Suburban Homestead

Fabulous Friday

We got back-to-school this week - in more ways than one, which is mostly to blame for my absence here. While Frijoles returned to our public school for the first grade, her big brother started-up his studies here at home, with me. That's right, we are home schooling. :)

Our week did not go at all as planned, but we learned very early on that that is OK. It was a beautiful five days here with my boys (Noodle has a few more weeks of summer), and I started to see signs of the big guy's love for learning re-ignited. I can't wait to see where this year will take us - it's bound to be good.

I've actually kept up with Friday's desserts, but haven't been posting them with all our end-of-summer scrambles. This Friday's dessert, Avocado, Coconut and Lime Sorbet, (found here) was a very enticing *school lesson* that touched on mathamatics (fractions, measurements), home economics (how to turn the stove on, where we store the sugar) with a little bit of chemisty thrown in for fun. ;)  It is the second time we've made this (the first while I was doing my vegan exploration) and we love it! It offered the perfect finish to our turkey taco dinner.

Have a great holiday weekend!

Fabulous Friday + The Last Day of School

I love the last day of school... and I hate it, all at the same time.

I love it, hate it.

Love, hate, love, hate.

I love it because it marks the beginning of what will be a magical time in every child's mind - summertime! I love it because it gives way to camps offering new and unique adventures, heightened by warm weather, late nights and lazy mornings. I hate it because the last day of school has become a logistical nightmare with off-campus class parties in different zip codes and too many heart-felt *goodbyes*.  As we powered up yesterday morning for a an intense day of tag-team parenting, I wondered if it wouldn't be a better idea to just skip the last day of school all together and go to the beach. ;)

We started a tradition on the last day of school many years ago, when the big kid was still the only one in school. Even though it was just pre-school, we celebrated the end of his year with a special dinner out - just the three of us, along with a gift of some quasi-educational books to keep him busy during summer. Eventually his sister got in on the action after her first year of pre-school, and this year, Mr. Noodle joined the fun for his first time.

Last night was the third year in a row where we've celebrated at Umami, in the city. The kids love the food and always ask to go back.

After ordering food and drinks, we gave each of the kids their packages...

...and then the food arrived! Pot stickers, Ahi tacos, beef sliders, edimame hummus and flat bread, and veggie fritters.

The real reason we keep coming back to Umami - the dessert roll made of vanilla ice cream wrapped in chocolate chip cookie dough, drizzled in chocolate and served alongside wasabi whipped cream and ginger candies!

Hello summer!

Fabulous Friday

Tell me you don't love Fridays.

See - you can't do it! Fridays are THE BEST. And with summer upon us, and one. more. week. down., I had to pee my pants when I read this post about the marathon that is the end-of-the-school-year-shuffle.

I'm feeling a little bit more pressure these days than normal, but to be truthful, Jen Hatmaker's description of the end of the year is kind of how I feel all year long. I'm always feeling like the worst mom. My paperwork is always late, I'm always forgetting volunteer shifts (despite checking my calendar upon waking), I've yet to muster up the strength to volunteer for a *board position*, and our pediatrician just called to say she hasn't seen either of our boys in over two years. We haven't all five enjoyed a *similar looking dinner* in over two weeks and I really need to make an OBGYN appointment - cos it's been 3.5 years (as in, since I last gave birth).

But I'm pretty sure I did something right today when Mr. Noodle asked me if we could make a dinosaur garden outside his window and I said "YES!" My enthusiasm to oblige was completely selfish though. See, that sweet kid pretty much has the worst view in the house - all cinder blocks and ivy out his window. Every time I take in that view I silently fear I am crippling his creativity with my lack of motivation to make it more interesting.

But that was Thursday, and today is Friday...

After the big kids left for school, and after Mr. Noodle and I scrambled to get to the kindergarten concert, we went to our favorite nursery and stocked up on all sorts of wonderful succulents fit for a dinosaur habitat.

"Hey look at this one, Mama!" he'd say. "This one looks super dinosaur-y to me!"

And so we selected, purchase, planned and planted our garden. The final touches came in the forms of little plastic dinosaurs that now call these high-gloss orange pots their home. Overall, the finished pots didn't add quite the punch I'd hoped they would there on the wall, but they are pretty cute up close, and Mr. Noodle is in no way critical of our work .

All that said, we didn't have much time to do our usual Friday morning dessert making. But I figure it doesn't have to be homemade every single week. (Right? That's OK to do that, right?) So this afternoon we picked up one of everybody's favorite at Miette Bakery. Each one of these desserts (I'll admit I sampled three) tasted *perfect*. They honestly tasted just as pure and perfect as they looked. Nothing unusual or unexpected, just pure goodness. I'm glad we cheated this week, in the name of the dinosaur garden.

Fabulous Friday

Today I finally took the opportunity to make these cookies, recently posted on one of my favorite blogs, Vintage Revivals. Mandi has such a great energy, and man, can that woman sell a cookie!





I would love to try the original SWIG cookie she recreates with this recipe - the whole room-temperature-frosting-atop-a-chilled-cookie has me intrigued. I tried it that way initially, but decided it wasn't working for me on several levels, and so we just frosted the whole lot of room temp cookies, cleaned up the kitchen and called it a day - but A GREAT DAY! These are delicious!!! My favorite part is the actual cookie itself (sans frosting) - so incredible and so not needing to be cut into complicated fancy shapes before freezing and then baking. Just a sugar-butter ball, smashed down with a sugar-coated glass bottom, and thrown into the oven. I can get on board with that. As much as I appreciate (and love to eat) the highly decorated sugar cookie, I personally just want to throw down a thick slab of frosting on simple shapes and save the rest of my energy for eating them and crawling into bed. These do the trick! The recipe gave us 48 cookies total and we will be sharing them this weekend with family. Happy Memorial Day Weekend!!

Fabulous Friday

I realized this week that I wasn't clear in defining my dessert criteria in last Friday's post. (Not that anyone is losing sleep over this one, but...) It's not that I will only eat a fruit dessert if it's in the form of a crisp/cobbler/crumble, it's that I'll only eat a fruit dessert that doesn't contain chocolate if it is in the form of a crisp/cobbler/crumble.

Because I love fruit with chocolate! (Unless that fruit is an orange, of course.)

This all dawned on me when I remembered this other incredible dessert that was also served at the Shrine of the Rhubarb Coffee Cake (aka A Clean Well-Lighted Cafe, c. 1990) -- the equally intoxicating Raspberry Tart. I know it doesn't sound too fancy, I mean we see fruit tarts everywhere, right? But this tart was special because underneath its layer of French buttercream was a thin layer of dark chocolate. Simple yet brilliant.

So I gave it a shot today and I will say it tasted great to us considering all things. Like...considering I chose to use gluten-free flour in the crust (super crumbly)...considering I used too much chocolate (thick layer hard to break)...considering my vanilla cream layer jelled up before I could pour it into tart (think school pick-up), considering all these near disasters, it still tasked great. It didn't cut great, it didn't hold together great, but all the flavors came together well, and we loved it. This is definitely one worth me working on. In the meantime, all you need to take away from this is that every fruit tart could benefit greatly from a 5oz. layer of dark chocolate in it. Oh, and that a molded Eames chair can also serve as an excellent backdrop for a colorful dessert.

Happy Friday!

 

Fabulous Friday

I could go on and on about my affection for the Rhubarb Coffee Cake that was a signature dessert of A Clean Well-Lighted Cafe, just off the same-named bookstore in what used to be Larkspur Landing. Anyone remember that spot?!?  I waited tables there my last year of high school and that dessert played a large role in the teenage years of my emotional development. While I tried to recreate it once, nothing will compare to my seventeen-year-old-former-self's memory. Nothing.

I could also go on and on for equal time about how little I care for fruit in my dessert. It's a rare colorful dessert that could steal my attention from...say, an all brown dessert. And orange in my chocolate? No thank you. A cherry on my sundae? Now that's just gross. The only exception I can make in the fruity dessert department is for the crisp/cobbler/crumble (and btw - that Rhubarb Coffee Cake totally qualified).  Any warm fruit dish topped with a brown sugar oatmeal mixture AND a scoop of vanilla ice cream is as colorful as I can get in the later hours of the day.

It goes without saying that Ina Garten knows how to make a fruit crumble and when I came across her strawberry RHUBARB crisp recipe, I was happily transported back to 1990. It should also go without saying that it is now 2013 which is why I made this dessert cutting the sugar in half. I still enjoyed the heck out of every last spoonful. Here is my modified version:

 

Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp (reduced sugar)

Ingredients

4 cups fresh rhubarb, 1-inch diced (4 to 5 stalks)
4 cups fresh strawberries, hulled and halved, if large
3/4 cups granulated sugar (original calls for 1-1/4 cup)
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 1/2 teaspoons grated orange zest
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/2 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed (original calls for 1/2 cup)
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup quick-cooking (not instant) oatmeal
8 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, diced (original calls for 12 tablespoons)
Vanilla ice cream, for serving (Haagen Daz is our favorite)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

For the fruit, toss the rhubarb, strawberries, 1/2 cup of the granulated sugar and the orange zest together in a large bowl. In a measuring cup, dissolve the cornstarch in the orange juice and then mix it into the fruit. Pour the mixture into an 8-by-11-inch baking dish and place it on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper.

For the topping, in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the flour, the remaining 1/4 cup granulated sugar, the brown sugar, salt and oatmeal. With the mixer on low speed, add the butter and mix until the dry ingredients are moist and the mixture is in crumbles. Sprinkle the topping over the fruit, covering it completely, and bake for 1 hour, until the fruit is bubbling and the topping is golden brown. Serve warm with ice cream.

Fabulous Friday

I love me some Friday mornings. It's just me, this little guy, a tandem bike ride to the store where he's throwing out prom queen waves to everyone we pass, and then back home for some cake making.

Fabulous Friday

At the risk of sounding like a super annoying overachiever, I should probably just come clean and say that we celebrate half birthdays over here. (For the kids, that is.) It's not because I'm desperate to seek out more work for myself, or because my kids need another excuse to celebrate something, it's just that I have a child with a birthday depressingly close to Christmas, and my heart breaks that her special day often gets lost in the craze of the holiday season. So almost four years ago, I decided to get her a special dessert on her half birthday, and to make her feel a little extra special.

Of course now I have to do this with all the kids. :) Nothing fancy, no hats, certainly no gifts, just a lot of half-birthday talk throughout the day, and a song and dessert after dinner. Today Mr. Noodle reached three-and-a-half years old. He requested Chocolate Mousse and so once again, like most Friday mornings, we took a long walk to the store, gathered up all our ingredients, and came home to make dessert together. I served it up in my mother's beautiful wedding crystal from 1954!  It's been a long time since I've had chocolate mousse (or dessert served in crystal, for that matter) and I do still love it. Takes me back to my childhood for sure!

Fabulous Friday / Accidental Genius

I didn't post much this week, although that's not because I haven't been online. I've been behind the scenes these last few days, making changes to the look of this blog, changes I'm excited to share in the next few days (hopefully). Friday night's dessert is worth coming out for. Strawberry-Coconut Meringue. I've made it before and it was incredible! I made it Friday night cutting out half the recipe's sugar, and it was still incredible!

We started out with Sweet Potato, Brie and Kale Quesidillas, an adaptation from this post.

The dessert came from a great book my SIL gave me a short time after we got chickens and I started this blog. Notice the subtitle. :)

This book is filled with great recipes and photography, especially for fans of backyard chickens. Such a great gift!

Honestly, half the sugar didn't stop us from licking our plates - literally! Adapted from original recipe found here.

MERINGUE

4 egg whites

Pinch of salt

2 tablespoons cornstarch

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup sugar

3/4 cup sweetened shredded coconut

FILLING

1 cup heavy whipping cream

1/4 cup plain nonfat yogurt

2 teaspoons tablespoons sugar

2 cups halved fresh strawberries, quarted

DIRECTIONS

Toss strawberries with two teaspoons of sugar and set aside to maserate.

To make the meringue: Preheat oven to 300ºF. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Beat the egg whites with the salt in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until soft peaks form. Beat in the cornstarch, lemon juice, and vanilla and continue beating until firm peaks form. With the mixer running, very slowly beat in the sugar (this should take about 1 minute). Continue beating until the egg whites are stiff and glossy and the sugar has dissolved. Gently fold in 1/4 cup of the coconut. 

Pile the meringue in the center of the parchment paper and spread evenly making a circle shape 6" in diameter (it will puff and expand as it bakes to about 8 inches in diameter). Gently smooth the top and sides of the meringue. Sprinkle the top and sides with the remaining 1/2 cup of coconut. 

Bake for 40 to 50 minutes or until the coconut is golden brown and the meringue is firm on the outside. Slide the meringue and parchment paper onto a wire rack and cool completely. Gently peel off the parchment paper. 

To make the filling: Beat the heavy cream in a medium bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until soft peaks form. Add the yogurt and sugar. Continue beating until firm, but not stiff, peaks form. Pile the cream in center of the cooled meringue; top with the strawberries and natural juices. 

 

Serves 5 - 8, depending on how much willpower you do or do not have. ;)

 

Fabulous Friday

Happy Saturday! I know it's the weekend and I know we are all gathered around our kitchen tables at this point sipping tea and coffee, iPads and laptops out, catching-up, waking-up, cartoons on, jammies on, but I couldn't help but post this Friday's surprise - it was a true winner!

Yesterday, the little man and I kept our end-of-the-week tradition going when we sat down on the floor with a stack of Ina's cookbooks and contemplated pretty pictures of decedent desserts. Together we agreed on her Fresh Lemon Mousse. He was sold on the image alone, I was extra excited knowing that his big brother and Nana are lemon lovers. All three grandmothers would be banding together to tackle the kids while Daddy and I went out to celebrate a old friend's 40th. I had high hopes that six mouths would polish this off and leave no temptation for our late night return. No such luck. Daddy and I were licking spoonfuls of this lovely as Friday turned into Saturday.

Fabulous Friday

Way back when I was pregnant with number two, and having mad cravings for French bread with butter, fettuccini Alfredo and anything with chocolate, I got a very specific craving for a chocolate and caramel coated apple. I had been introduced to the idea at a friend's wedding not too long before, where every guest left the event with an apple rolled in caramel and M&M's. Madness I tell you. An on-line search for ANYTHING close to the memory led me to the discovery of Mrs. Prindables.

That was six years ago and I've been a big fan of Mrs. P. ever since! Once a year, I order us one of her gift baskets, and I love giving them as gifts too. I recently sent one to my niece and nephew for their birthdays, then went ahead and threw four more into my shopping cart for us and our Friday night dinner.

The best part about this story is that our four petite carmel and chocolate covered apples arrived today, right before I headed out to attend a friend's luncheon where she gifted everyone with - Anyone? Anyone? - a signature Mrs. Prindables apple!!

Fabulous Friday - Let's Go Nanners!

I recently saw a beautiful image of some chocolate and candy coated bananas and was reminded that, well... I love chocolate and candy coated bananas. I decided we'd give them a shot for our end of the week, pre-Super Bowl celebration.

I don't know if it's just the combination of chocolate and banana, or if it was the quality of the leftover chocolate I used, but these were so ridiculously good. After our dinner, I set it all up and we had the kids take turns rolling their melted chocolate-coated nanners in M&M's, shredded coconut and crushed almond bits. Daddy challenged himself to incorporate peanut butter into the experiment. We eventually got them onto a pre-chilled plate in the freezer to set for twenty minutes, and then told the kids they couldn't have any unless they got in their jammies, picked-up their rooms, scooped the dog poop and cleaned the hamster cage.

Way to go kids!!!

(Daddy's paleo plate.)

Happy Super Bowl Weekend - Goooo Nanners!

Fabulous Friday

Buttered Popcorn Cookies.

I was curious too. But for some reason, when I returned to The Smitten Kitchen's cookbook this morning, I expected to see *chocolate chips* in my list of ingredients.

Isn't that what I'd seen? Hadn't that been the appeal and cause for my return this week?

Apparently not. On closer inspection, those little brown spots in Deb's cookies/pictures turned out to be nothing more than the tops of cookies cooked to golden brown perfection. :(

And so I thought, "What the heck..." and "Who cares?!" and "I'm putting chocolate chips into my buttered popcorn cookies!"

I actually baked half the dough to exact instruction, and then baked the second half with 3/4 C of milk chocolate morsels folded in. Both were great, but the buttered popcorn cookies with chocolate were just that much more fun!

You can Google Smitten Kitchen's Buttered Popcorn Cookies recipe, but please don't forget to add 1-1/2 C of chocolate chips to your batter. ;)

Fabulous Friday

My Dearest Tiny Son,

Did you love your chocolate cake?

Will you remember this day like I will?? How the earth gave hints of springtime with a welcoming blue sky, and a brisk air that carried us to the grocery store on bike? The way you helped me select ingredients in your miniature shopping cart or how we stopped to enjoy clementines while sitting on a stone wall at the street corner? Would you please try to not lose sight of your confidence or the way it gives you courage to do things like yell "Good morning to you!" to the cyclists flying by? Will you promise me to forever approach the making of cake with the same unabashed enthusiasm you did today??

Thank you for insisting on a chocolate layer cake, Bud! It was nothing less than THE perfect chocolate cake - wouldn't you agree? Remember this morning, how when we sat down on the floor with cake books (and coffee), in search of a recipe for tonight's dessert? How I passive-aggressively pushed for Deb Perelman's Chocolate Pudding Pie, and how you insisted on Tish Boyle's Sour Cream Chocolate Cake - the one so perfect, it made the cover of her book? And remember how I pouted about not getting my way, with that annoying, exaggerated, pushed-out lower-lip, and how you patiently watched my immature and manipulative tactics with complete and total empathy only to say - "It's OK, Mama. I still love you."

Ha! That must have been so hard for you to watch - and yet you handled yourself so well!

You are so, so good like that, Boo. You really do ask so little of us, and yet give so much: the hugs, the I Love You's, the offers to help, the I Love You's, your efforts to be big and independent so that Mommy and Daddy don't always have to work so hard.

Did I mention all the I Love You's?

You deserve whatever cake your heart desires on this Friday, and every one hereafter. It's the least I can do for you at the end of the week when you've probably initiated a dialogue of I Love You's for seven days straight.

This is your cake, My Love. Enjoy! - Your Mama xo

PS - Your idea to put a candle in the half eaten cake and sing Welly a Happy Birthday song after his near-escape from his house (and our home) was adorable. Thank you for all you are, Sweet Boy.

Fabulous Friday

So I posted and started my New Year's resolutions five days ago. I've since had a week full of fulfilling promises to myself, and others, and am actually feeling really good in this moment - like, less broken than last year. ;)  Every night this week I cooked a meal from scratch (#1), I've done so in a way that chips away at all the half-full bags/boxes/cans of food lining kitchen shelves (#3), and then finished the work week of by starting-up Fabulous Fridays again with Paula Deen's incredible Southwest Georgia Pound Cake (#2). (In addition, I've sold or given away something on Craigslist everyday - part of a very private NY resolution that I didn't dare put down on paper.)

Again, feeling really, really good.

To top-off all the goodness that comes with an early morning cake baking party, complimented by the calm of a well-organized morning routine with school kids (#5), I took Mr. Noodle and his not-so-really-under-the-weather-anymore big brother to Fairyland for some magic moments. Happy weekend!

Southwest Georgia Pound Cake (Paula Deen)

Cinnamon Ice Cream

Two lifetimes ago, I worked in a restaurant. Many restaurants, actually. And out of the hundreds of evenings I spent walking the floors, slinging giant white plates of hot French/Italian/American food at people, there was one night (just ONE!) when a special Tarte Tatine was offered with, not the predictable vanilla ice cream, but cinnamon ice cream!!!

It left quite the impression on me. The flavor was not subtle at all - it was big - VERY BIG! In fact, it reminded me of a creamy, frozen version of my mother's go-to breath freshener in the '70's - Big Red gum.

Being too young at the time to know an ice cream maker from crock-pot, I bought a half gallon of Dreyer's ice cream, let it soften until I could blend in heaping scoops of spice, and re-froze it. In the morning, I ran to the freezer, (maybe I'd have ice cream with my coffee,) but was shocked to find my half-gallon of ice cream had shrunk during the night to little more than a pints worth. That morning, I was awoken to an undeniable reality of cheaply made, mass produced food: additives. In this case, the additive was a lot of air!

That was a long time ago now, and since then I've tried several brands/versions of cinnamon ice cream, but found them all to only *hint* at the spice. For me to be able to relive that first taste of cinnamon ice cream, that creamy cold scoop of *Big Red*, I needed to take matters into my own hands. Thankfully, it's simple. Here's how I do it:

 

Cinnamon Ice Cream

1 cup of very cold whole milk

2 cups of very cold whipping cream

3/4 cup sugar

2 tablespoons cinnamon

1-2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Mix all ingredients and turn in your home ice cream maker per manufacturers instructions. (My ice cream maker is by Cuisinart and I mix it for about 20 minutes before storing it in the freezer for several hours before serving.)

Friday Night Food Truck Crush!

The food truck frenzy has made it's way to Marin!  We headed down to the ferry building tonight to see the line-up, eat dinner with friends, and dance with our kids.

As much as I love the idea of spending my Friday nights at a food truck party (and coming home to a clean kitchen!), I have to say, it was rough trying to hold my kids down long enough to get them to eat. Even then, it was nothing containing vegetables. Next time I will pack some carrots and fruit to bring along and supplement their take-away meals.

The kids loved everything - running around, running into friends and running back and forth between bites of their pizza politana (which was excellent).  My muffaletta vegetarian sandwich from Suzie Q's was mighty tasty too!

The big boys enjoyed pulled pork sandos.

I'm sad to say that there was one small disappointment at the Food Truck Crush - the cupcake truck.  Way. Too. Sugary.  I hate to complain about a small business, really I do, but I had two bites of a Samoa (coconut, caramel & chocolate) and saved the rest for the chickens.  Maybe I'll give them another shot down the road.

Royal Wedding Party

I remember exactly where I was when Princess Diana walked down the isle.  We were on summer vacation in the mountains with friends and everyone woke up at 2am to watch it live.  I would think my parents would have let me sleep but the strong memories of royal talk that summer have left we wondering if I didn't actually watch it with them.

I was lucky enough to actually be invited to two royal wedding parties this year.  This never happens and so it was a difficult call as to which one to attend. One was an adult only party where you had to wear your wedding attire. How cool is that!?  The second was a mommy and daughter party with one of my little girl's best friends. It was a really hard decision, and I may never get the chance to wear my wedding gown again, but I decided to go to the all girl evening in hopes that I could create some royally special memories for my daughter, the way I have mine.

My friend Megan hosted the party and she did an incredible job.  Let's start with her shirt - what could be finer for such an occasion?

A true highlight to the evening was when the Beckem's stopped by...but only to drop off their daughter on the way to another big event.  See *Designer Spice* co-designed a room in this years San Francisco Designers Showcase which was having their opening party. Just look at her shoes - brilliant!  It's no wonder the room she designed was the women's shoe closet!

Megan and myself doing our best Princess Eugenie and Princess Beatrice.

There were some adorable highlights for the girls. Each one received flowery veils upon arrival and got to apply her own make-up...

...there was a bouquet craft table where each girl could assemble her own...

...and each little girl got the chance to walk down the isle and have her picture taken.

Just then, Price Mathew blew in on his giant brown horse and saved the day with the cutest picture ever.

Not everyone was impressed.

The we let them eat cake!

** Megan is - no surprised here - a fashion stylist. You can check out her great blog here.

Hippie Cakes

What do you get when you draw inspiration from florescent-colored rainbow cupcakes, but you dismiss all recommendations for things like *boxed cake mix* and *neon food dyes*, for a made-from-scratch recipe with non-toxic dyes made from vegetables? 

I like to call them *Hippie Cakes*.

I was so looking forward to ditching all my bright food colorings for some India Tree brand dyes made from concentrated vegetable colorants.  I heard that the coloring was quite good so I had high hopes for discovering the next big thing in green living.  But after working with them, while I feel they are 'good enough', they just don't compare to the vibrancy of the popular brands readily available at every grocery store in America. Nevertheless, I did grow to love their more muted shades as I filled-up 24 liners and fantasized about the mania I could have created selling these at Dead shows in the '90s.

At first I thought the green looked like algae, but as I poured little teaspoons of the green on top of the blue and purple, my mind moved away from swamp slime and onto little green leprechauns.

At this point, I was really enjoying the colors and seeing the cakes come together.

So there you have it. Not the colors I was expecting but there is obviously a trade-off worth making for some desserts that call for dyes.  This did, however, inspire me to do one with conventional dyes for St. Patrick's Day. I'm thinking a vibrant rainbow interior with green icing...and some gold wrapped chocolate coins thrown in there somewhere.

Fabulous Friday

Lemons are in full swing, and this year, like every year before it, we have a bumper crop.  Why? I have no idea.  I can't get my tangerine tree or kumkuat trees to fruit for the life of me, but that little meyer lemon tree just won't quit.  And what's more, my MIL gifted me with a 10lb. bag of lemons that someone gave her and she knew she couldn't use.  So this week it's been all about lemons. If not just in my water, then in my pasta, on my chicken and tonight, in my cake(s).

These are little mini lemon pound cakes made with an adorable 'backyard bug pan', a birthday gift from a friend.

I used Martha Stewart's Glazed Lemon Pound Cake recipe but make bumped up the zest and juice quantities to 3 lemons (hers uses 2) because I like a lot of lemon flavor. I didn't use her glaze recipe, but another one I had that incorporated zest.  But now that I look back, I think MS's recipe is best. So I'll leave you with that.

Happy Weekend!

A Bland Friday Night

Some nights you just hit it out of the park with some awesome recipe that gets you high-fives all around the dinner table. 

And then, there are those other nights, when you dare to venture off into your own little creative cooking world and you end up with something like - oh, I don't know... totally bland stuffed peppers, anyone??

Welcome to my Friday night.

Guess I better hit the books again.  This was a mixture of ground beef, brown rice, shredded zucchinii, peas, onion, garlic, parmesan, feta, parsley, salt and pepper, baked in a bath of crushed tomatoes.

No pinches on the tush from Daddy tonight.

The blessing was that kids ate them up. I don't know if it's just because they were super hungry or if they just like dishes in need or more onion and salt.  But they ate it.  So I'm happy.  Check out my action shots:

And because I'm super wiped out and lazy today and because it's Fabulous Friday, everyone got treated to a thawed-out Valentine's cupcake from Susie Cakes.

I've Lost My Mind. And I Like It.

A friend of mine did a very, very naughty thing last night.

She told me about an incredible website called Pinterest.  And now I'm in big, big trouble.

It's tagline reads - "A place to catalog the things you love". Tsk, tsk, Pinterest.  If it were only that simple.

First of all, I'm currently on their waitlist for - I don't even know what - so I can leave comments I guess.  But that didn't keep me from spending the better half of my Saturday clicking on one alluring image after the other, leading me on an INTOXICATING journey around the web, viewing collections of mind blowing recipes, jaw-dropping remodels and brilliant product design.

The one thought that kept playing through my head was - "Holy crap - there is an incredible amount of talent and creativity in this world!" Collectively, the imagery blows Martha Stewart Living OUT - OF - THE - FRICKING - UNIVERSE.

Here is just a sampling - a tiny, itsy-bitsy collection of some cupcake photos I found in just the past fifteen minutes!

I don't have a fraction of the talent or patience to make a dessert with this much detail but I could look at them all day.

I have a *deep seeded* desire to tackle these. ;)

I might actually try to make this palette. Or not.

My son would love some Lego dessert. I think I'm only capable of the one on the bottom and I'm TOTALLY going to give it a try!

Sweet dreams, my friends!

Hey Ina -- You Forgot the Chocolate!!

Ina Garten's Coconut Macaroons are IN-frickin'-CREDIBLE.  One bite and you're a goner.  You're shouting things like, "Oh. My. GAWD!!", "WTF?!?" and quickly drawing comparisons to such things as hedonism and crack cocaine.

Or at least you are if you're a down-and-out rapper.

I, on the other hand, just eat them with unabashed enthusiasm until I'm nursing a sugar headache that won't quit.  Then I'm packaging up the remainder and doing mid-day macaroon deliveries to my most prized neighbors.

This adaptation of Ina's recipe came about one day when I was baking multiple things in the kitchen.  As if the coconut wasn't enough - I had to ask myself, "What would happen if I doused these in some high-quality chocolate?"

The result is history.

CHOCOLATE COVERED COCONUT MACAROONS

Ingredients:

• 14 ounces sweetened shredded coconut
• 14 ounces sweetened condensed milk
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 extra-large egg whites, at room temperature
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 8 ounces of semi-sweet morsels

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

Directions:

Combine the coconut, condensed milk, and vanilla in a large bowl. Whip the egg whites and salt on high speed in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment until they make medium-firm peaks. Carefully fold the egg whites into the coconut mixture.

Drop the batter onto sheet pans lined with parchment paper using 2 teaspoons. (Ina also recommends using an ice cream scoop but I feel this makes the cookies too big/dense/rich.)  Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until golden brown.  Remove and let cool while preparing the chocolate.

In a double boiler, melt about 8oz. of semi-sweet chocolate.  Once melted, use a teaspoon to scoop and pour chocolate onto each macaroon. Allow to cool completely (or not, if you can't wait).

Grandma Helen's Charlotte Rousse

If ever there was a dessert, so wonderful, and yet so simple, that you could serve it up to your most discerning guests after a five-course meal, and then again for breakfast the next morning- this would be it.

I first learned of Charlotte Rousse, almost five years ago when my lovely father-in-law reflected fondly on his favorite childhood dessert.  I remember him sitting at the table, left hand on top of right, looking up the the ceiling with a smile, lost in reverie. I wondered what was keeping us from enjoying the family tradition now, almost sixty years later.

No reason, it turns out.

His mother, affectionately known to the rest of us as Grandma Helen, still had the recipe. But based on the way it was passed down to me, with calls for ingredients that didn't always specify measurements ("Line bowl with graham cracker crumbs mixed with a little melted butter"), I'm guessing it had been tucked back away in the cookbook in her mind for all those years. Ahhh, grandmothers...so amazing!

After some trial and error, and a lot of taste-testing from Papa, I believe I have fine-tuned the written recipe and am thrilled to say it's now a staple in our family year round.

Passed down from the hearts Papa and Grandma Helen, we can now all enjoy this for (at least) another generation.

What I Saw at SF-MOMA

Yesterday was a good day to be a member of the Museum of Modern Art. (Or the daughter of one.)

For only two days a year, the museum offers it's members 20% off in its gift store. If you've ever had the opportunity to visit the store, chances are you know why I think that's such a good thing. Together, my mother and I took off for a very special girls day in the city. Our primary goal was to find a few exceptionally well-designed gifts for some of the *little people* on our lists.  Let's just say we were, uh, highly productive.

As if that wasn't rewarding enough, it just so happened that there were some incredible exhibits going on upstairs as well. (Although I can't wholeheartedly give a thumbs up to "Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance, and the Camera Since 1870". It was just a little too dark and depressing for my current Happy-Mama-Bear-O-Three state of mind.)

Here's what I most enjoyed:

Celebrating 75 years of modern art, SFMOMA displays over four hundred pieces of their collection that highlight important moments in the museums history.

A glimpse inside.

Fabulous Friday: Oatmeal + Pumpkin Ice Cream Sandwiches

It all started earlier this week with my own hankering for pumpkin ice cream. (It was actually less about the ice cream and more about beating the tastes of the season into the little ones brains.)

I did minimal research on it (search: pumpkin ice cream) and went with this overly elaborate recipe because I guess I just didn't know any better.  I'm still not convinced you need to be cracking eggs and using stovetops for homemade ice cream - those kinda fussy recipes never work out very well for me. I always seem to have the best results with just adding a little something to a basic vanilla recipe.

My first attempted recipe turned out fine...I guess?  A little too fancy with all it's custardy undertones though, if you ask me. 

In wondering why pumpkin ice cream needed to be so damn difficult, I tried a brainless idea and just added one cup of pumpkin puree and one tablespoon of cinnamon to Cuisinart's Simple Vanilla Ice Cream.

I'm sorry - but did I just discover gold?!

I actually liked my lazy chef recipe better!  In fact, when making these tonight, everyone got to do a taste test and decide which pumpkin ice cream was their favorite and three out of four chose the simple one.

As for the oatmeal cookie I just grabbed this super easy one off another recipe on Epicurious and BAM! - I was done.

I let the cookies cool for about 15 minutes, the same amount of time I let the rock-hard ice cream soften.  Smashed together it was pure bliss!

Fabulous Friday (a cheaters account)

At least I'm here.  I mean, at the very least, I remembered to pull a Fabulous Friday together during the countdown-to-Halloween, even if it may not have included a single homemade morsel.  Sometimes Momma just needs some take-out.

I don't know exactly when Halloween turned into the new Christmas.  Somewhere along the road heading out of the city and into suburbia, things seemed to get unreasonably complicated with small kids and the endless festivities that come along with them and this time of year.  I'm sure it doesn't help that I've recently developed a passion of food preservation.

So, no, I did not make this caramel apple.  And even worse then that, I ordered it (and three more just like it) online and had it shipped to the homestead.  Not cool by some standards but there you have it.  Mrs. Prindable's chocolate covered caramel apples are my sweet Fall indulgence. They also make a great gift for just the right person.