A Cake Made of Cheese!

You guessed it, or maybe not, but I made my first ever cheese cake!

The first of february was not only a historical moment in cheese cake history, but also for us here in MO with the wonderful blizzard that has affected my living habits these past 3 days without school.

this was the front door, no way were we getting out.
I just thought this plant looked neat.

the screen door was attacked by the snow Yeti!

Well this snow storm allowed me to make a cake, I sorta planned the cake makin before the storm, since WYNDSTORM knew it was coming. I went to the store found the ingredients in the icy rain that preceded the snow.

Again the cake was from Bon Appetit, along with my chocolate theme. I realized something whilst cooking this delight, I am a chocolatier vegetarian while my sister is the pastry master meat eater... we could easily make the best restaurant on the planet!my ad for Bon Appetit Desserts.

This recipe called for some special chocolate, but I used Lindet, which turned out perfect, as well as some cookies that aren't available in columbia. I ended up using a mint chocolate cookie that was perfect, and used as garnish those silly grashopper cookies that are 24/7 thin mints as garnish!

TV DINNER

I have this friend. He is a TV celebrity. His name? The Bone Man.

The Bone Man and I have done several cooking things together, His title for them "Bone Appetit". Once we made the Best Lasagna Ever along with Chocolate Mouse, this time it was Sweet Potato Burritos and Mint Chocolate Pudding Cakes.

The Bone Man has a show on CATV that I have helped with from its birthing stages. We film these cooking events and it is always a good time.

The Burritos was Bone Mans idea and I just went along with it. We changed the above linked recipe a bit.

The recipe calls for mustard and kidney beans, we decided to loose those and add black beans and pinto beans, along with cilantro. I had never thought about eating sweet potatoes in burritos, which was really good! I also thought it would be a good idea to maybe add a tasty sauce to it while it was baking the oven it consisted of:

Vegetable Oil

2 dried chili peppers, chopped

1/2 lime, juiced

The Bone Man works a Bleu Restaurant here in Columbia, so we worked together and made this beautiful presentation. If only Gordon Ramsay were here to tell me his thoughts.

The desert. That was all me. Again I picked my delicious recipe from the Bon Appetit Desert Book, this time it was far easier than the cake. It really only took a few bit of mixing and some 7 minutes of baking and my only snag came on the flipping from the custard cup to plates... It was a failure on my part to use a knife around the edges, I was afraid the knife would ruin it, but really it just helped loosen up the cake from the well buttered cup.

The only change I made on the recipe was using Ben & Jerry's Mint Chocolate Cookie which is my favorite ice cream of the moment, the recipe calls for mint chocolate chip, they are pretty much the same thing.

This dessert was so gooey, so rich, so wonderful. You think that Dominos has it down, well they don't this is an easy inexpensive recipe that is just the best.

To top of the evening, once the cooking and cleaning had been done, Sam and I decided to take a load off and enjoy my new favorite drink, Old Fashioned. Sam and I are on our 4th day of drinking these. They are the BEST!

Here is the recipe:

3oz. whiskey

ice to the top of Lowball Glass

in a cocktail shaker:

4-5 dashes of bitters

club soda (bubbly) or water

1/2 tsp of sugar, pour the cocktail shaker mixture of the sugar over the glass

top with a cherry and an orange.

I didn't have any oranges, but my parents have umbrellas, which I think might be cooler. Be Somebody!

Oh yeah, for those of you wondering why these are looking "fancier" than normal, it is because I am house sitting for my fancy parents, they are able to have fancy things that are less likely to break.

MICROWAVE HELL!

So after that wonderful TVP Loaf, our oven decided to blow up THE NEXT DAY. It has not been a fun one, as I had just gone grocery shopping and was wanting to cook many foods. I was stuck making things in the microwave and George Foreman Grill. I made a delicious SAMwhich, turns out he loves me so much he let me have half, it was delicious and looked great, but something that happens with me, I forgot to take a picture before we ate it. I will tell you how to make the delicious treat.

2 slices of bread

lots o mayo

1 swiss cheese slice

1 provolone cheese slice

lettuce

2 tomato slices

butter the bread, put one on the grill butter side down. then add tomato then lettuce. place your cheese on top of the lettuce layer, then place the second slice of bread mayo side on the cheese, butter towards the top layer of grill. Close grill and wait for the cheese to be really really melty!!!! The purpose of having the cheese part on top of all the veggies is because of gravity, when the cheese melts, it will drip into the creases in the veggies, binding it and making it super yummy.

I am sad to not have a picture, but I do have pictures of our dessert treat I made in the microwave.

I made sliced apples with chocolate chips, Peanut Butter, Brie Cheese, Cinnamon and Honey, and warmed it all up in the wave machine. It was super good! It was one of the best desserts I have made in the microwave, besides those one brownie thingys. Luckily my parents have decided to celebrate my Stepmom's 50 Years on an island and let me watch the house so I have an oven for the next week until ours gets fixed/ replaced!

The Time My Roommate Made the Feast

The other day I cam home and my roommate decided she was going to make TVP Loaf, Mashed Taters, Corn and Bread. IT WAS AWESOME!

Because she did such a wonderful job, I decided the best way to celebrate her meal was to share it with you folks.

I am pretty sure she got her recipes from the book Hot Dam and Hell Yeah: Recipes for Hungry Banditos/ The Dirty South Vegan Cookbook. Jenn got this book for me and she uses it all the time... It is wonderful!

This is the TVP Loaf.... With tons of Ketchup like it should!

This was the tasty bread she made. I at an entire pad of butter on it, and liked it mega!

Mashed Potatoes with Cream Cheese!

never thought about doing that,

it was delicious.

Oh yeah, we also watched Dumb and Dumber

We thought it would be a great costume and Jenn and Josh to go as Harry and Lloyd for Halloween because they both could look like them. What do you think? if they weren't laughing so hard it would probably be able to work out. they still did a great job! thanks to the wonderful chefs of the evening, gave me a night off from cooking.

Let Them Eat Cake!

The other night I had a wild hair to bake a cake. It couldn't be the ordinary box cake or anything like that. I decided to make the Raspberry Whipped Cream Truffle Cake from the Bon Appetite Deserts book.

This Christmas I happened to be the lucky recipient of an Electric hand mixer, a large wonderful pan, and cake decorating set. These all came in handy while baking this cake. Something magical happened to me while I was at HyVee getting my ingredients, spring form pans and cake pans were on sale! so naturally I bought a few, I needed on more 9'' pan to constitute one purchase, and the base of the spring form came into handy as well.

Any way on with the cake...

I most definitely think my Truffle making skills came in handy on this one (for the handling of the chocolate cooking of course). But my skills of attention were a challenge when it came to icing. The only disaster I had could have been major, but fortunately gravity was most awesome to me and when the cake fell from the counter to the floor it did not flip over, just flopped and made the middle filling fly out all over my feet. It was funny, but was sad because now my plate is broken... guess I could use a desert platter and dome?

Either way my cake still turned out well as so did I, we all lived and the roommates/ lab mice are all very pleased with the delicious cake I made for us.

Also for those not aware, I am sort of a fan of Alice and Wonderland and had that in mind while icing the cake, I wanted it to look like one of the cookies she ate when she was landed down the rabbit hole.

long fall nap-one season too early I am aware.

SO sorry for the absence my lovely readers...I have been on the lazy side of all things sunny, as in NOT cooking :( shame on me...

my roomie was doing a raw diet for a little bit of October, but alas she caved.

her are some things I made in the beginning of the month.

I had Hummus, Nan Bread, and some Basil Pesto that we concocted one day for a little snack.

the Nan was left in my freezer from a friend Andrea, and I thawed it in the oven on 350 for a few minuets, then fried it up in a pan for a crispier flavor.

The Pesto was made from the Basil Plant in the yard, Lime juice, walnuts and olive oil. It was quite nutty but still a tasty homemade treat.

This Hummus was quite a silly one, I never make a normal hummus. this had

a can of chick peas

tahini

basil

lime juice

red peppers

sage

thyme

grapefruit juice

garlic

Tabasco - the green kind

and I think that is all.

Hummus is an easy make, you have to start by draining your chick peas, adding your ingredients, then adding some tahini and the remainder of the chickpea juice for thickening or thinning purposes as well as flavor.

on a side note: A pasta salad made up of weird things in my kitchen, such a forks and spoons, and can shards, as well as egg shells...just kidding. It was really good tho.

I used both Penne and Rotini, spinach, black and red beans, Italian dressing, as well as olive oil, garlic, and red wine vinegar to help out a little. it was quite tasty, full of protein (noodles too!) and Sam and I were able to munch on it for 3 days! so no cooking for that busy week :(.

well as you see I am back, more two come, I have a vegan meal, a stop motion with apples and the outcomes of that, as well as some more breakfast stuff. yay!

Sunday 9/12, a wonderful afternoon for lunch

Sunday morning Sam and I decided we wanted a delicious egg breakfast, him an omelet, me a burrito. Alas we had no eggs and decided to go to The Broadway Diner.


It was a beautiful day so we decided to eat outside. I have been going to the diner for several years, since I was a little girl. I remember it used to be on the corner of Providance and Broadway where Walgreens is now, that and Streetside Records (which was covered in ivy). After the move several years ago, my Sister Kelli, Dad Jim, and Stepmom Catherine would bike from our house on the MKT Trail down there, we watched over the years on our bikes the building of Flatbranch Park and the additions to make the trail better as well as the transfer to downtown less dangerous. It was nice going to an old childhood place with my boyfriend from a different town.


It's funny the way we eat. I was only a few bites into my meal with half the hashbrowns eaten (best in town by the way), when Sam was mostly done with his All American Eggs over hashbrown (with Pepperjack cheese rather than American), but not quite ready to eat his side pancake. There are many thing that boy is good at and eating is one of them...which is why I am lucky! means there will always be someone to eat my food!
After lunch we decided to go to Streetside and pick up our tickets to a festival we are going to in October! It was such a nice day and it was wonderful spending it at two places that used to be side by side.