Worlds Colliding

A light bulb went off in my head last Thursday night and I thought "yes! that is exactly the ridiculously obscene dinner I will make for Friday night."  Take a seat because this one might make you a bit faint.

Buffalo chicken macaroni and cheese pizza. Say whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat KTC what kind of a monster are you? I am a disgustingly monstrous genius with some serious heart burn.

First I sauteed some chicken coated in flour in some butter.  When it was finished cooking I tossed it with some hot sauce.

Next I made some boxed macaroni and cheese with some more hot sauce mixed in.

Upon assembly I put the mac and cheese on the bottom, then the chicken, next some blue cheese, mozzarella, and scallions.

Honestly, I'm going to toot the hell out of my own horn here, this shit was crazy good.  

Like, using expletives good.

Birthday Treat Bonanza

I didn't bake or cook anything this year for my birthday.  Just take a moment there to let that statement settle in. Apparently I have some kick-ass friends and family who decided to shower me with unbelievably delicious treats.  Let's see what they were!

Behold the glorious popcorn cake! Popcorn held together with marshmallows and butter and peanuts and m & ms mixed in.  Insanity!

Next up we have a homemade version of the girl scout classic tagalong.  This whole tin disappeared in mere moments.

Words cannot express how wonderful this chocolate sour cream cake with cream cheese frosting was. Seriously...just...so damn good.

Birthday dinner was a recipe from Jamie Oliver.  Penne with tomatoes, eggplant, and mozzarella.  Don't be alarmed by how wordy the recipe looks; Jamie just likes to be cute when he writes his recipes.

Sweet and salty never tasted so good; chocolate bark with pretzels and peanut butter morsels.

And of course it's not my birthday without a strawberry shortcake. Voila!

And that's me enjoying my popcorn cake entirely too much.

Friends, you guys are just too darn good to me. Thanks again!

Vegetable Tagine with Couscous

Sorry I haven't posted in a while.  I've been busy doing ridiculously amazing things like...

 partying in Las Vegas

hiking the Grand Canyon

and meeting Say Anything.

This is the first dinner I cooked in ages and let me tell you it feels good to be back in front of the stove.

I got this recipe from Real Simple.  The changes I made were just omissions of ingredients I didn't have on hand: no bell pepper, turmeric, or cilantro.

The carrots, onions, garlic, spices and floating cinnamon stick stew away in some vegetable stock.

Then in goes the eggplant, zucchini, and raisins.  I was hesitant about the raisins going into my dinner, but I was glad they joined the party.

For the grand finale I plopped it on some garlic pine nut couscous. Ta-da!

Funfetti Cake Balls

I would like to just come out and say that this was not an official Funfetti cake.  It was a DIY funfetti cake.  I bought some sprinkles and added them to the white cake batter.  Now I don't have to pay Pillsbury any royalties.

For those of you new to the cake ball/pop scene, a cake ball is made by baking a cake, mixing it with some icing, rolling that mixture into balls, and covering it in chocolate.

Here are some naked and fully dressed cake balls:

 I must say these sprinkles really topped these balls off nicely.

I'm going to end this post with a disclaimer: these things are a serious pain to make.  This process, although consisting of few steps, takes hours to complete.  Even after the refrigeration of the naked cake balls, they are still too fragile to be fully dunked into the chocolate and instead need to be "painted" with the chocolate.  I'm not sure how Bakerella  makes her's look so flawless, but I'm not making these guys again until I figure out the secret.

200th Post!!!

Doesn't it seem like only yesterday I did my 100th posting? Ah the memories....

Now 100 posts later I present to you salted chocolate caramel filled cookies!

The recipe is from Crepes of Wrath and guess what? I actually followed all the directions.

First you make this amazing smelling chocolate and butter concoction.

Then you mix in the dry ingredients to make the dough and open up a shit ton of caramels.

Pop a caramel into each dough ball.

Sprinkle a little salt on top, I didn't have any fleur de sel so I used sea salt.  It sort of melts into the cookie and doesn't give the wow factor that fleur de sel would, but the flavor is still there.

I apologize I did not take an innards shot of these babies fresh out of the oven with their gooey melty caramel centers.  Let your imagination run wild if you will.

I was a little disappointed in the fact that the caramel hardened quite seriously when the cookies cooled, but otherwise these were a seriously tasty treat.