Saturday, November 29, 2008

Daring Baker's November Challenge: Caramel Cake with Caramelized Butter Frosting!

This month's Challenge was Caramel Cake with Caramelized Butter Frosting, recipe courtesy of Shuna Fish Lydon, as published on Bay Area Bites. We had to make both the cake and the frosting.

This month’s Challenge hosts are Dolores of Culinary Curiosity, Alex aka: Brownie of the Blondie and Brownie duo and Jenny of Foray into Food. Natalie of Gluten-a-Go-Go is assisting with alternative baking methods.



In the spirit of Thanksgiving, THANK HEAVENS for David Lebovitz. The man is brilliant. He suggested using a strainer over your caramel pan to stop the spatters and preventing the equivalent of Culinary Napalm (perfect description from Alton Brown) from splattering me and my kitchen.

This was actually fairly easy. I was quite worried about burning myself, but that didn’t happen, and I followed Shuna’s directions for the caramel challenged to a “T” and it all came together beautifully. I was afraid of my regular cake pans not being “tall” enough, so I used my 9” springform pan – fabulous! It pulled away from the edges just like it was supposed to and it turned golden brown and delicious.

Thanks to Dolores, Alex and Jenny for selecting this month’s Daring Baker Challenge. You can find the complete recipe for the caramel cake, frosting and optional caramels (which I did not make) on their sites.To see what all the other DBer’s did, you can find the blogroll here and if you’d like to join the monthly party, info about that can be found on that page as well.



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Thursday, November 27, 2008

Barefoot Bloggers: Mexican Chicken Soup

This Mexican Chicken Soup was another fast and easy recipe from the fabulous Ina G! It took no time at all to make and the ingredients come together effortlessly to make a warm and comforting meal. We’ll be savoring this soup all week long, in between turkey leftovers. In fact, if this wasn’t due today, Thanksgiving Day, I would have made it using leftover turkey instead, but there’s no reason YOU can’t do it! :) What a fine way to finish off the T-day bird.

Many thanks to Judy from Judy’s Gross Eats for choosing this recipe. If you yourself would like to see exactly how easy, simple and tasty this Mexican Chicken Soup is, you can find the recipe on the Food Network site here, or in Ina Garten's book, Barefoot Contessa at Home, page 34. To join the BB community or to see what all the others did with this, please visit the the Barefoot Bloggers site.
Posted by Picasa


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Wednesday, November 26, 2008

TWD: Twofer Pie!

For your consideration: Twofer Pie from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, page 321 featured this week on Tuesdays with Dorie which is actually Wednesday/Almost Thursday With Dorie this time around.

I still have tons of cooking and baking to do for Thanksgiving tomorrow. I've been hard at work since 4:00 and it's 11:00 now - you should SEE the kitchen. It's trashed, but I've completed the majority of things I needed to get done. I am so thankful for my DH who cleans while I cook. This pie is one of the deserts. I had help with it - The Messy One was all excited to get into the kitchen and make this with me. We had fun doing this together and it was definitely a learning experience for him, especially reading directions and learning how to measure and pour things. :)

I’m making another Dorie pie, the Sour Cream Pumpkin Pie at the same time – that one is in the oven, but as you can see, the Twofer Pie is finally done. It took over an hour to cook and I finally decided that I couldn’t wait around anymore and jacked up the temp to 350 from the prescribed 300. No harm done that I can see, but I’ll let you know after tomorrow how it tasted. (Preparation update: that one took a long time too. I turned it down to 325 from the 450 and it still took about 25 minutes longer. Next time I'll just drop both to 350 and watch the clock.)

Thanks to Vibi from La Casserole CarrĂ©e for choosing this recipe. To see what all the other TWDers did with it, check out the blogroll here. If you'd like to try making Dorie’s version of Twofer Pie for yourself, you can find the recipe on our hostess’s blog, or in Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours.

Update: Definitely not a keeper for us. I left this one behind at the inlaws in almost it's entirety. :(



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Tuesday, November 25, 2008

TWD shall be T(hursday) With Dorie

Since this week's recipe is supposed to be best consumed on the day it's made, we have been given special dispensation to post our Thanksgivinggy recipe on Thursday.
Allez cuisine!

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Wired

Wired. Hard wired. Homerun wired. Wired direct from my computer out to the Bellsouth box in the street. Happy girl. Do not stop, do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars. Do yank out yards and yards of old yucky mid 1960's cabling and replace it with shiny new 2008 cabling. (Not that there's anything wrong with the mid 1960's - only cabling from that era is old and yucky. People from the mid 1960's are quite lovely, youthful, fresh and beautiful.)

Low Voltage Guy: Ah, ma’am, do you have a trashcan for these wires and cables?
Me: Sure, why don’t you just use this big, huge, blue tub.
LVG: Well ma’am, that’s sort of a nice bucket. Don’t you have a trashcan somewhere?
Me: A trash can?! Oh, no! I want to keep all this mess.
LVG: (looking wary) Ma’am?
Me: (nodding head) Oh yes, I definitely want to keep it. Definitely. Please put in all in here. Thank you. I want to take a picture of it.
LVG: You what?
Me: (smiling slightly) I want to take a picture of it.
LVG: Ah, well, um, yes Ma’am. Here you go.
Me: Thanks so much. This is perfect.

Me: (in my head, singing/dancing- Yes! A picture! A picture to show my friends why I’ve been gone for so long. A picture to show all my INVISIBLE friends that the problem has been dealt with and that these new cables should shake with fear while transmitting the pictures of their sad, old and now very dead precursors and that they should be warned that I can flick my magic wand and make this happen to them and they will end up in a bucket if they do not obey my bidding! Bwah hahahahaha) (Ok, so I’ve missed you guys a lot).

Thank you for hanging in there with me! I’ve got some catching up to do. Hugs, hugs and more hugs for all the well wishes you sent and I’ll be seeing you soon! Online!

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Thursday, November 20, 2008

I Heart...

I heart all of you who left lovely things to say about my last post.
I heart the public library because they have free internet access.
I heart my DH for putting up with my tremendous, childish, embarrasing rant about my losing my DSL connection yet again.
I heart the people who are coming to my rescue and fixing my DSL connection / ripping out the old wires / running all new cabling which will hopefully fix the problem once and for all as I am done with this nonsense.
I heart the people I work with for helping me work around these computer issues I'm having.
I heart my neighbor who has an albuterol nebulizer and answered the phone at 3:30am and let us come down to use it on the Messy one who couldn't breathe.
I heart modern medicine and the doctor who gave us a boatload of free breathing treatment samples.
I heart my DS who sent me a lovely book on King Tut and some cute Jessie Steele aprons.
I heart all the moms who came today and helped with the kindergarten Thanksgiving Harvest Feast.
I heart Publix for having an awesome in-store Feast on Tuesday and where we basically ate dinner on all the yummy food they had out.
I heart the Good Samaritan who found my Coach silk scarf that I lost at the Publix Feast and turned it in.
I heart MT who gave me a discount card for Coach as I think I need an early Christmas present for dealing with all this without losing my mind.

I will be back soon-
Heart,
Lisa

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Tuesday, November 18, 2008

The Tao of Pudding

For your consideration: Arborio Rice Pudding: White, Black (or Both) from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, pages 412-413 featured this week on Tuesdays with Dorie.

Repress the gag reflex and don't yack, it's just a really crappy picture. When I first saw this recipe I was skeptical – I even halved the recipe. I was in agreement with some of the other TWDers who commented that rice pudding doesn’t exactly bring whoops of excitement into their lives. One of the news flashes was a post from Herself, stating that there was a typo regarding the cooking time: “50” minutes, not 30. Glad I read that before I started.

I followed the directions faithfully, halved the recipe and increased the cooking time and ya know what? I LIKE rice pudding. I do. The spoonful I ate convinced me that I definitely like it “plain” without the extra vanilla or chocolate that the recipe calls for. Not black, not white or both. Neither. No yin, no yang, just plain. The Tao of Pudding and my life of late or so it seems.

A bloggy friend just demanded of me “Where the hell have you been?” Sorry I’ve been absent for a while. In addition to recovering from that cold, I’ve been seriously down in the dumps and it all revolves around food, glorious food. I went MIA, only made a half batch of pudding, didn’t experiment, only ate one spoonful, and barely stirred up enough enthusiasm to take a questionably passable picture – what’s up with that, Lisa? Well, you see my lab tests came back as definitely reflecting my participation in TWD and my love of food in general. My cholesterol and triglyceride levels seem to indicate that molten butter is starting to course through my veins while expanding my waistline at the same time. Which explains the tone of this pudding post and also my conundrum. Metaphorically speaking, since I can’t eat it, my DH shouldn’t, and my kids won’t (well, except for the Messy One)…. What’s a girl to do? Needless to say this little kick in the pants has taken me a while to process offline and figure out what I want and how to get there.

I've decided that I’m gonna shake, shake, shake it off because where I’ve landed is that I’m going to re-explore the Cooking Light/Light Cooking side of the food fence. I did Weight Watchers for a few years and I know how to dance that dance. The other weight loss program that really (really) works is Take Shape for Life/Medifast. Yes, it’s true. Just like the infomercials, I dropped over 13 pounds in 2 months: after that I was feeling so great that I dove head first into a pound of unsalted butter and wallowed around in it. I'm still down 8 pounds, so that's reason to celebrate, but I want to go all the way to my dream weight. So, an actual diet and eating mindfully: those two things should help with the diet part of the "diet and exercise" mantra (yin, yang, ok so I get it already). Doing T-Tapp at home and going to classes and meeting my friend at the gym (does it HAVE to be 5:00 AM though?) are the exercise part. Yin, yang, rhymes with Tang and I love orange Tang and oranges with chocolate and those orange chocolate wham things and (I need help.)

Before I cross over to the dark side, I’ll be posting some recipes I’ve already made and photographed, but haven’t uploaded yet. Some of these are oh so bad but OH so good. If I can bring myself to revisit those pictures and stop from salivating ( just the thought of this one particular recipe is making me drool and causing tears of joy to spring to my eyes, and yes it involves browned butter sauce, and is quite possibly The Best Thing I’ve put in my mouth EVER!) (and probably the big reason for those abysmal test results), I will share those with you so you can steer clear of my wicked ways. Yin. Yang.

As for the Rice Pudding? It was good. Really good. Thanks to Isabelle of Les gourmandises d’Isa for choosing this recipe. To see what all the other TWDers did with it, check out the blogroll here. If you'd like to try making Dorie’s version of Arborio Rice Pudding for yourself, you can find the recipe on our hostess’s blog, or in Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours.

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Thursday, November 13, 2008

Barefoot Blogger: Herb Roasted Onions

These were so fast and easy to make. They are, in a word, delicious. I'm eating them like candy as we speak, because in fact, this picture was taken mere moments ago when at 10:15 pm I realized that TODAY was the date to submit my first Barefoot Bloggers recipe. Thankfully I had the onions on hand and I thank the stars yet again for my fabulous herb garden, which despite the chill is still lovely and verdant.

Eating onions like candy? She's lost it. Oh, but listen and let me woo you. They are just slightly caramelized so they are subtly sweet while the dijon mustard and lemon gives them a hint of tangy-ness. I love the technique of leaving them joined at the bottom so they fan out really pretty on the plate. They are soft and silky smooth with the occasional crunch of a particularly toasty bit. I literally whipped this up at the very last minute and it came together so fast. I do believe that these will be gracing the table here at Thanksgiving.

Tremendous thanks to Kelly from Baking with the Boys for choosing this recipe. I don't think I would have looked twice at it otherwise and I would have been missing out on something so simple and yet so elegant.

If you yourself would like to see exactly how easy, simple and tasty these Herb Roasted Onions are, you can find the recipe on the Food Network site here, or in Ina Garten's book, Barefoot Contessa at Home, page 156. To join the BB community or to see what all the others did with this, please visit the the Barefoot Bloggers site.



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Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Marbled Chocolate Orange Sour Cream Pound Cake (and thanks!)

This sad, sad little slice is the one that almost got away. I almost forgot to take a picture of this test sample it before applying it directly to my hips. (Hello, it IS called pound cake for a reason.)

"Obligation baking" forced me into the kitchen last night to whip up something for a school event this morning that I promised I'd send something in for last week; last week before I became congested nasal ditsy zombie girl. (My illness is/was a sinus infection, by the way. I got some super duper antibiotics today - more on that later - and I’m hoping they work fast. Thanks for all your well wishes! They really helped brighten my soggy spirits!)

Back to drool. This is my go-to recipe when I need something easy, fast and fabulous. I almost always have all the ingredients on hand and I can add in different flavors or mix-ins so that it has a different spin every time.

Last night I decided to do orange. I’ve never made one this way, but I do love those chocolate orange slammer thingies that come out at Christmas; you know it looks like an orange made out of chocolate, where you whomp it on the table and all the sections of “orange” come falling out into individual slices of deliciousness? Mmmm. (Just for you, right now I googled “orange whack chocolate foil” and lo and behold: these are Terry’s Chocolate Oranges. Look for them on your grocer’s shelves soon. The Dark Chocolate ROCKS!)

But I digress. But just so you know, in my book, Orange + Chocolate = YUM.

Excavating Digging in the back of the fridge for the sour cream part of the program, I passed a huge vat carton of Fat-Free Vanilla Yogurt that a friend had given me and was yet unopened. After going to a lecture the other night by She/He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named-Until-I-Write-The-Post, I was inspired to swap out half the sour cream with the yogurt. This is not unusual, as I usually do most of my recipes using the guinea pig method: I deliver the results to the unsuspecting victims and wait for feedback that way. So far, so good.

As for this cake? I loved it. LOVED. IT. I am so making this one again, as there were no leftovers to gorge myself on since I sent it off to school. Of course, as you saw in the pitiful photo, I did officially have to test it, just in case, and of course I did it for You. You, so I could faithfully report my findings and so You could see the photos. I don't mind. You're worth it.

The ironic part of the official testing part all goes back to being sick. I got sick right at the time that I had my regular physical scheduled for, which was today. The Good: one co-pay (yes!), The Bad: you know how you're not supposed to eat or drink anything before a physical? Like how they call and give you the drill (say it with me now): "Nothing to eat or drink after midnight the day of your appointment except for dry toast and black coffee" and I'm thinking who the hell eats dry toast and black coffee on a good day? Um, remember how I said I was whipping this decadence up last night? (You know where I'm going with this, don't you?) Picture me as a rabid wolverine: snarfing down my test sample(s) at 11:55 pm, chugging milk straight out of the jug to go along with it, crumbs flying everywhere - I think I even got it in my hair. I didn't care. Man it was sooooo good. And oh yeah, the yogurt thing? Couldn't tell the difference at all. I took samples from everywhere, just to be sure, just for You.

As for the physical (thanks for asking), well.... hmm. I've done the weight/scale thing two different ways in the past: 1) I tell the nurse that I am wearing 10 pound shoes (each), or 2) I do it like we did it at Weight Watchers: you've waited in line for 20 minutes and finally it's your turn to be weighed, electronically, to the ounce. You step up to the counter, (hello, how are you, fine) give them your papers, casually approach the scale, and since you don't want to hold up the rest of the line, BAM! you whip into a frenzy, frantically stripping down to almost naked in the middle of the place, taking off your shoes, socks, belt, jewelry, watch, earrings, sunglasses, ballcap, hair clip, while at the same time emptying your pockets of keys, phone, tissues, gum and Splenda packets, dumping them all on the floor in a heap, making sure you went potty right before it was your turn to jump on the scale and drop most of your dignity (hold my place in line, 'kay? I'll be right back), exhaling deeply while sucking in your gut at the same time, and holding it all in place before stepping up on the platform, praying they'd get the measurement before you passed out from not breathing. I had on 10 pound shoes today. It was too damn cold to go thru all that work, when I know I well deserved whatever the evil thing had to say.

After all that, in case you are inspired to try this creation, here's the recipe. I don’t know where I got my original one from, but I did find its maternal grandparents on the NestlĂ©’s site. Enjoy.

Marbled Chocolate Orange Sour Cream Pound Cake
Adapted from
NestlĂ©’s recipe found here

Ingredients:

1 cup (6 oz.) Nestlé Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels (I used Ghirardelli 60% Cacao chips)
1 pkg. (18.25 oz.) yellow cake mix
4 large eggs
1 cup sour cream (I used ½ cup sour cream and ½ cup fat-free vanilla yogurt)
1 cup water
3/4 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp. orange extract (or insert other extract flavor here. It’s good without any extras too.)
Powdered sugar for dusting (optional)

Directions:
Position rack in center of oven. Preheat oven to 375° F. Spray 10 inch/12 cup Bundt or tube pan with cooking spray or Baker’s Joy spray.

Microwave morsels in medium, uncovered, microwave-safe bowl on HIGH (100%) power for 30 seconds; Stir to blend. Morsels may retain some of their original shape. If necessary, microwave at additional 10 to 15-second intervals, stirring just until morsels are melted. Set aside.

Combine cake mix, eggs, sour cream, vegetable oil, water, granulated sugar and extract (if using) in a large mixing bowl. With an electric mixer, beat on low speed until moistened. Beat on high speed for 2 minutes.

Spoon 2 cups of batter into the bowl with the melted chocolate. Use the mixer and completely mix the batter with the chocolate to make chocolate batter. You now have two bowls of batter: one chocolate and one yellow. Spoon batters into prepared pan, alternating/layering them, beginning and ending with yellow batter. I usually get just one layer of chocolate sandwiched in between the 2 yellow, but sometime I can slip in a small chocolate one as well.

Bake for 55 minutes or until wooden toothpick (I use a bamboo skewer) inserted in cake comes out with only a few crumbs sticking to it. (Very “clean” toothpicks sometimes equal an over-dry or over done cake.) Cool completely in pan. (Yes, completely). Unmold onto either cutting board or serving platter. This cake needs to be refrigerated overnight in order to create beautiful, clean slices. If you have a good quality electric knife that works great! Slice and serve as desired: chilled, room temperature or warmed slightly in microwave. Optional: dust with powdered sugar before serving.

Variations:
You could add peppermint extract, lemon extract (and/or use a lemon cake mix), you could do chocolate cake mix with chocolaty swirl (I’d bump up the quantity of chips for this one), pecans; the list is endless.



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Tuesday, November 11, 2008

TWD: Kugelhopf (and a Kold)

For your consideration: Rugelach from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, pages 61 – 63 featured this week on Tuesdays with Dorrie.

This will be a short and sweet post – I have a head cold (or who the heck knows, it might be wicked allergies) and a major deadline for work – not the most conducive situation for pithy, entertaining blogging. I hope you will please also forgive me for not visiting your fab blogs of late – again, crazy busy, super congested and foggy headed, but I’ll be pouring over every loving detail soon, I promise. For now, let’s just say that Nyquil, Afrin and Kleenex (with Aloe) are my three BFF’s for now. (The way I’m going thru them, here’s an insider tip – buy stock in Kleenex.) Last night I DID manage to take a break and went someplace fun and totally foodie. I’ll share all the juicy details with you soon!

Back to TWD: this Kugelhopf was fairly straight forward, although the prep time was quite long. This is an all day affair or a 2 day-er if you pop it in the fridge overnight. I used a Bundt pan and my Kitchenaid stand mixer. It took forever (forever!) to rise to the top of the pan – I think I gave up at 4 or 5 hours and threw it in the oven and it all turned out swell. I sent it to work with my DH – they gave it rave reviews. Personally, I'm saving my calorie allotment for each day for chocolate, plus raisins in stuff isn’t my favorite.

Thanks to Yolanda of The All-Purpose Girl for choosing this recipe. To see what all the other TWDers did with this recipe, check out the blogroll here. If you'd like to try making Dorie’s version of Kugelhopf for yourself, you can find the recipe on our hostess’s blog, or in Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours.



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Friday, November 7, 2008

Random Image

This tickled my fancy. Smoked pork, anyone? What about pork butt?


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Thursday, November 6, 2008

Class Feast!

My son’s kindergarten class had a Feast on Monday, sort of a warm-up to Thanksgiving if you will. Everyone brought something: I was carb girl. (and then some.)


My instructions were to bring authentic, traditional-like-the-pilgrims-had dishes, but for some reason this kept echoing through my head…..

Lightning McQueen: "Alright, Luigi, give me the best set of blackwalls you've got."
Luigi: "No! No, no, no. You don't know what you want. Luigi know what you want. Blackwall tires. They blend into the pavement. But a this... whitewall tires! They say, 'Look at me! Here I am! Love me.'"
Lightning: "Alright, you're the expert."
from the Disney/Pixar Film "Cars"

My slightly off the white-wall offerings were (and forgive the photos, I barely remembered to take any at all!):
(topped with buttery toasted pine nuts, mmmmmm....)

yes, I did scrub it and then soak it for 3 hours...
Apple Sage Cranberry Dressing
with fresh sage from my herb garden and apples from last weekend

Corn Pudding
(They totally snarfed this one up!)
and 10 Minute (homemade) Applesauce
(again, with fresh apples from the orchards - feel free to omit the brandy like I did here, but I've made it before with, and oooh, it's gooooooooood!)

Better than a Ferrari, eh? ;)



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Tuesday, November 4, 2008

TWD: Rugelach

For your consideration: Rugelach from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, pages 150-151 featured this week on Tuesdays with Dorrie.

For my rugelach, I used Sweet Potato Butter (with Honey) that I picked up during last week’s apple orchard/farm stand trek to the North Georgia Mountains (post to follow – yes I’m behind… again). Since I’m not a big fan of cooked raisins, I simply left those out.

I followed the recipe and did the radial/pizza wedge method described in Dorie’s book first. Disaster. If you want to try this particular method, use LOTS of flour to dust the counter, don’t roll the dough too thin and work very quickly so that your dough doesn’t warm up too much. I had to use my handy dandy offset spatula once again (it’s quickly becoming one of my top 5 favorite utensils, previously relegated to the bottom strata of one of my drawers) to scrape them each off the counter, jimmying them up with an edge of flour. My chunkies were too chunky and didn’t cut well with the pizza cutter and the dough tore up a little.

For the second half of the dough I decided to actually go look at the TWD P&Q area for this recipe. (No, I have no idea – maybe Posts and Questions? Mind your P's & Q's?) EVERYONE had a grand time with these and nobody’s fused to the counter like mine did. I did check out one of the links posted there that sent me to Martha’s website where she had a video of 2 gals making these for their bakery. They did the jellyroll pinwheel thing. Hey, if it works for Martha, it works for me. Well, sort of. My dough didn’t stick to the counter this time, having learned that lesson, and I also made them on my non-stick silicone baking mat. They were sort of crumbly anyway, but they did look reasonably better than the pseudo-crescents however. I dusted them with Turbinado sugar, maybe too much sugar though because it got runny and caramelized all over the baking sheet.

I liked this recipe and these tasted amazingly good. I'm sharing my cook's notes/trial and errors with you so you can learn from my experiences. I’m just frustrated with myself for not fully mastering the execution of it. If attempted it a few more times, I might get the technique right. These tasted great but looked less than beautiful. I took them to school and once I talked everyone past their homeliness, they got rave reviews.

Thanks to Piggy of Piggy’s Cooking Journal for choosing this recipe. To see what all the other TWDers did with this recipe, check out the blogroll here. If you'd like to try making Dorie’s Chocolate-Chocolate Cupcakes for yourself, you can find the recipe on our hostesses blog, or in Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours.

POSTSCRIPT:
Do not wait until the last minute to make next week's TWD.
It takes HOURS / DAYS. Please read the recipe completely, and a Bundt pan works fine.


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Sunday, November 2, 2008

Awardz!

Wow, you all have been busy checking me out! I'm so thrilled that you like what you see! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I've gotten 3 awards that I am Sooooo proud of AND that I also get to pass along. Yay!

I'm thrilled down to my toes to be the recipient of the "I'm a Chocoholic Award" from The Blonde Duck at A Duck in Her Pond, because yes, I am a Chocoholic, thank you very much. You must visit the Blonde's ultra cool blog. Not only is she ultra blonde and ultra beautiful, she's one heck of a writer and cook. Drop by today!

I’d like to pass this on to:
1. Bridgett of La Bella Cook
2. Barbara of Barbara Bakes
3. Nancy of The Dogs Eat the Crumbs
4. Nancy of A Recipe a Day
5. Lisa of Lisa is a Baker
6. Lisa of The Cutting Edge of Ordinary
7. and Cult Jam (just kidding on this last one – it’s an 80’s joke, son.)

I also received the Kreative Blogger Award from the lovely and talented Bridgett of La Bella Cook. She blends both sweet and savory delights with a splash of history tossed in for spice from time to time.

Here are some other lovely and talented ladies:
1. Cathy of The Tortefeasor
2. Katrina of Baking and Boys!
3. Di of Di’s Kitchen Notebook
4. Amanda of Amanda’s Cookin’
5. Charmain of Christie’s Corner
6. April Marie Claire at Girl Japan

I also received the tres stylish Arte y pico award* from Lisa over at Lisa is a Baker, and oh, boy is she ever. In addition to creating some fab food, she absolutely cracks me up – you’ll love her blog and her great sense of humor! Go check out her tempting yummies and commentary/photos of marching bands, Jan Brady and Grace Kelly posthaste!

Passing this back on to some of my favorite blog eye candy:
1. Clara at I(heart) cuppycakes and her equally fabulous other blog
2. I (heart) food 4 thought
3. The Food Librarian at (yeah) The Food Librarian
4. Maria of Two Peas and Their Pod
5. Teanna at Spork or Foon?

Many, many thanks to those of you who've stumbled upon my little blog. I appreciate all your comments and your encouragement!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*Here's the scoop on the Arte y pico award, and its rules--but I won’t turn you in if you don't play--- no need to feel the burden of a 'chain letter', but if you do, be sure to mention the origin of the award (details below!)

This award was created in Uruguay by a fellow blogger who makes dolls exclusively from recycled materials. Her blog can be reached by clicking here.

Pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award, creativity, design, interesting material, and also contributes to the blogger community, no matter of language.

Advertise name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyoneEach award-winner, has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.

Award-winner and the one who has given the prize to show the link of “Arte y pico” blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.

Share these rules."



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