Happy Dad's Day!

Of course every member of my family for every holiday will except nothing less than a chocolate cake, so that's what I made for Father's Day! I took the recipe that I made for my mom's Mother's Day cake, and made it manly!

SO CUTE! It's supposed to look like its fresh out of the box with the tissue paper! The collar is a piece of card stock, and it's a little hard to see in the pictures, but there are two pieces or card stock on the sides as cuffs of the shirt, and the m&m's are cufflinks! My dad thought this was so cute, because I tried to make the tie match the one my sister's got him.

Add a black name tag and you've got a missionary cake! This was fun to make and a total crowd pleaser! Hope all the Dad's had a great Dad's day :]

Great Giveaway

Theres a great giveaway going on Whisk: A food blog, and awesome blog that I regularly follow. Check it out its really easy to enter. Click Here to check it out!

No Knead Bread Rolls

These were apart of my dad's birthday dinner. I needed a quick simple roll recipe and I found it! They were so easy to make and tasted really good w/ butter and the course sea salt I added on top. I don't have a stand mixer like the recipe calls for, but my hand mixer worked just fine. Definitely a new go-to recipe.


No-Knead Bread rolls
(makes 8- 12 rolls)
adapted by Lululu at Home

Ingredients:
1 tbsp instant dry yeast
3/4 cup lukewarm water
4 tsp sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

Directions:
Sprinkle yeast over warm water in a stand mixer fitted with a paddle. Add sugar and egg, then blend to combine.

Add flour and salt, mix until flour is combined. Increase speed and blend until dough is stretchy and elastic, about 4 mins. Add butter, one teaspoon at a time, and blend until incorporated.

Set dough in an oiled bowl, covered with plastic wrap and let rise for 30 mins. {My dough was very loose like a pancake batter, so I let it sit in the original bowl. Turned out fine}

Divide dough into greased muffin pan, filling halfway full. Let rest uncovered until doubled in size, about 30 mins.


Preheat oven to 350F. Bake bread for about 15 mins, until golden brown. Unmold bread rolls while warm then cool completely.

Serve with lots of butter.

Pastitsio

I have absolutely no reason to post this recipe, because nobody is ever going to make this. Unless of course, you have a Greek-Italian father who wants you to make his favorite childhood dish for his 53rd birthday! He didn't even know how to spell Pastitsio, only that it was a pasta dish with a meat layer and a egg custard-like top.

It was fairly easy to make, and has a very unique taste due to the amount of spices used in the meat portion of the dish. This recipe calls for macaroni, but I found the apparently correct pasta, perciatelli, just a long spaghetti with a hole in it, but any pasta with a hole in it (penne, ziti, etc.). I am currently ranked number 1 on the favorite daughter list!

Pastitsio:

Ingredients

Meat Layer:
1 tablespoon butter
1 onion, chopped
3 pounds lean ground beef
3/4 cup water
1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2 tablespoons ground allspice
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 eggs, beaten

Macaroni Layer:
1 pound uncooked macaroni
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese, divided
1/2 cup butter, melted

Cream Sauce Layer:
4 eggs, well beaten
3/4 cup half-and-half
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
ground nutmeg to taste

Directions
1.Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Stir in onion and cook until it begins to soften, about 3 minutes. Stir in the ground beef, and cook until crumbly and no longer pink. Pour in the water and tomato paste. Season with salt, pepper, allspice, nutmeg, and cinnamon; cover, and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from heat, adjust salt to taste, then refrigerate until cold. Once cold, remove any congealed fat, and thoroughly mix with 2 beaten eggs, and set aside.
2.Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
3.Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add macaroni and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente; drain, and rinse under cold water to cool. Mix the macaroni in 2 beaten eggs until well coated.
4.Evenly spread half of the macaroni mixture into a 11x14x2 inch baking pan, sprinkle with 1/2 cup of the grated parmesan cheese, and drizzle with 1/2 cup of melted butter. Spread the meat mixture overtop, then finish with the remaining macaroni. Sprinkle the macaroni with another 1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese, and drizzle with 1/2 cup of melted butter.
5.Whisk together 4 beaten eggs with the half-and-half, 1 cup of Parmesan cheese, flour, and salt; whisk until well blended. Pour the cream mixture evenly over top of the pastitsio, and sprinkle with nutmeg.
6.Cover the pan with foil, and bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes. Remove the foil, and bake until the top has turned golden brown, about 30 minutes. Remove from oven, and allow to stand for 15 minutes before serving.

(p.s. I made a pie instead of a cake because I'm making him an awesome cake next week for Father's day!)

Meringues

I wanted to make this purely because they looked simple, not realizing how much my sister and I would enjoy these! It only has three ingredients, and a whole lot of arm power if you don't have a mixer like me. These were light, crispy, foamy, chewy, such a great recipe to make for something sweet with few calories.
Meringues
from Closet Cooking
Ingredients:
2 egg whites (room temperature)
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 325F.
2. Lay parchment paper on a baking sheet.
3. Beat the egg whites until they form peaks that do not fall over when pointed up.
4. Slowly mix in the sugar and vanilla extract.
5. Beat the mixture until it once again forms peaks that do not fall over when pointed up.
6. Place the mixture on the parchment paper in whatever form you desire.
7. Bake for 20-30 minutes.

Phyllo Dough Pizza

This recipe was a way for me to use up my extra phyllo dough from when I made spanakopita

I was afraid that I wasn't going to like this recipe, because the last time I used WAY too much butter and it tasted like I was biting into a flaky stick of the stuff! I eased up on the butter this time, and used the entire packet of phyllo instead of the 10 sheets the recipe called for, and WOW! It puffed up beautifully and was so flaky and delicious! I was pretty stingy on my toppings, but next time I'm going to pile them on!

Phyllo Dough Pizza
A light and fresh tasting vegetable pizza with endless choices for toppings. Perfect for a springtime lunch or an appetizer.
fromChef Chuck's Cucina


10 sheets phyllo dough
5 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup parmigiana cheese, grated
1 zucchini, thinly sliced
1/2 white onion, thinly sliced
1 tomato, chopped
artichoke hearts
1/4 cup red pepper, thinly sliced
1/4 cup goat cheese
1 tablespoon parsley, chopped
salt and pepper to taste

Using a 15x10 baking pan lay one phyllo sheet down, with about 1 inch over the sides of pan. This will be folded in later to form a crust. Brush with melted butter and sprinkle on a little parmigiana cheese. Repeat process till all sheets are used. Place zucchini, onions and tomatoes, peppers and artichokes on phyllo, salt and pepper. Sprinkle cheese and parsley over pizza. Bake at 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes.

Time to stand on my Environmental Soap Box..

Last night I watched the documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car?" and I almost cried! It is a 2006 documentary that follows the creation and destruction of the EV-1, the first fully electric vehicle created and destroyed by General Motors. Created in California as a way to reduce the increasing amounts of smog in areas such as Los Angeles, the EV-1 was leased to about 800 consumers, who loved the quiet, fast, zero emissions, little futuristic vehicles.

Then the California Air Resources Board ended the zero emissions mandate that began the program in the first place, and GM repossessed every single EV-1 and crushed and shredded them.

HUH? Despite the long waiting lists for more EV-1s, customers begging to re-lease or buy their cars, and outstanding protests, GM claimed their reason for discontinuing the electric cars was that the battery technology was insufficient and that the demand was not high enough. I couldn't believe my eyes as I watched car and oil company executives BS there way out of straight forward questions about why the electric car isn't on the market! The people who drove the cars LOVED them and were willing to pay millions of dollars to keep them! The documentary explores every suspect of who killed the electric car and why it was killed, and all signs point to the money made by the oil industries and the continuing flow of money from maintenance on gasoline cars. With the amount of oil currently spewing into the Gulf of Mexico and the ever-increasing amount of carbon each one of us releases into the atmosphere, I hope that people realize how important it is to have an electric car available. I'm praying that the newest version, Nissan Leaf, can survive this time around!

Zero emissions, charge it at night and go all day and cute as a button, the Nissan Leaf is expected to be released in Hawaii in early 2011. I want this car so bad! Everyone should watch this documentary, because its such an eye-opener to what we are up against in making our dreams for clean air and a better future happen.


Off my soapbox now! I promise the next post will be about food! :]