Rick Roll Cake

I just had to give a Rick Roll Cake a try for Jay’s birthday. It is well worth the effort as we are still laughing about it almost a week later. Make sure that you have a laptop nearby so that you can play the Rick Roll while the unsuspecting victim attempts to cut the cardboard cake. See unsuspecting victim below:

April Fools!

We were invited to an April Fools’ themed party over the weekend and decided to bring some fake grilled cheese sandwiches.

Ingredients: Store bought Pound Cake, Homemade Frosting, Yellow and Red food coloring

Jay grilled the pound cake so it would pass as bread and put the frosting inside the sandwich to pose as cheese. They were pretty convincing and tasted a bit like twinkies. Here are many other April Fools’ Day Food Suggestions.

5 Green Christmas Tips

1. Skip wrapping presents. I am going to wrap all my pressies with these Trader Joe’s reusable shopping bags this year.
   

   *The bags are only $.99/each at TJs, but when I bought 10 today I was asked by the manager if I was one of those losers who was buying out all the bags and selling them on eBay for $8/each. I told them of my green x-mas plan and they seemed skeptical. I just searched eBay and sure enough there are folks out there doing this.

   If you must wrap presents consider using old newspaper and recycled ribbons or reuse gift bags.

2. Buy a live tree to decorate and plant it later. I did this last year, but the poor tree did not survive. Here are some tips to keep a tree alive. (If you live in Portland, OR you can actually rent a tree that is planted in the community soon after Christmas.)  For those who do buy a cut tree, make sure that you have it composted or mulched when the season is over.
3. Use the more efficient and less dangerous LED Christmas lights.
4. Consider making some crafty gifts or some homemade food items. Another option is to purchase tickets to an event.
5. Instead of buying somebody something that they might already have or don’t need consider giving a gift that gives back to the community through Gift It Up!, which has many donation items from 14 great non-profits. The Alternative Gift Fair is organized by a Boston non-profit group called Conscious Consuming. If you can’t make it to the fair you can give online.

Crock-pot Cookin’

Crock-pot

Originally uploaded by jjzach

I’ve been using the crock-pot from my childhood to make some meals on the weekends. After a failed Bean Soup I made a good batch of Baked Beans and most recently some Ultimate Chili. The crock-pot is covered with drawings of herbs and still works like a charm.

On a side note, the allrecipes.com ingredient search feature allows you to plug your desired ingredients in and it gives you a recipe to match your list.

Strawberry Soup

Occasionally I cook . . .
This week I made some chilled Strawberry Soup. It came out pretty good, but I’m not sure if it counts as cooking since I didn’t have to turn the stove on.

Strawberry Soup
2 quarts fresh strawberries
1/4 cup yogurt
2 tablespoons honey
1/4 cup fresh Orange Juice
a bit of fresh mint

Grind up strawberries in Cuisinart or blender with yogurt, orange juice and honey. Serve chilled. Garnish with fresh mint. (Serves 4 – 6)

I have some strawberries in the garden for the first time this year, but they don’t have any fruit on them yet. Due to some impending work in our yard I have them in containers for now, but hope to find a permanent spot for a bed of strawberries by the end of the season. I have always drooled over this Berry Terrace at Gardeners.com, but we don’t have a way to permanently connect it to a water source.
*I’m sure this will be a non-issue since I can’t seem to have any fruit in the yard without the squirrels enjoying them before I get a chance to harvest.

The Mouse is Away

Jay is away on a business trip and I have regressed to some old bacholorette habits.  Dinner out of the fridge.

Still More Jalapeños!

The Jalapeños are still rolling in and Jay found a way to use up a bunch over the weekend. He made a batch of Jalapeño Relish. Visit his site, f00die.com if you would like the recipe. Below you can see a picture of our Frigidaire Flair in action:

Tomatillos

Our Tomatillos seem a bit late this year, possibly due to the heavy rains at the beginning of the season. We are finally getting a few for Jay’s famous Salsa Verde. . . Yum! They are super easy to grow and they are inside these beautiful green husks. They get just tall enough where they need some staking. We braced them with a similar solution to our tomatoes with trellis netting and bamboo stakes. They drop a ton of seeds and will grow like weeds the following season so I highly recommend using black landscape fabric if you would like to keep some order in your tomatillo patch. I have tomatillo weeds sneaking out from underneath the fabric.

A Whale of a Time

A while back we decided to make a trip to Formaggio Kitchen in Cambridge for some cheese. They have excellent cheese samples and we left with some yummy cheese and these cute/delicious whale cookies.

**Warning** If you make a trip, there are many cheese addicts there using a special cheesy language.

Breakfast

Jay made pancakes for the first time in a while last weekend and we shared them with the neighbors outside on a hot morning after a late night.  We washed them down with fruit smoothies.  In honor of Eat in, Act out week I went to the local Lexington Farmer’s Market yesterday and bought some local peaches for our smoothies.