Chocolate Covered Strawberries

On Mothers Day I attempted to make White Chocolate dipped strawberries & failed miserably. I'd never worked with white chocolate before & quickly discovered that it doesn't behave the same way that regular chocolate does.

When I make the peanutbutter cups, I melt the chocolate & then take it to the dining room table where I fill the cups. This cannot be done with white chocolate apparently. The minute I took it off of the burner, it solidified & would not melt again. I tried to microwave it & it still wouldn't melt again. It just burned & filled the house with a disgusting smell.

So in order to salvage the project, I just dipped them into regular chocolate & then melted a new batch of white chocolate & drizzled it over the berries. And that worked out just fine.


However, I was undaunted & wanted to try the white chocolate dipped experiment again. So this weekend, I did it.

Here's what I learned:

Melt the white chocolate in a double boiler.
While the white chocolate is still on the stove, dip the strawberries in & give them a good twist or two to make sure they're totally coated.
Once they're coated, place on wax paper & put them in the fridge.
Once they've cooled & completely solidified, drizzle melted chocolate over the top.

Like the peanutbutter cups, they're pretty easy & make a good impression. And my mom loved them!

Seth's Banana Cake Muffins

When I moved away from home, my mom made a cookbook for me. It was my very fist cookbook ever, before I had ever even tried cooking or baking, before I even had my first pot or pan.

She made it by hand on a word processor and taped family pictures to each recipe. The recipes were her's that she had made over the years, and each one was put into a clear sleeve and each sleeve was put into a 3 ring binder. On the cover she put a picture of me & my brother at Christmas time when he was about 3 years old.

She made this back in the early 90's before Shutterfly and other such sites where you can create your own book. Every little bit of the book she did by hand for me, and I treasure it dearly. The only problem I have with it, is that my mom eats meat. I do not. So unfortunately, most of the main course recipes are meat related. But I have made numerous recipes from the desserts and veggies sections & they are all wonderful.

The best part is that because it's a three ring binder, I've added my own favorites to it & so has my husband. So it's something that has become an heirloom and a family project. One that I will pass on to my daughter one day as well.

I haven't tried every recipe in the book, but today, I wanted to try one of her recipes. So I tried the banana cake one since my husband loves anything banana & I figured it would be a big hit.

I made it, and as predicted, my husband loves it.

So here's the recipe unaltered:

1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, well beaten
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 ripe bananas

Mix the flour, baking soda & spices in a small bowl and set aside.

Mash the 3 bananas in a small bowl and set aside.

Cream butter, oil and sugar until creamy.
Add the beaten eggs
Add the dry ingredients alternating with the mashed bananas.
Mix well.

If making cupcakes, pour batter in cupcake liners and cook for about 30 mins until golden brown.
If making as a cake, bake for about 45 minutes.

It's basically banana bread, but a little more cakey.

The reason it's called "Seth's Banana Cake" is because when Seth, who is my little brother, (and I use the term "little" loosely here since he's 20 & taller than me) was 2 he stomped on a bunch of bananas on the kitchen floor. They weren't ruined, but they were too mushy to eat. So my mom decided to whip up this cake for him out of the trod upon bananas & it came out so good, she's made it ever since.

Rhubarb and Oatmeal.

Ok, so I know that in the last post, I promised chocolate covered stawberries would be next.

However, I became totally distracted by this Rhubarb and Oatmeal recipe from Omnomicon.

I made it today & it was awesome! I'm in love!

Rhubarb is the bastard love child of an unholy union between a beet and celery.

There's really no other way to describe it.

They're tart, crunchy and cook up BRIGHT RED. They're most commonly used in crisps and pies along with strawberries, but personally, I like their tartness & find the addition of strawberries to be distracting.

So when I came across this recipe I had to make it. NOW. It took about half an hour combined of prep & cook, and as an added bonus, it's pretty to look at.


So here's what I used:

3 medium sized stalks of Rhubarb
1/2 cup of sugar
oatmeal prepared per directions on box
vanilla yogurt.

Cut the rhubarb into small chunks
toss with sugar and place into a pan and cook on medium heat until the chunks become jucy and syrupy

Turn the heat down to low, make oat meal the way you like it.

(I like mine with brown sugar and cinnamon so that's how I made it)

When the oatmeal is done, serve with the rhubarb & yogurt and enjoy.

The three ingredients here are so lovely together I tried to eat this a little bit at a time with the intention of keeping the aestetics intact.

However, it was so delish that I finally gave in & just stirred the whole mess together & devoured.

Black Beans & Rice

This is easy, vegan, fat-free & one of my favorite things to make

Plus, it's really pretty to look at.

What you'll need:

2 cans of black beans, drained & rinsed
cilantro
1 cubanelle pepper
1/2 a yellow vidalia onion
green onions
several cloves of garlic
olive oil

in a pan, pour enough olive oil in to coat the bottom & heat.
add minced garlic & onion & saute until barely brown.
then add the finely chopped pepper & green onions
then add the black beans & cilantro
saute for a couple of minutes
salt & pepper to taste

serve over rice.

voila.

up next: chocolate covered strawberries