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Spring break was so nice. Eating thirty meals a day on a patio surrounded by my mom's driftwood is very missable. Now it's back to this crud:

"The herbs and spices being investigated in this experiment are: anise, caraway, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, and cumin. Your task is to analyze the volatile oils of some of these botanical products and then identify the adulterant in a sample"

Well I am stressing out quite a lot about all of this chemical nonsense going on all over the tests handed to me. So I decided to try this Chai Cola business today. Didn't like it. At least my two little Red Bull buddies are sitting in the fridge awaiting my desperate plea for their gift of vitality. The Russian ballet on ice is on my television screen. I'm glancing at its reflection in my window, because turning around is too much work when you have a lab report to concoct.

On the bright side Jenny liked the cake I made her !



I finally got to employ the (THE) chocolate painting technique. I'm not going to go into how I made the rest of the cake, but it tasted like chocolate milk. With blueberry on top. Actually I'm a fan of the blueberry sauce I drenched it in, so I'll use that again and it will be posted up here for you all, our droves of fans.

I'd also been waiting since Spain (2005, maybe?) to make a tortilla de patatas. The moment finally came! I modified the wikipedia preparation blurb, using green onions instead of the good stuff, and possibly oversalting. Added some milk with the egg too. Basically I had a really good tortilla de patatas but I was not happy to have to share it.



My posts have been lacking in the recipe department lately, but I'm sure I'll be up to it some day soon. After Thursday. Well after Thursday. If I am still alive Thursday, all is well with the world.

Forevers yours&young,

Anna

Because we couldn't find frozen cranberries, but mango is better anyway.

So I visited my friend Noa last week and we decided to go on a mini baking spree that ended in some good things like this and some weird thing like the challah dough that got cooked when it was rising in a too hot oven (that's where baby yeast goes to die). But first we made this pie, yum! And very easy too, maybe use a bit more mango than we did and listen to this song. while eating it (chilled of course).



Honey Mango Pie from this site roughly

Graham Cracker Crust
About 1 1/2 c. of crushed graham cracker crumbs (if you're buying that graham cracker brand that I can't remember the name of right now this is about one of those three plastic containers of crackers in the box crushed up)
6 TBL butter or margarine, melted

1. Mix crumbs and butter together and push into a 9 or 10 inch round pie pan, then bake at 325 degrees Fahrenheit for about 15 minutes.

In the meantime, you can make your filling:

3 c. frozen mango chunks (and then some I would say)
1/2 c. honey (I would actually lower this to 1/3 c., there is such thing as too much honey)
14 oz. can of sweetened condensed milk (sickeningly good)
3 eggs
1 TBS vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. cardamom (we didn't have any on hand so we left this out, I'm usually a big fan of cardamom, but for some reason I think this recipe would be better kept simple, I don't know though, try it out, see how it goes)

1. Noa put all the mango chunks in a bowl and microwaved them for a little and took this strange pulverize thing and mushed them. I would have just thawed them and put them in a blender, I guess since I was scared of the pulverizer or whatever it was.
2.Pour everything together in a bowl and mix. Pour into pre-baked graham cracker crust. Then bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about an hour.



-Amanda

BaklaVa Va Voom

Baklava! recipe~

I used walnuts. And a lot less butter. I also made a horrendous gooey mess of the syrup. I had to dilute it in water many times before it was anywhere near usable. But the end result turned out just fine! Nice and crunchy and flaky. Sage honey is wonderful. I have rose water now, so I can add some next time I make baklava :D Just a little note: the yield was 56 little buggers. I didn't fold the phyllo dough in half; I just used a bigger pan. I had no idea what to do with them all. It was madness.

I LOVE BAKLAVA.

-Anna

Tender Scone

Today I decided I wanted to make this recipe without using measurements; albeit I had the Joy of Cooking a list of ingredients and measurement in front of me, so it isn't as if I created the recipe, but oh well.
I've had the scone bug for a while, ever since I had a small bite of perfectly soft ginger scone several weeks ago. Now they are here, decked out in formerly frozen raspberries, ground ginger, and bits of crystallized ginger, my favorite. I haven't tasted them yet, so I'm crossing my fingers that I didn't over handle them and I guessed right on how much of each ingredient.
Enjoy!



Raspberry Ginger Scones adapted from the Joy of Cooking Cream Scones recipe
1 3/4 c. flour
2 1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/4 c. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. ground ginger (maybe not really sure, to taste)
2 TBL chopped up bits of crystallized ginger (ditto)
1/2-3/4 c. frozen raspberries
1 1/4 c. heavy cream (yay! you don't have to cut in butter/margarine/shortening!!)

1 egg for glaze
sugar for sprinkling

1.Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit (hothothot).
2. Mix flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, and ground ginger together in a medium sized bowl. Make a well in the middle and pour in the heavy cream.
3. Mix together (lightly--too roughly=too tough scones) and add in crystallized ginger and raspberries.
4. Put the big glob of dough on a lightly floured surface. Shape it into a big circle that's about 3/4 of inch thick and 8 inches in diameter. Cut into 8 triangles and put on a baking sheet. (I guess you should grease the baking sheet? I put foil on mine since that was laying around.)
5. Crack open an egg and mix into together with a little bit of sugar and spread it on the 8 wedges. Sprinkle with a little more sugar.
6. Bake for about 15-17 minutes.
Eat early in the morning while listening to this song. Don't watch the accompanying video though, because it's creepy as all get out.





-Amanda