Zinnia's from the garden and a furry surprise.

It took all summer but FINALLY the Zinnia's from the fruit smoothie mix came in. This is the first to fully bloom. It reminds me of a blazing august sunset. I cant wait to see the other colors. I also have to note that my peppers have gone into overdrive producing numerous buds which will be tons of peppers by mid to late September...which is perfect for making tasty Caribbean style pepper sauce to use over the winter.

Lastly here is the surprise:

This is from last week.

And this week.

The kitten is named Juma which is Swahili for "friday born". He shakes like he has Parkinson's, so I hardly get a clear shot of him. He is now hopefully the last of four rescued cats.

New Cupcakes: Caramel Mocha Latte Cupcakes

This will be a next short post. I just wanted to show some ultra delicious cupcakes that I baked up last night. Its an over the top version of the Brown Eyed Baker mocha cupcakes. This recipe is perfect if only for the fact that it makes exactly 12 cupcakes. I must say that I  changed some of the ingredients to suit my personal taste and I also used my own icing. I am sure the original recipe is good as is since it has gotten great reviews all over the web...but I know what I like and bake to suit. To make these extra decadent I made some caramel sauce following a David Lebovitz recipe. I have made his salted caramel before for brownies with success, so I decided to try his other caramel recipe that doesn't need butter. This caramel recipe cooks relatively quick and taste great. Enjoy

Creamy Caramel Sauce

makes 1 1/2 cups

1 cup sugar

1 1/4 cup heavy cream

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

- In large heavy-duty saucepan, spread the sugar in an even layer and cook over medium to low heat.

- Keep careful watch on the sugar to see when it begins to liquefy.

- Use a heatproof spatula or spoon to gently stir and encourage cooking.

- Stir sugar until it is completely melted and turns a deep amber color.

- Immediately remove from heat and stir in half of the cream and stir vigorously.

- Carefully stir until the sugar is dissolved and then whisk in remaining cream, salt, and vanilla.

- If you get any hard bits just cook over low heat until dissolved and smooth.

- Sauce can be stored in the refrigerator for two weeks.

Garden Pics: Asters

This is just a quick picture to show you all the aster crego mix flowers that have been blooming profusely since the beginning of august. I have enough flowers to cut new ones everyday.

Mixed Drinks: Carnival Breeze.

Who doesn't like a good mixed drink in the summer? Living in the city far away from my favorite beaches in the Caribbean means that I don't have many beach days. Today I just wanted to feel like I was back in Trinidad for carnival surrounded by sweet music, great friends, ridiculous antics, never ending parties, and sunshine. There was only one...well two problems, carnival is almost six months away and I am no mixologist. I did some research on existing drinks around how I wanted mine to look and I got to work. This drink uses the special edition Angostura Single Barrel rum that came out for carnival but any TRINIDAD rum will do. Don't let me hear you using wray and nephew or bacardi...it just wont do!! We also used the famous Angostura bitters in this as well. As soon as I finished mixing I took a towel up to the rooftop and took in some sunshine. Its no beach but it gave me a lil time to reminisce. Mix this this up quick and take a mind trip to the sun and soca.

Carnival Cooler

Makes 1 drink

1 1/2 shots Single Barrel Rum (or other trinidad dark rum)

1 dash Angostura bitters

dash of lime juice

4 shots pineapple orange juice (can use plain orange juice)

Crushed ice

Grenadine Syrup

1 Maraschino cherry

Lime wedge

- Mix rum, bitters, lime juice, and orange pineapple juice together.

- Pour mixture into tall glass over crushed ice.

- Pour grenadine syrup into the glass slowly it will sink to the bottom. DONT MIX.

- Garish with lime wedge and maraschino cherry.

- Serve immediately.

Garden Critters

This what I believe to be an eastern black swallowtail caterpillar that has taken up residence in my curly parsley. I usually would run like hell in the presence of most creepy crawly caterpillars but this one reminds me of the blue caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland. It is going to turn into a beautiful black based butterfly if it sticks around. Ill take an update picture later on in the summer...stay tuned!

This is what it will turn into!

Weekend Baking: Watermelon Cupcakes.

I made these watermelon cupcakes for my girlfriend...she LOVES watermelon! I used mini chocolate chips for the watermelon seeds and I tinted her favorite cream cheese frosting.These were too cute for words and too yummy to last any more than 2 days lol!

Pink Room Garden News: August Edition

Sadly the end of the summer is nearing and I cant stand to think about it. Why does summer feel like the shortest season? Probably because you're just enjoying it too much. Anyways....on to the garden. August is the month that the tomatoes finally decided to come in. They didn't grow to the size I wanted them too and I just think they took entirely too long to ripen, I will not be growing big boys next year. Instead I'll grow some roma tomatoes and maybe some heirloom varieties. I also lost an entire plant to some fungal disease which reduced my expected crop dramatically! Ill do a lil' more research to prevent these problems next year.

The Big Boys

The sunflowers and zinnias I plated in the vacant box by my neighbors window seems to be growing at a greater speed than those planted by my window but I believe I know why. The zinnias and sunflowers over by my neighbor have enough space since they are in their own boxes. The flowers in front my window are cohabiting. I ignore a lot of planting rules...I planted a whole pack of asters and morning glories in a box that's about 2 feet and the morning glories grew up an entire story. I guess it didn't work in my favor for the zinnias. Don't get me wrong they are growing, just slowly.

The zinnias by my neighbor grew so fast!

The sunflowers are almost as tall as her window!

I'm also waiting on my African cayenne, habeneros, and Trinidad hot peppers to come in. So far I've gotten a few peppers from one of my habenero plants.

Habenero pepper.

African Cayenne, its about 4 inches now.

Check out my rosemary from last year...its gotten so robust! Over the winter it looked so scrawny and half dead. I asked some farmers from USQ farmers market for some tips and I was told to change the pot your rosemary is in every year and keep in a sunny spot. I followed these tips in April and even changed the soil it was in....within a month the half dead rosemary started to look better than when I initially bought it.

Finally I harvested some sweet pea flower seeds to use next year. After the flowers drop, a pod starts growing in the same spot. You let the pods turn brown and then you harvest the seeds. You place them in a dry place in an envelope and plant next year spring.

Dried seed pods

Sweet pea seeds

Whole Wheat Hamburger Rolls.

Eating hamburgers in my house always leaves us with the same dilemma all the time...large burger and small bun. The veggie and salmon burgers we usually buy are a bit larger than the standard hamburger buns sold in the supermarket. This summer I have tried to make hamburgers buns twice. The first time I tried a recipe from king arthur flour but the results were almost to flat to split. My second attempt yielded much better results. I also started keeping boiled potato water to make my bread with as I've heard it works as a natural preservative for bread and gives you a softer loaf.  The recipe I used was from allrecipes.com. I tweaked the recipe by using part whole wheat flour, raw turbinado sugar, and potato water. The substitutions made is part of my plan to eat a lil bit healthier everyday but you can definitely follow the original recipe if you like.  These lovely buns came out large enough to accommodate a 4-5inch burger, with incredible softness, and a beautiful crust. If your wondering why they aren't shiny like most hamburger buns that's because I didn't use any egg wash..my family doesn't care for it, but Ill post it in the recipe so that you have the option of using it. 

Whole Wheat Hamburger Rolls

Makes 12 rolls

1 cup milk

1 cup potato water or regular water

2 tbsp butter

1 tbsp granulated sugar

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour*

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour*

1 1/2 cups bread flour*

2 1/2 tsp instant yeast

1 egg yolk

1 tbsp water

- Warm milk, water, sugar, salt, and butter in saucepan.

- In bowl of stand mixer combine flour(s) and yeast.

- Pour milk mixture into flour and mix on low speed with dough hook attachment until soft uniform ball forms.

- Place dough into a greased bowl, cover and let rise one hour.

- After one hour punch down dough and divide into twelve equal portions.

- Shape dough into rolls and after 1 minute press down each roll with the palm of your hand. 

- Place rolls on a baking sheet lined with foil or parchment paper.

- Let rise until doubled in size.

- While rolls are rising heat oven to 400 degrees.

- If using egg wash  mix yolk and tbsp water together, brush on top of rolls.

- Place rolls in the oven and bake for 10-15 minutes.

- Remove from oven and cool.

- Serve with your favorite burger!

* I mixed different flours together but the original recipe uses entirely all purpose flour. 

Portuguese Sweet Bread.

Portuguese sweet bread is a soft crust, rich bread with a slightly sweet taste. if you need to compare it to something it taste just like the Kings Hawaiian rolls you get in the grocery. I always loved getting kings hawaiian rolls during the holidays from my uncle who lives on the west coast. Now I could easily buy them in my local grocery but I also wanted to try making my own. I made portuguese sweet bread once in Baking 1 my sophomore year of college but I thought it was time that I try it again. I have a recipe for portuguese sweet bread in my baking text book from school but its too large scale so I tried a recipe I found on allrecipes.com good reviews.

Portuguese Sweet Bread

1 cup milk

2 Tbsp margarine or butter

1/3 cup granulated sugar

2 1/2 tsp instant yeast

3 cups bread

3/4 tsp salt

1 large egg

- Warm milk and margarine to no more than 100 degrees.

- Stir sugar into milk until dissolved and then add in yeast.

- While milk mixture sits add combine flour and salt in bowl of stand mixer.

- Make a well in the middle of te flour and place egg.

- Finally add in milk mixture to flour and attach the bowl to stand mixer.

- Mix on speed 2 with dough hook until a soft dough ball forms.

- Place dough in a greased bowl and let it rise for one hour.

- Punch down dough after one hour.*

- Place dough into a greased loaf pan or a round 9x3in cake pan.

- Let dough rise and additional half hour before placing in a 375 degree oven.

- Bake bread for 30 - 35 minutes.

- Remove from oven and baking pan, cool on a rack.

* Punching dough is the process of removing the CO2 that built up during the first rise by gently pressing your hand into the dough.

Sunshine on the Fire Escape

These sunflowers came from a cheap pack  of seeds with no description so I really didn't know what variety they were and what to expect. Would they be some dwarf variety or the giant blooms that can grow as tall as 12 feet? I planted the seeds in small containers but soon found out they  outgrew them within a month or so. You definitely know when a flower has outgrown its pot when the bottom leaves continually turn yellow/brown and drop off.  I transplanted some of the flowers into a vacant space next to my sweet peas and the rest went into my neighbors vacant herb pot that became a home for pesky weeds. I though she would enjoy seeing flowers every morning opposed to weeds so I did some guerilla gardening, tossed those weeds and replaced them with sunflowers. The majority of the sunflowers have bloomed (just waiting on about two slow growers to open) and they all average about 2 feet tall with 3-5 inch flowers. I am soo proud of my flower growing progress this year, now the last to bloom will probably be the asters and the Zinnias.

P.S here is a pic of a baby carrot that was thinned from the carrot pot, it already has good flavor!

Experiment: Butter Toffee Brownies

I made these yesterday just experimenting. I didn't write down anything but it came out delicious. I made some soft butter toffee yesterday but burnt it slightly. I didn't want to throw it out  since the flavor was slightly burnt. I decided not to throw it out but layer it in some extra brownie batter. The chocolate mask the burnt flavor and there was just yummy toffee goodness left. It also added this extra moistness to the brownies...this was a win. Look at that toffee trying to escape the sides and the beautiful crackle in the brownie top. These were gone in less than a day!

Homemade Cheddar Cheese Crackers

I made these crackers out of boredom and my love of all things cheesy. I see homemade crackers all over the blogosphere but this was my first time making them. I was browsing through blogs this past Sunday and within 20 minutes of me seeing the cracker recipe I got to work on making them. The recipe comes together pretty quickly as the whole process is similar to making shortbread cookies. After they baked I gave them 5 minutes to cool and started to indulge. After eating one...two...maybe three...whatever, whose counting..I came to the conclusion that these were really tasty but a little to cheesy for my taste. I know your looking like me as if I'm crazy..but yea these were a little to cheesy for cheese crackers. It tasted like the little bit of cheese that runs out of your grilled cheese sandwich and gets fried in the pan by itself. I will definitely make again and just cut down on the cheese. I have to note that my sister thought they were perfect as is but she's a extreme cheese lover. Now the only way for you to form an opinion would be for you to make these yourself so get to baking!

Cheddar Cheese Crackers

makes 28

1/ 2 cup unsalted butter, softened

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp black pepper

1/8 tsp or pinch cayenne pepper

8oz cheddar cheese, finely shredded

1 cup unbleached flour

- Prepare a large sheet pan with cooking spray or with parchment paper and set to the side.

- In bowl of stand mixer combine butter, salt, and peppers until well mixed.

- Add in flour and cheese, mix on medium until well combined.

- Place mixture in plastic wrap and roll into a log shape.

- Place log in refrigerator and chill for 30 minutes.

- In the mean time heat oven to 350 degrees.

- After 30 minutes remove dough from the refrigerator and cut into slices.

- Slices should be cut 1/4 inch thick but I cut mine a little thinner for more crispiness

- Place slices on sheet pan and bake until crisp and golden.

- Remove from oven, cool and enjoy.

vegetablematter.blogspot.com via Epicurious.com