Ultimate Super Birthday Cake

I know Justin's birthday was a long time ago...September 2 to be precise (there seems to have been some confusion about that among certain members of my family who were using the anniversary of the restoration of the priesthood (May 15) as a way of remembering his birthday, so I thought I'd clarify).

Since we were going to be on vacation with the Piersons on his magical day, Jen and I decided that we should join forces to create a fourteen-layer cake-of-a-lifetime.  Here's  what we came up with:

Jen and I both made a cake and baked it into seven pancake-thick layers.

Then we made a delicious chocolate glaze to smother over each layer.

It took both of us to do all the layering and smothering.

It was getting pretty tall...

...and tasting pretty darn delicious.

However, it wasn't much to look at, so we decided to add an outside layer of chocolate-cream cheese buttercream frosting.

That looks better.

We forgot to bring any candles with us, so we had to use a flashlight.  It's amazing how he was able to blow it out.

And then we cut into it.  Yum.  No, double yum....to the max.

Happy Birthday Justin!

Important life lessons...

You are never to young to learn how to make chocolate chip cookies.

Start out with a bowl and spoon (and some other stuff).  

Now add some vanilla.

Stir.

Sample.

(Okay, so this is technically a picture of him eating his birthday cake.  We didn't take a picture of the finished product, but I think this picture is a good representation of what you would have seen had we kept the camera out...)  We did however film him performing for chocolate:

Sugar-free Tastalicious

Okay, I'm hardly going to claim to be a healthy eater. I don't necessarily even aspire to be (the chocolate cupcakes with peanut-butter frosting that I have on my kitchen table at the moment should attest to that). Come to think of it, in the last week, Justin and I have made (and eaten) yellow cupcakes with chocolate frosting, blueberry muffins with struesel topping, and the afore-mentioned choco-pb cupakes. It's kind of frightening when you actually write that out. Anyway, the other day at the gym, my aerobics instructor was passing out handouts, one of which included a recipe for some healthy lemon-coconut-date bars. Since we've already overloaded our dessert intake, I figured I might as well make these ones as well. It turns out they are very tastey!

If ever you are doing some sort of challenge, or aren't allowed to eat treats or sugar or something like that, this recipe would be a great way to get your dessert fix!

1 cup almonds

1 1/2 -2 cups pitted dates (Medjool or other semi-soft date--I found these in the refrigerated area of the produce section)

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp sea salt (I just realized I forgot to add this, but they are still quite delish!)

Zest of 1 lemon

2 tbsp lemon juice (I just put in the juice of one whole, very juicy lemon)

1 cup shredded coconut

Put it all in a food processor (you may want to start with just the nuts and process them down to a chunky powder) and process until everything is evenly mixed. Then just press the paste (I'm not sure if paste is really the right word) into the bottom of a pan and chill. Then cut into squares. Yum.

These aren't exactly fat free, but they've at least got the healthy/trendy kind of fat from almonds. But there's not a lick of sugar! Enjoy!

Justin Has Taken Up Smoking

Even though I am the star of this blog, every once in a while I'm willing to step out of the spotlight so that I can feature the handiwork of my crazy (and by crazy I mean incredibly motivated, capable, and talented) husband. So this is an ode to Justin.

His most recent project: a smoker. No, he's not violating the Word of Wisdom (although it may encourage us to eat meat more than just "sparingly"). He found a foodie blog for engineers that showed how to build a ceramic smoker for less than a hundred bucks (compared to $800 for a big green egg) using terracotta flower pots and a hot plate. He seemed very excited about this construction project, so I only laughed quietly to myself when he brought home all the supplies. I laughed a little less quietly and not entirely to myself when I discovered that he could have purchased an electric smoker for the same price as the supplies for the one he was building himself. Apparently, there is some satisfaction to be had in making something yourself...

He started by getting out all the tools he possibly could. Okay, maybe just the power drill and set of masonry drill bits, but it seemed like a lot of tools.

Then he drilled holes in the bottom of a 14" flower pot (for the hot plate connectors to go through). It made the weirdest ringing noise. I'm sure that our neighbors hate us.

Next up, he had to take the hot plate apart and rewire it so the element was inside the pot and the controls outside the pot.

Like so.

Then you add a cast-iron wood chip holder box (where you put hickory wood or mesquite wood or apple wood, depending on how you would like to flavor your meat) and a grill thingy for the meat to sit on.

Put a lid on it, and the smoker is done. I'd like to point out, that Justin is standing in his official "summit" pose. I think he's pretty proud of his handy work.

And when he pulled this hickory smoked chicken out of that thing, I must admit that I was pretty proud of him too. (We'd also like to give a special thanks to Em and Dan for the Chuck Norris t-shirt.)

And what was I doing all this time? I was making a lovely Quiche Lorraine for dinner. It was exceedingly delicious.

Mmmm... Bacon...