Hawaiian Carrot Cake with Coconut Icing

This is the first recipe I tried that I found on Pinterest. Yes, I actually try the recipes that I pin and so far they've all been great and this was one of them. My dad loves pineapple and coconut (that's another thing I get from him) and when I asked him to guess what kind of dessert I was making he guessed correctly on the first try that it had pineapple and coconut in it. He had no idea what form my dessert was taking but he guessed the most important part right away and that was all that mattered after that.
So anyway, here's the link to the original recipe...
http://sweetapolita.com/2011/04/hawaiian-carrot-cake-with-coconut-icing/
I'm not going to list all the ingredients/method in as much detail this time as I followed the original recipe exactly so you can follow the recipe in the link provided above. Anyway, here's my adventure with yet another layer cake.

First, I traced my round cake pans (9" I believe) on some parchment paper and then cut out the circles - on the inside of the pencil line - and put those in the bottom of my pans once they were sprayed with Pam. This makes it so easy to take the cakes out once they are baked and have cooled slightly, they just fall right out. Once arts and crafts were over, I started grating my carrots. This took a while as I still don't have a food processor so I had to use a box grater.

I think this ended up being about six carrots if I remember correctly.

Dry ingredients and carrots, ready to go.

Skip to, cake batter ready for the oven. I sometimes forget to take pictures when I'm busy making something and only remember after the fact, however you're not missing much here as cake batter in the pan looks the same as it does in the mixing bowl ;)

So while the cakes were baking I made the icing. Standard cream cheese icing just with the addition of coconut.

One of the finished cakes, lines courtesy of my cooling rack. Cutting these babies in half was sooooo much easier than that cheesecake I had to cut in half for the Red Velvet Cake I made (see the second post on this blog for that escapade).

Beginning of the assembly. This was the first layer and next time I make this cake I'm going to add more icing on this layer as my cake ended up being slightly top heavy. There is a heck of a lot of icing used for this recipe so I would maybe even try to measure it out evenly into four parts just for better symmetry of the cake.

And finished product (after burning my first batch of coconut, oops!). Also this cake is a pain in the you know what to transport. I found another version of this recipe that said that the cake was great to transport. LIES I TELL YOU!!! I think I had about seven anxiety attacks on the way to my parent's place with this thing in my lap and my husband at the wheel. By the time we got to my parent's house the cake had a bit of a gangster lean going on and my hands had crumbs, icing and coconut all over them. However, the cake was a hit so I guess the trouble of transport was worth it?

Alright, time for this girl to get ready for work. Hope everyone is having a great summer so far, I know I am!

- A

Ham, Bacon, Provolone, Pesto Pizza

This pizza is a creation from my brain sort of emulating a pizza that I had recently at Bonfire Bistro. I was inspired after I ate one of the best pizzas I've ever had there however it ended up being not that similar. Basically I was inspired by the ham, arugula and the balsamic vinegar but other than that I ended up just making it up on my own. I love pesto and obviously bacon is a great addition to almost any pizza and when I went grocery shopping I spied some lovely provolone so that's kind of how this all came together in my head...

Single recipe of pizza dough
1-2 cups shredded cheese (basically however much you like, I probably used closer to one cup but I'm not exactly sure)
1/2 can crushed tomatoes (12-14 oz. can)
4 Tablespoons of basil pesto (I used the pesto you can get at Costco)
10-12 slices of ham (thinly sliced)
6 pieces of provolone
6-8 slices of bacon, cooked, crumbled
Fresh arugula
Balsamic vinegar

Like any pizza, I made the dough first and spread that out onto the pan. I used the Fleischmann's recipe again and this time did a single recipe and though it took a little longer to spread out it was worth it as it let the flavors of the toppings stand out more. I have done a double before which makes a bit of a thicker crust on the pan that I normally use however I think I'll make the effort from now on to just spread out the crust a little more thin as I prefer thin crust over thick crust pizza. Once the dough was on the pan I mixed the crushed tomatoes and pesto to make the sauce for the pizza. The sauce ended up looking kind of brown but it tasted wonderful. I spread that out on the dough and then started layering the rest of my ingredients. A little bit of cheese first on the bottom to help the ingredients stick to the pizza, then the ham, bacon, provolone and more cheese. This is how it looked before it went in the oven...

I baked this for about 15 minutes at 400 degrees until the edges of the crust were golden brown. Once it was out of the oven I put some arugula on top and drizzled balsamic vinegar over the whole thing.

I love the slightly bitter taste of arugula and the sharp taste of the balsamic vinegar with the saltiness of the cheese and bacon. Ugh, so good.

Also, these are some of my last pictures with my green plates as my husband bought me a beautiful white dinner set for my birthday! I'm so pumped and one of the first things I said was that they will look so nice on my blog! Stay tuned!

- A

Judy's Potato Salad

If there is one thing I make every summer, it's my mom's recipe for potato salad. No barbecue is complete without it. I usually make a huge batch and then by the time it's finished I'm tapped out so I don't make it again until the next year. Why don't I just make smaller batches you ask? Because I don't. I make a huge batch or none at all. This recipe is very approximate because I usually just go by how it looks/tastes and adjust as needed. Maybe go easy on the ingredients so that you can always add more. You can't take too much of something away once it's mixed in! So here it is...

5 lb bag of red potatoes
8-10 hard boiled eggs
1-2 cups chopped pickles
1 cup sour cream
1 cup mayonnaise (I may have added a little more sour cream/mayo, this is approximate. Either way, the amount of the sour cream and mayo are always the same)
2-3 Tablespoons yellow mustard
1/2 cup pickle juice
Salt, pepper, dill to taste

First! Boil the potatoes whole with the skin on. I usually do this the night before or well ahead of time (first thing in the morning if you're serving it in the evening). Once you can poke the potatoes easily with a fork, drain all the water and put the potatoes in a plastic shopping bag to sweat. Let them cool off COMPLETELY in the fridge and once they are cool you will be able to peel the potatoes very easily. The skin just comes right off. My mom gave me that handy little tip and I think she got it from my Grandma Elma if I'm not mistaken. Cut your potatoes into small uniformly sized cubes. One of my friends told me once that she liked my potato salad because all the pieces of potato were the same size. Oh and at some point you'll have to boil your eggs, cool them off, and peel them as well. So cut up all your potatoes, eggs, and pickles and chuck them in a big bowl...

Then add all of your seasonings and other stuff...

And mix it all together...

Voila. Best potato salad ever. I adjusted the ingredients a lot this time around as for whatever reason I couldn't get the flavor right after the initial addition of all the ingredients. So again, the amounts of the ingredients are approximate and you can always adjust to your taste. And thanks again to my awesome mum for letting me in on this recipe. And now all of my faithful readers as well ;)

- A

Sour Ginger Slaw

Last year was the first time I had ever been to the St. Norbert Farmers Market. I know, I've lived in Manitoba my whole life and last year was the first time. I'm ashamed and I have no excuse. If only I knew how awesome it was I might have gone earlier. When I was there last year I bought a bunch of vegetables just because they looked so amazing! I wasn't sure what in the world I was going to do with two GIGANTIC cucumbers and two GIGANTIC zucchini but I thought, what the heck, they're gigantic! With my arms full of cucumber and zucchini I spotted the most beautiful head of red cabbage I have ever seen. This baby was gorgeous. I had to take her home with me. I hate to let vegetables go to waste and though I regularly use zucchini and cucumbers in my cooking, I don't know if I had ever used red cabbage in anything before. Luckily, it's a pretty easy vegetable and I found this lovely recipe online (Family Feedbag Blog) for a Sour Ginger Slaw. Sour? Ginger? Slaw?? Three of my favorite things all combined into one beautiful summer salad. I made it for the first time last year and I made it again this year as I found myself with another beautiful head of red cabbage in my refrigerator. So here goes...

7 cups red cabbage
1/2 carrot, julienned
1/2 snow peas, julienned
1/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 1/2 tsp ginger root, minced
1 tsp granulated white sugar

Chop (or julienne) all your vegetables and combine in a large bowl (I used the pre-julienned carrots in a bag this time, hee hee)...

That color combination is just ridiculous. In a good way. Then combine everything else (oil, vinegar, soy sauce, ginger, sugar) in a bowl or tupperware contraption like I have...

Give it a good shake and then pour over your vegetables. I like to stick this in the fridge for a while and then serve this slaw nice and cold so the veggies are crisp. Ugh, so delicious!

The end result. Such a great summer vegetable dish and really good on pulled pork sandwiches!
Hopefully I'll be able to get another post on here in the next day or two as I'm on holidays and have been doing a lot of cooking (and painting)!

- A

Berry Cream Cheese Parfaits

I love dessert. There, I said it. Even if I am completely full after a good meal I will always find room for something sweet at the end.
I've always wanted to make parfaits but had never actually chosen a recipe for parfaits when planning a meal. Some friends  were coming over and I wanted to make a dessert but I didn't want to make a cake, or cheesecake, or something heavy and very time consuming. I wanted it to be fun and light(ish). So, I finally chose a recipe for parfaits that had been sitting in my recipe folder for months. I adapted it from a recipe I found on allrecipes.ca and I'll give you the original recipe as I halved the recipe to make two big parfaits instead of 8 small ones:

1 8 oz. package of cream cheese (softened)
1 1/2 cups cold milk
1 3.4 oz package instant vanilla pudding mix
1 1/2 cups thawed Cool Whip
24 Nilla wafers, coarsely chopped
1 1/2 cups mixed fresh berries (I used frozen berries as I didn't have any fresh on hand and I actually preferred that as when the berries thawed they left some juice which I used in the parfaits to pour over the nilla wafers)

First, beat cream cheese with a mixer until creamy. Then slowly beat in the milk. Add the dry pudding mix and beat with mixer until it turns into budding basically. Then fold in 1 cup of the Cool Whip.

Keep in mind that this picture is only half of the recipe (1/2 package of cream cheese, 3/4 cups milk, half package of vanilla pudding mix, 1/2 cup Cool Whip) so if you make the original recipe that serves 8 you will have twice as what is in the picture.
I chopped up some Nilla Wafers...

 And then started layering the parfaits in two large glasses...

I started with a little bit of the vanilla pudding/cream cheese mixture on the bottom of the glass. Then I added the wafers and then the berries. After the berries I added a little bit of Cool Whip and then started the layers over again (pudding mixture, wafers, berries, Cool Whip in that order). I let them sit in the fridge for a while so the wafers would get slightly soft (but not mushy!). When I made them for our friends I used the same proportions and made 4 smaller parfaits in martini glasses. Forgot to take a picture of those however.
There you have it! Also, happy July long weekend/Canada day everybody!

- A