Best Spaghetti Sauce Ever!

I am an adamant reader of the blog Smitten Kitchen. I love her writing style as well as the photos of each dish. Just reading the title of her last post (tomato sauce with onion and butter) I couldn't resist making it. We had another meal planned for last nights dinner but it got nixed for this deliciously simple spaghetti sauce. I recommend everyone to try it. Gil likes it so much he has decided that this will be the only spaghetti sauce we will ever make...it is so good we couldn't help but finish the leftovers for breakfast! I think it would also make a great pizza sauce if you puree it. We will be trying that next.

Tomato Sauce with Butter and Onions

Adapted from Marcela Hazan's, Essentials of Italian Cooking

Serves 4 (or dinner and breakfast for 2)

28 ounces whole peeled tomatoes from a can (San Marzano, if you can find them)

5 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 medium yellow onion, peeled and halved

Salt to taste

Put the tomatoes, onion and butter in a heavy saucepan over medium heat. Bring the sauce to a simmer then lower the heat to keep the sauce at a slow, steady simmer for about 45 minutes, or until droplets of fat float free of the tomatoes.

Stir occasionally, crushing the tomatoes against the side of the pot with a wooden spoon. Remove from heat, discard the onion, add salt to taste and keep warm while you prepare your pasta.

Serve with spaghetti.

Hope you enjoy!

Maunawili Falls Trail

I apologize for not writing more about the holiday season. I wish there was a good reason but really it is just due to laziness. After all the family left (we just sent the last one home on Friday) we just needed to relax. I still plan to write more about Christmas because we did so much and it was nice to have all the family here but first...a quick post about our hike today.

I have been wanting to go on this hike for a while but never really knew where it was and Gil hasn't had the time. It is actually only 10/15 minutes from our house. It is very easy and takes roughly 40 minutes to get to the end. Once you arrive you are greeted by a icy swimming pool and waterfall.

We went early this morning and once there were very happy we did! There were only a few people at the waterfall when we first arrived and as we left there were crowds of people showing up.

We weren't sure if we were going to go in the water and once we got there I think we were even less likely to go in the water because of how cold it was. Finally though, I thought, we came all this way and we are in our bathing suits then we should do it.

Boy, was it COLD!

I can't remember the last time I was in water that cold. Gil even got me to jump off the rock...which I am never really prone to do. It was fun though and once you get on top of the waterfall you can see another smaller one above it...had I not decided to jump I would have never gotten to see the mini swimming hole/waterfall.



Lastly...here is footage of the two of us jumping into the swimming hole.

Hopefully soon I will take the time to sit in the office and finish the Christmas post. Hope you enjoyed our sunny hike with us.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a great Christmas and an exciting New Year celebration! We have had family visiting since December 15th and the whole family was here for Christmas. My parents left first and my brother and sister-in-law left shortly after to go on their honeymoon in Kauai. Now it is just the Desroches' left and we enjoyed a nice dinner in Waikiki for New Year's. Here is a family photo from Christmas morning.

More photos and details of the holiday season to come soon...when there is less family and more time.

Thanksgiving Events

We had a great Thanksgiving. It was just Gil and I but we still had a good time. We used our wedding china for the first time which was fun and Kai was very interested in everything we were cooking. This was Kai's first Thanksgiving but since we don't give her human food she made sure to make us feel bad by moping around giving us those big brown puppy eyes as we ate.

Mom's theme this Thanksgiving was Thanksgivings through Skype. My grandparents happen to call (on skype) while they were eating so they got a picture of Dad and his parents so Mom wanted to get a picture while Gil and I ate. So...here it is, Mom in NH and Gil and I in Hawaii!
We also celebrated Gil's birthday...a little early I know but I got him tickets to see Dane Cook and it happen to be before his birthday. We went to dinner with some friends then cabbed it to see Dane Cook. Dane was amazing! We had such a great time. Here are some pictures from that night.

Gil and I at dinner

Mer and I at Dane Cook

Dane Cook!

Lastly, I wanted to leave you with a picture of Kai. This is how I found her sleeping over the weekend. Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving weekend!

O-H-I-O

We hung our flags (courtesy of Mom) next to the tv to represent.

The party was a blast and better yet Ohio beat Michigan 21-10! We had a full house starting at 7am till 6pm. The day was full of football, food and maybe just a little Wii Raving Rabbids! (I will explain that a little later.)

Our House Divided couple.

Both from Ohio but Sarah is an OSU fan and Carlton is a Michigan fan.

This was taken right after Michigan lost.

It was great to meet and get to know the guys that Gil just spent the last 6 months getting to know and for me it was even better to meet their wives and make some new friends. The McFarlands came over and brought Meka which was a life saver. The dogs were outside all day playing and it was one less thing to worry about. As an added bonus they were exhausted at the end of the day from their 10 hour play date!

Our Arizona fans, Meredith and Pat.

After a rough game to watch yet still a victory for Ohio we flipped

to a few other games but somehow during halftime of one of the games we ended up playing Wii. It was absolutely hilarious!

The beginning of wii halftime.

Don't worry we got plenty of pictures and even a little video.

Since the Ohio game was early in the morning I wasn't able to do the traditional Terry Taco's for the game so we saved those for lunch and the afternoon game. Everybody loved them and even a few wanted the recipe. Don't worry we did feed everyone who showed up for the morning game. We had a pretty nice spread of fruit and yogurt, eggs, potato casserole, scones and G'ma's banana nut bread.

All in all the day was a great success and I hope everyone had as much fun as we did. It was great to meet everyone and thank you for coming!

Fall Events

We have finally picked up the pace a bit and gotten away from ESPN. Now it seems like we are going nonstop.

This past weekend we were very excited to find a patio set on sale. All of our family is coming in for Christmas so we thought it would be nice to have a table and chairs so we can relax outside while grilling. It won't be long until everyone is here (less than a month.)

This Saturday we are hosting a football party. Ohio State vs. Michigan. We have gone so far as to buy jerseys of our favorite teams (me OSU of course and Gil has a Miami Hurricanes jersey.) Unfortunately the game is airing here at 7am but it hasn't deterred anyone from coming which is exciting. Instead of the traditional homemade Terry tacos we will be doing brunch instead and saving the tacos for the afternoon game. We are very excited to have everyone over and watch OSU slaughter Michigan. We do have one Michigan fan coming so it should be interesting!

Lastly, we had an amazing dinner with a college friend of Gil's this past week. Brent who was one of Gil's friends/suit mates freshman year of college lives here and his family invited us out to dinner to celebrate Gil's safe arrival home. We went to Ocean House at the Outrigger Hotel. We had amazing food and great conversation. The restaurant found out we were celebrating and gave us the royal treatment. The manager made sure we were treated well and they were so thankful to Gil for his service. It is nice to know what he does is appreciated. Thank you again to the Kakesako's for a great dinner.

Next up...Football Party!

Happy Birthday Kai!

My little puppy is such a BIG girl now! She use to sleep in our laundry basket and now she is too big to even fit into Gil's trunk (which just got here from Afghanistan and was fun to go through and see all the things I sent him back in Hawaii.)

On Sunday November 16th we celebrated Kai's 1st birthday!

We opened presents from Grandma...

And they were destroyed in all of 10 minutes. We also made home made doggie treats with one of the gifts Grandma sent.

She must take after her mom thinking that the cookies are better as dough than once baked!

We celebrated by going to the vet and getting a one year check up. She is exactly 65 pounds and was very calm and well behaved while there.

Happy Birthday my baby girl!