Successful Cooking Experiments!

Eben has been working really hard finishing his thesis, which means working through the weekend as well. My way of helping is to cook lots of yummy foods. Last Sunday I really wanted to do some baking. I knew I wanted to do something chocolate and I'd never made a multilayer cake, so the answer seemed quite simple.

I cut the parchment paper for the pans which proved challenging at first (left pan), then I figured it out (right). I felt pretty good going into the baking since I was able to figure out my first challenge. Although I was thinking that if this pattern continued, I would end up with one great layer and one layer sub par.

The batter was VERY runny, which worried me. Also note the light dusting of cocoa powder on pretty much everything. I am not a neat or clean baker!

Before the oven.

After the oven. All was going quite smoothly!

Once the cakes were cool it was time for frosting! What goes better with chocolate cake then chocolate frosting? If you ask me, nothing!

Again I was very nervous, this time about moving the layers, but this went off without a hitch too!

I didn't have any nerves about frosting the cake, that's just fun.

With the cake successfully complete (I DID IT!), it was time to make dinner. Since Sunday was a day of firsts, I wanted to try cooking shrimp. Shrimp has always been something I get only when I dine out, but I wanted to master it at home too. Eben doesn't eat shrimp so I went all out and made coconut curry shrimp (he doesn't like coconut either)!

Despite the fish man telling me that the shrimp were de-veined and peeled, the smaller under 'vein' was still there, so I had to remove that because who (besides Mobi) wants to eat poo?

I sauteed the onion, ginger, garlic, and curry paste.

Once all the rest was soft, in went the shrimp. I LOVE that the heat causes the proteins in the shrimp to turn from clear/grey to coral! Science is cool.

Stirred in the coconut milk and added some scallions and plopped it on some brown rice. Sugar snap peas seemed an appropriate side. It was really good! *pats self on back*

Eben had the ginger and pinko encrusted wild salmon that I made the night before with some brown rice and a green pepper.

I called a bunch of friends throughout the day inviting them over for cake, but since no one was in town, I had no takers. Seems sad really; to bake a cake and have no one to eat it.... as a small consolation they all were pretty disappointed that they weren't around. After having dinner, Eben allowed himself a cake break.

We packed up two slices and some milk and went to the park near our house.

After a long day in the kitchen, it was a treat to get outside and actually spend some time together without Eben's computer lurking in the next room. We played one game of cribbage (which Eben won with some pretty amazing hands! Not one of his hands was worth less than 6!). A tasty break if I do say so myself!