The Bunny Box

Last night was the Second Annual Baltimore Cake Awareness Conference. This event is intended to raise awareness of cake, its social problems, and its place in society. We hear speeches on various cake-related topics and as an added bonus, we get to EAT CAKE! Lots of it! While contemplating what I would make for this year's event, I found a recipe for making Neapolitan Cupcakes. (I don't have a link to the blog because...I lost it. But no, this was NOT my idea.) The recipe seemed easy, fun, and tasty. So...I made them. And they WERE easy, fun, and tasty! So what's in them? Neapolitan Cupcakes Yield: About 36 cupcakes Ingredients 1 box Brownie Mix (prepare batter according to package directions OR just mix with 1 can pumpkin) 1 box Strawberry Cake Mix (prepare batter according to package directions) Vanilla frosting (prepackaged, or homemade. Recipe below) Instructions Preheat oven to 350 Prepare muffin pans by lining them with cupcake papers. Place 2 Tablespoons of the...

Anyone who knows anything about photography knows that it takes more than an expensive camera to make someone a photographer. It actually takes skill, knowledge, and a lot of creativity. And in food photography, that creativity requires the right props. As I've surfed the blogosphere, looking up recipes and seeing other people's techniques, it's become abundantly clear that before I can get those REALLY awesome, mouth-watering shots of my cooking, I'm going to need a little more equipment. I'm going to need nice dishes. I'm going to need an attractive surface on which to place the dishes that DOESN'T have my messy kitchen in the background. And I'm going to need a better memory. Because every time I go to cook something, I completely forget that I want to take pictures of the cooking process. I suddenly remembered this past Friday, and started to take pictures of my chicken preparation. Unfortunately, due to the lack of attractive dishes, the pictures ...

As you may remember (or maybe not) I took a few photos after that ice storm a few weeks ago. Today I had jury duty, so I spent some time playing around with GIMP and seeing how I could improve my pictures. Mostly, I used curves to mess with the light and colors. I'm no professional, but it's a start to getting my pictures the way I want them.

Over Shabbos, we got an ice storm here in Baltimore. I had been warned that the street conditions weren't too great, so the Huz and I decided to stay in and have a family Lost marathon. We had a tasty breakfast, followed by Lost and laundry, then more Lost, more laundry, and then it was snack time. For a while, I've had this big onion in my fridge. I wish I had thought to take a picture of it, because it was pretty impressive. But what I DID think of was onion rings, and I'm glad I did. It took me about 1 episode of Lost to make these, but it was pretty easy. I've seen several recipes for oven-baked onion rings and have wanted to try it for myself. I must say, I have yet to find anything fried that can't be made equally delicious and crispy in the oven, and these were no exception. They came out perfectly crispy and tasty, but without all the grease and fat. While I was making the onion rings, I decided to grab a couple sticks of string cheese and make chees...

Exciting news, everyone! I finally got that camera I always wanted! Now my pictures won't suck as much! I mean, obviously, I still have to learn to use the camera and stage my shots, but I'm working on it. On that note, here's some pictures of this morning's breakfast! With exclamation points!!!! Ever heard of "Eggs in a nest" or "Eggs in a frame"? Usually it's made by taking a slice of bread, making a hole in the middle, dropping an egg in and frying it. This morning, I decided to make it with bagels. The hole's already there, right? Well it turned out pretty tasty. I even tried making it into a sandwich with a slice of American cheese in the middle. Simple. Tasty. But if you don't like runny yolk (like I do. Yum!) make sure you cook it well.

Last year, I went all out and made a really nice Chanuka greeting. This year, I have a 3 month old baby, so going all out for anything is kind of not happening. I haven't even baked cookies since she was born. So instead, I'm just going to link back to last year's post here . Have a wonderful Chanukah, everyone! Edit: You also may notice that my blog has undergone some changes. I felt like it was time to move myself out of the "elementary HTML" look and move on to something that hurts a little less to look at. Hope you like it! More changes will probably come soon.

Since the Huz had the day off on Friday, I took the opportunity to try cooking real shabbos meals again while he watched our daughter. I came up with a couple of pretty awesome recipes on the spot, and I'm kind of proud of myself so I wanted to share them with you. Sweet and Sour Chicken Ingredients: Chicken (I used a whole fryer, but you can use whatever parts you want) Ketchup Sweet and Sour style Duck sauce Srirachi sauce Soy sauce spices: onion powder, garlic powder, sage, oregano 1 onion, sliced Instructions: Use onion slices to line the bottom of your pan (got this idea from my SIL. HI! ~waves~) Clean chicken and place it on top of onion slices. Season chicken with the spices above to taste Mix duck sauce, ketchup, soy sauce, and srirachi sauce together in a bowl. I don't have measurements because I just do everything to taste. The ratio is LOTS of duck sauce to a medium amount of ketchup to a SMALL amount of srirachi sauce and just a DASH of soy sauce. Mess around w...