a celebration week

Only the cakes warranted pictures this week. They look pretty good! To zoom in, click on the collage and it'll open a big one in a new tab or something like that.

1. Triple Layer Lemon Cake - pretty good, light and tender. was assembled with lemon curd between the layers, and then frosted with #3. was much celebrated!

2. Lemon Curd - tastes like a liquidy version of the tops of lemon bars. i wish i had made more of this. it may have been the best part of the cake

3. Creamy White Frosting with Lemon - this tastes more like butter than lemon... so i liked it.

4. French Omlet - maybe the fluffiest omlet i've ever eaten. i had a cheese omlet

5. Pan-fried Fish - wasted oil, i don't like that. was very tasty.

6. One Pot Spaghetti - delicious + easy clean up

7. Rice Pilaf - you brown the rice with oil before you cook it which makes it taste different, it's cool, i'd eat this again

8. Yellow cake - cupcakes - fun to make, very basic cake that is a little chewy... but not all the right tools were used. I wonder how it would have been in a fully equipped kitchen.

9. Butter frosting - not very sweet, we made the chocolate variety on the cupcakes

10. Hot Milk Sponge Cake - pac man cake above - was originally a circular cake, but used the leftover lemon icing after my family had already eaten a couple slices. Very basic. I prefer the original sponge cake recipe - it doesn't require baking powder (NaHCO3), which is better for people on low sodium diets, but if your kidneys are young stallions like mine (AKA you are not a granny), this one might be easier to make, and tastes just about the same.

11. Oven fried fish from last week - used salmon, this was ok, very healthful, would eat again, but wasn't as crispy and rich as the pan fried version. no oil was used, this is a fast and healthy way to prepare fish in <10 milk=""> flour => bread crumb mix => milk=> bread crumb mix).

9/10 is not that bad.

2 things:
1. i left my camera at school so i couldn't take pictures
2. flu like symptoms hit me like a truck on saturday night at 3:00 am - they woke me up from sleep and i weh weh'ed all day on Sun and Mon and I didn't move from the couch.

so i made 9 things this weekend from my better home and gardens cookbook.

1. Lady and Sons chicken pot pie - Submitted by Paula Deen - holy crap i finally know why she is so fat. this was the richest pot pie i have even ever attempted to eat in my whole life, except i had no mood to eat, i felt like I was going to barf it up.

2. onion rings - these were pretty delicious going down but were disgusting coming up. I don't think I'm going to eat onion rings for the next several years.

3. Wild rice and barley pilaf - very light, fiberful, healthy but good. I would put this in my staple grains section.

4. Hot Orange and Mocha drink - I don't like coffee but my mom said this was good.

5. Lemon Bread - My mom gave rave reviews. I personally thought it was a little dry.

6. Deviled Eggs - I love mayonnaise. That is all.

7. Chocolate chip cookies - These were some of the best chocolate chip cookies I've ever made. Chewy and delicious.

8. Crispy oven fried fish - did not complete this task because I was dying.

9. Creamed spinach - This was ok but tasted very spinachy...

10. French toast - I don't know what I thought would happen, but I've never liked french toast anyway. It tasted like all other french toasts.

wow, there is actually something exciting to talk about today.

People often buy cookbooks that sit on the shelf collecting dust. Example:

I bought this book today. It was 16something dollars at Half Price Books and I felt a little guilty, because my mother actually has an old edition of the same book. And actually, I don't even like following recipes all that much... typically I wing it, with semi-disastrous results. But, I decided, I am going to make every single recipe in this cookbook, cover to cover. That's right, every single recipe. And they might not all be delicious, and I might even dislike many of them, but I will make them and then I will eat them all.

*EDIT -- 10 mins later*
OMG. I have thought about this more extensively. 1400 "mouthwatering recipes"... how many years of a new recipe a day is that? Wow, like 3 years and 10 months. I don't know. I don't even eat very much. I think I am in over my head. This is a 10 year commitment!!! Hopefully I will be able to knock out several each weekend, or like 5 at a time by hosting lavish dinner parties. Also, lucky that my dad is able to afford all this food.

sandwiches and chocolate cake

My bf was here last weekend, that was great. I made these sweet rolls with honey on top that I have been using for sandwiches. Unfortunately my sandwich-protector tupperware is too squat and they get squished every time. Next weekend I'm going to make them again, except I'm going to make them flatter and larger, cause I've been having to make myself two sandwiches. I am still growing, you know.

I was telling Sam in school yesterday why I decided to make snow pea-turkey-mayonnaise sandwiches. It is because snow peas add texture, like lettuce would, except I don't have to buy the whole lettuce and watch 98% of it go bad. Also, I love mayonnaise like fat boys love cake. I also love cake.