Kitchen Chaos

This is what my 11 year old daughter made for youth fair. So you could do this. What is a daquoise? it is a meringue cake (usually the meringue has nuts but this one doesn't) that usually frosted somewhat like a normal cake. This one has a white chocolate and dark chocolate buttercream that goes between the layers of meringue and then is topped by a ganache. uh-huh. The buttercream is not the typical birthday cake buttercream that is just butter and powdered sugar, in fact the dark chocolate has a bit of the bitter taste of dark chocolate (enough so that my kids didn't like it without the meringue). Anyway, it is wonderful! but it is also incredibly time consuming. This is something to make for a big anniversary dinner, not a I-feel-like-having-chocolate Thursday. The first step is to make a meringue. And here is the cast of characters that play in the meringue: And yes, buy the 18 pack because you will only have 2 eggs left - and a freezer full of yolks. Unless you ...

Sometimes I wish I followed recipes just because I would like to remake something. I know approximately what I did but I don't know how well I can make it again. The other day, I made a lazy chicken cacciatore - just chicken breasts cooked in spaghetti sauce with an onion and can of gluten free broth. The family was underwhelmed and so there was a bunch left over (I was having stomach problems so I just ate rice). So last night I was thinking of vegetable soup. It was cold and I had been cold all day. I just looked out the window and felt cold. (Yes, I live in Texas and I know those of you who live further north think that we are wimps. I am fine with that. If I wanted to miserable and cold, I would live further north. I chose to live in the south the be warm. And it wasn't.) So I turned the chicken cacciatore into a soup somewhat vegetable-like. I added 5 carrots and half of a red cabbage and another onion. Some seasoning salt went in, as well as some black pepper and ...