A FRIDGE FULL OF FOOD...

Happy Fat Tuesday! --- King Cake w/cream cheese & cherry filling

 

My first King Cake!  Not only do I love this cake, which is much more like a pastry than a traditional cake, I have to pat myself on the back and explain that not only did I start this at 5pm tonight (and finish about 8:30pm), that was AFTER finishing up a two day very stressful certification course for work called PALS (Pediatric Advanced Life Support).  I came home with a fried brain, took a nap, and got up in such a good mood that I don't have to recertify for two years that I decided to not only make stuffed pork chops and twice baked potatoes with steamed zucchini for dinner, I made this cake too.  No.  I don't know where the energy came from but I'm really glad I made it. Gene will enjoy it with his coffee for the next few mornings and there will still be plenty to share with the neighbors. 

By the way, the meanings of the colors of Mardis Gras are Purple = royalty, Green = friendship, and Yellow = Purity.

Moving on into Lent...what are you sacrificing?  Personally, I've chosen to give up all words that DON'T start with "F" and all foods whose main ingredients AREN'T sugar.  It's worked well for me in the past.

Quick Note about the Pullman Loaf Pan

Since I've gotten a few comments about this, thought I'd share a little more personal experience with this pan.  Get this. So frustrating but back when I had a bread machine, a normal 2 lb recipe of dough went into the pan, raised perfectly, and was easy as figurative pie.  But then when I started making the dough by hand, I either had too little or too much. What I've found is that the one direction in Rose's recipe that you MUST follow is to leave the top cracked during rise time. So many times, I've had the whole thing covered and then pulled it back a smidge just to deflate the entire loaf never to get full volume back. I assume this is because white bread is so much lighter than heavier breads and there's so much more yeast in this recipe to make it a quick rise that it's a little more touchy. I've also found that  a full rise sometimes depends on the day, the humidity, the temp in the kitchen, etc, which is normal for all bread but especially for this one.  Usually if it doesn't turn out perfectly, it's on the shy side but it still "eats the same" as Gene says.

If you decide to make this, let me know what kind experience you have with it, okay?

Pullman Loaf Sandwich Bread (Pain de Mie)

 

One of my favorite kitchen gifts I bought for myself was this Pain de Mie pan. I love it.  So does Gene. With it's perfectly square body and sliding lid it makes for just the right sized sandwich bread with more flavor and less glue-y ickness than store bought white bread.  I use this pan and Rose Levy Beranbaum's recipe all the time.

OMG!

 

This photo of one of my cakes ended up as a Facebook application called "Valentine's Day Cake" that Jamie from Life's a Feast blog sent to me.  I know I should be mad that whoever made that application lifted my pic but, really, I'm just in shock and sort of flattered that they picked MY cake out of all the heart cakes on the internet.  Here's the addy to the original post:   http://afridgefulloffood.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/02/valentines_cake.html

Quick and Easy with High Rewards: Pasta with Oven Roasted Vegetables

The other night when rummaging through the fridge for an easy dinner I cobbled together a pasta dish that will now be in my routine regularly:  Oven Roasted Veggies over Pasta.

Literally, everything but the pasta was leftover from the night before when we'd had grilled chicken breasts and roasted vegetables in the oven.  All I had to do was boil the angel hair, toss the veggies and chunked chicken around in a skillet, and then top with a wee bit of olive oil and nice Fleur de Sel and we were set for a wonderful dinner that could have taken all day but didn't.

I've been roasting vegetables once a week since the new year and from now on I'll be making sure there are leftovers for this quick dinner or lunch.  This is also my entry for this week's Presto Pasta Nights, created and hosted this week by the talented Ruth at Once Upon a Feast.  She'll be posting a round up of all the great pasta meals of the week on Friday, to add your own, email her at [email protected]

On a completely different subject, I have a mini poll of sorts. I took chili to work last week along with a peanut butter sandwich. Gene and I always eat PB with soup.  When questioned by a co-worker about the combination I said "It's a school lunch. Didn't your lunch ladies serve peanut butter sandwiches with chili and vegetable beef soup in elementary school?"  His blank look made me laugh but a couple of other co-workers jumped in and said "Yeah! They did!"  Interestingly, to me, the ones who associated peanut butter sandwiches with chili and vegetable soup were all around my age, including my husband, even though we all went to different schools in southwest MIssouri.

Here's my question:  Peanut Butter Sandwiches served with Chili and/or Veggie Beef soup--part of your childhood memories or you'd have to be on crack to even try it? (And where did you grow up? Maybe it's a Midwest thing.)