La Mia Cucina

The Daring Kitchen 2009 Holiday Gift Guide is Here!

2009-11-30T14:45:00.002-05:00

HEY! You three over there – yes, you! My last 3 readers!! Pass this along, will you? Mucho huge-o thanks!! ;)

The Daring Kitchen 2009 Holiday Gift Guide! Featuring 100 hot, unique and affordable gifts for those hard-to-find-for people on your list!

Several merchants in the top 20 items have given Daring Kitchen members a discount on either their merchandise or shipping.. can’t beat that!

Click HERE to read all about it and to also download the guide in .pdf format. Oh yeah, we gotcha covered! ;)

xoxo

Holy Cannoli! It's Reveal Day!!!

2009-11-27T23:25:00.004-05:00

Zoinks.

I haven't moved much today. Tripto-whatever is still kickin' it in my blood stream. Completely forgot it was reveal day. And then I remembered because I had to get the recipe up on the Daring Kitchen website.. and then I forgot about it again.. or more specifically, that I ALSO had to post on my own lil blog.

DOH.

The November 2009 Daring Bakers Challenge was chosen and hosted by Lisa Michele of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. She chose the Italian Pastry, Cannolo (Cannoli is plural), using the cookbooks Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and The Sopranos Family Cookbook by Allen Rucker; recipes by Michelle Scicolone, as ingredient/direction guides. She added her own modifications/changes, so the recipe is not 100% verbatim from either book

It's now 11:30 at night.. Neither of us, or the kids, have moved much from the sofa and love-seat today. I have drank what I believe to be 1/4th of Lake Erie since awakening this morning at 6:30 (I slept in! WOOOOO HOOO!). Unfakkinbelievably dry pipes today kids. WTF?

If you've friended me on Facebook, you might have noticed how proud I was yesterday when I managed to cook 99.9% (my mom still makes the bird, bless her heart) of our Thanksgiving meal, INCLUDING the Daring Baker challenge, with 1 whole hour to spare before the family arrived. Keep in mind that I even whacked a few mobsters, planted a field of grapes, fed and then sold 1000's of fishes, and cooked two dishes eleventy billion times for my virtual cafe as well. Oh yes, yesterday was a BUSY day. Also? My Name is Lisa and I'm an FB games addict. *sigh*

Here's what I DIDN'T DO - I didn't photograph my cutsie lil mini cannoli. Basically because as soon as they were filled, the vultures zoomed in and they were all GONE. I got ONE. I filled TWENTY. But fear not, you lovers of horrible photography! I saved 6 shells for W and I because I knew we'd want some today. :D

But.. then.. I was wrong. We didn't want them today. When I brought them up to him, he went kinda green around the gills. Frankly, when I mentioned them, I got a lil nauseous myself. No! NO! Not because they were horrible - they were DELICIOUS - everyone declared they were the best cannoli they'd ever had. Seriously. It's just that we gorged so much yesterday that the thought of most food made us queasy today. I ate a handful of chips around noonish (washed 'em down with a gallon of water).. he had toast just before that.. and then I managed to make spaghetti tonight.. and I think we both ate maybe 8 strands before we fluffed up the pillows and sank down into our respective sofas again.

I just came into my office to reply to a few emails and realized.. oh shit. I never posted. I blame that f'n bird, folks. I don't ever want to see another turkey for AT LEAST 11 months. :P

Anyhoo.. nothing exciting (or chaos related) to say about this challenge.. pretty simple, except for the rolling of the dough - or should I call it, elasto-dough? I tried as much as I could with my puny muscles (which are being suffocated under all my fat) and the brace I am sporting on my right hand for the next two weeks! Are ya'll ready for this? Leave it to me. I swear to the baby Jebus, I am the only person I know who physically hurts herself IN HER SLEEP.

My doc figures that's how I did it.. she says I must be gripping my hands in my sleep. Like a death grip on the blankets or something. I managed to cause scarring to the sheath that wraps around the tendons in my right palm and between the thumb and index finger. She called it "trigger finger". I guess this happens mostly to the index finger and not the thumb? Anyhoo.. the scarring on the sheath causes the tendon to stick when it's moved.. so when I bend my thumb at the first joint, it sticks and HURTS LIKE HELL. Gawd and there's this awful clicking sound when it finally releases and my thumb goes back to it's natural position. Squick!

So yep.. rolling that dough was not going to happen by myself. So W stepped in, bless his cotton, reinforced toe, socks. The first few were too thick, so they were binned after frying.. but the rest were paper thin and blistered up nicely. I added a lil extra cinnamon to the dough and filled with a pumpkin/cream cheese filling that was divine. Frying was a cinch, since I'm the Frying Queen of NE Ohio. Oh and the only thing I did differently for me is that instead of makin' big honkin cannoli, I made minis because I figured no one would eat big ones since no one attending our Thanksgiving was really a fan of them (except me.. and I still only got ONE).

Lis.. you did an amazing job as hostess.. and your recipe is THE cannoli recipe I will use from now on. I also loved the idea of cannopolitans and plan on making those in the future as well. Love ya, chickie! :)

Photos will be added tomorrow.. it's now midnight and I must hit the sack, because God knows, I didn't get enough rest today. :P

xoxo

The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook

2009-11-16T06:36:00.010-05:00

Recently Jaden Hair of Steamy Kitchen published her first cookbook and I'm tickled pink to be able to share with ya'll how wonderful this book is. :)

I received it a few weeks ago and have since made 5 recipes from it. Out of the 5 there was only 1 that didn't thrill us, but other than the Cooking Light cookbooks that I constantly cooked out of a few years back, and Dorie's Baking: From My Home to Yours, no other cookbook has given me consistent results until I started cooking from The Steamy Kitchen cookbook. Seriously.

Jaden's recipes are easy to follow, and for people like us, who live in a pretty metro area, ingredients are not hard to find. I can see a few being hard to find for those who aren't lucky enough to have an Asian grocery near-by, but honestly most ingredients you can find in the ethnic aisles of your local mega-mart. Regardless though, those extra hard to find ingredients can be left out or substituted and I'm sure you'll still get great results.

The photography is phenomenal. Each dish is styled so perfectly and makes you not only "want" to cook the recipe, but makes you NEED to cook it. The biggest bonus is each recipe, although looking and tasting as if you have to spend hours preparing it, can all be made in less than 1 hour. Again, for people like us, who are more than exhausted after each day of work, these recipes are a Godsend.

I'll start off with my absolute favorites and those were the Asian Style Brussels Sprouts on page 123. Holy Christmas. I could eat this side dish every day. Hubbs agreed. This simple dish was super easy to make, and it was like fancy for us! Who ever would have thought to shred wee Brussels spouts?? I felt like a giant grating huge heads of cabbage. :P No seriously, the flavor is amazing.. TRY IT!

Secondly is her Crab and Pork Wonton Noodle Soup on pgs. 60 & 61. Easily and unarguably my most favorite Wonton soup EVER. Hey, I'm an Italian who loves Asian food.. add extra noodles to an Asian dish and well, we've got a winner. The wontons were super easy to make.. they take a lil time, but once you make a whole batch, there are plenty left over to freeze. So the next time you've got a hankerin' for the stuff, all you have to do is drop them in the hot broth and cook until they're done. Another great thing, and this is just specifically for us because we have a great Asian grocery store not too far away - is that the egg noodles are sold in their freezer section and they are packaged into little "nests" about 5 to a bag.. so all I need to do is take out two noodle nests and drop them into the hot broth as well. The baby bok choy is another favorite. I think I like this green leafy vegetable in a soup even better than spinach. Add the green onions and yeah, the best wonton soup you can imagine. I just served this again to friends this past weekend at my sushi party and they LOVED it.

Taking third place was Mom's Famous Crispy Eggrolls on pgs. 50 & 51. These are the exact kind of eggrolls that I enjoy the most. Not too fat, not too thin and crispedy with just a tiny chew towards the center when you bite into one. I fried and baked these eggrolls and they were equally delicious.

Fourth was the popular Garlic Butter Noodles on page 134. I didn't make this dish, my husband did. He decided to follow Jaden's suggestion of turning this simple side dish into a main course by adding shrimp. He did a great job cooking it and it was just what I needed that night (I had the sniffles). The garlic really came through, and it had that sweet/salty flavor that I love. For such a quick preparation for the shrimp - first you fry in butter, then take them out leaving as much butter as you can in the wok, then using that butter to saute the onions, garlic and noodles before adding the shrimp back in - the shrimp really took on the garlicky flavor and I thought were the perfect addition to an amazing noodle dish.

Finally, our least favorite was the Grilled Steak with Balsamic Teriyaki on page 90. First off we didn't have steak in the house that day. Instead of running out to buy one, I decided to try it on thick pork chops. I know pork is great with both balsamic and teriyaki, so I figured they'd be great in this sauce. We felt the sauce needed something else. Not sure exactly what.. maybe more garlic? Maybe rosemary or thyme? Something to give the sauce more oomph. The glaze was nice and thick and covered the meat well. We got the char on the chops that we love.. it was good, just not great. Course I served it with the Asian Style Brussels Sprouts, so I was still more than happy with the meal when it was all said and done. ;)

A couple other features of the book I think should be mentioned is that Jaden took the time to add a Tools section. Each tool is given a description of why it's important to Asian cooking and just gave me another excuse to add gadgets onto my already long list of "must-haves". ;) The other section that I think is just brilliant, is "The Basics". Full of recipes for basic sauces, salts, pestos, pickles, and stock. She also includes step by step photo tutorials in this section, as well as a tutorial here and there in each recipe page throughout the book. Very helpful when you are so dang tired that text just isn't seeping through to your brain matter, if yanno what I mean? :)

One last thing I want to mention is this.. the night I was sick, when Hubbs made the Garlic Shrimp Noodles? He told me that he had book marked about 20 recipes he wants to try. Did you hear that people? I'm going to be on the receiving end of 20 recipes in the near future. That means I won't be lifting a finger. Hello? Now that's the mark of a great cookbook. ;)

In a nutshell, if you buy this book and give it a good run through, sure you're going to end up running into a recipe here or there that doesn't do it for you. That's not unusual. What's unusual is finding so many recipes that are appealing, that you really, really like. And all of them are fast enough to make after a grueling day in the dungeon.. or with the kids.. or on the crew.. or even after a day of being lazy when even making dinner sounds like too much effort. Open this book and you'll find something that's quick, easy and delicious.

xoxo

Sushi!

2009-11-15T18:15:00.006-05:00

No disaster! Can you believe it?? Sushi.. I thought for sure I'd be crying in my Ebi. But no.. everything went beautifully and our sushi not only turned out very pretty, but muy delicioso!

I had to wait until the 14th to make it as I had a couple friends over for a sushi making/movie watching party. Both gals were an absolute delight and we all really enjoyed making the sushi.

Sushi making is very time consuming due to the prep work and because of this, it is assured that our favorite sushi place will not be losing our business. *grin* Well there's that and there's the fact that the sushi chef, Jonathan Hirsch, from our favorite sushi restaurant (Lure Bistro in Willoughby, Ohio) helped me to make this party a sucess for myself and my friends! He gave great advice and hooked me up with some excellent fish and a few tools of the trade to make sushi making much easier than I ever thought it could be. Well, let me rephrase that - BASIC sushi making is easy.. the kind of sushi that looks like art work, well that's a whole different story. I could never put out sushi plates that look as beautiful as Jonathan's - and I'll tell you why I know this...

The November 2009 Daring Cooks challenge was brought to you by Audax of Audax Artifex and Rose of The Bite Me Kitchen. They chose sushi as the challenge.

I watched a video that Audax and Rose gave us the link to. It was of a pretty basic dragon roll, but what I was most interested in was how sushi chefs get the avocado to lay so perfectly on top of the roll. This video really illustrated how it's done and it's the method I used - which turned out perfectly. I was so excited! The next step was to cut the dragon roll and then plate it and decorate it. That part didn't go so well. We chose to use tempura shrimp in our dragon roll because none of us like eel. Well, even though I was using a sharp knife, when it hit the harder tempura shrimp, I over compensated by pushing the knife down to break through it (not that it was rock hard, just harder than avocado, rice, tuna and cucumber) and that ended up squishing my beautiful roll and the delicate avocada squished off and all over the place. Gah.

This happened after 4 hours of prep (we also had tempura sweet potato to munch on - YUM! and I made Jaden's Pork and Crab Wonton soup again) and ya'll know me.. I was f'n starving, tired, and annoyed. So I didn't even bother decorating it. :P

Mindy made gorgeous spiral rolls and Amy excelled at the Nigiri. All in all it was a most fabulous evening and we were all super impressed with our mad sushi making skilz that we didn't even know we had! Thanks Audax & Rose! It was one of the best challenges yet! And thanks Jonathan!! You made a daunting task, so much more accessible and fun!

xoxo

Drop In and Decorate!

2009-11-08T07:16:00.003-05:00

Drop In & Decorate is a tax-exempt nonprofit organization.

Founded by food writer Lydia Walshin of The Perfect Pantry

The idea behind Drop In & Decorate is simple: bake some cookies; gather a group of family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, your worship group or book group to decorate the cookies together; donate the cookies to a nonprofit agency serving basic human needs in your own community.

It’s a simple idea in a complicated world, and something anyone can do.

If you’d like to host your own Drop In & Decorate® event, Pillsbury and Wilton would like to help.

Pillsbury has donated 50 VIP coupons, worth $3.00 each, off any Pillsbury product -- including sugar cookie mix, icing and flour -- to be distributed, first come, first served, while supply lasts, to anyone who plans to host a Drop In & Decorate event (max. 5 coupons per person). And we'll include a Comfort Grip cookie cutter, donated by Wilton, while our supply lasts.

Write to lydia AT ninecooks DOT com for more info on how to get your free coupons and cookie cutters.

This is a fun and wonderful event.. I hope ya'll can participate! :)

xoxo

Wanna Go To NYC For A Few Days?

2009-11-05T08:40:00.004-05:00

I've been meaning to do this FOREVER and thanks to a cup of espresso with a second shot of espresso in espresso flavor, I have the wits about me this morning to let all of my 4 readers, and anyone who mistakenly happens by, that The Daring Kitchen is co-hosting a most excellent cake decorating challenge!

You've got until midnight of November 9, 2009 (eastern standard time) to decorate a 9" cake in whatever Autumn means to you. You can use any shape of cake, as long as it's 9 inches. You CANNOT sculpt or add additional size cakes. You CAN slice layers and fill them to get more height. All decorations MUST BE EDIBLE.

For full details check out the announcement on the Daring Kitchen. Once you've made your cake, to submit it you must go to our public forum entitled "Daring-NYCC Cake Competition" and upload a photo of your naked cake, a photo of the decorating process mid-through, and finally a photo of your finished cake with a brief description about how you went about making it.

I know I've wait way too long to let readers here know, and I do apologize.. but there are still 4 more days to enter, so get decorating kids!!! :)

xoxo

What's the French Word for FAILURE?

2009-10-26T19:31:00.012-04:00

I SUCK.

I am NOT a baker. I may be DARING. But screw that baker part. I'm a cook goddammit.

I hate that I allowed this challenge to f*ck with my head. I over psyched myself from the beginning. I got scared. Over what??? A few egg whites, some nuts and sugar?? WHAT THE FUCK?

I watched an excellent video on how to make macs about eleventy gabillion times. I read that damn forum and looked at photos for the entire month. I read and REREAD the recipe a 100 times. But nothing helped me. I was doomed from the start.

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

Ami, you know how smitten I am with you.. always have been, so please take no offense. But uhmm... Claudia? Claudia can bite my ass. I hated that recipe.. and it hated me back with a burning white heat of a 1000 suns. I didn't even take photos of it - and ya'll KNOW how much I love to embarrass myself. It was that bad. :(

Yanno, this ain't my first rodeo. I made macs years ago with my Guru! The first time she came to visit. And although she did most of the work, she taught me well - she showed me the correct way to fold. She showed me how to grind the nuts and the sugar. But, that was a long time ago, and even if she hadn't done most of the work herself, if I had done it all.. I still would have been just as lost this time. It was just too long ago.

But I was inspired by ya'll. Like I am every month. I knew the exact flavors I wanted to make and I was ready to DO THIS again. On the few days I was home on vacation, I woke saying "Today I make macarons!" And I knew which recipe I wanted to try next.. but then I'd find an excuse not to torture myself and I wouldn't make them.

So, obviously, yesterday was my DO OR DIE day. Actually Sunday was, but I ended up taking an improptu nap. Hey, it was the last day of my vacation - DO NOT JUDGE ME.

After a chat with my sister, Veronica.. who makes the dreamiest macarons, I felt like I could not only make her recipe, but end up with 48 perfect macaron shells. It was her video that I watched over and over again, her voice I listened to.. her technique I felt I could replicate. Yeah. No. Another failure, but by far, not as epic as the first try.

I know exactly where I screwed up. I knew exactly when I screwed up. It's all about the f'n "magma". I overbeat this batter. Frankly, this batter had every right to report me to the authorities and take a bed at the nearest women's shelter. Seriously. My "magma" turned out more like a slightly thick version of muddy river water in like a nano-second. Oh it flowed alright.. but nothing, including several hundred bags of sand, was going to keep this stuff in place.

I decided to look upon them as if they were "multi-tasking". After I piped several circles, I watched them splooge into each other. But at that point, after I wiped away a renegade tear from my cheek and then sucked down a few glugs of a bottle of Jack Daniels we keep in the house for guests.. I turned my back on my over beaten and abused macarons. I left them to splooge and "dry" at the same time. I threw up my hands and screamed "UNCLE" (but it was more like "YOU FAH-HAUL-AKIN IZEHOLES"). I fully expected to return in 40 minutes and find one giant rectangular mac, threatening to escape the sides of the jelly-roll pan it rested on.

During that 40 minutes, I pondered how this could have happened. What amazes me is how many times I sucked in that video. I knew I was going to stop beating the batter at the exact right time (Magma time!) because I had watched the video so much that surely by osmosis alone, I would know when.

OHMYGOD don't even get me started on the 2nd panic attack when my nuts wouldn't grind down small enough. I was so careful! I ground, I sifted, I ground some more, I sifted some more.. and I still ended up with 107 (ONE HUNDRED AND SEVEN) grams of almonds that were way too chunky. Finally, I called Veron back.. "what do I do??" I said between a hiccup and another slurp of my new best friend, Jack. She suggested I grind them in small batches in my coffee grinder. Bless her. That worked.

I also ground down the Canadian Vanilla Maple tea I used to hopefully get a good maple flavor in the shells. I ground down what was already miniscule pieces parts of tea and natural and/or artifical flavors into powder, for crissakes!!! And the top of my wee coffee grinder has a hole in the plastic, so I had to keep the palm of my hand slammed down on it and regardless of how long I waited for the contents to settle back down, I still inhaled a tiny poof of powdered vanilla maple tea! That stuff could have been asbestos laden - but I took one for the team so my maple flavored macs with cream cheese and BACON filling would be THE BOMB.

So as I'm replaying all of these extra steps I took to make sure my macs would come out beautifully.. it all came down to one stroke. One paddle of the pud too many. Over confidence at it's finest. I left my zen place and lost my concentration and that one extra stroke of my spatula turned all of my hard work into... muddy river water.

And here is what I got for my efforts.. they've got feet alright. But barely breathe on one and you'll watch it implode. The first batch wasn't baked long enough, so they ended up being a huge mass of tissue thin crackly crust and ooey gooey innards that stuck to anything they touched. I now know what to do if I can't find the super glue when I need it. No running to the store, I'll just underbake a batch of macarons! You could build a bridge with that stuff!

You'll also notice that apparently, I can pipe a perfect Thresher Shark, but cannot pipe a simple circle to save my life.

The 2nd batch was a bit better.. I baked them for a few minutes longer and they popped right off the paper, but they were still really thin and the tops crack really easily.. like move your finger 1/16th of an inch over them and they crack.

Oh and they don't taste of maple. Not in the slightest. They are just nutty and sweet. Just like their maker! If you can compare batshit crazy and grumpy to nutty and sweet, that is. :P

So I decided to flavor the cream cheese with maple syrup instead of powdered sugar. At first taste there was no maple, but after it sat in the fridge for a while, the maple finally came through - thank the baby Jebus. I added crumbled applewood smoked bacon to the mixture, leaving some out for "garnish" - cuz we all know how fancy pants I am. Some I just lightly brushed with maple syrup and sprinkled some extra bacon on top.. some I left plain.. and some I rolled the edges in bacon. Those, I think, were my favorite. At least, that's the only one I've actually tried and AT THE VERY LEAST I was RIGHT ON with the flavor combo. The filling wasn't too sweet since the cream cheese leaves you with a nice tang. And the bacon.. well.. I dunno, kids.. roll a fresh cat turd in bacon, and call me to dinner. You just can't go wrong with crispedy bacon.

So there ya have it.. another long ass story of yet another catastrophe in my kitchen. But I'm semi-happy with them, if for the taste alone. And they've got feet. God bless them, they've got feet.

xoxo

What the Pho?

2009-10-14T19:10:00.016-04:00

I wonder how many blog entries will be titled that today? hehe

So this morning I felt fanfarkingtastic. Tonight? Not so much. Lots of talk of flu and the cold weather setting in.. and hubbs doesn't feel good.. so I dunno if this is psychosomatic or if my wonderful husband has shared a germ with me.. but I feel like poo. So this is going to be short and sweet! :)

The October 2009 Daring Cooks’ challenge was brought to us by Jaden of the blog Steamy Kitchen. The recipes are from her new cookbook, The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook.

Ah-mazing. That's all I can say about this Vietnamese Beef Pho soup. I was a lil iffy with those spices.. anise and cinnamon in a savory beef soup? *shudder* But boy were my eyes opened after that first taste. I couldn't have been more surprised or more happy with the results.

I went with the long version of the Beef Pho from Jaden's Steamy Kitchen because Hubbs had just made his world famous (not really) chicken noodle soup 2 days before. Jaden's quick version of Pho Ga, which is found in her brand spankin' new KICK ASS book, The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook: 101 Asian Recipes Simple Enough for Tonight's Dinner is on the menu next week while I am on VACATION! WOOOO HOOOOO!!!!!! Actually quite a few of the recipes in her book are on the menu next week as I am reviewing it for this blog, so keep an eye out! :) (It will also be reviewed on The Daring Kitchen TWICE! So look for those reviews too. ;)

Anyhoo.. this month's challenge was about learning how to toast spices and how to make a KILLER stock. Both of which I'd never tackled in the kitchen before. That stock.. oh that stock.. so rich, so flavorful.. so freakin' delicious. Just the right amount of saltiness and beefiness. AND another weird ass thing was creating a bowl full of noodles, bean sprouts, thinly sliced red onions (chilies and cilantro too.. but we omitted because we didn't have any and I couldn't talk Mr. Chicken Soup Two Fakkin Days Before I'm Suppose To Cook Vietnamese Chicken Soup into running to the grocery store for me. Gah.) LIME and RAW BEEF. Seriously. I decided to use London Broil as it was on sale, and figured hell, if it's raw, it won't be tough right? I mean.. don't get me wrong.. I like my steak still mooing, but even rare is at least seared, yanno? This was raw as raw can be.. sliced thinly and laid on top of all the other ingredients.. then the broth was poured over and it "cooked" the beef. But it didn't cook it enough to make it tough as a well done London Broil will be.. nope, it was cooked just enough to take away the raw flavor but left it tender and amazingly flavorful. And the lime just added another incredible flavor layer that makes me wanna.. GAWD DAMN I WANT SOME RIGHT NOW. I'M SICK, I SHOULD HAVE SOME. SOMEONE MAKE ME SOME. PWEASE??? *sob*

'kay well I might not really be sick and wasn't I suppose to keep this short?? Jebus.

Alrighty then.. this recipe got a huge THUMBS UP from both of us. I have froze the remaining stock and can't wait to use it again. I am so looking forward to the quick version and then somewhere down the road I'm going to be roasting a chicken or two and will save the carcass to make the longer traditional Pho Ga, you can betcher sweet patootie. As a matter of fact, it's been decided that no longer will we be making our soups with store bought stock when it's SO SIMPLE MR. JENKINS to make it at home.

Jaden, huge huge huge thank you for the time you gave all of us at The Daring Kitchen this month. It was a pleasure seeing your smiling face in the forums and listening to you during the conference call. Thanks for so generously sharing these recipes and your new book (there's a contest.. 3 lucky winners will win a copy of Jaden's new book!) and we hope you stop by every once in a while and say HI! Oh yeah and once you've finished your 2nd book.. uhmm... we'll so test 'er out for ya again! :D

Kids.. buy this book. It's filled with gorgeous photos and amazing recipes. Check out Jaden's blog for the traditional Beef Pho recipe and the traditional Chicken Pho recipe. Also, check out the The Daring Kitchen for the Quick Chicken Pho recipe.. something to tantalize you while you are waiting for your book to be delivered to your doorstep. ;)

Oh and all of you Daring Cooks out there.. I'm not going to spill the beans right now.. but Jaden is going to be offering a new contest which will be announced in the private forums on Oct. 17th.. :D

And before I leave this "short" post (BAHAHAHAHAHAA) I couldn't forgive myself if I didnt plug another AMAZING contest being hosted at The Daring Kitchen from Oct. 10 to Nov. 9 - It's a cake decorating competition! The good folks at The New York Cake Convention and The US Confection Connection are giving away an all expenses paid trip for 2 to the NY Cake Convention Jan. 2 to the 5, 2010! That includes airfare, hotel accomodations, tickets to the convention and SO MUCH MORE. Check out the details HERE. This contest is open to the public as well as our Daring Kitchen members. Enter! You've got nothing to lose and so much to gain! :)

xoxo

Puff Schmuff

2009-09-27T16:45:00.004-04:00

Okay.. let's just call this Oh hell I don't know what to call it.

Meet my lopsided, falling over, super poofy shooting stars. Gah.

I'm covered in fakking flour, I have egg wash on my pants, my lips are burning because I figured "well maybe they'll taste good" before the lil bastards cooled off, and my heart is broken. I spent two days on these vols-au-vent thingies.

EEK! I forgot the important stuff during my initial ranting and raving!

The September 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Steph of a whisk and a spoon. She chose the French treat, Vols-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan.

Continue on with the craziness...

Palmier? BAHAHAHAA!

I stressed over the perfect fillings. I researched the perfect goat's cheese mousse. I squashed grapes for these things. And for what???

Notice the burnt "shooting star" on the right?

EVEN I'M EMBARRASSED TO SHOW YOU PHOTOS! Me! The gal who thrives on making a total ass of herself on the internets for your reading pleasure!

*sigh*

The chicken salad is placed ON THE SIDE because there were no INSIDES of these lil fakkers.

I had such high hopes. I still have one millimeter of a sliver of hope still.. but it's only like 1/8 inch high.. not "such high" as with the first batch. Everything was going so well.. SO WELL. I only had one tiny ooze of butter yesterday and that was on the first turn.. FIVE TURNS LATER and no oozing. I wanted to kiss my puff pastry dough because it was behaving SO WELL.

Oh I had poofiness alright.. just not the centered properly. :P

And then the oven. That dirty bastage. It was not nice to my first batch which was supposed to be filled with the best tasting chicken salad EVER. But there's NOTHING to fill people! I docked! Apparently not deep enough.. but who the hell knew?? I did forget the silpat on top.. but seriously? How unforgiving a recipe to mock you just because you forget the silpat after doing everything else correctly???

That puff pastry dough has some issues and it needs to see a therapist, tout de suite. And lemme tell you, that therapist will earn his/her money dealing with this dough. My oven needs to go too. Screw my oven. I keep her clean. I cook lovingly on top of her. There's NO NEED for this kind of behavior.

It's like a star shaped accordion. :P

I'm spent, kids. I'm. Spent.

Will post horrible photos later.. if I can talk my camera into not shutting it's lense in horror. If you happen to read this before I put my 2nd batch in (which is sitting, all shaped and stacked and egg washed in the fridge WITH A SILPAT ON TOP ALREADY), say a prayer for me. Please?

Baking Gods I rue the day you were given uhhh.. Baking Godness Powers. May the fleas of a 1000 camels infest your flour-y armpits!

:P~~~~~~~~~~~

xoxo

Okay well.. slightly tipsy, but look at that poof! And well.. it's not really bleeding.. that's a concord grape reduction. Ohh and I ended up not finding a goat's cheese mousse recipe that I liked, but I found an AWESOME goat's cheese custard recipe on David Lebovitz's site. Bless him. :D

***THIS JUST IN: 2nd batch is BEEE-U-TEEEFULLLLLLL!!!! it's all about the silpat. I'll be damned. Photos of these babies will definitely be added as soon as they are cool enough to fill. :D xoxox

Okay so maybe I got a lil uhmm.. frustrated before finishing. Oopsie. *grin* I haven't tried the goat's cheese custard & Concord grape reduction filled v-au-v's yet, but hubbs said they are fabulous. I did try the world's best chicken salad in a v-au-v and it was amazing. Eating the shell, just to taste it was very salty.. but you couldn't tell that with the fillings, thank goodness. :)

Thanks so much Steph! Even though I SPAZZED out, this was a great challenge and I'm glad I've now got puff pastry in my freezer! Yay! :)

Now that ya'll have seen my trainwreck.. go check out the 1000's of Vols-au-Vents on the Daring Baker's Blogroll
xoxo

Daring Cooks' September 2009 - Indian Dosas

2009-09-14T00:00:00.001-04:00

Hey ya'll.. well talk about the last minute AGAIN. I kept putting this challenge off because of time restraints.. but come to find out, time wasn't even an issue. Every component was quick and simple to put together.

To me this challenge was more about trying a cultural food I'd never had before. This wasn't much about learning a new technique in cooking. It was so simple that Hubbs joined in and between the two of us, we were done in less than an hour. I don't mean that he can only cook simple dishes, that's not true at all.. he's quite handy in the kitchen, bless his cotton reinforced toe tube socks. Actually he's a fantastic cook.. but he's an even better sous chef when I'm cooking. ;)

Never having ate Dosas before.. hell, never having ate Indian food before, I have nothing to compare this dish to. The flavors were very good, I enjoyed that aspect of it. It was the texture that kind of put me off. Although my "pancakes" were thin, they were still pretty spongy in texture. They reminded me of the pancakes that come with Mu Shu.. which I tried once and ended up eating the filling and not the pancakes - for the very same reason. hehe The filling, although we decided to not puree the chickpeas and instead mashed most of it and left some whole or partially whole, it was still too smooshy beany texture-wise for me. The coconut-curry sauce was delicious, but neither of us tasted coconut and we used a brand new can of coconut milk. Oh I should also mention, we halved the recipe but we followed it exactly, except for two things. We used all purpose flour instead of spelt and we used coconut milk in the pancakes instead of almond, rice or soy milk. Both changes were because of having to buy a large quantity of the ingredient for just a few tablespoons and/or less than a cup needed. In these times, it's almost a sin to waste anything.

Now with all of my negativity - we can definitely say that's just me. Hubbs loved it. He ate several Dosas and says he'll bring the rest for lunch tomorrow. And he doesn't do leftovers, so go figger. ;) He said that he'll forego the pancakes and just bring flour tortillas with him to wrap around the filling, which he'll mix with the sauce. This makes me happy. I'm glad he enjoyed them so much.

This doesn't mean much, since this is only the second time I've cooked/baked Vegan.. but my eyes have definitely been opened. Again, without ever trying what I assume are traditional Indian Dosas made with animal products, the flavors in these Vegan Dosas were so enjoyable that I didn't miss butter (don't hate me, Paula!) or cow's milk.

A great big Thank You to Debyi of The Healthy Vegan Kitchen for being a wonderful hostess and for turning many of us on to the pleasure of cooking Vegan. :)

xoxo

Dobos Torta

2009-08-27T18:42:00.005-04:00

Well.. I'm at a loss. This cake had promise.. I was excited about it. First thing I thought about was strawberries. I wanted a strawberry cake with dark chocolate buttercream. And after a chat with a certain French lady I happen to know, I was even more excited because she came up with the solution of how to incorporate strawberries into the cake.. by pulverizing the freeze-dried strawberries I had into a fine power and adding it instead of pureed strawberries because not only would the powder flavor the cake it would color it and not cause it to turn out gray.. works for me, the Queen of Run-On Sentences.

And then I read the recipe and it all went straight to hell.

BUT FIRST! A word from our sponsors... hehe

The August 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Angela of A Spoonful of Sugar and Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella. They chose the spectacular Dobos Torte based on a recipe from Rick Rodgers' cookbook
Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Caffés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague.

You see the Baking Gods weren't smiling upon me. Imagine that. I even think they are tired of laughing and pointing at me.. now they just turn their Godly backs towards me. I've bored them with my total lack of improvement in the "folding" arts.

I know how to fold. I was taught IN PERSON by MY GURU. I was taught WELL. But when I am faced with a recipe that is all about fakkin folding, my palms start to sweat. My mouth goes dry. I frown. I know before the spatula touches the batter that I'm going to FAIL. Ohhh and when I read that you have to fold the wet stuff.. AND THEN fold the dry stuff well I about lost the contents of my bladder.

I just can't stop folding.. it's those fakkin white whispy streaks.. I HATE THEM. They MUST BLEND IN DAMMIT. I fear they'll show up in my baked product and ewww who wants white trails through their cake? Not I, my friends. Not I.

So I keep folding.. and folding.. and soon I've got a consistent color with absolutely no fluff. And I look at it, every single time amazed at what I had just done. Like I'm surprised or something. WTF? I can't stop myself. So my batter ended up being about 1/2 of what I believe I should have ended up with.

I went with 3/4 cup for each layer.. and each layer turned out like.. well.. pita bread. Lavash. Rubbery and flaccid. And yet they were also dry as the Mojave. Oh and I only had enough batter for 5 droopy layers. But what the hell, the buttercream will make it all better! Right?

Mmm hmm..

I went with my go-to buttercream recipe.. Jacques Torres' to be exact. Italian Meringue Buttercream. It's to die for. I've made it several times and each time it's come out perfectly. I had no worries. I knew this buttercream was going to save this cake, just like it did the infamous crepe cake of long ago.. *shudder*

Yeah. No.

Apparently, my eggs got too hot. I must have drizzled the sugar syrup in too quickly. I admit I wasn't concentrating on it, since I was full of so much OC (over confidence) - and I know better than that. You'll never make your shot if you've got the OC going on. I learned that in the poolhalls and bars of my younger days.. good times. Good times. Anyhoo.. so I overheated the eggs, so says My Guru. And when you overheat your eggs, your buttercream doesn't stay fluffy after you add the butter.. instead it turns into a thick glaze. Horse Pucky!!

I threw it in the fridge overnight.. and THANK THE BABY JEBUS it didn't separate or deflate even more.. it turned out okay.. other than it melts the second room temperature air hits it. But that's okay, it tastes so good that I could eat it on a cake or drink it through a straw.. makes no nevermind to me. Keep in mind, I haven't had buttercream or any kind of cake for 3 months now. I could bathe in the stuff and be a happy woman.

So I frosted (HAR!) my strawberry ~~flatbread~~ cake layers after I brushed them with strawberry syrup and called it DONE. No caramel. Oohh hells no. There just wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that I was going to f*ck with the Baking Gods a third time. Sorry, kids. Lissee knows when to scream UNCLE.

The cake was excellent if you like chocolate buttercream covered crackers. There was no strawberry taste whatsoever. The texture was so far off that I really can't even call this a cake. It was more like a molded hunk of buttercream with cracker-like separators. I ended up peeling the "cake" off the buttercream and yes, I ate all of the buttercream. ALL OF IT. And my slice was sliverish (not like the hunk I cut for my horrible photos), yet I'll wager it weighed 3 pounds. You just have to appreciate the miracle of butter, sugar and chocolate.

There were way too many amazed and happy Daring Bakers for me to think this was just a bad cake. No, I know it's a damn good recipe, I just blew it. Again. Gah. Many thanks to both Angela and Lorraine, they were fabulous hostesses and this was a great challenge! Not one I'll repeat, thankyouverymuch. :P But it really was a great challenge, we learned techniques and were still given enough leeway for creativity to make these cakes our own. Well done, girls! :)

So do yourselves a favor and leave this blog now.. run far, far away from it and check out the Daring Baker blogroll to find hundreds of gorgeous and tasty cakes to drool over!

Rice with Mushrooms, Squid and Artichokes

2009-08-14T00:00:00.001-04:00

This month we were all treated to learn how to make an authentic Spanish meal that was time consuming, but easy and so worth the hours of slow cooking. Olga of Las Cosas de Olga and Olga's Recipes, was our hostess and wow, what an amazing job she did! Thank you so much, Olga! :)

I really don't have much to say about the recipe, other than it truly was delicious and it made my house smell amazing. I followed the recipe almost exactly - my only changes were to caramelize my onions slowly over low heat for about an hour before adding the rest of the veggies for the Sofregit, I used canned fire roasted diced tomatoes instead of fresh because our garden tomatoes aren't ready yet and I refuse to buy the tasteless tomatoes from the grocery store.

Oh and I used squid instead of the cuttlefish that was the original seafood ingredient, just because you'd have a better chance of meeting Elvis at the local library than you would of finding cuttlefish at the grocery stores/fish markets in these parts. ;)

I really took my time with the Sofregit.. mainly because of what other members were saying about theirs and I knew it'd make way too much for what the recipe called for, so I wanted the remainder to be really concentrated in flavor so I could use it to spread of bruschetta for a lil get together I'm having in a few weeks. And I'm glad I did, that stuff is amazing. I'm almost thinking of just serving it in a big bowl with a loaf of crusty bread torn up around it so people can just dip.. YUM.

I was concerned, initially, about rubbery squid. From many past experiences I know that you've got two choices with squid - cooked quickly, or cooked for hours and you will get tender slices.. cooked in between those two times and you're just asking for a mouth full of rubber. Although you don't cook the squid for tooooooo long in this dish, it's longer that what I've had success with in the past and much, much shorter of a time than my dad's Christmas Calamari sauce that I cherish. But to my surprise it came out super tender! It was fantastic!

I used Arborio rice since we needed a short grain rice and it made the dish extra creamy and delicious. This is definitely a dish that needs a good starchy short grain rice to give it an extra kick of wonderfulness. I now realize why the paella I made years ago was just "okay" instead of really good like this dish. I used regular long grain rice that I always have in my pantry. Now I'm rarin' to make Paella again using the Arborio. I'm looking forward! :)

If you like Spanish cuisine, I highly recommend this dish. Try it! :D

Check out the other Daring Cooks' versions of this recipe.. I guarantee you'll be listing the ingredients on a grocery list in the not too distant future. ;)

xoxo

Woe is a Fluffy Marshmallow...

2009-07-29T04:33:00.009-04:00

Of which the pan I can no longer eat in one sitting...

Well by now, most of you are probably sick and tired of looking at marshmallow cookies and Milan(o) cookies. Or you could be like me - not exactly sick of looking at them, but getting to the point that the photos are driving you f'n crazy and soon will cause you to say "Fakkk the diet" as you dive into the freezer head first, in search of the box of cookies you made last week. Gah.

Now I'm not blaming anyone here but myself. I made my bed by abusing my body for 40 some years. So this is entirely my fault. But DAMN people. Couldn't the Daring Bakers hostess picked baked carrot sticks?? Sugar-free Jello Trifle?? Dog biscuits? ANYTHING but crispy and delicate lemon scented cookies stuffed with chocolate or melt in your mouth fluffy marshmallow dipped in chocolate?? c'mon!

Speaking of hostesses...

The July Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She chose Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network.

Incredibly, I didn't have many problems this month. I KNOW! That's rare for me! :P

I started with the Milan(o)s - the batter was so easy to put together I was kinda shocked once it was done and reread the recipe to make sure I didn't forget an ingredient or step. I decided to not pipe them out because seriously, my piping skillz are about equal to my mad frosting skillz. I really need to make another cake so I have something else to reference to. hahahaa! Anyhoo.. instead of piping, I decided to make a template. Problem was, I didn't have anything thin enough to cut the shape of a milan(o) cookie out of.

It was getting close to lunch time, so I decided to think about what to use while perusing the fridge and pantry for something to munch on when I happened upon an old box of Kraft Mac & Cheese. Even though this box of tiny elbow macaroni and package of orange dyed salt is a comfort food to me, I didn't think about eating it.. I thought about sacrificing it to the Baking Gods. So I poured the contents out, cut the box so it would lay flat and proceeded to draw a 3" x 1" template of my cookies. Worked like a charm! Course after they baked they didn't exactly stay in the perfect shape I had worked so hard on, but they weren't too bad and I liked the "rustic" look of them.

Now when it came to the chocolate.. well.. that's where I had a problem. I didn't melt the chocolate over a double boiler, because the last couple times I've done that, my chocolate broke. Some steam had caused it and I didn't want to take that chance this time. So I nuked the chocolate & cream.. at first it came out great but soon it got clumpy and greasy looking. I have no fakking idea how or why this happened unless there was a water molecule on the spoon I used to stir it? Fakk me. Of course I didn't care toooooo much as I figured it was going to be sandwiched and the look of the chocolate didn't matter as much as the taste. So I filled up ohhh eleventy billion cookies. Uhh Gale? You don't know how to count. This recipe made quadrupal the amount of what your recipe said it would. I ended up with lots of cookies left over without filling, but that was okay because Hubbs had cookies to munch on while driving to work and didn't have to worry about getting chocolate all over his truck. ;)

As I'm sure you've guessed, I did sample a cookie or two. Please, I have next to zero willpower when it comes to chocolate anything. They were good - I actually prefered the cookie plain for munching. But they weren't Milanos. A Milano isn't lemon flavored. And I didn't particularly like the vanilla/lemon flavors. I wish I had cut down on the vanilla.. but you'll have that. Will I make these cookies again? Nah.. but it was really fun going through the process. :)

Now the chocolate covered marshmallow cookies (Mallows) - they were delicious. I couldn't get over how easy making marshmallow was. And to think, I've made that frosting a 1000 times and didn't realize that by just adding some gelatin, I could have had homemade marshmallows years ago. Doh.

The cookie base was also as easy as the Milan(o)s. Instead of shaping into a disk and refrigerating, I decided to take a tip from one of our wonderful Daring Baker members and cut the dough in half, rolled each half into a log and I froze it for a couple hours to make cutting easier. That also worked like a charm and I got some nice round 1.5" - 2" cookies in the end. I went bigger than what the recipe called for because by now, I'd already invested like 3 hours into the Milan(o)s and didn't want to be up til midnight with the Mallows. I'm glad I did.. they make an impressive larger cookie!

Originally, I wanted my marshmallow to be swirled. Like this one. I was going to make two flavors.. strawberry swirled and mocha swirled. I was also going to spread homemade strawberry preserves, that were given to us last week, over the cookie before I piped the strawberry marshmallow and this wonderful super thick hot fudge over the cookie before I piped the mocha marshmallow. But again, I'd been at this baking without eating 1/2 the end product before I was done thing for many hours and I just couldn't be bothered. So I went with mocha only, no fudge. Unforch, my folding skillz leave much to be desired.. so by the time I stopped folding, my mocha mix (2 TBS. water, 1 tsp. instant espresso powder & 1 tsp. Starbucks' Mocha Mix) was completely incorporated into the marshmallow - no swirls. Boo. Didn't matter though - the mocha flavored marshmallow was fakking heavenly. OHMYGOD. It's a wonder I had enough to top 1/2 a batch of the cookies (still have a log in the freezer.. wtf am I going to do with it??).. yeah, my diet went straight to hell once I tasted that marshmallow. Gah.

I let them set over night and dipped them the next morning.. they started to set up immediately and that happened because I went with Crisco instead of cocoa butter or oil. I was very, VERY pleased especially since I'd read about so many members' cookies not setting up for them. I've just always used Crisco in my Buckeyes candies, so it wasn't even a conscious decision to do so with these cookies.

Right now, I've got about 20 cookies in my fridge that I still haven't had a chance (or good lighting) to take a photo of, but will upload them as soon as I do. Once they are photographed they are also going into the deep freeze and along with the Milan(o)s, will be a gift to my girlie-friends who are coming for a slumber party this weekend.

Thanks, Nicole! Even though I cheated some this past weekend.. it was worth it to know I can make marshmallows now! I can't wait for winter and Christmas present making! :)

Check out the blogroll for BILLIONS of other amazing cookies!

PS - Mom is doing well.. a few problems with leg cramping (from the Lasix) and exhaustion from being poked and prodded.. but I am confident she'll be like brand new once they are done draining the excess fluid. Thanks for the many concerned emails.. ya'll have no idea how uplifting they were. Hugs!

xoxo

Today - I promise!

2009-07-28T06:25:00.003-04:00

Made both cookies.. still need to take photos of mallows and will post tonight or tomorrow morning, I promise.

Mommie went into the hospital yesterday.. she's okay, but spending the day with her at the doctor's office and then the E.R. sucked the energy out of me, so I didn't have the oomph to post when I got home last night.

So stayed tuned..

xoxo

Hmm..

2009-07-14T00:00:00.000-04:00

No Daring Cook challenge for me this month.. I'm sad to say this is becoming a habit, me not making my DB or DC challenges.. I feel like I'm letting my "team" down.

I really don't have an excuse either. I guess I just wasn't feeling very Daring in the cooking department this month. I apologize to all the other DC's who were feeling Daring and to our Host, Sketchy. I'm really sorry I didn't participate.

Please check out the other fantastic and so very, very talented Daring Cooks.. I've seen a few "previews" and I was blown away from their creativity. Check them out HERE!!

Don't forget.. today is the LAST day you can sign up to be a Daring Cook on the Daring Kitchen to participate in August's challenge. If you sign up tomorrow you must wait until September's challenge. So hurry up and register!

Also.. don't forget we've got many extremely talented and creative non-blogging members who participate each month.. they post their challenges right on the Daring Kitchen website and you can read/see them HERE!

xoxo

Weekly Menu Plan at FoodieView

2009-07-09T21:13:00.003-04:00

Hey!

Ya'll know how sometimes I contribute an article to FoodieView? Well the lovely people who run the site, Michele and Howie, have asked me and a few other INCREDIBLY TALENTED food bloggers if we'd take turns writing up a weekly menu plan featuring lunches and dinners that are quick, easy and inexpensive. I am thrilled to be part of this team! You can read my first contribution RIGHT HERE! :D

Mind you, I had a heck of a time writing this one.. but after a few trials and many errors, I finally started to figure out the art of chosing meals that are delicious, healthy, use like or same ingredients and are quick to prepare. Because really.. it's all about being busy (whether you have a choice or not) and still being able to cook delicious and nutritious meals throughout the week.

And please, don't forget to check this new feature out every Thursday.. these gals & guys will be putting out some amazingly helpful suggestions and lists to make your hectic life easier - and tastier. :D

Thanks so much for including me, Howie and Michele! Hugs!

xoxo

Beans Beans the Magical Fruit...

2009-07-06T05:32:00.007-04:00

So yeah. Beans and I have never had a good relationship. Frankly, I loathe them. I hate the pasty texture of beans and the flavor certainly doesn't make up for texture, IMHO. I realize that I am in the minority and that I'm the weird one and I'm okay with this. :P No, seriously, I've been trying to get over my bean thing, especially this past year. My sister turned me on to a bean dip at a Mexican restaurant we like and I fell in love with it. Course it comes with 4 inches of the creamiest most delectible melted cheese on top so I can barely taste the beans, but nevertheless, I am now eating refried beans! Woot! Also, I've bought cans and bags of different types of beans. I even have "beluga" lentils sitting in my pantry! I WANT to like beans, dammit! Problem is.. I've overcome my dislike enough to PURCHASE beans, but they are all pretty much still sitting in my pantry. boo.

So one day I get a email from a lovely gal named Lauren. She had a question about recipe archiving and although I couldn't help her (my recipe archive is archaic, and that's putting it nicely), her email was an introduction to her blog, Healthy Indulgences. Actually, I've mentioned her before in the Shrimp Fried "Rice" post of a few weeks back.

Well the most recent recipe she had posted was this amazing looking flourless chocolate cake. Please.. go look right now. Seriously. When you are done drooling, come on back.. we'll wait for you.

Didn't I tell you? Ah-mazing. AND it's gluten free. AND it's sugarless. AND it only has 5.7 grams net carbs per 1/10th of the cake.. that's a pretty decent sized slice! So other than substituting the sugar, what makes it so different from other flourless cakes? One of the main ingredients is BLACK BEANS. Yes, you read me right.. BEANS. WTF?

I'm still unsure what place the beans take, other than ensuring a very moist cake. Does someone else know? Lauren? :) But you can't taste bean in the cake AT ALL. All you taste is deep, rich chocolate. So rich, in fact, that 1/10 of a cake is actually too big of a portion. Especially when you slather it with Lauren's low-carb chocolate buttercream frosting. *swoon*

So all of this sounds fabulous doesn't it? I mean, LOOK AT THAT PHOTO on her blog. Now look at THIS photo:

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA! Mmmm hmmm.. mine turned out to be the height of ONE of Lauren's layers. teeeee!

GO ME! AGAIN!

I swear to the baby Jebus, the fuckin' baking Gods just have it in for me. They NEVER cut me any slack. In fact, I'm sure they'd rather munch on LIVE BEES than make ANY baking project go perfectly for me. Fakk me, I'm not even asking for perfect, just you know.. correctly?? Gah.

So here's what happened. I normally have just about any kind of cocoa you can imagine in my pantry. But I'll be dipped in turtle shit, if this time.. this ONE time that I needed regular old cocoa powder, I didn't have any. I have like TWENTY containers of Hershey's Special Dark dutch process cocoa and 15 containers of Scharffen Berger DUTCH PROCESS cocoa, but no regular old cocoa. Can you even imagine? Okay.. so there's the first "tweak" - using DP cocoa.

The 2nd tweak was omitting the baking powder because of the DP cocoa. Ya'll might remember The Mothership and her twin brains? Well the "brain" reaction was due to the fact that I used baking powder with the DP cocoa and I didn't want that to happen with this cake, so I omitted the baking powder and used baking soda only. You'd think with 5 eggs the cake would still rise quite a bit more than it did, but my baking soda must be super old or this cake really needs the baking powder too? Fakk if I know, I can barely butter toast without some kind of chaos ensuing, let alone figure out the science behind what reactions are caused by what ingredients for crissakes.

Everything else stayed true to the recipe. I used both Stevia and Erythritol. My cake was just sweet enough, actually a little less sweet than other flourless chocolate cakes, and that was perfect for me. I prefer less sweet when it comes to my chocolate. I even wrapped this cake up after it cooled and stored it in the fridge over night before frosting the next day, to ensure no beaniness. The frosting turned out wonderfully.. wasn't too sweet and had a great creamy texture. Slightly on the "cool" side, which I read is a characteristic of Erythritol.. it imparts a minty coolness into whatever you make with it, unless you add Xantham gum, which in this instance wasn't necessary. But even the coolness didn't take away from the deep chocolate flavor of the frosting.

Two things I didn't like about the cake. Apparently Erythritol doesn't like to be refrigerated. It forms crystals that really take away from the texture of the cake.. it makes it feel like the cake is stale directly under the frosting. Another textural problem was that mine ended up being almost "solid" compared to Lauren's cake which was fluffy and full of air bubbles. The texture was a little on the spongy side.

I took the cake into work, even though I could have eaten the whole damn thing without much guilt or bad side effects to my blood sugar. (I just don't want to get in the habit of having any kind of sweets in the house for more than a day or two)

Two of the guys tried it the day I brought it in. One will eat anything that's chocolate and can't form an opinion other than it's good or bad. To him it was "good" - but I can assure you, had I dipped a dog turd in chocolate, he most likely would have said it was "good" because there was chocolate involved. The other guy always gives me good opinions on what I bring in.. not just good or bad, but why so good or why so bad.. and he said the flavor was really amazing, but the texture was off. Then I told them both it was sugar free and made with beans and neither could believe it. hehee!

So two of us both thought the texture was off. Before writing this post, I left a comment on Lauren's blog with my opinion of the cake and what I did and didn't like.. she's already answered my questions! You just have to lurve her ;)

I'll make this cake again, it's too damn good for someone like me who can't have a boat load of carbs at one sitting anymore. I'll use REGULAR cocoa powder, baking soda (which I will make sure is fresh) AND baking powder. A tip Lauren just gave me was to make sure I dust the pan with cocoa powder all the way up the sides so that the cake can climb. I didn't realize that. I'm unsure how far up I went last time, but next time I'll make sure the sides are dusted completely. And the last change will be, I won't refrigerate.

My goodness, I'm hesitant to say it, but maybe with Lauren's advice and my making sure I've got the correct ingredients.. the next cake will turn out.. correctly? I'm unsure how I'd react? Myocardial infarction? Pee-Pee in my pants? Call Guiness?? Stay tuned my friends.. this could get interesting. ;)

xoxo

Daring Bakers' June Challenge - Bakewell Tarts

2009-06-27T00:00:00.000-04:00

I can't take credit for this month.. as ya'll know, I was pretty busy being poked, prodded and injected with radioactive materials and was afraid I'd run out of time again to finish my challenge. So my Hubbs, bless him, offered to step in and become an "unofficial" Daring Baker for the month! You just have to love him. ;)

As always.. business first! The June Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart... er... pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800's in England.

Hubbs said it was pretty easy and he had no problems, other than not being able to find the almond meal (that I had left on the counter for him that morning) in the freezer. hee!

Neither of us were exactly excited about this dessert from the get-go. Aside from cherry, almond flavoring is my least favorite. He's not a fan either. But we never figured we'd be keeping this in the house anyway, so that wasn't a big deal.

Unfortunately, after we each took a bite from the slice I had photographed, we were sadly disappointed. The almond flavor was too overpowering for us (we even left out almond extract and used vanilla). We both liked the shortcrust but it wasn't cooked the whole way through. After re-reading the recipe together, to make sure he didn't underbake the tart, we realized that there was just too much filling and that the crust should have been blind baked before adding the red raspberry preserves and the Frangipane.

That slice was pitched and the rest was taken to work the next day. There must not be any almond lovers in the group, as only one small slice was taken. The rest of the tart was pitched at the end of the week. :(

My only thoughts on this challenge was that if you are not an almond lover, you won't like this dessert, obviously. Again, we liked the crust and the idea of the jam layered under the Frangipane, so the next time I feel like making a tart, I think I'll use that shortcrust recipe, blind bake it, then freeze it and layer on preserves under maybe chocolate mousse or lemon curd...

You can find the recipe on both Anne-Marie's and Jasmine's blogs or on The Daring Kitchen website. Please hit the "still temporary" Daring Bakers' blogroll to see how creative our members are! You'll be amazed! :)

xoxo

Not Very Pretty To Look At... But Delish Nonetheless!

2009-06-22T04:58:00.007-04:00

I hope everyone had a great weekend! I did! It was a celebratory weekend as a matter of fact. :D The biopsy I had a couple weeks ago came back negative, but I was duped. For five months my doctor and I have been talking about lymph nodes but come to find out, he DIDN'T take a biopsy of the nodes, he took a biopsy of my bronchial tubes. He never said he was going to do that. So when I thought my ordeal was over at my last office visit, I found out that the nodes were still a huge issue and I had to have a PET scan. Well I found out on Friday morning that my PET scan came back negative! No lung cancer. :D So now that that's FINALLY over, and I'm not stressing over the "what ifs" anymore, I'm even more committed to getting healthy.

This recipe I'm about to share is a Weight Watchers recipe, it serves 4 and only has 5 WW points per serving. It's incredibly easy to put together (have no idea why the recipe says it's of "moderate" difficulty) and you only dirty one bowl, a knife, a peeler and a micro-plane grater. THAT'S IT. You cook these in parchment paper in the oven or foil bundles on the grill. We went with the grill.

The taste was amazing and the pork was fork tender - all in under 30 minutes. The only disappointment of this recipe is how it looks.. not very eye catching at all. And with a name like "Caribbean Pork Medallions" you'd think there'd be more color, yes? We both enjoyed this so much that it'll be made often this summer- and I will be adding more vegetables for color to make it as pretty as it is tasty.

Enjoy!

Caribbean Pork Medalions

Serves 4
Prep Time: 15 min. (it only took me 5 min. to peel/slice the veggies)
Cook Time: 20 min.
Level of difficulty: Moderate (Easy.. trust me, it's way easy)
WW points per serving: 5

1 large sweet potato, peeled & thinly sliced
1 small apple, cored and thinly sliced
2 TBS. dark brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup apple juice
1 tsp ginger root, peeled and grated
1/4 tsp table salt
1/4 tsp ground allspice (not a fan, didn't use)
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
3/4 pound(s) lean pork tenderloin, trimmed of all visible fat and cut into twelve half-inch slices
2 medium scallion(s), sliced

Preheat oven or grill to 400 °F. Tear off four 12-inch squares of parchment paper or foil. I had a much bigger roll of foil, so mine were like 18" x 12" rectangles.

In a medium bowl, mix sweet potato, apple and brown sugar; spoon onto center of each paper or foil square. **My husband doesn't like cinnamon in savory dishes, so after coating the apples & potatoes with the dark brown sugar, I put his portion aside, and added the cinnamon to the other 3 portions, instead of later in the "marinade".

In same bowl, mix apple juice, ginger, salt, allspice and cinnamon. With heel of your hand, press pork slices to 1/4-inch thickness; add to spice mixture and toss to coat. Place pork over sweet potatoes; sprinkle with sliced scallions. At this point I had left over marinade, so I just drizzled it equally over the 4 packets. Bring bottom and top sides of parchment (or foil) together over pork. Starting at center of each square, make a series of tight overlapping folds, then fold up open ends to seal packets. Place on a baking sheet, or on top rack of grill; bake until pork is no longer pink and sweet potatoes are tender, about 18 minutes. Open packets carefully when testing for doneness, as steam will escape. Serve, drizzled with any juices and garnished with chopped scallions.

xoxo

Squeeeee! Even if it's the last minute!

2009-06-14T19:54:00.004-04:00

Yeah yeah.. we all know the program by now. Ms. AlwaysByTheLastMinute. But my excitement never waned! I was thrilled with this choice of challenges by one of my most favorite sweethearts, Jen of Use Real Butter. Jen, you did an awesome job this month - thank you so muchly! And no, YOU rawk! :D

With flour underneath my nails, my lower back and feet KILLING ME from standing over the counter rolling and filling, and the yummiest of Chinese potstickers sitting happily in my bellaye, I write this very short post in hopes that I can talk Hubbs into one of his magical backrubs!

Obviously, I took a brief pause from my low-carb lifestyle to make these potstickers. But there was NO WAY I was going to take a chance that I wouldn't like these because of usage of an alternate flour that I am unfamiliar with. And I'm really glad I did.. that dough was a dream to work with. I went a little thinner than the recipe called for, even though I would probably have problems with them breaking while cooking (see below), but the only dumplings I truly love are the ones with the thinnest of "skins". To my amazement, I only had 2 wounded soldiers!

The filling was also SPOT ON! Soooooooo delicious! Both Hubbs and I were "oooh-ing" and "awww-ing" while we ate them this evening. I decided to just make enough for dinner tonight, which left me with a lot of filling left over. I froze it and figured even if it gets a lil mooshey due to the mushrooms in it, I'll just squeeze it in a cheesecloth.

Now ask me how the pleating went. Go ahead, I dare ya.

Jesus, Joseph and Mary I am unfuckincoordinated. Dudes. You have no idea. I'd get like 3 half-assed pleats on one side and then just stare at the other side trying to figure out how to do it the opposite way. Hello? Needless to say, the left side of the 6 pleated potstickers I tried, all ended up being a smooshed insult to dim sum everywhere. *sigh*

I finally said, "fakk it" and decided to make cute lil purses instead. Much easier - all the pleats went in the same direction and I could smoosh them LEGALLY when finished! Party on!

I didn't feel like making my usual potsticker dipping sauce and couldn't find the printed page where Jen's recipe was listed, so again I said.. everyone with me.. on two! One.. two.. FAKK IT! I looked to see what I had in the fridge.. took out a small bottle of peach preserves that was only 1/2 full, a lime begging to be put out of it's misery and a bottle of rice wine vinegar. So I whipped up a peachy-lime vinaigrette for dipping and it totally KICKED ASS with the savory dumplings. :)

So there you have it.. a lil late, but still mucho delicioso!

Big hugs to all of our amazing Daring Cooks! I can't wait to see whatcha'll do next month!

DOH! I wanted to add a link back to Jen's blog so ya'll can get the recipe and see her gorgeous photos! Here's her most recent post for The Daring Cooks - Chinese Potstickers and the original post she did back in 2007.

xoxo

Some Schtuff... and Shrimp Fried "Rice"

2009-06-04T05:27:00.013-04:00

*Long Ass Ranting and Raving Post - Prepare Yourselves!*

Hold on to your chairs! I don't want anyone falling off because I'm actually posting something non-Daring Kitchen-y! :D

As I mentioned in my last failure to get my Daring Baker challenge done, I spent some time in the hospital last month. I'm fine now - actually I feel fantastic! But I have a long road ahead of me and frankly, I'm scared shitless. :)

Without going into the gory details, and in a semi-small nutshell, I was in congestive heart failure. I was retaining water like nobody's business and it was suffocating my heart/lungs. It's been over 3 weeks and I've lost FORTY pounds in water/fluid weight. Hello? I didn't think that could be possible, but apparently it is. Jebus.

So now I'm working on living a low-carb lifestyle. Which is to say, I think it would be easier to cut out oxygen in my life. Kidding? Anyhoo, I've joined Weight Watchers and so far am doing pretty well. Their online tools keep me focused and I've kind of enjoyed lurking on low-carb blogs and recipe sites. It's been quite an eye-opener to read about alternatives to white sugar and white flour. I've purchased Stevia powder, erythritol, xantham gum and coconut flour and although I about had to take a loan out to pay for these items, I am looking forward to getting back into the baking thing once in a while. I've also "met" a new friend who has been sooooooooooo helpful in giving me tips and suggestions on how to stay on track. Thanks Michele! *hugs*

And if all of this wasn't enough.. yesterday I went in for a bronchoscopy to make sure my tubes were open and to take a biopsy of the lymph nodes on my lungs. It seems that they are enlarged. When they were first discovered in this state, I was told it was pretty common in pneumonia patients, so to be safe, I was scheduled for another CT-scan 3 mos. later - which was the Friday before I went into the hospital for the CHF. Unfortch, the test results showed they were more enlarged than they were before, so the next step was a biopsy. *sigh*

I'm not too worried about this. I mean, I'll know for sure on Thursday - but my pulmonary doctor (who is reportedly one of the best in these parts) and the doctor that admitted me to the hospital with the CHF both feel that this isn't c-word related. So I'm very optimistic. :)

But I can't just let it go at that.. I must vent on how this bronchoscopy went down yesterday. I was told numerous times that I'd be put out and wouldn't feel anything or remember anything. This was very important to me. I can deal with pain, that wasn't my concern. My concern was my delightful gag reflex. It's horrible. Touch the tip of my tongue and I start to gag sometimes. It's quite sensitive and highly embarrassing when I'm at the dentist. Boo. So this "twilight sleep" they were going to put me under was suppose to just keep me slightly conscious so that my gag reflex would work, as I guess that's important when they shove a 50 foot hose down your throat. But I won't feel a thing! I won't remember anything that happened afterwards!

BULLSHIT.

I felt every fucking thing and I remember most of it. Bastards. I had two nurses, both under 5' 2" and 110 pounds. One of them comes at me with these 2 lil cups of "numbing medicine" so I won't feel the scope. "Uhh.. why do I need numbing medicine if I'll be out??" She stammered some and then said, "It helps the scope go down." :Uhh.. okay?" So I gargle with this stuff that tastes like bleach and lay back down. Then the doc comes in and asks if I've got any questions.. you'd think that I might have said.. "Dude, WTF is up with the numbing medicine if I'm going to be put the fuck out??" But noooo.. I just looked up into Ohio's version of McDreamy and smiled pretty and nodded my head. Gah.

Then I hear tiny nurse no. 1 ask how much medication should she give me.. and he gives her 2 numbers.. there are 2 meds they mix together.. a highly potent narcotic for pain and for putting me into that "twilight" state and another medicine that will help me not to remember anything (I think?).. and then I heard him give her the two numbers. But then tiny nurse no. 2 says, "Are you sure? She'll need at least 120 to 140" and he then said, "Okay, 120 but that's it" and tiny nurse no. 2 says, "That's not going to be enough." and he said, "Shhhh."

Again, at this point, wouldn't you sit up and say "Dude, I agree with tiny nurse no. 2, 120 isn't enough GIMME MORE GODDAMMIT" But.. nooooooo.. I don't say one fakking word.

Now granted, I do not feel or remember him actually putting the cable in. But I DO feel and I DO remember him pushing it past my vocal cords and I DO remember just about shooting 10 feet up in the air when I felt that. I remember trying to say, "THIS HURTS" but I had some kind of plug thing in my mouth that prevented me from biting down on the cable, so it came out more like "cough - cough - gaggggg - cough - cough - OOD! GAHAMMIT!!!" Well that must have pissed off the tiny nurses, because the next thing I know, I've got one on each side gripping my lower JAWFUCKINGBONE and pulling down on it with all of their weight. I wanted to so give them both the evil "curses" eye but they had a towel over my face. How rude is that?

The rest of it went pretty quickly, I'd say the bulk of time during this test is the actual prep and the nurses trying to figure out how to get the computer to work before 'he' gets there "or 'he' will be pissed.". I didn't feel the actual biopsy being taken, thank the baby Jebus. I am also proud to say that I did not projectile vomit at any point of the procedure.

All in all, it wasn't THAT horribly bad.. but it wasn't THAT horribly good either. When it was finished, my friend Cindy (who got to babysit me all day, bless her cotton socks) came in and I could hear him talking to her and then she appeared at my side and the first thing I said was, "they lied to me." and she asked how and I said, "I FELT IT" and tiny nurse no. 1 said, "you did great!" and I'm like, "I'm so Delvecchio cursing you as soon as I can get this death grip off the bed rail." She laughed. Obviously, she has no idea how powerful the Delvecchio curse is. tisk tisk for her.

Recovery was quick, after all I wasn't put to sleep AS PROMISED, so I came outta the fog after 15 min. or so and was allowed to leave. Next stop was a frosty beverage to cool the burning pipes and then back to my house, where we sat and laughed over the whole thing, then we put a movie in and I FINALLY passed out. Always a day late and a dollar short.

Today the mild sore throat is gone, but I'm sporting a rather large face and neck. My cheeks are swollen as if I've been foraging for nuts and my neck is swollen quite like what a bullfrog looks like when he's offering his mating call to the sexy frogette on the next lily pad. That's hott.

So what lessons have I learned from this experience? NEVER trust 2 tiny nurses and ALWAYS wear barbed wire around your neck when going in for a bronchoscopy, so they can't get to your jaw bone. Also? McDreamy or not.. always be prepared to administer the Delvecchio curse and DO NOT get lost in his sexy brown eyes, for he and his minions can be evil.

Oh and I did find out why I couldn't be put under completely (had to do with low blood-ox levels).. and I understand that.. but maybe a lil heads up would have been nice? :P

So anyhoo.. I've vented and I feel better. Back to the low-carb goodies!

I found this recipe on a new blog for me. It's Healthy Indulgences written by Lauren. Lauren has taken so many high carb/high fat/high caloric dessert recipes and turned them into delicious looking low carb/low fat/lower caloric desserts that have just astounded me. So much so that I went and bought those alternative natural sugars and flours that I mentioned above. No more white sugar or regular all purpose flour for me! But I am not ready, quite yet (soon though.. very soon! hee!), to bake a dessert. I want to stay with my fruits and sugar free pudding for a bit longer. So when I found this vegetable recipe that was suppose to taste just like shrimp fried rice, I couldn't resist!

And seriously, this stuff rocks. I'm not just saying it to make myself believe that CAULIFLOWER can taste like rice - it can! Actually it was better than the last batch of carry-out fried rice we had. It was super easy and super quick to put together and it's definitely going to stay on rotation often.

Give it a whirl! Recipe is below with my minor changes, basically out of necessity than anything else. Thanks so much, Lauren! I'm looking forward to this being the first of many recipes from your blog that I will be enjoying in the future - guilt free! :)

Shrimp Fried "Rice"
Adapted from this recipe by Lauren at Healthy Indulgences

Makes 3 servings

Ingredients:

2 heapings cups of grated fresh cauliflower
2 tablespoons coconut oil (any cooking oil is fine) - I used EVOO
1/2 cup sugar snap pea pods - I omitted these and used diced zucchini instead
1/3 cup onion, chopped
4 tablespoons wheat-free tamari or soy sauce - I used low-sodium soy sauce
1/4 teaspoon sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
dash of garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1-4 oz can of baby shrimp, or protein of choice
1/4 cup of green peas - I upped the amount to 1/2 c. since we like peas
1 cup of sliced baby portobello mushrooms since I needed to use them up! Not in original recipe
2 eggs, beaten
green onion, for garnish (optional)

Preparation:

Grate cauliflower using a fine cheese grater. Heat up pan with 1 tablespoon of coconut oil. Mix together sesame oil, tamari, and seasonings in a bowl. Sautee onions (I also threw in the zucchini & mushrooms at this stage) for 3 minutes (I went for about 5 minutes to give the zucchini & mushrooms good coloring) over medium heat, or until translucent. Remove from pan and set aside. Sauté sugar snap peas until tender. Add more oil if necessary and all of the cauliflower, stir frying for a couple of minutes. Pour in 1/2 of the soy sauce mixture and stir fry to coat the cauliflower evenly. When the cauliflower is tender (this didn't take long at all.. maybe 4-5 min.), add cooked vegetables, shrimp, and peas along with the rest of the soy sauce mixture. Push "rice" to the side of the pan and scramble eggs on the other side, moving spatula quickly to incorporate eggs with the "rice" mixture.

7 grams net carbs

xoxo

Daring Bakers May 2009 Challenge - Strudel!

2009-05-27T00:00:00.000-04:00

Hey cute people :)

This is going to be short and sweet..

Unfortunately I had another lil hiccup with my health and spent a few days in the hospital this month. I hadn't made my strudel before I went in and now that I'm home again, strudel just isn't in the cards for me.. I'm now on a fat free, low-carb, no salt diet.. so I am really enjoying sugar-free pudding and tomatoes. :P

I suppose after abusing my body for 40 some years, it had to catch up with me, eh? I'm going to get better though.. and will conquer another DB challenge in the future, but ya'll have to forgive me this month. 'kay? :)

Please make sure to check out the blogroll at The Daring Kitchen and go give Linda of make life sweeter and Courtney of Coco Cooks a lil extra loving for picking such a kick-ass challenge! They were both wonderful hostesses this month and we are forever grateful!!

Bake on Gorgeous Daring Baker Type People! :)

xoxo

Ever Thrown a Party and...

2009-05-14T00:00:00.001-04:00

felt like the only one who didn't have a good time?

Gah.

Before I get into it, I guess I've got some apologizing to do.. mainly to myself for being such a slacker. :P The three of yous that still read my blog, did you know that the brand new The Daring Kitchen website has been up and running since March 7th? Yeah.. it has been. And quite swimmingly too! Did you also know that we've got a whole new exciting theme with brand spankin new logos/badges created especially for the Daring Bakers and Cooks?? DID YOU KNOW we have a brand spankin' new addition to the Daring family called The Daring Cooks????

Jebus. I'm like the world's worst mom. I haven't even bragged about what a fabulous new website we have.. I haven't introduced ya'll to my youngest, lil Daring Cooks (she's the lil one at the end.. with the curls, cute eh?) and I haven't been passing out the wallet-sizes for ya'll to carry with you to show off to your own friends and family. Hell, I've even failed to mention that ya'll can own your own merchandise featuring these gorgeous logos and be the ENVY of all that know you!! I'm so ashamed.

This is all true! And today, today is lil Daring Cooks' inaugural introduction to the world! Today, after months and months of awaiting her arrival, she comes to us all fluffy and cheesy.. lightly fried or slightly boiled.. dressed in the most finest of fashion.. look at her positively glow in that clarified butter and glitter with peeps of chopped fresh sage. Why she's absolutely a vision. Isn't she?

I really couldn't be a more proud mom. Honest! :)

Mark this day on your calendars, kids! For every 14th of each month, lil Daring Cooks' will be showin' off her gorgeousness! That's just 2 weeks after her big sis, Daring Bakers' strides down her own red carpet on the 27th of each month!

So what's all of this about not having a good time at your own party? Well.. here's the deal. For our lil Daring Cooks' inaugural bash, Ivonne thought it would be a good thing if she and I hosted. She's the hostess between the two of us, you know? I'm more of the "fill up your drink?" and "let me take your coat" kinda gal, while Ivonne knows exactly what to do to make even a drab venue sparkle and shine with excitement. So I agreed to the hosting thing, but yanno... wasn't exactly all jazz-hands about it.

And the she told me I could pick the recipe!

Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

I never get to pick the recipe! I mean, it's always an option for me, Ivonne never says "we're making this and that's that" but I just am more comfortable setting the table and making sure we've got enough toilet paper, than I am with you know.. choosing the color scheme. yanno? But since I've wanted the Daring Cooks to join with the Daring Bakers for many, many months - ya'll know me by now.. I'm a cook. Not so much a baker. :P Well being able to pick the recipe was just the nicest gift ever. :D

So I headed over to my sagging bookshelves and immediately grabbed The Zuni Café by Judy Rodgers. This book was given to me by my sweet and very talented "sister", Veronica. She said she just knew that I'd like it because we share the same brain. hahaaa! She was right. I LOVE IT! But! I'm kinda scared of it. Go figger. I've wanted to make so many recipes from this book but I'm always afraid I'd mess it up. So I just knew the recipe for the first Daring Cooks' challenge had to be something from The Zuni Café because of all the help and support our members are capable of, surely I'd be able to get through my first Zuni recipe in victory! :)

I chose Zuni Ricotta Gnocchi from pages 221-226. The way Judy describes them, so fluffy and light and bursting with flavor.. and my being a big gnocchi fan, well it was the perfect match!

I asked Ivonne what she thought about the book and she said she owned it as well and loved it very much and as soon as I said "Zuni Ricotta" she chimed in with "GNOCCHI!!" So yes, I believe this was the recipe she wanted to go with as well. hahahaa!

I don't know if a trip to a local Italian chain restaurant clouded my judgement before I had even made my ricotta gnocchi or not. I want to say no, but it really might have.. to my surprise that evening, this restaurant had spinach ricotta gnocchi on the menu. Well you know damn well I had to order it. My first bite was far from spectacular.. my second bite was leaning towards being offensive.. the third bite (and quick spit into my napkin) turned the corner and went full balls to the wall disgust. I couldn't believe these were gnocchi! The texture of sponge. The flavor of well.. mustiness. Does mustiness have a flavor?? It was just a fowl, malodorous taste. One, obviously, descibed better in a smell than a flavor.. if that makes sense? Ugh.

So to say I was a bit apprehensive the day I was going to make my own ricotta gnocchi isn't an exaggeration.

But, surprisingly, everything went really well. I had hung my fresh ricotta cheese in cheesecloth well over 24 hours prior to cooking, so it was nice and dry. My "dough" was as soft as a baby's bottom, yet had some firmness where I could actually handle the lil gnocchi pretty easily. I even made sure to have time to set them in the fridge, as Judy recommended, to gain a little more firmness before boiling my test batch. I had decided beforehand that I wasn't going to get fancy-pants with what I was going to serve them with / in. I wanted them to be the star of that evening's dinner, so they were only getting a small spoonful of my marinara with some grated Locatelli on top. And that was it.

My two lil gnocchi went into the salted boiling water and dove all the way to the bottom.. and then they headed back up to the surface and practically sunned themselves on the gentle waves of the boiling water (ha! didn't know I was poetic, did you?). I had a tiny lil bowl with just a schmear of marinara in it, waiting on the side.. 1 minute.. 2 minutes.. 3 minutes.. DONE! I scooped them out gently and allowed the excess water to drip off, then gently slid them in the tomato sauce.. OHMYGOD they smelled SO GOOD. I was SO FAKKING HAPPY that word "malodorous" didn't even pop to mind!

And then I used my fork to cut one in half.. a lil resistance was met, but that's okay - I'm a lover of the more hearty "toothsome" (God I hate that word) traditional potato dough gnocchi with a lil chew to them. My hopes were high! I took my first bite..

and..

well..

Oh for fucksake. They were horrible. Spongy texture all over again. You see, I don't correlate "light and fluffy" with "spongy and fowl" you know? But apparently, I'm one of the very few that didn't love these gnocchi. From what I've read in our private DC forums, most everyone has enjoyed their gnocchi.. some so much that they've made several batches AND turned them into dessert as well! God bless 'em! :)

This is the only photo taken that day.. after they were formed, before I knew they were spongy and ka-ka. :(

I would love to say I'm going to try these again and this time add a lil flour to the dough.. but nope, oh hells no, I am not going near this recipe again. I am defeated. Okay that's not the right word. The recipe worked fine for me.. they actually did turn out perfect. I just don't like a "light and fluffy" gnocchi. Who knew?

I am happy though that I finally got to make a recipe from The Zuni Cafe cookbook because now I'm rarin' for more. Especially that roasted chicken salad I keep hearing about. *slurp*

Give this recipe a try and let me know what you thought of it.. :)

Zuni Ricotta Gnocchi
Source: From The Zuni Café Cookbook
Yield: Makes 40 to 48 gnocchi (serves 4 to 6)
Prep time: Step 1 will take 24 hours. Steps 2 through 4 will take 1 hour.

Equipment required:
• Sieve
• Cheesecloth or paper towels
• Large mixing bowl
• Rubber spatula
• Tablespoon
• Baking dish or baking sheet
• Wax or parchment paper
• Small pot
• Large skillet
• Large pan or pot (very wide in diameter and at least 2 inches deep)

For the gnocchi:
1 pound fresh ricotta (2 cups)
2 large cold eggs, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
2 or 3 fresh sage leaves, or a few pinches of freshly grated nutmeg, or a few pinches of chopped lemon zest (all optional)
½ ounce Parmigiano-Reggiano, grated (about ¼ cup very lightly packed)
about ¼ teaspoon salt (a little more if using kosher salt)
all-purpose flour for forming the gnocchi

For the gnocchi sauce:
8 tablespoons butter, sliced
2 teaspoons water

Step 1 (the day before you make the gnocchi): Preparing the ricotta.

If the ricotta is too wet, your gnocchi will not form properly. In her cookbook, Judy Rodgers recommends checking the ricotta’s wetness. To test the ricotta, take a teaspoon or so and place it on a paper towel. If you notice a very large ring of dampness forming around the ricotta after a minute or so, then the ricotta is too wet. To remove some of the moisture, line a sieve with cheesecloth or paper towels and place the ricotta in the sieve. Cover it and let it drain for at least 8 hours and up to 24 hours in the refrigerator. Alternatively, you can wrap the ricotta carefully in cheesecloth (2 layers) and suspend it in your refrigerator for 8 to 24 hours with a bowl underneat to catch the water that’s released. Either way, it’s recommended that you do this step the day before you plan on making the gnocchi.

Step 2 (the day you plan on eating the gnocchi): Making the gnocchi dough.

To make great gnocchi, the ricotta has to be fairly smooth. Place the drained ricotta in a large bowl and mash it as best as you can with a rubber spatula or a large spoon (it’s best to use a utensil with some flexibility here). As you mash the ricotta, if you noticed that you can still see curds, then press the ricotta through a strainer to smooth it out as much as possible.

Add the lightly beaten eggs to the mashed ricotta.

Melt the tablespoon of butter. As it melts, add in the sage if you’re using it. If not, just melt the butter and add it to the ricotta mixture.

Add in any flavouring that you’re using (i.e., nutmeg, lemon zest, etc.). If you’re not using any particular flavouring, that’s fine.

Add the Parmigiano-Reggiano and the salt.

Beat all the ingredients together very well. You should end up with a soft and fluffy better with no streaks (everything should be mixed in very well).

Step 3: Forming the gnocchi.

Fill a small pot with water and bring to a boil. When it boils, salt the water generously and keep it at a simmer. You will use this water to test the first gnocchi that you make to ensure that it holds together and that your gnocchi batter isn’t too damp.

In a large, shallow baking dish or on a sheet pan, make a bed of all-purpose flour that’s ½ an inch deep.

With a spatula, scrape the ricotta mixture away from the sides of the bowl and form a large mass in the centre of your bowl.

Using a tablespoon, scoop up about 2 to 3 teaspoons of batter and then holding the spoon at an angle, use your finger tip to gently push the ball of dough from the spoon into the bed of flour.

At this point you can either shake the ban gently to ensure that the flour covers the gnocchi or use your fingers to very gently dust the gnocchi with flour. Gently pick up the gnocchi and cradle it in your hand rolling it to form it in an oval as best as you can, at no point should you squeeze it. What you’re looking for is an oval lump of sorts that’s dusted in flour and plump.

Gently place your gnocchi in the simmering water. It will sink and then bob to the top. From the time that it bobs to the surface, you want to cook the gnocchi until it’s just firm. This could take 3 to 5 minutes.

If you’re gnocchi begins to fall apart, this means that the ricotta cheese was probably still too wet. You can remedy this by beating a teaspoon of egg white into your gnocchi batter. If you’re gnocchi batter was fluffy but the sample comes out heavy, add a teaspoon of beaten egg to the batter and beat that in. Test a second gnocchi to ensure success.

Form the rest of your gnocchi. You can put 4 to 6 gnocchi in the bed of flour at a time. But don’t overcrowd your bed of flour or you may damage your gnocchi as you coat them.

Have a sheet pan ready to rest the formed gnocchi on. Line the sheet pan with wax or parchment paper and dust it with flour.

You can cook the gnocchi right away, however, Judy Rodgers recommends storing them in the refrigerator for an hour prior to cooking to allow them to firm up.

Step 4: Cooking the gnocchi.

Have a large skillet ready to go. Place the butter and water for the sauce in the skillet and set aside.

In the largest pan or pot that you have (make sure it’s wide), bring at least 2 quarts of water to a boil (you can use as much as 3 quarts of water if your pot permits). You need a wide pot or pan so that your gnocchi won’t bump into each other and damage each other.

Once the water is boiling, salt it generously.

Drop the gnocchi into the water one by one. Once they float to the top, cook them for 3 to 5 minutes (as in the case with the test gnocchi).

When the gnocchi float to the top, you can start your sauce while you wait for them to finish cooking.

Place the skillet over medium heat and melt the butter. Swirl it gently a few times as it melts. As soon as it melts and is incorporated with the water, turn off the heat. Your gnocchi should be cooked by now.

With a slotted spoon, remove the gnocchi from the boiling water and gently drop into the butter sauce. Carefully roll in the sauce until coated. Serve immediately.

*If you don’t want to cook your gnocchi right away or if you don’t want to cook all of them, you can make them and freeze them. Once they are formed and resting on the flour-dusted, lined tray, place them uncovered in the freezer. Leave them for several hours to freeze. Once frozen, place them in a plastic bag. Remove the air and seal the bag. Return to the freezer. To cook frozen gnocchi, remove them from the bag and place individually on a plate or on a tray. Place in the refrigerator to thaw completely. Cook as directed for fresh gnocchi.

Here is a photo of the ingredients I used to make Chicken Cacciatore the following weekend.. see the plate? That's the batch of DELICIOUS potato dough gnocchi I made to go with the chicken. *slurp* :P

xoxo

An Infamous Cheesecake Indeed...

2009-04-26T23:11:00.006-04:00

***I wrote this last night and figured I'd post today once I took some photos of the the 2 new varieties I made yesterday, but with the way my day is already started, who the heck knows when I'll get home to take photos - so I'm posting right now and ya'll just have to come back again to see the CAKE FROM HELL and the 2 new varieties. MUAHAHAHAHAA!***

Yesterday, I made a cheesecake. It was going to be a GLORIOUS cheesecake. One to be envied from every inhabitant of Cheesecake Land. I thought about this cake for a MONTH before even shopping for ingredients. I made LISTS people. I might have even sketched the cake it all of its MAGNIFICENCE. What a true beauty she would be.

I was so proud of what I hadn't even started yet. I was PSYCHED. I was watching what the other members were showing off on our private forums and I was left breathless each time.. the creativity of their cakes was AWESOME. But still.. I kinda chuckled to myself thinking "Wait until they see MINE. They're gonna CRAP." Oh yeah, full to the gills with cockiness I was. MUAHAHAHAA!

And in true Lisa form..

Allow me to present to you - the first Official Kitchen Disaster of 2009. *sigh*

Oops.. first.. gotta take care of bidnezz. ;)

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

Okay disaster or not - this is now my go-to cheesecake recipe. I've never had such a creamy cheesecake.. to die for, kids.. simply to die for. I said this before and I'll say it again.. HUGE pat on the back for Abbey for tweaking this recipe until she found cheesecake perfection.. and an equally HUGE hug for Jenny for bringing us this recipe. Bless both of yas cotton socks. ;)

So there.. there you go - now it's documented, stamped, triplicated and carved in granite - LISA screwed this recipe up. LISA managed to take the perfect cheesecake recipe and totally noobed it right into the circular file cabinet. LISA is a cheesecake MURDERER.

My favorite commercially made ice cream is Haagen Dazs Caramel Cone. You've got your sinfully rich caramel ice cream.. you've got a salty caramel ribbon running through it.. you've got chocolate covered sugar cone pieces throughout.. it's so good I could just BATHE in it. As a matter of fact, when the day comes that I stop breathing.. I'd like to be buried, completely submerged, in Caramel Cone ice cream.

HEY YOU PEOPLE THAT LIVE IN MY NECK OF THE WOODS.. DON'T YOU DARE! GO BUY THIS ICE CREAM. IF I GO TO BUY IT AND IT'S SOLD OUT I WILL HUNT! YOU! DOWN! AND! BEAT! YOU! ABOUT! THE! HEAD! AND! SHOULDERS! WITH! MY! HUSBAND'S! DIRTY! TUBE! SOCKS!

***crickets***

So yeah.. what was I saying? RIGHT! I wanted to recreate my favorite ice cream flavor into a cheesecake. Caramel cheesecake, with a salted caramel ribbon running through it.. but instead of the chocolate covered sugar cones throughout, I thought they'd make a smashing presentation by crushing them up to wee lil pieces and then sticking them to the outside of the entire cake. Maybe even bring it up as a ring around the very top of the cake to use as a "dam" for a salted caramel "pool" on top.

ARE YOU FUCKING DYING WITH THE ENVY YET??? Are ya'll writing this down?? Can you even imagine a more STUPENDOUS cheesecake EVER?? OHMYGOD.

Figuring out how to make a caramel cheesecake was easy.. sub brown sugar for the white sugar the recipe called for. Easy. But if you're LISA you can't settle for easy so you start the Googling. And you read 1 (ONE) recipe that used DARK brown sugar and the author of the recipe said it was even more caramel-y than using light brown sugar so you are like.. OHYES! I WILL use DARK brown sugar for a more caramel-y cheesecake flavor! SQUEEEEEE! And you even tell a friend what you are going to and the friend will write back in a very supportive and just as excited way and say that the cheesecake will taste like "salted molasses" and she even DROOLED. And all I comprehended was the DROOL and how excited she was for my soon-to-be TRIUMPHANT cheesecake!!!!

Salted molasses? One word. Eww. Unfortch for me, that I didn't figure out that lil gem until after my cake was baked.

But even before that!! I had to make a caramel ribbon, right?? I had tried once before a long time ago, by using a very thick caramel sauce - but it baked into the cake and gave it a nice caramel flavor, but didn't give me the liquidy/fluidy ribbon I was hoping for. So my lovely friend suggested maybe making a batch of soft caramel.. rolling it into a rope and then arranging it over half the batter, topping with the rest of the batter and then another rope on top of that.. surely the caramel will cook and get melty and form a ribbon. And I'm sure she is right, but this batter is extremely thin, so there's no way it would have held the weight of the caramel rope, they just would have sank to the bottom. :(

I got to Googling again.. and my search parameters brought up a commercial cheesecake store in Wyoming (I think?) who had described one of their cheesecakes with a caramel ribbon running through it.. but when I realized it was a site to BUY their cakes and not a site for recipes, I back buttoned to see what else the Googling brought to me.. it was slim fuckin' pickins, lemme tell ya. So in my DESPERATION, I went back to the cheesecake sellin' site and found their contact page and PLEADED with them to tell me the secret to getting a ribbon of caramel throughout a cheesecake. I PLEADED. I'm sure when they read it they thought I had gone batshit crazy to be asking them instead of PLACING AN ORDER like every SANE person would be doing with that contact form. (they never did write me back.. imagine.)

I said screw it. We don't need no stinkin caramel ribbon. Instead I will make a rich, luxurious, salted caramel sauce. And I shall spoon that sweet/salty nectar over the crust of my cheesecake and then I will put that pool of pure heaven on the top of my cake and I will still get the flavors of my beloved ice cream.

(Do you think I chucked this idea after I made the caramel sauce using golden syrup (following the recipe from November's Golden Caramels) that might have been bad because the caramel sauce had a chemically ass-like taste to it? Read on, naive people.. read on...)

Well OF COURSE the caramel sauce baked into the crust!! OF COURSE IT DID. Because that's what fakkin happens. It's SENSIBLE. LOGICAL. RESPONSIBLE. PRACTICAL. And the baking Gods wouldn't be JOYFULLY. PLAYFULLY. WATCHING ME.

Nor would they be laughing and pointing at me. Fuckers.

And finally.. my genius idea of the chocolate covered sugar cone bits hugging my DELICIOUS cheesecake did not work out either. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? I thought I was making a wise decision by going to a very popular chain ice cream store and purchasing their chocolate covered wafer cones. They were cheap, and it would be more convenient than buying a box of regular sugar cones and dipping them in chocolate myself, right?

Wrong.

Wafer cones, apparently, are way different from sugar cones. And anyone with ONE eye would know this. They obviously don't even look the same. But this did not stop Lisa. Oh hells no. I bought several of those wafer cones and didn't even taste one until after the cake was ready for them.. They were hideous. Gaggable. They were wrong. First the cone was so fake vanilla tasting that I did gag. I really am not a vanilla fan.. lil vanilla here and there I'm okay with.. permeated through whatever a wafer cone is made of is just wrong. And the chocolate the cone is dipped in? Not chocolate, my friends. Oh noooo.. it's that chocolate flavored substance that leaves a waxy mouth feel if you eat it. My guess is they also use this substance as some kind of water-proofing mastic for basements and rooftops. Shame on you Popular Ice Cream Chain! Shame on you for cutting corners on your wafer cones! I have never ate your ice cream and I will NEVER eat your ice cream now. SHAME ON YOU! And also, I'd like my $4.35 back please.

So said wafer cones hit the garbage can tout de suite.

But I still needed something for the "dam" damnit. After checking out cupboards and pantries.. nothing jumped out at me, so I grabbed more graham crackers.. crushed 'em up and made a ring around the top of the cake, then half-assed spreading them on the outside edges just because I had so much left. I then poured the noxious caramel sauce on top. And then I watched the noxious caramel sauce break through the graham cracker dam and slide down the side of the cake, over the edge of the plate an onto my counter top. I just about imploded at that point.

I picked up the plate, used my finger to wipe off as much of the sauce as I could, then just FLINGING it in the direction of my sink because I DIDN'T CARE ANYMORE and threw the fuckin' thing in the fridge. Even after all of this, I had hoped that the flavors would meld and mellow out after a long chill.

Yeah no.. that didn't happen either. The one and only TRUE THING that I did WRONG with this cake is to NOT look at it and scream "YOU ARE NOT A MILLION DOLLARS" because for everything I thought was right about the cake, was so pitifully wrong that SURELY had I screamed those words it would have magically turned into a huge fucking pile of $100 bills.

GOOD DAY PEOPLE. GOOD DAY.

xoxo

I made a boatload of mini's.. the first one is for Hubbs.. plain with a simple blueberry & orange compote on top (fakker wouldn't thicken for me like it usually does)

And for moi! Orange cheesecake with a seriously thick layer of semi-sweet chocolate poured over it. *slurp*

xoxo

Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna

2009-03-27T05:52:00.017-04:00

So many new discoveries this month.. let's count!

1- I CAN post more than once a month! I can!
2- Someone's bad karma CAN bite them in the ass eventually! (No, not me :P)
3- I can live on Totino's Pizza Rolls when I absolutely have to!
4- I'm the ONLY Daring Baker who couldn't wait for her lasagne to set up before slicing!
5- Who knew Hubbs would put the kibosh on green noodles??
6- Indoor plumbing is VERY! IMPORTANT!

Okay I'll stop on that last one.. yes, major plumbing issues this month.. and a husband who REFUSED to call a plumber because "I CAN FIX THIS". Two 100 foot plumbers' snake rentals, 3 wax rings and about eleventy billion loads of sopping wet towels later - we have working drains and faucets and toilets and showers and we didn't have to call a plumber.

Now ask me if I've started to hit the bottle around mid-morning snack time. :P

Cooking dinner without working plumbing isn't easy either.. and this is how I found out I could eat pizza rolls 3 nights in a row, where previously they would make me gag. Maybe I didn't gag because the only energy I had left at pizza roll eating time was swallowing.

So needless to say, the Daring Bakers challenge was put off, yet again, until the last week of the month. We were supposed to make it last weekend, but Super Plumber reckoned he deserved a weekend off to play with his brother, and Ivonne and I decided it was high time to get some unfinished The Daring Kitchen website business taken care of. So that left no room for lasagne as planned. But, we figured, this wouldn't be a big deal as there are two of us and only 1 lasagne to make. Should be a piece of cake! Mmmm hmmm....

First off, let me insert the information for this month's challenge:

The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.

Our lovely hostesses only had one thing to say.. we must make our own pasta sheets from scratch! HAR! Dough! Me! *thud* To say I was a little nervous going into this is truly an understatement. Dough hates me. Seriously, I could screw up a simple pizza dough, believe me. And they want me to make pasta dough? Flavored pasta dough? The kind you have to roll out MANUALLY?? *eek* Oh yeah, Hubbs didn't have a chance of getting outta this one. Even if we had made it over the weekend with all the time in the world, he still didn't have a chance.

Okay well, back to two of us and only 1 lasagne. We figured we'd make the pasta dough and the ragu on Monday night and then make the bechamel and assemble, bake and eat the lasagne on Tuesday night. BAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA! Here's what happened..

Monday it rained, and Hubbs didn't have to work - so I asked if he'd mind making the ragu because that would save us so much time once I got home. We'd only have to make the pasta. Easy Peasy! He agreed.. and he made a mighty fine ragu in my opinion. His opinion.. slightly different.. he didn't feel that it was worth the 3 hours he put into it. When I got home from my 8 in the dungeon, we were to make the pasta dough - BUT - he had decided to surprise me! He made the dough while the ragu was simmering on the stove, bless his reinforced toe tube socks!

Problem was.. and I tried not to giggle, point and stare.. honest. I tried. But his "ball of dough" laying on the counter resembled something that most likely died of a really bad case of the shingles. The thing had scales. And lumps. It was kind of the shape of a ball.. like maybe a rubber ball that's sat in the sun for years and was just flaking apart when the wind hit it just right? I should mention, we did NOT make the spinach flavored dough as requested by our lovely hostesses. No, I'm sorry, but he will not eat spinach pasta. HATES IT. And since I'm not the biggest lasagne fan - I love it! But it's just too rich of a dish for me.. we eat it maybe twice a year, maybe - I really wanted to make a lasagne that he'd eat. So in discussing it the week prior, we decided that we'd take the unbelievably delicious slow roasted tomatoes made from the last of our tomatoes at the end of summer last year, thaw 'em out, puree them and use that in lieu of the spinach. Since the recipe called for 10 oz. of spinach and since spinach is so light, we figured 5 oz. of the pureed tomatoes would work. Apparently not. :) Not enough liquid to keep that dough ball baby alive. Jebus, it's death must have been painful.. poor guy.

So I made the pasta dough this time.. and I upped the amount of slow roasted tomato puree to about 8 oz. and threw in 2 tablespoons of EVOO. Perfection! OHMYGOD I MADE PASTA DOUGH and it didn't give me the big F!U! in return for my efforts! I'm grinning from ear to ear right now, and this happened several days ago! teeeee!

So I started kneading.. and kneading.. when I realized I should be taking photos! Yes Photos! I'm a blogger after all! This is for my blog! "Ohhhh honeyyyy.. can you take over the kneading so I can photograph it??" Muahahahahaahaha And that he did:

We decided to let the dough rest until after we'd had dinner - I think he had micro-waveable creamed beef on toast and I had a hot dog? Something.. might have been cereal.. no wait.. yeah, it was pizza rolls. *sigh* And after our nutritious and very low sodium dinners, we said screw the pasta and watched Two and a Half Men.

The next day after work, we came home and rolled the pasta. No wait.. when I say "we" I really mean "he" - I had to be super photographer again, doncha know? It took him approximately 2.5 hours to roll that dough out to what we thought was paper thin. He went in sections.. very small sections.. and my job was to take pretty pictures and to hang the sheets (I use that term loosely) over our kitchen table chairs. Here, look for yourselves:

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA! All I could do that night was think about Silence of the Lambs.. remember how the serial killer would take pieces parts of his victims' skin and sew them together to form a mask? Holy cow he would have peed himself had he waltzed into our kitchen! Look at this one! It's got the eyes and mouth hole already built in!!

By the time rolling was done, we looked at each other and again said, "screw it". He ate the pizza rolls and I had cereal that night. I think I watched a few Ellen shows I had tivo'd.

Now we're on day THREE. And come hell or high water, we were going to eat this bitch TONIGHT. We were DONE dammit. So I started the bechamel (which neither of us wanted, but I had already cheated with the tomato flavored dough so I couldn't make any other changes without the possibility of the Daring Lynch Mob coming after me), and he put the water on to boil and heated the ragu. 20 minutes into it, we realized that our noodles WEREN'T paper thin and wow.. they were kinda thicker than we thought. So imagine the two of us standing in the middle of our kitchen holding up steamy fakkin hot strips o'noodles debating on whether or not we could see each other through them. "I can see you plain as day! Quit moving", "I didn't move". "oh.. maybe I'm looking at Chloe then?" "Well I can see you!", "Yeah, well I don't doubt it as you've got both eyes open and I'm about 140 times wider than that strip of pasta."

Ahhh.. newlywed love. Can you feel it?

ANYHOO.. we assembled the lasagne and gently covered the pan with foil.. slid her into the hot oven and listened to our stomachs growl for about an hour. At this time, the lasagne was finished and looking wonderful - smelling even better. I should have waited a while for it to cool down a bit and set up, but I truly thought I'd be signing divorce papers had I not cut that baby tout de suite. I mean the man was standing over me with a fork in one hand and a glass of milk in the other. ;)

So I cut.. and it oozed a lil.. and then I slid my favorite fish flippin' spatula underneath and slowly lifted a piece of what smelled like heaven.. and then.. *sploooooge* It totally slid apart and I barely got it on the plate:

This did not deter us from eating it right then and there. And let me tell ya'll.. I am SOOOOOOOOOOOO happy we didn't fall from the recipe a second time - the bechamel was divine with the lasagne. OMG SO GOOD. The ragu was delish, the pasta had a lovely texture, although we couldn't really taste it's flavor with it being buried under all that other stuff.. but all in all, the judges gave this lasagne a 10. No longer will I ever make the heavy lasagne I grew up on.. this will now be my go-to lasagne with maybe just a few small alterations here and there to cut some time.. but nothing major because I wouldn't want to lose that flavor and lightness it had.

Thanks so much for a great experience and a new go-to recipe, Mary, Enza & Melinda!!

xoxo