Pre-Christmas Baking

I usually make sugar cookies for Christmas, but I had a function to attend that required cookies so I made some a few days earlier. I took two dozen of them (colored red and green) to the event and made these with the leftover dough. They're blue because it was the first day of Hanukkah.

Thanksgiving Baking

Lately I've been baking and forgetting to take pictures of the baked goods or taking pictures that are just so-so.

These pictures aren't the greatest, but I think they convey the deliciousness of our dessert table at Thanksgiving.

Red Velvet Cake with cream cheese frosting. (Yes, I should have taken a picture of an individual piece, but I didn't. If you saw the Throwdown episode, it looked a lot like Bobby Flay's cake.) I doubled the frosting recipe and used the leftover frosting on some chocolate cupcakes I had in the freezer.

Pumpkin pie, nut roll and pumpkin roll. I didn't make these, but I ate 'em.

Sour Cream Coffee Cake

Made with the KitchenAid recipe but using 1/3 of the ingredients. I would have halved it, but the original recipe calls for three eggs.

The loaf pan is the middle size of a three pan set. The largest is red and traditional size and the smallest is yellow and not quite as tiny as the individual mini-loaf pans I have. Those are ridiculous. This blue one measures 8" x 4" and was just about perfect for my coffee cake needs. A few walnuts fell off in the baking, but no major harm done.

Sergio's Sarava Desserts

Sergio's Sarava
13225 Shaker Square
Cleveland, OH 44120
216-295-1200
Dinner; November 4, 2008
Party of Two

We each had a three-course dinner that ended with fantastic desserts. My dining companion and I took shots of all three courses, but the appetizers and entrees didn't photograph as good as they tasted. Also, I kind of forgot all the details of the first two courses and their descriptions aren't online. So, here are pictures and descriptions of the yummy desserts.

SERGIO’S COCONUT BUTTER CAKE – whipped cream, crème Anglaise, toasted coconut
A pretty dense cake that was made richer by the bed of cream it sat on and the dollop of cream that topped it.


OURO PRETO TORTE – black-gold chocolate cake. A dense, flourless cake topped with chocolate ganache and sparkles of real gold leaf

But, I remember the details of my first visit to Sarava (no pictures) in great detail.

Dinner; October 25, 2008
Party of Two

Cocktails
Diner 1 - Mojito
Diner 2 - Mojito mocktail

Shared Street Plates
Crisp Spanish Cheese with kalamata olive and caper-spiced tomato sauce
Prince Edward Island Mussels simmered in a lemon-pepper butter broth
Sticky Ribs with a hoisin BBQ glaze

Diner 1
Pan-Seared Sea Scallops in a ginger-cider reduction with lemongrass and coconut milk, rice and crispy fried spinach (substituted for the seasonal vegetables)
Coconut Butter Cake (see picture above)


Diner 2
Mojito mocktail
Brazilian Beef with black beans and rice, farofa, fried spinach, orange slices and carioca tomato relish
Ouro Preto Torte (see picture above)

The hoisin glaze on the Sticky Ribs started smoky and ended sweet. The scallops' sauce was similarly complex but started spicy and ended sweet. No matter what you get there you should order the fried spinach. It has a crisp texture that just about melts the minute it hits your tongue. The mussels were not at all fishy or chewy and the sauce was the type you wanted to pick up and drink after the dipping bread was finished. The Spanish cheese was no ordinary fried cheese with tomato sauce. My dining companion stated that although she doesn't really like fried cheese she loved this street plate. Maybe it was the sauce.

The food was all about taste and texture and was fresh and delicious.

I'd definitely go back and I'm sure to end my meal with the Coconut Butter Cake. It was delicious warm and cold.

And their Mojitos are to die for.

Cleveland Restaurant Week(s)

This past Sunday started Cleveland Restaurant Week, which is actually two weeks (excluding Saturdays) from November 2-7 and 9-14. During these weeks, participating Cleveland Independents restaurants offer three-course prix fixe menus at (relatively) cheap prices. I've had good, great and phenomenal experiences with restaurant week dinners in the past, and I'm looking forward to the ones I have scheduled this time around.
I'm behind on my restaurant reviews since I didn't have my camera for my recent dining experiences at Henry's at the Barn, Melt and Sergio's Sarava, but I took some shots at my first restaurant week dinner at Sarava (yes, it was good enough to go twice in less than three weeks) so maybe I'll do them all in one post.

10/26! Make A Wish!

This year could see you outgoing, positive, generally happy, young at heart, or able to see the bright side to most any situation. You might have the opportunity to enjoy travel, competition, being a team player, the life of the party, or the one who lights up a room, and your exuberance or confidence could become contagious. You could demonstrate a gift for boosting the esteem of others, however, you can be exhausting, draining, or be feeding off the energy of others around you, or overlooking the suffering of others. You may get carried away, have manic tendencies, or not know when to slow down, relax, or quit, but learning to balance a sunny, extroverted disposition, with the need to chill out once in a while, can result in genuine gratitude for just being alive. This could be a really exciting year for you.

Candy!

I used my candy thermometer for the first time and added a new sweet to my repertoire. As usual, I was inspired to make this particular thing because I happened to have peanuts lying around. And what's a better treat made with peanuts than peanut brittle?




For a first attempt it was damn near perfect. I think the only thing I might do differently is use raw peanuts or add the peanuts later in the cooking. The taste was great and the texture was crunchy that melted into sticky-smooth. It also didn't linger on your teeth like candy likes to do, which was an unexpected bonus.

I found so many recipes that equated peanut brittle with Christmas. It's not part of my holiday memories, but it might be this year.