Tommy is Trouble

Tommy is making quite the ruckus around here. Yesterday one neighbor told me he has been cockadoodledooing for over a month, which I am sure is a lie. But still. Last night we went to a party at another neighbors house, and I felt we had to fess up. I announced upon our arrival that we were the people with the illegal tranny rooster and if anyone had anything to say about it they should talk to Kevin cause I was going to hit the cupcake table pretty hard for a while. Which I indeed did. With frosting all over my face and a sloshing beer in hand, I also managed to start a conversation with one of the other guests about the time our naturopath told Kevin about his previous patient's vagina boil. You're welcome neighbors! Please invite me to your next gathering and I will tell more stories that include the words "vagina" and "boil". Poor Kevin, having to go to parties with me. It must be just terrifying.

Tommy has crowed 15 times already today and it is only 10:21 am. He has to go. Tonight Nic is taking him to a farm where he will be the stud cock to over 100 lady chickens. I wish him luck and honor. My heart is broken.

Sweet and Salty Cake

The salty caramel:




The Ganache:


The Cake:









The recipe for this cake is from the Baked bakery in Brooklyn. They call it the Sweet and Salty Cake, and I'll call it The Cake That Dirties Every Dish, and also A Cake I Actually Like. Admittedly, I don't like cake very much. It's usually dry, usually has dreadful buttercream frosting, and often commits sins like putting chocolate with raspberry or lemon with raspberry or anything with raspberry. Give me a well made red velvet cake and you know I'll be happy. And every so often a really good chocolate cake is really good. Heck- I love angel food! But those are all exceptions to the rule.

Anyway, the sweet and salty cake is not like other cakes. It's dark and chocolaty, moist and somehow light (light only referring to texture of course- this little number includes a pound of butter and a pound of chocolate just in the frosting. Then there are the 3 layers of salted caramel and the cake itself... It's really intense and I recommend eating it for a breakfast of regret).

You can read the recipe here because I am not going to retype it. The S&S already took one (be it really fun) day of my life, but I'm not giving it another hour of my life by typing up it's memoirs. Ok- honestly I'm making it again today. I just don't want to copy the recipe when it's all over the internets already.

Make it on a day that you have literally all day. I so often make things that don't have recipes- or I just ignore the recipes and do it my way- that I really enjoyed such a complicated and specific task. The one ingredient that I changed up was exchanging vegetable shortening for lard. I can't help myself- vegetable shortening gives me the creeps! Plus, why not put a little pork in your cake? It only compliments the nature of this sweet and salty creation.

A Summer Party

As a special hostess with the mostess move, I baked my guests' initials on their slice of pie.
For dinner, steak and rainbow veggie kabobs, bacon wrapped scallops and fillet. For dessert, blueberry pie with vanilla ice cream. For drinks, Pimms Cups and many bottles of rose. A success!

Independence Day

Dogs, children, friends, pulled pork and my grandma's baked bean recipe made this day very extra-special.

Oma's Baked Beans:

1 can butter beans
1 can kidney beans
1 can lima beans
1 can white kidney beans
1 can (16 oz.) diced tomatoes
1 onion, sauteed in olive oil
2 tablespoons worcester sauce
1/4 to 1/2 cup brown sugar to taste
1 fat piece of bacon or pork belly
S+P to taste

Preheat oven to 270 degrees. Saute large onion and bacon in a dutch oven. Add the tomatoes, and then all of the drained beans. If you have time, my Oma liked to use mostly canned but one dried variety for extra texture and flavor. In this case pick which bean you would like to start as dry and soak overnight before cooking. After adding beans, stir in brown sugar and worcester sauce. Don't be afraid to stir in some catsup if the mood strikes you. We forgot to, but usually it is a featured ingredient. After this all has heated stove top, put the covered dutch oven into the oven. Bake for a couple of hours! It should reduce a bit and be bubbly, sweet and salty. This can be made vegetarian but vegetarians usually want to be lied to about baked beans with pork.