quick lunch update 2 - salad.

I feel like I should have a name for these lunch sneak-peeks. Hm. I can't think of one, but I really want something creative & interesting. Hmm. Ummm. Er. Uh. Yeah nothing's coming, I will use numbers until something hits me!

Yesterday night for dinner, I knew I primarily would eat slices of the orange pull-apart loaf I made recently, so I decided upon salad for dinner. I never grew up eating salad as a meal ... It just doesn't fit with my culture. But college (I should say university, since I technically attend a university, not a college) changed me for the better in that I ate salad a lot. Especially Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays when the next best choice is the chicken stuffed with broccoli, which sounds delicious, but not when it was on the menu a few days back ... and you're probably eating reheated leftovers of three days ago. And plus, the salad bar is fairly well-stocked. I love the craisins and pumpkin & sunflower seeds they have! That along with the feta and some baby spinach .. oh my.

orange pull-apart loaf.

I have seen recipes for cinnamon and lemon pull-apart bread before. And I was always enticed by the rustic look of this bread. I would imagine peeling away thin slivers of sweet bread laced with flavored sugar and enriched with layers of butter. However, it was not until a friend re-introduced to me a link to the cinnamon sugar version that I made this. And I was *yarely the entire long, sticky, messy process.

chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.

Yes. Chocolate squared cake. CHOCOLATE^2.

That would make much more of an impression if I knew how to actually make the "2" a superscript. I'm slowly teaching myself how to edit HTML. I remember doing a lot of it in seventh grade, but that was the exact time I had just begun baking, and I was inexperienced and unfamiliar with the world of blogging. Can't blame me for not utilizing my knowledge of HTML at the wee age of 13.

quick lunch update 1 - pita sandwich.

I made tomato jam again - by myself, this time - with these beautiful plump little tomatoes.


You know the section of the grocery store where they have fruit and vegetables that are a little past their prime? And so they're on sale because otherwise they'd go in the garbage very soon? Yeah ... that's where these came from. No shame. They were perfectly fine (after I picked out the bad ones) & they made beautiful tomato jam.

And so I had a nice light lunch of an egg white omelette with spinach and tomato jam in a pita.

german chocolate cake, vanilla version.

I just assembled the cake about five minutes ago. I do not have the slightest idea of what I will write about in this post to you all (well that's not so unusual), and there are walnut skin things all over the place.

But after a little of the frosting got on the back of my hand and I absentmindedly licked it off, I had to share my love with the world. I am aware the world does not read my blog, but let me pretend it does for this time, okay?


This frosting. This caramel, walnut, coconut frosting has blown my mind. German chocolate cake has been my favorite cake ever since my surprise sixteenth birthday party, when my mom (moms know all, srsly) arranged for a 1/4 sheet cake of German Chocolate Cake to be my birthday cake.

baby bran muffins.

The theme today is brown.

The dry mixture is brown, the wet mixture is brown, and by the transitive property (or not), the combined mixture is obviously brown.

tomato jam.

For my 17th birthday, my aunt told me she was taking me to a restaurant of my choice during New York Restaurant Week. Previous to her bringing it up, I had never heard of any Restaurant Weeks. So imagine my surprise and joy at finding out that, for a limited period of time in whichever city (there are Restaurant Weeks in Philadelphia, Boston, etc.), you can dine at a high-class restaurant for a prix fixe? Heaven.

Anyway, we ended up at Spice Market. It is a gorgeous restaurant, albeit dark, with the drapes and candles and other exotic decorations everywhere. Jean-Georges Vongerichten caters to people who desire a Southeast palette, and the food captures aspects of Thai, Indian, Chinese, and Vietnamese food. I am not going to do a total review right now (maybe another post), but one of the more memorable of the 7 (or was it 10?) courses was this tomato jam, served with papadam. I was intrigued by the savory jam, a concept I had never given much thought, and dug in.

It was spicy.
It made my eyes water. It made my throat burn. I downed my water. I remembered water is useless and ate papadam as discreetly as I could in this sophisticated, elegant restaurant. That was a fail. I fanned my mouth with my hand ... and stopped as I noticed my aunt laughing at me.

chocolate chip cookie cake, with chocolate frosting.

I love birthdays! Because birthdays need cake. And they provide an easy excuse to bake.

I also love those cookie cakes you can get at, for example, Shoprite. They're alway so attractive looking and so darn tasty.

peruvian chicken kebabs + tzatziki.

I cannot believe two days ago I was on Rutgers soil, and now, I am at home. For three and a half months. Leaving was bittersweet; everyone wanted to be with everyone else for the whole summer, but they also wanted summer vacation to come because that would be mean the end of a period of no sleep, emotional eating, and immense stress about finals.

I got the last of my final grades back today, and I am quite ecstatic. For a crazy second I thought summer classes might be a very real necessity but alas, I need to relaxeth. Allth will be fyne with mine life, especially now that I can partaketh in consumption of victuals, mostly for mine pleasure.

review: Thomas Sweet.

Do you like ice cream? what about cool frozen yogurt flavors, like banana and oreo? and freshly, whipped cream that is literally, purely just that, and not Cool Whip or Reddi-wip or Whipped Lightening?

Well I have the good fortune to be located very near to such a place. It's called Thomas Sweet.

vanilla cake with chocolate frosting.

Should I continue making the title as the name of whatever I have made? Sometimes I do that automatically, because it just looks nicer. But sometimes, when I'm feeling bizarre (which is often), I tend to just make the title really random and connected to the focus of the post in a really extended, twisted, barely-related way. But usually, a simple title suffices, so I will probably maintain that habit.

This classic, almost boring cake was made at college - YES! AT COLLEGE! I finally utilized the stovetop and oven of the kitchen in my building in this risky endeavor. I had gone home two weekends ago, and at home, I collected all the [MANY] things I would need in order to properly bake something and brought them to my dorm.