Spinach Meals

The spinach has been loving the rain. I harvested quite a bit yesterday and there's more still in the garden. Since I also went to the gardener's market yesterday and got some fresh eggs, I decided on a quiche.

I've never made a quiche before, but figured it seems like a dish that would be very forgiving. I used the bacon that had been in my freezer since Christmas, a crust I had in the freezer from ages ago and fresh chives from my garden.

5 fresh eggs

.75 cup low fat cottage cheese

4 strips bacon, cooked

a bunch of spinach, sauteed in the pan used for the bacon, chopped

a bunch of fresh chives

2 oz blue cheese

I got over eager and took a sample before I took a picture. It might have been better to not cook the spinach in the bacon grease, but I was at first playing around with the idea of not putting in the bacon, just using it for the sauteing. It tastes fine and it was a good experiment.

I had some left over spinach and used it in soup.
chicken broth - homemade that I'd had in the freezer a little while
packaged cheese tortillini
fresh basil from the garden
garlic salt (since I didn't have any salt in the homemade broth, otherwise garlic powder)
pepper to taste
add spinach in the last few minutes of boiling.

Mountainous Cake

My friend Becky made a very cool cake for her boyfriend for his birthday. It was a volcano, errupting raspberry sauce, with dinosaurs all around. For some reason when Carrie started talking about what to do for Scott's birthday cake, the inspiration came back. Here's what happened:



It's a 9x13 cake, with cake in a bread loaf pan on top as the base of the mountain range, then a large cupcake and a mini cupcake for each peak. It's all covered in chocolate frosting, a drizzle of ganache at the peaks, coconut for snow, food coloring and coconut for grass, and swedish fish.

Scott likes to fly fish, among his many outdoor activities. Carrie looked and couldn't find a biker or skier. Good thing, because we would have run out of room on the cake.

Yule Log!! December's Daring Baker's Challenge

This month's challenge is brought to us by the adventurous Hilda from Saffron and Blueberry and Marion from Il en Faut Peu Pour Etre Heureux.They have chosen a French Yule Log by Flore from Florilege Gourmand.

The challenge it to make a log that includes ALL 6 of these elements
1) Dacquoise Biscuit
2) Mousse
3) Ganache Insert
4) Praline (Crisp) Insert
5) Creme Brulee Insert
6) Icing

The hosts have made all sorts of recommendations for using different flavors for the layers. I may have to make two so I can try out my favorites. I'm thinking of making one following the hostesses' first choice flavors and one with alternative flavors, leaning toward the tropical.
Chocolate
1. Almond Dacquoise Biscuit
2. Dark Chocolate Mousse
3. Dark Chocolate Ganache
4. Praline Feuillete
5.Vanilla Creme Brulee
6. Dark Chocolate Icing

1.Coconut Dacquoise Biscuit
2. Mango Mousse
3.Dark Chocoalate Ganache
4. Coconut Crisp
5. Chocolate Creme Brulee
6. Dark Chocolate Icing

This month, I am not going to make the mistake of trying to write the entire blog in 15 minutes sitting in a friend's kitchen. I throghoughly enjoyed last month's and I'm not sure if that came across. This months' looks like quite the challenge. So many parts! Luckily I have family coming at the end of the month, so I'll have someone to share it with.

Zucchini

Anyone have any zucchini recipes?

I went to the gardner's market on Saturday mainly on the look out for tomatoes (no luck, though there were promises of tomatoes on this coming Saturday. I induldged in some Hip Mama's Lemonade. Then I ran into the biggest zucchinis I have ever seen. The lady told me they were good for baking, so I figured I take advantage of the 3/$1 giant zucchinis.

This morning, I went out my front door for the first time in a couple of days and there were two giant zucchinis. So me, to leave my zucchinis hangin' on the porch. But where did the other one go and the bag they were in? I looked around a bit and then just took my stash in. And there to my surprise was my bag of zucchini.

It turns out that I am the beneficiary of the local custom of pawning off your unwanted zucchinis on neighbors. My coworker says that you need to leave your car windows rolled up in the summer or you'll find zucchini in your car when you come back.

I said GIANT. Here's a pic for scale. That food processor at the top is a 14 cup and the zucchini make it look tiny.

Cooking with Lavendar

I ran into this recipe for lavendar scones in a Sunset magazine earlier this year. Then, when I was roaming around the Whole Foods at Kimble Junction (Park City), I ran into culinary lavendar. Score!

I've never made scones or cooked with lavendar before. The first time I made them, I was worried that the dough was too dry. I added some extra liquid, thinking that would help it hold together better. Even after adding more liquid and butter, this is what it looked like when I turned it out to knead:
I was afraid it wouldn't come together, but actually the scone part of the recipe turned out fine. The lavendar flavor was really weak. I wondered if there was a misprint in the recipe and there should have been a tablespoon instead of a teaspoon of lavendar.


So I decided to make them again with more lavendar. I also saved the lavendar after I separated it form the milk and kneaded it back into the dough. Also, I didn't add as much liquid, just followed the recipe for that. The dough turned out better and the flavor is great. Here's a picture of the final product:

Bedtime snack with herbal tea.

Holiday Cooking - Brigadeiro

Last night JW of Logan Newcomers hosted a games night and chocolate potluck. I left myself about 3 hours to prepare something. I ran to Allrecipes.com, my favorite online recipe source and found a recipe for a Brazilian treat I'd never heard of, brigadeiro. It has three basic ingredients and looked like it wouldn't take that long to prepare.



I tried coating them in four different ways. 1. Hot Cocoa mix - I thought this would be easy and tasty, but I didn't like how the flavors and textures mixed. 2. Coconut flakes - it was harder to get the mixture to roll on, but the flavor was the best, I'd only attempt this when you're rolling the candy as it's still slightly warm. I left half of what I made in the pot overnight and rolled them this morning in 3. Powdered sugar - easy, elegant. 4. Powdered sugar mixed with cocoa powder - probably the best combo of flavor, coating ease and appearance. As long as you don't let the warm candy balls touch, you wouldn't actually need a coating, it develops a bit of a shell as it cools, but for appearance and taste, I would add some sort of coating.



I did couldn't find mini cups at the store yesterday, just pastel regular size, so I arraigned them as a trio in the cups. "Trio" makes me think of Top Chef. They do trios all the time.



I didn't make it to the game night last night because some fellow newcomers and I decided to hit up another party first. You know, just pop in, say hi, meet some new people. But by the time we left, the game party was over. So I have a plate of candy in my fridge staring at me.



Candy review: Easy of making: 8 out of 10 (rolling by hand is a little time consuming, but I was able to get a batch and a half made in under three hours including the trip to the store). Appearance: 10 out of 10 (it's so easy to make these look very elegant, and vary the appearance). Taste: 7 out of 10 (tasty enough, but no English toffee or pralines).