Blueberry muffin pops for breakfast! (Taken with Instagram)

My birthday dinner and desserts: Pistachio cake, coconut cake, princess torte and cookies! (Taken with Instagram at Epicure Cafe)

Bunny bread! (Taken with instagram)

Curried Lentils with Ham and Israeli Cous Cous:

Tonight I really wanted curry, but didn’t have much to make it with, so I decided to throw a bunch of stuff in a pot and see what happened. Turns out, ham is actually pretty good in curry!

Mother’s Day Brunch: Mini Breakfast Souffles and Strawberry Yogurt Parfaits

Many restaurants hike up the prices on Mother’s Day, but you can save some money and show mom how much you love her with this EXTREMELY easy breakfast.  The mini souffles are from Emeril and were featured in May’s Issue of “Everyday Food” (though for some reason, I can’t find the recipe online) and consist of an egg and flour batter poured over ham, cheese and onions.  Other ingredients could easily be substituted to make this dish vegetarian-friendly (if you’re still an egg-eater) or if you just want to experiment with other flavors.  Next time I’m going to try diced chicken, spinach, mushroom and Swiss cheese!

The parfaits are even easier.  Just layer vanilla yogurt over strawberries or other fresh, seasonal fruit.  Serve in parfait or martini glasses for extra visual appeal!

║ Ratings║ 

Taste: ★★★★☆ - 

Visual: ★★★★★ - 

Level: Intermediate - 

Botch Factor: Medium - 

I decided to try my hand at candy making after seeing this gumdrop recipe on Bakerella’s site.  Although the candy cubes are adorable, I decided to use the shaped ice-cube trays I have (and never use) for my gumdrops.

I used strawberry, lemon and coconut flavoring.  The coconut was definitely my favorite. 

║ What I learned:║

• You know how it says to use a “large” pot?  Make sure you use a LARGE pot!  Once it begins to boil, the gelatin/sugar mixture bubbles and foams, expanding a LOT.  Unfortunately, the pot I used wasn’t large enough and it boiled over onto my stove, making a carbonized sugary mess!  
• I found that 1/4 tsp of flavoring wasn’t enough to actually flavor my gumdrops.  If it’s a strong extract, like mint or lemon, it may be enough, but for weaker flavors, you may need to use more.
• Bakerella was right when she suggested using cooking spray or oil to grease the molds.  Make sure you use plenty and the gumdrops will pop right out!
  

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!  This year I got to make the entire Thanksgiving meal myself and I couldn’t have been happier! 

We’re not big into turkey in my family and it was only going to be four of us, so I made a roast chicken with extra dark meat.

The sides included baked sweet potatoes and apples, mashed potatoes with goat cheese and caramelized shallots…

…stuffing with Italian sausage and apples…

…and Roasted Brussel Sprouts with Pomegranate and Hazelnuts!  I got most of the recipes out of the November issue of Food Network magazine.

And of course, what’s Thanksgiving without PIE?! 

Because we were such a small party, and I wanted everyone to have their favorite flavors…

…I made mini, muffin-tin pies in apple, cherry, blueberry, blackberry, and cherry.  With the help of some Pillsbury piecrusts, canned pie filling and Not Martha’s blog on mini pies, they came out wonderful!

Happy Holidays everyone!  The food has just begun!  :)

Tonight I made breakfast for dinner and—omigod—I have found my new favorite kind of pancakes: COCONUT!!!  

If you like coconut you have to try these.  Add shredded, sweetened coconut to the batter and cook in LOTS of butter.  To finish, skip the maple syrup and sprinkle with sugar instead.  *drool*  

(Source: coconut pancakes)

║ Ratings║ 

Taste: ★★★★☆ - Slightly salty because I used salted butter. Ooops! *_*

Visual: ★★★★★ - So….amazingly…cute.

Level: Intermediate - Steps are pretty straight-forward, but baking from scratch can be tricky and getting the dough to the right consistency took some tweaking.

Botch Factor: Medium - Dough didn’t quite double in size, as recipe said, but it still came out surprisingly well despite my lack of previous bread-making skills.

Let me start by giving credit where credit is due.  This is NOT my recipe.  I stumbled across the recipe which is a rewritten recipe of a translation of a Japanese recipe.  But then again, does it surprise anyone that this originated in Japan?  Of course the they would make bread with a cute, surprise panda inside! 

Recipe Links:

Tablespoon.com - The recipe with American measurements.

Perfect Pandas - A translation of the original Japanese recipe (uses grams)

Taro Taro - The original Japanese recipe.

I really recommend checking out the the original Japanese page as it has user submitted photos of how other people’s panda bread turned out, which are hilarious and adorable.

║ What I learned:║

• Being used to “cups” and “tablespoons” instead of “liters” and “grams”, I used Tablespoon.com’s recipe for all the measurements and general steps.  However, I also referred to Perfect Pandas because she included 2 rest phases for the dough.
• Even if you use a stand mixer, you have to hand knead the dough a LOT more in order for it to rise.  I learned this the hard way when my dough wouldn’t rise after 2+ hours and finally decided to knead it more by hand. 
• Putting the bowls of dough into the oven to rise works really well, especially if your house is cool.  Just make sure the oven is OFF.