Spinach and Ricotta in Home Made Egg Cannelloni

J just leaned over my shoulder and said, "That looks sooooo good!!"

To which I replied, "Yeah, you already ate it. Remember?" 

To my delight, June's Daring Cooks Challenge was home made cannelloni. I've never made my own pasta. I've used my mum's pasta maker to make the ribbons on the famous and absolutely wonderful (that's high praise from an anti-cake person like me) Ribbon Cake from Bon Appetit, and I've used it to craft clothing for Fimo figurines when I was a pre-teen (generous mother), but I've never used it to make pasta.

Challahhhh!

All those summers of braiding gimp bracelets were good for something!

May's Daring Baker's Challenge was challah, which I was jazzed about because I've never braided a loaf on my own and I like how pretty and distinctive challah is. Plus, the stuff I've had at various shabbat dinners has been delicious (my friend K makes a mean challah the size of a baby).

Julia's Boeuf Bourguinon

So, this post is long overdue. May's Daring Cook's Challenge was Julia Child's Beouf Bourguinon, made famous by that movie in which Meryl Streep was charming and Amy Adams was irritating. I've certainly been interested in making the dish because it seemed like some sort of cooking right of passage. I was pleased to get the challenge and I had a lot of fun making it. All day long.

Nazook

April's Daring Baker's challenge was to make either (or both) Nazook or Nutmeg cake, both of which are traditional Armenian desserts. I made the Nazook immediately and planned on avoiding the nutmeg cake because the idea of something's entire flavour profile being nutmeg just didn't really appeal to me. Plus, flaky pastry sounded much better than cake. I ended up making both and it turns out that Armenians know good dessert.

Goat Cheese Olive Loaf

I don't know why I've been sitting on this post. This was the third quick bread that I made for February's Daring Baker's Challenge, and I think it turned out to be the most photogenic. I though it had a lovely flavour, which is impressive given that I'm only just flirting with the idea that I don't hate olives. If I were to make this again, I think I'd actually use black olives instead of green. I'm a bit more friendly towards green because I like the ones that are stuffed with almonds, but I found them a bit to. . . mild? Not salty enough? I'm not enough of an olive connoisseur to know much about their flavour profiles. I also think that black olives might make the bread look even prettier. David Lebovitz, whose recipe this is (of course), calls for either colour, so it's not like I was taking a huge risk going green.

Grrr! Tiger Bread!

The bread says, "I am delicious. Crunchy on top and soft inside." 

March's Daring Baker's Challenge was fun, but was over-shadowed by my preparing for my thesis defence and freaking out about it possibly being cancelled by a faculty strike. The defence went ahead last Friday and after three hours of me courting laryngitis, my committee members shook my hand and called me "doctor". Yay! Hell if I can remember much about baking this bread, though. I recall being initially disappointed that we weren't being called upon to make a persnickity dessert. Oh well, maybe next month.

The Baked Brownie

Eat me.

This recipe has been floating around the internet for a couple of years now, enjoying the praise and preening.  Everywhere you look, blogs will tell you that this little brownie, from the Baked bakery cookbook, is the best brownie you'll ever have. There are a couple of brownies on my list to bake and finally, after moving in with someone who would make sure that I didn't eat the entire batch myself, I got around making this one.

Is it the best brownie I've ever eaten?

Braised Moroccan Chicken

The yellow is the turmeric, not just my camera.

I've been really enjoying Daring Bakers. I don't remember quite what made me join Daring Cooks, but it was probably precisely that--I'm enjoying Daring Bakers. The thing is, I dare to bake normally. I like baking. I'm really not a very courageous cook.

Luna Café's Chocolate Beet Loaf

As you can see, I undercooked it.

This is the second quick bread that I made for February's Daring Baker's Challenge.

At One Point, I Made French Macarons

Admire a specimen from my friend's tea cup collection. I don't have a tea cup collection because I don't drink tea.
Little did I know their true purpose was to display macarons.

About a month ago I stumbled upon a bizarre section of youtube seemingly dedicated to hundreds of home made My Little Pony music videos. It made me sit up straight and say, "what are these and why are they everywhere?! And can I force my boyfriend to watch them?" That's what French macarons did to the internet a few years back--I woke up one morning and they were everywhere. Eventually, I forced my boyfriend to eat them after adapting them to eliminate the poison almonds.