My First Real Birthday Cake

OK, I am obviously not celebrating my first birthday. I just decorated my first birthday cake for my father-in-law who celebrated his birthday recently. His favorite cake was yellow cake with chocolate frosting. For practice and in class, we always used white frosting. Since I did not want to take a chance, I bought 2 jars of Duncan Hines chocolate frosting. It is tasty by all means (although a little too sweet for my taste), but it is really hard to smooth, unlike the white frosting.

I ran out of ideas and I just got back from traveling for work that night, so here it is. I had to do it that Friday night because his birthday was on Saturday. Here is the picture of my humble cake.



Oh, my husband also gave this to his dad as part of his birthday gift, the new Crown Royal Black. It tastes smooth. If you like whiskey, this is a good one for you. :)

Mexican Fiesta Dinner

My husband is a huge fan of Mexican food. Not just Tex-mex, but also real authentic Mexican food.
I gave him Mexican Everyday by Rick Bayless as a Christmas gift last year and we have tried a few recipes out of this book. Last weekend we decided to try new recipes. We tried to make Chicken in Oaxacan Yellow Mole with Green Beans and Potatoes. The recipe recommended using chayote and fresh hoja santa leaves, but we couldn't find it either of them in our regular grocery store. We followed the rest of the recipe. I have to admit that this recipe is not your typical 30-minute meal. The preps took a long time, from chopping the garlic, slicing the guajillo chiles, to cubing the chicken thighs and potatoes. The result was outstanding and well worth the effort. There are so many layers of flavors in the broth and it was really comforting.

We also tried making some corn tortillas from scratch. We used some masa harina (Mexican corn flour), water and salt. We haven't quite mastered how to do it yet. After putting them on the pan, they got crispy so quickly. I guess we just have to practice making this.