apps, not passed

Had a cocktail party. In an effort to reciprocate 2 years worth of invitations, I had a cocktail party for my neighbors.
3 weeks out- what a grand idea, I wonder what I'll make? Maybe pigs in a blanket, maybe sliders, maybe Rumaki, maybe congealed salad. I'm sensing a theme.
2 weeks out- I wonder if I should make mojitos? I wonder where I can buy organic, humanely raised mini cocktail franks? I didn't realize Rumaki had chicken livers in it!
1 week out- It's too hot for pigs in a blanket. Everyone likes lemonade and vodka. My hummus is usually popular and I've wanted to make that greek salad salsa for years.
After some consultation with Elise, who instructed that I not mix up regions, (no hummus and guacamole at the same party!) I ended up with Hummus, Greek salad salsa and little balls of mozzerella and cherry tomatoes on a tooth pick. The hummus is from Cooks Illustrated and having made it a number of times now, I would say- easy on the cayenne, easy on the garlic, bold with the cumin and the lemon.
The Greek salad salsa is from San Francisco flavors and was just OK. Basically, feta and olives are very strongly flavored and there wasn't much there to balance them.
I put a little basil leaf on the tooth pick with the cherry tomat and the mozz and everyone left them behind as if they were just a garnish!
The home made lemonade is amazing. 1 C lemon juice, 1 C sugar, 5-6 C water. Mix up another cup of lemon juice and cup of sugar and have them ready to go when you run out of the first batch. With vodka, can me great.
One guest told me that he always carries a picture of his wife in his pocket and periodically takes it out to look at it. "When she starts to look good, it's time to go home!" There are a few ways to take that.

God Bless America

I made a FLAG CAKE! I followed Barefoot Contessa pretty closely but used a vanilla bean for the frosting rather than vanilla extract and also added way more confectioners sugar than called for bc I felt recipe, as is, resulted in greasy frosting.
When I was buying the ingredients, which include several pints of berries, the man behind me in line asked if I was making smoothies. I said, No, a flag cake. The woman checking me out then told me that she had intended to make a flag cake but ended up just chunking up the angel food cake (!) and putting it in a bowl, layering on some berries and cool whip and then repeating with more cake, more berries and more cool whip. All her guests raved.
After I made the flag cake and was busy bragging to all my friends about it, one friend asked me if I made the recipe with the cool whip icing or the colored stuff in tubes.
I guess its a very American recipe.

White Trash Cookin'

We actually made roast chicken with a can of beer up its butt. Too hot to use the oven, wanted roast chicken, seemed like a good solution.

1 12 oz can of PBR
1 roasting chicken
pile of herbs
butter
garlic

Chop the herbs and garlic and mash with the butter. Smear this under the bird's skin. Salt and pepper liberally. Cut the top of the can of beer and leave it about 3/4 full. Set the bird down on the can while limiting the number of crude jokes about the bird's anatomy.

Put it in a gas grill big enough so it can stand tall and roast at 400 or so until done. Took about an hour.

And you know what? It was really good.

Yuck

Made Tuna Noodle Casserole from the cookbook of a famous chef who in the interest of charity will remain nameless and it was extremely mediocre. If such a thing is possible. Do you think I shouldn't have used unsalted tunafish?

Sifting

"Mrs. Bentley never sifts." This has been mantra in our house since my sister and I were old enough to read Mrs. Bentley's cookbooks. Virginia Bentley was a childhood friend of our grandmother's and her books were treated like the oracle of Delphi in our kitchen.

Well, Mrs. Bentley would have sifted if she had encountered the box of cocoa that I tried to make into brownies. The recipe is for Supremely Fudgy Brownies from Chocolate Chocolate by Lisa Yockelson. As an aside, this book rocks your chocolate world. Ask Margaret about the OMG Brownies.

All went well until the part where you add the dry ingredients. All the dry ingredients but the cocoa went in smoothly. The cocoa stayed in lumps, unwilling to associate with those lesser dry ingredients, the flour and baking powder, let alone with the eggs, butter and sugar. I had to taste the batter many times to ensure that this was not going to cause a problem, and eventually dtermined that it would be all right.

After I baked them up the lumps still showed on the surface. After I ate them up - no more lumps. Maybe that's how Mrs. B. dealt with them.

enough with all the baking, how about an easy dinner?

Made a soup. First you put 2 cans of chick peas, a can of coconut milk, half a can of tomatoes, a large handful of cilantro and a splash of apple juice in the blender and puree it. Put it in a pot, add 2 tsp garam masala and a 1 tsp of ground ginger, heat it through. I then added salt and some sugar. It takes garnishes well, avocado, sauted bananas, raisins, yogurt, green onions, more cilantro. Very healthy, quick, easy. What's not to like!

what is it w all the coconut?

It was Easter and I had been resisting the urge to make cupcakes for several weeks. I missed the friend's birthday window of opportunity and was waiting for an Occasion. Easter was just me, so not sure it counted as an Occasion but I had all the ingredients, a few hours, and Pandora tuned to Krishna Das with Aria as variation (why is Trance music so suited to baking?) The recipe I have been reading daily for nearly a month is from Bon Apetite. Coconut vanilla bean cupcakes.
First you have to reduce the coconut milk. This requires a high sided pot b/c the coconut milk boils up and over. The recipe said that it would and it did. Then it took nearly half an hour to reduce by half and then it had to cool, in a bowl. Unlike my sister, I'm not a clean as you go person, so I just grabbed the first clean bowl I saw on the counter to hold the reduced coconut while it cooled. After the bowl was filled and waiting in the fridge, I realized/remembered that the bowl was clean b/c I had eaten my lunch out of it and then put it on the floor for the dogs to lick clean. Hmmm. It just smelled like coconut milk, and my dogs are healthy. So I left it alone.
The cake is a butter, sugar, eggs, seeds scraped from a vanilla bean cake. Only baking powder for leavening and dry is added in 2 parts alternating w the reduced coconut milk, all mixed just until combined. Don't overfill your litttle cupcake liners.
The frosting is butter, conf sugar, more seeds scraped from another vanilla bean and the rest of the reduced cocnut milk. The consistency was wallpaper paste and the taste was insipid and sweet. I added some lemon juice to soften the consistency and brighten the flavor. I then waited 24 hours bc after all that frosting tasting, I just didn't want cupcakes any more.
Really really good. I might try sour cream or cream cheese in the frosting next time. The lemon overwhelms the coconut flavor. I also want to try it as a cake, but it is quite moist and dense, so it may be too much as a whole cake. But I want to make it for a friend's birthday, to serve with Moroccan Chicken pie. And cupcakes some how seem like a party cop out.