A First Time for Everything

After a week of shopping, baking, and general merriment with my sister-in-law Julia, we decided to end the wonderful week with a huge, blow-out meal on Friday. The plan started with making homemade pasta, since we haven't used our new-to-us pasta maker yet. After poring through my primary sources (America's Test Kitchens and Jamie Oliver) I decided on a ricotta and pine nut ravioli a la The Naked Chef. Ross decided that a Paul Newman Marinara just wouldn't cut it for this situation, so he decided to take on a Molto Mario Marinara. Since we thought the deliciousness couldn't end there, we decided to try a new cupcake recipe from my new favorite cupcake book (see post: Vegan with a Vengeance) paired with a strawberry sorbet.

We started the day making the desserts. The strawberry sorbet was embarrassingly easy to make, basically you puree strawberries, sugar, vodka, a little water and a pinch of salt, put it in the freezer for 30 minutes to chill, then run in the ice cream maker for 30 minutes and done. I typically get a little nervous working with ice cream due to consistency issues, but the sorbet came out with excellent texture and froze up nicely.

For cupcakes, we made a chocolate cupcake with a cookies and cream frosting, both contained a heavy amount of food-processed oreo cookies. The Vegan Cupcake surprised us again, as the cupcakes were outstanding. These were a little bit richer (you really could only eat one in a day), but again provided an aesthetic quality worthy of a faculty luncheon.

Then we began the pasta. Truthfully, Ross and I have watched mom and dad make pasta a million times and it seemed like all you had to do is put some flour and eggs in the Cuisinart and press go. Unfortunately, we have a small-scale food processor, so several cups of flour and a dozen eggs later, we finally got the dough well-mixed. Julia and I rolled out the dough and stuffed it with a mixture of toasted pine nuts, ricotta cheese, Parmesan and an egg while Ross and Jayne hand-crushed the tomatoes and made a delicious sauce.



Overall it was a very successful evening of "firsts" for us newlyweds. In the end, it was pretty exhausting, so we followed up the meal with the next night with another first: our first delivered pizza. All in all, a very delicious weekend.

Vegan with a Vengeance

I could never be a vegan. I like cheese, milk, and butter way to much to cut them out of my life forever. I even tried being a vegetarian for a few years in high school, but on a family vacation to California we stopped at an In-N-Out Burger and all bets were off (that's right, I ended a year-long red meat ban for a double-double and a strawberry milkshake). Regardless of how strong my love of meat and dairy may be, there is something so sexy about vegan to me. It screams healthy, green, and downright cool. Perhaps this desire to be vegan is what prompted me to buy Vegan Cupcakes. Aside from getting pretty good reviews and adding enough to my amazon.com cart for free shipping, I was enticed by the idea of vegan baking. This week, Julia is spending the week with us and it seemed like an idea time to bust out the vegan cupcakes.

We decided to try the "Sexy Low-Fat Vanilla" cupcakes with raspberry topping. Unfortunately, our spirits were crushed when the first pan came out looking like runny craters. We were so mad and slowly went through the recipe trying to figure out where we went wrong.
As it turns out, we added 1 2/3 c. milk instead of 2/3 cup, a mistake made more than once in my pyrex measuring cup (last time it resulted in watery, weak taco meat). Determined that we could do better, we tried another batch. This time everything came together and we ended up with perfectly cooked cupcakes.

As much as I love baking and art, ne'er the two shall meet in the form of cake decoration. I have no icing skills whatsoever and usually end up with the usual made from mix, canned icing, crummily iced cupcakes that the 2nd string room mother might bring to the valentine's party. I also hate frosting, so when the book suggested using a fruit topping, I thought it was brilliant! After the cupcakes cooled, we spread a thin layer of fruit preserves, then stuck raspberries on the top. We then drizzles a confectioner's sugar and soymilk glaze over the top and, voila! Beautiful cupcakes that wouldn't be too embarrassing to take to work!

Truthfully, if pressed for time, you could even make cupcakes from a mix and just decorate them with the fruit (I'm thinking kiwis and strawberries next time), but the vegan came through on flavor as well. The cupcakes were much moister and had more depth of flavor than a Betty Crocker could provide. Adding fresh fruit to the top also adds a really fresh, summery taste to the dessert. We're trying the Cookies and Cream cupcakes later this week :).

Product recommendations: Vegan Cupcakes

Let's Do the Twist

Jack and I spent a lazy afternoon making soft Auntie Annes pretzels. Creating with the kids is just about top on my list of great ways to spend some time. Whether its baking, gardening, crafting, or cooking, the opportunity for laughs is huge. Who knew Jack would be a demon kneader?!?