge ya like $8 for a quarter-cup. Well, while cruising my favorite recipe photo site (admit it, you eat with your eyes first, if there isn't a great picture with the recipe you won't try it) Taste Spotting, I saw a recipe for the popcorn. The "Our Best Bites" site calls it "Cinnamon Carmel Corn with Pecans and White Chocolate" -- I call it freakin' delicious. So rather than post the recipe, I'm going to send you on over to Our Best Bites and just show you the pictures of the finished popcorn that I made today. I won't tell you the bowl is not empty, cuz it's not...I swear! ;)

I did add a small Halloween flair -- just before I drizzled the white chocolate on the cooled popcorn I tossed in Halloween m&m's and I also drizzled semi-sweet chocolate along with the white chocolate. Strictly for aesthetic reasons! ;)