Weekend!

My books finally came! I decided to start What to Eat first. They're all quite long, dense and look so interesting. I have no time to read anything right now but I'll squeeze in some minutes here and there. So far What to Eat seems to focus on the lay out of the supermarket: why foods are placed where they are, what it means, and what you need to know to make informed decisions.

This weekend I baked and cooked my heart out. It was the most fun ever. First, I found a recipe on the Whole Foods website for Pumpkin Gingerbread Cupcakes with Maple Cream Cheese frosting. I changed the recipe a tad by cutting out a 1/4 cup of sugar. Because of the pumpkin puree they came out very dense and I personally think they could have been spicier. The frosting was good, very rich cream cheese flavor and not too sweet. All in all they were really nice but nothing to rave about. I'm not that big a fan of pumpkin so I think I would have preferred if they were just gingerbread cupcakes.





For dinner Friday night I was going to make eggplant parmesan but when I got to the grocery store they only had three eggplants and two of them looked questionable so I kind of had to rework the plan. So I bought one eggplant, two yellow squah and two zucchini. Ricotta cheese and ground beef. I cooked the beef with a whole onion chopped. Mixed the ricotta with a little milk to make it more spreadable and seasoned it with a little salt, pepper and nutmeg. Then I took a can of organic Muir's whole peeled fire roasted tomatoes and put it in the blender with four cloves of garlic and about a cup of parsley, I put it on the stove to reduce a little.

Then I layered it all! And topped it with lots of mozzarella cheese. It was delicious. And low carb. And relatively low fat since I used part skim ricotta and 2 % mozzarella.








These I cannot take credit for. My mom, who is a pastry chef and an instructor at Houston Community College, and her students made these in one of her classes. These are the ones that weren't perfect enough to be sold in the cafe run by the school so she brought them home (knowing they're my faves!) She teaches a chocolate class and these are my favorite! They are usually made with rum but these were made with brandy. They are brandy raisin chocolates. Brandy soaked raisins in ganache covered with bittersweet chocolate. They're amazing.


I got the recipe for this also on the Whole Foods website. It is a Banana Oat Cranberry bread and if I may say so it was probably one of the best banana breads I've ever made. It used whole wheat pastry flour (which I was SO happy to finally find at HEB). The oats gave it an amazing texture and it was so moist and delicately flavored. I added cinnamon to it, because I can't resist adding cinnamon to everything. And I topped it, before putting it in the oven, with oats and brown sugar so it had a slighting crunchy topping. It was amazing. It was gone in two days.







I've been giving a lot of thought about what to make for Thanksgiving. It's so hard to choose from the plethora of recipes I have come across. I know for sure I'm making apple pie and chocolate pudding. Now I just have to pick the third dessert. I've gone from a pecan torte to a spice cake with pecans to a spice applesauce cake with pecans. I just can't decide. It all sounds so amazing and fall and delicious.

Tomorrow is election night! Hopefully everyone has gone out and voted. I'll be staying up waiting for the results with friends. I'm making cosmopolitans and eating Central Market frozen pizza. I've also bought 2 lbs. of strawberries to dip in chocolate. I'll be doing all of that tomorrow. It's a great excuse to get friends together and have a good time (and celebrate Obama's victory, I hope!).