We’ve been working hard lately to re-work our training material at my company. It’s a lot of technical stuff and the material can get a little dry. We’re at the tail-end of the project, and a little treat came our way.

The creative team at my company came up with a mascot of sorts we’re going to use to help guide the new hires through the book. This little guy was presented to us and I fell in love with the penguin. What do you think?

OKay, I just have to let someone know about REVERSE HAPPY HOUR at McCormicks and Schmick’s. We go to the movies about once a month and what’s a real treat for us is that our movie theather is a cross between art-house and mega-monster movie plex. So, we’ll get first releases and the option of choosing between some nice restaurants.

The down side is, that if you want to do dinner and a movie, you’ll pay $10 each for the movie ticket and at least $60 on dinner; You have no option. Well, you have no option unless you know about Reverse Happy Hour at McCormicks and Schmicks (M&S).

M&S is one of those places you’d go eat dinner if you wanted to have a nice meal for no reason, right, it’s not 5-star, but it’s not Red Lobster either. They do have good seafood, that’s their bag.

Starting at 10:00 PM, they put out their Happy Hour Menu and it is fabulous. Last night they had Ahi Tuna Tostadas with Horse raddish and Penfolds 2004 Shiraz. The deal is that no food option is over, $1.95! Penfolds Shiraz is usually $9 a glass was only $5!

If you have one in your area, you should really go check it out.

So, we really like to travel, right? And, I hope it’s obvious that we really like to eat. I have a party planning theory, “if you have a theme, it’s easier to start.” With that advice at heart, I’ve decided that I would plan a monthly theme around some destination; Sound fun?

Sidebar- We went to Belize for New Year’s and the way we choose it was quite fun. We were sitting at a bar one evening and each of us chose a place we’d like to visit. We wrote the names on a napkin, dropped them in a martini glass and had a random guy at the bar choose one. It was a great vacation, a little too much like the TV show Survivor. This is really my husband catching our dinner. Not kidding, he had to catch our food. Grrr. What a hunter!

With that spirit, I want to choose a place and cook in that style for a month. Learning about it’s customs, it’s cuisine. Here’s your challenge blog readers…Do you have a vote on which country or region I should choose from? If you do, submit your vote, I’ll be drawing before August 1!.

I don’t ever need a huge excuse to have a party and the bug had been in me for awhile to host something. One day while shopping with friend at my new favorite party store, Swoozies, we came across the sassiest invitations and that was all the excuse I needed.

Those invitations needed to be mailed and I had just the idea; a Save room for Dessert party! Now onto my plan, what to eat. My menu went through several variations and last minute changes, but I think the final list was full of sweet sensatations:

• B-52 Cupcakes
• Lemon-Ginger Cheesecake
• Spicy Chocolate Brownies
• Palvaronies
• Pecan Bars
• Chocolate Chip Cookies

In my opinion, the highlight of the evening was the B-52 Cupcakes, a last minute decision, and icaneatthefrostingfortherestofmylife! What was fun about these cupcakes was that I used homemade kahula a colleague gave me for Christmas to cook the cake with and the whipped cream frosting had Bailey’s. The frosting alone was amazing and it could double as a great topping for Irish coffee.

I can’t wait for my next party! Wanna come?

What does a girl do when her guy is out of town…she plays in the kitchen. I’m working on planning what I hope is an amazing dessert party. I want to make cheesecake spoons. I think the serving size would be just perfect. I don’t have any pictures of my work thus far (we lost the camera in Puerto Rico). They’re not perfect yet, but here’s how it went:

Materials

• spoons, semi-sweet chocolate, crisco, one box no bake cheesecake, berries (strawberry or raspberry)

Prep

• Heat the chocolate in a bowl deep enough that it’s easy to dip into. For every 1/4 cup add 1 T. of crisco.
• Mix cheesecake according to the box and let chill for 30 minutes
• Mix sugar into graham cracker crust

Process

• Dip spoons in chocolate and quickly roll them in the graham cracker crumbs. Place on a cookie sheet and let cool in the reproduction
• Take the cooled cheesecake dough and place on the spoons
• Place back in the fridge and serve chilled

Variations

• Place berries on each spoon
• Redip in the chocolate and completely cover

I had a lot of fun experimenting. For those who are completely offended because I used a box cheesecake, it just seemed like the most efficient and economical method. What I plan on doing for my party is mixing a smaller batch of raspberry and zebra cheesecake. I think that will be yummy.

Ever since our trip to Italy last summer, it has a cemented place in my heart. There wasn’t one city, one moment that I didn’t love about being there. My husband worked for a German company and spent 50% of each month for three years over there. That said, the World Cup caused a bit of a situation for us (well for him).

He’s really into the World Cup and I’m not. But, when my team played, whew, was I ever the fan. So to pay tribute to our two favorite teams, I created a menu that would celebrate both.

The menu

Rouladens d’ Beef
German potato Salad
Sauerkraut
Tiramisu

My dad loves Rouladens and I have a few recipe’s, one from Rachel Ray and another I found from an old Army Brat’s recollections; I chose the latter. It was great. The recipe says to put a whole pickle in the wrap, but I can’t bring myself to do that, so I dice all the ingredients and I think the texture in the finished recipe is more desirable. On this round, I also added horse radish to the spicy mustard in the filling.

Now for the Tiramisu, I searched for a recipe and the one that took the cake (pardon the pun) was a traditional recipe found on Epicurious.com. I read through the reviews and noticed that most of them said that the lady fingers were a little runny. I tried to adapt and use only 1 c. coffee with 3 T. Fangellico. As I was soaking the lady fingers according to the recipe, I thought that there wasn’t enough liquid. By the time I worked my way through 20+ lady fingers I had to add more coffee.

Well, here’s my lesson learned. Soak the lady fingers less, thereby using less coffee, thereby a less soggy tiramisu.

Whew! all that cooking didn’t lend itself to getting much laundry done. I don’t know if you know this or not, but those clothes don’t fold themselves. Sometimes when life is sooo yummy it can be so unfair.

Okay, to get into the spirit of this recipe, there are some unusual ingredients that must be incorporated. The first is that you must have Jimmy Buffet playing in your kitchen. I know it sounds strange, but it is an absolute requirement. There’s something chemical that won’t allow the cake to bake evenly if you don’t. Next, is that you must have something fruity to drink while you’re baking; I was drinking blueberry-pink lemonaid sangria.

I started by googling a few recipies and didn’t like any of them 100%, so I changed, combined and concocted something that I’d rate with 3-stars. Next time I might try to use a scratch lemon cake recipe instead of the box. To me it’s hard to cover that box cake taste.

Here’s the recipe:

for the cake
3/4 c. oil
3/4 c. orange juice
5 eggs
1 3-oz. pkg. lime flavor Jello
1 box lemon cake mix
1/4 c. lime juice
5 T. powered sugar

for the glaze
3 T. Key lime juice
5 T. powered sugar

Combine the oil, orange juice, eggs, Jello and cake mix, beat until sooth. Pour into a greased and floured 9″x13″ pan and bake at 325 for 20-30 minutes. Mix glaze and pour over cake. Garnish with extra Key Limes.

Before we can launch into what is a Prissy Cook, it’s best to start with some definitions:

pris·sy- Excessively or affectedly prim and proper.

cook- one who prepares food.

I’m a firm believer in three meals a day and I always try to clean my plate (blame that on my good Southern upbringing). With that, I operate in this world with a fewidiosyncrasiess and I’m afraid that one day they’ll turn into fully qualified OCD. But, until I’m clinical, we’ll just say that I like things a certain way; Pantry organized by food group, labels facing the front and boxes in order by height. Nothing to me that seems too left-field, but a few have commented on it.

What’s allowed me to be creative is working with food. I allow myself to get the kitchen messy, sometimes I don’t using measuring cups and I always have fun sharing my creations with my husband and with our friends.

I’ve made a commitment that I will try at least one new recipe a week, and post my results here. Hope you enjoy. Bon Appetite!

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