Recent Tastiness

We've been cooking and eating lots of delicious things recently, and it's especially fun to try different fruit as it comes into season! Strawberries and oranges have mostly disappeared, and now cherries, peaches, plums, nectarines, and watermelons are everywhere! A few weeks ago these little orange things appeared, they are mild and lightly sweet, kind of like an apricot.

I made a big pan of baklava to share with my friends - one friend was particularly fond of it, and gleefully ate half the pan. For anyone who has wanted to try making baklava but thought it seemed hard, it's not! Literally all you do is put five layers of phyllo dough in a pan, brush them with butter, add some almonds ground with sugar and cinnamon, a few more layers of phyllo, some more nuts, and top it with more phyllo. At the end, you pour over a syrup made with sugar, water, honey, and orange blossom water. There are tons of simple recipes online.

I also made peanut butter and jelly truffles! These are really easy too.

For the peanut butter ones, I ground roasted peanuts and a little bit of powdered sugar in a food processor until it was a fine as possible. Then I added a tiny bit of soymilk, just enough for the mixture to stick together and form a dough. For the raspberry half, I ground blanched almonds with powdered sugar until fine, and added raspberry jam until it formed a sticky dough. I chilled both in the fridge for a while, then cut some in half to make the PB&J flavor.

Then I dipped them in dark chocolate and let them cool for a few hours. I brought little bags of ten truffles to each of the dancers in my friend's show, imaging they that might want to take some home to share with their families. I was laughing so hard because everyone in the group immediately ate all ten!

Oatmeal fans! You probably did not think oatmeal could get healthier or more delicious. Well, you were wrong! Try making carrot cake oatmeal: As you are cooking it on the stove, add half a cup of grated carrots, some powdered cinnamon and ginger, raisins, and a little bit of brown sugar or maple syrup. You can also add shredded coconut, or cook it with milk instead of water. Not ideal for the summer, but perfect for cold winter mornings! Yummmmm

I looove making cakes for people, and I had a opportunity last week for our friend's birthday party. I made a three-layer yellow cake with cream cheese frosting, dyed pink with beet juice!

Somehow in the process of making frosting, my proportions got off and I made about a gallon. Extra cream cheese frosting though? No one is complaining.
 

More tastiness soon!