Disney's Epcot held its annual Food and Wine Festival.

Five years ago, I experienced the Food and Wine Festival at Epcot. It was an amazing experience as you get to try a variety of foods from around selected countries around this world. They had a Pumpkin Mouse Trifle that was a phenomenon. But I'm not here to talk about the Food and Wine Festival of 2011, I'm here to talk about the Food and Wine Festival of 2016.

When you first walk in through the doors to Epcot, you're greeted by Spaceship Earth and underneath that is the display for the Food and Wine Festival. You'll have to walk to the Pavilion to get to the Festival.

Once there, you can pick and choose where you want to start your food adventure. Since I knew we were going for the Food and Wine Festival, I ate a very light breakfast. We nabbed our first ride before it opened, the Three Caballeros boat ride in the Mexico Pavilion. From there, we headed off into a presentation of China. After we got a few attractions out of the way, it was time to go and sample some food.

Our first food stop was China. We were quite hungry by that point, well, I was. The one thing you have to remember about the Food and Wine Festival, they plates are small. It is the proper serving size, not the American serving size in which is triple the amount we're supposed to eat and the dishes run between $5 and $9 dollars a piece.

In China, we tried the Beijing Roasted Duck in a Steamed Bun with Hoisin Sauce. Michael tried it since I'm a vegetarian. I had a piece of the bread, green onions, and the hoisin sauce. His verdict on the Roast Duck, it was good, however, not as spectacular as he would have hoped.

I tried the Black Pepper Shrimp with Garlic Sauce. The shrimp, I gave to Michael. The noodles were delicious and very flavorful. But as you can see, the plates are small. It's the perfect size since you're able to sample the food and not leave feeling fun that you can't sample other plates.

Aloha!

This post is coming to you with love from the island of Hawaii. As a historian, I could give you a full blown lesson on the real history of Hawaii, not the haole version they all want us to know, but I won't. Instead, whilst on my trip, I'll give you guys some tips on restaurants to visit.

We first landed in Kona on October 7 and made our way around the island to stay in the city of Hilo. We could have stayed at our condo/timeshare at Worldmark Kona, but our reservation wasn't until the next day and the reason we flew in early is because of airfare costs. The couple we were traveling with can't travel mid-week and the earliest they can depart was on a Friday. There were a bit of last minute changes, which is one of the reasons why we ended up booking a hotel in Hilo for one night.

If you happen to stay or take a road trip to Hilo, which is only about a two hour drive, take the time to visit Hawaiian Style Cafe. They feature local food in large plates at an affordable price.

We had three different dishes ordered. Since I'm a vegetarian, I ordered the Haupia (Coconut Creme) pancakes. There were two pancakes stacked on top of each other and have taken up the whole plate. It is topped with coconut creme, toasted coconut shavings, and whipped cream. If you're going to order this, I would say share it with another person or two. It's such a big pancake that you can't expect to finish it by yourself.

The next dish that was ordered was called the Mok-A-Saurus. The name of the dish alone told us that it was going to be big. It's the restaurant's take on the local favourite, Loco Moco. This is one of the few versions they had on the menu.

The Mok-A-Saurus is a bed of fried rice topped with Spam, chicken cutlet, kalua pork, hamburger patty, two eggs, and brown gravy. As a pescetarian/vegetarian, this is something I would not order and if I did, I would just be ordering the eggs, rice and brown gravy ... not this meat lover's heaven.

As said, it was quite big. I tried portions of it (without the meat) and it was delicious. It might seem too much with the fried rice and the gravy, but they both complemented each other well. I can't say what it would have tasted like with the meat, but according to Michael, it was heavenly.


Lastly, the other local favourite ordered was the Ahi Poke Nachos. You won't find this on their regular menu, but if you look at the specials, you will find it there. I really can't tell you what kind of sauce they used, what's on top, but from what I saw, the tortilla chips were topped with freshly caught ahi tuna, avocado, tomato, seaweed shavings, green onions, wasabi mayo, and possibly sriracha. I tried a couple of bites.... yes.... I had some meat. I know I said I'm a vegetarian, but I do occasionally consume fish as long as its caught, not farm raised.

The nachos were delicious and also full of flavour. The tortilla chips were crispy and light.

Whilst on holiday in the Hawaiian Islands, I was craving Mexican food. Since there are hardly any Mexicans in the islands, there aren't any good taquerias around. For this craving, I wanted to be back in California just to have some authentic salsas.

To cure my craving, I headed over to one of the big chain grocery stores called "Safeway" to purchase a jar of salsa. As I perused the Latin food isle, I came across Herdez's Creamy Tomatillo Avocado salsa. Needless to say, my craving was cured and I was instantly addicted.

When I returned to California, my first mission was to replicate the salsa. I've read the ingredients on the jar and it seemed simple to make. Still, I needed a base recipe to follow and off I googled the recipe before driving over to the shops to get the necessary ingredients.

I found the Avocado Tomatillo Salsa from All Recipes. The reviews were so so, and one user said it was easy but it was lacking something. I figured, I might as well try it and purchased the required ingredients. Here, I'll go through over the recipe and also go over any tweeks and additions I made.

Avocado Tomatillo Salsa

- 6 ounces fresh tomatillos - husked, rinsed, and halved.

- 1 tablespoon thinly sliced serrano chilis

- 1 large avocado, halved, seeded, and flesh scooped out

- ¼ cup packed cilantro leaves

- ½ lime, juiced

- Salt, to taste

let's get started!

Place all ingredients in the food processor and blend!

Right, so I've not blogged for over a month. I've been quite busy lately with going through my digital photos, reading applications from high school students for college scholarships, and preparing to apply to post graduate school.

I've been on Pinterest for quite some time now. I pin everything from sewing projects, scrapbooking, fashion, home solutions, recipes, etc. Since I'm on a kick on eating healthy, I happened to come upon a pin which featured a Five Ingredient Blender Muffins. There's no flour or cane sugar involved. I thought, why not try it. If it doesn't work, then no harm done.

Technically, the recipe called for six ingredients, possibly more depending on what type of muffin you want to make. I'll link the recipe at the bottom of this post.

It was the perfect time to make the muffins. I had one very ripe banana and one last egg in my refrigerator. I took out my trusty Vitamix blender and combined the ingredients together.

My batter didn't look quite near the batter Happy Healthy Mama made. It was very watery. I assumed it was from the oil from the Almond Butter.  I made a few different recipes with the muffin base -- chocolate chip, white chocolate and cranberry, cinnamon raisin, and coconut and placed them in mini muffin tins.

Surprisingly enough, they turned out pretty good even though I've slightly burned the sides. I had my oven at 400°F. My tip would be watch your temperature. Not every oven runs the same temp. Overall, it's something I would probably make again. As promised, here's the link to the recipe. Five Ingredient Blender Muffins.

I have nothing bad to say about the bakery. The desserts were good, but one staff member kept on chitchatting with her friend in front of one of the displays. I was trying to see what the desserts were, what flavours they had, but the worker and her friend refused to move. Other than that, it's a good place to stop for a sweet snack before finishing the rest of the Freedom Trail.

A couple of weeks ago, M and I were in San Diego for a mini holiday. Well, I was on a mini holiday whilst M attended a conference.

On our first night there, we ate at the Tin Fish Restaurant located in the Gas Lamp district of San Diego. It was a block away from the hotel, so we trekked on down to have some dinner. It was unusually cold in Souther California to the point that I was wearing a jumper, scarf, jacket and knee high boots. Cold weather calls for some clam chowder. M ordered some and I had a sip despite my intolerance for anything that’s dairy.

M and I love to share our food. We’ve been doing this for a couple of years now. Instead of each ordering an entree, we “discuss” the menu choices and make a decision of what we would like to eat. We’ve already visited the Tin Fish a few years ago, so we knew what we were getting.

The menu prices were decent (considerig their location) and the service was fast. The seating varies. There’s the bar, the outdoor seating, and indoor seating. Since it’s cold out and there’s no one sitting outside, we decided to eat indoors.

We ordered Fish, Oyster, and Chips, a bowl of clam chowder and ceviche.

The clam chowder was creamy, flavourful and delicious, though I only had a couple of spoonfuls. Although the clam chowder was excellent, the fish and chips were disappointing. It was fried a little too long that the batter on the fish was slightly hard. When I took a bite, I can almost taste the beginnings of burnt batter. The ceviche was also delicious, but they gave way too many tortilla chips for little a container of the dish.


I would recommend trying it out if you don’t want to wait in line or spend too much on either lunch or dinner. Let’s just say that this is good eats that will fit anyone’s budget.

Cupcakes! It's been the craze for the last couple of years and although I know some people who have gotten on the cupcake bandwagon and selling them for a profit, I strictly stay on baking for fun arena.

I'm testing out a new recipe, Khalua & Dark Chocolate Mocha cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting. I will update if the cupcakes turned out and the overall verdict.

I made about a two dozen cupcakes to bring to a crab feed we're attending.

When it comes to pizza, I'm a bit picky. I'm not a big fan of the big pizza chains. I'm more of a mom-and-pop pizza kind of girl. Although, on occasion, I do order a pie from Little Ceasar's, which some people think is the worst out of all the pizza chains.

During my time as a Scuba Divemaster and the plenty of trips to Monterey to assist instructors on student's final exams on scuba diving, we found this amazing pizza place with some friends. It's called Giani's Pizza. By the looks of lines and the wait times, you can tell that it's a place that the locals go for great pizza.

The restaurant offers a variety of items that range from pizza to Italian food to frozen desserts.

Their pies are definitely delicious. The crust is moist and crunchy all at the same time. Although I'm a veggie pizza consumer, I can say that their combination pizza is delicious. Yes, I'll eat a combination pizza (I'll pick out the meat) when it comes to this place.

They've also got breadsticks, which are also delicious and made fresh daily. It's reasonably priced and for the amount of food you get, it's worth it.