Easter teaser...

I am going to be late for spinning today if I don't hurry this internet business up, so all you get on Easter is a little hazelnut teaser...

Be back later with the full story...

Tragedy and a regular (albeit beautiful!) meal...

That is my almost full jar of A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. sundried tomatoes...crashed to the floor. Sad day.

This is a BIG bowl of veggies. I looooove veggies.
This post's purpose was mostly to make you feel sorry for me, because of the tomato incident. The veggie bowl photo happened to be taken on the same day as the tomatoes, and I thought the colors were amazing!

Friday Afternoon in the Kitchy

Kath's kale chips (YUM!)...I sprinkled them with nutritional yeast flakes. My kinda chips!

(with flash, then with no flash and HANDS!)

Then I tried to adapt my mom's fabulous oatmeal cookie recipe to be a little lower in sugar, and a little higher in fiber. They were just okay. I say, have a reasonable portion of the real thing.

You are SO good lookin...

I knew nothing about Babka until Seinfeld enlightened me.

I am a Utahn. My understanding is that those of you who live in the East know all about Babka...so I turned to you for guidance. I searched many food blogs and recipe sights to find what people considered the ultimate Babka. The verdict??? Neither cinnamon, nor chocolate, but a marriage of the two. Apparently, the streusel topping is as important as properly acting yeast. Marry and streusify I did.

Yeast doin' its' thing...

Dough with dough hook

Streusel topping made while dough rises

Inards, also made while dough rises

Large loaf, all rolled up and generously twisted

Preparing mini-loaves. The recipe was supposed to make three large loaves, I did two large and made four small out of the last large. I thought the tiny ones turned out better!!

Tiny loaves before baking

Large loaves before baking

Large loaves straight outta the oven.
Y.U.M.

I have serious intentions of proper experimentation with all kinds of Babka in the near future. If you live in Utah and you'd like to reap the benefits of the gargantuan recipe yield, all you gotta do is give me the word!!

Cracka-Lacka

I like to bake cookies mostly. Why???
Oh, because I love to eat the dough.
But today, I baked crackers. With some inspiration from
Kath and her husband over at Katheats.com, I started
throwin ingredients into a bowl. I ended up with red quinoa,
almond slices, pepitas, sunflower seeds, salt, pepper, and
flax seeds. I toasted all of these and then cooled them. To
this I added whole wheat flour, vital wheat gluten (for higher
protein, that was silly...nobody wants glutenous crackers!!),
olive oil, honey, and water.
Some of them got fresh rosemary and basil in their
dough. Some of them got topped off with delicious
pecorino romano.
They are high fiber, high protein, high MUFA fabu
little treats!

Yeah, I bake my own Birthday cake...

This cake is a ridiculous height. There are two yellow layers and two chocolate layers inside. I contem plated freezing a layer, but I simply couldn't have two of one and one of the other, so tall cake it was.

The layers were chiffon. I used Mark Bittman's basic chiffon cake recipe. It was yellow. In the chocolate batter, I reduced the flour and added that much cocoa powder. I felt this was a good method.

The frosting is vanilla seven minute, with chocolate seven minute marbled in. It was really just going to be vanilla, but I am a frosting girl, and felt as though there wasn't enough. When I decided to make more, I figured the outside might as well match the inside.


Here it is all dressed up.

Meet the folks that would be my parents if I had not parents night...

I don't love noshy food. I just don't feel satisfied standing and picking at things. I like to sit down with dishes and napkins and presentation. A night like this, however, calls for nosh.
Nosh we did.
Smoked salmon with capers, cream cheese, red onion, and lemon (with crostini, cucumber, or water crackers as vehicles).
Crudite and half tomato half herbed dip that I made with a cottage cheese/yogurt base.
Pomegranite margaritas.
And Ryan's contribution...Gin/Champagne/Lemon cocktails.
I managed to make myself sick off of gin one night in high school, and champagne sometime shortly thereafter. Needless to say, I couldn't stomach much of that cocktail, but it sure was tasty!

I don't know who decided it would be a good idea to try to teach a bunch of inebriated souls how to play new card games. That is what ensued after the nosh had been noshed, though. It was rough, we literally threw in the cards pretty quickly after we began.


This is Mrs. Piggy Lopez. She is a pretty tolerant dog.