Bear calzones!

Calzone fillings:  grilled eggplant and green squash, onions, feta, tomato sauce, lots of black pepper.

Piggy Bread (Burger Buns)

Slice it in half and make it a sandwich or a burger!  These are healthy (100%) whole wheat piggy bread.  I wish my other niece was here, she'd love these so much.  I remember the last time I made her piggy shaped buns, she loved it so much and wouldn't eat it.  Instead she'd keep kissing it all the time, until she bit of its nose accidentally and cried.  (^o^)

For these piggies, the dough was different than from the previous time.  This was whole wheat, and the other was white flour.  I'll need do more piggy testing.

Stinky Heart Crackers

Salty blue cheese crackers!  

These were so smelly when they're in the oven baking!!  Maybe I'll try another version- with Stilton and walnuts next time.  This time, it's just blue cheese, garlic powder, and black pepper.

Santa Claus Cake!

Hello! I hope everyone had a very excellent Christmas last week, with lots of food, laughter, and love. Did you get a lot of presents? It snowed in Boston a few days before Xmas come, so the 'white Christmas' was ruined by all the cars making puddles and dirty snow. :( And it became icy too.

I didn't do much, and didn't make this cake until the day after Christmas really. That wasn't laziness, I planned it that way. ^-^


Anyway, this cake has been on my "To-Bake List" forever, since I first saw it here. I was waiting so long for Xmas to come to bake it!

In the demo video, the instruction said to use white chocolate curls for the beard, but I don't have any white chocolate on hand. It would be weird for Santa to have a milk chocolate beard! That's why I used whipped cream for the beard too. It kinda looks like a scruffy beard. ^o^


What's different about this cake (from the regular recipe I use) is that this time I added orange zest to the cake batter, to lighten the flavor up more. It does taste good! I also added a thin layer of chopped milk and dark chocolate on top of the strawberries and cream filling.

Yay! Cake for lunch!! Yum yum!

Someone made a big mess in the kitchen! Booo!

Bunny Bread

I made this awhile ago... Being in a hurry, I didn't shape the bunny ears very well.

Turtle Bread!

100% Whole wheat turtle bread. I used dried currants for the eyes, because they're smaller and cuter as eyes than raisins. ^_^ But I need a sharper razor to score the lines for the shell. It didn't come out very well.

Too Cheesy??

The Spicy 'Chi Heart Pizza- Kimchi Pizza!

Heart shaped is kinda cheesy, but I liked it! I've read a lot on the internet, and apparently, a great combination is pepperoni and kimchi on pizza. Pork goes with everything! :-(

Instead of kimchi alone, I put some crispy veggie ham and sauteed onions to give the pizza more flavor. The sauce is mixture of several different HOT hot sauces and some tomato sauce. However, thinking it over the next day, I thought it might be good to have some pickles on it. Weird, but it needs a sour or salty taste to go along with the spiciness. And some more herbs too. A kimchi pizza do over is in order, I guess!

Breakfast Egg Pizza

Second pizza that night- runny eggs, red bell peppers, chile flakes, corn, cheese, and green onions.

This is my favorite out of the two! Maybe it could use some more eggs. Maybe the kimchi pizza could have used an egg or two, too.^o^

Fresh Picked Strawberries!

Fresh picked strawberries! Yum! These are from Smolak Farms in North Andover.

They also have an annual strawberry festival, as well as hayrides, an ice cream shop (Treadwells), and a bake shop! So grab a coffee and a doughnut before you head over to pick them!

Picking your own berries is very fun, I really enjoyed it. Just remember to mark your calendar, and go around mid-June to enjoy the best.

I think it's better to go during a sunny week, rather than a rainy week, because the strawberries are filled with water (very juicy!) if there are rainy days. But either way, these are very fresh and smell amazing as you're filling up the basket.

Taiyaki!

Wiki: Taiyaki

For these taiyakis, I made them with adzuki bean and mochi filling.

Blueberries are also great, or my niece's favorite on anything- NUTELLA!

The nutella just oozes out when you bite into the cake.
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Taiyaki batter:

- 1 1/2 cups water (or milk)
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 tbs sugar
- 1 egg
- 6 oz, or about 1 cup adzuki bean filling
- spray oil to coat pan

1. Prepare adzuki bean filling, or buy from the store. Soak beans overnight, and cook it the next day with enough liquid that the beans will cook until very soft. Drain out excess liquid, if necessary. Then stir in some sugar (to taste) into the beans and mash them. You can do this 1 or 2 days before.

2. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda+baking powder and salt together. Mix well.

3. In another bowl, beat up an egg with sugar, then add in water/milk.

4. Pour wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix until combined and still clumpy. Don't over-mix.

5. Spray taiyaki pan with oil, heat it on both sides.

6. Pour some batter into the mold, add some adzuki bean filling, and then pour some more batter on top to cover it. Close the pan and flip it over. Cook until golden brown. Repeat making the fishies!

[Steps 2-4, you can substitute with buying pre-mixed pancake batter. Just add eggs and milk according to instructions.]

My Bodacious Butt-Cheeks Pear

Am I imagining too much??
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[I like big butts and I can not lie

You other brothers can't deny...]

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[ I'm tired of magazines
Saying flat butts are the thing...]
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[ I like'em round and big...]
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[ Well shake it, shake it, shake it, shake it, shake that healthy butt
Baby got back...]

My first bread!

This was my first attempt at making bread at home. Gotta say it was very labor intensive, but I really loved it. My niece did too!

I don't have any special cookie cutters, so I used a cup for the face, a bottle cap for the nose, and the nose circles cut into quarters for ears. And peppercorns for eyes!