So...to start off...I'm posting pics of Wyatt's birthday cake from last week. He's been saying for months that he wanted an octopus cake. He's a little obsessed with all things nautical and is especially enamored with octopuses. I checked around online and the best I could come up with was this:
It's an Octopus cake pan from Williams Sonoma. It's something they had out a couple of summers ago, but the outlets about 30 miles north of me had some in stock. So one day last week, with both the boys in tow, I headed up to the outlets to go to ONE store. The things a mother would do , right? The cake itself is really cute without frosting. It's so intricate that it's really hard to frost (took me an hour) and when you do frost it, it covers up a lot of the detail. But, Wyatt was set on him being green with candy on his tentacles. So, this is the result:
I think it turned out pretty cute. The perfectionist in me was frustrated by how it turned out, but I know that to a child it was festive and fun. I found some cute ocean related gummie candies (fish, octopus, seahorses) so I arranged them around the cake. The cake itself was lemon flavor with cream cheese frosting. It was really tasty!
Other than that, there hasn't been many exciting things going on in the kitchen these days. David's on tour, so I've been cooking one really good and decent meal a week and then on all the other days we've been either eating out, eating leftovers, eating at other people's houses (my favorite!) or breaking out the mac and cheese and homemade chicken fingers. There are a few things that I've been wanting to get to on here. For one, remember my paella dilemma? I checked around online and ended up making my own version that turned out pretty good. I actually took pics of it, but now can't find them on my camera. Plus, I have now forgotten exactly how I made it. I know that it wasn't true paella, since true paella is so exact and complicated, but it was a good and quick substitute. I made it with chicken, shrimp, and sausage. Even made my own homemade saffron rice with basmati rice. If I can remember my method I'll post it.
Also, Jen asked me long ago to post my marinara sauce. I've hesitated because I don't really have a certain recipe or method even, but I'll try to get on here one of these days and post something for that. Other things I'd like to post...my homemade vegetable soup since we're getting into soup season, my banana bread and any other things I can think of.
