What do you get when you add one plane ticket, seven food blogging roommates, and a social media conference?
You get inspired, connected, and lots of giggles!
Last weekend I went to Evo’12 , a social media conference held at the Canyons Resort in Park City, Utah.
A couple of years ago I met Barbara from Barbara Bakes at a Blogher Food Conference. We were room mates for the conference and became good on line friends. I asked her last year about some different conferences, and she said she was going to Evo, and that I should go too. Barbara is from Salt Lake City, so it is literately in her back yard. She also invited me to stay a few extra days and she would show me her beautiful city, AND we could spend some time in her kitchen.
Heck ya!!!
So I bought my ticket and counted the months… and finally the time came.
At the conference, we mingled with the sponsors, learned from the hands- on workshops, and we were inspired by the speakers.
We experienced, we connected, we evolved.
And we cooked!
Barbara organized and rented a condo for a group of us food bloggers. That very first morning, we made Barbara’s Citrus Cream Cheese Pull Apart Rolls, and Amanda’s Cheesy Bacon Potato Frittata for breakfast. It was absolutely delicious and enjoyed by all. It’s my new go to breakfast, when I want a something special, yet easy!
My roommates are the sweetest bunch of girls ever,
(left to right) were;
Amanda from Amanda’s Cookin’,
Katrina from Baking and Boys. (she met us for dinner but did not attend the conference. She also brought me a bag of her very addicting Banana Split Granola!
Carrian from Sweet Basil
Barbara from Barbara Bakes
Deborah from Taste And Tell
Not pictured was Sandra from Everyday Southwest
and Lindsey from Cafe Johnsonia.
The “Too Hot Tamales“, Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger, with their biggest fan, Sandra, Everyday Southwest
I attended one of the hands-on workshops sponsored by the California Avocado Commission. Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger from the “Two Hot Tamales” cooked up a fiesty feast and also judged a friendly little guacamole competition. Thanks to my team mates including Barbara and Sandra, we won 2nd place with our Tuscan BLT Guacamole. Our prize was their new cookbook, Mesa Mexicana
I love Mexican food and couldn’t wait to dive into this book. I was thrilled to get to cook with Barbara and we made Pozole with Tomatillos and Coconut Pineapple Mango Cookie Cups.
This is an easy, delicious soup made with Carnitas pork and Hominy.
Just saute some onion, and add a little garlic. Then add the carnitas, hominy, and broth. You can use left over Carnita meat, or if your lucky enough like we were, you can buy it at your local Grocery Store or Hispanic Market.
Then you add the easy to make homemade Tomatillo Salsa.
Double the batch you can serve some with chips too!
And to finish off our dinner, Coconut Pineapple Mango Cookie Cups.
Head on over to Barbara Bakes for the recipe. Trust me, you wont want to miss that one!
You can check out all the Ignite presentations that I saw at the Evo Conference on youtube.. Be prepared to be inspired!
Pozole With Tomatillos
Printed with permission
by Two Hot Tamales
Ingredients
2 Tablespoons veg oil
2 med onions, diced
4-6 Gallic clove, minced
6 cups chicken stock
2 cups canned Hominy, drained
4 Cups Carnita meat
4 Cups Tomatilla salsa
salt and pepper to taste
Garnishes
sour cream
lime wedges
1 4 cabbage, shredded
1/2 red onion, finely diced
Directions
Heat the oil in a large sauce pan over med-high heat. Saute the onions untill golden brown and limp, about 10 minutes. Add garlic and cook just till the aroma is released.
Ad the chicken stock, hominy, an carnita meat. Reduce the heat an simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes. Add the Tomatillo sauce and bring to a boil. Reduce to a boil and cook 5 minutes more.Season with salt and pepper. Ladle into a bowl and serve with garnishes.
Tomatillo Salsa
Ingredients
1 pound tomatillos, husked, washed, and quartered
2-4 large jalapeno peppers, stemmed, seeded if desired, and roughly chopped
1/2 cup cold water
1/2 medium onion, cut in half.
2 bunched cilantro, (we used one)
2 teaspoons salt
Directions
Place the tomatillos, jalapenos, and water in the blender or food processor. Puree just till chuncky. Add cilantro, onion, and salt and puree until no large chunks remain.
Keep salsa in a covered container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Megan! This is such a fun post and so glad you guys made something at Barbara’s! This looks delicious and I miss you guys already
I am so beyond happy I was able to meet you, I just adore you and think you are a super sweet person!
I LOVED meeting you last week. That soup looks amazing. I totally want that book, as I can’t possibly ever have too many Mexican cookbooks.
It was so great to meet you and to room with you!! And this pozole looks so amazing. I definitely want to try this out!!
The conference sounds like fun! I love pozole, but I have never had a tomatillo version.
Such a fun post. I loved having you come and visit and cook with me in my kitchen finally after we cooked so many Daring Bakers challenges together virtually.
Megan, I am so jealous that you can have so much fun and meet so many blogger!! Everything sounds wonderful, I wish I could meet you and your blogger friends, always look like such fun! I love cooking with tomatillos and we are lucky having many Latin ingredients available to us as well!! I enjoyed this post a lot!