My Time in Vegas (or That Time I Got Married) Part 2

More on the Vegas trip-

Freed's Bakery

Vegas seems to be all about deception. Go on the strip, see the glitz, and be overwhelmed. Go off the strip and see another simple desert city. But while the strip is hiding price gouging and mediocre food, the area off the strip is hiding some just plain amazing restaurants (like The Egg and I or Donna Maria's). Well, we went for the wedding cake off the strip for this occasion. Rachel Ray had visited Freed's a long time ago for wedding cake by the slice, and I figured it was worth a shot. What a deceptive décor though! Located in a strip mall, the sign is simply a banner hung from screws flapping in the wind. No fanfare, nothing. But this place has been Zagat rated and mentioned in all kinds of publications all over the world. Their pastry counter looked amazing, and the éclair my mom tried was outstanding. The wedding cake, as you can see in the picture, was just stunning. A "Mad Hatter" cake with angled layers, beautiful decorating, and so much detail I cannot even begin to explain it all. It was quite tasty too, if a bit heavy on the filling. If you ever have a sweet tooth, I strongly recommend stopping by.

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My Time in Vegas (or That Time I Got Married) Part I

I finally did it. Em and I got hitched last weekend (on Pi Day!) in Las Vegas. I highly recommend it. We even took our parents with us and they had a great time. And of course, as with all of my travels, there was a lot of emphasis placed on food. This is my second trip to Vegas in about 4 years, and I am very happy to say I fared much better this time around. Word of advice, next time you travel, take some time and do a little bit of research. I plowed through a lot of sites, including Frommers and TripAdvisor, and I found a lot of useful information, not to mention ways to save money.

But before I get to talking about food, a wedding picture :)

Yes, we had a lot of fun. It's so easy to get married in Vegas. Now on to the food!

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Egg Tostadas with Black Beans and Salsa

Again with the leftovers! Well, when you buy tostadas, you usually have some leftover. If you don’t want to make chips with them, I would suggest breakfast. Yep, pick up and eat breakfast tostadas. It reminds me of the days I used to eat huge breakfast burritos at Viva Burrito in Tucson, a warm, spicy breakfast that kept me full well into the day.

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Enchiladas from Leftovers

With the pork tostadas I made the other night, I certainly had leftovers. And I was feeling something a bit different. Emily suggested enchiladas. Now, I have to give a small amount of background here. I always have ingredients for enchiladas at hand (the same goes for a chocolate cake, you can never be too careful). Why? Because enchiladas offer a lot of versatility and can easily be made into dinner. Take some tortillas, wrap it around a nice warm filling, place it in a pan, pour sauce and/or cheese over it, and bake until bubbly. Boom, dinner. And you can put so much into an enchilada, that's why I like them so much. I put leftover shredded meats, rice, beans, whatever I can find that sounds good together. You could even make them for breakfast.

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Tamale Pie Redux

I had some interesting comments on my aforementioned post. So while I was making this dish last night for dinner, I did alter a few things as well as clarify. Plus, this gives me a great oppurtunity to put another picture of Molly (almost a year!) on my blog. A few points.

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Tinga Tinga

I'm certainly on a Mexican kick at the moment. Between discovering Rick Bayless' fantastic show on PBS and a Mexican market down the road, I have been all over this. Tacos, enchiladas, meats, beans, you name it, I'm into it. And I plan to continue that path. It's the food I truly miss from Arizona, the pure, unadulterated foods of Mexico. I'm not saying that the Midwest does not have some good food, because they do, but there is so much culture and passion behind Mexican food that I just love.

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