Hi Everyone! Sorry we've been gone for so long, Eric's non-food related work has been picking up and Charisse is in the middle of launching her own cake company (Frost Cake Designs by Charisse) so the kitchen hasn't had enough love from us. We're kind of waiting around to see whats going to happen but expect a lot of our future posts to be very cake related (even if they are fewer and farther between). In the meanwhile Eric wanted to give a little time on your screens to a friend of  his from high school who is getting ready to launch her own cooking show Parings with her husband Ed. Its a great premise and its in the last rounds of funding on kickstarter! See what Ed has to say:   Announcing Pairings the series. A food themed episodic webseries comedy by Jodie Younse and Ed Robinson. Hi, I’m Ed Robinson, Executice View / Edit Comments

A few months ago we received an apple peeler machine as a gift and Eric immediately started playing with it. Its a little bulky and has lots of sharp moving parts so we don't usually leave it out, but last weekend our neighbor dropped off a whole bushel of apples (okay, maybe a big paper bag full of apples) so it was time to break out the fire-engine red toy. In addition to slicing the skin right off any apple you have this little thing will take the meat right off the core in one go, leaving you a really nice even spiral of apple. A few more cuts and you've got enough even apple slices to make an apple tart even Paula Dean would drool over. Actually she would probably drool over it because its an apple tart covered in caramel. And by drool, we mean eat quickly. Even 9 Comments »

Eric does not like tomatoes. It's a fact that we've documented quite a few times. On the other hand, Eric loves fried things so we combined the two just to see how he fared, and he liked it! Granted a decent helping of "shut up and eat this" helped, but we definitely had a winner on our hands and hey, it makes for a great excuse to pull out the movie and watch it. The green tomatoes don't really have that squishy squeaky texture that Eric can't stand, and the acidity of the tomato is hidden pretty well by the breading and dipping sauce. It tastes more like a fried zucchini than a tomato and is a perfect bribe for anyone with a list of chores for their significant other to do. "Honey, can you vacuum the house, I'll make fried green tomatoes". We'll bet you'll never see the house 9 Comments »

Charisse loves the fall. By loves the fall we mean talks about how she can't wait for fall starting around April. This shouldn't be confused with her love for Christmas, something she starts waiting for around Dec. 26. But to start this fall season off we came across this recipe and it might just be one of the most fun ones we've done. Eric liked it because he wanted to open a pumpkin with a power saw. Charisse liked it because it was very Fall-ish. When it was done, we both liked it because its probably one of the best soups we've ever made, though Eric was disappointed because he didn't get to use his power saw (he was working in the garage at the time). We thought the coolest part of this soup is the bowl, which looks suspiciously like a roasted pumpkin. Yup, its a soup served in 6 Comments »

Sorry we've been a little hard to find since we got back from Jackson Hole, its been full time house renovations since then. We finished off the second bedroom and started working on our master bedroom.  First up, spending Friday night with a hammer: Click image for video! Charisse enjoyed that part. A week with the whole bedroom covered in drywall dust, nails bits of wood and power tools? Not so much. We've finally got it framed out and dry walled, now we're working on getting an organizational system in there and Eric is going to be building three sets of french doors for it. Next week we'll have some new recipes and Eric will have a tour of his garage to show you what you can accomplish with a power tool addiction.

You read the title right: Turkey + Muffin. Or in this case Down home country biscuit. When Eric and Charisse were still dating, she put this together after hearing about it somewhere, somehow from some thing and it's become one of those amazing treats that gets pulled out from time to time. How amazing? Eric's first job out of College was working for a small family run company in Palo Alto. The family would always prepare a meal in the back kitchen for lunch, homemade potstickers being a mainstay and they were quite tasty and it was always a good day when they had extra because the rest of the office got to dig in. The day after Charisse came up with these muffins, Eric brought them in and raved about how amazing they were and how he couldn't wait for lunch. By the time lunch came around (at 11 5 Comments »

There's just something... delicious about a good country biscuit that makes pretty much everybody smile. Could be the crumbly texture, or the way it just absorbs butter or the fact that you can use them in so many ways. We're not sure exactly what it is, but we go pretty nuts for a good biscuit and this recipe pretty much has become the one we'll tuck into the drawer and pull out at BBQ's and block parties. When people ask we'll tell them its our secret family recipe and it'll be passed down for generations. As long as nobody knows how to use the internet, it'll be safe. We got back from Jackson hole Saturday afternoon after a long 18 hours in 2 days (we stopped in Tahoe for the night) and didn't hit any traffic until we got back into the Bay Area, where we promptly parked on the freeway. Amazing the kind 9 Comments »

So we're here in Jackson Hole Wyoming with Eric's company for the anual Smugmug company trip. We've been enjoying the local flavor and wondering what to do for the blog while we're here. Eric wanted to go hunting and cook up something he brought home, but $2,000 is a lot for a steak so we went fishing instead. We caught one that was so big it wouldn't fit in the car so we had to release it. Unfortunately our camera was out of batteries so we couldn't get a picture, so you'll just have to trust us on that one. Instead we went to this local market called Alberstson's and picked up an Elk New York Strip and some Bison Strip Streaks and headed back to our place to cook them up in a brown peppercorn sauce and some down home country biscuits, which probably tasted better than that fish would have! Sear the steaks with 3 Comments »

We're in Jackson Hole WY right now, cooking up some Elk and Bison steaks, Country Biscuits and home grown corn on the cob. We'll put up some pictures and recipes tomorrow, till then here's a video of Eric going down the Alpine Slide at the Snow King Resort. Alpine Slide Video

With our three year anniversary coming up next week we've been running around getting the house cleaned and polished (as well as can be, given the renovations we're doing) for our big anniversary trip to Jackson Hole! Wide open spaces, campfire cooked food, wild animals frolicking about a log cabin and some antelope roaming pretty much sums up our expectations (even though we'll be staying at a new, modern ski resort). Whats going to make this trip extra fun is that its a work retreat for Smugmug, the company Eric works for. Each year the employees all go on a trip, working remotely and generally unwinding and relaxing with their families and co-workers. We're pretty excited for it, it'll be a great chance to team up with Beth, the Smugchef and do some fun blog cooks. We might even get the chance to do some open fire cooking (wouldn't that 14 Comments »