Updates and a few recipes

I've been abusing my blog, I know. I've been kinda out of it for a few weeks. First with the injured toe then just dealing with some personal stuff, plus having family over for Thanksgiving, not enough sleep, selling at another show (more aout that later), and completing an order for 360 cookies in 3 days (more about that later, too)-I lost it a bit. Me and Laurel have been in full Mad Baker Woman mode. Finally stuff is slowing down, even though it's just for a few days, haha.

Next up, buy presents for my parental units, pack a box off to Kon overseas, possibly another box to my friend Tami, make plans to take over the world, finish cleaning the house, bake more, eat more, cook more, help get Christmas stuff out, deck the halls, train seahorses to jump through a ring of fire for my school's talent show.....

Ok yeah, that last part was just to make sure you were paying attention. I'm pretty sure college doesn't have talent shows! What a ridiculous statement of me to make.

Anyways. A few weeks ago I made these.....
The original recipe was Pumpkin Butterscotch Chip Cookies, but we don't ever use butterscotch chips, so I used chocolate chips instead. They were weird cookies, foreign to me in texture and consistency. They were like...tiny cakes almost. They were full of air and so light it was like eating a meringue or something, only with a much more rich flavor. Yes I know, enough blabbing, on to the recipe:

Pumpkin Chocolate-Chip Cookies
2 C unbleached AP flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
2 large eggs
1 C sugar
1/2 C canola or corn oil
1 C canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 C chocolate chips (or buttersotch...or prolly really any kind of chip)

Heat the oven to 325 F. Line your baking sheets with parchament. Stir the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon together in a bowl. Set aside. In a large mixer bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until smooth and lightened in color. Stop the mixer and scrape the sides when needed. On low speed, mix in the oil, pumpkin, and vanilla until blended. Mix in the flour mixture. Stir in the chips. Using an ice cream scoop, scoop mounds of dough onto the prepared sheets, about 2 1/2 inchs apart. Bake eat sheet until the tops feel firm and a toothpick inserted in the centers comes out dry, about 16 minutes. Cool on baking sheets for 5 minutes then let them cool on a wire rack completely.

AND THEN! Last Monday I also made these.....
Jumbo black-bottom macaroons. Oh jeeze, these were prolly the best cookies I've had in a looooooooong time. They were by far the best macaroons I've ever had. The natural sweetness of the coconut and the mild crunch the toasty-ness on top mixed with the chocolate is such a brilliant combination, I wish I could meet the person who invented these and hug them. The only changes I made, I didn't have almond, so I just added extra vanilla.

Jumbo Black-bottom Macaroons
2 2/3 C shredded sweet coconut
1/2 C sweetened condensed milk
1/8 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp almond extract
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg white
pinch of cream of tartar
1 tbs sugar

9 oz. semisweet chocolate
1 tbs canola or corn oil

Heat oven to 350 F. Line a baking sheet with parchament paper. In a large bowl, stir the coconut, condensed milk, salt, almond extract, and vanilla extract. Set aside. In an impeccably clean bowl, beat the egg white with the cream of tartar until the tartar is dissolved. Beat on medium-high until soft peaks form. Beat in the sugar. Fold half of the whites into the coconut mixture, then fold in the rest. Using an ice cream scoop, scoop large mounds of the batter onto prepared pan, spacing about 2 inches apart. Bake until the bottoms and tips of the cookies are light brown, about 17 minutes. Cool the cookies on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, then cool completely on a wire rack. For the chocolate coating: put the chocolate and oil in a small saucepan. Over medium-low heat, stir until melted and smooth. Remove from heat and let sit for about 10 minutes to let it thicken slightly. Dip bottom half of cooled cookies into the chocolate, and place on a cooling rack positioned over a cookie sheet to drip. Let the chocolate set on the cookies for 2-3 hours, or until firm.

Oh and both these recipes came from my Big Fat Cookie cookbook. Great book, btw.

That's all for now. I hope you are all doing well, and haven't suffered much without me :)

By the way, I wasn't kidding about that conquering the world thing.

~lacey
"Food is good. Food is great. I like food when it's on my plate." -Randy Ragan

Alright, alright!

Who knows if any of you have noticed, but I have been out of it for close to three weeks now. I can offer my petty excuses, in hopes that you may forgive me for my absence, but I don't blame you if you cast me out forever. But if you do cast me out forever, remember this, someday you will wake up one morning and think to yourself, "What have I done?! Oh, God, what have I done?!"

Ok so maybe you won't be that dramatic about it. But here ya go.

I mentioned in posts way back, that my sister and I have been planning to sell fudge at an upcoming Christmas art show. Well, that was my first reason for my lack of postage, between school and getting things ready for the show, I had no time to cook anything else, or anything I felt like blogging about.

On Friday I was on a fudge making frenzy, as I had no school that day and the next day was the show. So I was getting the last batches of fudge made, and some other things in order. Well! I was so hyped up on sugar and the beat of the White Stripes was running through me, and as I went out to the pantry to get more cans of sweetened condensed milk, I, for some stupid reason unknown to me now, decided to try to carry about 10 cans of it in a stack in my arms back to the house. I phailed horribly. The cans fell out of my arms, down, down, down, and at least three of them landed on my second toe on my left foot. I spewed forth less than friendly words, and when I finally was able to gather the cans up and hobble inside, limping all the way, I realized one of the cans had a huge dent in it from the force of impact. Whether the dent appeared before or after it fell, or actually as it hit my toe, I do not know. I was in massive pain, that's all I knew.

To make a long story short, I ended up in the ER that night around midnight, because the pain never stopped, only intensified...I got some x-rays, which was kinda cool, (I would go into more detail, but it has nothing to do with food, so I'm trying to stay somewhat on subject of...fudge?) but they said I had no broken bones. Although, they did say I had a cautusion, which, really, is just a fancy word for bruise, but it's more impressive to call it a cautusion ;)

I became immobilized and couldn't walk for a few days, due to the severe pain of it all. Sure I may sound like a wussy, but I read somewhere that men have a higher tolerance for pain than women, with the one exception of childbirth, so I'll wait until I'm having a baby to show my real endurance :)

So...where was I going with this....oh yes. I ended up not being able to go to the show, unless I wanted to scare our customers away with grimaces and much wincing-type faces. So I opted out and let my sister handle it. She did excellent, and it was a huge hit. We made quite a nice profit, considering it was our first time selling our goods. I ended up with a wounded toe, but a pretty cool story, if I have time for details, plus the show was a success. Heck, at least 5 people told my sister our fudge tasted better than a local famous candy shop... :D

Anyways, theres my reason for my negligance to you all. I've been watching all your blogs still, and reading up on everything, just haven't made the effort to comment. I'll get back into it soon. Especially with Thanksgiving coming up.

I'm thinking of making an apple pie tomorrow...

That's all.

~lacey
"No man in the world has more courage than the man who can stop after eating one peanut."
-Channing Pollock

Oh, P.S. I recieved the Kreative Blogger award from Patsy over at Family, Friends, and Food. Thanks so much! I will pass it on as soon as I can, and when it's not 20 minutes until midnight. Sweet dreams, readers.

DB Challege: Pizza

Last month I joined the Daring Bakers group, and our challenge this month was pizza's. I've made pizza numerous times, but I was up to try a new recipe. Our hostess this month also requested that we toss the dough when making it. Some years back, when I was working in the kitchen at a Christian camp for the weekend, my friends Buck and Dana and my sister April taught me how to toss. Well after I went home I never practiced again so I lost all touch with my inner pizza-tossing expertise.
I made the pizzas twice, each time making the recipe into two pizzas. We used Peter Reinhart's recipe from “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice”. I liked the recipe, though it was kind of alot of bother to me. I'm not much of a big planner when it comes to food. I like waiting for inspiration to hit, and making the dish as soon as possible, usually the same day if I have the ingredients. So I wasn't a big fan of waiting for it to rest in the fridge over night. But I was patient, for once, and it did turn out good.
The first time I made it, I made them into goat cheese-sun dried tomato-carmelized onion pizza. That's one of my favorite combinations to do and I liked the way it turned out with the crust. I didn't get nearly as many pics when making the first batch, but the one i made later on I got lots of snaps.
Here's the goat cheese-sun dried tomato-carmelized onion pizza
The second time I made it, I made a chicken alfredo pizza...without the chicken. I'm vegetarian so I used tofu. Tasty.
I phailed at tossing decently the first time, but the second time was better. I managed to get a photo.
I'm not sure why, but I laughed quite a bit at this picture afterward. my eye looks so bored. hahaha
Anyways. Here's the dough when it was resting
And here's some toppings, red bell, spinach, tofu, eagerly awaiting to be put on the pizza and baked to death. Oh and my big-ass chef's knife.
Here's the alfredo pizza, ready to be baked
And here's the finished alfredo pizza
So for my first challenge, things went well. I make pizza all the time, but never mind that. I probably won't use this recipe again just because I didn't like the wait...but don't take my word for it. Or do. Either way, makes no difference to me!

BASIC PIZZA DOUGH
Original recipe taken from “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice” by Peter Reinhart.
Makes 6 pizza crusts (about 9-12 inches/23-30 cm in diameter).
Ingredients:
4 1/2 Cups (20 1/4 ounces/607.5 g) Unbleached high-gluten (%14) bread flour or all purpose flour, chilled
1 3/4 Tsp Salt
1 Tsp Instant yeast
1/4 Cup (2 ounces/60g) Olive oil or vegetable oil (both optional, but it’s better with)
1 3/4 Cups (14 ounces/420g or 420ml) Water, ice cold (40° F/4.5° C)
1 Tb sugar
Semolina/durum flour or cornmeal for dusting
DAY ONE
Method:
1. Mix together the flour, salt and instant yeast in a big bowl (or in the bowl of your stand mixer).
2. Add the oil, sugar and cold water and mix well (with the help of a large wooden spoon or with the paddle attachment, on low speed) in order to form a sticky ball of dough. On a clean surface, knead for about 5-7 minutes, until the dough is smooth and the ingredients are homogeneously distributed. If it is too wet, add a little flour (not too much, though) and if it is too dry add 1 or 2 teaspoons extra water.
NOTE: If you are using an electric mixer, switch to the dough hook and mix on medium speed for the same amount of time.The dough should clear the sides of the bowl but stick to the bottom of the bowl. If the dough is too wet, sprinkle in a little more flour, so that it clears the sides. If, on the contrary, it clears the bottom of the bowl, dribble in a teaspoon or two of cold water.
The finished dough should be springy, elastic, and sticky, not just tacky, and register 50°-55° F/10°-13° C.
3. Flour a work surface or counter. Line a jelly pan with baking paper/parchment. Lightly oil the paper.
4. With the help of a metal or plastic dough scraper, cut the dough into 6 equal pieces (or larger if you want to make larger pizzas).
NOTE: To avoid the dough from sticking to the scraper, dip the scraper into water between cuts.
5. Sprinkle some flour over the dough. Make sure your hands are dry and then flour them. Gently round each piece into a ball.
NOTE: If the dough sticks to your hands, then dip your hands into the flour again.
6. Transfer the dough balls to the lined jelly pan and mist them generously with spray oil. Slip the pan into plastic bag or enclose in plastic food wrap.
7. Put the pan into the refrigerator and let the dough rest overnight or for up to thee days.
NOTE: You can store the dough balls in a zippered freezer bag if you want to save some of the dough for any future baking. In that case, pour some oil(a few tablespooons only) in a medium bowl and dip each dough ball into the oil, so that it is completely covered in oil. Then put each ball into a separate bag. Store the bags in the freezer for no longer than 3 months. The day before you plan to make pizza, remember to transfer the dough balls from the freezer to the refrigerator.
DAY TWO
8. On the day you plan to eat pizza, exactly 2 hours before you make it, remove the desired number of dough balls from the refrigerator. Dust the counter with flour and spray lightly with oil. Place the dough balls on a floured surface and sprinkle them with flour. Dust your hands with flour and delicately press the dough into disks about 1/2 inch/1.3 cm thick and 5 inches/12.7 cm in diameter. Sprinkle with flour and mist with oil. Loosely cover the dough rounds with plastic wrap and then allow to rest for 2 hours.
9. At least 45 minutes before making the pizza, place a baking stone on the lower third of the oven. Preheat the oven as hot as possible (500° F/260° C).
NOTE: If you do not have a baking stone, then use the back of a jelly pan. Do not preheat the pan.
10. Generously sprinkle the back of a jelly pan with semolina/durum flour or cornmeal. Flour your hands (palms, backs and knuckles). Take 1 piece of dough by lifting it with a pastry scraper. Lay the dough across your fists in a very delicate way and carefully stretch it by bouncing it in a circular motion on your hands, and by giving it a little stretch with each bounce. Once the dough has expanded outward, move to a full toss.
NOTE: Make only one pizza at a time.
During the tossing process, if the dough tends to stick to your hands, lay it down on the floured counter and reflour your hands, then continue the tossing and shaping.
In case you would be having trouble tossing the dough or if the dough never wants to expand and always springs back, let it rest for approximately 5-20 minutes in order for the gluten to relax fully,then try again.
You can also resort to using a rolling pin, although it isn’t as effective as the toss method.
11. When the dough has the shape you want (about 9-12 inches/23-30 cm in diameter - for a 6 ounces/180g piece of dough), place it on the back of the jelly pan, making sure there is enough semolina/durum flour or cornmeal to allow it to slide and not stick to the pan.
12. Lightly top it with sweet or savory toppings of your choice.
NOTE: Remember that the best pizzas are topped not too generously. No more than 3 or 4 toppings (including sauce and cheese) are sufficient.
13. Slide the garnished pizza onto the stone in the oven or bake directly on the jelly pan. Close the door and bake for abour 5-8 minutes.
NOTE: After 2 minutes baking, take a peek. For an even baking, rotate 180°.
If the top gets done before the bottom, you will need to move the stone or jelly pane to a lower shelf before the next round. On the contrary, if the bottom crisps before the cheese caramelizes, then you will need to raise the stone or jelly.
14. Take the pizza out of the oven and transfer it to a cutting board or your plate. In order to allow the cheese to set a little, wait 3-5 minutes before slicing or serving.

Oh but I have to admit, I didn't fuss with making sure the ingredients were at said temperatures. Maybe I should have....but I didn't.

Seeya!

~lacey
"Pizza in the morning, pizza in the evening, pizza at suppertime, when pizzas on a bagel, you can eat pizza anytime"
-Cheesy pizza bagel bites TV commercial from when I was a kid

Steph's Cake

Another story! Gather 'round!

Yesterday (Sunday) I was browsing around online, basically wasting time in the form of facebook, when my friend Steph jokingly asked me to make her a cake, (she lives in texas) so I said sure, why not. Obviously, she wouldn't get to eat it, due to the some 2,000 or so miles that lay between us, but I like to torture my friends so I would do it anyways :)

She asked for 'a big fluffy chocolate cake with fluffy caramel filling'. The first thing I thought to myself was, 'How the heck do you make caramel fluffy?!' She said I'm the mad baker woman, figure it out.

I already have an awesome chocolate cake recipe, so I went searching for a caramel filling recipe. I found this recipe, and made the caramel filling, omitting the nuts all together. I also made a chocolate ganache to put over the top, though I didn't have heavy cream so I used half & half instead and it turned out splendidly.
There now, gaze at it's beauty as I finish the story.

I ate the cake. And I told Steph about how she missed it.

The end!

~lacey
"I...wish...I...could...EAT IT!!!!!"
-Steph Ferguson

P.S. The caramel wasn't fluffy. But I called it fluffy to make her happy. And it tasted as if it shouldn't have been fluffy, but it wasn't. Oh well. If anyone knows how to make fluffy caramel, please tell me.

I wrote a recipe

yeP yeP, I did. Story time, kids!

I was browsing around the other night through cookbooks and All Recipes, looking for a muffin recipe. I love muffins. And I wanted to make some. So, as I said, I was looking for a recipe. Nothing sounded that appetizing. Then I got an idea to make either A) some sort of chocolate muffin, or B) some sort of pumpkin muffin (since I had some canned pumpkin in the fridge that needed to be used anyways.) So I looked for more muffin recipes with those ingredients. But, again, everything sounded boring. I started doing some serious soul-searching, deciding what I wanted out of a muffin at that point in time. I looked deep within me, and I realized I wanted a combination of both worlds-delicious chocolatey-goodness, and hints of spicy rich pumpkin.

"But how do I get both in one place, like I'm picturing in my mind? All these recipes are smelly and no-good!"

Well, I was in a picky mood. The recipes didn't really sound all that bad, but I wanted something different.

The only solution? I would write the recipe myself, of course.

So I did. They were much too dry and the outsides were tough the first time around. Also, my family thought the pumpkin flavor wasn't strong enough. Easy enough to fix for a scientist as myself. So I did that too, the next day. And hooray! They are perfect. Exactly what I wanted for my muffin mission. I call them Chocolate Pumpkin Chocolate-Chip Muffins.

They look all chocolate, and you think it's just a double chocolate muffin or some such thing. But the pumpkin flavor is surprising and extraordinarily pleasant.

Now I suppose the only fair thing to do is share the recipe. Not to be stingy, but since I wrote it myself, if anyone makes these, I only ask you give credit where it's due and I'll keep sharing :)

Chocolate Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins
3/4 c. packed brown sugar
1/2 c. vegetable oil
2 eggs
3/4 c. canned pumpkin
1/4 c. milk
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tbs pumpkin pie spice (or more if desired)
1/2 c. cocoa powder
1 c. chocolate chips
Heat oven to 400F. Stir together flour, baking powder & soda, pumpkin pie spice and cocoa. Make a well in the center of the mix. In a separate bowl, mix brown sugar, oil, eggs, pumpkin, milk and vanilla. Pour wet mixture into well and stir until just moistened. Stir in chips. Oil & flour muffin pans, or line with paper cups. Fill each about 2/3 full. Bake in heated oven for about 15 minutes. Makes approximately 18 muffins.

So that's what I've been up to. Now I'm off to ponder the differences between muffins and cupcakes, if there even is a difference....hm.

sayanora!

~lacey
"Muffins are fluffity as they are delicious."
-Randy Ragan

Lasagna soup and Bread

Due to popular demand (riots outside my house, people stalking me through the grocery store, constant knocks on my door, etc.) here's the lasagna soup recipe you all have been pining for. I'll write it out with all the changes my mom made when she made it. I believe the original source is from Paula Deen, on foodnetwork.

Lasagna Soup
1 lb ground beef (we're vegetarians, so we used 1 lb of TVP)
1 onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped (we had red, so we used red!)
3 cloves of garlic, minced
32 oz chicken broth (we just used chicken seasonings, no extra liquid)
28 oz. cans of petite decided tomatoes
15 oz. tomato sauce
1 tbs. packed brown sugar (we left this out. My dad hates sweet meals)
2 tsp. Italian seasoning
1/2 tsp salt
2 c. broken lasagna noodles
5 oz. parmesan cheese
croutons to serve
shredded mozzarella to serve (we used cubed)

In a large dutch oven (or crockpot) combine ground beef, onion, bell pepper and garli; cook over medium-high heat, 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally until beef is browned. Stir in broth, tomatoes, tomato sauce, sugar, Italian seasonings and salt. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat; reduce heat, and simmer for 15 minutes.
Bring a pot of water to boil. Cook lasagna noodles until done. Add to soup.
Stir in parmesan.
Preheat broiler. Ladel soup into 10 ovenproof bowls. Top with croutons; sprinkle evenly with mozzarella. Broil soups, 6 inches from heat, 3-4 minutes, or until cheese is browned and bubbly. Serve immediatly.
(Rather than go the extra mile and do the elaborate soup-broiling goodness, we served the soup in soup bowls and served immediatly with croutons and mozzarella cubes.)

And there you have it. I still don't have pictures, but oh well. I trust everyone to make it well enough to deserve their own pictures, worthy of blogging.

Also! I swiped the recipe for Peanut Butter Banana Bread from Adam's blog-Baking with Dynamite. I woke up a bit sick this morning and decided to bake so I might possibly feel better. So I did. And I do feel better. Especially after eating it.


The only thing I changed, obviously, is I put chocolate chips on top, rather than toasted coconut. It was different for me, following a recipe so much to the T. I usually end up changing it completely, but I managed to refrain this once, after seeing how good his looked. It was worth it.

So that's it. Please, stop the rioting now, and if I find one more note attached to a rock hurled at my house, begging for the soup recipe, I will have to call Moulder and Scully.

seeya.
~lacey

“Good manners: The noise you don't make when you're eating soup.”
-Bennett Cerf

Tomato & Basil Bruschetta

Doesn't bruschetta sound some really fancy dish you'd get at an expensive italian restaurant? Well now that I think of it, it doesn't really sound like that so much anymore...but before I made it, it did sound fancy! Basically what bruschetta is, its a topping to eat on a french bread or other country-type bread as an appetizer. I had been wanting to make some for some time, and a few weeks ago Patsyk at her blog mentioned a recipe she used, and so I really wanted to make it to. so i did!
I just made the traditional tomato-basil bruschetta. And the bread I used was a garlic bread I made, but, as you can tell, I toasted them too long. Oh well, it was tasty nonetheless.
Mom made some lasagna soup for dinner the same night. I didn't get any blog-worthy photos though, because all my family was there and they were impatient to eat. So, oh well. you'll just have to be satisfied with the fact that I'm telling you it was pretty decadent. And lasagna soup is on the menu for class on Tuesday, so I'm curious to see how different each recipe may be. Decadent is a good word, btw.

I don't have much else to say to you right now. So I'll be off to feed the dogs and my dad. Not together, of course :P

~lacey
“Good manners: The noise you don't make when you're eating soup.”
-Bennett Cerf

Whole Wheat Milk Bread

I made some.


see!

And it was delicious. I love making bread, and I usually use some whole wheat flour in them, but this time I did all whole wheat. We ate it with some bean soup my mom made for dinner, and they went together really good. I found the recipe in my mom's Laurel's Kitchen bread book. Well actually it was called "fresh milk bread", but I didn't have fresh milk so I'm calling it whole wheat milk bread. so there!

Fresh Milk Bread
2 c. fresh whole milk
1/4 c. honey
2 tsp. active dry yeast
1/2 c. warm water
6 c. whole wheat bread flour
2 1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. more water
2 tbs. cool butter

Scald the milk and cool to lukewarm. Stir in the honey. Dissolve the yeast into the warm water. In a separate bowl, combine flour and salt. Make a well in the center of mixture. Pour milk mixture and yeast mixture into well. Stir from the center outward, until all the flour is mixed in, making a stiff dough. Knead for about 15 minutes without adding extra flour. Use the extra water on your hands to keep dough from sticking, if necessary. Knead in the butter in bits, and work the dough until it is silky. Form the dough into a ball and let it rise four about an hour and a half. Punch the dough down, then let rise a second time for about 30 minutes. Punch down once again, divide dough into two parts and place in greased loaf pans. Let rise for another 30 minutes. Bake in a 350F oven for about 40 minutes. Cool.

I have a new layout, as I'm sure you've noticed, unless this is the first time seeing my blog, or your eyesight is failing, in which case, you should go see an optometrist right away, just make sure they are not hypnotists in disguise as eye doctors, and if that be the case, I suggest you call a detective right away, just make sure he's not a villain in disguise as well, much like the optometrist.

But I like my new layout, for now. I'm learning xml formatting, so eventually I'll build my own layout when I get more familiar with it. For now, I like this.

Oh and excuse the fact that the quote at the end makes no sense. A friend made it up. And if it takes the rest of my life pondering the deep meaning of it, I'll spend sleepless nights infinite doing just that.

~lacey
"Bread and butter, peanutgutter"
-Konstantinos Georgiadis

Something smells delicious

I don't know what it is, but I'm sitting here looking at food blogs and all of a sudden i can smell a delicious scent coming from the kitchen. I think mom's making soup, which makes me immensely happy. I can't wait to eat it. Maybe i'll go bake some bread to go with it later.

I've been fooling around with creating a new blog layout. But it's different because blogger uses xml or whatever the heck they call it, instead of html. If anybody has experience in building blogs with xml...tell me, I will nag you for help.

Anyways, as you all know, me and Laurel have been experimenting with fudge recipes. Not together, mind you, or else I'd go insane. Last weekend I made pumpkin fudge. It was supposed to be made with white chocolate, but alas, all I had in my pantry was semi-sweet chocolate, which, unless you are a party cup expert, or some other profession not relating to food, or if you are simply ignorant about common types of chocolate, then you will know it is quite different from semi-sweet. For one thing, it's white, and not brown. For another thing, it tastes pretty dang different. And, an interesting thing I've learned, it's really easy for people to mistake white chocolate for just a product coming from a lab. If you don't check the ingredient list on a white chocolate bar or chips, pretty often you will find that there is no cocoa product in it at all, meaning, it's not really chocolate you are eating. BUT! If you are smart, or want to be smart, you will make sure from now on that there is some sort of cocoa in the white chocolate you buy, whether that be cocoa butter, cocoa powder, or cocoa bean.

Anyways, back to the fudge. I decided to just make it anyways and use semi-sweet. After all, pumpkin and regular chocolate do compliment each other splendidly. For the sake of a good photo, I did mis en place (getting ingredients together before starting on making the food). There it is over there, pumpkin, sugar, butter, pumpkin spice, milk, vanilla, and chocolate chips (note that they are brown and not white, since I didn't have any white, remember?) Well, if you look closely, you'll see my brother in the background just turning his head to make some face at me, attempting to mess my photo up. But I made sure he wasn't in focus.

Ok, yet again, back to the fudge. It seems I get side-tracked easily. I made the fudge, cooked it for some time on the stove while I practically burnt my hand off with the heat being so high and little ventilation in our stove-age area. It was fun cooking it, because it got all huge and bubbly, and popping noises came out of the pop, as if I were doing a science experiment. I couldn't resist videoing it. It's pretty lame, but I think it makes it oh-so-mysterious, with Jack White playing in the background to add to the creepiness.....


cool huh? I was fascinated, and always am, when my concoctions make such exciting results when being cooked.

I stirred in the chocolate and dumped the whole thing in a lined pan. It practically set within a good 20 minutes, so I was able to taste it sooner. It was delicious. The pumpkin spices didn't catch your taste buds until several moments after you start munching on it, which makes it a loverly surprise of delicious-ness. It turned out a bit dry. And I will make it again to try to fix that, as well as using white chocolate instead.

btw, I checked, and mom IS making soup. Some sort of bean soup. I'm gonna eat the whole pot.

Also, the quote below is dedicated to a few people who will probably only read this because I make them. I believe this quote to be pretty true. love you guys.

Ok that's all. sayanora.

~lacey

"I doubt whether the world holds for anyone a more soul-stirring surprise than the first adventure with ice cream."
Heywood Broun

Cherry Blossom Fudge: Phail

Well, I've been collecting fudge recipes to experiment with in preparation of the upcoming show in a few months. Here's the ones Laurel and me want to test out so far:

• coffee house fudge
• cherry blossom fudge
• peanut butter fudge
• pumpkin fudge
• christmas maple fudge
• no-cook, never fail fudge
• vanilla fudge
• christmas cranberry fudge
• cookies and cream fudge
• cherry eggnog fudge
• holiday peppermint fudge
• chocolate chip fudge
• mint chocolate fudge
• whoppers fudge
• brown sugar fudge

Keep in mind, these are just for experimenting. We wanna try as many as we can, so we can choose the best recipes we find to sell at the show.
Anyways, I decided to try the coffee house fudge and the cherry blossom fudge this afternoon. They're both chillin out in the fridge right now, but so far the coffee house fudge i believe is gonna be awesome. The cherry one, however, I think is a major phailure. Yes, phailure. A total, complete, hopeless, desolate, catastrophic, abortive, unsuccessful, p-h-a-i-l-u-r-e. Not just failure, no, but a phailure. you get the point.
It turned out all...chunkafied. When I stirred the cherry jello mix in (actually it was raspberry...in my mom's whole drawer full of jello, and yes, she has a jello drawer, there wasn't one cherry jello box. So I used raspberry instead), it turned all chunky and grainy. Then I stirred the butter and chocolate and other ingredients in, but it didn't help. It got all runny on the edges, the rest was a mushy grainy mess. Disgusted, I spread it in the pan and shoved it as far back into the darkest corner of my fridge I could find, so I wouldn't have to look at it's ugly wretchedness next time I opened the fridge. I'll test it later, when I've done crying my eyes out and wailing in utter failure.

Goodbye for now, faithful readers and friends.

~lacey
"Life is short. Eat dessert first."
-Ernestine Ulmer

P.S. I'm not all that dramatic about fudge. I just like to write dramatically to make it more fun for you to read. I've only cried over food like...twice. Ok, thrice maybe...

Uh...bananas?

I won a cookbook from the Chef Talk food forums. "Chez Panisse Cafe Cookbook". As you can see, I was astonished.
Ok, I wasn't really. But a picture of me making a freaky face at a book is funner to see than a boring stock photo of the book, right?
Yesterday I went to wash dishes, and mindlessly pulled out a cookbook and picked out a bread recipe instead. So I baked it. Parmesan pepper bread. Basically, just a basic dough with lots of pepper baked into it, and then roll a ton of parmesan into it and bake it. It was delicious.
I also made an egg-parmesan fusilli dish. I don't like that picture. But oh well, now you can see it. That was delicious, too.


Oh and I made the bananananaas today. Well, I didn't make bananas, but I fried some. I spread chocolate on a pasta wrap, sealed the edges with butter, and rolled each banana half into it. Then I fried it in oil until golden bubbly brown delicious. I drained off the oil, stuck it in some chocolate and drizzled more over it and took pics. Which you are probably now drooling over. They were SO SO SO SO SO GOOD. Dang. Now I want more. I'll go make more.

I was going to show you guys the food pics that I entered in the fair and won awards for, but as stated above, I have to go make more fried bananas before I go insane. So goodnight dear readers, eat well.

~lacey
"Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana."
Groucho Marx

OOHH FUDGE

*giddy*

Guess what! Our local city's Christmas fair changed their rules, and now allow vendors to sell homemade candies at their booths. They didn't allow it before, because the people who put the event on have a food booth for the affair, and wanted all the food business for themselves. But they changed their minds for some reason or another, maybe darth vadar came into their houses at night and threatened to cut their pinkie toes off if they didn't change the rules. If so, I am inviting him to come to the event and receive free fudge from our booth.

Oh, yes. My sister Laurel and me are going to sell fudge. We've no idea what kinds, or what's going on at all, but we have a few months to figure it all out. Laurel's in the kitchen experimenting with a new fudge recipe right now, in fact. And I've got some ideas too for different kinds.

We've been working on mad baker women designs/logos. Well, I mostly do so in class...but hey, we gotta work on them sometime!

I'm also going to make fried bananas. I made them once some years ago and got a champion for them at Food's Day, but I want to make them again. I'll tell you all how it went when it happens.

Oh yeah, fair results.

• I got first place for the cake I decorated, but if you ask me the judging was off by far. There were other cakes in other divisions who recieved lesser awards than what they deserved. Anyways, I concluded again, as which happens every year, that the people judging the cakes have little knowledge on how much work fondant is to use on cakes vs. tip work. They are both a seperate art, but the fondant work tends to get outshined but loads of detailed tip work. oh well *shrugs*
• Also, I recieved Best of Show for my garlic bread, which I wrote myself *proud*
• First place for double chip meringue bars, which surprised me, because I used carob chips in place of the peanut butter chips, and carob is usually frowned on upon by people who don't eat carob. Because they look like chocolate chips, but the taste is entirely different, people usually get the wrong idea about carob. Anyways, I was happy.
• Oh what else. I entered flourless chocolate cake in the All Chocolate Confections contest, and I got 2nd for that. I wish I could have known the recipe that won 1st, but they didn't have it displayed.
• My brioche got 1st. The piece that was brought along with the loaf for display was almost entirely eaten, they liked it so much. haha
• All my food photography got 1st place, and I got two Best of Division awards on my brioche photo and a photo I have of carrots...I'll post them next time.

That's all for now. I know the quote below has absolutely nothing to do with food, but the famous quote from a childhood movie brings back lots of memories. At least it has the word fudge in it! goodbye.

~lacey
"Only I didn't say "Fudge." I said THE word, the big one, the queen-mother of dirty words, the "F-dash-dash-dash" word! "
Ralphie from A Christmas Story

thumbs and cake

I've been baking lots these past few days for teh fair time. I entered in the cake competition, a Christmas cake. These past few weeks I've been getting ideas together in my head, my weird, twisted head, on what I want for my cake. I finally got some ideas together so last weekend I got started on making fondant.
If you don't know what fondant is, it's the stuff they use on professional cakes that makes the cake look obnoxiously gorgeous. The flowers on this cake are made of fondant. You know, that stuff.
Well, turns out you can make your own. Something I discovered earlier this year. I hate the store bought crap because its really hard, extremely expensive for almost no fondant, and it tastes like a melted rubber tire that used to be on a dump truck drove by a fat man in long johns who spit on the tire every time he got in the truck. The stuff you make yourself is obviously cheaper, basically just a bag of marshmallows and a bag of powdered sugar, its really easy to work with, and it tastes scrum-diddly-umptious.
Basically, you melt miniature marshmallows with a SMALL amount of water (i made the mistake of adding too much at one point, but it turned out ok because i blamed Laurel for it :D)
and then stir in your color, and knead a bunch of powdered sugar into it until it looks like that, over there.

Ooohhh yes, and when you are starting to knead, you have to rub shortening into EVERYTHING that's going to touch it. Hands, surface, everything. It's kinda fun. As you can see, the green fondant I made looks ridiculously like nose slime of some sort before I got the sugar worked into it. I loved making the green stuff the most because my family got grossed out when they saw it. Especially when I got it on my hands! weee
After I made the fondant I made dinner that night too. Spaghetti, of course.
But in the process of slicing up onions for the sauce, I sliced up my thumb too. I'm still un-used to using a nicely sharpened knife, even though I've been sharpening regularly since January. When it happened, though, I realized it was the first time I'd cut myself with my new knives. Not that it was a goal, but I'm just saying. Anyways, I cut myself pretty deep, and it bled everywhere. (not on the onions, don't worry). So I made the rest of the meal without my left thumb. Which, I quickly discovered, is very difficult.
I missed my thumb. And all the next day, I baked for about 10 hours for the fair. Brioche, garlic bread, meringue bars, and finishing my cake. Which was alot of work. And it was all slowed down majorly by the loss of the use of my thumb. You know, you can never truly appreciate how much your thumb means to you until you can't use it and you have a million things to do in the kitchen in a certain time span. You know what's especially difficult? Cracking eggs. I had to crack a billion of them and it was so annoying when I couldn't stab my thumbs into it to pull it apart. I can't wait to have my thumb healed. I'll never take my thumb for granted again!
And so, I'd like to interrupt my cake rant to give you this, my appreciation for thumbs everywhere.

AN ODE TO THUMB
The sun was high
The day big in it's might
I looked at my hands
And saw such a sight

Not an index!
Not a pointer!
But a short, fat, opposoble mover!

My thumb
My thumb
How I love my dear sweet thumb

I curse the day
That terrible day
The knife, it slipped
It slipped in the way

My thumb!
My thumb!
Now I run and scream and yell!

My thumb!
My thumb!
Will I ever be able to chop that big green pepper bell?!

One day
One sweet, glorious day
My thumb will heal
It will heal all the way

I can strum!
I can run!
I can move my opposable thumb!

I tell you reader
Never forsake
Never forget
The importance of that finger
The importance of the thumb

So, what do you think?
I know, it was probably the most pathetic piece of poetry you've read in a long time. But I'm not emo, so I can't write this stuff. I just insist on doing so anyways for your pleasure.
Ok, back to the food.
I started assembling my cake on Monday, since it was due at the building on Tuesday. I made it with just a crappy box mix, since it isn't a taste competition, only the looks matter (funny, that sounds similar to the human race). Then I rolled out the fondant and started cutting the pieces and pasting them on the cake. It was a little awkward trying to position the strips on the cake, in order to have them align just right, but I got it sorted out eventually. (I've no idea why part of that sentence is underlined, but I don't care enough to fix it, so oh well.) Then I started the top layer, cutting the strips and applying them horizontally. Then I rolled out a red sheet for the top and fixed up all the seams and stuff. I had also rolled out
some white fondant and cut stars out with a cutter. Then I covered them with some fancy gold powder stuff I found at the store. I set them out to dry for a day or so. Then I put an extremely goofy movie on, (i like cartoons. shoosh.) got some school glue, and constructed a top piece for my cake out of the stars.
Eventually I put it all together and got this:



I rather like it.
This is one of my longest posts yet, so enjoy it. Also, I added a "Followers" gadget, so if you'd like to follow me, it's located at the bottom of my page. Sounds a little creepy. But do it!

More posts and pics later. I'm off to clean the dirt out my thumb wound.

~lacey
"A compromise is the art of dividing a cake in such a way that everyone believes he has the biggest piece."
Ludwig Erhard

im tired of titles

yeP, I am tired of them.

Anyways, after hanging out with some friends this morning for a few hours, I came home and decided to bake.

SO! i made cupcakes. I didn't have a good yellow cake recipe yet, so i decided to try a recipe from the joy of cooking called "1-2-3-4 Yellow Cake". Now, I've made a cake recipe before called "1-2-3 White Cake" and basically it was called that because there was something like 1 egg, 2 cups of flour, and 3 cups of sugar (of course these weren't the actual ingredients, because then the cake would probably be pretty nasty, 2 cups of flour to THREE cups of sugar?! Anyways, you get the idea of how these kind of recipes work..) But as I was inspecting the yellow cake recipe, it became very apparent to me that the writers of this recipe had no idea what they were doing when they named it "1-2-3-4 Yellow Cake". I say this because there was no sort of numerical order to the ingredients, like you would suppose there to be by the title. Just a bunch of normal sounding measurements, 1 1/2 c. flour, 1 2/3 c. sugar, a tsp. vanilla, etc etc etc. Well I'll stop boring you with details only a fellow baker would enjoy reading :P

i made the recipe anyways, despite the obvious flaws in the title writing process...they turned out pretty good. Kinda weird as cupcakes, I think it would have made a better whole cake instead of cupcakes, but nevertheless they were good. I made some basic butter and sugar white frosting and colored them and fed them to my neices and nephews. They informed me that they were glad i made two boy colors and two girl colors, orange and blue, and pink and purple. I didn't do it on purpose, but hey it was a pretty smart subconscious thing, huh?...I guess.

I also made a real quick pasta salad to go with our Labor day BBQ. I cooked some elbow macaroni (naturally i made way too much) and tossed in some diced tomatoes, olive oil, dried oregano, garlic powder, a bit of salt, tons of black pepper and a mountain of fresh chopped basil. The basil gave it a huge kick, it was delicious.

Well I put both pics because I just wanted to show off... :)

That's it for now. Next week I'll be baking a bunch more for the food competitions in the fair...so I'll have lots of results from that for you guys to read eventually. Annnd if I make anything in the meantime, I'll tell you all about it eventually, because I know how much you rely on my posts to keep your taste buds working. Well that doesn't make sense really because you cant eat this stuff...oh well.

Goodnight!

~lacey
"Life is a combination of magic and pasta."
Fellini

bread and stuff

Last week my nephews and neices came over and we made some lemon bread. I don't remember what it was called...but anyways it turned out pretty good. It was a bit dense but still had a really good texture. When you get it out of the oven you pour a lemon glaze over it, which soaks into the bread as it cools and makes it really moist and gives it a good strong citrus flavor. The kids had fun making it. I was trying to teach my 8 yr old nephew how to crack eggs...he like to try to just stick his thumbs in it and hope it cracks open right. Of course it doesn't and egg shell is all over the place...haha...but it was cool, they are learning. And my neice got angry because there were only two eggs to crack and she insisted I let her do one. But I didn't. I'm a bad auntie.

Oh and I'm baking more brioche...I got my sister to buy me some butter, so I made some more. It's in the kitchen rising right now. I'll bake it soon and eat the whole loaf. hah!

Oh btw I took pictures of the lemon bread but they turned out ugly. So I won't show you.

On the subject of school, I have a computers class and a nutrition class. I already know most everything they are teaching so I get bored. But I have to have those classes if I want the dang certificate. So I'll still do them. And the homework...which I need to do now...before Tuesday...bleh. Well Mr. Pachutto usually has some good stories, so at least that is a bit interesting. And we start lab next week in nutrition, so we'll see how that goes.....

I was going to bake again the other night, after making that lemon bread, but for one reason or another I just didn't. And I didn't sleep well that night either because of it. I suppose that's the reason why I decided to make brioche, to satisfy the fact that I didn't bake the night before. I wonder if I talked in my sleep that night, like I usually do when I don't bake when I say I will.

well shoot. This is a boring post because I don't have any pictures. I will bake more and more this week and make a blog with pictures sometime soon. I'll go bake my bread. You go....do..something. goodbye.

~lacey

"There are people in this world that are so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread."
~Mahatma Ghandi

Oooooh boy

There's a new kid on the block, folks. My new baby nephew, Brock Thompson Nickell, was born last Friday night at 11:51 pm ( go to http://www.thenickells.net to see pics :D) Mom and baby are doing awesome :) He is a cool little kid. My sister, Heathyrre, and my brother-in-law, Isaiah, are going to be great parents. I'm so excited for them. It's still really weird for me to know that my sister has her own baby now.....

Unfortunately, with the start up of school last week, I've been pretty busy getting papers and other boring stuff sorted out and I haven't had a whole lot of time to do much in the kitchen. I did make some chow mein a few weeks ago, which turned out pretty much mouth-watering. I have a few pics to share of that, chopping onions over there <--- and the finish product in our wok down there. The recipe I used, (I actually used one this time!) was a mock recipe for *official* panda express chow mein, but, in my opinion, it tasted better than their stuff ;) I made egg rolls too, but the pictures I took of them turned out crappy because my lighting was leaving me and I was too lazy to set the ott light up. So I'll just have to trust your imagination to conjure up an image of the best tasting egg rolls you can imagine ever eating, along with the best sweet and sour sauce you've ever eaten as well. Your probably wondering whats the deal with the Chinese food. And, unless you are an old hermit who lives in the mountains or possibly a deserted island somewhere off the coast of Bora Bora, you will probably assume it's because of the recent Olympic games that are held in China this year. Well congratulations, you are correct. Watching all those Chinese people all over the tv made me want to eat their food, so I made some myself. Smart, huh? I made some tomato-basil bread on Friday night, when I was too antsy over the current baby situation to do anything but bake. It was delicious (of course!) but I've realized my recipe needs some perfecting. The bread is a bit too dense and I need to fix that....somehow. As far as school goes, I got two classes out of three that I wanted to take. Computer concepts and Cooking for a Healthy Lifestyle. I must say, the computer class is pretty boring so far, but my teacher, Mr. Pachutto, seems cool. Plus! His name is really fun to say. Say it, Pah-chew-toe! yipee. My nutrition class is actually a bit boring so far too...I don't mean to be vain, but I already know everything being covered in the class so far. I can't wait until our lab days start though, and we get to actually cook. My sister Laurel finally got herself a culinary blog set up, ( allnaturalbakerwoman.blogspot.com ) go see it too! I added her and some other blogs and websites to some lists on the right, so you can check them out anytime you like. Ok I think that's it for now. I will write again soon, because baking competition is coming up for our county fair, which is coming up in a few weeks. Hm. I don't know why, but this link won't stop linking itself. STOP! Eeep! It's like a never-ending link that's following me, watching everything I type and think!!! RUN RUN!!!! AIIYEEEE!!!!

Oh phew. All I had to do was insert a new paragraph. That was a bit frightening.

And I'm off! *whoosh*

~lacey

"I always wondered why babies spent so much time sucking their thumbs. Then I tasted baby food."
~Robert Orben

pizza sauce or spaghetti sauce?

What's the difference between pizza sauce and spaghetti sauce? It's a question I've been questioning my innermost culinary mastermind for some months now, and last night I finally decided to do something about it, since I couldn't think of anything myself that sounded legitimate enough.

The answer is this: traditional pizza sauce is made smooth, and has more spices and herbs than spaghetti sauce. The simplest sauce for pizza you could make is tomato sauce, garlic, basil, and oregano. Spaghetti sauce can be made with big chunks of tomato, or smooth, but usually has vegetables or italian sausage added to it, along with the traditional herbs and spices used in most italian cooking.

So there. With my curiosity finally satisfied, I decided to make spaghetti, food sent from heaven above, with a new recipe. When I watched the food movie No Reservations last night and saw aaron eckhart eating spaghetti, I couldn't wait any longer and I decided to make some.
Well ok, that's a lie, I went and happily slept for 9 hours, ate breakfast, did some stuff around the house, then I made it. So really I did wait much longer than I wanted, but who cares, I made it eventually.

I didn't make the spaghetti from scratch this time, because I was just focusing on the sauce itself. But! I will next time, I promise. I started out with some roughly chopped onions cooking in some olive oil in the skillet, along with some fresh Gilroy garlic. I added a can of tomato sauce, and a can of chopped cooked tomatoes and let those hang out for awhile and get to know eachother. Then I threw some otehr good stuff in, steamed chopped carrots, mushrooms, fresh basil, fresh oregano, pepper, and a few other things. I simmered it up and meanwhile cooked some whole wheat spaghetti. I threw them all together in a bowl and tossed on some fresh parmesan, and there ya go. Man it was gooooood. One of the best bowls of spaghetti I've had in my life. I wish you all could have eaten it too.

I had also been wanting to try a new bread, something other than my oh-so-good garlic bread that I love so much, so I brought out our trusty Joy of Cooking book, and picked out a bread. I decided to make brioche, which I'd never even heard of before, but the book made it sound pretty dang good. I'm not even sure, but I think it might be italian bread? Sounds like it anyways. I had actually started making the bread to go with the spaghetti, but I was stupid and once again didn't read my bread recipe all the way through to see how long it needed to rise and all that jazz. I thought it'd just be a standard 3 hr. rise in all, but no! After rising for an hour and a half, you had to let it chill out in the fridge for 4-12 hours! Well I was already half-way into making it, so I figured on having it with dinner instead. I was skeptical when I saw how sticky and wet the dough was, but the book warned to avoid the temptation of adding extra flour, so I pushed my doubts aside and stuck it in the fridge. After waiting 5 excruciating hours filled with anticipation, anxiety, and out-right constipation of thoughts reeling in my head about this bread, I was pleasently surprised to find that chilling the dough took the stickyness out of it and firmed it up quite a bit. I divided it into four balls, stuck them side-by-side in a bread pan like kids on a rollercoaster, and baked it in our oven (have I mentioned that oven is brand-spanking new and I love it?) It wasn't done when the book said it would be (how dare they!) so I baked it for 20 minutes longer. Of course my timing was perfect *wins*. I took some pics while it cooled and finally cut it open when I couldn't stand it anymore. It was amazing. SO good. It was unbelevably light, a slight sweetness on the edge, an extremely pleasent flaky crust, and filled with an overall irresistable butteryness that melted in your mouth. I had some with butter on it, but honestly, the rich butter taste to the bread was more than enough. It was truly inspiring. We ended up just eating the loaf for dinner, there's just 3 measly slices left. My brother said it was so delicious, it should be illegal. He was right. It IS illegal. Dudes, if you haven't had brioche before, I command you as your favorite mad baker woman to eat some before your day is over, even if it means baking it yourself. Ask, I WILL give you the recipe. I want everyone to have this.

I'm sorry. I know I ramble about all this, but I still have more to say, so keep going :D

*ahem*

So the first thing we made in our new oven were oven sandwiches, made with fresh tomatoes from our garden, fresh sweet basil, also from our garden, some cheddar, olive oil, salt and pepper. Oh and they were made on my mom's sandwich bread which is always delicious. We used our brand-new broiler INSIDE the oven, not under it! :D It was exciting. Hm. Now that I'm writing this I realize that I already wrote about these. Oh well, you get to see pics this time around.

I suppose I should update you all in the status of Laurel and I's bakery-opening is coming along. Laurel and I's...is that real grammer? *shrugs*

Laurel is going for her small business degree still at College of the Sequias, she's got a few semesters left still, two I think. I was planning on doing the same, but I haven't fully made up my mind yet. I might just go for a certificate in business, which would be a two-semester program (versus the four-semester program of a degree). I would have no problem going for the degree...if I were a different person. I am not a school person. I like it just fine and all, but it's really not my cup of tea. I'm grateful for it and the things I've learned, without it I'd be even more hopeless at subjects like maths...ecchh...but I really don't want to spend any extra un-needed time there. Laurel is awesome. She excells in school and revels in it. That's a good thing too, or else neither of us would have any idea what we were doing with the business aspect of owning a bakery :P

Anyways, I'm taking a few classes this fall at COS, hopefully I can still get all the ones I wanted before they fill...we'll see. I'm going to see a counselor, which is pointless if you ask me, so he can tell me the classes I need to take to get what I want. Which is dumb because I know what I want. But I can't register until I see one. Blah. So yeah that's Wednesday, which is also when I'm taking my placement test, which I'm NOT excited about. But whatev.

That's enough talk about non-food related subjects! I'm off to sleep...eventually..not yet...but soon...to have dreams of illegal brioche and whatever else my freaky mind decides to make me dream. Sleep well, whoever you are reading this, and leave me comments dudes.

~lacey

"Oh, God above, if heaven has a taste it must be an egg with butter and salt, and after the egg is there anything in the world lovelier than fresh warm bread and a mug of sweet golden tea?"
Frank McCourt-Angela's Ashes

flour-less chocolate cake

I hate to start this blog out with a pathetic crappy picture of something so awesome as flour-less chocolate cake, but what can I say? I had plans to take good pictures of it before we ate it, but april had to go so she took bites out of it with her fork and ran. I could have protested until I had some good shots, but by that time the mint was already hopelessly wilted and the powdered sugar was starting to dissolve, and it was 12 am, so I didn't care much anymore. All I wanted was a slice of that cake.

Now, unless you've eaten flour-less chocolate cake yourself before, you have no idea what you are missing out on. It's probably the richest, most chocolatey-est, wonderfully sweet and pleasureful confection you can ever ever eat. The picture does it no justice. "That's pure sin on a plate, that's what that is," as my brother-in-law described it. It's just unbelievable. I want to bake each of you a flour-less chocolate cake sometime in your life. I will do it.

The newest exciting news around the house-we got a new oveeeeeeeennnnnnn!!!!!!! :D:D:D:D:D See how much I looooooooove it. It's beautiful. I love it. Our old oven was a complete mess. It
served us very well while we had it, but it's time had passed a long time ago. When they delivered our new one on tuesday, me and mom spent at least 10 minutes marveling at how well the door opened and closed without a sound (our old oven only opened about halfway, and not without a tired old screech ringing throughout the house. And it never closed all the way either which made it impossible to heat up in a decent amount of time...all the while heating the kitchen up as well from the escaping hot air to about a million degrees) I'm so happy with our new oven. It has a broiler on the inside! That may seem old-hat to you guys, but our old oven had a broiler built into the bottom, which was impossible to use because no decent sized pan would fit into it, and every time it was opened it dropped tons of burnt up charcoal and turn our floor black right under it. In fact, the dude that came out to look at our oven said they don't even make ovens with broilers like that anymore. hah.

So anyways, we had oven sandwiches in it last night. Nothing fancy really, just tomatoes, cheddar, olive oil, basil, garlic. I was able to switch the oven light on and look through the window to see if they were done yet! (yeah...our old oven had no light and no window on the front... :D)

I'll be off now to bake some bread or something. I wanted to make olive bread, but we have no olives, so that won't work. I'm going to try a new recipe. I don't know what yet, but I'll find something.

goodbye.

~lacey


“A cook, when I dine, seems to me a divine being, who from the depths of his kitchen rules the human race. One considers him as a minister of heaven, because his kitchen is a temple, in which his ovens are the altar.”
~Marc Antoine Désaugiers

this and that

yeP, my blog has a few new things. I created a new image thingy for that space up there ^, whatever you want to call it. Now you can see my chef's knife, whisk, wooden spoon, and BASS (big ass silver spoon). I'm working on a few other things I may put in my layout, but for now this is it.

Last tuesday I made those pizzas I mentioned. They were pretty good. And I took pics, but they turned out kinda crappy, so I won't show you. One of the pizzas had artichoke hearts, parmesan, cheddar cheese, and thyme. The other had mushrooms and mozzarella. I mad a tomato sauce for both of them too, and the crust was a recipe I made up myself awhile back.

On saturday I made a bunch of stuff. After getting requests from family to bake more blueberry muffins and ship them their way, I made another batch and a half. I filled them up much fuller this time and they got nice and big. They don't look nearly as good in the pic as they do in rl...guess that's the price you must pay for reading my blog. Poor you. They taste excellent, too. My dad got one that was almost all blueberry, while, naturally, the one I ate had like one in it >:|

Oh yes, then I baked some peanut butter peanut chocolate chip cookies. They are like a peanut butter chocolate chip cookie with peanuts in them. Obviously, from the title you know that. Unless your slow, in which case I'll say it again, the cookies I made were peanut butter cookies with chocolate chips and peanuts in them. I hate 4, so I won't say it again. I made the cookies huge man-sized cookies, or at least I thought they would be, but they didn't spread out as much as I thought they would, so they were more like skinny-man cookies. hm. I don't like skinny men. But the cookies were awesome.

Also for dinner I made baked ziti, which is an italian dish. Basically just ziti noodles baked with mushrooms, tomato sauce, cheese, and some other stuff. I wish I had baked garlic in with it, but I didn't think of it until it was too late. But it was good anyways. Not so great as some people said it would've been, but it was good.

oh and I made garlic bread again to go with it. Only this time I added some sharp cheddar in with the dough, which ended up melting and blending with the dough so you couldn't really tell anyways. But it made it a whole lot more moist, verging on dense. And I noticed having cheese in the dough makes it break a whole lot easier. I baked it with cheese on the top too which was excellent. I've noticed each time I make this bread I tend to put more and more garlic each time. Which is great, because I love garlic. Theres a garlic plant in a town nearby, and every time we'd drive by when I was a kid I'd inhale it as much as I could, while my siblings all stared at me like I was a weirdo. hah! I know, the pic is crappy, but it was getting late in the day and all my natural light was leaving me. *grumbles*

I just made some truffles too, by the way. They are chillin in the fridge right now before I roll them into balls and coat em in cocoa. Someone gave the recipe out on the cheftalk forums, so I thought I'd try it because they said they were easy chocolate truffles that everyone loved. It only took three ingredients. Chocolate, sweetened condensed milk, and vanilla. We don't have any sweetened condensed milk at the moment, so I made some myself (isin't that always the easiest fix? for me anyways :D) So yeP, next time I'll tell how they turned out.

OH! I just remembered. I'm sure I've mentioned how stupid our oven is...if not, I'll just say it's pretty bad. You can't open or close the door all the way, and because of that it takes a million hours to heat up, and the handles for the stove are so worn down you can't touch them unless you burn your hand off. So we've got the dude coming to fix it tomorrow. But heres the thing, if he can't fix it (pray he cant) we get a brand new stove free. I'm tempted to go bang it up somehow so that he really can't fix it for sure. I really hope he can't. That'd be so cool to get a new oven! *giddy*

That's it for now. I'm tired of sitting here. I'll go check on the truffles and think of something else to make.

~lacey

"A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand"
-Unknown