Chocolate-mocha mousse with fresh whipped cream...

...sprinkled with cocoa.

More to come (recipe, correlating cake, completely different cake) once the papers are done.

My goodness, the papers.

Otters, cake, and dinner

No matter how cold hearted or irritated you are, this will make you smile (just ignore the kind of irritating people in the background):



Sorry for the rant earlier. I got to ceramics and the base for both of my glazes (Cornwall Stone) was almost gone. I needed about 10,000 grams for both of the glazes and there was only about 1,600. Since it wasn't my fault I don't have to worry about getting them done until the shipment comes in, which at absolute soonest will be next week.

I still have papers though. Which I should be working on.

I forgot until about eleven thirty that I was supposed to make cakes for Leadership and Ministry tomorrow, because we are having our love feast. So I started that about midnight. Hence I'm still up. It gives me time to do some work though. Doesn't give me too much time to sleep, which is a minor problem, but hey, you take what you can get. I can sleep next week. I really like the idea of having a week in between the last week of classes and finals. We don't have that here, but I'd whole-heartedly appreciate it if we did.

I look forward to posting the two cakes that I made. One is a mocha fudge cake- the base cake has coffee in it (1 1/4 cups!), then it's covered in mocha mousse. The other is a berries and lemon upside-down cake. A lemon cake with a mix of raspberries, black raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries baked into the bottom-top. That one is baking right now and it smells amazing. Hopefully it will taste accordingly.

Dinner today was also delightful. I roasted some butternut squash with a touch of brown sugar and raisins, encrusted bite-sized pieces of turkey with chopped pecans (which ended up being more like turkey with toasted pecans because I didn't feel like being careful stirring and knocked most of the "breading" off), and a cucumber salad topped with a drizzle of local buckwheat honey, basalmic, extra virgin olive oil, and salt and pepper. It was great!

I know that everyone is, but, I'm a wee bit stressed

SO I'm fifteen minutes late for class, I had a hot pot fall on me this morning and bruise the joint of my dominant thumb, the crazy barometric drops and jumps have caused my body to feel as though I've been hit my a truck or a migrane leaked out of my head and is now residing all over my body (and that with the painkillers), and it's a quarter after two and I'm supposed to mix two 8,000 gram batches of glaze AND glaze my set of ten bowls, jar, ceramic spoon, creamer and sugar dish, and five pitchers before Alice loads the kiln in, oh, two hours. Also I have two and a half papers to write by friday and another for next week.

On a happy note, I got the summer office job on campus which hopefully will boost my hours enough so that they will let me live here for free. I'll write more about my three summer jobs later. I also get to bake two cakes for class tomorrow because we are having a "love feast." (It's such a hippie-ish class. My sister came to visit yesterday and she thought it was hilarious that we clap for people when they are late because we are glad that they made it and we want to perpetuate an environment of grace.)

P.S. I love Henri Nouwen. You should buy all of his books for me and yourself and read them. Or at least "In the name of Jesus." Or at least find the documentary made about him (it's narrated by Susan Sarandon, which I thought was bizarre and neat) and watch it.

... =^_^=

I would really like a cat or a (calm, non-slobbery) puppy to cuddle with right now. There really is no better way to go to sleep than snuggling with a warm, fuzzy, tiny being devoted to making you feel better and loving you.

Chocolate Zucchini Bread

So I really wanted something chocolate the other day, but wanted to be able to at least pretend it was healthy, and I had a zucchini that was growing soft in the fridge. The result: Chocolate zucchini bread! I wanted this to be Chocolate Chai zucchini bread, but the spices were not as prominent as I wanted them to be, so I think that I will double the amounts next time. The bread is very tasty though, dense and moist, with the very subtle hint of spice.

Recipe!

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Lightly grease two 9x5 inch bread pans.

In a large microwave safe bowl, microwave 2 squares unsweetened baking chocolate for 30 second intervals, stirring between intervals, until smooth.

Mix in:
Egg replacer for three eggs, whisked to foamy
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup melted coconut oil
1/2 cup light olive oil
2 cups grated zucchini (I only had one, so I used one cup zucchini and one cup applesauce.)
1 tsp vanilla

In a separate bowl whisk together:
1/2 cup millet flour
1/2 cup mathia flour (Indian flour blend of lentil and pea flour)
1/3 cup arrowroot starch
1/2 cup singoda flour (Indian buckwheat)
1/3 cup ground flax seed
1 1/2 tsp xanthan
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp clove
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp ginger (the spices I will probably double to 1 tsp each)
1 tsp salt

Add flour mixture to wet ingredients.

Fold in 3/4 cup chocolate chips (or 1/2 cup chocolate chips and 1/2 cup chopped nuts).

Divide the batter between the two pans.

Bake in preheated oven for 60-70 minutes. After 20 minutes I turned the temperature down to 325. Bake until toothpick or butter knife inserted in the center comes out clean.