Chill

Its gotten really chilly this week. I'm not sure if its the cold or if she's feeling sick, but Bailey has been crawling all over me the last couple of days. I had to take a picture because it's so rare. I'm starting to get excited about our trip to Italy and also our dessert party. I sent out invitations today and took another look at the dessert list. I should probably come up with a schedule before we leave for vacation. I have to coordinate when I'm going to make 12 desserts! Nothing else exciting going on here. I'm trying to get back on the wagon before our trip. I never gain weight in Italy. I'll walk enough there to burn off all the gelato and pizza. Oh, gelato. I can't wait.

Pumpkin Carving

Well, there was a good turnout for the pumpkin carving, despite some of our regulars not showing. Joey helped me tremendously and we had all the food ready just in time. Chicken tikka masala and wild rice made up our orange and black vittles. We also had samosas, naan, chips and queso. After eating we all washed our pumpkins and then got to cleaning out the guts.



I decided not to actually carve my pumpkin and instead tried the scraping technique. I took my time and ended up being the last one done! Margo did two pumpkins before I had finished my first! Everyone's pumpkins turned out great. It was nice to spend some time outside and the weather was awesome. During the actual carving we started drinking. When I went to get out the bottle of George T. Stagg to celebrate that I had finally finished my pumpkin I knocked over a berries and cream Dr. Pepper can. Damn thing exploded. I think I caught most of the spray on my shirt and jeans. Anyways, I had my bourbon, and everything was all better.

When we were all done we all chomped on caramel apples. I needed something to soak up the alcohol. That caramel is really really tasty. I'm not a caramel fan, but man, that stuff is good. This year it turned out a just right, not runny like last year. We took plenty of photos of the pumpkins, and everyone's looked great.

At the end Tejal and Tim stayed a while. After watching Lazy Sunday I said "I want cupcakes" just like I do every time I see Lazy Sunday. Tim says "Okay, let's make cupcakes!" and we did! We watched some Venture Brothers and after a few failed attemts at setting up American Idol and Tekken Tag on the PS2 we ended up playing Rayman Raving Rabbids. Oh, we laughed so hard! Ross fell asleep on the loveseat. Poor little guy was all worn out.

It was a great day and I'm so glad everyone came. Now its time to make some vacation and Dessert party plans. Everyone was asking about the dessert party, and I think we'll have it before Thanksgiving.

State Fair

Tejal, Ross and I went to the fair last week to try out some of the new fried foods. We got there right at 1 pm, just in time to see the human cannonball. That was just odd, but I'm glad we saw it. Ross took great pictures of the guy flying out of the cannon. After the cannonball we tried the fried guacamole. Wow. It was really good. The batter was crispy and spicy. The filling was warm and tasty. Expensive, but worth it, besides--fair food is always pricey. After the guac we wandered around looking for the belgian waffle stand. After seeing it on TV I just had to have one. It was really crispy, and tasted like an ice cream cone. I had it topped with whipped cream, strawberries, and powdered sugar. I made quite a mess of myself while eating it. After the food we wandered around and saw the car show, butter sculpture, all the normal stuff. Oh, we had a free ice cream cone, and the free part made it taste even better.

Then we went to my favorite part, the baby animals! Oh, there were all the same animals as last year, but still, they were so cute. The baby kangaroo was a little disturbing. We actually got to see it poke it's head out of the pouch, and then climb out. It looked like a chihuahua. It had a little trouble getting out of the pouch and was just standing there with its head still stuck in the pouch. Everyone cringed when it started clawing at the pouch. When it finally came all the way out it was like an alien dog. Skinny and awkward.

We had more fried food. Fried sweet potato pie was just like a fried empanada. Not very special. On the way out Ross and Tejal tried the fried cookie dough. Ross liked it. Tejal wasn't that impressed. The funny part was that we only had 10 tickets, not 12, so the guy let us have it without the silly packaging. He even gave us an extra fried cookie dough ball. Ross was pumped with sugar and became extra crazy. The three hours of walking around in the sun wore me out and afterwards I was super tired. We topped of the day with some food at Cafe Medi, but skipped their awesome tiramisu as we were sugar overloaded.

Lamb Korma

Ross loves his lamb, and I decided to give in and make some this week. Man, looking at this blog you'd think that all we eat is cake (I love cake.) and Indian food. Saturday we're having Indian food again--Chicken Tikka Masala. I picked it cause it's orange, and we are having a pumpkin carving party. I buy the boneless leg of lamb at Costco. I cut it up into little pieces and used a third for this recipe and put the rest in two ziplock bags for later. I'll make lamb stew Sunday.

Lamb Korma

2 pounds lamb or beef if you prefer
6 tsp. coriander
1 tsp. comino
1/2 tsp. cayenne
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1/4 tsp. tumeric
1/2 c. sour cream or plain yoghurt

3 c. sliced onion
2 Tbl. oil
2 Tbl. butter
2 inch piece of cinnamon stick
4 whole cloves
dash of cardamom
2 tsp. minced ginger
2 tsp. minced garlic

1/4 tsp. ground fennel
1/4 c. coconut milk
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 c. water
1 tsp. fresh lemon (or lime) juice

1. Mix spices and sour cream. Stir in meat and marinate at least 30 minutes.
2. Fry onions in oil and butter until soft.
3. Add remaining spices and fry 1-2 minutes.
4. Cook meat with onions and spices until meat is browned.
5. Add fennel,coconut milk, salt and water.
6. Bring to a boil, then lower heat to simmer.
7. Simmer 45 minutes, stirring occasionally and adding water if gravy becomes too thick.
8. Stir in lemon juice, add salt to taste.

This is the basic recipe. I can't remember where I got it. I rarely use a full two pounds of meat or 3 full cups of onions (I just cut up one or two onions).....but I always use the full amount of spices. It turned out all right last night. If you use chicken you don't have to cook it the full 45 mins, but for lamb and beef you need to so that the meat becomes tender. The onion naan added just the right amount of saltiness, and the samosas that I found in the freezer were the super spicy ones. I'll be having leftovers for lunch.

4 Day Weekend

4 Day Weekend is the name of the comedy/improvisation group that we went to see on Friday. It was pretty funny. I think the funniest line was that Montessori is an old latin word meaning "no black kids in this school." To boot, the guy was singing the line. I love to make up words to songs. They were pretty good at that, until it came to the word ostomy. I mean, some medical student must have put that word in the bin. Poor guys didn't know what it meant. The audience was mostly engineers. I'm not sure if they knew what it meant either....At the end they figured it out...
There were two times when audience members were singled out (that doesn't count all the times they made fun of people for text messaging, or getting up during the show--that was funny.) The second guy they singled out was being a real jerk. Well, in the end they made so much fun of him that they were laughing themselves (actually, the guys laughed uncontrollably at their own jokes...not endearing.) The audience was cheering on the mockery of the jerk. It was great.
It was a funny show, and the fact that we got free tickets (courtesy the sound and lighting guy) made it even better. It's not something I'd go to every weekend though. Once a year maybe.

Unexpected

I keep forgetting to post about this dvd that we rented last weekend. It was unexpectly really good. I wasn't too hopeful. The last foreign action film I picked out turned out terribly. We only watched the first ten minutes it was so bad. Anyways, the name of the film is Nomad the Warrior. A pretty good story. Good action. Tonight we are going to a comedy club. I haven't been to a comedy club since Austin. No update on the Gin book. I have no idea where it is! It might be in the back of the car. I should check. I've been reading my issues of Bon Apetit instead. Well, I'd better get back to that pizza dough.

Yellow Cake, Take 2

I searched for another yellow cake recipe to try, even though the last blunder was my doing, and didn't have much to do with the recipe. This time the cake has a more refined texture and is more like a store bought pound cake (but not quite as heavy.) The batter was tasty, pretty rich, with all those eggs. I think next time I will add a little more milk. Maybe it would be better if I used whole milk, but I always have skim in the house...

Yellow Cake Second Take

1 c butter, cut into pieces
1 1/2 c. sugar
9 egg yolks
3/4 c. milk
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 c. cake flour, sifted
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Grease and flour two cake pans. (I also put parchment paper in the bottom, but I don't think it's really necessary.)
3. Stir together flour, baking powder and salt.
4. In a large bowl cream butter and sugar until fluffy.
5. Beat in yolks one at a time.
6. Mix in vanilla.
7. Add the milk and flour mixture alternatively in thirds, beating after each addtion. (Here I sifted in the flour, to get an extra sift in.)
8. Mix until just incorporated.
9. Pour batter into pans.
10. Cook for 25-30 mins. (I'm not sure how long I cooked it, the timer went off and I didn't hear it.)

I put some cream cheese frosting in between the layers, just to have something to separate them. I think this is a good recipe. I think I'll just be tweaking it from now on...I'll try adding more milk first. My dad said that yellow cakes can be colored with saffron tea, but this cake is yellow enough I think.