A funny thing happened to me last Thursday, I realized it was Thursday. “Holy crap”, I told my husband, “it’s Thursday”. I believe I got some smart remark back about next week we would go over the months in the year, once I got this whole days of the week thing down.
Which actually might not be a bad idea since I keep writing August on everything…yeah, it’s October next week. Which by the way, how on Earth is that possible? The point being in all of this though, is that in discovering it was Thursday meant that I completely spaced on Tuesday. Or more importantly, Tuesdays with Dorie.
Life has been extra unique as of late. LFB still battling her eye. CCS decided that she needed to compete with an illness of her own, going to the Vet herself for tummy and poopy issues (festive). And in all of this I am sick as well. I have that fun I don’t really seem sick until I lay down to sleep, then I cough like crazy and can’t sleep, no matter what. I even have a sexy side effect of broken blood vessels in my eye (I wanted to make LFB feel better ). So with no sleep and a whole lot of stressing over my furbabies, I’m surprised I even realized it was Thursday.
So needless to say it was a small victory for me to get this week’s challenge done. I didn’t have plums but I had pluots in the fridge (which if you don’t know is a cross between an apricot and a plum). This weeks TWD recipe (chosen by Michelle of Bake-en) was Dimply Plum Cake, which looked good but seemed a tad on the boring side to me (aka, not fattening enough) so I felt the need to add a little toffee sauce to it. I made individual ones in muffin pans (yes, I cleaned the pans) because I thought it would showcase the pluot better, not sure that it did. Oh well, worth trying, eh? If you do make the muffin form, they take about 22 minutes to bake up.

P.S. If you want to read a little more about me, you can read my interview over at Simmer Till Done.

Pecan Toffee Sauce

3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup unsalted butter
1/3 cup whipping cream
1 TBSP vanilla
1/2 cup chopped pecans, toasted

Stir brown sugar and butter in heavy medium saucepan over medium heat until melted and smooth, about 2 minutes.
Add cream and vanilla and bring to a simmer. Simmer for about 5 minutes and then add pecans.

When I wanted a bunny (having owned many in my life) my husband asked me “what on Earth do bunnies do”? The thought of having a rabbit as a pet was something he had never thought about. I explained that just like a dog or a cat that the bunny would eat, sleep, poop, pee, play (not necessarily in that order though). Play? How does one play with a bunny is what he was thinking. Lots of ways, though her favorite is pretty much a game of hide and seek. She tries to play this with CCS as well, but CCS is a little too dense and just sits there staring at her.
My husband had to admit that our bunny has as much personality as our dog. She is a diva from time to time, especially if you move things around in her cage. For if you do, she takes them and drags them back to where she thinks they should be. She drags her bowl to the front of the cage in the morning and bangs it to let you know she wants her food. She squeals with delight when she sees she is getting apple juice (she gets a little after she gets the yucky medicine that tastes gross). She’s learned to knock over the trash can in order to hop on top it to get to the toilet (lid on) so that she can hop up to the counter where her hay is kept. She knows when I am playing with her and I am laying on the ground that if I hum she comes over and puts her nose to mine. She’s so much more than a little ball of fuzz.
Which is why the last week and a half have been sad for me. I can not tell you the number of people, (no comments on here, but a couple emails) mostly in real life, that have told me just to let my rabbit die and get a new one, that it is not worth it. I get comments like, “it’s not like it’s a dog” or “a $20 bunny is not worth any amount you have spent”. Of course I beg to differ.
Economically owning a pet, any pet, never makes sense. CCS has bad teeth and has to get them cleaned yearly as well as have fatty cysts removed. All quite costly. Yet no one tells me to kill my dog. LFB has already cost me a pretty penny. She has had to go to the Veterinarian 3 times in a little over a week.  And we still might have to be having surgery anyway. LFB was having a good chance of keeping the eye on Monday but things took a turn for the worse on Wednesday and her eye became cloudy. So back we went to the Veterinarian. She has white blood cells dispersed thought out her cornea. If it is a reaction to the eye drops she started on Monday, she should be okay. If not, the eye will most likely have to go. And yes, that will be pricey. And yes, I will pay it. Because she is my pet, that I took responsibility for and love. So why would I let her die. ?
Because she is being poked and prodded several times a day she has been getting lots of little treats. She loves carrot tops and so I keep going down to the farm to get them. The only thing is, she doesn’t really like the carrot part of the carrot. So here I have all these carrots. I needed to be doing something with them, so I did.
This loaf is probably half bread, half cake. I only gave a thin layer of frosting because this was suppose to be more of a bread than a cake. If you want more icing, by all means, make more. This is fairly versatile, you could add nuts, pineapple, currants. I stuck to just the basic carrot and raisin.
P.S. If you look at the picture of LFB down below you can see her little white dot that is causing so much trouble. Thanks to those of you giving good thoughts to her.

Little Fuzzy Bunny’s Carrot Raisin Loaf

¾ cup flour
½  cup granulated sugar
1 tsp baking soda
¾  tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
¼ ground ginger
¼  tsp freshly grated nutmeg
zest of one medium orange
¼  teaspoon salt
1/3 cup Canola oil
2 eggs
1 cup finely grated carrot
½ cup raisins

Preheat the oven to 350°F.
Butter and flour a 9-by-5-inch or 4 1/2-by-8 1/2-inch loaf pan.
In a large bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, spices, zest and salt. Set aside.
In a small bowl, whisk together the oil and eggs until blended, and then stir the egg mixture into the flour with a rubber spatula.
Fold in the grated carrot and raisins.
Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and smooth the top with an offset spatula.
Bake for 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool until easy to handle, and turn out onto a cake rack. Frost when completely cool.

Maple Cream Cheese Frosting
4 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
3 TBSP unsalted butter
1 teaspoon maple extract
1 cup powdered sugar

In a bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment, combine all the ingredients and beat on medium speed for about 5 minutes.
Spread the frosting on the top of the loaf.

About a month ago, I went to a birthday party for Jessie (for both her and her blog) of Cakespy. If you don’t visit Cakespy, you should. Jessie makes the cutest illustrations of cupcakes that you ever did see. And speaking of cute, Jessie is about as adorable as a person can possibly be! Seriously. She also is the size of my leg. Apparently every time she eats a cupcake the calories get sent to my thighs, not hers.
It was of course held at a cupcake shop (Cupcake Royale). While we were there we were served 3 mini cupcakes. One of those cupcakes was a white cupcake with fresh strawberry buttercream frosting. Wow that was good.  So good I needed to take the larger version home. Since I only bought one it was gone before I knew it. And darn it, I wanted more! The drive down to Seattle seemed a bit much just to get a cupcake (though it was contemplated) so I decided to do the next best thing, make my own. My muffin pan was dirty, so I made a layer cake (gosh I am lazy, just wash the stupid pan Peabody).
I did not go for fancy with this cake. I wanted a real homemade feel to it, so I made my frosting on the thin side so it could drip down the sides. The frosting at the cupcake place was thicker. If you want thicker you can just add more powdered sugar.

Little Fuzzy Bunny was born in Snohomish, WA. Mostly consisting of farmland but with new construction moving in, LFB can be considered a small town rabbit. With small town values.
At only 5 months old, LFB provides youth to the ticket. Even at this young age, she has already faced adversity, currently dealing with the possible loss of her eye. Last week as many of you know LFB was told she had a 50/50 chance of losing her eye and would most likely be blind in the eye if it could be saved. This past Monday at her check up we are please to announce that she now has a greater chance of keeping the eye than losing it. She also has regained some eyesight in it which they are very excited about. She is not out of the woods just yet, so your thoughts and prayers would still be appreciated.
Since LFB is on the mend be sure to look for the Fluff ticket to be covering the issues in the coming blog posts.

P.S. Our campaign manager (my dad) says we might be up to $5 in contributions…go us.

(We are CCS and LFB, and we support this blog post)

Classic White Cake with Fresh Strawberry Buttercream Frosting

White Cake
1 cup whole milk, room temperature
6 egg whites
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups cake flour
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter (6 oz), softened

Preheat oven to 350 F.
Grease two 9 inch cake pans with vegetable shortening, line the bottom with parchment paper, grease the parchment paper and flour the pans.
Combine milk, eggs whites and extract in a small bowl with a fork. Set aside.
Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in an electric mixer and mix at slow speed with a paddle attachment. Add butter. Continue beating at slow speed until mixture looks like wet sand (If you’re doing this by hand, sift the dry ingredients together and rub in butter).
Add all but 1/2 cup of milk mixture and beat at medium speed for 1 1/2 minutes. Add remaining milk mixture and beat for an additional 30 seconds, scraping the sides of the bowl if necessary. Do not overmix.
Divide batter evenly between prepared pans and gently shake to smooth batter. Bake 30-35 minutes, until toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Let cakes cool in the pans for 15 minutes then invert onto racks to cool completely before frosting. Unfrosted cakes can be frozen for 1-2 weeks.
Serves 12-16.

Adapted from Baking Bites.com

Fresh Strawberry Buttercream Frosting

1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
4 cups (may need more or less) powdered sugar, sifted
1 cup finely chopped fresh strawberries
1 tsp vanilla extract

Beat butter and 1 cup powdered sugar on medium speed for 1 minute.
Add vanilla and strawberries and beat for 1 minute.
Adding 1 cup at a time, add the remaining powdered sugar. You may find that you need less than 4 cups or more than 4 cups depending on the consistancy of the frosting you are going for. I wanted mine to drip down the sides so I went with less sugar.

Photo from Bon Appetit.com

You’ve heard it before and I will say it to you now, just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Case in point, the muffin top. The once delicious part of an actual muffin, the term has now come to (according to Wikipedia) “describe the phenomenon of overhanging flesh when it spills over the waistline of trousers or skirt in a manner that resembles the top of a muffin spilling over its paper casing. This generally occurs when an individual wears low-rise, hip-hugger pants, or midriff-baring tops that are too small.” Meaning just because you can squeeze yourself into a size 8 pair of jeans, if your ass is a size 12, it ain’t going to look pretty.
Bon Appetit has made their own muffin top as of late. Whoever they have chosen as their photographer is going in a direction that, though he/she can, they really shouldn’t. Let us use this month’s cover as our first example. When I took that out of the mailbox I just stared at it. My first thought was, why is there poorly lit dog food on the cover. Yes, that was my real thought. For my dog, yes, CCS, has food that comes in a can that looks better than that. Why make shit brown stew, put it in copper pot, with harsh lighting and harsh shadows? What was even worse were the photos that went along with that segment. A close up of the stew (which probably is tasty but I wont be trying it) that made it look worse than the cover, and the most craptastic picture of macaroni and cheese I had ever seen. I love macaroni and cheese and this picture made me want to not eat it ever again, I find that sad. I am sure it serves some sort of great photographic purpose, I just don’t get that purpose, and more importantly I don’t want to eat that purpose.

Photo from Bon Appetit.com

And then there is the suspending of food. Though I think the idea of food being able to fly up to my mouth appealing as it saves me energy from lifting utensils, I don’t really find it appealing in any other sense. I think the photograph as a photograph is neat. However, I am suppose to want to eat this? And showcasing it how you are doesn’t say eat me. It says how the fuck am I going to eat that when it is in the air like that?
I have had a subscription to Bon Appetit since I was a sophomore in college. I used to look forward to getting the magazine in the mail. Now to be honest, it hardly gets read. I skim through it when it first comes in. But since nothing good seems to grab my attention, I seldom go back to actually read it. And I used to read it cover to cover. But now that cover to cover is mostly thin. Filled with ads, though the ads have better pictures than most of the stuff in the magazine now a days, I don’t want a magazine full of ads. My subscription is coming up for renewal and for the first time in 16 years, I will not be renewing my subscription. Maybe I am becoming old and this does really appeal to a younger generation, who knows, all I know is that it doesn’t appeal to me.
So Bon Appetit, I encourage you to find some new talent, there is a lot out there. Just check out the numerous food bloggers who take pictures, Bea and Aran alone should be in your magazine, along with many, many others. Please go back to taking pictures of food that looks like food people eat.

Peabody (your former subscriber)