pizza and donuts

Seriously, can a man have a happier birthday than this?

• freshly ground and brewed Blue Bottle Coffee when he wakes up
• a Wawa Hoagie for brunch
• Pizza for dinner with a gourmet cream soda
• and a Giant Donut for dessert

I don't see how.  Oh, and gourmet mustards for gifts.  Yeah, I'd say Mister's having a pretty happy birthday.  He'd probably prefer his "cake" didn't have pretty pink candles, but hey, some days you're the bird and some days you're the statue.

After a couple cups of coffee, I showered, dressed, and set off on my quest to Williams-Sonoma (I could honestly go broke there, especially with MAC right across the street).  I had one main objective:

Mister loves donuts.  I remember when I learned that - I don't think we'd been dating all that long, but let me set up for you what my perception of him was at that time: When Mister and I started dating, he was the manager of the mechanical department of a Bike Line store on the Main Line suburbs of Philadelphia.  He was actively involved in mountain biking, urban trials, and competitive racing.  He had the talent to have gone from high school into a professional soccer league, but went to college instead.  He lived on Clif bars and water, from what I could see.

What I'm trying to say is Mister took really good care of himself and ate healthier than anyone I'd ever met.  So, imagine my surprise the first time we went on a road trip and he explained the necessity of starting at Dunkin' Donuts.  It was then I saw a darker side of Mister.  A side that can't live without egg 'n' cheese bagel sandwiches and donuts (though, to his credit, these are absolutely "sometimes treats").

So, many donuts later, here we are and at the stroke of midnight last night, I said "happy birthday" to Mister for the tenth time.  So today, I wanted to make him a huge, dual-flavored birthday donut.  The flavor selections were carrot cake and spice cake - I figured they'd go well together.  Unfortunately, we may never know.

I started out by making the recipe for Carrot Cake Cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, and although it does make a very tasty cake, I think it's better left to tiny cupcakes - it didn't want to hold a ring shape and when I inverted it out of the cake pan and onto the rack, it pretty much fell apart.

Ugly, yes, but very good.  We ate half of it before dinner (it's not very big - don't judge).  My second try went a little better.  Actually, it went so much better that it didn't matter that what was supposed to be one layer of a two-layer donut cake fell apart and fell into our bellies.

The second "layer" was made from the spice cake recipe I tested for Dynise's cookbook over the winter. Fortunately, there was enough puffing-up agent in the batter to make this one create a whole round (and stable) donut all by itself!

I left it on the counter to cool down while Mister obediently averted his eyes anytime he had to pass through the kitchen and I got ready for dinner.  We didn't go anywhere very special (aka fancy), but I wanted to get dressed up and Mister humored me.  So, instead of a classic pizza joint where Mister could just keep wearing his t-shirt and jeans, we went to a fancy, gourmet, Stephen Starr pizza joint where it was hip enough that I could dress up a little without looking like a jerk.

I was happy to see my old friend, the Marinara Pizza, with it's perfect, fresh-tasting, home-made pizza sauce with fresh oregano leaves and paper thin slices of garlic sauteed in olive oil before being added to the perfectly cooked pie.  Mister had the wood-burning oven in his direct line of sight and was very amused by how carefully they made sure each pizza was cooked "just right," apparently quite invested in a job others might not consider "skilled labor."

Just below mine was Mister's Margherita Pizza, with more delightful sauce, melted mozzarella, and huge basil leaves.

After we'd stuffed ourselves with thin-crust pizza and some green things we ate as appetizers, we headed home and I began the process of making icing for the donut.

I discovered that Tofutti "cream cheese" is stronger than my measuring cup.  When it's not Mister's birthday anymore, I'll have to get him to fix that somehow.

Shortening intrigues me, disgusts me, and impresses me, all at once.  I have had this shortening for a long time - long enough that I can't remember when I got it.  Honestly, I totally expected to open it up and find it had changed colors, grown hair, or had little friends living inside of it.  I mean, it's not even refrigerated!  Yet, it looks just like it did the first time I opened it (aside from the missing bits).

Anyway, I creamed together the cream cheese and the shortening and then added powdered sugar incrementally.  Probably a little too much, but I was following the recipe, so....

Well, okay, I added like 2 teaspoons of soymilk to make it a little more spreadable.  Aside from that, I followed the recipe.  Once I'd terrorized poor little Angst with the electric mixer, I had a nice pliable frosting for the donut.

Angst wishes it was his birthday.

a tribute to a supermom

I'm getting old.  I don't mean that the way I usually do, when I'm looking at my gray hair in a mirror and having an existential crisis about wasting my life.  My body is getting old.  Unlike birthdays and gray hairs, people don't feel the need to tiptoe around that one - with each day that passes, each holiday we celebrate, each wedding we attend, each baby that is born, there is someone there to remind me that if we want a baby, we need to get on it because my body has only a few more "safe" fertile years left in it.

Nice, huh?

As I approach my mid-thirties, with only a soon-to-be 11-year-old cat to call my baby, I am reminded of all the things Mister and I have said over the years, regarding procreation and why we really have no interest in it.  For most of our time together, Mister has traveled extensively for work.  Babies would interfere with that in multiple ways - I didn't want to explain why Daddy was away so much and I didn't want to resent my offspring for preventing me from going with him.  That is a tangible example of the underlying theme of Mister's and my decision to remain childless - we are just too selfish.  Neither of us has come to a point in our lives where we can see children fitting in - rather, for us and our lives, children would be an interference of sorts.

Before you decide I am the worst human being ever and take my uterus away, hear me out.  I have a very high opinion of mothers, which is the primary reason I am not one.  I think mothers (generally) are the most selfless, loving, patient, amazing humans on the planet.  From the moment of conception, a mother gives and continues giving until she finally takes her last breath.  A mother cares about your hurt no matter how mean you were to her in the midst of it.  A mother works solely so her children can have what they want, since their needs are more than met; or, a mother stops working so her children can benefit from her attention and love as they grow.  A mother is always thinking of what is best for her children (okay, maybe not always, but it sure seems like it sometimes) and doing whatever it takes to show her love to them.

I admire those qualities.  I think if I needed to, I could cultivate them because I can feel them lying dormant inside me.  I just have no desire right now to be that person.

Believe it or not, although I do love my mother with all my heart, she was not the inspiration for all that mushy.  Believe it or not, that was all to build up to this ridiculous idea I had: to cook a whole night of recipes from Mama Pea.  I admire the way she raises her children and if you read her blog for just one week, you will be as hopelessly hooked as I am.  Lucky for you, she just revamped her recipeas page so all of her awesome is easier to find.  You want easier?  She has a book coming out soon - you can (and should) pre-order it on Amazon.

Anyway, for my first trick (AKA Dinner), I made her Meatless Meatloaf.  This was actually on last week's menu, but I chickened out last week.  I made it tonight by sheer force of will and at this point, morbid curiosity.  Now, I'm kicking myself for ever having doubted Mama Pea - I've been reading her blog long enough to know better.

It's really not very attractive...but then again, neither is "real" meatloaf.  What matters is the extraordinary taste.  No offense, Mom (I love you!), but this loaf of mystery meat was far more flavorful than the gray loaf of ground beef we ate in my childhood.  Of course, I'm inclined to think chickpeas taste better than cows, but I know my mother and I differ there.

To go along with the theme, I sauteed some Yukon Gold potatoes in a mixture of olive oil, vegetable broth, garlic, and Mediterranean seasoning from California.  They were good, but were far overshadowed, flavor-wise, by the 'meatloaf.'

Turns out, though, that together, they complemented each other - the intense flavors of the loaf enhancing the potatoes while they calmed the seasonings in the loaf.  I think Mister might have preferred that both components of dinner not be smushy, but he seemed to like it nonetheless and thanked me for making "funny dinner."

For my next trick, I decided to make this amazing recipe for Apple Spice Coffee Cake that Mama Pea just posted over the weekend.

It looked amazing going into the oven, although I made a huge mess of everything putting it together!  There are a lot of ingredients, possibly more than I had bargained for, so it took me quite a bit longer than I had anticipated.  If I realized how inefficient I was in my kitchen (after all, I am still getting used to it), I would have started at least a half hour earlier than I did.

Nevertheless, it was fun putting it all together - I rarely make things that have a crumb/streusel topping because it's such a pain in the you-know-what.  My "small" bowl was way too small, so I had to upgrade before smushing in the Earth Balance, and my fork was frustrating me - I had run out of patience at this point, so I just rubbed it all together with my fingers.  This is not the best idea when you have long fingernails.  So, after I had coaxed the last bits of topping from under my rings and fingernails into the sink, I finally got this sucker in the oven.

One of the reasons I love making spice cakes or cookies is because they start smelling good when you are mixing everything together and the aroma only gets better throughout the assembling and cooking process.  Most of the time, by the time I get to remove my treasure from the oven, I'm almost literally drooling.  There's also something about the scent that fills my kitchen while baking these delights that is just so patently "homey."

To borrow a phrase... oh. my. peas!

My pictures aren't as pretty as Mama Pea's, but I haven't taken any seminars on how to do anything more than point-and-shoot, and my camera is adequate, but nothing "special."  Regardless, I certainly hope my cake tastes as good as Mama Pea's because I can't imagine it getting much better!

The pain-in-the-butt streusel topping was absolutely worth every sliver of Earth Balance that got stuck beneath my nails, trapping with it some cinnamon and brown sugar and maybe a piece of oat for added comfort.  What was the most amazing thing, though, was the way the two textures came together.  The top was undeniably crunchy, almost crisp, but the cake itself was light and pillow-soft.

Speaking of pillows....

I'm really bad at going to sleep by a reasonable hour.

Good night, folks!

worth waiting for

Normally, I'm scrambling to write my post and publish it by Midnight...you may or may not have noticed that, but if you wander through my blog, you'll find most of the posts went up pretty darn close to Midnight.

Truth be told, I could have started writing around 10:30 and had plenty of time to clean up our awesome, make-up-for-last-night dinner.  However, it's now pushing 1am and I still have a kitchen full of messy dishes...why?

Let's start from the beginning, shall we?

Mister loves chili, especially since it means he doesn't need to use a pesky utensil to eat.  No, we don't use forks here, we scoop our chili up with multigrain tostitos.  So, to "make up" for last night's less than successful dinner, I made SusanV's Red, Gold, Black and Green Chili.

Not only did this tasty and slightly zesty chili make up for the Seitan and Prunes debacle, it also restored my faith for the third and final recipe on the menu from Fat Free Vegan Kitchen.  I should note that I am not faithful to Susan's Fat Free Manifesto - I think olive oil is a good healthy fat when used in moderation and lends a delightful flavor you cannot imitate by sauteing with water.

A few other variations: in place of Tabasco sauce, I added a healthy dollop of harissa, mainly because anything hot-saucy that isn't harissa kind of terrifies me.  At least I know what to expect from harissa.  Also, Mister has mentioned his distaste for "squishy wheat" before, so I decided to forego the barley in the recipe, especially in light of last night's fail.  In place of it, I added a can of Eden Organic caribbean rice-n-beans.  It actually worked out perfectly.

So, why do I still have dirty dishes and I'm sitting here at my computer?

Well, shortly after I put our dishes on the counter to be washed, the Baking Bug bit me.  Yup.  So, in an effort to be a good little tester, I wandered over to my computer to see if there were any baked goods in need of testing.  To my ineffable delight, it seems the Baking Bug bit Dynise, too, because a chocolate cake recipe was sitting there, newly added, waiting for its first test.  I was more than happy to oblige.

Just before going into the oven.  I couldn't escape how closely the batter resembled fudge.  I really just wanted to eat the batter, so I stuffed this pan into the oven and just focused on licking the mixing bowl and spatula clean.  Score another win for vegan baking: No need to worry about salmonella when there are no raw eggs in your batter.

It actually started smelling amazing before I'd even finished mixing all of the components together, due to a patently killer technique used in prep.  Have I mentioned YOU ALL NEED TO GET THIS BOOK?  You do.

Here is my fudgy-wudgy but surprisingly fluffy and light piece of Funeral Cake.  Despite the slightly morbid name, it's just the best chocolate cake I've ever made.  Perfectly moist, the right amount of squishy, not too sweet (which surprised me, considering how much sugar is in there), and with those great little crumbs that you can squish with the back of your fork so you get every last morsel.  I could eat this cake until I got a bellyache.  I definitely see why this rich, dark chocolate cake would be comforting to mourners.

Well...those dishes aren't going to do themselves, and I can't leave them for Mister every night... can I?

cake or death

A little bit more than a week ago, I was sitting at the dining table, constructing the menu and Mister walked by just as my eyes had fallen on a recipe for a Sweet and Sour Stirfry in The Vegetarian Times Complete Cookbook.  I looked up from my scheming and asked him, "would you like to have a sweet-n-sour stirfry?"  He responded with a relatively enthusiastic, "sure!" so I put it on the menu.  Since I completely forgot to buy tofu and cashews, it sat on the menu, unmade all week.  Today, I finally got the ingredients I needed to prepare the recipe, so I figured I would do so before the other ingredients got bored of sitting in the fridge for a week and grew legs (or other things that don't belong on vegetables).

I love colorful dishes, especially when the colors are as vibrant as these!  I think I had the reddest pepper ever on sale at Whole Foods (maybe not, but that's how I felt) and despite the Pavlovian Christmas association of red and green, I just love the way the colors look together.  Add into that the sunny yellow of pineapple chunks against snow white cubes of tofu and you have a very nice little stirfry to bid farewell to winter (yes, I know there's still a week left).

I am continually amazed by the way a simple sauce can make the difference between hippie-dippy steamed veggies and a take-out emulating stirfry, served over basmati rice to absorb any extra gloop.  If only the reason I usually turn to take-out was purely because I love the way Chinese take-out tastes, rather than my lack of desire to cook, this would save me a ton of money.

Except for one small thing.  Apparently, sometime in the last 8 days, Mister came down with schizophrenia or some kind of dissociative disorder.  He ate his stirfry and rice, and he didn't push his food around too much with the chopsticks, but when I asked what he thought, this was his response:
You made it well.  I would just never actually, on purpose, eat something sweet-n-sour.

What?  When I reminded him of the encounter recounted above, he had no recollection of it, and asked if I had posed the question to him with another choice.  I said no, I just asked if he wanted the stirfry, and that seemed to "explain" things in Mister's head.  Apparently, if he had said "No," we simply would not have had dinner.  He seems to have missed the part where I was sitting with a pile of cookbooks and a grocery list...

This reminds me of [edit: an Eddie Izzard routine] a Monty Python routine he and I watched together at the beginning of our relationship.  I'm not actually a big Monty Python fan - I think it's more of a guy thing, kind of like the 3 Stooges or the Marx Brothers, except smarter and more English.  Regardless, one sketch I did always find amusing was when three men were given a choice: Cake or Death?  For obvious reasons, the first two men chose cake.  When it is the third man's turn, he also chooses cake, but is informed that they have just run out.  His response?  So my choices are, or Death?

That was as good of a segue as I'll ever have to the bonus round of our post today...

I have been wanting to bake since we moved in, for two reasons.  First, nothing says "home" like the scent of freshly baked something.  Second, and possibly more importantly, I have seriously shirked my responsibilities as a recipe tester for Dynise's upcoming cookbook, and I believe the deadline is looming.  So, out of guilt as well as privilege (because I really am very lucky to be able to "test-drive" these awesome recipes), I baked Rue des Rosiers Pain d'Epice, a nice dark spice loaf.

If the goal was to make the entire apartment smell like where I want to go once I've left this world, then Mission Accomplished!  The loaf bakes for nearly an hour and fills as much space as it can with the most amazing scent.  I'm not sure there is a better smell for baked goods than the smell of something loaded with "winter" spices - cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, for example.  Even chocolate cake or brownies cannot compete with the molasses-rich scent of this dark bread.

It has incredible texture and both Angst and Mister were enthusiastic taste-testers with me.  It was nearly impossible to wait for the loaf to cool enough to cut it without man-handling it.  I just kept walking over to sniff it and at one point I tried to convince Angst that if we both blew on it, it would cool down faster.  The sliced almonds made it very pretty, but definitely made it a little more difficult to cut without marring the top.

Dynise introduced the pain d'epice by painting a lovely Euro-urban scene of a breakfast made up of tea and a slice of this spice loaf slathered with Earth Balance and marmalade.  Although it is very possible there are flavors of marmalade besides orange, I am not aware of them and I'm not big fan of anything orange which is not the raw fruit itself.  However, I can agree that a few pats of EB, spread across the still warm bread and allowed to melt a bit took this bread from quite tasty to absolutely heavenly.

I'll leave you with confirmation of my previously expressed "fears."  Although it seems the entire month of March is an opportunity for people to drink (Mardi Gras and St. Patty's day), it seems today was the big celebration, since we had the parade earlier in the day.  While I was out buying food for our cupboards, I had the incredible misfortune to miss a big band of bagpipers playing outside the Irish bar across the street.  Since they woke Mister from his slumber, he decided I should at least get to see what I missed:

Nope, definitely not sorry I was several blocks away when this was happening.  I am glad Mister got a picture, though.  We have some great from-the-window pictures from our years living in this area.  We'll add this one to the cyber-pile.

I need an intervention

I am going through a serious bout of IDC and the only thing I can think of to do (besides giving in to my darker nature) is to re-read the first chapter of Skinny Bitch until I can convince myself to give up my most recent vice.  Right about now, though, you're probably scritching at your noggin wonder just what exactly IDC is.  Insatiable Desire for Chocolate.  I cannot get enough and it's awful.  Maybe it's my body's attempt to battle the blues and anxiety that come from drastic cost reduction efforts... efforts that provoked terrible and understandable gossip in my recent absence from work, since the day I left early was the day our company "right-sized" by asking about 100 staff members to leave.  "Asking," by the way, is a euphemism.

In any case, I find myself craving chocolate in a way I haven't craved chocolate in many, many years.  All weekend, I was fighting a hardcore need for chocolate cake.  I can't explain it, I just really wanted chocolate cake.  With icing.  And layers.  I'll pause my self-flagellation for a funny story about that:

I'm at my desk at work; it's around 6pm.  My boss comes over with an incredulous expression.
Boss: Do you want to see an amazing chocolate cake?
a big, bright lightbulb shines into brilliance above my cranium.
Me: No.  I would like to eat an amazing chocolate cake.
Boss: Okay.  Follow me!

One of the supervisors was throwing a little party to celebrate recent achievements of two hard-working members of her team.  One of the teammates brought in a beautiful chocolate cake, in which I indulged with my boss's encouragement and shared guilt.  Every bite was exactly what I wanted it to be.  I don't even like cake.

You would think that would be the end, right?  Wrong.  Instead of quelling my IDC, it intensified it.  This will not end well.

I would love to use anything I just shared to segue into our dinner, but there is absolutely no common thread.

The only dinner left on my menu was Savory Sausage and Peppers from Vegan on the Cheap.  I delayed making this one for two reasons:
1. as you can probably tell from the picture, there was a lot of chopping involved and I just haven't had the energy.
2. I was afraid it wouldn't be as awesome as it was the first time I made it.

I needn't have feared - it was just as delicious in my mouth as it was in my memory.  There is something so perfect about the combination of potatoes and "sausage."  The abundant flavor of the Tofurky Italian Sausages that Mister chose for this dish were calmed and complemented by the creamy blank slate of the potato slices.  The tomatoes and peppers provide little bursts of juicy sweet-tartness amidst the already magical flavor profile.

I think one of the things that really "makes" this dish is that the very first step is to brown the diced sausage in a tablespoon of olive oil, then remove it from the skillet, add another tablespoon of oil and proceed with adding the rest of the ingredients for a hearty saute.  Although there is nothing in the recipe that specifically instructs me to do so, I do my best to rescue only the sausage from the skillet, leaving behind the flavor-infused oil, rich with the essence of sun-dried tomatoes and italian herbs.

The only complaint I have about this dish is that the potato slices stick together and no matter how gently or insistently I try to coax them apart with my spoon or spatula, I cannot get the slices to spread out from one another.  They're like a really snobby food clique.  I think the dish would be even more amazing if I could get the slices to stay away from each other long enough to absorb the infused oil and play nicely with their orange, red, and green neighbors, but the potatoes are not having it.  Does anyone know any tricks for keeping them from sticking to one another?

~*~

Angst is so good at sleeping, I know I show you an inordinate number of pictures of him being adorable and sleeping somewhere ridiculous, but I'm so amused watching him adjust to his new home.  I like seeing him explore and find new places he can call his.  I'm currently in the midst of creating a little Kitty Cave for him; his very own "bedroom" for the first time in six years, dressed completely in leopard print decor 'cause that's how he rolls.

For now, though, he has found that squishing himself into the space where the seat of the couch becomes the back of the couch is a really comfy place to fall asleep:

(I can't wait to get a slipcover)

we interrupt your regularly scheduled B*tch session...

...to bring you a few pictures of delectable food and the upcoming week's menu, so you know what I'll be doing when I'm not trying to convince the people of the world to spend 12 hours of their precious time reading Skinny Bitch.

On Friday night, I made Moroccan Mishmash, and it was just as fun and savory as I remembered it.  I nearly added some mint, just to see what would happen, but at the last minute I chickened out.  Tofu-ed out?  Seitan-ed out?  Anyway, I served it atop salt-n-(white)pepper rice, which complemented the flavors perfectly, drawing out the more umami notes, which I always love in dinner.

Saturday night, Mister didn't feel much like eating, so I made a quick pitstop up to SuperFresh so I could make myself a little veggie-tofu bowl with the tofu I had left over from....well, I don't quite remember, but it was earlier in the week (which should be enough of a hint about my lack of memory).  I came back with this sucker:

I'm not a big fan of frozen broccoli...or carrots, but I allowed myself to be fooled into thinking that "Perfectly Cooks in the Bag!" meant that it would taste fresher than "ordinary" mixed frozen veggies.  I was horribly mistaken.  Although the light seasoning was tasty and the vegetables probably maintained at least 50% of their original nutrients through the freezing, bagging, and microwaving process, they maintained absolutely none of their characteristic crunch.  Once I remembered they were frozen veggies I "steamed" in a bag in my microwave, I didn't feel so bad about the whole situation.  Besides, the tofu (braised in a blend of apple juice, olive oil, tamari, and garlic powder) was divine.

Last night, we had Thai Pineapple Stir-Fried Rice from Vegan Express.  As I was preparing everything, it dawned on me how Way-Too-Much-For-Two-People the recipe would make if I used the full cup and a half of rice called for in the recipe (remember kids, rice multiplies its size by three when cooked!), I cut it down to one cup without even bothering to think that I should also reduce the amount of coconut milk I added at the end.  As a result, it was a little brothy, but fortunately, Mister decided I had actually made a pineapple curry, so I just let it go at that.

Tonight, I reprised Granada Paella from The Urban Vegan, because we both just love that dish so much - I've mentioned before that it's the only paella recipe I have that actually cooks the rice in fewer than two hours.  It never looks any different, though, so if you want a pretty picture, click the link :)

Following my heart through the pages of The Urban Vegan, I felt compelled to welcome September (one of my favorite months) with its signature fruit, cleverly disguised as dessert (rather than breakfast).  I made Double Apple Cake and it was moist and a little dense and each little cube of apple was a pleasure to bite into.  There was an unexpected shock of ginger with each bite of apple, since the little cubes were coated with powdered ginger, cinnamon, sugar, and lemon juice.  I'm considering baking my way through the alphabet this fall...thoughts?

Speaking of thinking, we'll be back to my in-depth "book report" tomorrow, but for now, feast your minds and eyes on this week's menu:

1. Curried Bulghur Casserole with Garbanzo Beans from The Complete Vegan Cookbook.  I've made it before and felt it wasn't quite noteworthy "as-is," so I'll be embellishing a bit this time around.

2. Tomato Pie with Beans and Greens, both from The Urban Vegan.  I'm altering the recipe for the tomato pie so significantly, it will barely follow the author's notes, but I wanted to give her credit for inspiring me.

3. Clara's Pasta e Fagioli, also from The Urban Vegan.

So, there you have it - short week, short menu.  Stay tuned for your regularly scheduled programming, returning tomorrow night with another B*tch session!

dessert before dinner

It's been a delightful long weekend...I hate to think about going back to work tomorrow, so I'm going to share my tasty food stories (and pictures) with you instead.

Last night the baking bug bit me, so I pulled out Vegan with a Vengeance and set to work making Ginger-Macadamia-Coconut-Carrot Cake, except I substituted pecans for the macadamia nuts and I made cupcakes because it is so much more convenient to have the servings already portioned out! As the name suggests, this is no ordinary carrot cake. There is pineapple juice sweetening the batter and chunks of crystallized ginger throughout the cakes. In addition to the the coconut flakes baked into the cakes, I cut off the tops and made them into little baby layer cakes and frosted them with Isa's Coconut Heaven Frosting. I actually don't like icing/frosting on cakes because they tend to be too sweet, as was the case with this one, but despite the prettiness of his Birthday Coffeecake, Mister has impressed upon me the importance of birthday cakes having icing, so I made these to make up for his frostingless birthday cake.
Despite the frosting melting quite quickly and being sweet enough to give you a cavity just by looking at it, we each had two of these delightful and quirky cupcakes.

Unfortunately, that adventure only increased the hold Baking had over me, so today I set about to bake something that had formed in my head overnight. I can't say I dream of cupcakes, but I did wake up with this idea. A short segue: most of my favorite treats involve some kind of fruit being coated in chocolate. A tasty treat I haven't enjoyed in years (for no good reason) is a frozen chocolate covered banana. Mmmm...so good. So, to capture all the tastiness without all the cold (I believe I mentioned we're having a bit of a cool-snap), I made Chocolate-Covered Banana Cupcakes.

Chocolate-Covered Banana Cupcakes
makes 12

Ingredients:
2 cups flour, lightly spooned and leveled with a knife
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup honey (to make vegan, substitute 1/2 cup sugar)
1/4 cup water
1/3 cup canola oil
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
4 bananas
1/4 cup dark chocolate peanut butter* or Nutella

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Place liners in cupcake pan.
Combine flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon with a whisk in a large bowl.
In a food processor, combine peeled bananas, broken in half, with honey, water, oil, and vanilla. Process until smooth, about 15-20 seconds.
Pour banana mixture into flour mixture and mix until combined - this will go faster with the help of a hand-held electric mixer.
Scoop batter into lined cupcake pan, dividing evenly and filling each cup almost to the top.
Bake 25-27 minutes, until a toothpick (tester) inserted into the center of a centrally located cupcake comes out clean.
Cool in pan 5-10 minutes, then remove cupcakes to cool completely on a wire rack.
Put chocolate peanut butter/Nutella in a small, microwave-safe bowl. Microwave on high 15-20 seconds. Spread on cooled cupcakes.

**Note: I used "Dark Chocolate Dreams" by Peanut Butter & Co.
It's actually Chocolate Covered Katie's fault - I would never have known it even existed if it weren't for her. Actually, she can share the blame with an old friend of mine who recently undertook what he named "The Nutella Experiment." It made me remember how much I loved Nutella when I was in high school, so when I was at the grocery store, I decided to either pick some up or read the label until I remembered why I don't eat it anymore. Then, magically, I saw this out of the corner of my eye, hanging out just above the big, shiny SALE sign. So there you have it. Moving on...

I thought up a second fun, nostalgic cupcake recipe and stood in my kitchen for about 5 minutes, trying to decide whether to keep going after the Chocolate-Covered Banana cupcakes or save some for later. In the interest of being a good neighbor (I'll explain when we get there) I've decided to refrain from baking the other cupcakes until Friday.

Dinner tonight was Roasted Heirlooms on Orecchiette, although I had to substitute medium shells for the orecchiette because I couldn't find any. I refuse to believe that only Walmart carries this pasta. Anyway, I had been wanting to use heirloom tomatoes for something ever since they made their first appearance in Whole Foods a couple of weeks ago. This is a really simple recipe, but it's soooo good (and extremely garlicky - not for the faint of heart or nose).

Roasted Heirlooms on Orecchiette
6 servings

Ingredients:
4-5 large mixed heirloom tomatoes
8-10 cloves of garlic, pressed/minced
1 Tbsp olive oil
13 oz orecchiette pasta (or shells)
10 oz jar of pesto

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Core, seed, and chop the tomatoes. Press garlic cloves over the tomatoes in a non-reactive roasting dish, then drizzle the olive oil over top. Toss well with your hands.
Roast for 30 minutes, stirring twice (at 10 and 20 minutes in).
Meanwhile, cook pasta according to package directions. Drain, return to pot and toss with pesto. Add roasted tomatoes and toss well.
Serve immediately, with olives and Parmesan, if so inclined.

I'll leave you with a shot of my gorgeous heirloom tomatoes: