A crowd of two - Smore Jar Cakes

This Friday night consisted of me and a friend playing tennis, watching Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 1 and making these cute smore cakes in a jar.

May I just say, oh my goodness this is such a creative, tasty recipe! When I found it roaming about foodgawker.com I immediately thought of the family cottage. Though I will run the second I hear the buzzzz of a mosquito I'm willing to risk a couple bites for a smore down at the campfire. For those of you that may not know a smore consists of a toasted marshmallow and a piece of chocolate sandwiched between two gram crackers. Yum.

So these cakes are exactly that in cake form and they're huge! They also turned out quite nicely though not quite cooked enough, oops, I couldn't wait any longer! That aside they were great.

I think that these would be great for a picnic. Everyone gets their own jar of cake, no plates with cake sliding of them required. Plus they pack really easily, just pop the lid of the mason jar back on and throw them in your bag with forks and spoons!

Out: Ritorno

Today was fairly exhausting doing yard work for a good part of the day. However, going out for dinner was an excellent treat for the end of the day. The whole family headed out to Ritorno, an italian restaurant. I shared two dishes with my mum. The Linguine Pescatore and Polenta Primavera. I must admit, I'm a sucker for pasta. Nearly anytime I eat out I find myself ordering some pasta dish, so I'm glad I had the opportunity to try the polenta (though it's not far from pasta). Surprisingly, I enjoyed the polenta the most! While the linguine was quite good the polenta was astounding. It also seems simple enough to make, meaning it may be reproduced in my own kitchen sometime soon!

Linguine Pescator: $20 Black tiger shrimp, mussels, clams and fresh fish

in a tomato, white wine and basil sauce.

Polenta Primavera: $15 Slow cooked Polenta topped with a roasted vegetable medley,

spinach and goat’s cheese.

Happy Birthday Avery!

Today is my sister's 12th birthday. At her birthday part last weekend I enjoyed the company of several 11 and 12 year old girls, watched bride wars and heard all about the cute 7th grade boys. Though this pretty little cake was enjoyed at the party I didn't get around to blogging till now.

The recipe I used was off of myrecipes.com. It tasted excellent and was extremely rich! It was nearly the consistency of a brownie and VERY moist. However, it was quite a challenge to construct. Once I pulled the cake out it started to crumble and the chocolate marshmallow icing would stick to the crumbs. In the end the cake looked quite nice and everyone enjoyed it. I may consider making this one again if I'm feeling up for a challenge.

Soba Noodles

These next two posts will be a little delayed.

Soo, last Friday I was feeling adventurous and wanted to try soba. For those of you who don't know soba is a japanese buckwheat noodle. I prepared the noodles hot with sesame seeds.

Though I haven't tried the noodles cold it seems to be a fairly popular way of preparing soba. I found the soba to be a bit sour which made it a lot more interesting in comparison to a typical noodle, as it doesn't really need a sauce to add flavour. The sour taste likely won't appeal to everyone. My sisters tried some and found the sour taste a bit too much.

Keeping with asian cuisine I made some crispy tofu triangles with asian dipping sauce.

These however I found rather disappointing. They were quite bland and the taste of tofu that I quite enjoy wasn't quite there. In addition I found the asian dipping sauce a bit too watery, it didn't stay on the triangles. It was a lot better with sweet and sour sauce but the sauce was all you could really taste.

Mother Daughter Book Club

Tonight my little sister hosted her mother daughter book club at our house. They read was "We All Fall Down" by Eric Walters. Which by the way is an excellent read! It's extremely touching, and leaves you with a lot to ponder. It's also a quick read, so you have no excuse not to read it ;)

So, on to the food. I made these cake batter truffles (recipe from love veggies and yoga)

I can't think of a better occasion to make these! The girls there are at that age where you could eat cake batter for every meal and be completely satisfied and they looked sophisticated enough for the moms. It seemed as if they were well enjoyed the only complaint been that they were a bit too sweet/rich. Just keep in mind that this is essentially eating the flavour of birthday cake ice cream covered in chocolate. Sounds simply amazing to me!

Choreos

Hello to whom ever might be reading.

Oreo stuffed chocolate chip cookies have been all over tumblr so for a friend's birthday I decided to make her a batch (of course leaving a few for myself). My sister, who particularily enjoyed them has dubbed them the Choreo.

I used this recipe.

I think they came out quite well. I was later told that you could steam the Oreos so that they aren't quite so crunchy. Personally I quite liked the way they turned out! Though don't be fooled these are indeed huge (like a heart attack in a cookie) but delicious none the less. Just looking at this picture makes me want to go for a run!

Well, Happy Baking!