Jerusalem Cake Meal

The Passover displays at the local supermarkets piqued my interest and I ended up bringing home some cake meal, which is apparently finely ground matzoh meal. I have yet to look into how to use this and whether it rises or not (looks like it does, from the picture son the containers), so stay tuned for whenever I get around to exploring the possibilities of cake meal...

Scandinavian Bran Crisps With Hemp Seed Butter

This was a complete miss... The bran crisps from Scandinavia lose out by far to the tried and true Armenian ak-mak crackers. Furthermore, I didn't quite care for the taste of this hemp seed butter from Manitoba Harvest. The calories are just like any nut butter (about 200 cals for 2 tablespoons), but the taste was just not rewarding enough to justify that calorie count. The consistency and texture were fine, but the taste was the main drawback... somewhat grassy and not really that nutty in my opinion. This has seriously got to be one of the few nut/seed butters that failed to meet my approval.

Vosges' Bacon Chocolate Bar

Finally caved in and decided to try this famous bacon chocolate bar. Too bad these weren't dark chocolate, as I prefer that to milk chocolate. Anyway this stuff was okay... more novel than anything else. The one on the left there is milk chocolate with macadamia nuts, coconut, and hemp seeds. In case you're curious, “Vosges Haut-Chocolat” is pronounced, vohj o- sho-colah, not "hot chocolate" as I would have guessed. Visit http://www.vosgeschocolate.com/ for more chocolate creativity.

Breakfast Egg Nests

I saw a photo of these cute egg nests in Ralphs' Optimum Wellness newsletter and just had to make them! I bought a pack of four yellow ramekins from World Market for $2, lined each with a piece of toast (I used Ezekiel 4:9 sprouted whole grain sesame bread), and dropped one cute jumbo egg in each nest along with shredded cheese, paprika, anise seed, salt, and pepper. The actual recipe used tarragon and had mushrooms and green onions, but (1) I wanted to use the anise seed, and (2) there wasn't enough room in my nests for any veggies since the ramekins I bought were 4oz instead of 6oz as called out in the recipe.  Anyway the variation on the ingredients worked out fine, although I didn't quite achieve the same pretty effect as those from the newsletter, where the yellow from the ramekins and the yellow from the sunny side up eggs complemented each other more so than you see here. But hey, I've got a new way of making eggs now... via ramekins in the toaster oven! Yay for no more cleaning up of eggs stuck to my pans.

Guinness Chocolate Cake With Baileys Ice Cream à la Mode

The leftover batter from the Guinness cupcakes I'd poured into a pie tin and cut into slices to enjoy with the Baileys ice cream. Mmmm... This combination is heavenly! I prefer this cake/ice cream combo over the cupcake/frosting combo. There's not much more to say about this besides the fact that I just wanted an opportunity to photograph this couple in natural daylight.