I recently made the following cake for a group of friends. They were very impressed. Click the image to make it larger.

They were very impressed

And I would think that would be putting it mildly. Wonderful job, Twigs. Such fun creativity!

Peaches are fully in season here, and I'd love to make a peach cobbler or upside-down cake for my mom's birthday this weekend, but we shall see if time allows. Those dishes warm from the oven ... mmmmmmmmmm!

Peaches are fully in season here...

So far, I've just eaten them. But I saw a recipe the other day on Food Network for a Brown Butter Peach Milkshake that looked AWESOME.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/bobb ... hakes.html
I may have to try it with a few tweaks.

I suppose technically this goes here. I love food, and food loves me. That's why I don't look like a stick figure . I've needed to lose some weight for a while and have tried diets before, but none have had the long-lasting results I need to stay trim once I get there. Plus my inherent love of food tends to sink any diet plans within a few weeks because my desire to eat something good overrides my desire to eat food that tastes like cardboard. And that only in sparing amounts. So I did some research and figured I'd try out the Atkins diet. I told my doctor this and she said "No, do the Dukan Diet". In a nutshell it's a super-strict verstion of Atkins where there's very little tolerance for carbs or fat. You get to eat meat everyday for many months provided it is low fat (this includes steaks, chicken, lean burgers, etc.) but no carbs at all. I'm in Phase 1, the "Attack Phase" right now, which is nothing but a solid week of nothing but lean meat. I thought this would so appeal to me...but I'm on Day 4 and if I see another piece of meat I think I will become hostile. I want a tomato and a cucumber and I can't have any for another 3 days . The "Cruise Phase", which I get to in that 3 days, allows me certain vegetables but I still must take in a healthy dose of meat the same day. Every other day I must have only meat.

I wish I could have buffalo wings or something. On the flipside I've lost 5-6 lbs. already.

You don't want me to reply to that SL. I have to keep my mouth shut when it comes to diets like that or I explode into a massive hate-rant. I will simply say that I hope it works out for you, good luck!

So would it be too cruel now to discuss other food topics?

I crumbled and had chips and salsa. I went shopping and barely had enough energy to carry my basket, so I feel not one iota bad about this. I'll start my vegetables tomorrow, a day early. In the meantime...oh my...chips and salsa was like Heaven in my mouth. I practically licked the bowl

I'm making a sort of low carb Ramen noodles right now. Chicken stock, bits of chicken breast, and some stuff called Shirataki noodles, which is purportedly super low carb and made of some yam root over in the Orient.

Poor SL! That must be torture for you.

I have to keep my mouth shut when it comes to diets like that or I explode into a massive hate-rant.

I'd likely do something similar but probably not to that degree. I like what my health teacher told us - There are no bad foods - There are all times foods and sometimes foods. Or something like that. The key is making wise choices in type of food and quantity.

So how goes the diet SL? Progress? Hopefully past the super strict part?

I've actually been on a diet for a month now myself. No, not to lose weight by any means but because I have gestational diabetes to manage. It hasn't been too bad... the only thing I've found that I have to cut (besides the obvious sweets and junk food) are what flour products. Bread, tortillas, hamburger buns, etc, you name it. And to replace it, I am aiming for very high fat foods. (Avocados, greek yogurt, and nuts are my friends for now, but after this baby arrives, I don't want to see them for a long, long time.)

I've been desperately trying to find a use for avocados besides guacamole, so I've been checking out chocolate avocado smoothies and yogurt. I find that I like the texture of them, but the one I made last night tasted like tree bark. (Ironically my almost-2-year-old loved it. ) I should just give up and continue to eat small amounts of ice cream because that doesn't usually send my blood sugar skyrocketing.

I've been enjoying the discussion about diets! After having a couple of months of inactivity due to some chronic pain problems, I've put on a few extra pounds and I'm starting to count the carbohydrates again. I'd say my diet is about 90% primal right now (darn those cookies and their wiles ), and I seem to have mostly converted my family to primal eating without them realizing it. Doing the majority of the cooking may be wearying, but it conveys much power.

Did you like the shirataki noodles, SL? I've seen those online and I've always wanted to try them.

Oooh, avocados. I used to eat those a lot; I need to pick up some more soon, now that I think of it. I can't remember the exact recipe, but I remember making a kind of key lime pie filling with avocados once... I'm notorious for just adding "a little of this and a little of that" when cooking and never paying enough attention to the precise amounts, but I think it was similar to this recipe. I didn't mess with the crust, though, and used stevia instead of agave for sweetening, plus added some heavy cream. The result was a yummy, summery treat. Now I'm curious about swapping out that heavy cream for some cream cheese and making an avocado lime cheesecake... and apparently I'm not the only person with this idea. That looks really good.

Is the primal diet the same thing as the paleo(sp?) diet? The one that's mostly meat, veggies, and fruit? I'm not terribly up to speed on specific diets. I'd never heard of the one SL mentioned.
Anyways, another good substitute I've found is greek yogurt. (And not that weird non-fat stuff. How can greek yogurt be non-fat???) I tend to mix it with fruit for a snack. It's a good swap for ice cream. And by good, I mean healthy... I'd prefer to eat the ice cream.

I gave up on the chocolate avocado smoothie. I just couldn't get past this weird flavor that made me think of tree bark. But guess who liked it? That's right, my not-quite-2-year-old son. But he likes black coffee soooo..... Yeah. I'll just stick to guacamole with the avocados for now. And that's my kiddo's absolute favorite food ever.

Is the primal diet the same thing as the paleo(sp?) diet? The one that's mostly meat, veggies, and fruit? I'm not terribly up to speed on specific diets.

I usually just say that primal allows some dairy for those who can tolerate it (especially raw, grass-fed, fermented and full-fat) and paleo doesn't, but it's honestly a little more complicated than that. They're two closely linked schools of thought headed up by two different guys. This short article does a pretty good job explaining the main differences.

Anyways, another good substitute I've found is greek yogurt. (And not that weird non-fat stuff. How can greek yogurt be non-fat???) I tend to mix it with fruit for a snack. It's a good swap for ice cream. And by good, I mean healthy... I'd prefer to eat the ice cream.

Ditto. I love greek yogurt, though! I have such a hard time finding the full-fat stuff, however. Usually all I can get my hands on is Fage's 2%. I've always loved adding frozen fruit like blueberries to yogurt with a little sweetener; it makes a quick "frozen" treat.

I have such a hard time finding the full-fat stuff, however.

If you can find it, this is the kind I get and I really like it.
http://www.greekgodsyogurt.com/24oz-products/plain/
Their Honey variety is ridiculously good too. It's too sweet for me right now, but as soon as I'm past the gestational diabetes, that's what I plan on buying again.

I'm having some chips and the hottest salsa I have ever had in my life. A coworker of mine's family is from Mexico and his mom makes an astoundingly wonderful authentic salsa that is to die for. Apparently he told her the last batch she made was "weak" heat-wise, so I suspect she responded by using straight tear gas as the base for this batch. I have had hot foods in my life, and I am here to tell you this is the hottest salsa I have ever eaten. I ate a straight serrano pepper once on a dare and that was 16000-18000 Scovilles of pure pain. This isn't quite that but it's very close to it. Tears are flowing freely down my cheeks. What have I gotten myself into here?

I like spicy food as long as it isn't hot enough to bring one out in sweats/and or cry. Yes nandos is my pick of fast food restaurants.

As for yoghurt, Greek I like for use in curries and so on. I am not a fan of vanilla yoghurt or any of those sweet flavoured yoghurt. They don't really agree with me.

I think I consume way too much cheese. My sister was over for dinner the other day and I made a pasta, and I said "we have put so much cheese on this, mum would of never allowed it".

Our neighbors have an apple tree. We have a crabapple tree. Between the two of us it seems we have more apples than an apple orchard.

So far I've made crabapple juice (it's the first step to making crabapple jelly but we ended up drinking at least a gallon before it made it back to the stove for jellifying...) apple sauce, apple butter, dehydrated almost four gallons of apples, and a couple jars of crabapple jelly.

I'd never made jelly before. It took three tries before I got it to jell, and the only reason it finally clicked was because my sister realized the boiling temp was close to what she needs for fudge, which means you have to boil it really hot... and now people want to figure out a way to make crabapple candy of some sort.

Fortunately there's a lot more apples.