A Saucy Post

I'm not much to write about in the kitchen.  Sure, I have made a few cakes that have been a hit, and my English Toffee is THE STUFF OF LEGEND.  But really, cooking has never been a strong suite, and I think it's because for most dishes, the key is THE SAUCE.  

And by sauce, I mean the seasonings, gravies, saucy, flavorey things that you add to the bulky ingredients.  This is where I have a deficit and need help.  Because, plain baked chicken? Boring! Chicken baked in heaven makhani sauce? I'd live on a deserted island with nothing else to eat for the rest of my life.  Fancy cut of steak? Meh.  But whatever it is that they put on it and do to it over at Christophers? Oh.My.  

So I think what I really need is a sauce cooking class.  Where you learn how to make all the seasonings and sauces that make food so worthwhile.  The quarterly community college/continuing education catalogs come in the mail periodically, and they offer classes on everything from fringey alternative "medicine" therapies or how to communicate with the dead, to basic computer skills, but I have never seen a cooking class that focuses on just the seasonings and sauces side of cooking. Someone get on that, will you?! And sign me up. Alternatively, does anyone know of a sauce-blog that teaches this stuff. With pictures?

Okay, not saucy enough? Here's Doc and I on Saturday night dressed up as Harry and Hermione GONE DARK. Only Doc looks like HARRY AFTER JOINING KISS, and I just look like a vapid witch that has never even heard of Hermione.  That's what The Dark does to people, ya know?!

Doc has Harry's spectacles on, but the black makeup around his eyes did a good job of concealing that fact. And btw, did you notice how young I look with superlonghair? Hmmm...

 Also, it's November 1st, so only 11 days till The Dance. And it's snowing at my house. We all know how much I love the snow. (Kimber? Is your spare bed available?!)

Blueberry Jumble

Ever since I lived in Vermont, I have been a fan of the blueberry. So when I tasted Magnolia Bakery in New York City's Blueberry Jamboree a few months ago, I nearly died and was reborn. It was that good.

Since I live over 2000 miles from the bakery, I searched the internets and found a recipe someone had put up. I don't know if it is actually the Magnolia bakery recipe, but I kind of doubt it because parts of it didn't make sense and I had to modify it a bit.

So I noted the changes I made, and have re-labeled it Blueberry Jumble. I made it for Thanksgiving yesterday, and it was superb. I'm posting it here so that A) I know where it is in the future when I want to make it, and B) so other fans of The Mighty Blueberry can try it out too.

BLUEBERRY JUMBLE

Blueberry Topping

• 2 cups blueberries
• 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 1/4 cups brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 2 tablespoons water

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ and then later you'll need...

• 1 ½ more cups blueberries
• 1 ½ teaspoons lemon zest
  

Crust

• 3/4 cups unsalted butter--room temperature
• 2 cups flour
• 1 cup toasted pecans, chopped fine and toasted ( I toasted, chopped, and then lightly toasted again)

Filling

• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 pounds cream cheese--room temperature, cut into chunks
• 2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar

What You Do

Prepare the crust:

• Toast the pecans, then run through food processor to chop. If you like, you can toast a little more after chopping, to get the innerds toasted. Or you can not. But I did.
• Melt butter and combine with flour and pecans.
• Butter a large (aprox. 9" x 13") glass dish and press crust into it. Mine was oval, but rectangular would work too. A triangle would be even cooler, but oddly, I haven't ever seen triangular bakeware.
• Bake at 325°F for about 15 minutes or until it just starts to lightly brown. I had to keep mine in for about 25 mins., but it could be that my oven is way off. Just keep an eye on it!
• Cool to room temperature.

While crust is baking and cooling, prepare blueberry topping:

• Dissolve cornstarch in water and set aside.
• In a large pot combine 2 cups blueberries and both sugars.
• Cook on medium-high heat stirring constantly until sugar is combined and blueberries start to pop and come to a boil.
• Add cornstarch/water mixture to the pot and stir until mixture becomes thick.
• Remove from the heat and stir in remaining 1 ½ cups blueberries, combine gently.
• Add in the lemon zest and continue to combine gently and fully.
• Cool to room temperature and refrigerate until ready to use.
  

While blueberry topping is cooling, prepare the cream filling:

• Whip heavy cream and set aside.
• Beat together cream cheese and confectioners' sugar.
• Fold whipped cream into cream cheese mixture until combined.
• Spread cream mixture onto cooled crust.
• Top with blueberry topping.
• Refrigerate for 1 hour or until set.
• Serve cold.
• Enjoy!

Cake Week Finale

After all the other celebrations this week, tonight was the family party. Here's the chocolate fudge cake I made, with butter cream frosting and strawberry and chocolate fondant. It weighted like twelve pounds, and took me 9 hours to do. I don't plan to make any more cakes in 2010. The End.





Grateful for:
1) Creativity
2) Doc's presence at the party tonight for multiple reasons
3) My nephew fell and split his head open during the party, but he's going to be alright.

E for Effort?

I'm a yeast flunkie. I really am. In my life, any attempt at baking a yeast-based dough has been a flop. I'll buy all fresh ingredients, and follow the instructions, yet even my old bread machine fails to supply me with bread that has risen.

But I'm determined to turn this weakness into a strength. Last year my friend Jackie taught a bread-making class, which got me excited and gave me a desire to do it, but as I didn't have any fancy mixer like she'd used, I never actually tried it on my own.

But I was very excited about the addition of a KitchenAid to my baking tool kit last week, and resolved that TODAY was the day! I would conquer my poor track record, face my yeasty fears, and produce honey whole wheat bread from scratch.

Naturally it was the first really hot day we've had all year. But when we turned on the AC, nothing came out. So here I am, heating up the place with the oven, while our air conditioner is on vacation. Strike one.

I decided to cut the recipe in half, to make sure it would all fit in the stand mixer. I got to the add yeast part and realized the packet of yeast I had wasn't quite as much as Jackie's Foolproof Bread recipe called for. Strike two!

The packet I had didn't have an expiration date on it, so I just hoped it wasn't dead. I found an unopened jar of yeast in my fridge, way in the back where it's been all nice and cold for the past 4 years. It HAD expired back in 2007 (strike 3), but I was banking on it still being potent due to it's unopened, frigid status. I threw some of that yeast in for good measure.

Then Glory Hallelujah they started rising in the pans! When they were more than double their original size, and had peeked a bit above the rim, I turned the oven on to bake them. Now our oven has a temperature setting, but I also have an oven thermometer inside the oven. Unfortunately there is almost a hundred degree difference in what they tell me, and I don't know which one is closer to the truth, so I always just try to watch things when I bake. Unfortunately they didn't rise any further once they were in the oven. (Strike 4)

I don't know what happened with that batch...if the oven killed them or what. They tasted fine, if a bit dense.

Something I should have noticed before I made my illustrious plans was that I don't really have bread pans. I have one very large glass pan, and a few of those disposable mini-loaf sized pans. So, my friend Shelah to the rescue...she loaned me her pans, and while I was there she also threw in a few packs of yeast for good measure.

I came home and decided to whip up aNOTHer batch using the fresh yeast packs, and I followed the recipe to the letter, but the same thing happened as the first two loaves.

So clearly I'm still having yeast issues even after all these years. But I will figure this out. And I WILL have success sooner than later. I'm bound and determined.

Grateful for:
1) The chance to learn new things. Even if my end results weren't worthy of giving away today (Drat! Because I had a few intendeds who don't even know that they missed out.).
2) Summer! I love Summer!
3) Unexpectedly, Doc is NOT going to be out of town this week. First week of summer, and we're all together! Need to make a plan for this precious time.
♥

Death By Chocolate

I thought I'd post last night, but it was just late and I was completely tuckered.

We had a fabulous celebration if I do say so myself. And it's just the first one...there will be more fun to come over this long weekend.

For dinner, I made Indian food...Chicken Curry served with rice and curry naan (a favorite around here) which I don't do often because of the time-intensive nature of it, but I sure love that stuff.

And then we had The Cake. It was so amazing that I plumb forgot the fruit sorbetto that I'd purchased to go along with it. Doc pronounced it the most beautiful and amazing creation yet. I'm so glad he liked it! Happy Birthday to my Sweetest! ♥

Pictures, followed by the recipe for those who are interested. Feel free to skip.

Blessings:
1. Chocolate
2. Fruit
3. Four decades of life









DETAILS:
In a springform pan (which I purchased just for this occasion), I baked an extremely rich fudge brownie. When it was done baking, I cut Priulene-type cookies in half and created a "fence" around the pan, sticking them into the brownie. Then I made a truffle filling using 79% cacao gourmet chocolate bars which I chopped up instead of chocolate chips. This was some rich chocolate truffle. I spread half of it on the brownie layer and chilled it. Using the other half of the truffle, I whipped up some sweet cream and mixed it with the truffle, to create a mouse layer on top of the truffle layer. Then I topped that with a sweet cream layer.

After chilling the cake for 5 hours, I mounded it with fresh strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and blackberries. After releasing the springform pan, I tied a slim ribbon around the cookies for decoration. Just before presenting it, I spent an hour (kidding!) adding the candles. Good thing our rogue smoke detector is missing it's batteries right now, or we'd have had the fire department visiting (and they'd have probably eaten the rest of the cake). I swear it weighed about 18 pounds...and now I weigh a bit more, too. Sigh.

Here's How I made it: It took me many hours.

ORDER OF OPERATIONS (to help you in planning your time).
Bake Brownies.
While brownies are in the oven, cut cookies in half.
While Truffle layer is chilling, wash the fruit. Place gently on paper towels to dry. I put mine in the freezer for a while to firm up and stay cool.
When Truffle is chilled, pour 1/2 on brownie.
Make the cookie fence.
Whip the first batch of sweet cream and add it to remaining truffle mixture.
Layer it on top of the truffle layer.
Make the 2nd batch of sweet cream and layer it on top of Mousse layer.
Chill for at least 4 hours.
After chilling, add fruit.
Remove the springform pan side.
Tie ribbon around cookies.
If you're doing candles, I used a little pin to carve out space in the tops of the cookies to create a hole for the candles.


RECIPE:
FIRST LAYER: BROWNIE BOTTOM
However you want to do this is up to you. If you have a killer homemade brownie recipe, more power to you. I personally felt just fine using a Ghiridelli Ultimate Fudge Brownie mix. You can use any brand you like, but make it using the fudge, not cake, recipe.

CRITICAL POINT: Bake in a 9 or 10 inch spring-form pan. You'll never get this cake out of a pan otherwise! Be careful not to over bake your brownie. Brownies don't look totally baked when you should take them out of the oven, but they cool to perfect doneness. Let the pan cool a bit, and then put it in the fridge to continue chilling.

SECOND LAYER: TRUFFLE
1/3 cup water
1 envelope unflavored knox gelatin
1 T Nutella. Oh Nutella!!!
1 1/4 cups butter. None of that margarine nastiness here.
12 ounces of the highest-quality chocolate you can afford to buy. I got 79% cacao gourmet bars and chopped them. You could downgrade and use something like Hershey's semi-sweet chips. You could. But if you're trying to impress anyone...
3/4 cup sugar
5 large egg yolks (get rid of all the whites)
3 Tablespoons water
2 teaspoons vanilla

First, chop the chocolate with the sugar till reasonably fine. I used my VitaMix Blender for this, but you can certainly use a food processor if you're the lucky owner of one.

Next, you place 1/3 cup water in a heavy 2-quart pan, sprinkle with gelatin. Let stand for 2 minutes, until gelatin is softened. Add butter and Nutella; heat, stirring, until mixture is boiling, butter and Nutella are melted, and gelatin is dissolved.

Now, with the VitaMix running, I poured the boiling butter mixture into chocolate mixture and processed it until the chocolate was melted. Whatever you're using, the goal here is to just get the chocolate melted to a satiny smoothness.

Then added the egg yolks, sugar, vanilla and 3 Tablespoons water to the chocolate mixture; process until smooth.

Now pour the mixture back into the saucepan and cook, stirring, over medium heat until it thickens.

Next, pour chocolate mixture into a large bowl. Place this bowl in an even larger bowl of ice and water to chill. Stir often until thickened.

Once it's thickened, place half of the chilled mixture over the cooled brownie in pan. Leave the other half chilling in the ice water for now.

NEXT STEP: COOKIES
2 cans of Pirouline-style cookies. I actually used Pepperidge Farms brand, which come in assorted flavors. I got Chocolate and Hazlenut...they make Vanilla too if that excites you. One can would barely be enough to get around the whole cake, and a number of them were broken so I'm glad I got two cans. Plus, Leftovers! (we never buy cookies around here)

Cut the cookies in half so they are about 2 1/2 inches long. Stand them up around the edge of the spring-form pan, with the bottom of the cookies resting in the truffle layer. Makes kind of a "fence" around your cake.


NEXT STEP: MAKE BATCH ONE OF SWEET CREAM
1 C heavy cream
1/4 cup of powdered sugar

Pour 1 cup of heavy whipping cream in a chilled bowl and beat until stiff with mixer.
Once it forms peaks, add 1/4 cup of powdered sugar and beat until very stiff.

THIRD LAYER: MOUSSE
Gently fold the remaining chilled truffle mixture into the sweet cream and mix till blended to a consistent light brown color. Spoon this mousse mixture on top of the truffle layer.

FOURTH LAYER: SWEET CREAM
Whip up your second batch of heavy cream (same recipe as above) until very stiff and place on top of the mousse. This can be piped on to make it look more decorative if you don't plan to hide it with fruit like I did.

If not putting fruit all over the top, you could garnish the cream with chocolate curls or shavings at this point. Either way, put the cake in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours until firm, or overnight.

FIFTH LAYER: FRESH FRUIT
Place the fruit of your choice (I used strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and blackberries. But sliced kiwis or mangoes would be awesome too. Whatever floats your boat.) on top of the Sweet Cream layer, arranged however you like.

FINAL STEP:
When ready to serve, remove spring-form ring from base. Wrap a ribbon around the cookies and tie in a bow.

WARNING: Before cutting this cake, you should be aware that it is one of the densest and richest things you will ever have the pleasure of savoring. Cut wedge shaped servings - 2, 3 or 4 cookies wide depending on each guest's appetite! Two was plenty for me. Doc had a hard time finishing a 4-cookies-sized wedge. I think sorbet or sorbetto would be the perfect compliment to this cake...assuming you have enough room left to accomodate it.

Serves at least 12 gluttonus pigs, but you could feed about 24 reasonable people with it too. Mine was 51 cookies around.

Pirate Birthday Party

Seven Year Old Pirate Birthday Party

Ahoy Me Hearties! If ye be among the unfortunate land lubbers who're regularly terrorized by pirates, this here party may be just the thing to appease the rotten little bilge rats.

First, every (dis)respectable Pirate needs to look the part. Builds confidence.

For the best selection, this here Lassy recommends you pay a visit to yer local thrift store. Find stripy shirts and pants that you can cut off all jaggedy-like for your Scalleywag. Trim around the neck opening, if ye have a mind to. An eye patch, bandanna and sash'll complete the ensemble, bonus doubloons to you if you can scrounge up a parrot. Hoop earring optional. This Captain has a spare outfit for more dressy occasions.
Every year I tell my favorite deck hand "all ye'll be getting fer yer birthday from me is toilet paper.

He wails and hollers and gnashes his teeth. And then he always threatens to just throw it out without opening it.

I reply, "what if it's a roll of treasure? You wouldn't even check to see if it's treasure?"

He tells me there is no such thing as a roll like that.

This year I taped a play $100 bill around a roll of TP, and wrapped it up. Ye got te make good on them promises. Keeps yer crew in line and mindful-like!

He pretended to be insulted, but secretly me knows it was his favorite gift. It certainly wasn't his new shipAfter being terrorized into giving him all our treasure, we could really use a few pieces of eight ourselves. Ye can take pity on us.

Here is the booty haul from all his adoring mateys. No party is complete without some hearty Pirate Grub & Grog.

When serving yer crew, be sure to use phrases such as Well, me hearties, let’s see what crawled out of the bilgewater. If they run away screamin', it just means more for you.

For our gathering, we made Pirate-shaped Pasta Mac&Cheese...a staple on board our ship...once the rats have all been eaten. And Ships Cook also concocted a green sea-water Jello, with gummy sea creatures swimming in it. A fresh catch of Goldfish Crackers made for aplenty good snackin'. Amazingly it vanished faster than treasure sinking in the briny deep.

A Proper Pirate Party clearly needs a Worthy Cake.

For Captain Gator's birthday, this Kitchen Wench concocted up a treasure chest, laden with all manner of gems, jewels and coins. . When I finally carried the cake out onto the poop deck, the gasp from the crew was audible. They came running from the prow so fast it's a wonder not-a-one of them ended up as shark bait.Cap'n Gator was beyond excited. This chest was created by baking a 9x13" of Cap'n G's favorite cake flavor du jour.

• Once cooled, I cut it and stacked it up high to create the base. Of course you frost between layers for "glue".
  
• I cut a piece of cardboard for the "lid", and covered it with foil.
• Frost the sides of the cake with chocolate.
  
• Frost the covered card board with chocolate and stick it to the back of the cake with frosting. You might want to also do the words and trim before attaching it to the chest.
• I had to push some toothpicks through the cardboard into the back of the chest to add stability.
  
• Frost the top of the cake with gold frosting, using the same to create the lock, hinges etc.
• Now it's time to load on the treasure. Candy necklaces, chocolate coins, ring pops, colorful little Skittles or M&M-type dealios. Heap it up...this is no time for stinginess!
  
• Stick a dagger in it for good measure. I admit to pilfering Cap'n Gator's for this cake. He was mighty happy to see it again.
  
• Sink Me! That'd be the best-lookin' treasure I ever laid eyes on! And twas so delicious, methinks I'll have to walk the plank a few times tonight!
  
• If you want to embellish the serving platter with pirate toys, cutlass, cat-o-nine-tales, etc. feel free. Whatever floats yer pirate's boat!
  

No Proper Pirate Party is complete without a Skeleton Pirate to raise a ruckus and do battle against. We captured a few slaves and forced them to help us keep things running. The Sea Dog pouring the grog was especially diligent, which is more than can be said for the Sorry Salts lazying around on the deck. Piñata.
This poor piece of sharkbait was filled with plastic sea creatures, snakes, crawlies, and enough pirate booty candy to satisfy all the Brethren of the Coast. Be sure to yell Gang Way! when they start swingin' their belaying pin. Sharkbait's head got a wee bit addled before he was knocked overboard by one of the deck hands and paid a visit to Davy Jones' Locker! At least Dead Men Tell No Tales! It's best to include all the little pirates in your life...after all, they are the future. Shiver Me Timbers, the party ended up being right ship shape. The invitations were unfortunately lost at sea, but I can describe them for ye.

• Print yer Party Info on brown or antiqued paper
• Scorch the edges with fire to give it that aged look. Watch yer fingers!
  
• Slip a gold coin in the envelope as passage to board your ship.
• You could put your Party Invitation in an old root beer grog bottle and toss it out to sea...or just onto a doorstep.
• You could write the party details on random pieces of plastic (cut up beach ball etc) with permanent marker. Put this into a zip lock bag with a little sand and add blue-tinted water and a tiny shell or two.

Well, Buccaneer, tis' about time to weigh anchor and crawl up into me Crow's Nest. Have a swashbucklin' good time! Yo-Ho-Ho!

Star Wars Birthday Party

By the time Gator turned six, it was All Star Wars, All the time. If you've got a Jedi of your own to celebrate, feel free to swipe any/all of these ideas. And May The Force Be With You...*

Star Wars Birthday Celebration.

Activities: Pin The Light Saber On The Yoda

• Have a talented artist friend make you a Yoda poster. (Serves dual purpose as wall art in your Jedi's room after the party.)
• Make a paper light saber for each young Jedi with their name on it
• Blindfold the Jedi and have them try to pin their saber on Yoda.
• Try not to be annoyed with Jedi who seem to be peeking
• Closest match wins a prize.
• Note, Yoda's saber is Green. This is very important. Do NOT under any circumstances make an offensive RED or YELLOW light saber for this activity! The force would definitely not be with you

Treasure Hunt

• Make up a bunch of clues. Each clue must be written in Yoda Voice, and lead the young Jedi cluster to the next clue. Obi Wan has found that with treasure hunts for young Jedi, it's best to send them hunting all over. Up, down, to yonder galaxies and back. They have lots of energy, and are generally of the male persuasion. Running around is good.
• The pack of Jedi will use the force to search for the missing treasure by following the clues. Clues will lead them to search in the most random locations.
• When said treasure is at last found, there will be much rejoicing.
• Light Saber battles will undoubtedly ensue (so long as your treasure is a light saber).
• An assortment of colors is fine in this case. There's always someone who wants to be the bad guy (or who just doesn't have every color saber at home already).
• Their light saber was their "take home prize"...cause going home empty handed seems to have become a cardinal sin for any kid party anymore. Obi Wan isn't sure when or why this has happened, but suspects Darth Vader has something to do with it.
• Let the Jedi Masters play. I promise, they can do this just fine. Sometimes less structure is more.

(EDITED ON IN 2012) Here is a link to a post about making The Death Star Cake

Cake:

• First off, this is one of the easiest cakes I've ever done. I'm confident anyone else could do it too...that means YOU, Jedi parent! Just let The Force guide you...it's that powerful!
• Bake your Jedi's favorite flavor in a 9x13" pan.
• Remove it from the pan and when it's cool, you're going to make a light saber template out of paper to guide you.
• Trace the cake onto your paper. Your goal is to make it as long as possible, while tapering the ends so they meet up with the one before it. My cake was cut into thirds.
• Once you have the template made, use it to cut the cake and line it up. I found a long board and covered it with foil to mount the cake on.
• Buy concentrated Wilton frosting colors. Black and whatever color your saber is. Our Jedi is Blue (an excellent choice if I do say so myself)
• Frost it.
• Decorate the handle of your light saber. I cut up large marshmallows to make the white trim, and spelled my Jedi's name and age with those letters and numbers you buy in the cake deco section of your grocery store. Our light saber was lit up with those long, sparkler candles that keep relighting.
• Hide the finished product till it's time to eat. When you emerge with it, your Jedi Knights will be amazed!

Additional Suggestions:

• Use bathrobes or cut up brown fabric and tied around them as capes.
• Tae Kwan Do or Karate outfits make fine Jedi attire...modeled here by Jedi Gator with his unhemmed, brown fabric cape knotted at the neck. Princess Leah is wearing a white turtle neck and a sheet draped around and tied at the waist with a cord. Nothing fancy needed.
• Have Obi Wan show up and conduct a Jedi Training Session.
• Have Darth Vader make a surprise appearance and engage the Jedi Knights in battle. Or fight Obi Wan...if you can find two recruits at the same time.
• Play the soundtrack from the movie as background noise for their battles. It really adds.
• Songs are available on iTunes for $1.00 each. Burn a CD as a gift for your Jedi. Prepare yourself for hours of this:
  
  
• Video tape their little battles...they LOVE this!
• Help them make a mini movie with dialog, music, costumes and battles.
• Put them on You Tube. Apparently it's THE place for homemade Star Wars movies.
  
  

• If it's okay with the parents (and you just don't want the party to ever end), you could let the Jedi Knights watch one of the movies. (The newest Clone Wars movie will eventually be on DVD, and it's my Jedi's favorite one of all, plus it's only an hour and a half).
• Relax. No matter the age, for Star Wars fans, this party really takes care of itself. Not a whole lot of direction or Ewok herding needed. You can sit in the corner and pretend your Jabba the Hut with the leftover cake.

*...ALWAYS

Make This Salsa!

(BLUE NOTE: I'm reposting this with photos added, and a few slight edits. Just cause I made more and feel like it.)

...not quite an order, but it should be!

It's summer. Lots of you have gardens. The tomato is the #1 garden item in this country, and right now they're at their zenith. If you've got a garden full of tomatoes, I envy you. So you simply MUST try this recipe. And if you live near me, you need to invite me over...you know, for quality control testing purposes. I'll bring the chips (or just a spoon!)

Simply Amazing Fresh Salsa:

• tomatoes...diced. I suppose you could use canned, but fresh is always best. I don't know what variety of tomato is best. I use whatever I have on hand.
  
• tomatillos...diced. I had never before tried this yummy fruit (veggie?) before this month. WOW! I love discovering something new that I love! Easy to grow, too. Technically you could omit this and still have a yummy salsa...but if you can get hold of these delicious little treasures, you should! You definitely should. Here is a tomatillo before I peeled the thin, papery skin off. (Well, I started to before I remembered to take the picture):
  
  Here is Tomatillo, along with friends Onion and Tomato. Tomatillo is feeling nekked, and slightly embarrassed to be next to Onion who is still fully clothed.
  
  
• a sweet onion...diced (and nekked).
• cilantro...chopped
• hot pepper...diced. or you could use chili pepper spice in lieu of fresh.
• black beans...canned
• kidney beans...canned
• corn...canned
• cumin. LOVE the cumin. Load it up with cumin. Almost no such thing as too much cumin!
• garlic. i buy the jars of pre-minced. Just throw some in or mince up some fresh. I haven't ever owned a mincer, so I have yet to experiment with fresh.
  
• salt to taste. You could also try it with season salt.

Mix all ingredients in a bowl and serve with tortilla chips. Consume till sated. This is also delicious alone, if you're disinclined towards the calories from chips. Just grab a bowl and spoon and dish up! It's healthy, and vegetarian even...if you're so inclined!

(As for amounts... I don't measure. Just keep adding things till you have the ratio you prefer. I made this batch it with 5 tomatoes, 2 tomatillos cause that's all I could afford, 1/2 a large onion, 1/2 bunch of cilantro--stems removed but you can certainly leave them on, and one can each of the beans and corn. Then just season to taste with the spices and garlic.)

Enjoy!! ♥

Recipe for...

... My Cool Craft Project!

Okay, in a recent post I mentioned that I'd spent a lot of time doing a craft, which I couldn't reveal at the time, because of the slim, minuscule, I'm talking minute chance that one of the people I was sending it to would happen to read my blog (The majority of my friends don't actually read blogs, including mine. I know! What's that about?). So my faithful readers all gave a collective sigh of disappointment, knowing that this excluded them from the candidate list. As mentioned before, I'm deeply sorry about that. Someday I'll make it up to you.

So anyway, the gifts have been sent and received, and now I can finally write about them. Permission granted to rejoice.

First off, you need to make friends worthy of the labor this project will entail. I'm warning you in advance, this may be a bit too much to take on for say, a ChemLawn Guy Appreciation Week gift.

I happen to have at least two people who fall into this category. They are both really smart, nice, and beautiful, and they have both gotten married in the past 10 months. So I wanted to make something special for these dear friends, and thanks to my darling sister Kirsten, who is one of the most crafty, scrappy, creative and artsy persons on planet earth, I was able to send them some really cool...

Photo Puzzles!!!!

INGREDIENTS:

• Image editing software (Photoshop, Elements, etc)
• Six pictures, printed to 4x4 size
• Nine 1.5" inch plain wood blocks (from a craft store, such as Michael's. Mine were $.33 a block)
• Matte Modge Podge (it's like runny Elmer's white glue. Non-toxic, harmless, amazing stuff. Available at Walmart, craft stores etc.)

Optional (for base unit)

• One 5x5 picture frame (mine was $3.50 at Ben Franklin)
• One 5x5 picture to go in the picture frame

DIRECTIONS:
This is how I did it, but of course you can improvise and do it any way you like.

First off, kiss up to Kirsten, cause it'll just look cool at the end if you do. She'd already made a set of these for her moms for Mother's Day. Her style is so cute, and I loved the boarders that she put around each image. I thought it would be a quick thing to just plop my images onto her templates and voila...ready to print.

I was wrong. Even though she'd already been through this, it took the better part of a Saturday to get these puppies ready for printing.

First, you need to imagine the image diced into ninths, and try to position it so you're not cutting right down someone's eyes, nose, etc. Tricky but worth the time.

After you save the six pictures as 4x4", you can be ultra cool and make a 5x5 of all of them together to put in the picture frame that serves as the Photo Puzzle base. For this part, we created a 5x5" document, and resized each of the 6 images to 1.5" to fit them all in the document. We put 3 on top and 3 on the bottom, and wrote the words "Happily Ever After" in the middle row. The fun fonts and colors Kirsten came up with are just perfect.

I'm all about doing things as affordably as possible...and if you are too, then try this. You can save all of these images side by side on one massive12x36 .jpeg file. At Costco they printed the whole gargantuan thing for about $5.00. Not all Costco's have the same print capabilities, so check with yours before uploading. Don't go by what their website says either...call the store directly and ask the photo lab personally (they don't advertise this size on their website. Alternatively, you can find a photo lab that will print your images any other way. So long as you have the final product in the right size, you're golden (eg: you could make the six images for the blocks all 4x6, and have 2" of white space on the side which you'd just cut out, and the frame image could be a 5x7 with the 2" of white cut off). MATTE FINISH Looks Best!

Okay, so at last you've got your prints. Now, put your kids to bed and then try to call Kirsten for some direction on what to do next. Have no luck reaching her. Stay up till 5:30 am cutting them into nine 1.5" squares with your exacto knife, (and be sure to be terrified that you might make a stupid mistake by just not thinking about something you should have realized).

After pondering and mulling for a while, decide that gluing the center image first, the top, bottom and side middle images next, and the corner images last would work best, to avoid having to trim parts of the picture that you just don't' want to cut off. I had to sacrifice bits of boarders here and there, but that didn't ruin the image). Since each block is slightly different, test lots of them out to make sure each picture is paired up with the block face that most closely matched it's size.

Then use Modge Podge and a paint brush to glue all the little pictures onto the nine wood blocks...one square from each of the six pictures per block of course.

Let the Modge Podge dry, and then put another coat on. I liked the texture made by painting the Modge Podge side to side first, and then the next coat up and down. Let them dry again...completely. While waiting, you can Windex the glass in the picture frame and put your 5x5 image in there.

Now that you're DONE, get excited to finally put the nine photo blocks in the base. Yelp aye carumba! when you discover that even though they all fit in before the Modge Podging took place, the blocks are now just a smidge too big to fit in the picture frame!

Get out your exacto blade again, and whittle the inside edges of the wood frame. Keep trying the blocks to see if it's enough. It's not. Whittle some more. It's still not. Finally, get some sand paper and sand down all four sides till they at last slide in and out freely.

Now go find a black Sharpie marker that isn't dried up. The one in the kitchen doesn't work, so throw it out for all that's holy. You don't need to hang onto dry markers. Next, check the office. Just purple and blue Sharpies. Look in the kid's crayon box...there's one at the bottom that still works (!) Color the part of the frame that you sanded, and sing Glory Hallelujah that the Sharpie marker is exactly the same color as the paint on the frame...so no one can tell that you've done this.

Finally, pick which picture you want to be facing, and assemble it in the glass. Sit and stare at your accomplishment with a silly grin on your face, gazing at it like it's a child you've just labored and given birth too...cause in reality, you've been up just as long with this project as you were with both of your kids' births.

When the sun comes up, take some photos of it, then wrap it up in pretty tissue paper and put a ribbon on it. Pop it in the mail and wait for the phone call. It will come.

Here are a couple images of the finished projects. S&S and C&C, I hope you enjoy these, and that someday your babies will slobber on the fun blocks that auntie Blue made for you to remember that happy day you became a new family! The Modge Podge is harmless...and there are several coats. Should be suckable for years to come!

♥

The Ultimate Chocolate Cake Adventure

Generally I make birthday cakes after everyone goes to bed on "birthday eve". But for some blessed reason, this year I made Doc's cake early in the day, while everyone was at school. And that night, when the power went out for 3 hours, I was SO grateful that it was already done!

I've written about my cake-making in the past, and this year for Doc, I really wanted to make some chocolate decadent dream cake. Something so dark, rich and chocolaty that Doc would fairly moan with delight when he tasted it. It had to be moist, and deeply dark, with amazing texture. And I wanted it to look stunningly elegant and classy.

So of course I turned to Google for help. After hours searching and reading reviews and what not, I finally decided that this cake was The Worthy One. I started preparing for this cake quite early and in hindsight I'm really glad because I noticed that A) the recipe is from England, so the measurements are all in metric. No sweat...I'll use one of the handy online conversion tools to figure it out. But then, B) what the heck is muscovado sugar? To say nothing of golden caster sugar. And notice, it even says "no substitutes". Clearly, I needed the aid of the omnipotent Google again.

This time, though, Google wasn't helping much. I wanted to know what the equivalent of muscovado and golden caster sugars were in the USA. Though I learned a lot about sugar in my searching, I never did definitively determine what these ingredients were called in the land of milk and honey. But I think I came close. For the muscovado, I used the darkest brown sugar I could find. And for golden caster, I ended up getting ultra fine granulated sugar. Which wasn’t golden, but oh well. Ultra fine sugar has a significantly smaller granule than regular sugar...which makes it dissolve much faster and results in a smoother texture. Or so they say.

I did get the highest quality 70%+ dark chocolate bars that I could get my hands on. And then I started the process of making the cake.

It wasn't till it came time to pour the batter in the pan that I realized the Pan Issue. Who the heck has a 20 cm X 7.5 cm pan? I've never seen one. That’s almost 3" deep. My pans are only 1.5" deep, and boast a 9" diameter. No wonder they wanted you to bake it for an hour and a half!

In desperation, I ended up using my two regular 9" rounds, and cutting the bake time down. Then, because I had 2 small layers, I cut each one in half, making 4 total. The resulting cake was more short and squat than it would have been with the pan they called for. But at least there was lots of ganache filling.

Ganache is amazing. If you don't know anything about ganache (and I didn't till this past year) it's the BEST! And the reason I say that is because it's A) super easy to make, and B) Scrumdiddilyumptious. Bonus, C) it's such a fun word. Ganache. Ganache. Panache.

Okay, once the panachey ganashe was made, it was time to make piles of chocolate curls. And of course I'd never made chocolate curls before. Again, Google to the rescue. I found a few different suggestions on how to make them. You probably know that you can just use a peeler on a bar of chocolate...but this results in very skinny curls (unless you have a mondo thick bar of chocolate. In which case you're a Lucky!). For this, I wanted some of the big guns. So isn't this brilliant? All you do is melt some chocolate, then spread it on a metal cookie sheet in a thin layer. Put this in the freezer for just a moment...long enough to firm up but not freeze. You have to experiment to get the right temperature. If it's too cold, it'll be brittle and break. If it's too warm, well, chocolate soup. Which is yummy, of course. But it's not curly. So when it's just the right temp, you take a metal spatula and start pushing it along to curl the thin layer of chocolate up. It's brilliant! I made all kinds of chocolate curls. And after I curled them, I put them in the fridge to hold their shape.

Thanks to my friend Michelle (who keeps saving the day!), I had an elegant cake server to present the whole thing on. My old cutting board covered with aluminum foil is what I usually trot out for cake serving. But this one required something classier.The final assembly proved to be something of a trick...and as I mentioned the look wasn't quite what I'd hoped for and envisioned. But the real test came after blowing out enough candles to heat a small village, when Doc took his first bite.


"Blue, this is seriously the best chocolate cake I've ever tasted. And I'm not just saying that. It really is." That's what he said. Truly!

Glory Hallelujah and amen. I'm so glad it was a hit.

Got Butter?

Two decades ago in a geography class of all places, I had my first taste of English Toffee. One of my classmates was giving a presentation about England, and she'd made up a batch to pass around the room for us to sample.
I nearly died.
It was that amazing! I felt that kind of desperate feeling you get, when you really want more of something, but it would be awkward of you to take it, meanwhile you're so obsessed and preoccupied that you almost don't even care. You're nearly willing to alienate yourself from all your friends and become a social outcast, just because you Must Have More.
That's how I felt as the bowl of toffee made it's way around the room. I'd taken my piece and passed it along, but after eating it, it took all my willpower to not jump out of my seat, grab the bowl, and run cackling out of the room with my prize. I'd never be able to set foot in the classroom again, and of course I'd flunk out. But who cares? I got The Toffee!!!
Thankfully, I didn't follow my primal instinct. Instead, I casually asked the classmate afterwards where she'd gotten it.

"I made it. It's super easy", she told me. And right there on the spot she rattled off the recipe and instructions that would change everything.

And now, fair reader, I am going to share this recipe with you. My classmate was right, it is super easy. And if you've got butter, real butter, not that fakey stuff, then you're almost there. All you need for the base toffee are three ingredients:

1 C. Butter1 C. Sugar (granulated, not brown. Even though that may seem counter-intuitive. We're going to turn it brown though. Patience!)
3 T. Water
Step 1:
In a heavy saucepan over high heat, pour the sugar in and warm it for just a moment. I don't know why you should do this...and frankly it's probably not important. In fact, if you wait too long, the sugar will start to melt and turn into a hard glob. Take my word for it. So, if you do decide to follow this step (and I'm just passing on the instructions as they were given to me, you're free to choose of course), I recommend dumping it in, stirring with a wooden spoon for just a moment, and then move on to the next step.

Step 2:
Add the water to the warmed (or not) sugar and stir to wet all the sugar. You might be thinking that 3 T of water isn't enough to wet a whole cup of sugar, but you would be wrong. It's plenty. And in case you are wondering, T is cooking lingo for "tablespoon"...as opposed to the lesser teaspoon. Stir it up till the sugar is all wetted. That's a word, right?

Step 3:
Dump the butter (that REAL butter!) into the pot and start stirring. It's best if you have the butter already unwrapped and ready to just dump, because this recipe is one where there's no time to mess around. From the moment you start, you move along at a fast clip, and success comes to those who were prepared to succeed before they started. You are one of those people. I know.

Step 4:
Stir. Stir some more. Keep stirring. Make sure you don't stop stirring. You're going stir crazy. You're obsessed with watching the buttery, sugary concoction bubble and froth away as you stir maniacally and thoroughly around your pot. You make sure to stir all the edges, and also the center. You keep stirring and stirring your brew, and after a few minutes (perhaps 5?) you start to notice that it's changing color now.

This is exciting to you. It's actually starting to look like toffee! You are encouraged and keep up the stirring. It may seem like you've been stirring since ancient man first discovered fire, but actually the entire process so far has lasted less than 10 minutes. About now, the mixture has turned that toffee color that you have dreamt about...like the insides of those Score candy bars that you sometimes buy and eat in secret. Almost the color of some old copper pennies. Just when you are wondering if it's done, you look carefully and notice that there are a couple wisps of smoke rising from the toffee. At this precise moment, you move on to Step 5.

EDIT: I've now made this in a different, less-awesome pot that conducted heat poorly, and noticed that it was smoking a little sooner than it does in my AWESOME pot, so just be aware of the COLOR, and if it's smoking too soon, you might need to reduce the heat a titch.  Just make sure it's the color of toffee...like a Heath Bar.

Step 5:
Quickly, remove the toffee from the heat and pour it onto a sheet to cool. Spread the mixture as fast as you can, because it cools REALLY fast! You could use a smaller pan, say 9x9, lined with parchment paper for easy removal. This would make the toffee thicker, but supply you with fewer pieces of candy when all is said and done. Depends on why you're making this, and if you intend to share any of it, or just hide in your closet with it.

Step 6:
After about 30 seconds, sprinkle some chocolate chips all over the surface of the toffee. That is if you haven't eaten all the chocolate chips during one of your midnight candy binges...when all the kid's Halloween, Easter, Valentines and Christmas candy was already gone and you had no other recourse. Rest assured, this recipe will forever ameliorate your quest for sweets in the middle of the night. As long as you've Got Butter on hand. Because you always have white sugar, of course. Or you should. From now on you will be watching the grocery store fliers to see when they have sales on butter, and whenever its going at 3 for $5.00 you'll stock up. Because for every box of butter, you can make 2 batches of this amazing toffee.

Back to the chocolate. Now this step, I admit, can be skipped if you're out of chocolate. But it's better with the chocolate, because lets face it, everything is. My slogan for these many years has been:

Chocolate. It's not just for breakfast any more.

But enough about me. After sprinkling the chocolate chips over the boiling hot toffee which has set up for about 30 seconds (just long enough to support the weight of the chips), they will begin to soften. After about 2 minutes, they will be melted enough that you can take a spatula and spread the melted chocolate chips over the entire surface of your toffee. 

Step 7: Then, if you like and you're even more prepared (good things come to those who are prepared), you can sprinkle some (toasted or un) sliced almonds on the chocolate and wait for all of this to cool to room temperature. I've been known to put it in the freezer to speed this part along. Yes, sometimes I'm that desperate.

If I don't have sliced almonds, I've been known to use chopped or slivered almonds, or even toasted walnuts or pecans. A quick spin through my little food chopper makes them nice, and they add just the perfect amount of crunch and yummy nuttiness. And nuts like me loved that nuttiness.

In the purest sense, this probably isn't English Toffee. I have a friend from the United Kingdom of Great Britain who disputed my claim that I'd made English Toffee. "It's nothing of the sort!" he claimed. But whatever it may be, it's scrumdiddilyumptious! You can make variations on this concoction to suit yourself. Once I topped it with toasted coconut and M&Ms. Sprinkle whatever floats your boat at the time on it.

After it's cooled down, you break it into pieces and consume. If you're giving it away, and you're looking for more PPB*, you might want to make it thinner. If that's not a concern (remember the closet!), thick is quite lovely.

For years this is how I made the toffee. But last Christmas I branched out a bit and was quite pleased with the variation. Moments before the toffee was done cooking, I dumped in a cup of almonds and stirred the mixture up to coat them before pouring them onto the parchment paper. I made this batch thicker so that the nuts were contained within the mixture. Once cooled, I dipped the thicker pieces into melted chocolate, then rolled them in chopped almond pieces. This was utter ecstasy. Waaaay better than Almond Roca™

This toffee has been a hit no matter where I have taken it. From start to finish, it takes me about 10 minutes to make...plus cooling time. So when you remember that you have a party in half an hour and have completely forgotten to prepare something to contribute, this is a classy, welcome addition that the hostess will praise you up and down for bringing. She'll also siphon off half the platter and hide it in her underwear drawer to eat after the guest have all gone. This toffee has won friends and influenced people, has convinced more than one man to propose marriage, and is well on its way to creating world piece. It's so good that if you took pieces of toffee and sprinkled bits of toffee on top, you could probably travel back in time. It's like a tasty vortex. (Yes, it's even better than bacon!)

So go get some butter and make this toffee. You can thank me later (toffee will do quite nicely, thanks!)

*Pieces Per Batch

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And now, for those of you who, like me, fare MUCH better when you have visuals,
I have photo-documented the
Making Of A Batch.
Photo credits mostly go to my brother, MM, because I'm not dexterous enough to cook AND photograph things at the same time. I'm just the standard, base-model person. I didn't come with any genetic or manufactured upgrades. I'm not the show-model prototype. This should give you comfort, because if I can do it, so can you!

Here is the complete ensemble for ourDeluxe English Toffee Recipe

Note: You do NOT need a 50 pound sack of sugar to make toffee. But if you had that much, and equal amounts of butter, you could feed a small nation quite happily on toffee for many months. They'd probably make you their queen. Or king. Or deify you in some manner. But I've heard that deification can be painful. I digress.
Okay, Here we go.
Remember that whole part about being prepared?
Well, here's your chance.
Before you start cooking, chop the nuts up.
If you have nuts (and I'm talking about almonds here,
as they are most ideally suited).
And if you actually want nuts.
You can certainly forgo nuts with this recipe in a pinch.

Here are some almonds in my food chopper:

This is them 5 seconds later. I love my little food chopper!
(Especially when it comes to chopping onions.
But we don't need onions in our toffee,
cause that would be six kinds of nastiness!)

Here are the bare minimum ingredients necessary

to make yourself that midnight treat you're desperate for.
Note--this rendition would be nut and chocolate free,
suitable for those poor unfortunate souls
who have nut and chocolate allergies.
And can you think of anything more
cruel and unfair than being allergic to chocolate?
I submit that you cannot!

Now, after warming the sugar (or not), dump in the water.
Stir it up:

Add the butter:

Start Stirring. The butter is quickly melted:

You keep stirring and it keeps bubbling and toffeeizing.
Cause that's what's happening here folks.
You're making toffee. It's almost miraculous!

You've stirred and gotten it to the color of toffee, and watched carefully to see those wisps of smoke rising off it. The lighting makes it look like it got lighter in the next picture, but I promise that it did not. I'm sorry about that. It's my lack of photography and editing skills. And I should add here that whenever I write the word "wisps", it takes all my willpower to not add an "h", as in whisps, because that word just begs to have an H in it. It makes it so much more "whispier". Like a whisper. It's whispful and whonderful.
And smoke just seems like it would whisp.
I'm done now.
So here I am pouring it onto the pan
that I had waiting for the boiling hot mixture.
Do Not Attempt To Sample At This Point!!!
(Trust me on this one.) (And don't ask questions.)

NOTICE HOW IT DARKENS UP AS IT COOLS!

Here's where you can employ those surplus
stores of creativity you've been saving up.
On a whim (see, whim gets an H!),
I opted to sprinkle some nuts Right On The Toffee.
Cause you're allowed.

Next I sprinkle chocolate chips all over.

A minute later, they're soft and spreadable.

Since there is no such thing as too many nuts, I add more. More Nuts!

Confession time. I got impatient. It's true. No really.
So I put it in the freezer to speed up the cooling process.
Once it was cool, I took it out, and then just broke it into pieces.
You can make the pieces as big or small as you like.
But no matter what, congratulate yourself!
You've just made a batch of Scrumdiddilyumptious English Toffee!
Consume until sated.

The End.