margarita cake

I made a cake to take to a party, a margarita cake, to be exact. I was so excited to use the bundt pan. I mean, wouldn't you be? I used this recipe, except I used lemon pudding instead of vanilla and lime juice instead of lemon juice.

Unfortunately, I used Pam instead of the grease and flour, and disaster ensued. The cake came out of the pan in more pieces than it should have. (One piece would have been good.) I considered making another one, but then I decided to squoosh it into a Tupperware bowl (gah! don't you love vintage Tupperware!?), add the glaze and serve it with a spoon.

It would be cool to chop it up in chunks and put in in a huge margarita glass for serving. I don't actually have one of those, but maybe next time. Also, I think if I made it again I think I would use Cointreau instead of triple sec - better flavor. I could also see using Chambord in the glaze and making it a raspberry margarita.

more fruit

When you have no blog topic, you blog dinner. So, this is fresh pear, orange, pineapple and mango. Yay!

The accompanying soup, which I do not have a photo of, was leftover chicken (which was just white meat chicken tenders baked under a layer of sweet salsa, which I do have a photo of), broth, sweet corn, black beans, and a bit of chili powder. I would have added cumin, except apparently I don't have any. How is that possible?  

And now I have to go watch some TV so I have something to blog about.

juice!

3 oranges, 1 apple, 1 pear, 1 mango, a handful of cranberries, a little white grape juice and ice

hit the "whole juice" setting on the super blender

juice!

lazy

This is what peanut blossom cookies look like when you're too lazy to roll the dough into balls and instead use the much quicker but also much less aesthetically pleasing spoon and plop method.

I want spices

I want one of each thing in this shop.

Don't these salts look awesome and fun?

Hey, mom, are you reading this? We need these salts :)

life is just a bowl of, you know

I made this.

Cherries again this year, lots of them, about 300. They are supertasty and will be even better in another few weeks. I think the dollar store tins are adorable and really great deal. I used all Wilbur chocolate this year, milk and dark. I've got a bunch more things to make before Christmas, but some are perishable and need to wait until closer to the time. Some edible stuff, some not. I'm looking forward to making time to make things!

See the whole set of photos at flickr.

xmas foods

My neighbor and I made peanut clusters and caramel apples while we were snowed in on Saturday. Had a great time!

Here are the apples wrapped. I didn't have any popsicle sticks, so we used plastic spoons with the spoon part broken off.

Then we did our wrapping. Behold the mess!

Then came Sunday and shoveling...

cherries!

Today was chocolate-covered cherries day. So much fun!


Maraschino cherries - 8 big jars of them - drying out



Goop - butter, corn syrup, juice from the jars of cherries and LOOOOOTS of powdered sugar


Cherries wrapped in goop


Cherries dipped in chocolate - dark chocolate mix of Wilbur dark and Ghirardelli bittersweet


Cherries dipped in Wilbur milk chocolate

Lotsa lotsa cherries - 242 to be exact...

Now they just gotta sit around for a few weeks so the goop can goopify.

vegetables are pretty

chocolate banana peanut smoothie recipe

I didn't take a photo of this one - picture light brown in a cup :) Measurements are a guess - I didn't actually measure anything. No dairy, no gluten, no sugar.

Ice - about half a blender full
Coconut milk - one can
Banana - one
Peanuts - a handful, maybe half a cup
Cocoa Powder - probably 2 to 3 tablespoons
Agave Syrup - approximately a tablespoon

Blend the heck out of it. I turned the superduper BlendTech up to seven to make it smooth - otherwise the peanuts stay a bit gritty.

soup!

This was really random, but turned out really tasty.

2 onions and 2 cloves of garlic fried in olive oil
1 can coconut milk
green beans, peas and corn (I used frozen - I'm lazy)
1 can kidney beans
1 bag of microwaved rice (I'm not kidding - I'm really lazy)
3 fresh tomatoes (because they seem to be multiplying)
a couple of cups of water, boiled heartily first since this town's water happens to contain e coli this week...
spices: sea salt, pepper, basil, dry mustard

mints

Not sure why I think a triple batch of anything is a good idea, but...

These are cream cheese mints. The blue are peppermint, the green are spearmint, and the purple are raspberry-mint. The photo shows about 1/3 of the mints I actually made. The raspberry are the best without a doubt.

We made caramel apples

We made caramel apples, and it was fun. This is one of the easier food at Christmas projects to do, and they turned out great. See the rest of the photos (and instructions) at my flickr.

graham cracker houses

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

my new favorite thing

LaraBars are awesome. They are made of dates, nuts and fruit. They are vegan, either completely or mostly raw, and actually do not taste anything like cardboard. (Thus, not allowing me to use my favorite Xander quote, which is, "Mmmm, cardboardy," but I digress.)

Could I make this snack in my fairly hefty blender? Yes. Am I going to? Um, no. So, yes, these are a bit pricey, but totally worth it in my opinion, to have real, energy-providing food to take to work, eat for breakfast, ward off french fries with...

You can get them lots of places on line. You can see all the flavors at the official LaraBar site. My favorites are lemon, key lime and cherry (I'm fruity.)

And don't even get me started on the chocolate ones...

Best lentil soup evah

The best lentil soup ever recipe:

In olive oil, saute 3 large onions, 5 cloves garlic, one bunch of leek leaves and about 1/2 cup cut carrots.

Spice with 1 tsp sea salt, 1/2 tsp ginger, 1 tsp dry mustard, 1 tsp sage, 1 tsp marjoram, and 1 T coconut oil.

Add 1 bag lentils, 1/2 bag split peas, and 4 cups each vegetable broth and water.

Cook.

Note: I used all fresh vegetables and all organic ingredients. The amounts listed are approximate, as I never measure anything, but they're pretty close.

Beans with curry

Here's a tasty dish I made last night - vegetarian, healthy and fabulous!


Saute chopped sweet onion in olive oil.

Add spices: curry, coriander, garlic powder (fresh probably would have been better!) and black pepper.
Add: 1 can black beans, 1 can pinto beans, 1 can diced tomatoes, about 1 cup frozen peas.

Cook.