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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Day 56 Macaroni And Magic Potions

Today was the working lunch potluck, the macaroni was good, but for the fact that it was cold by the time chow time rolled around. Sitting through hours of updates, accolades, reprimands, and the ever evolving world of mental health care, all the while, just beyond reach of the cookies, was a tad irritating. My salvation came later in the form of  super delicious guacamole and chips and raspberry injected lemon cupcakes. I'm making it my mission in life to buy a cupcake injector and to morph into some sort of half human, half cupcake queen, master of tiny cakes. After work, I  shared some of my leftover two ton macaroni medley with my family, who deemed it delicious, after reheating and re moistening. Here is the recipe, large enough for a group and then some:

Baked Macaroni and cheese
2 bags of macaroni
3 C of shredded Gruyere cheese
3 C of Shredded Colby Jack cheese
1 pint of heavy cream
1/2 stick of butter
1 C of flavored cream cheese (I used garlic)
1/4 cup of breadcrumbs
Boil macaroni as directed on package. In a sauce pan, mix cream, butter, cheese, and cream cheese until melted and smooth, mix with cooked macaroni. Pour into a large baking pan and mix well. If you want to, add additional cheese on top of the macaroni, provolone would be a good topping, although I did not initially use this. Sprinkle the top, lightly with breadcrumbs and bake at 350, until bubbly and lightly brown.

In other news, I am trying one of my own tea recipes, listed on my recipe page, to combat an oncoming cold. I have added a few things and it is extremely potent. I began with green tea, added ginger, cayenne, garlic, lemongrass, and threw in a Saw Palmetto bag, just for giggles. Here's hoping it works, cause I feel a whole heap of yucky at the moment....at least I have 47 pounds of macaroni to make me feel better.
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Day 43 Big Ideas Sometimes Come With A Little Smoke

My love of food experimentation and jumping in way over my head, started very early. I was ten, when I made my first serious dinner, it was for my parent's anniversary and I was determined to do it by myself. I never once thought about making something easy like a cake, no!  I went big, I wanted to make the most difficult thing, a ten year old had ever made. I wanted them to gasp with surprise and wipe away a tear, while wondering how I, a child had pulled off this feast. My menu was manicotti and garlic bread. I found a recipe and enlisted an aunt to drive me to the market to buy the ingredients. As I picked out each item, she nervously wondered out loud whether I should try something easier, like burgers or spaghetti, no, no, no, it had to be huge, it had to be Italian, and it had to be manicotti. The day arrived and I had one hour, after school before my parents arrived home from work. I set to work, following the recipe to perfection, like a tiny Martha Stewart. I boiled the manicotti, I stuffed the slippery pasta without tearing even one, I covered it beautifully with sauce, and put it into the oven to bake. The minutes were ticking closer to my parent's arrival; everything was perfect, until it was time to broil the garlic bread. The bread began to burn and then smoke, I turned the oven off, but of course the smoke detector blared a nonstop, honking warning. I ran next door, like my hair was on fire and yelled for my aunt to help me. I wasn't so much worried that the house would burn down; I just didn't want to ruin the scene, where my parents came in and cried over my meal, I had to get the smoke out, fast! Of course, just as we reached the front door, my parents pulled up. They were met with a chaotic, smoke filled house, burned bread, and a halfway decent manicotti with a few chewy parts. They were impressed and went on and on about how I hadn't needed any help until the very end; they ate every bite and asked for more. I still consider it one of my biggest accomplishments and appreciate the encouragement and love that they showed me back then. That was 25 years ago this week and I'm still getting in way too deep, but learning a lot. Happy Anniversary!

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