Johobbit, you're always talking about making deviled eggs, and so I feel the need to share this with you. Though any deviled egg lovers will get a big kick out of this.

Love, love these. I'll have to try them this summer. Way too cute. Thing is to get them peeled properly so that the white will retain their nice shape. I wonder what the black eyes are made from. Licorice? More likely, black olive. And piece o' carrot for the little nose?

We had a wonderful stew dinner tonight with company. I had made a huge batch on Wednesday, then heated a couple of bowls up tonight. Imho, stew tastes that much the better re-heated. The juice and taste of all the many ingredients simply penetrates everything else. SO tasty!

The cake turned out pretty well, Jo! She liked it. That cake always rises beautifully, so it was a very pretty, rustic-looking little cake. She commented on how when she was growing up, it was common for families to make a cake every weekend... and I said that families were bigger back then and could spread the calories around! So in the name of preserving tradition ( ), I've been trying to figure out how to make some lower calorie cake recipes, or recipes that are at least more "balanced" in terms of carb/protein ratio, by substituting a little whey protein or coconut flour here and there. I'm not sure it's possible to make a healthy frosting recipe that actually tastes good, but healthier might be within grasp. Wish me luck, all.

Those deviled eggs are so adorable, fantasia!

Speaking of stew becoming more delectable with time, Jo, I recently ran across the concept of perpetual stew and I find it rather fascinating:

A perpetual stew, also known as hunter's pot or hunter's stew, is a pot into which whatever one can find is placed and cooked. The pot is never or rarely emptied all the way, and ingredients and liquid are replenished as necessary. The concept is often a common element in descriptions of medieval inns. Foods prepared in a perpetual stew have been described as being flavorful due to the manner in which the foodstuffs blend together, in which the flavor may improve with age.

Sounds like another potential kitchen adventure to me, although it's not exactly the best time of year to embark on such a project in the Carolinas, and then there's the rather crucial food safety aspect that requires quite a bit more research. I have heard of people using this general concept for making bone broth, though, and I've also read that some restaurants in Asia boast of having broth that has been going for more than ten years, but boiled twice a day to keep pathogens at bay.

One thing that I have been doing lately, however, is a perpetual jar of soured oats for oatmeal. I feed it with fresh rolled oats daily, similar to how you would feed a room temperature sourdough starter. I've been more or less following this recipe. It's supposedly more nutritious this way, but regardless, I like the flavor better than regular oatmeal. The hint of sour gives it a nice complexity. I usually sweeten it a bit and add cinnamon with berries, apples, or bananas.

My dad knew a guy back before I was born who was well-known for his perpetual stew. He always brought it to pot lucks in a crock pot and nobody would touch it. I wonder why? I'm going to have to send him this link. He'll get a kick out of it.

I know it's silly, but I've started writing Pi(e) Day in my calendar every March 14. It's a good excuse to make a pie. This year I needed something easy, so I picked out this one I found online.

http://www.crazyforcrust.com/2015/03/no-bake-peanut-butter-chocolate-cream-pie/

It looks amazing, so I hope it tastes as good as it looks.

Anyone else making pie today? Or eating pizza pie?

Alas, I had not the foresight to mark my calendar, so making a pie is not in my plans for today. I have learned my lesson. Pizza pie is a good idea, and the cheesecake leftover from Christmas in the freezer might be an even better one. Yes, it's cheesecake, but whoever heard of a cake with a graham cracker crust? It's a type of custard pie, and I'm well within my rights to partake of a slice today, methinks.

That peanut butter chocolate cream pie looks so good! And easy, too. (Perhaps dangerously easy. ) *bookmarks for future reference, as she is a sucker for all things chocolate and peanut butter*

It wasn't too bad, but I made a mistake in not stirring up/loosening the peanut butter mixture before adding the whipping cream to it. As a result it would not fold in, so that part is a bit lumpy. Be warned if you try it yourself Rose.
Can't wait to dig in tonight!

Yum, fk! Did you have a lot of help making the pie?

Enjoy your cheesecake, errr, pie, Rose.

I wasn't going to make a pie for today, but my sister and her flatmate were planning on making one and encouraged me to make one too. I don't own a pie pan, though, and was a bit short on proper pie making supplies, so I improvised. I, oddly enough, had two cans of cherry pie filling (for another project that I never got around to making ), and the ingredients for a pat-in-pan crust and a streusel topping. And I made it in a 9x13 pan.

I took it to wok and put this note on it:
"Happy Pi Day! 'cause we miss circles when they're not a-round."

I have some left (which is rare), but several of my coworkers said they liked it, so that was good.

My Pi Day dessert looks like this:

It's a non-chocolate ice cream cake. Vanilla ice cream, strawberry ice cream, and a lemon butterscotch cookie.

Yummy!!! Both of those desserts look delicious, Valia and Mel!

I am so glad Pi Day was my cooking day, I got to pick and bake/make the two pies. Several of my young siblings helped me make the pies - Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie and Chocolate Coffee Pie. Same base recipe, two variation. We had a blast baking, drinking coffee (mostly I drank the coffee), and listening to Disciple on the stereo, hooray for days when parents have errands.

Sadly I have no pictures to post. I tried to take pictures of the pies, but I couldn't get the white balance right. However, I do have a recipe.

Chocolate Cream Pie

3 T. cocoa
2 1/2 cup milk
1 cup sugar
6 T. flour
1/2 tsp. salt
2 egg yolks, beaten
2 T. butter
1 tsp. vanilla

1 baked 9 inch pie shell

Combine cocoa, sugar, flour, and salt in a sauce pan; gradually add milk. Stir over low heat until thickened. Temper eggs, add to chocolate mixture. Cook for two more minutes. Mix in butter and vanilla. Pour into pie shell. Serve chilled and topped with whipped cream.

For the Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie - I mixed 8 oz. cream cheese, 3/4 cup peanut butter, 2 or 3 T. milk, and 2 or 3 T. sugar. And then spread on the baked pie crust and topped with the chocolate "pudding".

For the Chocolate Coffee Pie (it wasn't creamy, so I won't call it Mocha) - I made the chocolate cream and just added 3 T. instant coffee to dry ingredients.

So, I order this new to me coffee on the 1st...also the first time I have ever bought coffee beans to be exact. Four different kinds from the Black Rifle Coffee company, in two days I have tried two: Just Black and Sniper's Hide. It was a big splurge for me, so I was nervous about it, I shouldn't have been. It's good coffee. My sisters offered to take the coffee beans and my brothers offered to take my ammo cans that I bought to store the coffee beans in, my siblings are just all heart. We (three siblings and I) were drinking Sniper's Hide while cooking today, I got a full mug and they got shot glasses (which we normally use to take oreganoil).

SnowAngel

Yum, Mel!

Yum, SA! Those pies sound delicious.

I made some peanut sauce chicken stir fry this week. My mom makes a delicious Thai pork crockpot dish, which I was craving, but didn't have the recipe or ingredients. I looked up four or five recipes and then winged it off of what I did have. I served over spaghetti since I didn't have any rice or rice noodles.
About 1/4 c. peanut butter mixed with a couple tablespoons of water; I microwaved it for about 30 seconds so it mixed better. Then I added a pinch of ginger and a couple pinches of garlic, then a tsp or so of brown sugar and another tsp of white vinegar. I mixed it all together and then poured it on top of the vegetables and chicken I'd heated up in the skillet.

The "essential" ingredients I seemed to be missing were soy sauce and rice vinegar/red wine vinegar. But I thought mine turned out delicious, so I'm sure I'll try it again.

I'm curious, who all has tried one of those new unicorn frappuccinos from Starbucks and what did you think? I can't... I'd be admitted to the hospital shortly thereafter in diabetic shock. But my niece tried one and really liked it. I guess it's mango base?

Not I, fk.

I haven't had much time for culinary adventures the past couple of months, but three observations...

1. You can make a pretty tasty flourless chocolate cake from a very starchy purple sweet potato. I'd had one sitting around for a couple months and didn't know what to do with it because the other one I bought was so dense and starchy it wasn't much good for eating. Perfect for baking, though! I need to keep experimenting with this idea and get a written recipe hammered out.

2. You can substitute at least 1/3 of the powdered sugar in chocolate frosting with unflavored whey protein, so long as the whey protein tastes good on its own (i.e. undenatured). One of these days I'm going to open a bakery for bodybuilders if I keep this up. Obviously, I'm not sure how long it's safe at room temp since the sugar content is lower.

3. 1 boxed brownie mix + 1 boxed chocolate cake mix = 1 happy brother on his birthday. I wanted to make something for him from scratch (preferably this, which looks delicious), but I ran out of time last month. Interestingly, the combined boxed mixes (which I halved, or else we would have had way too much cake) separated slightly when baking, resulting in a fudgier layer and a neat look when the cake was cut. It reminded me of some magic cake recipes that I ran across about a month ago. Has anyone ever tried a recipe like that?

Has anyone else tried the "Cloud Egg" trend?

My boyfriend and I decided to try it the other night. You separate the yolks from the white, then whip the whites with a mixer until you get stiff peaks. Then you put the whites in mounds on a pan with parchment paper and make little "nests" so that you can safely put the yokes back in them later. You bake for 3 minutes, put the yoke back in with seasonings, and bake another 3 minutes. And voila!

Now, when we did it, we don't have a mixer, so we hand whisked. That took SO LONG. We took turns. We also didn't have parchment paper. We just put it on the pan and hoped for the best. Honestly, it was fine, so I don't think you NEED parchment paper.

With all that being said, it was just okay. I prefer my pan friend eggs. We came to the conclusion it's a cool thing to bring to a party to show off or something, but not for everyday. It's very light so it feels much less filling and satisfying.

I've missed out on the cloud egg trend mm1991, and thanks to your trying it already, I will probably pass as it doesn't sound like it's worth the effort. Though I do at least have a stand mixer I can whip an egg with.

I thought I'd share a link for one of my latest addictions that I discovered thanks to gestational diabetes while pregnant.
Buddha Bowls!
They're a lot of prep work, I will admit, so I have to wait to the weekend to make/eat it as there's no way I can do it now with three kiddos on a weekday. But it's worth it.
Honestly, just the chicken part of this recipe is worth making by itself, and then you can do whatever you want with it.