Day 314 Lucky Me

Today, I found out that my car is only going to cost another 250.00 or so to fix and lucky me, it's going to be a Christmas present from my parents. I was off work today and stuck at home due to lack of transpo, so I got my nap time on and later made some sweet potatoes, Brussels sprouts, and sweet corn on the cob. That's good eats right there. I've been looking at recipes for Thanksgiving and Christmas and found a cake that I mentioned a long time ago but never made it. It's a Cassata cake, or a Ricotta cake, made with marzipan and jeweled fruit. It's so pretty, it would make a great Christmas potluck cake for work. I'm also thinking of roasting some vegetables with chestnuts, I want to do something different and special, because green bean casserole is good, but not very festive. If anyone has any good holiday vegetable recipes, let me know, I'm open to the weird and the never seen.
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Day 67 All I Need Is A Recipe And A Passport

I'm always up for something a little different than a typical Betty Crocker creation, so as I flipped through a Saveur magazine, I was mesmerized by a cake I've never ever heard of. It was a beautiful Sicilian cake with about 1000 steps and 16 different ingredients, from start to finish, it's called a Cassata or a ricotta cake. The picture of this piece of work, though simple, looks like a jewelry display, with several fruits on top. I can't think of anything that does not taste good with ricotta in or on it and to put it in cake, well that's just a carnival waiting to happen. This is it, this is the cake I want to make for my brother's 18th birthday in a couple of weeks, I think he'll dig it. So that's 1 cake for little bro and a flower themed dinner and dessert for momma, that's a lot of cooking, just to convince the family that an at home birthday is more fun. I love Italian food and I love making it for other people. I wish I could live in Sicily for a few years just learning to cook all of those amazing old recipes. Tonight, staying with the Italian theme, I had rigatoni , spinach salad, and garlic bread, simple, good, and filling, can't beat it!
On a broader note, I realized tonight, that the biggest lesson I've taken away from this experiment, is patience. I have never had to wait on anything, I get what I want, when I want it, I have no self control, when it comes to instant gratification and now I have to take the time to cook. This is the most surprising development for me, as my previous self centered habits, were my prime reason for my reliance on fast food and convenience. Who knew, I would pick up a virtue on the way?
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