Category: Food

El Amanacer Restaurant

The El Amanacer restaurant in St Paul doesn’t look like much from the outside but the food is really delicious. It’s a good 20-25 minute drive for us to get to it but the sacrifice is worth it.

El Amanacer

The inside of the restaurant has both booth and table seating. Murals on the wall give the restaurant a very authentic feel.

We had a cheese quesadilla as an appetizer.

Cheese Quesadilla

I had the burrito which was huge and came with rice and beans. Unfortunately they did mess up my order by giving me the wrong kind of meat but it tasted good anyway.

Burrito with Rice and Beans

El Amanecer Restaurant is located at 194 Concord St in St Paul, Minnesota. A good place to eat.

 

 

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Simple Homemade Blueberry Muffins

These muffins are easy to make. Make sure you grease your muffin tin well or use tin liners or the muffins will stick.

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup butter (1 stick unsalted) room temperature
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 2 large eggs (room temperature)
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
  • 1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
  • 1/4 cup finely ground yellow cornmeal
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 2 1/2 cups blueberries (fresh or frozen – thawed if frozen)
Directions
  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees
  2. Grease a muffin tin or use paper liners
  3. In an electric mixer, cream the butter then add the sugar and mix
  4. Add the eggs one at a time and beat well
  5. Add baking powder and mix well
  6. Add vanilla extract and lemon zest. Mix well
  7. In another medium sized bowl, combine the flour, cornmeal, salt, cinnamon and stir with a fork
  8. Add half of the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients in the electric mixer
  9. Add half the milk and stir well
  10. Add the remaining dry mixture to the wet mixture and stir well but be careful not to over-mix or the muffins will come out tough
  11. Add the remaining milk and stir
  12. Fold in the blueberries
  13. Spoon the batter into the muffin tin
  14. Bake in center of oven until muffins are golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean — approximately 25-30 minutes.
  15. Cool muffins in the pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes then remove them from the tin
Unfortunately, I can’t remember where I saw this recipe as I’ve been using it for quite a few years now.
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Sarpino’s Pizza

We’ve been very fortunate in finding good pizza places since we’ve moved to Minnesota.

We had the pizza from Sarpino’s in Oakdale delivered at night and they were able to find us (even in our forested neighborhood) with no problem.

Sarpino's Pizza

The pizza was absolutely delicious! Quick service, great pizza — we’d order from here again.

 

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Smash Fast Food

I recently went to a new fast food place called Smash in Woodbury, Minnesota.

It was actually pretty good. I tried their basic hamburger with the usual fixings. The hamburger was very moist yet not undone. And, the french fries were delicious.

Much better than McDonalds, Wendy’s, Burger King or even Kidd Valley in Seattle.

Smash Hamburger
Smash Sweet Potato Fries

I didn’t have the sweet potato fries but my friend said they were good — and he’s a good french fry tester.

 

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Indian Grocery Store

Looking for Indian herbs and spices, my son and I went to a grocery store in Minneapolis called Little India.

Little India Grocery Store

Spices here are inexpensive. Most of them come in bags so one needs to buy the clear spice containers to put the herb/spices in.

Store shelves are lined with many types of oil, curries and food — some of which I have never used or heard of before like Coconut Oil and Almond Oil.

The Little India grocery store is located at 1835 Central Ave NE, Minneapolis, MN.

[amazon_link id=”B000VKTH9O” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Glass Spice Jars[/amazon_link]

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Homemade Macaroni and Cheese

Another homemade meal. This time, macaroni and cheese, corn muffins and roasted broccoli.

Our guest who is cooking all these meals for us will be leaving us soon so I will have to come up with my own recipes. I will post a link soon that will direct you to the recipes for all the homemade meals I’ve posted.

 

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Basil Plant

Despite the downpours of rain, heat indexes of 115 — in Minnesota — our basil plants are living. I don’t understand it. They are not in a very sunny location as we don’t have much sun on our property.

Basil plants are like people — in spite of the hardships they may suffer, they continue to live.

I wonder what other plants might be thrivers in our environment?

 

 

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Homemade Meals From Scratch

Our house guest continues to enthrall us with homemade non-traditional meals. The three below were all very delicious. The first is an Indian meal with homemade paneer (cheese), rice, malai kofta, aloo matar (potatoes, peas, tomato sauce).

Our next meal was macaroni and cheese (mascarpone, gorgonzola and parmesan), three bean salad with feta and lemon cornbread. All turned out really delicious.

Mascarpone, Gorgonzola & Parmesan macaroni, Lemon Cornbread and Three Bean Salad with Feta

Click here for the recipe for the three bean salad. And here for the mascarpone macaroni.

The last meal presented in this post is the Mexican meal which also included homemade refried beans.

Cheese Pupusas, Mexican Rice, Chicken in Enjococado

Click here for the recipe for the pupas de queso (cheese pupusas). And here for the recipe for enjococado.

We will miss our gourmet chef when they leave us.

 

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