Tree Decorating and Steak Dinner

I love to decorate the tree. I'm really good at it. Especially putting up the lights. That's the part that takes talent.

Anyway, to go along with tree night, I decided we should have some steak and potatoes. I had some Omaha Steaks filet mignon in my freezer. I took the meat out, and picked up some groceries, and that was the extent of my involvement with dinner. The husband did the rest. And it was delicious. Almost as good as my tree.

Tamale Leftovers Become Burritos

After tamale making night, we had some meat filling leftover, so the husband and I made some mini burritos. I made some beans to go inside as well.

With the beef.

And the chicken.

And we had desserts from the Mexican store after dinner.

Birthday Lobster and Ahi Salad

The husband had a birthday in early December. And for his birthday dinner he requested lobster, and a salad. I decided to pick up some tuna sashimi to top over our salad. And I made a nice honey/wasabi vinaigrette to go over it. The meal was quick and simple. But it sure looked fancy.

Broiled Lobster

Two 4 oz lobster tails

Butter

Freshly grated ginger

1/2 garlic clove, minced

salt

1. Preheat your broiler to 500 degrees.

2. Cut the lobster tails down the middle.

3. Heat up butter. Add ginger and garlic. Brush mixture over lobster and season with salt.

4. Broil for 8-10 minutes, brushing with additional butter if necessary.

Yang Chow Take Out

My friend calls Yang Chow not real Chinese food. I guess it's because not enough Chinese eat there or something. There are two locations that I've been to, Chinatown and Pasadena. I like this place, especially since the Pasadena location is on my way home. And celebrities go there. I've never seen any there, but their pictures hang on the walls of the place. Last time I was there waiting to pick up my food, I noticed Ron Howard was even on the wall.

This place has a delcious dish called Slippery Shrimp. Yum. But it's not a take-out dish; the sauce and shrimpt don't travel well. So last week, I had some hot and sour soup, and tried their Shanghai-style noodles with pork and spinach. I really like the texture of these noodles, a new favorite.

Tamale Making Time

So I've been bugging my friend to teach me how to make tamales for some time now. But she has all these strange hang ups about when and where and how to make them. Finally, I was told Christmas time is tamale time and we can make them in December. So, last Friday, both of us got off work early, and got to it.

Now, there's no recipe here. I get too tired thinking back to that that day to write about it in any detail. So I'm going to let the pictures do the talking, and summarize the lessons learned.

Roasted tomatillo sauce for the chicken tamales.

Red chile sauce for beef.

Chickens!

Beef with sauce.

Carrots, cheese and pickled jalapenos went into the chicken tamales.

Phew! Just looking at those pictures brough back memories of doing dishes for two hours. Here's what I would never do again:

• Make tamales starting at 2 pm
• Use a steamer that's too big
• Use so many dishes
• Make tamales with my friend. This can cause some major friendship problems, especially if you're too alike and have different cooking styles. We couldn't even agree on whether to add the tomatillo sauce to the shredded chicken, so I made my own, with the sauce. And I have confirmation the sauce makes all the difference.

Here's what I would do:

• Plan better
• Soak and clean the corn husks the day before
• Boil all the meat the day before
• Make the sauces the day before
• Buy enough masa

I'm thinking of making some tamales in late Spring, who's in?

Madrid, no I did not forget about you

Well, maybe I forgot a little. But I got all busy, and didn't finish all the posts I had planned on Spain. So here's one on Madrid; after Toledo, my least favorite city in Spain. But just so you understand, it was like thousands of times better than Toledo.

We went to two great restaurants there that were recommended to us by Pep -- El Paraguas and El Drago.

El Paraguas was in a fancy district, with lots of fancy shops. They had an impressive wine list, with very pricey wines, but that was the only intimidating part. Our waiter was friendly, and made recommendations.

I had the most delicious salad with fresh mozzarella and strawberries.

My husband had the most expensive appetizer we had on this trip, tuna tartare with caviar.

It was good, but I'm not sure it was $50 good.

I then had amazing beef medallions with a sweet mustard sauce.

And the husband had this crazy layered meat, cheese and asparagus pocket that was then fried.

And of course we ended with a cheese plate.

El Drago was a residential neighborhood, and took us a while to find. It was homey and packed, and no one seemed to speak any English. The owner at some point even got a dictionary out when trying to describe a dish. It was amusing and we all laughed about it. Here we started with a pork and paprika sausage, and then moved on to leeks in a vinaigrette.

Baked crab for the husband.

A delicious piece of fish for me, cooked with lots of garlic and olive oil.

And cheesecake as well as chocolate mousse, with port.

By this time, we were almost used to eating at 10 pm and having TUMS on hand after dinner. And then we had to leave.

Point Reyes Adventures Continued with Tony's Seafood

Tony's Seafood is about an 8 mile drive from Point Reyes Station, in Tomales Bay. It's a small restaurant that sits over the water, with pretty views of the bay and the restraurant's boats.

As we looked at the menu, we quickly noticed the "cash only" signs everywhere. Oops, we had like $5. So, when the nice waitress approached our table, we apologized, and told her we would come back tomorrow, since ATM machines were back in town, a 20 minute drive one way.

The waitress told us to hold on a minute, disappeared and came back to take our order, saying, "Just mail us a check when you get home." We were in a bit of a shock. We placed our order and promised to come back the next day since we were still going to be in town. When she left our table, my husband whispered to me, "Old-timey credit! I love it!"

We started off with a shrimp cocktail. Fresh and delicious, but not pictured here. I then had the scallops and shrimp combo (above) in a buttery garlic sauce. I could have done without the frozen french fries, but my salad and seafood were tasty.

My husband had the day's special, cracked crab. It came with no sides, just a big plate of fresh crab, cracked in all the right places, served with two sauces.

For dessert we had a slice of the best apple pie with ice cream and whipped cream. The crust was buttery and perfect.

The next day, as promised, we went back to pay our bill and stayed for a quick lunch. We tried their two kinds of clam chowder - Boston style, and vegetable. I did not like the vegetable, too tomato soupy for me. But the cream version was great, not heavy, just right.

We also got an order of their bbq oysters. These were good, but I definitely prefer the raw ones.

To finish off our quick lunch, we decided on a slice of pecan pie. Not as good as the apple filling, but still pretty good, with incredible crust.

With good food, and trustworthy owners, this place won our hearts as well as our stomachs.