Sometimes fast Sunday just calls for it.

By Lili

Sometimes the only foods that sound good on a fast Sunday are grand slam or mashed potatoes. So, we decided to go the mashed potatoes route this time around.

Mashed potatoes are the ultimate comfort food. The recipe that I always use is one that mom once relayed to me. I mostly play it by ear, since they aren't terribly difficult to make, but I still think that making good mashed potatoes is an art.

We just peeled, quartered and boiled about 10-15 potatoes. When you can stick a fork in them and they easily fall apart, strain them and put them into a mixer. At this point, I just go by taste, adding in butter, salt & pepper, and milk (although we like to use some heavy cream to make them extra smooth) until they are the consistency that you desire. We like ours slightly lumpy.

This time, we decided to make some chicken gravy as well! Sadly, we didn't have any chicken drippings, which would be ideal, so we settled for some chicken bouillon. We just made a little rue with butter and flour, and slowly added in the chicken stock a little bit at a time. A little salt and pepper, and you're good! It isn't the fanciest, but it is better than gravy from a packet, and takes just slightly longer.

Needless to say, it was a delicious fast Sunday! Anyway, we will be posting some of our fancier things soon. We just wanted to start out with a few quick posts to work our way up :)

An American Classic

By Jeff

The other day Lili and I decided to try our hand at making some delicious home made root beer for the family Labor Day festivities. For something so delicious and crowd-pleasing, it is deceptively simple! The recipe we used simply called for:

3 1/2 gallons of water
2 fl. oz of root beer concentrate (just one whole bottle. We used McCormick's brand)
6 cups of sugar
a couple of tablespoons of vanilla if you so desire (it adds a little bit of creaminess, so they say...)
4 pounds of dry ice

And there you have it! Dissolve the sugar in the water, add the concentrate, vanilla, and finally the dry ice and you're done! It's best to let the dry ice fully release into the root beer before serving (usually about 30 min.-1 hour). A word of warning however! If you are making it straight in one of those 5 gallon drink buckets with the spigot like we did, make sure the melting dry ice doesn't get stuck in the tubing as it settles to the bottom. We made that fatal mistake, and it added a LOT more work than it should have been... So give it a stir now and then, or tip it backwards, or something.

Great for floats too!

Some Clarification...

Thanks everyone for the great response we've already received! We'll soon be expecting a post sometime in the near future from Dad (Graham) about some tasty Potato Candy that he used to make in his youth.

In other news, just to emphasize a bit more clearly from the previous post, the purpose behind this blog is to encourage you to actually make the recipes yourselves and record your experience with pictures and personal insights (emphasis on the pictures part). Lili and I have a lot of fun searching out new recipes, trying to decipher the technique, and, of course, eating the results (whatever they may be...). Even though we'll probably be the primary contributors to this blog, our hope is to motivate you to do the same, and then simply share your experiences with us and everyone else. Nothing fancy or formal, just a simple review of a delicious recipe and the documented (photographically, of course) results.

For an example of what we mean, Lili or I will be posting something soon about a recent culinary experiment. So keep an eye out!

Here We Go!

So Lili and I have decided to do a bit of an experiment. Given our recent hobby of creating/eating delicious new foods, we thought it would be fun to create a place where we could chronicle the things we make as well as the places we eat! We also thought it would be fun to invite anyone else out there to contribute to this blog. If you recently tried out a new recipe and loved it, rediscovered an old classic, or simply ate at an awesome restaurant we want you to share it with everyone else! Think of it like an online cooking club or recipe group or something like that. Good food is meant to be shared, and who better to do that with than your family and friends! Seriously, anything and everything is welcome. Don't be shy! Just write up a little blurb about the recipe/eating establishment, send it on over to Lili or myself and we'll post it on the site noting you as the author. Simple as pie! Mmmmm...pie... I know what I'm making next!

Happy cooking!



For those who are wondering about the title of the blog, I will attempt to explain. Yes, I agree that it's cheesy, but that's just my style I guess. The name came to me in an epic dream one night: I was a spice merchant traveling from city to city around the world selling exotic spices and herbs. At each location, people would line up around the block to buy my spices out of a little shack and would shout my praises: "Mr. Spice Guy!" "Huzzah, Mr. Spice Guy is here!" "I can't wait to buy some of his incredible cinnamon!" Extremely nerdy? Yes. Too much Food Network? Perhaps. But any less awesome? No way! From the moment I awoke, I knew the name had to be shared. Mr. Spice guy is my name, and spices are my game... haha. One can dream can't he? So there you have it. And since I personally cannot live up to the title of "Mr. Spice Guy," it has become the title of this blog. Like I said, it had to be shared, one way or the other. In any case, at least now I have a killer name for a Food Network show!