Let’s be honest, I’m no Julia Childs in the kitchen, but in the last year, I’ve been trying to expand my culinary skills beyond quesodillas and pasta dishes.  For at least the last month, I’ve been craving a huge bowl of mussels, and I decided that Friday night was the night.  I headed to Whole Paycheck Foods, and came home feeling confident. I popped open some white wine, tied on my cute ruffled apron, and was dancing about in the kitchen when Kris came home.

“Don’t you think that mussels might be a little… advanced?” he said.  WRONG WORDS my friend.  Kris was banished to the living room while I bolstered my confidence with another glass of wine.

Fast-forward 30 minutes and we were feasting on one of the best dinners I have ever had – trust me when I say that this is one of the EASIEST and MOST IMPRESSIVE meals I’ve ever made!  Extra bonus – its fast, and it doesn’t require too many dishes (a total bonus in my itty bitty kitchen).

Spicy Mussels in a White Wine Sauce:


Ingredients:

Instructions:

I served the mussels with some rustic sourdough bread (to soak up the delicious sauce), some grilled artichokes, and a really simple linguine pasta (just boil pasta, drain, add butter, olive oil, salt, pepper, fresh flat leaf parsley, red pepper flakes, and fresh parmigiano reggiano cheese).


I wish I could take total credit for this recipe, but it came out of an old Gourmet Magazine.  Stay tuned for more adventures in my kitchen.  Bon Appetite!

My best friend Kira just celebrated her birthday, and to make it extra “sweet” I decided to bake her a cake.  I am somewhat known for my baking skills in our little group of friends, however, I decided to step things up a bit and test out a fabulous ombre cake I originally saw on Pinterest!!

Glory of Glorious Treats has a fabulous tutorial to making this pink confection, and I was up quite late on Sunday evening baking my heart out.  Unfortunately, I did not realize I had left my pastry bag and tips at my old apartment, and so alas, the outside of the cake does not also have the ombre frosting rosettes.  I’m not even going to lie – the outside of the cake is pretty sad looking, but it’s what is inside that counts.  I tried to cover up the ugly frosting job with coconut shavings.  That was minimally successful to say the least.  Oh well, the real surprise is inside.  Fingers crossed it turns out!  I only wish I had thought to document the process because it was really quite an ordeal.  Take a look at the how-to here.

When researching, I also came across this post on I am Baker.  A totally different variation of layered cakes, but I am just loving the larger roses frosting the top and sides.  It’s a bit more elegant, and dare I say it, maybe a tad easier to make two different kinds of cake (vanilla and chocolate) than mixing a single batter, dividing it by four or five bowls, and mixing gradient colors in each.

My dad’s 60th birthday is coming up as I mentioned… maybe that is the perfect occasion to test this out!  Frosting rosettes and all!