More Boring Day Projects

My most recent forays into the food world, as I impatiently await the start of my Obama gig and hopefully another paying deal...
Banana-flax seed bread.

Caribbean Sweet Potato Gratin

This thing was seriously an amazing flavor explosion--it has lime, cilantro, coconut milk, spinach, black beans, rice, sweet potatoes--a random medley, but a great one. There's also a great thyme-cornmeal crust baked on top. I only had orzo on hand so next time I think I'll use wild or brown rice, or maybe even arborio to get some added creaminess. This tasted great but didn't hold together as well as I'd hoped.

Karina invited me over for tabouleh and told me to make anything I wanted to go with it. I had three cans of beans on hand and some cilantro, so this dip-salad-thing happened. Pintos, kidneys, garbanzos, cilantro, bell pepper, tomatoes, cumin, thyme, and ground up yellow corn chips.

Ah, the makings for some great tabouleh.

It actually turned out massively delish, and we toasted some pita in the oven to go along with it. In the cute new condo. And we had wine. We are adorable.

Learning to Jerk the Beef

I want to preface all of this by saying that any sexual-seeming innuendo herein should be taken at the most literal level possible. Because this entry really is about Blake showing me how to jerk beef.

First we made the marinades. His was sweet spicy garlic and involved quite a bit of brown sugar. Mine was Thai-Style with peanut sauce and hella ginger, sort of satay-inspired.

We let it marinate overnight then dried it in the morning and the results were spectacular. Blake's was a little too sweet for my taste, it kind of masked the beef. I like when you taste the purest beef flavor, it smelled so good when we were cutting it. Yeah, I realized I like the smell of raw beef. Does this make me sick? I'm such a carnivore.

It was pretty wonderful. My dog ate a bag of it. Next time, wine marinades, more oven time, and higher quality beef--daria and i plan to try flank.

-Linni, Oak Park IL

Mother's Day Brunch

I think it'd be pretty sweet to be the mother of a someone who likes to cook, because any holiday from flag day to christmas to mother's day is an excuse to make something delicious.
Some spinach, getting ready to be added to eggs and feta for a frittata, and some peaches getting ready for the pancake

The dutch baby, sittin pretty in the oven

A closer look...

Voila! Dutch Apple Pancake with Spiced Fruit and Greek Yogurt--yummo.

-Linni, Oak Park IL

Glazes, and Frostings, and Cakes- Oh My!

Fat Pack Member Taylor Feldman- newest of them all- broke in her right to bake as a year older by baking seventeen cakes for her seventeenth birthday.


Appropriate?



A generous portion more than not.


However, only a few Fat Pack members were there to actually experience them, so here the images remain for your viewing pleasure.





<--A traditional yellow Barbie cake.. as expected. Chocolate Bundt with Mountain Cream Frosting and Parlor Pecans.








Mini Red Velvet Bundt Cakes with White
Frosting and Bubble Sprinkles

Angel Food with Lemon Glaze and garnished with Lemon Zest




Texas Sheath Cake with Chocolate Pecan Frosting





<--Four Layer German Chocolate with Honey Almond Frosting and Toasted Coconut Three

Layer Carrot Cake with Whipped Cream Cheese and Walnut Frosting and much, much more

Wish you all were there to share! More cakes to come in the future
With Love and Adoration,
Fat-T :)

THIS JUST IN

I ATE THIS TOO FAST TO TAKE PICTURES OF IT

you know my hot jam, peanut butter, banana, and honey on wheat toast?

Today, I put peanut butter, banana, and honey on a wheat WRAP. so essentially, a burrito.

Then, as if that wasn't good enough, I grilled it on the good old george foreman lean mean fat-reducing machine.

Next time, I may put some mushy cooked cinnamon apples on a warm wrap, or some berries and cream cheese? a whole new era of breakfast burrito has arrived.

-Linni
LA, CA

How We Do 4-20

I made dinner tonight.
Ashley had been wanting scalloped potatoes, so we did those. I also tossed together a spinach chicken salad with a whole hodge podge of veggies from the MP and dried cranberries and apples.

I also made these little individual pizzas that are sposed to be made on boboli crust, but i bought this middle eastern doughey amazing stuff from TJ's. it has sweet cream cheese and apples cooked with cinnamon, sugar, butter--all that good stuff.

Yesterday, I made Oreo Cookie Magic cupcakes for Megan to mimic her favorite 21 choices flavor, which has cookie dough, sprinkles, and oreos. I put a ball of cookie dough in each vanilla cupcake and made oreo sprinkle frosting and voila--oreo cookie magic! I made them with the kitchen blocked off so she wouldn't see, but Campo thought we were making pot brownies for sure.

More April Mish-Mash

please please PLEASE click on these to see the bigger pictures. they're great, but i didn't want to make this huge.


my sister took out a dinner roll, put a square of colby jack inside of it, and stuck it in the microwave. like it was no big deal. it was a big deal. we also made oreo pudding pie with oreos on top that i dipped in bailey's shots. wowie wow wow.


my dad made shrimp cocktail. he's adorable sometimes.

Ah, Spitz. Spitz was started by a guy who graduated from Oxy in 05--he went abroad and fell in love with doner kebab, couldn't understand how there were 4 shops on each block there and none here. So he, Bryce, adorable sweet guy, opened Spitz the summer he graduated. Now it's this huge deal, it won citysearch's best top 10 fast food places in LA, and tons of other awards already. They're opening a new store and bryce wants to franchise it. They serve sweet potato fries, falafel sandwiches, doner, gelato, amazing amazing stuff.

Pan-roasted Australian Sea Bass [Baramundi] with creamed baby spinach, truffled squash, and verjus meuniere from Bistro 45. What that last word means, I have no clue, but I am currently on kind of a sea bass kick so yay yay yay.

linni, ca