Ants.

You know what stinks? Ant invasions.

 

You know what is worse? Ant invasions at midnight.

 

Also, our parsley plant died. Again.

 

But our other herbs are doing marvelously.

Cake.

Ummm. I made this.

Dark Chocolate Cake with Homemade Raspberry Sauce and Whipped Cream/Raspberry garnish

What you’ll need:

*1 pint of fresh red raspberries

*1 box of devil’s food chocolate cake

*vegetable oil (1/3 cup?)

*3 eggs

*water

*vodka (eye-balled it)

*cornstarch (1/4 tsp.)

*2 tablespoons sugar

*juice of 1/2 a lemon

*1 tub of reduced fat whipped cream

 

1. Make the cake as directed with eggs, oil, water and dry ingredients. Bake as directed as well.

2. While this is baking, make the raspberry sauce: Pour all but 8 of the raspberries into a saucepan with cornstarch, vodka, sugar, and lemon juice. Cook on low until raspberries have fallen apart and is thick. Let this sit for about 15 minutes to really thicken.

3. Even cakes out after they have cooled. Put one layer down on cake plate, and then top with 3/4 of the raspberry sauce. Make sure it is spread evenly. Then top with the other cake.

4. Spread the rest of the raspberry mixture on top of the cake (toward the center in a circle).

5. Next, I put all of the whipped cream into a plastic zip-top bag, cut the corner off one end, and piped the whipped cream onto the cake. I also used a butter knife to smooth it out. Lastly, I placed the 8 raspberries around the top to make the 8 pieces in the cake.

6. This step isn’t necessary (but it was for me as my kitchen was about 90000000 degrees), however you can put the cake in the fridge to let it set before serving. I let is sit for about 10 minutes before serving it.

 

YUM.

 

-L (&J and Bingley)

New Twist on Pizza

So, it’s not technically a pizza. But we still think it was pretty awesome.

 

Chicken, Arugula, Hummus, Pepper “Pizza”

You’ll Need:

*Parchment paper- not completely necessary, but made for a REALLY easy clean-up

*1 boneless chicken breast, cooked and chopped into bite size pieces

*2 sheets of phyllo dough

*arugula

*hummus, we used garlic lovers because it it my favorite

*Sweet peppers, chopped

*Cheese: You could really use any cheese you like. We used freshly grated mozzarella, but I would have also been happy with feta or pepper jack cheese (extra kick)

Directions:

1. Follow instructions on the box to pre-bake the phyllo dough

2. While the dough is baking, mix together some arugula with the garlic lovers hummus

3. Once the dough is baked and cool, spread the hummus mixture onto the dough as your sauce layer

4. Evenly spread the chicken and peppers across, then top with the cheese you chose

5. Pop back in the oven just to melt the cheese

6. Top with remaining arugula

Enjoy!

-L (& J &  Bingley)

 

We Planted a Garden.

PLANTS!

We have been wishing and hoping for a garden since we moved in together (remember our first attempt at plants? Poor parsley…)

We have successfully planted a garden! Now that we have some outdoor space, and the approval of our leasing office staff, we have planted flowers and herbs.

 

 

 

 

Hydrangeas- always remind us of our honeymoon to Nantucket, as well as our favorite vacation spot of Chautauqua, NY 🙂

Purple petunia and some fuzzy purple martian plant. We don’t remember what they are called. So we have renamed it “fuzzy purple martian plant.”

Pink begonias!

Our herb box (minus the cilantro awaiting its own herb receptacle). Planted in alphabetical order, due to my crazy organizational needs: basil, Greek; basil, sweet; dill; mint; and parsley, flat. This photo upgraded to hipster status by J’s bike.

We have been making so many great food dishes with all of our herbs the past two weeks! Omelets with fresh parsley, dill and Greek basil, and looking forward to fresh mint in our sun tea.

One of our favorite dishes from the week? Coq au Vin. I can never pronounce this correctly, so we call it “Fancy French Chicken and Wine Stew.”

MMMmmmm.

In a Crockpot, layer:

1. Diced onion (I think I used 2)

2. Pint of button mushrooms, sliced

3. Diced crispy bacon (I used about 6 slices…totally used turkey bacon, no judgment)

4. 3 boneless chicken breasts, whole

5. About a box of chicken stock (low sodium)

6. Some red wine. Don’t even know how much I put in…just kinda poured it all over. And drank some. Also not sure of the quantity I consumed there.

7. A little S&P.

*Cook on low for about 8 hours. It will make your house/apartment/yurt smell amazing. We served it over egg noodles. I added some fresh parsley at the end, but forgot to take a picture of that…just know that it was delicious.

Now that summer has begun for me, hoping to get back into this blogging thing more often. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s blog post: chicken arugula hummus tarts.

-L (& J and Bingley)