A series of random letters….

Dear IRS,

I owe you money. And while I won’t be sending you that money on Sunday I do need to get on payment plan. I filled out my taxes but you won’t let me finish them saying that I have more forms to fill out. BUT those forms aren’t available yet. Ummm. This is beyond stupid. Why is it that you can’t bring yourself to have these forms available when you expect me to have my taxes done and filed in just a few days?

Dear Media,

You suck. I mean really, really suck. You have been tearing apart Ashley Judd to no end lately. The minute I saw her face I knew she was on Prednisone. How? Because I have been off and on it since I was 26 years old. It will do that to your face and body. She didn’t have work done and the fact that she gained some weight doesn’t make her a cow. And speaking of what the media calls cows…Jennifer Lawrence. For those who don’t have teens at home, she plays Katniss in the movie The Hunger Games. According to the media she is huge. She is perfect just the way she is yet the media feels they must alter her. Stop sending people/women these messages. You have two perfectly lovely women being called cows/fat when they are anything but.

Dear socks,

Where the heck do you keep going? I have to go and buy socks again. MDP has to as well. Did you run off together and sock elope?

Dear CCS,

Grandma has left the building face the fact. Gone is the woman that sprinkled ham and chicken on your food. You are left with dry food. Learn to love it again as that is all you are getting. Your currently hunger strike is in vain.

Dear 60 Minutes,

Thanks for doing a piece on how sugar is toxic. Now I have a slew of nasty emails about how I am killing myself and my readers. As someone who has taken a ton of statistic classes I am more than aware of how you can basically find/adjust the numbers to make anything support your cause. I will file it with when carbs were bad, then fat was bad, bacon was going to kill me, then certain fats were bad, then only some fats and carbs were bad, then back to carbs being bad, to eating how we did 10,000 years ago.

Dear Readers,

I have two times as many people reading my blog but 1/3 of the comments I used to get, what gives?

Dear Bananas,

I just make this banana cake because I had bananas going bad on the counter. My mom guilted me in to them not going to waste. But then I had no bananas when I wanted one in my smoothie causing me to go out and buy more bananas. It’s a vicious cycle I tell ya.

This is a breakfast cake …kind of. The bananas make this much more moist than a typical crumb cake so don’t expect it to taste like crumb cake. But I just couldn’t resist finding an excuse to make a NY style crumb top to the cake…it was a good choice by the way.

Crumb Topped Banana Chocolate Chip Cake

Crumb Topping:

1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup dark brown sugar
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp. salt
8 TBSP unsalted butter (1 stick), melted and still warm
1¾ cups cake flour

Whisk sugars, cinnamon, salt, and butter in medium bowl to combine.

Add flour and stir with spoon until mixture resembles thick, cohesive dough; set aside to cool to room temperature, 10 to 15 minutes.

Cake:

1 ½ cups cake flour
2/3 cup granulated sugar
½ tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt
4 TBSP unsalted butter (1/2 stick), cut into 4 pieces, softened but still cool
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 bananas, super ripe
1/3 cup buttermilk
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Adjust oven rack to upper-middle position and heat oven to 325 degrees. Spray a 8-inch baking pan with baking spray and set aside.

In bowl of standing mixer fitted with paddle attachment, mix flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt on low speed to combine.

With mixer on low speed, mix until batter resembles moist crumbs, with no visible butter chunks remaining, 1 to 2 minutes. Add banana and beat until fully incorporated.

Add egg, yolk, vanilla, and buttermilk; beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 1 minute, scraping once if necessary.

Fold in the chocolate chips.

Transfer batter to baking pan.

Spread batter into even layer. Break apart crumb topping into large pea-sized pieces and spread in even layer over batter, beginning with edges and then working toward center.

Bake until crumbs are golden and wooden skewer inserted into center of cake comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Cool on wire rack at least 30 minutes. Remove cake from pan.
Source: Adapted from America’s Test Kitchen “Old Fashion Breakfast Cakes” Episode

My Facebook was lit up today with what could probably be called Easter Basket Confessions. Lists of all the candies that people had eaten and how horrible they were for eating them…blaming the Easter Bunny for bringing it. Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs apparently being the devil.

After reading the morning confessions and people’s pledges to hit the gym hard to be punished for their Peep eating I turned on the TV. Not much was on and I left it on Eat, Pray, Love. I will confess that I read and disliked the book and I watched and disliked the movie (which is why it got turned off). Pretty much everyone (female…men thought it was crap) I know loved the LOVE section. For me the only tolerable part of it was Eat. If you have never traveled outside of the US then you probably think that other women constantly punish themselves for what they eat. And in my experiences most of the other countries (Canada excluded) have a much better relationship with food than that of people (especially women) from the states.

I ate three Red Vines, two marshmallow chicken things and about 10 jelly beans yesterday. I probably eat that half the time on a regular day…well at least the jelly beans (I have a jelly bean problem). Because I don’t exclude it from my life there was no need to try and eat an entire Easter Basket in my belly because starting the next day it was back to being off limits. Instead, 99% of my Easter Basket (well really Tupperware…I couldn’t find my Easter basket to save my life this year) is still there. I will be eaten throughout the month and then some…or in my Peeps and Robins Eggs case, made into cupcakes.

So stop blaming the Easter Bunny for bringing you an Easter Basket. If you truly don’t want it then throw it or give it away. Problem is you do want it. So figure out how to make it work….without punishing yourself for enjoying it.

You obviously don’t need it to be Easter to make these as they can be made without the Peeps and Robins Eggs on top, but I figured what the heck. I made my own marshmallow fluff for the recipe, but I fully realize that the average person doesn’t do that and so I listed the jar kind. If you have the time and want to then by all means make your own fluff. You can make your own Devil’s Food or go the box route if you like.

Hope you had a lovely Easter…I had a great one. My parents were here and so I got to be spoiled by being cooked for. Even MDP did the breakfast cooking for my parents. And the best Easter gift of all? My mom cleaned out my fridge from head to toe!

Chocolate Marshmallow Filled Devil’s Food Cupcakes with White Chocolate Buttercream

1 box Devil’s Food Cake (prepared as regular size cupcakes) or Devils Food recipe
1 jar (7 ounces) Marshmallow Crème (or Fluff)
6 ounces melted milk chocolate
¾ cup unsalted butter
3-4 cups powdered sugar
2 TBSP Godiva White Chocolate Liqueur (optional…but take the option)
6 ounces melted white chocolate

After cupcakes are fully cooled off, make the chocolate marshmallow fluff. In a small sauce pan melt the marshmallow crème on low heat, once melted add the milk chocolate and mix until fully combined. Place into a piping bag with a large tip and poke into middle of cupcake. Squeeze until if fills up cupcake and starts to come out of top. You want to do this while the marshmallow is still warm, it will make it much easier to pipe out.

In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together the butter, melted white chocolate and 1 cup powdered sugar. Continue adding the powdered sugar 1 cup at a time. Add the liqueur to thin out the frosting. If you want it thinner add some milk.

Since it is white chocolate it can be colored any color you like. I obviously went with green for Easter grass but you can do whatever.

I’m posting this recipe because I keep losing this recipe. I figure if I put it on the blog I can at least search for it on here. It’s basically French Onion Soup except that there are pieces of steak in it. It’s one of my favorites, the photo does not do it justice. It’s really best to let it sit around for a day before you enjoy it. If you don’t I highly doubt that the soup police will come visiting…but they might, it could be a slow time for them.

Wanted to show you my cute new business cards that Moo offered up to me. I had been using Moo cards before and knew that I like them so when they asked me if I would like to try some of their newer stuff on them I thought that sounded like a good idea. Clearly you can see how spoiled my dog is. So thanks to Moo I now have cards in time for BlogHer Food in the coming months.

And lastly if you live in the Seattle area and have seen the Swedish Fish Eggs please tell me where you have seen them. I love them and only found one package this year…very sad about that.

Steak and Onion Soup

4 TBSP unsalted butter
2 TBSP olive oil
2 sweet onions, sliced
1 pound quality stew meat
1 ½ cups sherry
10 cups beef stock
2 TBSP dried garlic (the dehydrated kind)
¼ cup unsalted butter, melted
8 TBSP flour
Salt and pepper to taste

In a large sauté pan, melt 4 TBSP butter and sauté the onion until translucent. Set aside.

Remove onions and add oil. Then add stew meat and brown on all sides (best you can). Remove from pan.

In a small saucepan combine the melted butter and flour and form a roux, the darker your roux the more flavor you will get. I went for a chestnut brown color myself.

In a large stockpot, heat the sherry over medium-high heat and reduce by half. Then add the beef stock and reduce by one-third.

Add the roux and dissolve completely. Add back the meat and ¾ of the onions.

Add garlic, salt, and pepper and let simmer for 45 minutes.

Add remaining cooked onion right before soup is finished, this will help layer your flavors.

Serve with a little bread and cheese of your choice. I used a ghetto hamburger bun and some Swiss.