Kirbie's Cravings | A San Diego food blog

Shirley J Mugging and a Giveaway

Kirbie — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 08:01:55 +0000

I have an exciting product review and giveaway to tell you about today.

You know how much I love my mug cakes. Well, I recently sampled the Mugging! line by Shirley J. Think box cake mix meets mug cakes. Cake mix flavors are packaged into individual servings that can be made in the microwave. Genius right?

I think my made from scratch mug cakes are already pretty easy, but these mug cakes are even easier. Most of them require only that you add a few tablespoons of water to the mix, whisk, and it’s ready to go in the microwave. 90 seconds later, your cake is ready.
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Cupcakes Squared

Kirbie — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 08:45:40 +0000

While at the UTC food court recently, we passed by the new location for Cupcakes Squared.

I had heard of Cupcakes Squared and had even tried some mini cupcakes once during a work event. I remember liking them, so we decided to stop for some treats to bring home.

They had 6 cupcake flavors available, many already prepackaged, and you can get mini ones or full sized ones. I’m not sure if the main location has more flavors available daily, but six seemed too little. I decided to get a set of four minis and one regular cupcake.

Since the cupcakes here are square shaped rather than round, they have these special wrappers which fold up to cover each of the four edges. I liked these wrappers, as you could unwrap one side a time and made it easier to access the bottom of the cupcake.

For the minis, I chose vanilla, chocolate, s’more, and lemon.
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Piña Colada Ice Pops

Kirbie — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 08:26:05 +0000

I’ve been a bit obsessed with coconut lately, which inspired me to want to try making Piña colada popsicles, even though I’ve never even tried making the drink.

Luckily, I had all the ingredients on hand and even made myself a big tall drink too with some of the leftovers. This tropical ice pop is perfect for summer. And if you want to make them kid friendly, you can just leave out the rum.

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Con Pane Rustic Breads & Cafe

Kirbie — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 07:07:56 +0000

After discovering Con Pane late last year, it’s become my “go to” place for Artisan bread. We recently had a few visits, stopping by for some sweet treats and a quick meal.

Almost Grilled Cheese

I’ve heard really good things about their almost grilled cheese sandwich. On a recent trip, we got a half order with mocha, a chocolate chip cookie, and a chocolate bread roll as an afternoon “snack.”

The cheese sandwich was pretty good, filled with gorgonzola and creamy brie cheese and served on freshly baked and toasted rosemary bread. Unlike a traditional grilled cheese sandwich, the exterior is not pan fried with butter, but the warm melted cheese gives it an almost grilled cheese sensation.

I had been really excited to try the chocolate chip cookie, but it didn’t quite taste as good as I had imagined. I found the texture a tad too soft and the chocolate flavor not bold enough.

Pearl Sugar Brioche

On a recent visit with CC, I discovered these individual sized sweet brioche rolls topped with sugar pearls.(...)
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Mango Banana Bread

Kirbie — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 06:28:00 +0000

The other day, Mr. K casually asked me how many bananas it takes to make banana bread. I told him three. The next day he presented me with three bananas.

Mr. K’s favorite baked good is probably banana bread. He gets so excited when he sees it at potluck parties. I love banana bread too, though probably not nearly as much as him.

I’ve made banana bread so many times. Sometimes I get bored, so I wanted to make a variation on the classic banana nut bread. I’ve done many variations before: nutella, chocolate, biscoff, blueberry. This time I decided to try adding some mangoes, especially since I had so many fresh mangoes in the house.
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My Juice Detox Cleanse Experience

Kirbie — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 16:25:26 +0000

It seems everyone I know has done a juice cleanse of some sort. For the longest time, I had no interest in trying one, especially because I couldn’t imagine days of only drinking juice and not eating anything solid.

But after hearing positive experiences from several friends, I was curious. And after being sick nearly a month from what started out as a small cold, I thought it was time for a detox.

So when I was approached with an offer to try the Kaeng Raeng detox cleanse, I decided to give it a shot. What immediately appealed to me was that you are allowed to eat during the cleanse, it just has to be raw foods.

I was sent the beginnger’s 3 day detox plan. Freeze dried fruit smoothie pouches were delivered to me. To make the smoothie, you simply add water to it and blend it into a smoothie. You can add ice if you want it extra thick.

It comes in three different flavor packs: juu juu (blueberry blackberry banana), reunn (strawberry raspberry pineapple) and glai roong (mango peach pineapple).

Each pack is supposed to be consumed with at least 24 oz – 32 oz of water (3 to 4 cups). And one pack equals one meal supplement. The first thing that I noticed was that even though this is a fruit smoothie, each serving had a very low amount of sugar, which had been a big concern of mine. You can view the nutrition facts here.(...)
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Huntington Library Rose Garden Tea Room

Kirbie — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 08:14:16 +0000

As you may already know, Mr. K and I love afternoon tea. I recently learned that The Huntington Library serves tea in their Rose Garden Room. I was especially excited to learn that the tea is served in a buffet-type setting. As much as we love tea, the experience can be quite expensive for a small amount of food, so the buffet option really appealed to me.

You can’t visit the Rose Tea Room without paying the entrance fee to The Huntington, so I don’t recommend just visiting for the tea. But we had been wanting to visit The Huntington and all of its beautiful gardens anyway, so we made a whole day of it. Besides, after all that eating, the walking was good for us.

Reservations are required for the tea room and it’s priced at $29.95 per person. Once you are seated, you choose your tea (you can get both hot and cold teas) and are served a whole basket of piping hot mini scones. Pro tip: you can actually bring the scones home in a to-go bag, so don’t fill up and feel obligated to eat too many.

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Pepperoni Pizza Pretzel Rolls

Kirbie — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 06:30:31 +0000

I’ve had this idea to make pretzel bread rolls filled with cheese and pepperoni, but I never got around to make it until now.

I love pretzel bread. I can’t get enough of it. I’ve been so happy to see more restaurants start to offer it, especially as a sandwich or burger bun.
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San Diego County Fair 2013

Kirbie — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 09:18:44 +0000

The San Diego County Fair is back!

Mr. K and I have gone almost every year. It’s become a tradition we really look forward to. Last year we had to miss it due to wedding madness.

I was really sad about having to miss it. Normally we wait a few weeks in to visit, but we found ourselves going opening day because I simply could not wait any longer.

Every year there is a different theme and this year’s theme is Game On. I loved the display at the front, especially with the Jenga and Donkey Kong.

Once inside, we were immediately engulfed with all the food stands. We were armed and ready with the food map showing vendors and the highlighted new fair foods.

Chicken Charlie

Chicken Charlie is arguably the most popular food vendor at the fair. They are known for bringing crazy new concoctions to the fair every year and they never seem to drop any of their creations, so the menu gets bigger and bigger. This year, their new items including fried cookie dough, krispy kreme sloppy joe sandwich, waffle dog, and deep fried bacon wrapped pickles.

The krispy kreme sloppy joe sandwich has been getting a lot of buzz but we couldn’t bring ourselves to try it because we were pretty sure we wouldn’t like it. Instead we tried the fried cookie dough and waffle dog.

Fried Cookie Dough

This was pretty much how I expected it would taste, like chocolate chip flavored fried dough. The cookie dough gets pretty melted inside and sort of blends into the fried dough. These were okay but not something I plan on repeating next year.

Waffle Dog

I loved the look of the waffle dog, but found the batter rather soft. Unlike the majority of Chicken Charlie’s items, the waffle is actually baked instead of fried and for once I wish it was fried since the waffle really lacked crispness.

Red Velvet Funnel Cake- Funnel Cake Express(...)
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3 Ingredient Mango Mousse

Kirbie — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 08:27:35 +0000

This mango mousse is super easy. Only three ingredients, no gelatin or cooking needed.

Manila mangoes have been on sale lately and they are so sweet. I keep buying them by the box.

My latest mango creation is this mango mousse. I was trying to replicate a mango mousse dessert I had before at an Indian restaurant, and this was pretty similar. I topped it with some coconut whipped cream instead of regular whipped cream to really give it a tropical feel.(...)
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