I have burned food twice in the past two weeks on account of being distracted by thinking about Narnia. "Bother! I've left my brain in Narnia!" I'm reminded of a story about one of my favorite authors, Diana Wynne Jones, who once was so distracted by a new story idea that she put an old shoe in the oven for her children's lunch.

I was pretty busy in the kitchen last month testing out different cake recipes for my birthday. I ended up making a grain-free version of a hummingbird cake, a classic Southern recipe that's made with pineapple, chopped bananas, pecans and cinnamon and is iced with cream cheese frosting. (This fun article gives a rather detailed account of the recipe's history.) It's one of my absolute favorite cake recipes! My version cuts down on some of the oil by using sweet potato puree and I also add a little bit of pumpkin pie spice to go with the cinnamon.

One other thing I've been enjoying this summer is testing out ice cream recipes with a kind of freezer mug. It has refrigerant in the walls of the mug and is meant for making slushies in a short amount of time. (The one I've got is made by Zoku.) If your freezer is cold enough and you churn the mixture in the mug for about 15-20 minutes instead of 10-15 for a slushie, you end up with soft-serve. It's great for experimenting (who wants to make a quart of an untried ice cream recipe?) and also good because I can only make about a cup at once and I don't have to deal with the temptation of having a tub of ice cream in my freezer.

Oh, and speaking of ice cream recipes—this article has some great tips on how to make homemade ice cream softer/less icy! I don't put much sugar in my recipes, but I've been utilizing gelatin with good results.

Today is my daughter Ariel's second birthday, so I am making a Red Velvet cake from scratch for the first time ever. I'm also making something called Ermine Icing (aka Boiled Milk Icing) which I had never heard of before but I needed an alternative to Cream Cheese Frosting which my son hates. Apparently Ermine Icing was the original official Red Velvet cake frosting. Interesting!

That's interesting indeed, fantasia! I've never heard of ermine icing before. How did it turn out? I'm always intrigued by icing recipes that don't call for powdered sugar, since I often use sugar alcohols like xylitol and erythritol to cut down on my sugar intake and they are hard to find in powdered form. I've read that back in the old days, those types of icings were seen as more economical because you didn't have to keep both granulated and powdered sugar in the kitchen.

Ermine Frosting, I don't know why I didn't post the link here....
http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1016330-ermine-icing
So, it did not turn out well. If I were to guess, I would guess that I did not get the milk and flour mixture thick enough, because once I added it to the rest of the frosting ingredients, the consistency was more like a glaze instead of whipped cream. It tasted good though and we spread it on French Toast.
For the cake we made good ol' vanilla buttercream.

To post a separate recipe that I made today, Beef and Butternut Squash Soup by Giada.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giad ... ecipe.html
I am not a squash fan usually, but I have tasted it and it's awesome, and now I'm sitting here waiting for my husband to get home so we can eat it!

This time of year around here, the attention turns to apples. Fresh apples from the orchard, apple pies, apple turnovers, and so on.

Around mid-October I like to take a drive down the Mississippi River valley to look at fall colors, find tasty apple snacks, and end the day with a nice bonfire. I did this over the weekend and hoped to find some apple fritter bread at a place I frequent - it's so good! Alas, I'm not the only one to think so, and it was all sold out.

I am not much of the cook or baker, but my Mom is wonderful at it. Now that I am 16 years old I think it just might be time to get into the kitchen with Mom and start learning because I don't want to end up with a Hubby in the future that has a wife who doesn't know how to boil an egg.

Sorry to hear that the ermine frosting didn't turn out quite as planned, fantasia, but I heartily approve of the french toast solution.

That beef and butternut squash soup recipe sounds really good! Now that the weather is turning colder, I've been making a tomato pumpkin soup with tomato paste, canned pumpkin and milk with a few spices. It's really easy and very tasty.

All of those apple treats sound delicious, gazer! I've been baking granny smith apples with cinnamon lately, but suddenly some apple dumplings sound like a very good idea.

Sounds like you'll be able to learn a lot from your mom, Hays! I'm pretty comfortable in the kitchen, but my boiled eggs always end up impossible to peel cleanly. I've heard that using eggs that are a few weeks old works better; I'll have to make sure the eggs aren't super fresh the next time I try to boil some.

Is is true that before you boil eggs like before you do it for Easter Egg Coloring you should put them in your Fridge for several hours in ice cold water? My Mom could teach me a ton, but she will have to have a lot of patience just like my Dad does with teaching me driving.

So for boiled eggs, I always use store bought as my in-laws eggs are far too fresh and won't peel.
Here's the fool-proof way my mom taught me and it works every time, provided I'm paying attention.
Put your egg in a pot of room temperature water on the stove and crank up the temperature. Once it reaches a rolling boil, start a timer for 13 minutes. When your timer goes off drop your egg into ice water to cool.

OK, that is what I was thinking about the ice cold water, but it was after you boil them. I think I will go down to the kitchen a help Mom with making Dinner tonight. I hope she doesn't faint.

Here is the recipe for the pumpkin/cheesecake/pecan pie I mentioned in Games and Blogs. I ran out of time to make it for Thanksgiving, but it still sounds really good.

I did, however, try one for an eggnog pie, and that was pronounced a qualified success. (The crust refused to come out of the pan. )

Ooh, thanks, Mel! No idea if I'll try it (at least any time soon), but the pumpkin/cheesecake/pecan pie concept makes more sense to me now.

I made a couple of apple pies for Thanksgiving. They turned out pretty well, and it took less than an hour since the apples were pre-sliced.

I'll have to try that method for boiled eggs soon, fantasia! Thanks!

Oh wow, Mel! That "chumpcan" pie is a thing of beauty! *bookmarks for future reference* I can see why you switched over to plain pumpkin pie on a busy Thanksgiving Day, though; a recipe with several steps can become a bit stressful when you're running low on time.

One of my favorite Thanksgiving treats is sweet potato casserole. We didn't get around to making it this year, but lately I've been adding pumpkin pie spice and butter to mashed sweet potatoes and that's a nice substitute.

I tried making an eggnog cake with frosting. It was horrible! That really messed with me because usually - not to toot my own horn or anything - I'm a great baker. Hey, I blame the recipe! Anyways, for my first attempt at making homemade frosting, it wasn't *that* bad!

Does anyone have experience with sourdough, particularly the starter? I started it probably four months ago and it's been doing okay (not great), but I always have probably about 1/2 c. to 1 c. left of the starter after I take out the 1 c. weekly. At least I did until this week: it looked like about a 1/4 c. was left. I've been adding 1 c. of flour and 1/2 c. of water each week, and moving the starter between mixing bowls. Is there anything else I should be doing?

I made a pan of baked oatmeal last night, which turned out pretty well, though it's a bit plain. It was a recipe with applesauce, which I used pearsauce for (including subbing it for the butter), and I added some golden raisins and walnuts I had on hand. I probably should've added some cinnamon and nutmeg to it, but I was afraid of adding too many things and getting a weird flavor combination. Oh well.