HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Or, as its known in my house, THE GREATEST DAY OF THE YEAR.

Seriously, if I hadn't gotten married on the anniversary of the day we met, my wedding would have been a full blown costume party on Halloween, with us dressed as zombie bride and groom.

Having been sick all week with the Vulcan Flu (so named because of the Spock Death Grip on my shoulder/neck area) I would have been better prepared for this. As it was, I had to go to 3(!) different supermarkets to find a pumpkin. Once I found The One, I took it home to chop up. I find that if you make the initial cut into a bigger shape, working the rest of it is much easier.

Scoop out all the inner crap and set aside. I used it to make my pumpkin appear as if it throwing up (see picture above of the finished product).

The seeds I saved for roasting. You know, so they could sit in my cupboard of shame with *last* years pumpkin seeds I roasted.

Get rid of everything that isn't seeds, and wash.

Dry them all.

Preheat your oven to 350, and get a try with tin foil. Put the seeds on there, and toss them with a bit of EVOO. You could just use sea salt, which is always yummy, but today I decided to shake it up a bit and use Herbamare Spicy mix. We are nothing, if we aren't spiSAAAAAY.

With this stuff, you don't need any salt. I also added a bit of chilli powder and some paprika for color. Again, because we are spiSAAAAY.

Toss it all together, and roast in the oven for 15 minutes or so, tossing every 5 minutes. Keep it in a single layer.

Yum.
Maybe they WONT die in the cupboard of shame after all....

Bad Dog Salad/Sandwich Combo

For tonight's dinner, I am sticking with a light theme. We have been eating a lot of heavy foods lately, and I wanted lighter fare, that was (as usual) easy to prep and used up stuff from the cupboard.

Tonights meal consisted of me throwing just about every vegetable in the fridge into a big salad.

So in this we have about 8 types of lettuce (the organic mesclun mix and romaine), sprouts, onions, cucumber, spring onions, red and green cabbage, avocado, a lone hard boiled egg, cilantro, and yet to added are sesame seeds (from the cupboard of shame, woohoo!) two cans of yummy smoked wild salmon from BC (also from the cupboard of shame).

Its really yummy salmon. I highly recommend it if you can find it.

It all got tossed into the salad. (And all you dirty minded people out there can just shut up.)

Working with canned salmon always brings the cat running. He hears the can open, and instantly, he is there, stalking the can. Notice however, that this blog piece is titled "bad dog salad/sandwich combo" and NOT "bad cat salad/sandwich combo". We'll get to that.

Dressing for this is easy. In a jar, add fresh grated ginger (easiest to do from frozen), some miso, some Bragg's soy sauce, garlic, a drop of toasted sesame oil (only a small amount, its very strong), fresh lime juice, a drop of maple syrup, a bit of wasabi mustard, EVOO and rice vinegar. Cover the jar and shake. Taste to adjust any seasonings so the flavors balance.

I knew that salad alone, even one as hearty as this one, would never be enough for the hungry monsters. Again, I decided to go easy and comforting. Earlier in the day I had purchased a beautiful 3 cheese bread from Panera's, and was planning on making grilled cheese sandwiches to go with the salad. Everything was sitting out on the island waiting for me to put it all together. The bread in its bag, a chunk of 5 year old cheddar (none of that plastic kraft crap for me, thank you very much), and the butter.

Unfortunately, I hadn't counted on this:

Notice the shameful eyes. The dog ate the bread. FOR THE SECOND TIME IN A WEEK! Little bastard. 3 days before he ate a brand new Challah. He never does this when he is on his own. He ONLY does it, when he has an accomplice.

Don't let the cuteness fool you. She is the devil.
I had to defrost another loaf of bread (from the bread graveyard deep freeze).

Thank god for deep freezes.

Kitchen Cupboard Pasta

In keeping with my theme I have been on a quest to use up all the crap in my cupboards. Today, I needed a simple, easy, fast meal that would have leftovers, use up a ton of crap, and still taste good. And it would have to adhere to the Alan Food Rules I had discussed in my first blog post.

Hence, Kitchen Cupboard Pasta.

You would not BELIEVE how much stuff I was able to use. Today's pasta included:

- sundried tomatoes (scissors work well to help chop)
- a can of black olives
- a whackload of garlic

- some balsamic vinegar
- frozen basil (salvaged from my shitty garden)
- frozen anchovies
- the remainder of a jar of capers
- the remainders of 3 bags of spelt pasta
- some dijon mustard
- spices
- the lone tomato I managed to salvage from my shitty garden (I have a black thumb - I am a mass murderer of innocent foliage)
- EVOO
- a woeful and lonely bit of pecorino cheese

Everything (and I do mean EVERYTHING) was stuff I had IN HOUSE. My cupboards are starting to SPARKLE from cleanliness and emptiness. Its glorious!!!

I have decided that my food shopping is a bit of a sickness. An obsession if you will. Some people can't stop buying shoes (like me), or purses (like me), or sheets (again, like me), clothing (meh) or the latest electronic gadget (like Alan). Things like that.

Since I only shop for shoes and purses with my sister and I can't wear high heels anymore since I shattered my ankle (waaaaaaaaaaaah!), I really have upped my interesting food purchasing.

Do you realize how HARD it was for me to go to Costco and Longo's this week??!? It was TORTURE. I hardly bought a THING!

But I digress. Kitchen Cupboard Pasta.
Super easy. Took me about 5 minutes to prep it all.

Put a large pot of water on to boil, and add a huge wodge of salt. Crack a tiny bit of pepper on top, so you remember you have already added the salt.

When it is boiling, throw in your pasta. While the pasta cooks, make the sauce in a cuisinart. Toss all your ingredients in, and whizz away. Voila. Pesto.

Put it in a big bowl, and add a bit of the boiling cooking water to it, like half a ladelful. This just helps smooth out the sauce and allows it to toss better with all the pasta.

I even had a enough left over to make a second dinner, so I scooped it in a ziplock bag and tossed it in the freezer. Dinner for a second night! Woohoo!

It is best to label your food, otherwise (like me) you will have a freezer full of mystery dishes. Which, can be fun, but lets be honest: there is enough uncertainty in our lives in general. Dinner doesn't have to be one of them.

Kitchen Tips.

1. Lots of garlic to peel? No problem! Break off the cloves and put them in a metal bowl. Cover the bowl with another metal bowl and shake like maracas. Cover your ears as its LOUD! The garlic peels itself. In fact, you could do this to music and get a work out as well.
2. Tired of not having ginger when you need it? Or worse yet, it rots before you can use it? Throw it in the freezer. That way, it lasts, it’s there when you need it, and if you use a rasper to grind it, it comes out as a lovely powder! No more difficulty with chopping. It melts right into the food. It is especially nice when you have a cold. You can make a fresh ginger tea with a bit of honey and some booze. Fix you right up.
3. Fruits going to waste? Seed them (if they have seeds), skin them (if you can’t eat the skin) and throw it in the freezer for smoothies and future baking. Fabulous to do with apples, peaches, bananas, pears, etc. I make my kids “salad shakes” all the time with frozen fruit. I stuff my vitamix (shameless plug again) half full with spinach, and then fill the rest of it with bananas, apples, blueberries (and other fruits) and a bit of water and whiz it all up. If you put enough blueberries in, it won’t be green so the kids won’t give a rats ass. If its green, they might object.
4. Oversalt a soup or stew? Throw in slices of potato. It will absorb the salt and save the day.
5. Chopping mushrooms? Slice off a bit to make a flat edge so the mushroom doesn’t roll around and you don’t chop off your fingers. Always a good thing.
6. Use scissors to cut lots of things, like pizza or chicken into chunks, herbs etc.
7. Burned a pot? No problem! Fill it with water and set it to boil for 10 minutes or so. It should come right off. If it is super stubborn and doesn’t, leave it to soak overnight with hot water and a tablespoon or so of either powdered laundry detergent or dishwasher detergent.
8. Wine goes off quickly if there is air in the bottle. Keep smaller wine bottles (you know the kind, you get them on airplanes or in hotel rooms) to pour the left over wine in. If its even less, freeze it in ice cube trays, then transfer to a freezer ziplock bag for those moments where you just need a bit. I know, I know… What leftover wine?
9. Wilted greens? Put them all in a big bowl, fill the big bowl with warm water and let sit for a few minutes. Drain, then fill with cold water. Drain again. They should be a whole lot fresher now. And if they aren’t, they can go in the blender to make the salad fruit drink for the kids.
10. Deep frying something? Add a chunk of carrot. It will help stop things from burning.
11. Stale bread? Moisten it with a bit of water, and bake in the oven for 10 minutes. Voila, fresh, steaming bread.

PA Day or "PANCAKE DAY" as its known in my house!

Every PA day off from school, when my kids wake up they ask for pancakes.

Every.

Single.

Time.

Today was no different.

Pancakes it is! (Like I have a choice). Every time I make them, they come out a bit different based on whatever ingredients I have in house. The base is generally the same: 1 cup of oatmeal, 1 cup of flour (today was whole wheat), an egg or two, milk, juice, vanilla, cinnamon, EVOO, some salt and baking powder. However, we can't forget the most important first step:

I always add fruit, and generallly that is what gets varied. Applesauce works best, but surprisingly, we are out of applesauce right now. We are also out of juice. I had about 4 tablespoons of OJ in the fridge, but its not really enough.

Pet peeve rant digression here:
Don't you HATE that? When people put empty (or near empty) cartons of juice or milk (or anything for that matter) BACK IN THE FRIDGE? Seriously... is it THAT hard to finish it or throw out when its finished?
C'mon people.

Anyway. Back to the pancakes. So I had a bit of OJ and some pears, so I chopped up the pears and threw them in a pan to cook down a bit.

In another bowl, I start adding everything and mix.

Toss it all together in the bowl and add your liquid (today it was only milk as we were out of all juice) until you get a nice drippy consistency. I have been known to add:
- raspberries
- blueberries
- mango
- apple
- pear
- jam (today I added a dollop of fig jam)
- berry juice (ceres apple berry cherry is my favorite to add - it tastes like jello!)
- chia seeds

Actually, I ALWAYS add chia, to the first couple of pancakes as they fry in yummy melted butter. My kids have asked me to add it only to the first one, so I really loaded it up.

I prefer chia to flax because it doesn't have that weird fishy taste that flax has. Chia doesn't have much taste at all, and it does all the same good things for your body. We are talking Fibre with a capital F here!

Using Chia eliminates (ha!) the need for stuff like THIS cereal:

Now its time to start planning dinner, trying to use up as many ingredients currently in my pantry . So far, I have used (some but not all):
- quinoa
- black olives
- oatmeal
- tomato sauce
- jam
- vinegars (balsamic and apple cider)
- one can of tuna (today's lunch for me!)
- some of the frozen bread that I have rescued from the bread graveyard, AKA the deep freeze
- some hot sauce

I think thats a pretty good start, to be honest. After having just reviewed the picture of my pantry I have decided that tonights dinner will be rice with chicken something something Indian. We'll see how it goes once I am in there.

Thanks For Your Help Ethan

In keeping with my challenge from yesterday , I have to use things from my pantry. In an effort to help me clean up yesterday, my son opened a bottle of tomato sauce to "check for freshness", not realizing that by opening it, it had to get used almost immediately. As it was a relatively new bottle, I was a bit annoyed. Either way, tonight's meal had to include tomato sauce.

We weren't in the mood for pasta - too heavy. I had been planning on maquing my Greeque Quinoa Quiches, but that was foiled by my kid and the unfortunately opened bottle. Still, eggs sounded nice and easy. Finally, it came to me. Shakshouka! It is a really yummy Israeli dish where you poach eggs in tomato sauce. It takes about 5 minutes to prepare (heaven!) and 5 more minutes to poach the eggs, and Bob's Your Uncle, dinner is on the table.

DANIELLE'S EASY WASTE NOT WANT NOT SHAKSHOUKA

First you chop up an onion and some garlic and fry them in a pan with a wee bit of EVOO, salt, pepper, chilis and a bay leaf for good measure. The smell of onions and garlic frying is always a heady and beautiful aroma.

Pour in about half of cup of wine (I used Merlot, it was what we were drinking with dinner) and stir. Reduce for a minute or two, and inhale all that lovely wine steam.

Add the unfortunately opened bottle of tomato sauce. Add a small pour of balsamic vinegar to combat the acidity of the unfortunately opened bottle.

Let it simmer lightly until you are actually ready to cook. In my case, I used the time to recharge my iphone, walk the dog and yell at the kids to get their crap off the kitchen table and set it for dinner.

Once you are ready to cook, bring the tomato sauce (no longer unfortunate) up to a beautiful simmer and crack in your eggs, being careful to not break the yolks or drop some shell in the tomato sauce. It's a bitch to get out shell. I use 2-3 eggs per person, depending.

I also like to shred a little cheddar (or whatever cheese you have handy and want to get rid of before it turns green) on top of the eggs. Put the lid on, and let it poach. It only takes a few minutes.
Voila! Danielle's Easy Waste Not Want Not Shakshouka!

While the shakshouka was cooking, I put in my rice cooker a cup of quinoa and 2 cups of water to get an early start on quooking tomorrow's Greeque Quinoa Quiches.

Cook your quinoa, and beat into it however many eggs you will need to feed the family. Chop up several handfuls of spinach, lots of feta cheese (I like sheep's feta - it has the best flavour), some minced black (pitted) olives, oregano and pinch of pepper. It probably doesn't need salt, as the feta has a briney loveliness that gives you that salty flavour.

Heat the oven to 350, spray a muffin tin and add the egg mixture to 3/4 full. Bake until done, probably around 20 minutes.

This is an easy recipe to change up. Start with your base of eggs and quooked quinoa, and add whatever you fancy. Different cheeses, different veg, different spices.. It all works!

These also make great little tarts for the kids to take to school for lunch.

CHALLENGE: CUPBOARD COOKING

NEW CHALLENGE: use up all the crap in my kitchen cupboards. No more buying the following items for the foreseeable future: jam, Dijon, tuna, canned salmon, cereal, rice, pasta (of ALL types), nuts, seeds, grains, nut butters, organic kd, hemp bars, coconut milk, dried fruit, olive oil, hot sauce, vinegars (all types) and chocolate.

Except for Lindt Fleur de Sel Chocolate (because we really need it) and anything else that looks new, interesting or good.

Seriously though, I had so much CRAP in my cupboards. There was stuff almost as old as my oldest child. There was stuff that expired 5 years ago. FIVE YEARS!!!!

I feel sinful for having wasted all that food. Wasting food really pisses me off and makes me feel seriously guilty. Hence this challenge. And I challenge YOU all to do the same!

My new challenge is to USE UP all the stuff still remaining in said cupboard.

And this is just ONE of the cupboards I cleaned out today. You don't want to KNOW what it looked like before. It was pure chaos. there are still 2 more big ones to do. I love how organized it looks now. I can actually SEE everything!

DISH IDEAS BASED ON THE CURRENT CUPBOARD SITUATION:
- freezer brownies (always yummy, and raw so it is a super healthy guilt free dessert)
- quinoa burgers
- quinoa muffins
- quinoa salad (do you get the idea I have a lot of quinoa?)
- hummus from scratch
- crafty cooking kits with the monsters (thank you Elena of Me Myself and Us)
- raw crackers in the dehydrator
- lots and lots of pasta and/or rice dishes with different sauces (using, but not limited to: EVOO, dijon, olives, balsamic vinegar, pine nuts, pepitas, salmon, tuna, pecans,tomato sauce, tomato paste, clams, coconut milk, coconut oil, dijon and hot sauce. Did I mention dijon?) Seriously, there must be 2382216554 different types of pasta and 9878937483 different types of rice in my pantry.
- general nut/seed snacking (we have pecan, sunflower, 2 kinds of almond, 3 kinds of pistachio, walnuts, pepitas, pine, sunflower and about 39884403 other types too)
- oatmeal. We have oat groat, steel cut oats, instant oats, flavoured oatmeal packets, and the partically cooked kind. I guess we will be making oatmeal pancakes this weekend, which will make the monsters happy. And probably some more oatmeal chocolate chip raisin cookies for those suffering from the dreaded "man cold". Apparantly, there is a lot of it going around. So if you suffer like this:

You might just qualify for cookies.

Tomorrow (or sometime in the freaking forseeable future) I will get to those two other cupboards that are mocking me as I type.

I am absolutely dreading it.

Cookies for the Cure

I have this friend who is suffering from the dreaded "man cold". We all know just how devastating this can be. He has sighed, whimpered and whined. He sniffles. He has attempted to martyr himself by saying that "It's Ok". That "its not so bad dying without having had one more cookie".

The poor bastard. Doesn't your heart just *bleed* for him? Can you hear the violins?


Well, he successfully managed to guilt me into baking him his favorite cookies.
So here they are:
Jude's Oatmeal Raisin Chocolate Chip Cookies

(bleh - you had me at the chocolate OR the raisins. Not both. But I digress)

Turn oven on to 350 degrees

Blend together:
1 cup room temperature unsalted butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 2/3 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
lots of vanilla

Sift together:
1 3/4 cup flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
Add to the butter mixture.

Mix in:
3 1/2 cups oatmeal
handful raisins
handful chocolate chips

Make either blobs or flat discs
Bake for about 27 minutes or until brown. Depends on the size of the cookie.

Well Jude... Here are your cookies. If you don't want your Mummy to get them all, you had better be there when I drop them off. Otherwise ALL BETS ARE OFF. I'll make SURE your Mum and Dad get them! OR I WILL GIVE THEM ALL TO RHONDA PROSHETSKY-BINSTOCK. And I will laugh and laugh.

Man cold, my ass.

Dani Does Dinnerparties Part Two

Tonights dinner I planned based on ease. I wanted:
1. Easy to cook
2. Tasty
3. Hearty, and most importantly
4. FAST

Yet it still had to be special enough for the "Ayanda Keith Dube upgrade from the 2.9 to the 3.0 version."
Apparantly, it is New and Improved. Sleeker, stronger, faster and built to last so I needed to get it while I could, as this promotion ends 11 October, 2013.

In other words, it was AK's 30th birthday.

We also needed to prepare something desserty to take to brunch the next morning.

So for the birthday dinner, the menu was as follows:

Caeser Salad

Garlic Bread
Steak
Potatoes

Birthday Brownie (why mess with ooey gooey perfection?)

All super easy, yet its amazing how many people screw up even those simple items, especially garlic bread.

Garlic bread should NEVER have garlic powder in it. ONLY fresh garlic. DO YOU HEAR ME PEOPLE?!? FRESH! GARLIC! Its not that difficult. Mix a whackload of fresh minced garlic with some butter, and maybe a bit of olive oil. Thats it. Shmear it on the bread. Toast or bake it lightly. Don't overthink it, don't add a bunch of crap it doesn't need. Use a good bread. Personally, I love Ace Bakery baguettes. They make a MEAN loaf of bread, and I love it. It is totally yummers.

Since Alan can't eat this, I make the same thing but use goat butter (bleh) for him, and one of the spelt breads that he can eat, but the principle is the same. And for God's sakes... NEVER use margarine. That stuff is just yellow plastic. If you can't use butter at all, use extra virgin olive oil.

Steak is also an easy thing to make, and gets massacred often. First of all, use a fabulous cut of meat. Don't overcook it. Make it super thick, and BBQ it on indirect heat. I make a blenderized marinade out of olive oil, whackloads of garlic, tons of zataar and Indonesian peppercorns and pour it over the steak. Let it sit in the fridge for a few hours. Never salt your meat until just before you cook it, unless you want a tough, dry waste of money.

I make one steak that is big enough for everybody to enjoy, and you just slice off pieces. So this steak is about 3 inches thick, and weighs about 4 -5 pounds. Whatever doesn't get eaten, gets turned into a stir fry for dinner another night.
Turn your entire grill on to a bazillion degrees. You want it SCREAMING hot. Shut half the grill off, and toss your steak on the "off" side, and STAND BACK. It helps to have a spritzy bottle full of water here, to put out the flames, as the marinade flares.

Note to self: Tie hair back and wear a freaking hat unless you want bangs and love the smell of burning hair. Trust me on this one. Its words to the wise. :(

With a steak that big, I cook it about 13 minutes per side, rotating it slightly to get those beautiful grill marks. Once its off the grill pour a little reserved marinade on it, cover it with tin foil and leave it for 5-10 minutes to rest. The steak should turn out beautifuly rare.

Caeser salad can be made the usual way, just use pecorino cheese instead of Reggiano. Pecorino is a sheeps milk cheese that is similar in texture and flavor to parmesan. Ideally, reggiano is the best, but if you can't handle cow's dairy, you have to find alternatives.
The usual ingredients are: EVOO, garlic (and LOTS of it), lemon juice, pepper, worstechestwishtechesteshisteshire sauce, anchovies (and lots of these too!), egg yolk, tabasco and dijon mustard. It is a basic vinaigrette with cheese added. For some reason, people very rarely put enough garlic in their caeser dressing. You should REEK of garlic when you are done eating this, as far as I am concerned.

Why mess with perfection on a dessert? Its fast, easy and delicious. Birthday brownies RULE.

For this visit with AK, we (well, I) decided to stay away from whiskey. Probably a wise decision. This time, all the pictures taken were safe to post. ISN'T THAT RIGHT, ALAN? But we won't discuss that anymore. That picture is in the vault. Locked away. Right? RIGHT?

ANYWAY. For the brunch, I whipped up a simple rice pudding with the left over sushi rice, lots of milk, a couple eggs, some raisins, a little sugar, a tablespoon of butter and lots of cinnamon.
Note to self: Either don't use sushi rice, or use a lot more milk and less egg.
It came out tasty, but I prefer it to be creamier or at least less firm.
Rice pudding always reminds me of my father and my childhood. Rice pudding was one of his specialties. Every time he made this, he would take a thoughful bite, and decide how he would adjust the recipe the next time.

Rice pudding summarizes so many of the reasons why I love cooking. Its fun, I can experiment, and be artistic. It brings back memories. Food is so often centred around friends and family time. Whenever we have people over, we gather in the kitchen and sit around and talk, eat, drink. I cook with love, and feed love to my family. I hope that when my children are grown, they will look back on their childhoods and remember specific food related memories; of joy, celebration, comfort and happiness.

There are three things I always said I would teach my children.
1. How to cook (they do)
2. How to dance (they can)
3. How to clean (still working on that one)

A man who can cook, clean and dance is a sexy man. Strangely enough, my husband can't cook, clean OR dance, and yet I still think he is the sexiest thing on the two legs.
I guess a sense of humor still trumps all. At least it does for me.

He's lucky though, that I love to cook. He burns water.
(And Alan, when you read this, KEEP YOUR TRAP SHUT ABOUT THE EGGS IF YOU KNOW WHATS GOOD FOR YOU)

Happy experimenting!

Dani Does Dinnerparties

We've got people for dinner tonight and for tomorrow. It is necessary to plan the menu and the shopping, so as to make it as smooth as possible, because I still have actual work to do in between.

I think best while scribbling on paper and having my morning ambrosia, I mean coffee.

So tonight's meal is for my father's oldest friends, one of which is my Godfather who is in from California. I decided on an Atafulo Mango theme for tonights meal, but there were issues:
1. No atafulo mangos to be found.
2. Regular mangos that were ripe and unbruised were pretty hard to find too, but luckily at the 3rd store I went to, I found some.
3. No fresh tuna until the 5th store. Thats dedication, I think.
Pretty gorgeous though, once I found it.

Menu:

Mixed greens with marinated balsamic mushrooms and fig chevre. (I know it doesn't really go with the rest of the meal, but I love it, so boo sucks to you if you don't)

Seared Ahi Tuna in a miso marinade with wasabi dressing and a mango, cilantro avocado salsa.

I don't have a picture of the cooked tuna yet, because, well, its not cooked. Its just marinating right now, but I plan to sear it on each side for about 2 minutes. I want it nice and rare in the middle.

Spicy Thai Coleslaw
Shameless plug here: I LOVE LOVE LOVE my Kyocera ceramic knife. My sister Simone (who is a raw food chef) turned me on it. It simply ROCKS.

Initially, I tried to use my mandolin to shave the cabbage, but honestly, what a useless piece of crap. The knife worked so much better and was much easier to handle. Safer too, as I currently enjoy keeping all my digits.



And for dessert.... drum roll please....
Mango Cheesecake with Mango Coulis. Can I get a big YaHUUUUM?

Here is everything you need to whip up a mango cheesecake and the coulis. Its easy to make, took me about 5 minutes to prepare it all, and then I popped it into the oven for 75 minutes.

Honestly, I didn't measure anything in this recipe, so you will have to bear with me.

In the stand mixer, I threw:
Approximately 2 1/2 tubs of cream cheese, 2 eggs, a small handfull of sugar, the blendered flesh of one mango (minus skin) and a huge wodge of vanilla extract. Right now I have to give a big shout out to my husband, without whom this recipe would have NEVER worked. He opened the jar of vanilla for me. (Are you happy now, Alan?)

Pity he won't be able to eat any of it, with the dairy and the wheat. Ah well, such is life. HA. HA. HA.
So into the stand mixer it all went, and I whipped it till it was fairly smooth.

For the crust, I melted about 1/4 cup of butter and added about 1 cup of graham crumbs, mixed it together and smushed it all into a buttered round pan.

Pour the mixture on the crust, put it in a water bath and pop it in the oven for 75 minutes. Cool, and refrigerate for several hours.

For the coulis, I simply skinned and pitted a mango, threw the flesh into my vitamix blender (another shameless plug) and whipped it up with a couple teaspoons of sugar and the juice from half a lime. Totally yummers.

I think between the food and the wine, dinner will be fun. And if the food is shit, there is always more wine.

Seriously Delicious

Best. Brownie. Ever.

I managed to get this picture before the last of it was snarfed. It wasn't easy.

Birthday Monster!

My oldest monster is 13 today. Thirteen. THIRTEEN. A TEENAGER.

What scares me the most is I remember *being* thirteen. And it seems like last week.

I feel old.

As usual, I am making a lot of Alex's favorite foods for dinner. Today started with The Baking Of The Birthday Cake, once I shoved the kid out the door to go to school. Of course, it had to be dairy free with spelt flour, so that Alan could partake. Can't have birthday cake that the papa cannot eat.

This is everything you need to make a delicious chocolatey chewy fudgey dense birthday brownie:

Actually, I am missing the MOST IMPORTANT INGREDIENT.

Without my coffee, nothing was going to happen. Getting to bed at 3a.m is not a good way to get a shit load of work done.

So back to the cake.
Set the oven to 350 Degrees
In a stand mixer add:
3 eggs
2 cups brown sugar (ok, I ran out of brown sugar after a cup and a bit and had to use demerera sugar, but who cares)
a good wodge of vanilla (more about my vanilla later)

Beat on a medium speed until its nice and light in color.

Add:
1 cup Extra virgin olive oil and beat some more.

In a water bath, melt some dark chocolate, preferably 70% cacao or more. I used about 2-3 oz. or so. To be honest, I didn't measure. I just threw whatever I had in a pot and set it to melt.

In a separate dish, sift together:
1 1/4 cup spelt flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 TBS baking powder

Once its all sifted, add it to the egg, sugar and oil mixture, and turn the machine on to *just* combine. DO NOT OVERWORK. Add the melted chocolate and combine it in as few spins as possible.

Grease a square pan and then line it with tin foil and oil that. Pour the fudgey, delicious, tempting and beautiful batter in. Pop it in the oven before you eat it raw. It just simply won't do to have a birthday boy with no birthday cake because of a greedy baker.

Bake for about 50 minutes.
Cool and hide the cake until it is time to sing "happy birthday" or you might find strange little bits missing off it.

And there you have it. Delicious, chewy, fudgey, yummy, chocolately goodness.


Now back to my vanilla. I adore vanilla. So I make my own extract. Supremely easy. Just shove a bunch of vanilla beans in a large glass jar, and fill with vodka. Put it in a cupboard for a month, and shake it periodically. Voila. Vodka. I mean Vanilla.

I just keep topping it up with more vanilla beans and more vodka. It makes a mean White Russian too.