Mommy Lester's Pasta Salad

In Chicago with Busty. Needed to make some pasta salad -- Mommy Lester's signature stuff: tri-color rotini, broccoli, balck olives, cucumbers and Italian dressing -- 'cause we're going to a little get-together BBQ thing. I tried to convince Amanda to put in some garbanzo beans and bell peppers, but she wouldn't budge on the recipe. Not experimental at all! We played some pop culture / anything goes Take Two Scrabble. And we had some beer. Good times. I love life.

6/21/09 Pasta Salad and Take Two Scrabble with Busty, Nate and Jake from Molly O on Vimeo.

Amelia's birthday!

This morning I made cranberry walnut banana bread, cake brownie cupcakes and haystacks for my friend Amelia's birthday. Used Gawker (a Mac stop-motion program) to record my time in the the kitchen baking, fixing my lunch to bring to work and doing the dishes.

It's a surprisingly fast little video for the time I spent in the kitchen, with the interval at 1 frame taken every 30 seconds. I'm just glad it didn't catch me doing anything too embarrassing.

Amelia's Birthday: Experimental Cookery StopMotion! from Molly O on Vimeo.

You might remember my previous attempt -- arguably a failed attempt -- at haystacks a few posts down. The good news is that I had the recipe wrong! My Aunt Tammy uses PEANUT BUTTER (about a cup) and butterscotch chips. -- Not BUTTER and butterscotch chips like I tried last time. Epic fail! This time they were delicious.


The cupcakes were great, but -- don't tell anybody -- straight outta the box.


The banana bread is an old family recipe (that we got out of a favorite cookbook). Seriously, the best banana bread ever. It was perfect, but I let it get a little crispy around the edges ... because I was uploading the stop motion video and sort of forgot about it. Oops! That's the risk you run when you never set a timer in the kitchen. I know the inside will be delicious.



While the goodies were baking, I made a quick salad to bring to work tonight: spinach, cherry tomatoes, turkey (though I prefer Genoa salami), garbanzo beans/chickpeas, walnuts, cranberries. I bring along one of those little spritzer salad dressings -- the raspberry vinaigrette is so good.


So that was my morning in the kitchen -- really super fast!
Oh, and Happy Birthday, Amelia! =]

Butter Update - Mac&Chz

Yes, I cook real food a lot, but, yes, I often eat mac&chz when it's time for me to go to the grocery store but haven't. I just wanted to let the world know that the garlic cilantro butter that I made last week is really good in mac&chz!!

OJ Pops

Here is a weird picture of me eating an OJ Popsicle. I have a set of DIY popsicle things - so awesome in the summer and great for experimenting. Usually, they're, like, two bucks at the grocery store. Totally worth it!

Brainstorm for popsicle flavors:

• Juice of any kind - orange, raspberry, apple, juice cocktails...
• Chocolate soy milk (probably my favorite!)
• Yogurt + frozen fruit - usually raspberries in my house

Speaking of frozen treats, I also totally have to encourage you to make broth ice cubes for your dog this summer. Phydeaux loves them when it's hot.

Brown Sugar Butter

Hey, nerds. Just wanted to give y'all a follow-up on my last couple of posts. I did try making some brown sugar cinnamon butter. Ate it in my Cream of Wheat this morning. Delicious! Also great on toast.

This was a little different kind of process than the other butters. I used a double-boiler set up (really just my metal mixing bowl on top of a saucepan) to melt the brown sugar down. This breaks down the crystals so it ain't so grainy. I added some cinnamon, melted the butter and then poured it into this perfect little Pyrex dish I'm so fond of.

Once it sits in the fridge for a while, it hardens back up to butter consistency.
Brainstorm!

• hot cereals, of course: Cream of Wheat, oatmeal
• meats?? ham - a la Honey Baked Ham
• many different kinds of desserts - cinnamon apple pie, for instance ... melted sugar butter... mmmmm