A Different Daring Baker

This month’s challenge was much different than most of the other challenges. Not only is it savory, it’s an entree. It is “real” Italian lasagne… not the ricotta laden version that most of us are used to.  The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.  The recipe is VERY long… you can find it on one of their blogs.  Check out the other Daring Baker’s Lasagne here, and all of my past Daring Baker posts here.
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March 31, 2009 | Filed Under Daring Bakers, Dinner, Italian

11 Critiques 

Check out Chica

I’ve been known to be a bleeding heart when it comes to animals.  I have a major soft spot them… I’ve even stopped several times to remove turtles from the road.  I just feel the need to do what I can for animals.   A friend of mine came across this little tiny (5 pound) chihuahua a few days ago.  Stephan and I just couldn’t let her go to animal control.  She looked as if she had been well fed, but had not been to a vet (or bathed) in many years.  She was quite the stinker.  Its sad that someone can neglect such a precious creature.

We’ve named her Chica temporarily because it seemed wrong to keep calling her “the other dog.”  She is an absolute sweetheart…. but definitely categorized as special needs.  She is partially blind and has difficulty walking due to hip dysplasia, but she hobbles around.  Her disposition, however, is very sweet… and I’ve done some unspeakable things to her like forcefeeding her pumpkin and yogurt with a syringe. I won’t go into why I was doing this… after all this IS a food blog! lol!

We currently have her in our home in Ft Lauderdale.  We would love to keep her, but we already have 2 chihuahuas and just don’t have room for another. Also, with our busy schedules and traveling, we don’t have the time to give her the attention she needs.  If you know someone who would like to adopt a special needs pet, please email me at candace at maloman.com.  She would be the perfect lap dog for an elderly woman or man who needs companionship. 

I’d like to give a big thank you to Dr. Loeser, my fantastic vet, who donated her time to run tests on little Chica.  Check out this beautiful image Stephan took of little Chica.

March 26, 2009 | Filed Under Discriminating Doggies, Kitchen Gossip

7 Critiques 

Its Raining Babies!

Is it just me, or is there another baby boom? I guess the economy is making people stay at home more and babies are resulting from all of the forced homebodies!  :P  Could that be it?  My dearest friend Lisa, my BFF since I was 14 years old, is having a baby and I offered to make the baby shower cake. Their little boy will be named Justin, so I made blocks of cake with his name on the blocks.  Congratulations Lisa & Jack…  Can’t wait to meet the little guy!

As usual… I decided to try all new recipes for the cake. Yeah, that’s how I roll. Luckily everything turned out great, except the serving platter. I had the perfect one in mind, but it ended up being too small to hold all of the cakes.  Since we had a long wedding the day before, it wasn’t even an option to find another platter to display the cake.  Then I had the great idea to display each individual cake on its own square plate.  However, I only had 5 square plates and needed 6…. Vat to do… vat to do?  So I had to get creative and turned a half sheet pan upside down and covered it with aluminum foil… It would have been better if I had covered the pan with fondant, but I didn’t have enough left over to do so.  Looked sort of like lipstick on a pig… :P

This was also my opportunity to try marshmallow fondant.  I’ve seen it floating around the blogosphere lately and due to the raves, was looking for an excuse to try it.  I used the recipe from Confections of a Foodie Bride, (find recipe here) and was VERY pleased with the result.  It looked and acted just like fondant, but was NOT nasty! Greeeeat success!  It was very pliable and flexible.  I rolled it out quite thin and had absolutely no problems.  I will NEVER use store bought fondant again!!!  Of course, it is painfully sweet (literally… I have very sensitive teeth), but definitely edible.

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March 24, 2009 | Filed Under Bakery

10 Critiques 

Waste Not Want Not

What do you do when you find some sad looking, rubbery broccoli in the depths of your refrigerator?  Me… I make soup.  We’ve been eating out often lately due to our hectic schedule and I’ve been neglecting my crisper drawer in my fridge.  Digging through, I found broccoli, zucchini, a little fresh basil and a few red peppers on the cusp of being inedible.   So dinner was cream of broccoli and zucchini with roasted red pepper garnish.  Contrary to popular belief, cream of broccoli need not be fat laden with tons of cheese.  I finished the soup off with a little bit of half and half, but it was not really necessary.  Too bad the parsley was well beyond salvage, because it would have made a nice fresh garnish… you can’t win ‘em all!

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March 5, 2009 | Filed Under Soup, Vegetarian

18 Critiques 

Oh, Sweet Jesus

This is what  said when I took my first bite of this decadent flourless chocolate cake that was our Daring Baker challenge this month.  I plated up one serving before dinner (when the light is still good) for photo purposes only.  We planned on eating it after we ate dinner, but I was compelled to take just one bite.  We ended up eating the whole beauty plate instead.  Talk about ruining your dinner!

The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE’s blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef.  We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.  Check out the other Daring Bakers here and all of my past challenges here.

I’ve made other flourless chocolate cakes, but this one turned out so light and yet so flavorful at the same time.  I used a combination of dark and milk chocolate for my husband… He’s not a big fan of the bittersweet chocolate that I love so much.  The combination was very tasty… not too sweet for me, and not too bitter for him.  Marriage is all about compromise.  This is one of the easiest desserts to make and yet so sophisticated, and I plan to make it again.  Can you believe that only 3 ingredients go into it???  Crazy, eh?  I served it with homemade vanilla ice cream, raspberry sauce and chocolate piped filigrees.

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March 1, 2009 | Filed Under Bakery, Daring Bakers, Sweet Tooth

24 Critiques 

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