Yes, I really am crazy

What do you do during a thunderstorm? Do you shutter the windows, turn up the TV, curl up on the couch with a cup of tea and a throw and get cozy? I certainly don't. I grabbed an umbrella, ran down the block to the lake (yes, I live just a minute away), found a nice spot amongst the rocks and started snapping pictures. Now I know that waving an umbrella around when there's flash after flash of spectacular lightning displays is not a good idea, but I was counting on the trees behind me to take the hit should something come close enough to strike. Half hour later I finally figured out the approximate camera settings that would at least give me half a chance to catch an arc or two. An hour later I was soaked and my arms were getting numb, but I did manage to catch this one picture. It's not perfect, in fact it's far from it, but I was absolutely ecstatic when I looked through my pictures and saw this one amongst a sea of completely black or blurry smears. Next time I'm hoping I'll get the hang of things faster and come away with better results, but in the mean time I'm going to curl up on the couch in front of the TV with a nice hot cup of tea, a cozy bathrobe and one of these Chocolate Toffee muffins left over from this weekend's baking spree and pretend that I've been there all along, just like any other sane person.


These are the result of a spruced up Friendship Bread recipe. Once you have the basic recipe that gets passed along with the starter down pat, you'll want to experiment. I spent a whole weekend with a friend tinkering and while we came up with some great options, the Chocolate Toffee muffins were the best. I sent most of the muffins we made down to my sister to share with her always hungry college friends and I think they said it best when they called them "Crack Muffins."

New Oven's First Days on the Job

Sometime in the afternoon this past Friday my brand new oven came, along with a brand new (working) dishwasher. After the preliminary formalities were dispensed with (letting the oven run for an hour to clean the sealant and vent the chemical smells), I put it straight to work. Since I was still on the clock for my paying job, the most I could do was to get a head start on some Dulce de Leche that I'd be using later that day. It's the easiest thing in the world to make. You peel the label off of a can of condensed milk, put the can in a large pot and fill it with water so that the can is completely covered. Put the pot on the stove, bring to a boil and maintain a rapid boil for the next 2-3 hours depending on how firm you need the yummy spread to be. Don't forget to check on it every half hour or so and top off with boiling water as needed to keep the can submerged and be sure to allow the can to come to room temp on it's own once you're done. Don't plunge it in cold water or you might end up cleaning this stuff off from your kitchen ceiling. Should you have the patience to do this, you will end up with a can of golden creamy custard you can mix into frostings or eat with a spoon...or both :)

Once I finally wrapped everything up at work and walked into the kitchen, it was time to really roll up my sleeves. I whipped up a batch of Lemon Curd (my most favorite thing ever) using a variation of the recipe I pulled from an old Gourmet magazine, similar to this one and while that was cooling, I really got to work. You see, on Saturday I had some people coming over for a cake tasting. I've had this in my date book for months and the original plan was to spread the baking over a few days, but ofcourse no one could have predicted my oven breaking, so everything needed to be done that night. I had four cakes to make and only a few hours in which to make them. I cranked up some music, pulled out all the ingredients and got to work. In no time at all I had the lemon cake layers done. I later whipped some of the fresh lemon curd into Swiss Meringue Buttercream (SMB), sprinkled some yellow sugar on top so I'd know which one it was and you can see it in the picture below. The decorations on these were minimal due to a lack of time, but it was the flavors that were really important, so I wasn't too worried.



Then came the layers for the Parrot cake below. It's obviously not made of parrots, that would be morbid and cruel. It's a carrot cake where I replaced carrots with shredded pears. Doing this adds wonderful flavor and tons of moisture to the cake. Top that with honey and lemon spiked cream cheese frosting and it's definitely on my top 5 cakes list.



Next up was a new recipe for a White Chocolate cake, which I made some extra big layers of for my nephew's birthday cake on Sunday. These will later be filled with white chocolate ganache and fresh blackberries, then topped with the same lemon curd flavored SMB frosting I made for the lemon cake. I will make a few small adjustments to this recipe, but all in all it was very good:



And last but certainly not least was this Apple Spice cake topped with the by now cooled Dulce de Leche mixed into the SMB frosting. This one, I think would have been great without any frosting at all. In fact I made cupcakes from the leftover batter and if I don't take them to work tomorrow, I'll be tempted to finish them all off myself and ruin the non-existent diet that I'm supposed to be on.



Sometime around midnight I ran out of eggs. Woops. The last stores around me closed at midnight, so I changed out of my "cooking clothes" and took off in search of a 24 hour Jewel or Dominicks, which I luckily found and was back in my kitchen just a short hour later! Yikes, next time I'll need to really plan better! Finally, at the early hour of 4:30, having cleaned up as much as I had the strength to of the kitchen mess, I collapsed into bed and caught a few hours of sleep, picking things up again when I woke up a few hours later. The house cleaned (sort of), the table set, and the pictures taken, I was about to start making actual food to serve, when my friend called saying that she'd be arriving early...or would have if she hadn't gotten lost. After giving her some directions I gave up on attempting any more cooking. She was coming with her mom and her sister and they would be bringing sandwiches and bubbly, so if you really think about it, that and the cakes is more than enough for lunch. I think the tasting went well and we all had fun trying the different cakes and chatting. In the end they picked the white chocolate blackberry cake with the lemon frosting...and Katie, I wrote your decision in this blog, so you can't change your mind later!

Once they left, I loaded the dishwasher (I LOVE this thing! I have no idea how I got along without it all these years) and went to take a nap...which ended up lasting 4 hours. If you think baking was done for the weekend, you'd be wrong. I still had my nephew's birthday cake to finish. And not just any old cake, it had to be Curious George themed! I drove out to Target and WalMart, hoping I could just find some Curious George toys to put on top, but strangely there was nothing. He's adorable, why aren't there more toys with this cute monkey? I went back home empty handed and after scouring my pantry, I decided to just draw his face out of white and dark chocolate. I printed up a template, melted some chocolate and I think that considering that I haven't done this in years, it came out great! I filled and frosted the 2 tiered cake with a bright yellow frosting, topped it with the chocolate George and some festive sprinkles and was shocked to see that it was again the middle of the night, 3am. Time just runs away from me these days. Thank goodness I'm a night person.



I think the oven and I deserve a break. I promise not to bake anything for at least 24 hours....oh darn, I forgot to feed my friendship bread. I guess I'll go do that before turning in for the night. Sweet dreams :)

Goodbye Old Friend

Tonight, I have the sad privilege of saying goodbye to my dear and faithful friend of three and a half years, my oven. She passed away late last night halfway through a batch of what would have been wonderful chocolate toffee breads, but what instead ended up in sad pans of half baked goo. It is tragic that after so many years of faithful service she could not complete this one last task. After a frantic attempt to revive her has failed, I promptly called in the troops (my dad), headed to ABT, and after a thorough round of interviews and a small amount of detailed paperwork my shiny newly adopted baby oven will arrive at my doorstep sometime this Friday. I know the old girl would want me to move on. I know that I can't give her the proper farewell she deserves, but seeing as how I can't live without her I had to find a replacement immediately. Though, the memory of the many late nights we spent together will stay in my heart (and the arteries of my friends) forever.

Inter-office Cake War

This may not look like the best thing I've ever done, but it will taste amazing and totally serve it's purpose. A few days ago our office in Chicago got an email from our company's office in Vegas with a picture of a store bought (Dairy Queen) ice cream cake vaguely resembling our company logo with a subtitle of "Aren't you jealous Chicago?" Now this was entirely unnecessary. I bring baked goods to work all the time, as do a few of my other co-workers, and never have any of us tried to rub their noses in it, or at the very least not with something so...what's a nice word for ugly? I'm not being mean, I'm just quoting a coworker that after looking at the picture of their sad cake said "That's the ugliest heart I've ever seen". Our logo is a skewed target. I felt it was absolutely necessary to retaliate so I sent a reply email declaring war. Me against them and Dairy Queen. Hence this comely little cake. She's got three moist chocolate cake layers swirled with cheesecake, filled with a luscious toffee buttercream, and lovingly wrapped in decadent chocolate cheesecake frosting. And that's where my luck ran out. Summer has finally reached Chicago, and as the warmth permeated my small condo all my icing attempts absolutely refused to set. I finally gave up and did the best I could, hence the runny appearance of the writing. A few more days like this and I'll be forced to turn the air conditioning on. The look and feel of my cakes depend on it. For now I'll leave you with these words: "Victory shall STILL be mine!"

Eat-N-Shoot

Today I did something a bit different. Inspired by my own laziness when it comes to studying photography from a book or cooking lunch on the weekends, I signed up for an Eat-N-Shoot class through a Photography Meetup group that I have recently joined. It was hosted by Chef Naveen of Rasoi. He invites small groups of people into his home and throws a party where you can take pictures, help him cook and meet new people interested in the same stuff as you. It was a blast. Its funny how technique and creativity will develop almost on it's own when you're forced to take a bazillion pictures every minute of everything that goes on around you. Or when you're NOT forced to do the dishes :)


I will share one of the recipes at the end of this post because it was the perfect thing to make for a crowd. The Lemongrass Shrimp was absolutely delicious, easy and very flexible and doesn't it look pretty?

We also made the super easy Spring rolls. Pretty much it's just julienned carrots and cucumbers, bean sprouts, cilantro, minced ginger marinaded in some sesame oil and chili sauce mixed with some blanched asparagus and wrapped in a spring roll wrapper. So easy, so fast, so healthy but still absolutely delicious.



There was also some tandoori style chicken, chicken kebabs, and yummy yellow rice, but by that time I was really getting into the picture taking craze and I didn't pay as much attention to the recipes, which was fine since he gave us handouts to take home, so I'll be making these again for the next dinner party I throw...when I am not insanely busy that is.


Did I mention how wonderful it was not to worry about doing the dishes?



Lemongrass Shrimp recipe, by Naveen Sachar of Rasoi

1lb raw shrimp, tail on, peeled and deveined
1 medium onion, sliced
2-3 tbs fresh cilantro, chopped
1-1.5 cups chicken broth
1/2 inch piece fresh ginger, minced
4 inch piece of cleaned lemongrass stalk, sliced
1 fresh lime cut into wedges
Thai Chili sauce, to taste
Fish sauce, a few tsps
Freshly ground pepper

You will need to cook everything in batches to make sure that the shrimp cook properly.
Bring 1/3 cup of stock to a rapid boil in a hot wok. Add 1 tbsp of the lemongrass, some of the chopped onion and some of the ginger and bring to a boil again.
Add about 10 shrimp, chili sauce, fish sauce and pepper. Cook for 2-3 min until the shrimp is cooked through and remove onto serving platter. Repeat till all the ingredients are gone.
Squeeze lime juice, garnish with cilantro and serve with sliced bread for soaking up all the wonderful juices.
Yum.