Boys are SO distracting.

Oi, I'm late! I'm blogging for last Thursday.

It's fine though; we were making Bliss' birthday cake, and photographing it before her birthday is just bad luck, says I.

So we had a new cooking buddy come over this time.

A...b-b-boy!

No, not that boy. But he was there, too.

Just a friend of Summer's. I think I'll call him D-hizzle.

I think that's what Snoop Dogg would want.

Here's what we were dealing with: Victoria Sponge Cake from a mildly frustrating British cookbook:

You’ll need:

For the cake—

- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, very soft

- ¾ cup sugar

- 1 tsp vanilla extract

- 4 large eggs

- 1⅓ cups self-rising cake flour

- 2 tbsp cornstarch

- 1 tsp baking powder (if using processor method)

- 4 tbsp milk

- 2 8×2 inch cake pans (buttered and lined with parchment or wax paper)

For the filling—

- 4 tbsp raspberry jam (recipe below)

- 1 cup raspberries

- 1 cup heavy cream

----

First issue: cake had to stay good for...like, 3 days. So Summer decided to replace the raspberries with gummie bears.

Second issue: we had no gummie bears.

So we took a little walk to the corner store. Have you seen this girl's keychain?! No, of course you haven't.

It's more of a tribal headdress than a keychain though.

No complaints!

Ran into this guy, too.

Eeeeeuck.

On the walk home D-hizzle taught me a terrible Sesame Street parody, and I'll never be the same again! Elmo, how could yooou!

Just kidding, D!

The nice thing about this recipe is that yes, a blender does easily replace a food processor. There wasn't much to do! Trow everything into our "food processor", blend, add eggs, blend, graaaadually add milk, blend.

So what took us 2 hours?!

I said it before, and I'll say it again, boys are so distracting.

Wouldn't you agree, Princess Sparklecake?

She's so radiant.

And wow, I need new sparkle tubes.

Ok, so after wrenching Summer and D-hizzle off the computer every 7 minutes or so, we got the boy crumbling cauliflower for us!

No, they didn't go in the cake.

They went in some dish that kind of tasted like nothing, so never mind it.

But yes, I am resolved. While boys may be distracting, they can also be quite helpful :)

See?! Look how much work we got done!

Nothing left to do but sit back and wonder who gave Bliss permission to turn 9.

I know I didn't.

It happened anyway!

Pasta Primavera and Blissful Fairy Cakes!

Yikes, it's been too long. We missed Thursday night because no one was feeling all that great.

Monday was a must, however. Birthday season has begun, and we have precious little time to prepare!

That's right!

Bliss will be 9 soon, and there is baking to be done!

First things first, though: supper!

This is a really hard-to-mess-up recipe.

As a result, we did not mess up. Phew!

Just run-of-the-mill linguine noodles for the pasta.

(...yes, the gluten-free diet is quickly fading into a thing of the past.)

And, if I can remember everything here in the primavera:

*2 tbsp olive oil

*handful of cherry tomatoes, halved

*4 stalks asparagus, chopped

*2 tablespoons minced garlic

*1/2 cup broccoli florets

*4 or 5 large mushrooms, chopped into really big chunks so the people that don't like mushrooms can pick them out

*half a red bell pepper, prepared with magical mixing machine.

WHOA, WAIT.

Have we ever posted a picture of this thing???

This thing is as integral as Admiral Megatron!

Have we honestly never posted a picture of her?

Aww, there she is.

Isn't she beautiful?

It's not my place to name her, as she belongs to Michelle, but...I'm pretty sure I want to name her Princess Sparklecake!

We'll put it to a vote shortly.

I'll have to get back to you on the sauce ingredients; all I remember is that it contains whipping cream and cheese.

...and that the final result was deliciousness :)

After feeding the almost-birthday-girl, she went off to practice while Summer and I got to work on practicing fairy cakes; birthday style!

Ingredients:

*half cup unsalted butter, softened

*half cup superfine sugar (uh..we used icing sugar; internet instructed us to double the amount, and that that'd be AOK)

*2 large eggs

*three-quarters cup self-rising cake flour (We uh...used regular flour. I don't recommentd it, even though the result was successful!)

*half teaspoon vanilla extract

*2-3 tablespoons milk

*12-cup muffin pan lined with 12 paper baking cups

Directions:

Put all the ingredients except for the milk in the food processor (we used a blender!) and then blitz till smooth. Pulse while adding milk down the funnel (we just poured it in slowly!), to make for a soft, dropping consistency. I know it looks as if you'll never make this scant mixture fit 12 cupcake cups, but you will, so just spoon and scrape the stuff in, trying to fill each cup equally. Put in the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes or until the fairy cakes are cooked and golden on top. As soon as bearable, take the fairy cakes in their cases out of the tin and let cool on a wire rack.

--

After that, there's nothing else left to do besides adding your personal touch to it.

whether it be pretty...

...or a wee bit silly!

We had a really fun night :)

Cheese Lasagna ala Summer

Ahh, Spring Break has come to an end (for..half of us, at least). We were all a little bagged, so it's a good thing Bliss chose an easy recipe for us this time: cheese lasagna! Yep, the most basic of basic of all the lasagnas.

Again, we had some additional guests!

This is Sabrina (@SabrinaaK, yes I accidentally called her Sabs last night, a handful of times).

This is the look she gave us when she realized that these chefs won't give her people food. Poor girl!

We started the prep work while Bliss got creative with her after school snack

The super duper easy recipe:

Ingredients

16 ounces uncooked lasagna noodles

1 (26 ounce) can spaghetti sauce

1 pound cottage cheese

8 ounces shredded mozzarella cheese

8 ounces shredded Cheddar cheese

1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente; drain.

In a blender or with an electric mixer, blend tomato sauce and cottage cheese together until smooth. Spoon a little of the sauce mixture in the bottom of a 9x13 baking dish. Place a layer of cooked noodles over the sauce, and sprinkle a portion of the mozzarella, the cheddar and the parmesan over the noodles. Repeat layering of sauce, noodles and cheese; finish with a cheese layer.

Bake in preheated oven 30 to 45 minutes, until cheese is bubbly and golden.

We grated the cheese in tandem, as it was faster and funner that way

I guess I grated mine wrong. I require heavy supervision :|

It got the job done! Sauce, noodles, cheese, sauce, noodles, cheese, sauce, noodles, cheese, and then...the most exciting part...

sauce, noodles, cheese!!!

et voila.

We ate in shifts last night, haha. Bliss n' Michelle had practice right as the food was cooling. While Eldon is a lovely (albeit picky) food critic, we convinced Farid to test out our recipe.

Round one: 100% approval rating. I loved it, Summer loved it, Farid went for seconds, and...

Eldon, what did you think?

Like I said: 100% approval rating.

Round 2, the rest of the posse came home, and enjoyed as well!

Round 3, Grandpa stopped by and...alls well that ends well!

Here's the garlic bread recipe. It was super garlicy, but since most of us are either getting sick or getting over being sick, it was AOK.

(I cut the recipe in half; Eldon and Summer gnawed at the other half of the loaf until it was widdled down to bread-nubs)

Ingredients

3 bulbs garlic

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 (1 pound) loaf Italian bread

1/2 cup butter

1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley (optional)

2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese (optional)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Slice the tops off of the garlic bulbs so that the tip of each clove is exposed. Place the bulbs on a baking sheet, and drizzle with olive oil. Bake for 30 minutes, or until garlic is soft.

Set the oven to broil. Slice the loaf of bread in half horizontally, and place cut side up on a baking sheet.

Squeeze the cloves of garlic from their skins into a medium bowl. Stir in the butter, parsley, and Parmesan cheese until well blended. Spread onto the cut sides of the bread.

Broil for about 5 minutes, until toasted.

Even this guy couldn't have done it better himself :)

Coconut "chicken" "chili", and new additions to the crew.

BIG NEWS!!

Pseudo kitchen got an upgrade. So long, Coca Cola cup utensil holder! Hello...utensil holder!!

Also, hello new utensils!

Hello new friends, too! Raisa and Alena moved in last week, and we showed them there ain't no party like a Thursday partAAAY, OOOH. :)

Alena needed no instruction. The 90's pop was a-playing, Bliss' shoes were bedazzling, and Alena couldn't help but get jiggy with it.

See what I did there? Jiggy with it? Na-na-na-na--....oh, never mind.

Coconut Chicken Chili was on the docket (Jen provided some Scones du le Francais or something, she will be blogging shortly!). Chicken's not enough of a challenge though, so TOFU AND PRAWNS IT WAS!

Scones to the left, "chili" to the right!

It was nice working in tandem with Jen.

The house had the distinct scent of Domestic Goddess, hah!

The coconut part is what really freaked me out. I didn't realize there is a "thick" and "thin" variety of this stuff.

Michelle, Summer and Bliss had family photos tonight, but got back just in time for me to put them to work. (yeeeah @ permission for names of all involved. Huzzah!)

Whoa. Not gonna lie, the camera does not do this mixture justice. In fact, it makes me downright uncomfortable. The general consensus was quite favorable, I swear. I blame the tofu.

Raisa and Alena weren't our only special guests. We were also joined by

Admiral MEGATRON, Esq.

He brought the beverages.

I love you, Admiral Megatron.

I don't know who made this salad, or when, but thank you.

And thanks to Bliss for some pretty pristine photos.

So everyone that ought to have liked it, liked it.

This dish does not photograph well; good gravy.

It was good, but I am going to try it at home with chicken just for the photogenic factor.

Here's what I did to the recipe:

"Coconut" "Chicken" Chili

100g cube extra firm tofu

3 cups prawns
1 large onion, chopped
1-1/2 teaspoons chili powder
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (whoops, I quadrupled this. Sorry Bliss!!)
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 Tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 14 oz. can unsweetened coconut milk
1 Tablespoon peanut butter
3 medium carrots, shredded with a box grater on the biggest holes
1 stalk celery, sliced (we skipped the celery, a large fraction of us don't like celery for some bizarre reason)
2 green onions, sliced
5 cloves garlic, minced (used a bit less. Jen, pick up garlic :D)

Serve over hot cooked jasmine rice (used regular rice...and...I'm not even going to comment on that, this blog is long enough!)

Directions

In a large saucepan cook tofu, prawns, onion, chili powder, ginger, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon black pepper and the cayenne pepper in hot oil over medium heat for 6 to 8 minutes, or longer if your prawns are frozen like mine were. Stir in flour and cook 1 minute more. Stir in coconut milk, peanut butter and 1 cup water. Bring to boiling, stirring occasionally.

Stir in beans(skipped), carrots, celery(skipped), green onion, garlic and chopped basil(skipped). Return to boiling; reduce heat. Simmer, covered, 10 minutes. Serve with rice. Top with basil leaves(skipped).

On a final note; my sincerest apologies go out to Pepe the King Prawn since there is a very good chance someone ate his cousin last night.

Forgive me, Pepe?

Green Crepes n' Eggs!

Aww jeeze, I've done it again.

I am blogging sans recipe. It's ok, it's ok; I remember one of the recipes.

Well, for starters, Summer made crepes.

Not just any crepes. GREEN crepes.

They were soooo good, and I will have to fetch the recipe from her some day.

We had our choice of chicken or shrimp inside. It was a nice change from the recent questions the girls had been asking me.

Would you rather eat spaghetti and eyeballs, or mac n' cheese with guts?

These were the profound topics covered this evening. I mean, if they're fish eyeballs, that's one thing, but...

Well, anyway. Delicious!

I'm not sure what was in the sauce. I'm pretty sure we know by now not to let me near sauce, yeah? It was absolutely perfect, and I ate until I barely had room for half of dessert.

Eh? What was for dessert, y'say?

The funnest easiest recipe EVER!

Ok, it may be the easiest recipe ever, but when you Mickey Mouse it, it comes out looking like 5 day old brownies. Hmm...it didn't take long to try again.

^^yeah, not quite.

Summer sort of disappeared into the kitchen and ten minutes later, voila!

Wait a tic..

This must be the "during" photo.

Hey, who got the one with 4 eggs?!

Oh, they were SO delicious, but I was so very very full of crepes, so I had to give some of mine to Eldon. What did my little genius do? "I made a star" he said to me a couple times, and when I looked down to see what he was talking about...

A lovely St. Patrick's Day/Easter themed meal.

Eldon took a nap on the couch, making it a painful task to stick him in the car to come home! I am definitely feeling the same now though, so that's my cue to get outta here and catch me some z's.

With friends like these who needs enemies?

Yes, Owl City. I thank you for your adorable quote. That album was our soundtrack for the evening. It's good happy music, I strongly recommend it.

Happy music takes the edge off the endearing fact that this is where you store your cooking utensils:

We love you, pseudo kitchen.

We compromised this week; Jen chose a recipe and I chose a recipe.

I am only writing about my recipe today because my computer's a brat and I only have minimal pictures.

Our 3 lovely third party chefs had to visit the eye doctor (yeah, I only got tentative permission to post their names; work in progress. Until then, you will deal with my metaphors, y'hear?). I started the cauliflower casserole.

..this is what I did to the original recipe:

Ingredients:

1 large head of cauliflower cut into flourets. Flowerets? Florets? What do I know..

1 eggplant, chopped up with M's magical chopping machine

***Sauce***

4 tablespoons (2 ounces) butter

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper

2 cups milk

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

6 ounces of super expensive marble cheese, rrg.

***Topping***

1 cup soft fresh bread crumbs

whatever seasoning I ended up using; I think "none"

1 to 2 tablespoons melted butter

bunch of cheese. No amount is too much, decidedly.

Preparation:

Boil cauliflower 6-8 minutes (I really didn't keep track)

Boil the eggplant, set both aside

Grease a 2-quart baking dish.

Heat oven to 350°.

In a medium saucepan, heat butter over medium heat. Add flour and stir until smooth and just bubbly. Add salt, pepper, and milk. Cook the sauce, stirring, until thickened and bubbly. Add the mustard and cheese and continue cooking, stirring, until cheese is melted.

Combine the cauliflower with sauce and spoon into the prepared baking dish.

Combine topping ingredients and sprinkle over the cauliflower mixture. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until the casserole is bubbly and topping is browned.

Serves 6.

------------

I completely screwed up the sauce, as I didn't let the butter melt properly. After some pristine advice from M, I started over, and promptly screwed it up again by adding the milk too fast. It eventually turned into sauce.

Then it turned into casserole! The recipe didn't ask to cover it with any cheese (let alone this much), but we decided that there's no such thing as too much cheese.

Pseudo kitchen is also a dining room. I bet you didn't know that! Pseudo kitchen is magical.

Pseudo kitchen's stove didn't quite fit both dishes, but we MADE it fit, hence the browning of but one side.

A hit.

Dante was really excited @ the company, so he didn't eat much.

Eldon was the chairman of an over stimulation party, so I don't think he even tried it.

A hit with all 5 girls, though.

Miss B in particular.

After thirds, she scraped the casserole dish clean!

Ahh, success.

Or, as Eldon would say..

Gigantic enormous success.

The littluns also deserve a thanks for helping Jen with the messy business of unpacking. A special thanks to Miss S for vacuuming that terrible, terrible mess I made in the pseudo kitchen. <3

Now, if you'll excuse me, Eldon and I are going spider hunting with Miss O.

Don't mind Eldon's war paint (yes, it's marker).

Do mind his loose tooth! (bottom front! check it OUT!!)

....and so it begins.

Less than 30 minutes ago I glanced up, startled from my dazed stupor, pondering the sound I just heard. Lost amid boxes upon boxes upon boxes of random household paraphernalia was my sanity screaming "EAT, YOU FOOL!"

Right. That's what I forgot to do today. Untangling myself from a plethora of miscellaneous computer cords, I shot an apologetic look in the general direction I thought she might be hiding (my sanity, that is) and skipped off to the kitchen to delve into my first official pseudo-cooking adventure.

Two questions surfaced as I wandered in and out of my new Lantry (that's a combo word for laundry/pantry) .. "What?" and "How?"

The "what" was easy and the "how" quickly fell into place. I decided to play it safe and make something pasta related. Pasta is safe? Right? Armed with a box of whole wheat goodness I opened the fridge, skeptical at first via there was maybe a handful of anything that wasn't a condiment or an apple. Lucky for me that handful was just what I needed. One small chopped onion, one ripe, diced red pepper, tsp of minced garlic and some fresh rosemary later I was well on my way to a surprisingly fast and delicious meal.

I set the pasta to boil and sauteed the onion, garlic and red pepper in olive oil, adding a few mad dashes of S&P and I went. All at once the whole place smelled wonderful, good enough to rival my new neighbours delectable ethnic cooking upstairs.. (oh the magic of garlic!).

Just as the pasta was nearing completion, I added some crushed rosemary and parsley to the mix followed by a tablespoon of ricotta and a tablespoon of organic pasta sauce. (I DO MY PART, MOTHER EARTH.)

I let it cooked for another 5 or so minutes until everything blended, thickened and took on the texture of paste. Next I added it to the pasta and topped it off with fresh Parmesan and VOILA, PEOPLE. Art. Delicious, 15-minute art.

Honestly folks, you can never go wrong with onions and ricotta, and garlic is a magic all on it's own. Any variety of vegetables and spices can put a fabulous spin on this dish.. it's pseudo gourmet cooking at it's finest!

Success.

You're welcome.

Tofu burritos and one of a cat's nine lives.

Oh wow, what a night.

Pseudo kitchen is still being set up, but is already looking pretty fabulous.

In the meantime, though, I had the opportunity to work with two of the country's brightest up-n-coming chefs. What was on the menu? Tofu burritos and a cabbage bell pepper salad. Sound like a daunting task?

That was pretty much everyone's reaction.

Even after the success, the skeptics were skeptical.

However, there is no task too daunting for these girls, and it was pertinent to feed Jen a nurturing meal, as setting up a pseudo kitchen is no easy task!

Usually I have the recipe in front of me to provide, but the evening warped itself into a bit of a circus, so we will all have to settle for photographic evidence!

The cheese was an afterthought. A really, really wise afterthought.

And what does the inside look like?

Why, like a tofu burrito! Our assistant (I think the chefs call her "Mom") had a plethora of vegetables she was quite keen on unloading, so we snuck some eggplant, zucchini and extra extra peppers in there. We also replaced the tomato paste with spaghetti sauce.

Yes. We flipped the recipe upside down (which I will post one day, surely), and served it with a "Mom seriously needs to get rid of these vegetables tonight" salad.

Right before we dined, we kidnapped the neighbour cat.

Nothing says bon appetit like one of a cat's nine lives.

Hey, we were 78% sure is was Jen's missing cat, alright? 78% is a pretty high number.

Also, we fed him, so we're square.

Alright? Alright.

ALRIGHT, so we took the meal over to Jen's. Yes, we brought our feline friend too. She adored the meal, but we had to run before missing cat posters ended up around the block.

I tried to get a picture of her enjoyment, but all I was allowed to photograph was her pretty hair clip.

You win this round, Loveshine.

...you're not the only one who revoked my permission to photograph their face.

Yes, I'll get the recipe, as per the point of this whole blog.

Yes, I had a really fun evening!

...now let us never speak of it again.