Is your significant other a “gastrosexual“?

Ever since my mother-in-law mentioned cake last week, all I have been able to think about are sweet delicious cupcakes and cake.

Brain: “cake cake cake cake cake cake”

Lana: Arrrgh!  Why are there no cupcake shops in Centretown?

I tried to fill the cake void with a Trudi’s chococolate chip and oatmeal cookie from the Herb & Spice.  And while I love these cookies, they were not cake.  And so my brain chugged along to it’s “cake cake cake cake” beat.

Finally I gave in and baked a single 9 inch yellow cake from this Martha Stewart recipe and iced a slice with vanilla Betty Crocker icing.  I know.  Icing from a can.  For shame, Lana.  Sometimes a girl just really needs cake.  The cake recipe was ridiculously easy and turned out perfectly.  I know I can improve this cake next time with a homemade frosting.  Next time.  Oh yes, there will be a next time.

Anna over at Morsels and Musings posted her recipe for mango frozen yogurt last week and as soon as I saw it, I knew I *needed* it.  Now.

You see, I love orange foods.  Take for example my most recent grocery shop: grapefruits and carrots.  Yum!  (Well, not together.. that would be gross).  The only problem I ran into was that Hartmans was out of plain old thick yogurt.  My fellow Centretownians have tweaked into the goodness that is Liberte Mediterranean Yogurt (tagline: happiness is creamy! - no joke) lately, so it’s hit or miss if you’ll find the flavour you’re after.  Since the plain flavour had been pillaged, I opted for the passionfruit/peach.  I seriously LOVE this flavour.

And while not a “food” - I do love my orange tabby, Orville.  And his crazy expressions.  I think he’s trying to give me the stink eye here or something.

Given that I swapped plain yogurt for a flavoured one, I decreased the amount of sugar quite drastically.  The recipe calls for a cup and half!  YIKES.  I added a generous 1/3 cup and I think that was just plenty.  The final result was delicious.  Definitely a keeper recipe.

MMMMM.

I’ve started writing out a little list of recipes to make and freeze ahead so that we have a few solid weeks of meals at the ready without too many trips to the grocery store.  Hartmans + newborn = blah.   Then again, that’s what husbands are for, right?  Either way, I figure we’ll both be a bit zonked so the less we need to think about, the better.

So far, I’m definitely going to whip up my tweaked-out version of lasagna from Eat, Shrink and Be Merry,  sweet potato burritos, and maybe some meatballs.  But I need more ideas.  I’ve never been a casserole baker and suddenly I feel the need to fill the freezer with casseroles.  Casserole is Italian for “meals moms freeze”, right?

So, a little Googling led me to this thread on Serious Eats about the best meals to freeze, but maybe you have better ideas.  Maybe even a favourite casserole recipe?  If so, let me know!  I’d love to get some of these meals made during this welcome cool weather spell in Ottawa… because I know that Ottawa + August = no cooking.

After a tasty udon soup at Cafe Miga last night, I’ve got it in my head to either a) find fresh udon noodles in Ottawa or b) make my own udon noodles.  I’m hoping the little Korean grocer on Bank will have either fresh noodles (fingers crossed!) or the udon flour.  I found a nice little online tutorial and I am looking forward to trying it out…  maybe tomorrow night for dinner??? Yes.

I found this link to the BBC comedy “Posh Nosh” over at the Amateur Gourmet’s website.  Highly recommended!  You can download the episodes or find them over on YouTube.  Good times.

About three o’clock this afternoon, the bacon alarm went off.  I knew I wanted some sort of salad with bacon.  Enter Google.  I typed in some keywords: bacon, salad and beans.  Most of the results featured green beans… blah!  I wanted real beans… the kind that don’t taste like freshly mowed grass.  (I am not fond of green beans!)

This recipe from Cooking Light came up - not only did it feature white beans, bacon! and spinach, but maple syrup and mustard.  Swoon.  Could it be love? It could.  I added some tomato to the recipe since I had it on hand and gobbled up two servings for dinner with a fresh baguette from the Boko bakery.  The dressing was so good, I’ll probably add it as one of my go-to salad dressing recipes.

Note: their instructions say to heat up the dressing and the beans, but why?  Like it’s not hot enough here in Ottawa these days?  A girl does not need hot beans on her salad.  I omitted any instructions that would add more heat to the apartment.

Boyfriendly rating: 5/5  “loved the bacon- with the beans and greens!”  (I also heard the boy say, “it was yummy” but he’ll be embarrassed that I typed ‘yummy’ on the blog.)

Ingredients: 

• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 3 tablespoons cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon extravirgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1  can navy beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 tomato diced
• 1/2 cup thinly sliced green onions
• 1/2 cup finely chopped red bell pepper
• 5 bacon slices, cooked and crumbled
• fresh baby spinach