Bake Like A Ninja

Yes, I did fall off the earth. Fell right off and landed in Glendale, AZ where I will spend the next year in hot pursuit of an MBA in Global Management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management. Picking up student life where I left off almost 20 years ago is strange and new enough, but just to liven things up a bit more, I’m living in the dorms. While that does mean invitations to parties where people play things like “tip cup,” it also means that I have no consistent access to a kitchen. My new friend Leona has offered to lend me hers every once in a while and, if I find the time in the madness that is the accelerated MBA program here, I will mosey over there and try to get in a Daring Challenge or two over the year. But the blog is officially on hiatus until I return again to my home and kitchen, where the husband diligently holds down the fort.

Dare it up.

The November 2009 Daring Bakers Challenge was chosen and hosted by Lisa Michele of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. She chose the Italian Pastry, Cannolo (Cannoli is plural), using the cookbooks Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and The Sopranos Family Cookbook by Allen Rucker; recipes by Michelle Scicolone, as ingredient/direction guides. She added her own modifications/changes, so the recipe is not 100% verbatim from either book.

Ah, the deep fry. Producing deliciously tasty treats and requiring all the oil in your house, all the patience you can muster, all the 409 under the sink (for clean up) and all the calories left in your day (for eating)…

Heeeeelllllooooo!

Yes, I’m late with my Daring Cooks post but I have an excellent excuse – I was partying down with my soon-to-be 95 year-old Nana up in Northern California. Pretty good excuse, yes?

A word from our robot sponsors:

The November 2009 Daring Cooks’ Challenge has been chosen by Audax of Audax Artifex and Rose of Bite Me Kitchen. They chose Sushi, specifically Dragon Rolls, Nigiri and Spiral Rolls.

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

The official posting date is past for October’s Daring Bakers challenge, but the new challenge wasn’t up yet and we had eggs that needed using and I figured “why not?” So I made the October challenge – French Macarons. And these cookies…were bad.

The September 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon. She chose the French treat, Vols-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan.
Well, the photos look pretty good!

I could have sworn HP has been around forever, but apparently it’s “contemporary sauce.” I’ll try to get a photo of the “local special meat sausage” tomorrow.

Cheers.

Oh how I love the world wide internets. Even though I’m halfway around the world (and missing home terribly, I’m sure), here I am, posting my September Daring Cooks Challenge! Thank you WordPress and delayed posting feature! It’s August 29 as I write this (so ahead of time for once!) and I’m thrilled to tell you all about the dee-licious Challenge that Debyi at The Healthy Vegan Kitchen gave us for the month of September 2009. “But Kathlyn, isn’t vegan kind of…um, against your religion or something?” That’s a fair question – “untasty” definitely gets my hackles up, but there is a lot of great vegan food (so good you don’t have to tell finicky omnivores about the vegan part!) and that’s exactly what Debyi is doing over there at her blog. If you have food-related issues, or have people you love with food-related issues, be sure to check her stuff out!

Hey there! I’m in Abu Dhabi, UAE until October 28, working at the 3rd annual Middle East International Film Festival. While I’m away, I don’t plan on doing much cooking (there’s a hot plate in the hotel room with me, but not much aside from that), but I do plan on documenting some of the foods I find here. So far I’ve found this wonderful milk substitute pictured above to go with my instant Nescafe, something called “special local meat sausage” and “veal bacon,” along with a slew of absolutely delicious foods that our crew was treated to a couple of nights ago by ADACH, the festival’s parent organization. The UAE celebrates Ramadan, which is in full swing, and the daily fast is broken every night with a meal called Iftar, right after sun down prayer. The Iftar we attended was at the Emirates Palace Hotel (which will also be a film festival venue) and featured an overwhelming number of beautiful dishes – unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera! But I have no doubt that much more is coming our way in the next 7 weeks, so I’ll put as much up here as I can.

The August 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Angela of A Spoonful of Sugar and Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella. They chose the spectacular Dobos Torte based on a recipe from Rick Rodgers’ cookbook Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Caffés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague.

Goodness – it’s time for Daring Bakers again!

This month we have the world-famous Dobos Torta, brought to us by the sweet Angela of A Spoonful of Sugar and luscious Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella. This particular version of the torta is based on Rick Rodger’s recipe out of his book Kaffeehaus:Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Caffés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague.

Hey it’s August 15th…which means I’m late posting for Daring Cooks…again! And I’m short on time today, which means this is going to be short and sweet (a lot more delicious than sweet, really), again. I thought summer was supposed to go at a more relaxed pace than the rest of the year…

This month our Daring Cooks host was Olga from Las Cosas de Olga and Olga’s Recipes. She chose a delicious Spanish recipe, Rice with mushrooms, cuttlefish and artichokes by José Andrés. And if you make it, you’re gonna love it.