i am not alone in my cake love!

i know, i generally dont post pictures that have people in them. but i thought that this picture of my aunt with the birthday cake she made me was just so stunningly beautiful i couldn't NOT include her in it. since easter fell right in between my sister and my birthdays this year, easter dessert was a birthday cake for us. a sponge cake, to be exact, using my grandma's recipe and my grandma's pans and gigantic plate. another reason my aunt is in the picture: so that you can see just how gigantic this cake is. aunt joanie is not a tiny person - we're about the same size, i'd say. and this cake is wider than her hips. its a bit absurd. it also has pudding and strawberries between the layers, and whipped cream on top - she had to start cutting it almost immediately after putting the whipped cream on, because the cake started to slide. yes, slide. it was a bit like the leaning tower(/cake!) of pisa...except that its lean kept leaning more and more!

but, a birthday cake on easter? that doesnt seem like the correct dessert, you say! well, my sister had you covered:


mother and sister are HUGE coconut cake fans. and apparently, easter is a good time for coconut cake, because it means you can make a bunny cake. oh how cute, you say? NO, IT IS NOT CUTE WHEN YOU DONT LIKE COCONUT AND ITS YOUR BIRTHDAY.

when i was 3 years old, my birthday fell on the day before easter. so my mother made me a coconut bunny cake, very similar to the one above. i believe we still have the pictures of it. i hate coconut. my mother knew i hated coconut. but noooo, jenn doesnt get to have a barbie dress cake, no no no. jenn gets to have a GROSS COCONUT BUNNY CAKE because thats what mom likes. my childhood was incredibly deprived, i know.

so this year, mother wanted to make a coconut cake, so she made the cake (and the frosting, AND bought a fresh coconut and grated/shaved it, which, let me tell you, takes a LOT of work) and my sister decorated the bunny with jelly beans and twizzlers. and it was adorable. i am told it tasted really good too. i ate matzoh crack instead, as my hatred for coconut has only intensified over the years.

i leave you with this image of the sliding, gigantic sponge cake. may your days be filled with gigantic leaning towers of sponge cake as well:

i know why i stopped updating

its because i cooked so damned much easter weekend that the thought of having to make 3 different posts to cover all the pretty food was just too much for me! never fear, i am back. why? because my CSA is making me so freakin happy right now that i HAVE to post pictures of some of the awesome food i have been making. did you know i got fiddleheads last week? and bunched beets? holy crap that was exciting! but that is for another post (particularly since those pictures are still on my camera at home right now). If you don't belong to a CSA, I highly recommend you join - so far i have convinced my friends emily and bryan to join my farm, as well as my coworker jen, and so far everyone has been really happy about it (as has sarah, who suggested enterprise farms in the first place to me!)

so right now i want to talk about appetizers. appetizers are something i generally struggle with - figuring out what type to make, getting the right balance of tasty but not too filling, with enough variety, and then, of course, having the actual TIME to make them so that they are the right temperature at serving during appetizer time, which, lets face it, is when i am frantically trying to finish cooking those last-minute food items.

easter weekend, the whole [immediate] family was in town - and by that, i mean my sister, my brother, his girlfriend mary, and i were all home, and aunt joan and uncle bill were around. so saturday night, we had AJ and UB over for dinner, and i thought it would be nice to make some appetizers. this of course annoyed my mother to no end, because it meant i was in her way in her kitchen, and filling peoples stomaches, but oh well.


appetizer #1: puff pastry. i HAD to do *something* with puff pastry, it is the king of appetizers. but i didnt want anything too filling, and obviously needed to be savory instead of sweet. i settled with the simple puff pastry hearts and flowers with parmesan cheese on top. except i cheated and used pecorino, because that is what my parents have in a giant wheel from italy. i'm really not kidding about the giant wheel. not bad, but i feel like puff pastry is better for dessert things.


Appetizers #2 & #3: stuffed olives. super simple, but nice flavor. here, i stuffed green olives with blue cheese. yum. nice thing: you can do these way in advance. next to them is another thing that was fun, though i probably should have salted and olive oiled them. it is mini mozzerella balls, wrapped with basil and roasted red pepper. really good flavor combination (but again, the mozzerella needed salt, and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil wouldnt have hurt)


appetizers #4: this was really yummy. baguette, with a slice of green apple (which i had to slice without my mandoline! so sad!), a slice of brie, and walnuts. really good flavor combination on this as well. i think maybe i could have done a honey drizzle, but not really necessary.

end result: the appetizers were really tasty. and we stuffed ourselves on them. but i feel like they were lacking something. i think i need to step it up a bit next time. that, and actually plan in advance instead of thinking of ideas right before running to the store.

baking just to bake

so i finally got some barley flour in my CSA. this was super exciting, as i got barley (grains) twice, and wanted to make barley bread, so i tried to grind them into a flour, but failed at it horribly. luckily, my CSA read my mind, and sent along some barley flour a few weeks later. AND they gave a recipe idea! cranberry sour cream cake/bread with barley flour!


do you know how hard it is to find cranberries this time of year? my recipe called for cranberries in a can. where does one find those? or, you could use cranberry relish. okay....well, i couldnt find canned cranberries. so i figured, maybe there would be frozen cranberries i could throw in! i found frozen strawberries. and frozen raspberries. and frozen blackberries. and freakin FROZEN CANTALOUPE. but NO frozen cranberries! what the hell, supermarket. what the hell. all i could find was cranberry sauce. so i bought a can of cranberry sauce with whole berries in it. not quite the consistency i was looking for. it worked, but it still wasnt right. i made the cake in a bundt pan...and how annoying are those! they NEVER come out perfectly. even if you grease the pan. even if there is a ton of butter in the topping. it ALWAYS annoyingly sticks to the pan. hate hate hate. maybe i will buy a nonstick bundt pan one of these days, instead of using my aunt's old non-non-stick one.


also on the dessert front...i introduce to you: matzoh crack. this is...one of the tastiest treats there is. and there are only 4 ingredients: butter, brown sugar, chocolate, and matzoh. the first time that i made it (AKA, a week ago) i followed the recipe. i grabbed my large pan, and spread 5 pieces of matzoh out, made the toffee, and poured it on top. it looked a bit thin, and i really had to spread the toffee out to make sure all the matzoh got covered. first sign that i should have done something different. threw it in the oven, pulled it out at the right time...second sign: it was a bit burnt. now yes, i know, its caramel toffee...of COURSE its burnt, that is the entire point. but there are levels of burnt-ness. and while this was still edible-burnt, it was still burnt. i covered the top in chocolate chips, let them melt, spread across, threw in the freezer, and voila, when i pulled it out and pulled it off the parchment paper, it was a delicious treat all broken up.

i felt like the recipe could use a little alteration, however, based on the incredible version my coworker donna made. so 2 days later, while home in NY, i went to the grocery store and picked up my 4 ingredients. this time, i used a smaller pan. and only 3.5 pieces of matzoh. and 1.5X the amount of toffee. which i knew was the correct amount when i poured it on top and it completely covered the matzoh in a lovely, thick coating. after cooking (didnt burn this time!) i once again coated in chocolate (miiiight have been too thick this time) and put some slivered almonds on top. this was all lovely, EXCEPT for the fact that mom doesnt own parchment paper. so i used wax paper. NOT the same thing! the toffee stuck to the wax paper. really badly. so that i was peeling off tiny pieces. so depressing. perhaps 3rd time will be the charm.

a weird combination

oh man, looking at this picture i am wishing i had more spinach so that i can make this again. there was this lovely recipe i found on food52 for a "yoghurt and spinach dip" that sounded absolutely delicious. and luckily enough, i happened to have some spinach on hand from my CSA! so, i blanched it (well, i sort of blanched it. in the sense that i kept it in the boiling water for only 30 seconds or so, but then i forgot the crucial blanching step of the ice water shock, and so the spinach was completely wilted. which is fine really because you just saute it after you chop it up anyway. and i threw in a bunch of greek yogurt, and some glorious extra virgin olive oil i recently bought. pretty simple, pretty delicious - just needs a bit of salt for the finishing touch.


i cooked some chicken quick, and put it on top of the spinach dip. can we say delicious again? probably. also bought some crusty bread that was quite tasty. all in all, a good dinner choice. and lunch the next day. and leftover dip as another lunch another day. perhaps the next party i have, i'll make some? or maybe just the next time i have spinach. or the next time i go to the grocery store. :)


and then tagging along with this entry is some delicious parsnip risotto that i made last week! its official: i love parsnips. they are pretty much the most awesome vegetable. along with celeriac. and kale. okay so i have a lot of favorite vegetables, shush. but anyway, parsnip has a nice, sweet but satisfying flavor, that makes it so good in creamy dishes, like soup or risotto. I think the only thing that would have made this better is if i had put rosemary in it. i thought i had some dried, but apparently did not, and didnt pick any up at whole foods when i was there (because i thought i had some dried) and so i decided to just make it sans adequate spices. still fairly good, but i think that it was lacking a bit without the spices. which i should really be cooking with more often. i think my new motto for the spring is going to be: embrace spices!!

what the hell do i do with all these vegetables?

i am TERRIBLE about updating this thing. I have taken pictures of like, 5 different meals in the last few weeks, but have i updated this thing with ANY of them? no! because i have been busy and lame, etc. i suppppose i have the excuse that 2 weekends ago i was in NYC visiting the brother, and last weekend was filled with birthday celebration, but still. shame on me.

so this catch-up entry is an ode to my CSA vegetables. and a sort of "what on earth do i do with all of these???" explanation of what i've been cooking in the last few weeks. we begin, apparently, with a potato gratin. not just any potato gratin, however, this one has sweet potatoes in it! and maybe celeriac, and maybe carrot and parsnip. i honestly dont remember what i put in it, all i know is it contains sweet potatoes, other root vegetables, onion, cheese, milk, probably chicken broth. it was...decent. i think the problem is that when i make these things, i make WAY too much of them (but once you cut up one each of the vegetables you have a ton!) and then i get sick of eating them. As i was telling emily and bryan last night, i need a boyfriend, because then i could just feed him my leftovers, and i would only have to eat potatoes au gratin 2-3 times instead of 5-6. the other alternative we thought of is swapping leftovers. that one probably has more potential...


and then we have the kale. i love kale. have i mentioned that enough in the other entries where i cook kale? because i think it honestly might be one of the tastiest greens there is. swiss chard, on the other hand? hate it. cannot eat the stuff, its just not tasty. but kale...kale is delicious and happy. kale ALWAYS tastes good. particularly when you roast garbanzo beans with garlic and oil and then add that to some sauted kale and did i mention DELICIOUS? yep, it makes me happy.


rounding out the boring food post, we have: glob of mashed root vegetables with glob of sauteed vegetables. okay, thats not a fair description. on the left, we have: sweet potato, regular potato, some beets, which were boiled, then mashed with butter and parsley and chive and some oil. (can we tell i am trying to use up my massive stash of potatoes?) and frankly...this was delicious. quite flavorful, and really so tasty. i forgot how much i love mashed foods. but again, it made so much that i was eating it for like, 5 days. that gets boring and sad. on the right...i have some zucchini, squash, onion, and some green (i think it was baby bok choy) that i needed to do SOMETHING with...so i steamed it and then sauteed with a bit of butter. and it was really delicious. thats sort of become my default for zucchini and squash now, because it tastes so good. i made it again 2 nights ago, actually, sans the bok choy, and forced myself to leave enough leftovers that i could put it in an omelet with tomato and feta cheese last night. delicious? DELICIOUS.

so...as we can tell with this entry, i think i am getting a bit fed up with some of the things i've been getting in my CSA share. i'm sort of cooking just to cook, for some of this stuff, instead of cooking something i WANT to cook. which isnt the end of the world, eating healthy and fresh and all, but i am so sick of having potatoes. and i am sick of seeing a drawer filled with apples and trying to think of what dessert i can make and which friends to pawn it off on because i'll never eat more than 1 serving of it. and getting greens on a thursday evening but not having time to cook until monday and by that time they have started to wilt...and wasting lettuce because i cannot eat an entire head of lettuce myself in a week along with whatever other salad greens they give me...i guess what i am saying is i am not sure if i am going to continue this CSA thing. i love supporting local farms and communities...but can i really go through all this food myself in a week? is it providing the variety i really want? will the summer share really be any better? i dont know. i really dont know.

other exciting posts to come this weekend: parnsip risotto, and cranberry sour cream cake with barley flour (both of which are things that make me extremely happy about having the CSA, as i never would have explored those dishes without it!)