Chocolate Banana Peanut Butter Cake Takes the Cake

My son turned one a month ago. We decided not to throw him a big "First Birthday" party because he'll never remember it and we have so many adult and baby friends we'd need to invite that we'd never find a suitable party venue we could afford.

What we did instead was show up at a local park on his birthday with a picnic blanket, cake, water, and a few snacks. We also texted and emailed a bunch of people at the last minute inviting them to stop by for a piece of cake. The impromptu get-together meant we kept our numbers and budget low.

The cake I chose was really more suitable for adults than babies, and slices were more like incredibly rich, moist brownies than cake. The key ingredient that made for this texture? Mashed banana. It was dense enough that revelers didn't need forks or plates, which was perfect for the park. Peanut butter frosting served alongside made for an optional topping.

I am looking forward to making this cake again. It was really good.  Find the recipe for the cake here (I used coconut oil instead of olive oil). I also used this frosting recipe.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Baby! I hope there are countless cakes in your future.

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A delicious knock-off could be a victimless crime...

Anybody else remember those "Designer Imposter" fragrances on sale all over the place in the 80s?

It's a tenuous connection, but I couldn't help but think of them after eating what's pictured above. This is a snack of which I'd like to create an imposter.

I also couldn't help but think of David Lynch's Blue Velvet. Don't they sort of look like severed ears?



I really do think I (or anyone) could make these at home. They're chocolate covered dried banana chips with a layer of peanut butter inside. The best ones are thick enough to be crunchy, but thin enough to sort of melt away as you chew them. I'll let you know if I try to DIY these guys.  "If you like Confectious, You'll Love Our Chocolate Severed Ears!" (slogan needs work).

Or, you know, I may just stay lazy and buy some more at Whole Foods.

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To Have and to Hold

Ben & Jerry's Clusterfluff is peanut butter ice cream with caramel crunchies, plus peanut butter and marshmallow creme swirls.  Speaking as a true peanut butter fiend, it's kind of the living end.  I mean, if I were Prince or Jimmy Fallon, this is the ice cream I'd want named after me. 

Now I want to take it with me wherever I go.  It might not last long in blazing heat, but I carried it 6 or 7 blocks to a cat-sitting gig without incident...then ate the entire pint.




p.s. These shoes (Payless) only look decent from the top.  They're so ugly from the side! Good thing they were cheap.

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Cracker Intentions; Cracker Reality

I bought a box of these peanut butter crackers intending them as an easy-to-eat "early labor" snack, but I was in intense labor so quickly (and the whole thing lasted less than 9 hours) that I didn't get to eat anything between breakfast (cherry Nutrigrain bar and orange juice with liquid iron*) and an hour or so after the kid was born.

They're a little dry, but palatable, especially with a glass of milk.

Here are other things I intended to buy before giving birth, based on research I did on some homebirth websites, so that I'd have them for labor and  post-birth snacking (for me and for my support team):

applesauce
bananas
bread
juice/Vitamin Water/lemonade
grapes (to freeze)
Greek yogurt
Clif bars
soup
popsicles
brownie mix (2)
cottage cheese
oatmeal
tater tots
Toaster Strudel
pudding (chocolate)
Emergen-C
miso soup
bagels
fruit

Of course, this didn't happen, thanks to my intense contractions and speedily-born son, but I've kept the shopping list in the diaper bag and intend to pick up most of these items later this week.  They still sound pretty tasty to me. 

*A Lesson Learned: Drinking OJ in labor turned out to be not the greatest idea.

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Poetry Tuesday: The Difference of Its Parts

Smaller than Snickers, I choke back the laugh
Less than p. buttery, nod to that jar
Not rating a video, accidentally un-still
Underwhelming words, and indeed no muse.

I passed!

...my GD screening, that is. If you're curious, I got a 107, and anything greater than or equal to 140 would have required further testing.

I rewarded myself this morning by spreading honey on my peanut butter toast. I also put the two slices together so I could eat them as a sandwich, which is neither here nor there.

And I may or may not have had a secret number of cornflake cookies yesterday, a few hours after the test.

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One last gasp of cookies

I made the leftover Mrs. Fields dough into cookies (102 of them) and cut up 60 pieces of double-decker fudge to take to church today.  And now I think I'm due for a little cookie-making break.  Maybe I'll concentrate on eating the leftovers.

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Other stuff I ate last year:

Grey Dog cookies are huge!  Big cookies have to be soft for me to like them, and this chocolate peanut butter one worked for me. Several times.





Molly and David gave me pie!



Ian gave me pie!



I made a plum cake!

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The Gas Stations Are Alive With the Taste of Reese's

Dress by Velvet -- Anthropologie; Tights by We Love Colors; Leg Warmers by MMAN, according to the tag (source forgotten -- Sock Dreams?); Alpaca Scarf (a gift), made in Argentina

Okay, so the title of this post isn't very melodic, but I just returned from a whirlwind trip to the midwest (Kansas, as it were), for my Grandfather's funeral.  We often watched The Sound Of Music while visiting him and Grandma for the holidays, so I've had some Julie Andrews tunes from that movie running through my head and it's clearly gotten into my blog titles.

Anyway, we spent some time riding around in cars, which meant several stops to get gas and use rest stop facilities, and I couldn't help but notice all the Reese's Peanut Butter products in the gas station candy displays.  Dan picked out two contenders (shown above) for us to sample.

I think I've had a "Whipp" once before.  They're like peanut butter Three Musketeers bars, but I like them better than the current permutation of Three Musketeers, which I believe I've mentioned taste less chocolatey to me than they used to.

The "Crispy Crunchy" was quite nice, too -- and sort of of an upscale Nutty Bar.  I only ate half of this one (I was trying to share with my car-mates), and I'd like a few more bites before I comment extensively.

I'd go for both of these again.

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Food before the food

My office holiday party was this past Friday.  The party started at 5:30 pm (and was held in the office itself), so work pretty much shut down by 4pm or so as last minute arrangements were being made.  I took the opportunity to take a Funny Bones break.

I'm a peanut butter fiend, so I thought I'd love them, but it turns out I'm still a Yodels/Swiss Cake Roll sort of person.  Funny Bones are a bit dry and the peanut butter filling is somewhat dull.

What's your favorite chocolate snack cake?

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Playing Catch-Up

I've found a handful of photos that may reveal more about what I've been eating during my days of radio silence.  There's nothing that unusual here.  For example, I still like chocolate and peanut butter:


I still prefer art openings that feature food:




My friends still know what to serve at parties:


The Egyptians still know their snacks, especially (as it turns out) how to make a nut mix:


I've continued to eat so many baked goods I don't even remember where this cupcake came from:


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Peanut Butter Bliss

R.B. said, "Earwax Cafe in Wicker Park has the BEST breakfast, and you have to have the peanut butter smoothie! Oh yeah!!

We had already had breakfast (at our B&B), but a peanut butter smoothie sounded perfect to me.  So I got one.

It was super-simple (there's a chocolate version, too), but quite good.  Really, it hit the spot. Oh yeah!!

Thanks, R!

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Onigiri Girl

At Crest Fest on Saturday, Dan picked out a carob, banana, and peanut butter dessert onigiri to serve as part of our lunch.  An onigiri is a Japanese rice ball (often triangular), wrapped in seaweed.  They were being sold by Brooklyn Onigiri Company.


Skirt from ModCloth

I liked that it was wrapped in a banana leaf, but I don't agree with the Company founders when they say (on their website), "We try to re-package the traditional Japanese version usually not so attractive, and give it our own twist in terms of looks and flavor."  I think that traditional Japanese onigiri are often quite lovely.  For example, I enjoyed the aesthetics of the one I ate in Seattle.



This dessert onigiri was intriguing, but I would have loved even more filling. Wouldn't I always?

They're not all sweet.  Next time, I want to try the one with bok choy and peanuts.  Here's the menu:


 
Dan told me I shouldn't post this video unless I put music with it.  But I don't have time, so nyah!

Ice Cream, Man.

My friend Nick keeps making delicious homemade ice cream. He sent me home with a jar of chocolate peanut butter cup (homemade peanut butter cups!) a few weeks ago, and we demolished it in one sitting.



I'm encouraging Nick in his idea to run a "CSI" (Community Supported Ice Cream) program in the neighborhood this summer.  At the very least, I think I need to commission some flavors when I start receiving fruit from my CSA.  Nick, I'll happily pay for more jars of ice cream.  Take my money, please!

That's a "Yes!" to yard sale snacks.

This yard sale in Pennsylvania had a table off to one side at which 3 Amish women (a mother and her daughters?) were selling baked goods.



I bought a large peanut butter cookie.  It had a nice flavor but was slightly dry.  I had to eat it in one sitting, as the chocolate on top was melting in the heat of the day.  Not bad as fuel to get me to the next bargain-hunting spot.

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The Green Dragon: Even More Edibles

Pickles. So many pickles.  I bought pickled garlic, and was disappointed to find the brine was sweet.




Peanut brittle.  This stuff was special. 




Peanut-butter filled pretzels.  Subtle in a swell way.



[What is The Green Dragon?] 

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Just another dessert from Whole Foods.

Bakery desserts in the case at Whole Foods are hit or miss.  For example, I found the chocolate pudding far too rich (took me three days to eat it!), and shudder with glee at the thought of another chipwich, but I straight-out-love me their mini pies. 

The "Natural Peanut Butter Bar" pictured above was so-so.  I think they should have skipped the lackluster peanuts pressed into the top and just gone with the chocolate and peanut butter flavors baked into the bar.

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My problems have problems. But not big problems.

What should one do when her vitamin regimen is messing with her meals/snacking schedule? I've been tossed on these horns for the past week or so.

Want to read the medium-length (i.e. could be longer OR shorter, but is neither), medium-boring version? Here you go:

I made up my mind to start taking a magnesium supplement daily. So far I have been unable to work it into my schedule.

Often, I don't eat anything that qualifies as "breakfast" at home. I don't leave myself enough time between waking up and leaving the house. If I'm doing a morning shift, I try to be at work between 8:30 and 9am, and I eat breakfast there.

As it turns out, magnesium needs to be taken on an empty stomach, or with Vitamin C, so my plan has been to take my magnesium pill with a (hydrated) packet's-worth of Emergen-C as soon as I get to work (I could take the pill at home, I suppose, but it seems unlikely I would remember to do that). Then, in theory, I'd wait 30 minutes to an hour before eating breakfast at 9:30 or 10am. Though this begs a question: How long does my stomach have to remain empty (except for the magnesium) in order for it to "count" as empty while the pill is being ingested?

In practice, since "as soon as I get to work" is not only when I like to eat breakfast, but also the quietest time of day in the office, when I put breakfast off until after taking my magnesium, I often get busy with other things and forget or don't have time to ever come back to eat my Peanut Butter Puffins (or other cereal "Flavor of the Week) until it's 11am, and too close to lunchtime for me to back up to breakfast.

OR I eat something and put off taking the magnesium, but then I never know when my stomach qualifies as "empty" again, and I'm loathe to take the supplement incorrectly.

OR I neither eat, nor take the vitamin pill, and just stew in my own indecisive juices.

OR, like the morning pictured above, I finally remember to take the magnesium around 10 am, and then at 11am feel like it's too close to noon for "breakfast," so just eat a handful of dry Peanut Butter Puffins at my desk. Dissatisfying.

At the heart of this dilemma is probably the fact that I didn't consult my doctor before starting to take magnesium (she did recommend a multi-vitamin and calcium, which I also take, along with fish oil caplets, but all of those things can be taken with food). If I had actually talked to the doctor about it, her advice probably would have helped me sort out the timing of things.

What is "an empty stomach," anyway? I mean, how long of a buffer of time on either side of my magnesium do I need to have not eaten?

I could have worse issues. I realize this.

What's boosting my morale today?

Peanut Butter and (barely a) Cupcake

This teeny-tiny (pictured on a 3" square Post-It) peanut butter and jelly bite-sized cupcake is from a place I haven't found yet. That is, I've never been to "Baked By Melissa," the shop that sold the baby cupcake pictured above, which was then shared with me by a kind coworker who happened to be in possession of a sampler box.

So, it tasted a little eggy, but a cupcake with peanut butter on top and jelly filling is a great idea. I liked the flavors together, though there wasn't much cupcake to this bite. In fact, I got so little "cupcake" and so much filling/topping, that I couldn't tell what flavor the cake was supposed to be. Vanilla? It should have been banana.

Baked by Melissa has been in SoHo for some time, but now it's in Union Square, too.


(Thanks, Caitlin!)