I am entering a contest put on by one of my favorite bloggers, Sweetopia! Every month she has a theme-based contest and opens it up to her readers for voting. This month the theme is Spring/Easter. I had the idea of combining cake, cookies and candies into an epic tower of goodness.

At first I thought about incorporating Peeps since they are an icon of the Easter basket. I thought about trying to make a cake “basket” and then filling the basket with a ton of Easter candy but in the end I decided to keep it simple.

I did end up cutting up some Peeps and putting them into the cake mix but that was pretty much pointless. They just melted right into the batter just like a co-worker told me they would. I used lemon cake mix for a three-tier cake.

I made some bunny cookies ahead of time to cut down on the amount of work I would need to do on assembly day. I used Martha’s sugar cookie recipe and royal icing as usual.

In the end, I liked the look of the Easter egg decorated cookies better than the bunnies for the type of cake I wanted so I put the eggs towards the front of the cake.

I also made some little candies using a spring-themed candy mold and some candy melts. You just paint the candy inside the mold and they harden pretty quickly.

The best decision in my opinion anyway was to use Smarties for decoration. The pastel colors are perfect for spring.

I also used a few mini jawbreakers and some pearl candies for a little added detail.

I couldn’t resist topping the thing with a chocolate bunny. I can’t decide if I like the look of the cake best with the gold foil on the bunny or without.

I had a good time making this cake. I am definitely looking forward to next month’s challenge as well!

I love donuts. I had thought that baked donuts would never even come close to the taste of a fried donut but I was wrong. My husband bought me this little donut pan and Donut Book for gifts and I got the chance to try out some recipes on my day off Monday.

First I did a recipe from the book that was for a baked yeast donut. They turned out pretty good but I burned the bottom of them because I didn’t use parchment paper and they bake at a high temperature. The delicate dough was singed. Next, I whipped up a batter for my donut pan. The recipe is on the back of this label. I think my husband got the pan at Target since Nordic Ware and Target are both companies based in Minneapolis. But Amazon has some similar pans from Wilton. The donuts were very fast and easy to make. I was worried about the amount of nutmeg but they turned out perfect.

The inside was nice and light and airy. They turned out a lot better than I expected and were much easier than any other donut I have made. I highly recommend them!

Baked Buttermilk Donuts

From Nordic Ware

Ingredients:

2 cups cake flour

3/4 cup sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1 tsp salt

3/4 cup buttermilk

2 eggs

2 Tbsp melted butter

1 tsp vanilla

Method:

Heat oven to 375. Grease and flour pan. Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, nutmeg and salt in a large mixing bowl. Stir in buttermilk, eggs, butter and vanilla; beat until just combined.

Fill each well 2/3 full. Bake 10-12 minutes, until the top of the donuts spring back when lightly touched. Cool 5 minutes in pan; invert onto cooling rack and cool completely. Glaze and decorate as desired.

Over the weekend I played around with the concept of “cake in a jar” as seen numerous times on Pinterest and other websites. They were easy to make but the novelty wore off pretty fast after I tasted  them. I’m not sure if it was my recipe of choice or the length of time I baked them but they seemed a little dry. My husband thought they were too sweet and then said, “I think I would rather have chocolate cake in a jar.” So my verdict on these is that they look cool but make sure you have a good recipe. Since the recipe I used didn’t turn out the best, I won’t reprint it here but I will say the one I used was for a homemade white cake and was from a website I very much admire. Again, maybe I baked them too long. I thought I would post some pictures anyway and my review of the concept in case others are interested in trying these.

I do think these would work well for a kids’ spring picnic birthday party. The jar would make a nice container for an outdoor event as there are always those parties where plates and napkins are blowing away or people are balancing their plate on their lap. They would be fun for kids too- a lot less messier than the cupcake often served at kids parties.

Like I said, I did a basic homemade white cake and then added my own jimmies or “sprinkles”.

I also used cake flour for the first time ever. I can’t say I’m a convert yet. . .

You put the cake mix in a jar but don’t fill them very high otherwise you a) won’t have room for frosting b) will have cake Vesuvius in your oven. I would say a jar filled about half way would be good.

You need to bake the cake jars in about 1/4 inch of water.

Serve to willing participants such as husbands on lunch breaks!

I was excited to get up north this winter to finally get some snowy shots of my favorite city. Unfortunately, the closer I got to Duluth the more I started to realize that there was about as much snow in Duluth as there is in Minneapolis right now- less than an inch in most parts and in some spots endless spans of dried brown grass.

We didn’t let our disappointment stop us however. My traveling partners (my brother and my son) still made it up and down the shore and out on the edge of Lake Superior early in the morning to get plenty of pictures.

Just because there was a lack of snow doesn’t mean that it there was a lack of cold weather. You can see the ice formed on the lake here. The temperature was -1 in this photo.

The temperature was -6 in this photo. You can just barely see some steam rising up off the lake here in this photo as the heat from the sun mixes with the freezing cold water.

I really like the “fire and ice” look of these.

When shooting the sunrise, you have to act fast. The sun moves pretty quickly and before you know it is gets too bright to get a very good picture.

We got some photos of the sunset as well, but you have to move over to the canal side for that and shoot towards the hills.

I wonder who owns this little shack and if they still use it for anything?

We also made it up to one of my favorite areas, Split Rock Lighthouse. I didn’t get my snowy lighthouse picture like I wanted, but it was still enjoyable nevertheless.

I love Ellingson Island, just off the coast at Split Rock. Believe it or not, there were people camping in tents when we were here. The temperature was about 5 degrees Fahrenheit.

There was a little more snow and ice up around Split Rock but not much more.

I could get pretty abstract in this setting.

We also stopped at Gooseberry. I always have trouble photographing the upper falls. I need to get there before the sun gets too high. I focused on the lower falls, where there were a group of ice climbers embarking on a new climb.

There was plenty of fake snow up at Lutsen Mountains:

Duluth and the North Shore of Minnesota is one of my most favorite places to travel. Even though I catch myself snapping photos at repeat locations, with the constant weather changes it is possible to get a different result each time.

I took the long way back home and drove along Mille Lacs. I figured there would be some pushed up ice around the perimeter of the lake and I was right.

Of course there were a few fishhouses out on the lake and even some vehicles- which I was surprised to see considering the amount of people that have been falling through the ice this year with the lack of  cold weather.

I think some people think I must be crazy for wanting to live in such a cold climate. The four seasons make it worth it and the extremes only make it so that there are more beautiful images to make. SOMEDAY, I keep telling myself, SOMEDAY I will either live on the North Shore or have a tiny little cabin nearby where I can read, draw and take pictures.

I gave my husband a zombie cupcake book and told him I would make any recipe from it for a zombie apocalypse party he would be having this weekend while I am away snapping pictures on the north shore. I was a little overwhelmed however when I actually looked and read the recipes in the book. He picked a really cool bloody eyeball recipe that involved gum paste and fondant and I wussed out. Maybe I’ll try my hand at some of the creations from the book when I have more time on my hands (and money). Instead, I decided to make something a little easier (and inexpensive). So these are my variation of that.

I used box mix to whip up some cupcakes. Then I did the crushed up Oreo on top of chocolate frosting thing for the “earth”. A white Lindor Truffle makes a perfect “eyeball”. I decorated them with food writer pens for the iris and red veins. I had some leftover black gel I used for the pupil. Some trimmed cherry gummies and red Gushers worked great for “blood”. I think they turned out pretty good. I hope his friends are totally appalled.

Before I moved to Minnesota, the only foods that came to mind when I thought of the state were hotdish, wild rice and blueberries. I am proud to say that since making Minnesota my permanent residence, only the latter 2 have become beloved staples in my kitchen. Of course my Minnesota husband does appreciate the occasional hotdish for supper. Unfortunately I have not mastered the fine art of the hotdish. But I do keep trying.

Every now and then our local newspaper the Star Tribune will poke fun at the hotdish in their Taste section and every now and then they will have a recipe like this that I clip and add to my recipe box. It is the type of recipe you make with care and eventually evolves into “comfort food” for your family.  The recipe is inspired by The Boundary Waters Canoe Area, a protected area in Minnesota that is incredibly special to me even though I have never been there. It is a beautiful place but one does not just drive up there to visit. Permits must be purchased, you need to have some basic wilderness skills and planning is everything when dealing with the mosquitoes in this area. My first trip up I will mostly likely stay nearby, at this lodge. I will most likely “feel out” the are before embarking on a grand adventure in this region. It is so primitive that people who don’t know what they are doing have died. Until I get to go up to the BWCA and experience it for myself, I have this recipe.

Food is obviously important for a lot of reasons but for someone like me who has lived many places and experienced different local cuisines (continentaly anyway), the food I cook can instantly transport me to that location. I can’t wait until my kids are old enough and I can whip up some giant muffalettas. I hope that I can wow them with stories about alligator sightings in Alabama while they bite into the cheesy ham and olive delicacies!

Meanwhile, back in Minnesota, we will be cultivating our kids’ heritage and eating this soup. The soup is delicious as made but I did find it to be a little too rich. Next time I will cut the amount of butter used in half if not more.

This year I am sending out some Valentine’s Day packages to friends and family. There is a lot of cute in the stores and I want to share it with more than just my kids. We are busy baking cookies and making valentines. I can’t wait to send some of these out.

The “love” cookie cutter used in the first photo is vintage, I found it in a thrift store. But the teen lingo sugar candy decorations are obviously of this era and come from Wilton. They were $1.74 at Joann Fabrics.

Most of my better cookie cutters came from thrift stores. The weather is so nice here today I feel like thrifting and hunting down more along with maybe a new Pyrex bowl or two. . .

There are a lot of really good cookie decorators out there. I feel like this is something I could get into in the future when the kids are in school and I don’t have to rush and hide things.

There are a lot of Cookie decorating books  that have some amazing looking projects in them too I will eventually invest in.

For now I will keep dinking around with my own designs.

I call these “bunny love” cookies:

My 2 year old really enjoyed these.

I hope the teenagers in my life enjoy these:

As far as baking sugar cookies, this is what I’ve learned. If your house isn’t 90 degrees inside there really is no reason to chill the dough before baking. I still use Martha’s recipe because I think it is the best but I no longer go through all the chilling process. I think I read this over on Bridget’s blog and I figured, if it works for her then I am for sure going to give it a try. It definitely makes an already time-consuming process go much, much faster.

I have been wanting to make this for a while but needed a lot of time to prep it and chill it so I waited for the holiday weekend. It worked out great to have for today since it is a low-fat dessert and a guilt-free dessert to ring in the new year with. From the outside, the layers didn’t appear as defined as I would have liked but the inside didn’t disappoint.

A spiked version using vodka can be made for a grown-up party. (My husband says, “for people who want to puke rainbows later.”)  The website where I found this recipe publishes the vodka version. I made a virgin rainbow.

Very impressive and festive. It took a long time but it was worth it. The taste isn’t fabulous but I think the overall look of it kind of makes up for the bland taste of the jello. I wish the sun were shining today so I could have got some really good shots of my chunks of rainbow in my kitchen. But then again, I think that’s probably another reason why I made it. As we head into January and the dreary winter months here in Minnesota, everyone could use a little rainbow in their kitchen.

Rainbow Ribbon Salad

From: jellyshottestkitchen viaRock-UR-Party by Tablespoon

The people at Coffee House Press in Minneapolis were kind enough to send me a copy of Leaving the Atocha Station so that I could review it here. Coffee House Press is a non-profit book publisher so I was very grateful. The book was not an easy read and I was equally grateful for the challenge. The book is Ben Lerner’s first novel.

The book focuses on Adam, a young man in Spain traveling on a Fulbright Scholarship. Adam has many issues but the one most apparent to me was his inability to see himself as anything more than a complete fraud. He is often gripped by paranoia and worries that he will be stripped of his achievements and shipped back to America with the rest of us pretentious yet lazy sloths. He nervously avoids his foundation contact, not returning phone calls or emails. He tries to think of ways he can avoid having to do readings or appear on panels because of this paranoia. Instead, he pops some pills, smokes another spliff and does a lot of people watching while scribbling a few lines of poetry. The reader doesn’t really know if Adam is truly a fraud or just the victim of drug-induced anxiety and paranoia.

Adam may feel like a fraud because he is a desensitized poet. While standing in a gallery in front of a work of art, he waits to have what is known as “a profound experience of art”. This experience doesn’t come and he perhaps questions his qualifications as a poet. Poets are expected to be emotionally charged and full of feeling for all things art. If one cannot be moved by the power of art visually, how are they qualified to move people through word? On the other hand, Adam knows that so much of the art world and how we rate, judge, experience, create and curate it is essentially bullshit. He doesn’t want to be that sort of fraud either. He doesn’t want to be that person who stands in front of a painting, is overcome with emotion, has a profound experience of art but then doesn’t understand why. There is something that feels really fake about that to Adam. One would suggest Adam strip away his cocktail of drugs and experience art with a fresh perspective, but then do people always experience art straight or do drugs often help people to experience art on a higher level? Every choice Adam makes is meticulous and thought through, but often times probably not the right choice. As a reader I struggled with the feeling of wanting to pull Adam by the hair through the pages of my book and smack him into reality yelling, “Get over it!”

Lerner himself traveled in Spain on a Fulbright scholarship and studied poetry. It is probably a safe bet that Lerner experienced a lot of the same inner conflict that Adam did and then decided to write about it. Another main theme of the book is Adam’s desire to be fully assimilated into the Spanish culture. He really hates to see the tourists, American especially, behaving in the way they do and is basically ashamed of his own country. At the same time, he does think about Kansas and it is apparent he misses home on occasion. But for the most part, Adam vows to only speak Spanish while in Spain and desires to not be thought of as some spoiled American rich kid although this is essentially what he is since mom and dad are well off and he does have a credit card to use “for emergencies”. Even though this is what he is, he creates a persona for himself that would suggest otherwise. He wants people to think he worked hard to be where he is, that the opportunity wasn’t just handed to him. He tells women that his mother is dead and describes his soft-spoken lefty dad in a way that would make people think he is a dictator. The whole time this is happening Adam knows he is making a mistake and the reader struggles to understand why Adam has to make life so hard for himself. But this is what a poet is. The crux of their art is about conflict, pain, regret, etc. Adam is living what I suspect is a “normal” emotional life for a poet. It must be exhausting.

Throughout the book I found myself wanting to like Adam, but I could not. When the 2004 Madrid train bombing happens and his friends are all organizing to go out and protest, Adam is lazy. He doesn’t get into it. He wants to be fully assimilated but he never will be because he is so desensitized. And it is not because he is on the tranquilizers, he truly seems apathetic. The reader wonders if Adam ever will build a solid relationship with either of the female love interests he is currently having a dalliance with or if he will be apathetic about that as well. The reader waits to see if Adam will crash and burn, ruining everything from relationships to his reputation as a poet or if he will figure it out and pull it together, becoming a great success?

How the book ends isn’t too important. Although I couldn’t wait to get to the end to see, the book is really about more than just if Adam completes his “project” successfully. It is about the way of an artist and the pressure of an artist. Traveling in a strange land on someone else’s dollar and feeling worthy of it. Missing home but reluctant to return back to a place you see as lacking a true, rich culture one can revel in. Feeling guilty you don’t miss mom and dad as much as you probably should and most importantly, becoming an adult and realizing you need to make real choices about your future, your happiness depending on it.

The book is very well written and is not an easy read. This isn’t the kind of book you slip into your bag and read poolside while trying to keep and eye on the kids swimming. This is the kind of book you chip away at page by page. You stop to do a lot of reflection and you re-read many sentences because they can be read differently and interpreted in new ways. And that itself is poetry, making this a very beautiful (yet oftentimes painful) book.

We have been getting a lot of kale in our CSA box this year and I haven’t always been sure what to do with it.

Kale is a very beautiful leafy green. But some people would rather use it for garnish than eat it. The trick is to put it in something you enjoy eating like a cheesy omelet. Although it does defeat the purpose a tad bit. . .

Our CSA, Loon Organics, puts out a nice newsletter each week and this week’s newsletter included a recipe from the blog Kate in the Kitchen. I knew just by looking at the recipe that I had to try it.

While stirring the ingredients I inhaled the aroma of many of my favorite ingredients and couldn’t help but to steal a bite before even adding the cheese sauce. It convinced me I don’t need to jazz up kale to eat it. I probably just need to cook it.

Adding in fresh corn off the cob just sends this dish over the top. I would definitely make something like this for a potluck or large gathering. It’s a little unique and still as good as the “standard” potluck dishes. An adaptation of this as a dip would probably be good too. Before being baked it reminded me a lot of spinach dip- yum! Here is the recipe:

Cheesy Corn and Kale Bake

Adapted from Kate in the Kitchen

1 red bell pepper, diced
1 medium onion, diced (can also use a leek)
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 large bunch of curly leaf kale, washed and spun dry then chopped
4 c. fresh corn kernels
4 T. unsalted butter, divided (can also use evoo for original sautee and then use butter later)
2 T.  flour
1 c. milk (can also use soy)
1 c. freshly grated cheddar cheese (or mix it up a bit with pepper jack)
1 T. sour cream (can also use cream cheese)
Pinch of cayenne pepper
Salt and black pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375°

In a deep cast iron skillet, or other oven proof skillet, sauté the onion and pepper in 1 tablespoon butter until soft. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, for about a minute or two. Add in the kale and stir until it’s coated with the butter (or oil), then cover the pan and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring once or twice. Scrape veggies in to a bowl and set aside.

In same pan, melt the remaining 2 TB butter, then add the flour and stir to make a roux. Cook, stirring, for about two minutes to cook out the raw flour taste. Slowly whisk in the milk until smooth, then cook, stirring constantly until the mixture is very thick. It may look a bit reddish brown from the bell pepper, but that’s just fine. Mix the cheese in a little at a time until you have a nice cheese sauce, stir in the cream cheese and cooked pepper mix, and then the corn kernels. It will be very thick. Season with salt, pepper and the cayenne and spread it evenly in the pan. Place the pan, uncovered, in to the oven and bake until hot and bubbly, about 30 minutes.