Cake, and Oh, A Little Bit of Cooking Too

May 13
Izumi's actual birthday was today, though as far as she knew, she already turned three a couple of weeks ago at the kids' birthday party. Since I'm a stickler for some kind of celebration "on the day" though, I had to make cupcakes. I was out of cake flour, which meant I couldn't use The Cake Bible, so I went to the good old red and white cookbook. I was actually pretty disappointed with the finished chocolate cupcakes. Perhaps the fact that I didn't have unsweetened chocolate and subbed in random (sweetened) chocolate from a Trader Joe's Pound Plus bar had something to do with their less than perfect flavor? The kids didn't mind though. As for dinner, Becky W. had brought
*Coyle chicken (which must be some kind of a family secret recipe?)
*green salad with a simple but really delicious oil and vinegar dressing
*quinoa
I added
*white rice and
*broccoli to the above, for the sake of those family members that might not get excited about quinoa and salad, to whom I say, "more for me!"
Thank you very much, Becky!!

May 14
It was so good last week that even though I was nervous about its effects on Misaki's digestive system, I thawed
*Becca's chickpea curry and ate it with
*white rice and
*broccoli left over from yesterday
YUM!

May 15
In an effort to get used to the idea that I may have to get back to cooking dinner for the family at some point, tonight I made
*maple glazed salmon and served it with more
*quinoa (white rice for everyone else) and
*green beans
I can see from my records that this is the third time this year I've made this dish and I've still never posted the recipe, which is a shame because you could have been making it all this time! Try it, it's really delicious and better yet, really easy!!
Alas, I copied this recipe onto a piece of Winnie the Pooh memo paper ages ago but never thought I might one day like to know where I got the recipe. So you know, I didn't make it up but I can't tell you from whence it came either...

Maple Glazed Salmon (serves 4)
Whisk together
3 T maple syrup
2 T soy sauce
1 T grated ginger
1 T water
1/2 tsp. cornstarch and pour over four 6 oz. salmon fillets in an oven proof pie plate or casserole dish. Roast in a 475 degree oven for 15 minutes, basting once halfway through cooking time.

May 16
Today was a HUGE day for Koji because at long last, after pretty much YEARS of waiting, we finally had his school friend Takeru over to play. What Koji doesn't understand is that Takeru lives stinking far away and that's why we can't have him over more often. sigh That's the problem with most of his school friends, but hardly the point here. The point here is that Takeru's brother and mom came along and we had dinner together.
Our dinner turned out to be such a smorgasbord, which isn't what I had planned, but was really funny! First, I wanted to cook for them so I made chili and white rice. But they wanted to contribute so they brought two kinds of Japanese curry. Meanwhile, I had lost track of my dinner contributing friends from church, so we had not one but TWO dinners from different kind ladies. Therefore, in addition to the above we also had pasta with chicken and carrots and Thai chicken curry with mushrooms and lots of other veges. Whew! And after a suitable interval, we had dessert of cupcakes from Izumi's birthday and white chocolate chip cookies adapted from this New York Times recipe that I made for the work party Aogu's away at today.
We really enjoyed having Takeru and his family over today and I hope we can do it again soon, even if it is a trek for us to get to one another!

May 17

Oops, I'm getting ahead of things, this is what we had for dessert tonight, after a super fun "season opener" barbeque at Matt and Nadia's place with our housegroup. Thanks for the fun, everyone! Thanks also for the
*jalapeno cheddar brat with pickle, mustard and bun
*"melty toasty" cheeseburger with mustard, onion and tomato
*pasta salad
*macaroni and cheese
*chips

The cake is Triple Layer Devil's Food, a recipe from The Cake Bible, which I was relieved to go back to now that I've procured cake flour! I filled it with E.D. Smith jam from Costco. The frosting was a little too lumpy, but had the dark chocolate taste I was looking for on the back of the Hershey's Special Dark Baking Cocoa and overall, I think the cake was a success.