#76 Mini Adventures: Dog Park

Anyone who has a dog (especially a dog who loves water) should take their dog to Cosmo Dog Park (on Ray between Greenfield and Higley). This was so much fun! Zilli had the best time ever!

I actually found out that the dog park was recognized in 2007 as the best dog park in America! Pretty cool! And it lives up to it!

The park is big and wide and open, plenty of room to run around, but it also has some areas that are fenced in for dogs that are more shy, or for specific training or classes. There is actually even a little obstacle course built in part of it. Plus there is a giant lake (with fish!) for the dogs to swim in with a beach entry as well as docks to jump off. Up the hill there's a playground for children of the human variety.

We honestly didn't even have to bring Zilli's ball. As soon as we got close to the water, she realized that someone had the audacity to leave a tennis ball floating in the lake, and she wasted no time to jump in and "rescue" it.


Then, after depositing it safely on land, she turned around to realize that another ball had floated by! This could not be! Before long, we had a bit of a collection of these "rescued" tennis balls.

Such a good little momma dog, making sure all the tennis balls are safe and sound on land, haha!

She was so pleased with herself though! She was so excited she didn't know what to do! We could tell she was starting to get tired from all the jumping and swimming, but she didn't want to stop! We even tried giving her some taco bell - her own taco and everything, what dog wouldn't love that - but she was too excited to eat it and actually spit it out! The only time I've ever seen her happier is when Anthony's mom is around. And even then its a pretty close match!

I think the best part of the experience, for us anyway, was the fact that she got a free bath at the end. There's all these little shower stalls around the park with hoses, and we brought some shampoo and lathered her up nicely.

Even I got pretty hot and sweaty from the experience (c'mon, it was only something like 110 degrees out that day!) But I did notice that I got a freaking flip-flop tan on my feet!

And here's Zilli after the experience was over. Still as happy as can be.

Unfortunately, when we got home, first of all, the cat was freaked out of his mind (he couldn't recognize her smell) and started hissing at her like crazy, and also our house smelled like wet dog the rest of the day. Yummy. I bet you are SO jealous!

#66 New Food: Mousaka

Anthony and I celebrated our second anniversary today.

In a very grand way - we ran errands all day and then went to My Big Fat Greek Restaurant for dinner (because we had a coupon!).

The thing we didn't realize was that the coupon (from Restaurants.com) required us to spend $50 to get our $25 off. Yeah, pretty worthless, since we only usually spend $25 anyway, so we just got a lot of extra food for the same money we would have otherwise spent.

But it did allow us to try their sampler platter. It consisted of gyro meat, lamb chops, pork/steak/chicken souvlaki (skewers), rice, potatoes, mousaka, pastitsio, and tzatziki. It normally costs $18 per person, which we normally don't spend. But the amount of food almost justifies the cost - the dinner plate they brought out was the size of a large pizza pan, piled high with food!

Oh, and as a side note, the pitas here are soooooooo much better than Pita Jungle. Ok, that's all I needed to say.

Anyway, I had never had mousaka before, and it was actually pretty good. It is a baked pasta with eggplant, zucchini, and potato in it. Not exactly what I was expecting, and pretty rich - I don't think I could eat just that for a meal - but surprisingly very tasty.

I just keep hearing in my head the scene in My Big Fat Greek Wedding where the girls call it "moose ca ca." Haha....it makes it hard to really enjoy it!

#18 Recipe: Gelato AND #76 Mini Adventures: Homemade Ice Cream

So we went to Target last night and found an amazing deal: an ice cream maker for only $20! What a steal! Now, I love ice cream of course, but I ADORE gelato. I go nuts for the stuff! So, to celebrate our fantastic find, we found this amazing recipe for gelato.

Honestly, it isn't the easiest stuff to make - mostly because it takes so dang long. I just wanted to get that goodness in me! But you have to be patient, and it is quite rewarding when you're done.

Ingredients:
2 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup sugar, divided
4 egg yolks
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
(And then whatever other flavoring you want. We just added macadamia nuts and caramel. That's Anth's favorite!)

To make it, you combine the milk, cream, and 1/2 cup sugar in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook it until the sugar dissolves completely.

In a separate bowl, whip the egg yolks and remaining sugar together until they are thick and pale yellow. I did this with my kitchenaid and it worked quite well - I could tend to the milk on the stove while it was mixing up (wow, I'm thankful for than invention!). Then pour a little bit (1/2 cup or so) of the milk mixture into the eggs and stir, then add it all back into the saucepan. Stir constantly until it starts to get thick (the recipe says thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon - whatever that means!) but it does start to get thick after 7 or 8 minutes. Then add vanilla.

Now this is the important part - you have to wait until the mixture is completely chilled before you put it in the ice cream maker or else it won't work. We discovered this quickly. We actually tried putting it in when it had only been in the freezer an hour or so (and hot liquid does not cool very quickly in the freezer, even after an hour it was still lukewarm) and it did nothing. We left it in the fridge overnight, and tried it again today and it thickened into ice cream almost instantly.

We added the macadamia nuts just before taking it out of the ice cream maker and then added the caramel after serving.

Sooooooo yummy! I really want to try different combinations! Plus, it isn't really all that bad for you - only 3/4 cup sugar total, and mostly milk instead of cream. I don't know the exact calorie count, but it seems very healthy (and don't anyone try to correct me!).

In addition to being a new family recipe, this was one of our mini-adventures that we decided to do together, and it ended up being a lot of fun. Sugar always makes for a good bonding experience!

#65 New Restaurants: Havana Cafe AND #66 New Food: Various Cuban Food

It's the 4th of July, and we didn't have any plans, so we did the most patriotic thing we could think of - eat Puerto Rican food! Haha!

You know, I wasn't too impressed with this. I mean, it wasn't bad by any means, but it was sooo expensive! My plate (it was a lot of food, granted) cost $17.00. My food was great - not that I had any idea what I was really eating. I ordered the San Juan Combination which was a whole bunch of things I'd never had before, including a pastele (Puerto Rican tamale), mofongo, alcapurrias (if this was what I thought it was - and I didn't know one food from another on the plate - then it was my favorite), tostones (which were far too dry), arroz con gandules, and masas de puerco. I really liked most of the food, but my stomach had never encountered most of the spices before, and wasn't too pleased with me afterwards. Plus, the majority was either fried or naturally greasy in some capacity, and that didn't sit too well either.

Anthony tried the pulled pork and really didn't like it. It just wasn't his type of spices. His order cost $20. So after all was said and done, it was over $50 just for dinner. And it was decent food, a new experience for sure, but not worth $50 for a single meal!

Actually, my very favorite part of the meal was the bread that they brought out. They had AMAZING bread! Mmmm....yes, that was the best part! But again, I'm not spending another $50 for good bread and decent food.

Oh, and just a word of advice: puerto rican food does not reheat well. That's all I'll say about that.

#65 New Restaurants: Pita Jungle

Anthony and I tried Pita Jungle yesterday.

It is on the SW corner of Val Vista and Williams Field.

It definitely wasn't quite what I expected. Just based on the name and everything, I guess I was thinking it was something like Chipotle style, or maybe Pei Wei - you know, the hybrid fast-food type place. But no, it was a sit-down-with-a-menu-and-a-real-waiter place. But the confusing part was, all of the waiters and waitresses were so uber casual, you would have thought it was a beach party. It didn't feel quite right. I mean, they could at least wear normal casual clothes - jeans and tshirts seemed dressed up compared to their attire.

Anyway, the food was pretty decent in my opinion. I ordered, of course, the most expensive thing on the menu (a whole $14!) - the mango shrimp and rice plate. The rice was great. brown rice, just slightly chewy (which I absolutely love) and the flavor of the sauce was really good. You only get 7 shrimps though, so even though it was plenty to fill me up and still have some leftovers, for $14, I think I could have gone to just about any cheap chinese food place and gotten nearly the same thing for half the price. I mean, it was definitely good, but a little expensive for what you got and the atmosphere and everything.

My husband thought otherwise. Since I ordered the most expensive thing, he got two pita sandwiches - the beef gyro and the philly cheesestake gyro. He thought both were decent, although, in his words, the philly was a "disgrace to philly cheesestakes everywhere." He said it was good, but definitely not a true philly cheesestake. Each of the sandwiches were about $6. He liked it, but again, for the price and the atmosphere, its just not really worth it.

Oh, and we also split a plate of hummus for an appetizer. Anth isn't a huge fan of hummus, so we tried the jalapeno cilantro type that they had on the menu. We both absolutely loved that. The big problem was that the entire plate only comes with 1 pita. There's enough hummus there for probably 4 pitas, but you only get one, and they charge you for any additional pitas. Ok, they only charge $0.39, but still! That's like a mexican restaurant charging for the tortilla chips!

Basically we decided that if we're in the mood for greek food, we may as well go to My Big Fat Greek Restaurant instead. It may cost a dollar or two more, and be a little further from home, but you get more food, better service, better atmosphere, and they don't charge you for extra pitas.

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