Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Haiku contest

I hate the stench of
coffee. It snarls, "Morning's here!"
but I just want dreams.

Join in the contest. Haikus (5/7/5) about anything specific, not abstract. I'd like to test your creativity.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Talent is overrated


The plan was to make these "Spring Chickens" from Bakerella, a blog Kristi showed me. Unfortunately (but quite fortunate for the purpose of a humorous blog entry), I did not read the difficulty level until I was way too far into the process. Thus, my spring chickens met varying fates: some lost their lollipop sticks, some lost half a body, most were recklessly abandoned, and a select few made it in a pathetic chicken state.

The select few chickens are heading to my friends who drove from afar for Easter. It's little balls of crumbled cake mixed with chocolate frosting so that it molds into a ball. The cake balls are stuck on a lollipop stick and dunked into candy melts.



This is me holding one that has no faults.

Er, very few.

And the lucky abandoned / crumpled-heap ones are destined to be snacked on since I lost interest in creating chickens, once I found out I have no talent in this area of chick cake-ball making.

Monday, April 6, 2009

"Hey! I'm immortal!"

Browned Butter Bananas in Orange-Brandy Sauce
*note: we are not ritzy enough (ritzy may not be the right adjective there) to drink brandy, so I actually made this just in Orange- Sauce.

Ingredients

* 4 medium bananas
* 1 1/2 tablespoons butter
* 3 tablespoons brown sugar, divided
* 2 tablespoons thawed orange juice concentrate
* 1 tablespoon brandy
* 1 tablespoon water
* 1/8 teaspoon salt
* 2 cups vanilla low-fat ice cream
* Mint sprigs (optional)

Preparation

1. Peel bananas, and cut bananas in half lengthwise. Cut each half crosswise into 2 pieces.

2. Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add butter to pan, swirling to coat. Cook butter 1 minute or until lightly browned. Add bananas; sauté 1 minute or until browned and tender, turning once. Add 1 tablespoon sugar, stirring gently until sugar dissolves. Place bananas in a medium bowl.

3. Combine remaining 2 tablespoons sugar, juice concentrate, brandy, 1 tablespoon water, and salt in pan. Bring to a simmer; cook 1 minute. Drizzle sauce over bananas. Serve immediately over ice cream. Garnish with mint sprigs, if desired.


This is much funnier if you've watched Twilight but watching the official trailer first also helps.