Carrot Cake is a vegetable...right??

It winter in Ohio and that only means cold bitterness until after St. Patrick's Day, but even in the greyness of it all is a little bit of brightness. You just have to dig for it. (Insert cheesy life metaphor here, engage in eye roll and scoff and continue writing while snarky internal dialogue continues...)

It is always a bit of a shock to my out of state friends that almost the entirety of my street is comprised of family members (If they aren't family, we try to make them feel like family.) We know that nothing makes someone feel like family like feeding them like family. Thus, the family community garden, which stretches far further than any of the cinder block community gardens that I have built at my time at Hands On Birmingham. Corn, tomatoes, kale, Swiss chard, cabbage, squash, and other vegetables that have expired for weeks due to cold frosts, expect for the carrots.

With shovels and buckets in hands Saint and I head over to start digging for orange.  With one swift stab to the dirt up pops out grungy bunches of orange deliciousness, but once you rinse them off they are perfect. In days prior I cut them up with whole cloves of garlic and chunks of onion and roasted them with salt, pepper and black cherry balsamic vinaigrette. Simple. Beautiful. Delicious; however it could be better, sweeter, more chocolatey???

My dear cousin is about to pop out what will undoubtedly be the cutest baby ever and I wanted to spoil her with some sweet treats. Chocolate carrot cake makes me briefly think about what Saint ate when she was pregnant with me: peanut butter and pickle sandwiches. Odd combination at first thought, but the more you think about it, the more you want to put it in a cake, frost it up, and gobble it down. (Note to self: find a way to make a peanut butter and pickle dessert and or cocktail...). Cousin (aka Twinsie) is no where near sitting on the couch and dipping carrot sticks into a giant jar of Nutella (Hmmm....), but a cake can and will be done and this is the ooey gooey result.  Totally healthy right??

Twinsie was the first person that I talked about Cody with and I did so because she isand always will be a romantic and love's biggest fan. For telling me to go for it, I will bake her all the love I can and feed her, her adoring husband, and soon to be People's Most Beautiful Baby (Smith).

 

Showdown of SEC Sweets

The SEC Championship game meant a lot to me. It was a game that was suppose to be filled with playful ribbing, well deserved gloating and then pure celebration. I would have most likely worn my 2009 Alabama Championship t-shirt with my Georgia hat and cheered Roll Tide-Sic' Em the entire game and left with a smile on my face no matter who won. In order to keep that smile on my face I decided to bake. In HONOR both teams I had dedicated the day towards a Showdown of  SEC Sweets.

Alabama was represented with a Crimson Pie also known as a raspberry cranberry pie. (I wanted to do a cherry-cran pie, but apparently Ohio does not believe in freezing cherries.) Georgia was represented by a Georgia Peach Margarita Sorbet complete with an extra kick from candied habanero peppers. Think Spicy Icy.

Of course adding habanero peppers was not kick enough. My family likes to add a little something extra to our desserts to truly make it splurge worthy. To the Crimson Pie I added Grand Marnier to give those cranberries a kiss of decadent sweetness. To the margaritas I added tequila and triple sec (like you didn't see that one coming).

 The hardest part of this was picking out the tequila. Of course if if Ashley was in town we would go with the Patron (BLANCO-style); however, my PIC is in North Carolina AND my wallet is slim so I opted for another choice. Now typically, I would NEVER pick a tequila by the label, but Espolon's label was too good to pass up. An angry skeleton riding a rooster into battle??? Yeah....I need that.

To make the margarita sorbet I started with making the candied habanero peppers. I wore plastic gloves while I chopped them up into slender slices to make sure that I did not get any of the oil on my fingertips, which surely would have caused some major pain later on. After I cut up the peppers I boiled together a simple syrup comprised of sugar, water, lime juice, zest, and the peppers. I let it boil for about one hour once the slices resembled glass shards. I drained the peppers and kept the simple syrup to use for either non-dessert margaritas or to add to my nightly cup of tea. Once the peppers cooled I coated them in a good amount of sugar to add some more sweetness. Whew. Candy complete. Skin, eyes, tongue and throat unscathed. Success!

Dangerous Candy. Snack Cautiously! 

Once the candy is done the margaritas are a a piece of cake! You simply blend the peaches, fresh squeezed lime juice, and sugar together until smooth. I mixed in SOME of the candy. To be honest this was just a wild guess and I perhaps played it a bit safe. I took the entire mixture and thew it into the ice cream machine until it frozen up a bit. I removed some to make it non-alcoholic for a very pregnant cousin. Dessert responsibly people!! Once I removed the Not-So-Fun sorbet from the machine, I added in my tequila and triple sec and let firm up again and then put into a container to place in the freezer.  (Total time: 1 hour; Total: shots taken while waiting 0; Status: Exhausted and I still have a pie to make!)

I will admit I needed my mom in order to make the pie. Her crust always comes out phenomenally and with ease while mine usually ends up in the trash and I end up drink a glass of wine covered in flour. Once we start I can see right away that we have two different styles of cooking. You can think of it like sweet, patient, kind Rachel Ray working besides crotchety, vulgar, snarky Gordon Ramsay. I will let you come to your own conclusions on which chef I was. (Hint: Example of Pie-alogue- "This (expletive, expletive) dough doesn't have the (expletive) texture that I (expletive) want. (Expletive, Expletive, expletive!) I (expletive) hate making pie dough. Why am I (expletive) doing this?") R.R.'s character response.."Oh dear..."(cue the endearing giggling) (Cue the scoff and eye roll). Please note that all this could simply be resolved if I was patient enough to accurately measure ingredients instead of rushing.  BAKING IS SCIENCE!

Pie crust. Easy way to get crust in pan without cracking. Filling. Adding butter to make it a bit flakier

Pie crust completed and stamped with an R Rating for viewers. The filling was made with leftover cranberry sauce (that I made) from thanksgiving with fresh cranberries, lime zest, lime juice, sugar and Grand Marnier. I took the leftovers and mixed it in with raspberries and tapioca to make sure that it would be nice and thick once baked.

When sweet meets tart.

Cutting the Alabama 'A' in the top crust again caused some frustration, but mostly because of tears. I had to doctor the top a bit and it caused some berry to bleed into the crust, which I justified as Alabama fans bleed crimson. While the 'A' was not perfect, the taste was. Perfectly tart. Subtly sweet. I will have to invest in some taste testers that are not family though. (Applications currently being accepted.)

While it was hard to determine which dessert was a winner, it was even harder to stomach sweets during such an intense game. Alabama eventually took the SEC Championship 32 to 28. Roll Tide!

Life is Bittersweet (Much more bitter than sweet)

Comfort is hard to come by when you suffer a loss, especially when it is someone very special to you. People cope in various ways, but I have noticed a pattern with some of my favorite shows and movies. Baked goods. There is something comforting about a hot oven, sweet sugar, and the nostalgia of being in a kitchen. Waitress, Pushing Daisies and Stranger than Fiction are simply lovely and full of whimsy (something I fancied once upon a time), coping and redefining life.

Life pretty much sucks right now. It will probably suck for a long time. It isn't very eloquent, but it is the only way I can muster to say it. And while tears in pumpkin pie is not only NOT attractive and NOT ideal for serving, it is completely and totally acceptable. I can cry in my pie if I want to. It is MY pie! But pie (in healthy doses) can cure the soul. Even if it is only for seconds or spoonfuls at a time. Food brings joy to other people and right now smiling (even if it is not me) is essential. Plus...Cody frequently demanded elaborate, Willy Wonka-esque treats and feasts and I will honor him by attempting to make them.

At the end of the day you have to do what makes you happy. Even it if only makes you happy for a few hours at day. It doesn't even have to make you feel happy. I could smile, I could cry, I might throw around bags of flour, but at least I'm doing and feeling something. That being said, I will bake. I will bake (and cook) my feelings. And if beer, wine, and other libations slip in here and there...even better.

 

"As Harold took a bite of Bavarian sugar cookie, he finally felt as if everything was going to be ok. Sometimes, when we lose ourselves in fear and despair, in routine and constancy, in hopelessness and tragedy, we can thank God for Bavarian sugar cookies. And, fortunately, when there aren't any cookies, we can still find reassurance in a familiar hand on our skin, or a kind and loving gesture, or subtle encouragement, or a loving embrace, or an offer of comfort, not to mention hospital gurneys and nose plugs, an uneaten Danish, soft-spoken secrets, and Fender Stratocasters, and maybe the occasional piece of fiction. And we must remember that all these things, the nuances, the anomalies, the subtleties, which we assume only accessorize our days, are effective for a much larger and nobler cause. They are here to save our lives." Stranger Than Fiction