My sis and I had a rare and welcome Christmas alone, which meant parade and movies, lighting the Christmas tree and playing records – no family drama, how sweet is that? But we didn’t want to have just your ordinary, everyday Christmas dinner. We decided to do it the KFC way, the way so many people celebrate in Japan.

Well, we can’t get to a KFC and we don’t know all the recipes, so we just had to find a recipe for corn salad and sort of wing it then buy the chicken and cake at Hy-Vee – here’s how it’s supposed to look:

And here’s what our make-shift Christmas dinner looked like:

Pretty close, huh? Okay, not exactly – but it was fun and tasty!

How do we not have this in America? That’s all I can think as I poke around this awesome website for a hog roast hire business in the UK called Parkers.

The idea is that you can hire Parkers to come and cater your function or event and, for about the same price as it would cost you to rent a roasting machine, they come in with the machine and hog, roast your dinner for you and serve it so you can think about other things like how to keep Uncle Mike-y away from the liquor cabinet and thus avoid a no-pants, lampshade-hat scenario!

One of the really great things about this is that, other than it just freeing up your time, your hog is also prepared by professionals who know what they’re doing and roast these hogs for a living. It’s a fabulous concept because it would take you out of the equation, and the possibility of you absolutely ruining your own roast hog by trying to do it yourself if you’re not familiar with these roasting machines. And if you’re hosting a party or event, the last thing you want to do is cook with a contraption you don’t understand – you could end up with a lot of sick guests and a polite decline to your next party invitations! Why not let the professionals do it? You wouldn’t try and fix your car by yourself if you didn’t know how, would you? Well, I wouldn’t but that’s because I know me and I know how much I can fudge up what should be a simple job!

I really wish they’d expand their business with one in the United States. As you probably know, I’m a vintage loving gal and this would make a great centerpiece to an old fashioned tiki party or kitsch luau!

The first thing you notice about Dos Chiquitas is the great lighting in the building. Unlike China King, and some other small but great chow stops, Dos Chiquitas has softer, warmer lighting instead of florescent bulbs buzzing two inches from your eyeball for the entire meal. The next thing you notice? The super friendly, even more super attentive staff who make you feel at home from the moment you walk through the doors.

Then comes the food. Your started off with a basket of light, crispy tortilla chips and a little cup of the best salsa you can imagine. And they keep it coming while you wait for your order.

The menu is full of combos and drinks, and even a burger or two, but what Laota and I got were shredded chicken soft taco combination plates that come with heaping helpings of rice and beans. We couldn’t finish it there, we had to take it home!

The food is fragrant, and packed full of flavor. Like our server (awesome guy, very friendly!) said about other Mexican restaurants in the area, “There’s no flavor, it’s just food.” and I agree with him. The difference between Dos Chiquitas and other places serving Mexican-style or TexMex food is that Dos Chiquitas food is infused with flavors. The chicken was delicious, the tortillas were delicious, the rice is to die for and the beans were a great balance to it all. There was a mild fruity note to the meat, as if it had been cooked with peppers or tomatoes, and the order was on our table in no time.

I can’t gush enough about this place, and I can’t wait to go back! Four out of five stars, would have been five if FoxNews hadn’t been on the televisions lol.

DOS Chiquita’s
(660) 425-4639
Bethany
3507 Bulldog Ave
Bethany, MO 64424

I have to admit that I haven’t had a great experience there in the past, due to the food being over priced and not that great, plus the service was a bit lacking. But tonight they get a good review from me, because it’s hard to screw up a soft taco (lol!) and our waitress was exceedingly nice and friendly.

I got the all you can eat soft tacos and an iced tea, the tacos were good (not great, but good) but the tea was bland and more like water. I like a good, strong iced tea but I wasn’t specific so I can’t imagine why they would know that and can’t dock them points for it.

The tacos came four at a time in a burger basket with lettuce, tomato, cheese and a little cup of salsa. No sour cream and no self service, which was odd, but it didn’t detour the night. Laota got a big chicken baked potato thing, but she started scarfing it before I could get a picture! (BAD Laota!)

The biggest plus was our waitress was the sweetest thing. She was too nice for words and I’m so glad we got her, she made my night! Overall, if I had to rate it tonight it would be 3 out of 5 stars, which isn’t too shabby. All of the other times it would have been two stars max.

Poppa’s Family Restaurant
1204 W US Highway 136
Albany, MO 64402-9100
(660) 726-5577

As you may know if you know me personally (since I can’t stop gushing), Laota and I purchased our first Asian Food Grocer package in almost two years this month, and it’s been agony waiting the 6 days for it to get here! We followed it closely on the FedEx tracking website, like children follow the Santa Tracker at Christmas time, and today it finally arrived, as always, packed methodically and undamaged – as is Asian Food Grocer‘s way.

We got some of our favorites that you can’t buy here, like prepared azuki, five spice powder, spring roll skins, bamboo chopsticks and white peach Yogu Time yogurt soft drinks. But we also got our favorite soup in the world, Noodle King’s Lobster Egg Noodle Soup, which is so addictive we tend to spend way more on it than we should!

Some new-to-us finds were a kind of low salt miso (with no MSG, which will be rectified when I prepare it lol), honey spiced umeboshi pickled plums for our onigiri and mix fruit mochi.

Today was actually the first time I’d ever had mochi and now I’m addicted! You can see some crappy photos below of all the fun things we bought – we’ve purchased through Asian Food Grocer since 2005 or 2006, and can’t say enough good things about them! We’ve never had a lost or misdirected shipment, never had missing goods, never had to pay too-steep shipping (the shipping for everything was about 7 bucks FedEx ground).

I’m actually reading the recipes on this website, all of which seem a bit on the complicated side (like Jerked Leg of Goat) and wondering if it’s something I could do? Some of the ingredients include ginger and dark brown sugar, it just sounds sweet, tangy and delicious. I’d love to try my hand at this, I wonder if it would be too hard to dress up goat meat for use in a bento box? I said pot stickers earlier, but this jerked leg of goat actually sounds like it would be great with rice if you cut it up into small pieces and filled out an empty niche in your bento box with it.

It would definitely be unique, plus goat is so good for you compared to other meats and is actually very low fat. The problem remains, as always, where do you buy goat meat? You can’t get it out here, though. I live in the middle of hog country and you’re lucky if you can get chicken or beef at a decent price, so until now I thought goat meat was out of the question because it was hard to come by out here. But the website I’m surfing right now, the one I’ve been talking about with all of these amazing goat recipes? It’s for a company called Gedalias that actually sells farm raised goat meat over the internet. It’s not expensive, they have a lot of different cuts including ground if you want to make burgers. It’s such a great idea! It would be a great gift for anyone you know who loves to cook and loves to try new things. If you’ve ordered from them, I’d love to hear about your experiences!

I’m absolutely crazy about seafood, and I don’t get it that often because it’s very expensive here. But there’s one treat I do get on occasion and that’s Tilapia, a tender and mildly sweet whitefish. It’s decently priced and incredibly tasty, but unfortunately the other treat I need to do any real cooking is time off – a treat which I rarely can afford.

The solution to this was simple, but it took me ages to figure it out – you can make many small fish fillets in the microwave! While I”m not an advocate of cooking just anything in the microwave (unless you know what you’re doing), this is one dish that comes out delicious and piping hot every time! Here’s what you’ll need:

• 2 Tilapia Fillets, 6-8oz each (frozen)
• Lemon Pepper to taste
• Accent! to taste. (Yes this IS commercial MSG, but I’m actually a big advocate of MSG awareness and use. If you’d rather not use it, a little salt or soy sauce will do!)
• 2 tablespoons of butter (one tablespoon for each fillet)
• 2 slices of lemon (one for each fillet)

• Prep: 1 minute
• Cook: 4-6 minutes

Place your FROZEN tilapia fillet (one at a time, please) in a microwave safe dish with a cover – I place mine in a bowl and use plastic wrap, but I’m used to doing this and if you don’t watch the fish carefully you could end up with a melted plastic mess!

Liberally season both sides with your Lemon Pepper and Accent! then place a slice of lemon and portion of butter on top of the fillet. Now cover your fillet and place it in the microwave on high for 4-6 minutes (check after 5 minutes). Let stand for a full minute then re-plate. Great with salads, soups or by itself – makes a tasty sandwich, I hear!

We like to have this by itself as a midnight snack at our house, and Laota and I have been talking about having it with some wilted baby spinach and mashed sweet potatoes. If you try this, I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Yep, that’s really all there is to this dish. It’s tasty, and pretty – dinner in 5 minutes!

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