On Cake

Ok. I know I said I was going to post the recipe and photos for my delicious romanesco cauliflower pasta, but I am a jerk and I forgot to do it, so for now, we're dealing with something much more important:

Cake.

I know that in the grand scheme of things, cake isn't as important as, say, bathing or taxes or laundry (which I should probably do today), but today cake is pretty important. 

For his really awesome anniversary present, I took Le Boyfriend to Bodies The Exhibition yesterday. It's certainly not for everyone, but I myself am a big fan of seeing how things work and I think that the chance to view people in a very stripped down (and really not terribly yucky) state is something not to miss out on, so off we went to peruse muscles and bones and organs and all manner of people parts. While standing in line for the touching part of the exhibit, Le Boyfriend told me that it was all me and that he'd not be touching ANYTHING. Imagine my surprise when, a moment later, I was standing there with a human liver in my hands, marveling at the size of the blood supply that it once harbored and I looked over to see Le Boyfriend cradling a human brain in his lovely hands. It was a bit surreal, as he was staunchly against even the tiniest bit of touching these things and then all of a sudden, he was saying, "Wow. WOW." I am quite proud of him. Such things are fascinating and humbling and I am really happy that he put himself out there like that. Again, it's certainly not everyone's cup of tea, but we were really in awe the whole time.

Anyway. DIGRESSIONS. I am so good at this. Have you noticed yet? It's a running theme with me. I begin talking about something like broken shoelaces and end up deeply entrenched in a conversation about the intricacies of social justice, without a discernible segue in sight. I pretend like it is a talent, when in reality it's a bit of a trainwreck. That being said: cake.

After parting ways with said lovely man last night, I headed home to cuddle my puppy, watch some really poorly made 1990's horror movies (Candyman, anyone?) and catch up on all things Internet. As I was watching that wretched movie (which I first saw in the theater when I was a freshman in high school with my friend Lauren), I caught up on my Livejournal friendslist (shut it. 75% of my AMAZING friends are with me because of my Feelings Journal). One of my favorite LJ communities is bakebakebake. There are gorgeous things posted there every day and that community really has made me want to become a more skilled baker and in a lot of senses, that has worked. Thanks, bakebakebakers! 

As I was skimming my friendslist, a bakebakebake post popped out at me. Pumpkin pie snickerdoodle bars? Are you serious?! After my brain registered a "HELL YES!", I informed Le Boyfriend that I was going to make these delicious-looking things RIGHT NOW. My only real issue is that I had no pumpkins of any kind and that the recipe looked like it would feed an army. I did, however, have a gorgeous acorn squash that I picked up at the farmer's market last week and I could certainly cut the recipe in half, so I set about it.

The end result? Decidedly not pumpkiny or in bar form, but I think I might even be happier with this:

After steaming my acorn squash to a mashably delicious consistency, I realized that I had more than the 3/4 cup that the halved recipe (the full version is after the link jump above for the post) called for. I didn't want to use a ton of butter, so I snagged he remainder of the nonfat sour cream out of the fridge left over from making Le Boyfriend's salad dressing and also decided to use my springform pan rather than a rectangular pan. 

Recipe after alterations:

Yield is 12-14 servings

Snickerdoodle layer

1.5 cups flour

1.5 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

3/4c packed brown sugar

1/2 stick butter, softened

1/2 cup nonfat sour cream

1 egg, beaten and at room temperature

1 tbsp vanilla 

Pumpkin/Squash layer

2/3 cup flour

1/3 cup raw sugar

1/2 stick butter, softened

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1 egg, beaten and at room temperature

1 cup steamed acorn squash, mashed to a silky texture

Additional

2 tbsp white sugar mixed with 2 tbsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350. Place a square of waxed paper or parchment paper on the tray of a 10" springform pan, close the ring around it and trim off the excess. Very lightly grease and flour the paper and the sides of the pan. 

In a large bowl, prepare the snickerdoodle layer by whisking together the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Add butter and mix in with a wooden spoon until the mixture breaks down into marble-sized bits, then stir in the vanilla, egg and sour cream. The batter will be thick, but stir for a moment until it becomes a bit fluffy, then spread into the springform evenly. Tap the pan on the counter a few times to release any major air bubbles and then top with half of the cinnamon-sugar mixture.

In the same bowl, whisk all of the ingredients for the pumpkin/squash layer together. This batter will be much easier to pour and will be a bit thinner. Pour on top of the snickerdoodle layer and sprinkle the remainder of the cinnamon sugar on top.

Bake on the middle rack of the oven at 350 for one hour. The cake will have risen and the sugar coating on top will have formed a sugar crust. Turn the oven down to 325 and place the cake on the lowest rack of the oven for 15-20 minutes, or until a toothpick/cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool for 45 minutes before unringing the cake and slicing it.

At first, I was a litlte bit skeptical. The acorn squash doesn't have the same bright color that the pumpkin does, but it still turned out lovely.

The snickerdoodle layer is so delicious and dense and the sour cream makes it just the tiniest bit tangy without adding (more) fat to it. The squash layer is also really moist and dense and I think the acorn squash worked really well as a pumpkin substitution and I will likely use it again in this recipe. I will be handing some off to a neighbor and will try this again with sugar pumpkin puree soon to see which I like better, but I have a feeling that this will remain the winner. I think you should make some of this and then you should put it in your mouth and then you should tell me what you think of it.

Coffee-ish cake out of squash. Broken shoelaces to social justice. Same story, all the time. At least this result is delicious, right? Right.

Catching up

I have been so busy and so neglectful of this little thing lately. I come home from work and I eat something like an apple or a hanfdul of Goldfish crackers for dinner and then I fall asleep. The past month has been so crazy that I haven't even kept up with things like doing laundry. Well done, Jessica!

Le Boyfriend and I celebrated 2 lovely years together at the beginning of October. He kicked things off by sending me flowers at work, which was the biggest surprise EVER.

We then went to dinner and came home to cuddle a puppy and get some delicious sleep, but we first took our official 2nd anniversary family photo because we're nerdy.

 

For dinner, we went to a pizza place a couple blocks away from my apartment, where we proceeded to ingest the largest slices of pizza ever made, EVER. Nick's arm is right next to that pizza, so there's no depth perception trickery going on to make it look bigger. The slices are 14" long and they are DELICIOUS. Really bad for you, but it was our anniversary, so what the hell, right? RIGHT.

The next morning, some gorgeous peridot earrings and a matching pendant (I said I liked peridot a year ago, in normal conversation. HOW DID HE REMEMBER?!) and an entire BOX of Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day cleaning supplies arrived via UPS and I pretty much cried under the weight of feeling so spoiled. I just made him a nerdy scrapbook, printed and framed one of his favorite photos of us and bought tickets for us to go see some plastinated dead bodies. Le Boyfriend clearly wins the anniversary gifter award.

Later that afternoon, I headed out to a gigantic lodge in the middle of nowhere to spend the weekend with a group of my friends. One of the group is moving to Scotland and this was her farewell gathering.

 

Our weekend away took place at Big House Lodge in Cle Elum, WA. 17 people, 4 dogs and an incredible amount of debauchery all fit quite nicely into that 5500 square foot house.

Meals were cooked, delicious cocktails were served and poker was played (I won. I KNOW, right?!) and it was absolutely lovely. The first night, one of the lovely ladies let me in on an awesome piece of news: she and her husband are expecting their first child. WOO! This group of friends is made up of some of the most intelligent, well-traveled, witty, generous people I have ever known and we had a blast. Did I mention that there was food there? Oh my.

I didn't cook an entire meal, but I did make some pretty amazing soft pretzels filled with bacon and caramelized onions.

The weekend also marked my first foray into eating hot wings. My friend Heather's husband Michael is something of a wing master.  I was hesitant to try them, but I am so glad I did. So spicy and delicious! I ate mine with a bit of gouda and some waffles that contained pearl sugar (you can buy it at IKEA). HEAVEN.

Given that the wings and waffles were merely an appetizer, I should have known that dinner would be incredible also, but I was not quite prepared for what was about to happen. I am notoriously anti-bones when it comes to meat. I dislike gristly things and connective tissue, so I tend to stay far away from meat that isn't boneless. Friends Tom & Katie made incredible mashed potatoes, green beans and ribs for dinner and while I was a little bit wary of the ribs, I ended up eating FOUR of them. Four ribs. Four pieces of meat with bones in them. Four pieces of meat that were so gloriously delicious, I was intensely sad that I was too full to eat just one more.

The morning we left, Jeremy and Renee made crepes for everyone. Making crepes for 4 people is work enough. Making crepes for 17 starving people with hangovers is for champions. They stood at the stove for FOREVER and I am so grateful. It was one of the most delicious breakfasts I recall ever having. I ate my crepes with a bit of ricotta, some lemon curd (which I staunchly maintain is the most delicious thing on earth), bananas, strawberries and blueberries and I became a firm believer in the power of crepes.

  

Penelope had so much fun playing with the other dogs. The dog with her in the photo above is a pitull named Marley, and she is the sweetest girl ever. She allowed Penelope to run her in circles andboss her around and she kept coming back for more. I am so glad they had a good time. It was adorable watching them run amok together.

The drive home from Cle Elum is about 90 minutes and winds through the mountains. Driving back from that area of the state is one of my favorite drives because it's so pretty, year round.

Poor Nelly was so tired on the way home that she crashed out on my lap. When she's in the car, she's sitting on my lap and looking out the window, without exception. She hates to miss anything and LOVES going for rides, so I knew she was beat when she zonked out.

Two days after getting back, it was my 32nd birthday. I walked into the office to find that my coworkers had decorated my desk.

In case I haven't mentioned it yet, I really do love working here.

That Friday, a bunch of my friends came out to hang with me to celebrate. I was again reminded that I am incredibly lucky to have such great pals. The only photo I have of that is one that my friend Russell took. l-r are Nicole, Emily, me and Summer. A dear friend gave me the BEST birthday present ever that night by telling me that I would soon be Aunt Jessica, as she and her husband are expecting their first baby. YAY!

The next day was my nephew Luke's first birthday party.

 In keeping with the theme of the month, my sister Kristine is expecting a younger sibling for Luke. Do you have any idea how exciting this is for me? THREE BABIES, coming right up! So excellent. It makes me happy enough that pretty much whenever I think about it, I cry a little bit. I am the mushiest girl alive, for certain.

Friday evening, Nick and I went and saw Where the Wild Things Are and I would like to demand that you go see it NOW. It was so gorgeous and the effects were so good that being able to see the sad expressions in the eyes and faces of the puppets pretty much drove us to tears. 

Yesterday my brother picked Nick and I up and we headed out to my aunt's house, where she and my uncle were holding a birthday party for myself, my cousin Nolan and my sister Elise. Nolan turned 14 and Elise turned 18.

Upon walking into her house, my aunt handed me a tiara and a feather boa and informed me that birthday girls needed to wear these things. Fine by me!

We spent the night catching up with my family and drinking delicious cocktails. Nick gave Elise a fair ration of teasing throughout the evening. It works out pretty well because my sisters think the world of Nick and he's never had any sisters, so getting 5 new sisters as part of the Jessica-package-deal can be pretty fun for him. He loves to torment them and they eat it up. Win/win. 

When my mom called me this week to tell me that she was baking my birthday cake and to ask what kind I wanted, I cried. No one has baked me a birthday cake since I was 17 or 18, so it was a pretty awesome thing to hear. Naturally, I got greedy with it and asked for a Funfetti cake with cherry frosting, and that is exactly what I got. Elise's cake was strawberry and I made a cake for Nolan that was devil's food with homemade dark chocolate buttercream, topped with more chocolate. Needless to say, cake is GOOD.

It was so lovely to spend so much good time with my family. I don't see them as often as I'd like to and they really are the most wonderful people. They are so kind and generous and brilliant and GOOD that it makes me a little bit teary talking about them. I am incredibly lucky to be surrounded by such people.

We came home and crashed out for the night and when we woke up, we headed out to breakfast and then to the farmer's market again. I picked up a bunch of leeks, some garlic, squashes, onions, broccoli raab and I even stumblled upon the vegetable I have been most interested in trying but haven't been able to find:

I made the most delicious dinner EVER with it and will post the recipe with photos tomorrow. For now, I have a delicious glass of wine to drink and a little black dog to snuggle down with for the night. I hope your October has been as lovely as mine has so far, Internet.

Autumn!

Autumn is steadily rolling into Seattle. The way it happens here is that we're fooled into thinking that it's still summer, usually into the beginning of October. The past couple of weeks have given us temperatures between 65 and 85 degrees and it is lovely.

This week, we were graced with weather ranging from temperate and lovely

to foggy and oddly warm

 

That is all well and good. We're used to that here. It's what we do. Yesterday, it was gorgeous, sunny and warm. Le Boyfriend and I woke up around 6:30 this morning (Saturday sacrilege!) and it was pouring down rain. YES!

While he had plans with the guys to bid farewell to their weekly nerdiness with remote-controlled rock crawler trucks, I had nothing to do but laundry. A lot of laundry. You see, I had no closets at my old place and now I have two closets and that means that I should hang things up and I really don't want to hang things up that have been sitting around in bags for the last 6 weeks, so laundry was a necessity.

Aside from doing laundry, I figured that eating dinner wouldn't be a bad idea. Before heading out for his nerdfest, Nick took me to see the new grocery store that opened two blocks from Terabithia. We'd gone to Metropolitan Market last night, as they seemed to be the only place that said "Why yes! We can help you with that!" when I called around in search of steel cut oats to make for breakfast. They were also very nice and the produce was gorgeous and I spent a very pretty penny there on basics, but I forgot to go back outside and grab one of the acorn squash I'd been eyeing. I was hoping QFC would come through, but especially with a new store, it's always kind of hard to tell if things will be available. Pulling into the parking garage, we were assailed by some wretched music being blared from tinny loudpseakers. Gross. STOP THAT, please! As if the denizens of my slightly hoity-toity neighborhood weren't confused enough by a parking garage with slippery wet floors, there was No Doubt screeching out at them. Passing a couple of stalls, we noticed The Most Ridiculous Thing Ever: valet parking. Valet parking at a grocery store. Cripes, man. Isn't that reaching just a BIT? I mean, maybe if you hasn't designed your parking garage like one of those little handheld mazes that you get in Cracker Jack boxes, people might not need someone else to park their car in a 3"x3" parking spot, yeah? YEAH. Jerks.

Anyway. Squash. I found some. I was considering some butternut noise, but then confirmed with Nick that the time I made The Most Amazing Squash In The World, we'd used acorn squash, so that was the choice. Throwing some boneless pork loin chops, onions, yams, potatoes, garlic and a couple of those gorgeous squash into the basket, we checked out and headed back to the car by way of the second creepiest thing after crustaceans: the glass elevators they have that sort of force you into an awkward staring contest with the person(s) in the other elevator. Ugh. No one NEEDS this stuff, QFC. Knock it off. It's weird.

After bidding Nickolas goodbye, I put the groceries away, started some laundry and then knocked some ideas around for what to do with those pork chops. I was considering roasting them and shredding them with some caramelized onion, then stuffing the squash with that, but decided instead to go outside to the community rosemary bush and snag some delicious herbs. I think I chose wisely.

The Most Delicious Dinner Ever - serves 4

4 boneless thin-cut pork loin chops

3 cloves garlic, chopped

1/4 onion, sliced

1/2 firm apple, chopped (Gala or Fuji work well)

1 large sprig rosemary (6-8"), leaves stripped from the stem

coarse sea salt

ground pepper

2 Red Garnet yams, peeled, cubed and boiled until soft

1 acorn squash, cut in half and roasted until mashable

2T unsalted butter

2 t unsalted butter

1.5 t flour

1 T fresh rosemary leaves, chopped

1/2 cup half & half

coarse salt

Beforehand: sprinkle the chops with sea salt and pepper, then toss with the onion, rosemary, apple and garlic and chill for a few hours in the fridge. Steam the squash and remove the pulp from the shell and set aside. Boil and mash the yams, adding a bit of milk if needed to ensure a smooth consistency.

Lay the chops in a single layer in a baking pan, making sure that some of the apple and onion lay below them. Cover with foil and bake for 25-30 minutes at 350 degrees. While the chops cook, heat the squash and mashed yams in separate pans on the stove, adding 1T butter to each as they heat.

In a small saucepan, melt 2t butter with chopped rosemary. Add flour and cook over low heat until slightly bubbly. Whish in half & half and cook on medium-low until the sauce begins to bubble a bit, then remove from heat.

Remove the chops from the oven and let rest for 5 minutes; they will continue cooking and will be moist without being undercooked. Spoon some of the squash and yam onto a plate and top with a piece of the pork, making sure to include some of the chopped apples, onion and garlic. Drizzle just a little bit of the rosemary cream sauce around and then eat it and enjoy it because it is so incredibly delicious.

To be honest, I'm torn on this dinner. I am a little bit sad because Nick should really be eating this with me, but I am also incredibly prepared to gloat to him about what he missed. I'm not a huge fan of pork, but there was no real fat.While the meat was indeed delicious, I don't think it would have been as good if paired with potatoes or spinach or something. Aside from being waaaaaaaaaaaay tasty, yams are full of good stuff like vitamin A, vitamin C, thiamine and niacin and the acorn squash offers up vitamins B1 and B6, vitamin C, calcium, magnesium and potassium. Hello, nutrients!

This was an amazingly delicious dinner. The taste made me think of walking thorugh crunchy leaves, drinking spiced cider and snuggling down with extra blankets at night.

 I have plenty of both the yams and the squash left over, so ideally I'd like to stuff some homemade ravioli with them later this week, if time permits. Some of the mashed yam may very well make its way onto the top of tomorrrow's steel cut oats. Or maybe it will be dessert. I don't know. It's no secret that I love love LOVE yams and sweet potatoes and that I also adore squash and I'd eat bowls of the stuff for every meal if I could get away with it. Unfortunately, Nick doesn't allow such things and that's probably just as well since I'm half convinced I'd turn orange the way I did when I was little and refused to eat anything but 5lbs of carrots every day. Yeah. My mother was, as you can imagine, incredibly pleased by this. Is it possible to overdose on delicious yams? Please tell me it isn't so.

Something delicious is in the works.

Muffins!

The past week has been slightly hectic. I spent a lot of time on the phone interviewing for jobs, and very little time feeding myself. Le Boyfriend actually took over a large share of food-related duties, ordering in a couple nights and feeding me delicious breakfasts when he was here, which resulted in me scavenging leftovers for most of my remaining meals. We won't talk about the fact that I ate nothing but carrots for two meals and bread for another. There may have also been a couple of means comprised entirely of coffee. These things are inconsequential, I think. Or maybe I just don't want to be scolded by said wonderful boyfriend. Either way.

Tomorrow I start working at a rather large social networking site that shall remain unnamed. We will refer to it as Hello, Internet. HI is a nice acronym for a site that lets you find and contact people you used to know, yes? I believe so. Anyway, for the first time in a while, I will be at the mercy of whatever is closest to my office in terms of sustenance. Because I am cheap, I am adamant that I will bring breakfast every morning, but I was having a very hard time getting excited about sitting over a bowl of oatmeal a the office.

After Nick left yesterday, I started thumbing through my copy of 1001 Muffins, in hopes that inspiration would strike. Given that I had a couple of containers of frozen blueberries, I wanted something that used those, but nothing really hit the sweet spot in terms of those recipes. I should also mention that I had about 3 tablespoons of sugar to my name and was not trying to trek up to the store at 9pm, so something with a bit less of the sweet stuff was preferable. I did have orange juice that would stand in as a sweetener and flavor agent, so I searched for recipes using that. After I'd made it through a good chunk of the section with muffin recipes, I stumbled across their Citrus Muffins recipe. It called for only a small amount of sugar and used orange and lime zest for flavoring. It looked promising, but I really dislike zested citrus rinds unless we're talking lemon. I sat and ran the numbers in my head and decided I'd modify it to make something I would actually eat. 

At the end of the process, I had some delicious orange-blueberry muffins that will be perfect to take with me this week for breakfast. They're not terribly sweet, but they're super moist (UGLIEST WORD EVER, fyi) and delicious and my adjustments to the original recipe worked out beautifully. I was worried that the proportions I doctored would give me a dozen-odd weird little blueberry-studded bricks, but I lucked out. I added a bit more flour and baking powder to compensate for the blueberries adding weight and liquid to the batter, then increased the liquid ingredients by 1/4 cup to make sure the batter wouldn't be a nasty, gummy paste.

Please excuse the wretched photo. My kitchen has minimal matural light at 8pm :)

Orange-blueberry muffins - yields 16

1 5/8 c flour

1 1/4 T baking powder

2 T granulated sugar 

1/4 t salt

1 large egg

1/2 c milk

1/2 c orange juice concentrate

1/3 c melted unsalted butter

1 cup fresh blueberries 

Preheat oven to 400. Sift together the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder. In a second bowl, whisk the orange juice, milk, egg and butter together, then combine with the dry ingredients. Fold blueberries in and spoon into muffin cups/papers to 2/3 full (I use an ice cream scoop because I am terribly clumsy). Bake approximately 14 minutes or until muffins are golden on top and spring back from touch.

As a bonus, I got to use the awesome silicone cupcake/muffin wrappers that Nick got me for Christmas last year. I'd never used them before, but I am absolutely smitten with them. I think I will make him some delicious cupcakes with them that he can keep all for himself.

Speaking of that boyfriend of mine, I am in the middle of making him the most delightfully ridiculous, corny, AWESOMELY NERDY gift ever. In just a few weeks, we will celebrate anniversary number two together. I feel that such a gift is warranted for any man willing to deal with my preposterous behavior for more than a short duration, nevermind two continuous years of such torture. He does seem to like it, which has maybe made me question his own sanity and taste once or twice for a brief, fleeting second but he thinks that all these quirks of mine are charming and I find him to be the most lovely person I have ever known, so I will give him that ridiculous gift and look forward to year number three, and all beyond that. 

Now I must go to bed. Tomorrow is day one at Hello, Internet and I am more than slightly nervous (read: TERRIFIED), but it will be nice to be around other people during the daytime hours, since the dog and cat are terrible conversationalists. Wish me luck. Goodnight <3

Blueberries

The other night, Nick and I went to the store for dinner supplies and some fruit to put on top of dutch babies in the morning. His first choice was peaches, but they were all like rocks. He then suggested apples, but they were all mushy and mealy. The strawberries weren't looking awesome and bananas seemed boring and I was quickly losing patience with the fruit situation. The produce selection at the grocery store down the street from my house is absolutely atrocious. It makes me so sad. I've found some potatoes, carrots and a few apples there since I moved here, but nothing else worthwhile. I'd completely taken for granted how good I had it in my old neighborhood, where my lovely brother-in-law was the produce manager. The only thing that really stood out were some blackberries ($5 for a PINT?!) and some blueberries that were on super sale. A pint of blueberries was $3.99, but 2lbs was $3.88; because I am cheap, I naturally went with the bigger container after confirming with Nick that they'd be suitable for breakfasty things.


Much like with my artichoke situation, I got the blueberries home and looked at them without any idea as to what to DO with them aside from the dutch babies. I've been scouring the internet for ideas. My dear friend Mardi wants to make some blueberry syrup, so I'm looking for a Jessica-proof recipe for that and intend to make some semblance of this lemon curd & blueberry tart on Wednesday. In the meantime, those blueberries have been staring at me every time I open the fridge to get some half & half for my coffee. I'm not known for being a fan of blueberries. I tend to avoid them unless the choice is between a blueberry muffin or no muffin. I am loathe to admit that the first time I even saw the inside of  a blueberry was when we were in the middle of brunch the other morning. Between bites of dutch baby, I picked a berry up, bit it in half and noticed that the inside was sort of pinkish opaque. When I exclaimed my discovery loudly, Nick just smirked a little bit and told me I was cute. I am guessing that I am the last person in the world that found out that the inside of a blueberry isn't blue. Charming!


Anyway, Nick went home late Sunday afternoon and I came back to the apartment, cuddled with the puppy, drank some coffee and put some more thought into using those blueberries. I thought of making some blueberry scones, but meh. I could freeze them and use them in pancakes later on, but that didn't sound very exciting either. Cursory examination of the cupboards revealed the same basic baking staples as always, plus some dark cocoa. Blueberries can work with dark chocolate cake, right? I used the same (eggless) chocolate cake recipe I've been using for a few years now. I've pared it down to a 6-serving recipe, but to be honest it seems more like an 8 or 10 serving cake. I might be a bit biased since I'm not a huge chocolate cake fan, but it's pretty dense and a little bit goes a long way.

 

After ridding myself of most of the cake via a hungry neighbor, I paired a little slice with some lemon pudding and a handful of blueberries for dessert.The cake isn't terribly sweet and the lemon makes the blueberries taste brighter and it's pretty. And delicious. Delicious and pretty and you should make it into a trifle and serve it to people that you like because they will find it delicious, even though it seems like a strange combination of wonderful things.


 Eggless Chocolate Cake

1 cup + 2 tablespoons sifted unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon raw sugar (you can use white sugar, if you prefer)
1/3 cup unsweetened good dark cocoa powder
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup water
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons good vanilla extract

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Sift the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt together, then whisk in the sugar. Add the vanilla, water and oil and mix well. Pour into an 8" pan and bake for 50-60 minutes or until a cake tested inserted in the center comes out clean.

On breakfast

I am not a breakfast person. I've never been a breakfast food person. As far as I am concerned, breakfast is coffee and that means that breakfast lasts from the time I wake up until about 4pm. Then it is dinner time. Two meals per day is the standard around here. Nickolas is endlessly perturbed by my odd eating habits and nicely asks that I please eat three times a day. I think he's worried about my brain starving or something, because there's no way I am going to suddenly waste away to nothing; my hips are evidence of this improbability. This is a huge difference between us. I can go twelve hours without getting hungry, while he will be ravenous every 4-5 hours, right on schedule. It's precious. I try to have something either ready for him to eat or only 5 minutes from prep to plate at all times so that I don't starve the poor man. Really, keeping him fed and smiling is one of my highest priorities in life.

Rather than going back to sleep this morning after he got up, I harnessed this wild child dog of mine and we walked him to the bus stop so he could start his commute. I think that maybe everyone won in this situation. I got to see my beloved boyfriend for 15 glorious minutes longer than I normally would in the mornings. He got to show his fellow commuters that he is allowed to kiss a strange-looking, sleepy girl with "guess what I did last night!" bedhead (it is ALWAYS this way. I have Medusa hair that cannot be tamed) and a weird mohawked dog. Penelope got to bark at a man, who immediately walked over to pet her and call her adorable. Win, win, win.

After said bon voyaging and goodbye kissing took place, Nelly and I ambled back to Terabithia for some coffee. I was standing there in the kitchen in my nightgown (which I wore to the bus stop, thank you very much! I just tuck that silly thing into my jeans and throw on a hoodie and no one is the wiser) with my silly ladybug latte mug in my hands to warm me up and all of a sudden I was STARVING. This rarely happens to me. So rarely that the only breakfasty things I own are some soy protein shake powder (shut it!) and some oatmeal of the lame variety. It's not even steel-cut, you guys. That instantly renders it cookie ingredient status rather than breakfasty nourishment status. Ugh.

 Looking around my kitchen, my despair grew at about the same rate as the decibel level of my growling stomach did: rapidly. Super lame, friends. Super lame. I have some eggs, yeah, but I am not really an eggy person. Eggs are for Nickolas. That man could live off of eggs and I would let him, so long as he ate some oatmeal to negate the cholesterol contributions of said eggs. So no eggs. I had no potatoes, as I used those last night in a frantic substitution for the jasmine rice that I had a mishap with two nights prior*. I was thinking I was pretty much out of options until I realized that there was still banana-carrot bread left over. It didn't sound very good by itself. I tire of things quickly. Again I was thinking that I was going to have to walk up to one of the cafes and beg someone for a bagel and then I realized that I *did* have breakfast stuff that was suitable.

 

Aforementioned silly ladybug latte mug represent!

Eggs + banana bread + a bit of butter = french toast. The best french toast. After chiding myself for taking 15 tummy-growling minutes to realize what I had to work with, I got to it. Standard french toast making with the only variant being the bread used. It was delightfully crunchy outside and soft and delicious inside and with a bit of cinnamon butter, it pretty much morphed into the perfect breakfast.

Don't mock my butter stars. They taste better this way.

Next time, I'd probably dry the bread out in the oven for a little bit if it was still as fresh as this stuff was, just for the sake of texture, but overall? Delicious princess banana breakfast. 100%. 

*Ok so when I was making sme delicious panang curry for lunch the other day, I may have filled my stovetop with jasmine rice after setting the bulk bag of said rice down on the stove and inadvertantly turning the wrong burner on. Bulk bag (I don't have canisters yet!) had a little hole melt in it and all of a sudden, a *plink, plink, plink* sound alerted me to my ridiculous predicament and I was able to turn the burner off immediately without any actual damage, save for 2lbs of raw rice nesting below the burner and under the stove lid. GRACEFUL. My talents shine sometimes, you guys.

Perfection

My friend Wendy came over last night for dinner. I met her in my first quarter of school last year in English class. Our teacher referred to us as "the gingers" on account of our red hairs and constantly poked fun at us and guffawed appropriately when we were very sarcastic and wry. We became incredibly close friends almost immediately and it turns out that if you put us together, it's like puzzle pieces for the most awesome lady ever locking in. Kind of like forming a mecha robot of AWESOME. We're twins on the inside and pass for sisterly sorts on the outside, so we get along famously. It was an incredibly pleasant surprise to be able to add her to the (rather large) handful of gorgeous ladies that I consider my closest friends. 

We haven't been able to see each other as often as we'd like due to life being life and all, so it was especially sweet to be able to have her over for an evening. When she arrived, the dog barked at her until she felt she'd been petted enough, then took up residence on her lap as I handed her a glass of wine and said something like, "Here. Drink this." While we talked and I made dinner, I set her up with the dvd my aunt and uncle made of our family videos from 1985-1987, namely the Easter video from when I was 8. There's a special gem in that video showing that I have always been the same person, just smaller. The highlight is when I am sitting at the dining table coloring a picture outline on the back of my chocolate Easter bunny's box. My aunt has the camera and asks what I am doing. 

"Coloring." 

"Ohhhhhhh. What are you coloring?"

".......Something on the back of a box."

My reply was so flat and so "Ugh DUH!" that my parents can be heard repeating it in the background. "What did she say?" "Jeri asked her what she was coloring *laugh* and she said SOMETHING ON THE BACK OF A BOX." "Something on the back of a box?" "Yeah. Just something on the back of a box." 

*sigh*

I don't try to be impossible. Truly I don't. When Wendy saw this exchange, she laughed so hard that her hand flew up over her mouth and she kind of keeled to the side a little bit. Glorious. Nick arrived shortly after and we sat down in my living room for dinner, where I told him that I'd shown her the home movie. 

"Oh yeah? SOMETHING ON THE BACK OF A BOX! Pffffft," he sneered. He loves me for these things. He must. I can't imagine why else he'd stick around. We drank our wine and talked some more and finished our dinner and then I picked that little dog of mine up, sat her in my lap like a human baby and made up a song about her bald tummy and they both laughed at me and called me a freak. This is my life, people. It could be better (I COULD HAVE A KITCHENAID STAND MIXER) but man, could it ever be so, so much worse.

A lovely night with lovely people in my tiny, weird little apartment. Perfect.

Artichokes...tsk.

Last night I prepared my first artichoke. I hated every second of it. I was stabbed, sliced and bled before I was even done trimming the thing. Granted, it was a baby artichoke so it may have been full of hatred for me since it was not allowed to live up to its fullest delicious potential and I don't fault it for that, but from now on, Nickolas is the official artichoke ambassador. No more for me.

With the approximate 1/14th of a teaspoon of artichoke heart I gleaned from that little baby, I set out to make some chicken artichoke pasta. As I mentioned before, I have zero artichoke experience points, so I was winging it. I diced up the other half of the chicken breast from lunch and browned it in a teaspoon of butter with a clove of chopped garlic and some marjoram while a handful of linguine cooked. On another burner, I made browned butter. I've had browned butter before at my favorite little dinner spot in the neighborhood I just moved from, but I'd never made it on my own. It wasn't nearly as complicated as I'd imagined; it just took a bit of patience. I prepared two tablespoons of it, though I only used one. After the pasta, chicken and butter were done, I tossed them all together with a giant squeeze of fresh lemon juice, a couple tablespoons of chicken broth and then topped it with a little bit of super finely grated parmesan. Overall, it was okay. I think I just need to experiment some more with artichokes (ones that come in a jar and don't hold a deathwish for me!) before I give up a concrete recipe for something involving them. What a shame.

 

Finally an excuse to use my great grandmother's pretty plates! 

Since I am having guests for dinner tonight, I wanted to make something for dessert that wouldn't be too terribly sweet but still satisfied. I had the baking basics, some dark cocoa, a couple of bananas that were ready to pass into the afterlife and a 5lb bag of carrots. I hit the internet to search for a banana-carrot cake recipe and came across this recipe, which looked promising. 

Something I should probably confess is that I tend to never use recipes. Nothing seems to turn out right when I follow recipes. There's always some adjustment I make in preparation or ingredients even if I've never used the recipe before to see how it would turn out if made according to instructions. It's a terrible habit and it makes it very hard for me to give people recipes they ask for if I prepare them something they love. "Oh...um. Well, I used some of this and some of that and you could use some of this too and that'd be good." UGH. 

I did modify this recipe a bit by using 3/4 cup banana, 1.5 cups of carrot pulp + 1/4 c carrot juice and only 2/3 c sugar; this would be plenty sweet without the entire amount called for in the recipe. It turned out well, but I might have added a bit more cinnamon next time just so there's no flour taste coming through in the bread. Hopefully my lovely dinner guests will enjoy it. I plan on feeding them wine before they eat it, so that should help.

Lazy lunch

After staying up until 3am or so watching monster movies, I think it is acceptable to wake up at 10am and then not eat until 2pm. It seems like the proper way to do things. Technically, I suppose you could call this breakfast, but since I am having a glass of wine with it (stop judging! it is 2pm and wine makes me feel less hatred for the fact that I have to go to the old house and move my freakishly heavy dressers over later today.) I am calling it lunch.

 

Given that my craving for curry was becoming overwhelming and I wasn't going to have any until tomorrow night when I make dinner for my dearlovelypal Wendy and Le Boyfriend, I gave in. It could be more panang-y, but whatever. It is delicious and it is in my mouth right now and I am pleased. 

There seriously isn't really a recipe for this, I don't think, unless you count a scavenging of the cupboards and subsequent plate of nutrition a recipe. Half a can of coconut milk, one small diced yellow potato, a clove of chopped garlic, 3 rounds of chopped sweet onion, handful of chopped basil, half a chicken breast, 1 tablespoon panang curry paste: cook for 20 minutes and eat over rice.

Sort of sweet, sort of spicy, mega delicious. MEGA. My favorite panang curry paste for the money is the one from Thai Kitchen, but that's also because it's the most widely available.

It's only a few bucks and if you're all by your lonesome, it will last you a few months in the fridge. My friend Wesa first introduced me to panang curry over dinner at her apartment with her husband Carl. To date, it is still the best panang curry I have ever had, but this stuff doesn't do too badly if you're unable to find kaffir lime leaves in your area. I'm pretty sure that my neighborhood does offer such bounties, but since I am a hobbled recluse this week, I probably won't be walking to any of the groceries to find out.

Speaking of my neighborhood, check out how awesome it is! We have two cupcake shops, incredible pizza, an amazing pet supply store, a bunch of cafes and coffee shops and tons more including art galleries, a tequila bar, gourmet grocers and the beach is just down the hill. Overall, it's a happy little place with a lot of wonderful people and amenities and the sense of community here is much different than my last neighborhood. You should come visit sometime. We'll go eat a cupcake. Goodness knows we have choices.

Oh, you guys

 

I fail tonight. Dinner is a glass of white zinfandel. There might also be some ramen involved. Maybe Oriental flavor. It should be noted that while ramen is the perfect vehicle for transporting drops of scalding hot deathsaline (what saline would be if you boiled it down to 1/1000th of its original volume, thus concentrating it to lethal levels, the likes of which could be used to slay all manner of enemies including but not limited to rhinoceri, robbers, dwarves, trolls, werewolves and Bella Swan) directly onto your eyeball.  Eyeballs, not for lack of trying, cannot taste deathsaline in Oriental flavor or ANY other flavor, so the beauty of it is lost and frankly it feels sort of unfair that I always flick myself in the eye with this crap while it's on its way to my mouth, which is always full of regret, woe and hatred for me after tasting such a thing.  

Anyway. The reason I am ingesting such a wholesome meal is because I am flummoxed as to what I should do with this lone baby artichoke I got from the farmer's market. Should I have purchased two baby artichokes? Are two enough? Should I have purchased three (thus satisfying my neurotic need to have an odd number of *everything* so that there is always a "middle")? I don't know. I don't know how to cook a baby artichoke. I don't know how to cook a not-baby artichoke. I know that I totally cut my hand open on the damn thing, but that's about all I know. Nickolas made us some artichokes once and I ate the leaves or petals or armored plates or whatever it is that they're called, but the heart was toooooo much for me. Tongue overload. I was going to save this sad little fellow for him, but he's getting sadder already, so I am thinking maybe some sort of chicken-artichoke-peppadew pasta. Maybe. I am still reading. By the light of my awesome bulldog lamp that my friend Sean bought for me. He is so hideous and glorious. Sort of like this stupid artichoke I am trying to learn how to cook. Look at that lamp. He is amazing.

Anyway, I suck. Maybe I will make something delicious for lunch tomorrow, but I figured it would only be fair for me to advise you that sometimes I am kind of pathetic and tonight is one of those nights. Maybe even MORE pathetic because I have dulce de leche Haagen Dazs for dessert. It has dairy in it so it counts as food. So shush. Goodnight.

Squash Blossoms

As I mentioned yesterday, I snapped up some squash blossoms at the farmer's market on Sunday. I had no idea what to do with them other than to put things in them and then eat them, so I consulted the all-knowing internet for ideas. I pored over probably a dozen different recipes and most of them indicated the use of cream cheese or goat cheese, as the boyfriend has made them before. Neither of these options appealed to me because I don't really like cream cheese and I especially dislike goat cheese. Its very....goaty. I don't know. I don't really like sour cream, blue cheese or cottage cheese, either. I have a contentious relationship with dairy products. I love what I love and really can't stand the things I don't love. There isn't a middle ground in this situation, but I'm working on it. I swear I am.


Disdain for smeary cheeses aside, one recipe that I saw that appealed to me used basil and mozzarella.
Another one that sounded promising contained bacon and ricotta. Upon consulting with Nickolas on which approach we should use, he left it up to me since I am the picky one. So much to choose from! Cornmeal crusted or flour crusted? Ricotta or mozzarella? Bacon or no bacon? Both the ricotta and cornmeal options would necessitate a trip to the store, which Nick generously offered to undertake, but I am intensely greedy in terms of my time with him and when he got here after work, I wanted to make dinner, eat and cozy down for the night. I nixed the cornmeal and ricotta approaches and settled on mozzarella and flour.


I've only heard of people eating squash blossoms as a delicacy, so I was a little bit hesitant. They looked weird and I didn't think a delicacy should look like an alien eggsac, but I was intrigued by the way Nickolas has spoken about them since we first got together. Determined not to be grossed out by weird things people eat (JUST THIS ONE TIME. I am still totally repulsed by people eating whole shrimps and stuff - that is an ENTIRE BODY going into the mouth at once. it seems obscene!), I gave it a shot. All of the delicacies that friends and family have tried to get me to eat before have been met with a stern, "NO that is not going in my mouth," so I figured that if I am going to experience something that people think of as a culinary treat, it might as well be something as harmless as a flower. If you haven't tried squash blossoms yet, I think you should. Honestly. Despite them looking all weird and shrivelly and the petals feeling kind of like those spiderwebs that get stuck on your eyelashes when you walk into them, they are surprisingly tasty. And really pretty easy. Here's how we made them:


Squash blossoms stuffed with bacon and mozzarella

 

Our female blossoms had tiny zucchinis growing from them!

10 squash blossoms (male or female) - separated from any fruit, pistils/stamens removed

4 pieces of bacon - cooked crisp and crumbled

1 clove garlic - finely chopped

2T onion - finely chopped

1 medium tomato - seeded and finely chopped

1/3 c zucchini - finely chopped

1/2 c shredded mozzarella

1/4 c roughly chopped fresh basil

2 eggs - lightly whisked

1.5 c plain flour

1t unsalted butter

oil

The first step is to remove the pistil or stamen from each blossom, depending on whether you have female or male flowers. This is a delicate operation since the blossoms tear *very* easily, as evidenced by the photo above, which shows a blossom that I completely butchered with my giant hands. It is easiest to float the blossoms in some ice water for a few minutes, pull the petals apart gently and snap off the internal structures with your index finger, then turn the blossom upside down and let everything shake out. The pistil/stamen won't make you sick or anything; it will just be a horribly untasty hard NUBBIN in your mouth.  Do you want a nubbin in your mouth? I didn't think so.

Melt the butter in a saute pan and add the onion, garlic, zucchini and tomato. Saute them over medium heat until the onion just begins to go translucent - about 2 minutes. Add the basil and bacon, remove from heat and set aside in a separate bowl.

Whisk the eggs in a medium-sized bowl and place the flour in a large, shallow dish. Lay all of your blossoms out on one plate for easy access next to the eggs and flour, then combine the mozzarella with the vegetables. 

 Don't let the facial expression fool you. He actually likes me. I think. I put him in charge of the flower-stuffing and cooking because he is an expert and I had NO IDEA what I was doing.

Using a spoon, stuff the blossoms with the vegetable-bacon-mozzarella mixture. It should take between 1 and 1.5T of filling for each blossom. The tops of squash blossoms naturally want to twist closed, so gently pull the edges of the petals together and twist them slightly. If the blossoms aren't staying closed, you can secure them with a toothpick or baker's twine, whichever you have handy. Luckily, we didn't need either one, which is good because I don't have any of those things at the moment.

Heat your pan with 1/2" of oil in it to between medium and medium-high. Too hot and these little guys will burn. Not hot enough and they will end up a soggy, oil-filled mess that is not in any way delicious. If you're using a deep fryer, between 350 and 375 degrees would probably be perfect. I used the world's tiniest cast-iron pan, but you could really use whatever you prefer, so long as it provides even heat and can tolerate high temperatures. 

Roll the blossoms in the flour first, then dip them into the egg, making sure they are completely doused. Roll them again into the flour, coating them evenly, give them a tap to shake of any excess and place them immediately into the pan or deep fryer. In the pan, Nick let them cook for about a minute on each side, which was perfect. You only want to cook them until golden and crisp. Cooking them any further won't make them taste any better. In a standard frying pan, you could probably do 5-6 at a time with no problem. In my 6" cast iron Nick was able to cook 3 at a time. In hindsight I probably should have just purchased 9 blossoms so that there wouldn't be one lonely little one in the pan all by itself, but I just remembered I actually bought 12 and ruined two of them, so had I been less of a clumsy gianthanded girl, we'd have had 4 snug little batches of 3 blossoms each, all happy and content in their neighbor's company. I also realize that I sound crazy right now and apparently love run-on sentences, so I will move on.

The blossoms immediately after frying.


After each batch is done, place them on a paper towel to soak up any excess oil. I would then recommend eating them. 

Mozzarella is perfectly melted and holds the vegetables and bacon together without being too gooey. 
 


I was about halfway through with my first blossom when Nick asked what I thought of them. I chewed and chewed and couldn't really give an answer yet, so I told him I wasn't sure if I liked them or not. The flower has a definite flavor, but I think we sort of ran that over a bit by frying them, as one food blog warned we would. Female flowers are apparently more expensive than males. I paid 50 cents for each and figured that wasn't so bad since they had baby zucchinis attached to them and they were adorable, but I also don't have any comparisons on price whatsoever, so maybe I got a swingin' deal or something. Still I'd like to try grilling or baking them to see if I can bring more of that flowery taste out in them. Once I got around the whole thing about eating a flower that wasn't a violet (which the boyfriend may have ribbed me about just a lttle bit), I really liked them.



Overall, it was a good first try. Nick seemed to like them and he went back for more, so I consider it a success. The blossoms do lose some of the crunch when using the flour coating, so next time I make them I will try the masa coating to see if I can't retain some of that awesome texture. If I can find the blossoms again, I'd like to try them with a sundried tomato, basil, procuitto and ricotta filling and a cornmeal crust. Maybe served with some polenta. Maybe on a spinach salad. I don't know. I do know that I'm sad that these aren't in season all year long and that the window for finding them is shrinking as I type this.


I'm going to make it a mission to head down to the market this week and see if I can't find a few more to experiment with. If they are delicious, I will let you know. If they're not, I won't mention it, just like I didn't mention the fact that I lobbed off the end of one of my fingers and a good hunk of the fingernail itself while making that lentil soup the other day. Such things are unimportant and impermanent. Besides, it'll grow back. I hope.