Once it’s baked, you flip it over and it looks like this:

Served in slices that make you smile and rub your belly in appreciation:

With dinner, we ate fresh baked bread that Jay made that afternoon. It comes from a Rose Levy Beranbaum recipe (found here) and it is amazing. The bread is so nice and thick, rich, and full of yum.

For the birthday boy, I made the Perfect Party Cake. This time, however, I’ve used the recipe as detailed in Dorie Greenspan’s book. Personally, I preferred the original Dorie version (which can be found here on tablefare’s blog) much more than the one I made for my birthday.

Covered in shredded coconut.

Delicious rice and chicken bake for pre-clubbing dinner on Saturday

Rice and chicken bake with salad.

Birthday cake made for our friend Dev on Saturday.

Birthday cake - I am amazed I was able to make so many layers!

The Delicious Rice and Chicken bake recipe comes from the inner workings of my mother’s mind. Well, the idea comes from her creation that she made when she was in her 20′s. I’ve made a variation of her original recipe, which includes ketchup, ham as well as chicken, mozzarella or cheddar cheese only, and sour cream instead of yogurt.

My version of Delicious Rice and Chicken bake (or arroz rico, as my mother would say):

6 cups cooked rice

2 chicken legs, cooked and shredded

1/4 red bell pepper

10 kalamata olives, chopped

1/2 onion, chopped

1 tomato, sliced

Approx 1/2 cup yogurt

3 or 4 oz feta cheese

3 o 4 oz cheddar cheese

Approx 1/2 tsp oregano

1/4 tsp dried mint

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a fairly deep baking pan, maybe 9×11. Mix the chicken with the onions, red bell pepper, onion, and olives. Season with the mint and a little more than half of the oregano portion, reserve some oregano to sprinkle on top. Next, make even layers starting with yogurt at the bottom of the pan followed by rice, chicken, tomato slices, cheeses, and repeating until all ingredients have been used up, ending with rice. You can mix up the order of the layers but it’s a good idea to start with yogurt at the bottom so that the rice won’t stick. Finish with a rice layer on top, sprinkle more cheese and oregano and other spices if you want. Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes. Remove foil and bake another 15 mins or until cheese looks gooey and melty. Yum.

For the cake, I don’t remember where I found the recipe but it was in one of my recipe folders for a long time and I figured it was time to test it out. The cake was so moist and rich and yummy.

Yellow Butter Cake with Filling and Frosting

4 large eggs, room temperature
1/2 cup whole milk, room temperature
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 3/4 cup plain cake flour, sifted after measured
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
2 sticks butter, softened but still cool

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Generously grease two 9 inch round cake pans and cover the pan bottoms with rounds of parchment paper or waxed paper. Grease the parchment rounds and dust with flour, tapping out excess. May also bake in a greased and floured 13×9 inch pan.
Beat the eggs, milk and vanilla with a fork in a small bowl. Measure out 1 cup of this mixture and set aside.
Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Stir to blend. Using a fork, cut the butter into the dry mixture, one Tbsp at a time. The butter and flour will begin to clump together and look like small peas. When all butter is combined with the flour, use a mixer to beat the butter and flour for about 30 to 40 seconds. On a low speed, add the 1 cup of the egg mixture that was set aside and beat until incorporated (5-10 seconds). Increase speed to medium-high and beat until light and fluffy, about 1 minute. Add remaining egg mixture in a slow, steady stream, taking about 30 seconds. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl. Beat for another 15 seconds until thoroughly combined and the batter looks slightly curdled.
Divide batter equally between the prepared cake pans. Spread to the sides and smooth. Bake at 350 degrees until cake is a light golden color and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Bake round layers approximately 20 to 25 minutes and 13×9 inch pan 30 to 38 minutes.

Fill with cooked condensed milk (dulce de leche) using these instructions from David Lebovitz.

Frost with chocolate buttercream

2 2/3 c. sifted confectioners’ sugar
1/4 c. cocoa powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 egg
1/4 c. (1/2 stick) butter, softened
3 tbsp. hot water

Sift confectioners’ sugar, cocoa powder and salt into medium-sized bowl. Add egg, softened butter and hot water. Blend with spoon, then beat with rotary beater or electric beater until smooth. This frosts 1 (8 inch) triple-layer cake.

Now on to Thanksgiving!

Butternut squash soup.

Fall off the bone turkey, tofu and spinach stuffed shells, corn, The Stuffing, and super creamy mashed potatoes made by my little sister, Sue.

Pumpkin pie with whipped cream.

Pumpkin Cheesecake with yogurt topping.

I want to thank my lovely friend, Nervous Chef, for the butternut squash soup recipe, which she raved about and told me I simply had to make it. She was so right. The recipe can be found here from epicurious.

The stuffing turned out amazingly good and the recipe can be found in my previous post.

Prepping the turkey is one of the messiest jobs to do. You definitely need someone to be around to help you wash up every 2 minutes, like your devoted and helpful boyfriend. Thanks Jay!!

For my family’s version of turkey you’ll need the following:

Butter

About 2 cloves garlic, cut into small pieces/slivers

A few cloves

Mustard

1-2 bottles of beer

About 4 or 5 banana leaves, cut roughly into 9×11 inch sized pieces

So, first you start by washing the turkey, inside and out and make sure you remove the bag of giblets and the neck. Next, poke small holes/slits all over the turkey and fill the slits with slivers of garlic and cloves. Once that’s done, rub butter all over the bird, especially around the wing tips. Next, rub mustard over the butter, stuff the turkey with stuffing and place, breast side up, in a roasting pan. Pour a bottle of beer over the turkey and pray that the beer doesn’t wash the mustard off. Sprinkle salt and pepper and then cover the turkey with moistened banana leaves (these add moisture and flavour). Cover and bake at 325F for approx 4 hours (for a 12-14 pound bird). Turn the turkey over every hour and baste with juices, making sure to cover it back up with the banana leaves. After about 2 hours, add the remaining bottle of beer or whenever you think the liquids are drying up. Uncover the turkey and let it brown for about 30 minutes. Let the turkey stand about 15 minutes before carving.

For my dad, the vegetarian, I made stuffed shells from a recipe I found on Post Punk Kitchen. Recipe here.

The corn was probably the easiest thing to make. Fill a pot with water and salt, add the corn and cook on medium heat for about a half hour. Done.

The amazing pumpkin pie and pumpkin cheesecake recipes can be found here and here. The only change I made was the pie shell for the pumpkin pie was store bought and the topping on the cheesecake was yogurt. I have no leftovers of pie or cheesecake – it’s all gone and I’m very sad.

Now that the weekend of cooking is over I feel a sense of accomplishment and a little sadness because it’s over. The sadness is quickly replaced by an eagerness to host a dinner very soon!

The original plan for the family was to go to Shakespeare in the Park at High Park to see The Tempest and to have a picnic (this did not happen due to the rain). We began by disagreeing on what to make for dinner and it took us nearly two hours to agree on making vegetarian croissant sandwiches while we glanced out the window hoping the rain would stop. Even as we were leaving my apartment to go buy the required ingredients we were still struggling over our decision for dinner. Thankfully we were able to come to an agreement to make the sandwiches and a veggie dip.

For the croissant sandwiches, we caramelized two onions, about a cup and half of sliced mushrooms and one sliced zucchini. Once the caramelized veggies were done we began to arrange the sandwiches; swiss cheese, avocado and tomato slices and the caramelized veggies. We made a very simple veggie dip of yogurt and cucumber. It’s almost like tzatziki sauce except we only used strained yogurt and grated cucumber and did not add anything else to it. It was so simple and delicious.

All throughout the cooking and prepping, my sister and I got in each other’s way and we bickered about who would stir the vegetables and whether or not my way of using a Kitchenaid mixer was better than her way of mixing by hand.

“It takes me two hours to make the cake batter because I am very thorough and there are never any lumps in my batter,” she said with a smirk after I learned it would take us three hours to make a cake I could make in half the time.

“It takes you two hours to make a cake if you are not experienced in the art of cooking,” I retorted.

But it was all in good fun and the end result was a fantastic, moist, rich cake.

Cake without the hazelnut sauce.

Finished cake with hazelnut sauce and peach slices.

Delightful veggie sandwich.