Recipe Extravaganza

Coming to you from Portland

I decided to finally go through all of my bon appetits from the last two years and pick out my favorite recipes.  I will rarely cook something if I don't have a picture of it to be tempted by, but luckily this magazine pretty much includes a photo with every recipe.  I cut out my favorites and organized them into my recipe book.  Hopefully this will entice me to start cooking again.  I hate getting stuck in a rut and just cooking the same old stuff over again.  There are so many unique and amazing recipes out there, most of which are very simple. 

Isn't that picture on the left gorgeous! They are homemade ice cream sandwiches dipped in melted chocolate, then coated in sprinkles and crushed up candy bars. Yummm!

The recipe on the left here was featured in the restaurant issue and a Portland Restaurant called Laurelhurst Market was named in bon appetit's top 10.  It's steak with onion rings.  I'm planning on making the dish myself and then going to the restaurant and ordering it to compare.  I'm sure mine won't come close, but I'd like to try. 

I spent all day making this cake from a two page recipe in one of my magazines.  The ingredients cost me $24 which included eight sticks of butter and 32 ounces of chocolate.  I was determined to ignore the cost and avoid shortcuts so it would come out perfect.  However, I couldn't find a pasta machine at the store, which was required to make the ribbon for the top.  I thought I might be able to roll it out, but the chocolate just stuck to the wax paper I rolled it on.  Out of desperation I rolled out chunks of the chocolate and molded the ribbon with my hands.  As you can see, this compromised the aesthetic of the cake.  My mom told me it was beautiful, but once you see the picture of what it's supposed to look like it looks like a major fail.  This is the hardest recipe I have ever followed and I am determined to get it right, so I ordered a pasta machine from Target.com (they only have them online), but I got free shipping and maybe it will one day inspire me to make fresh pasta.  Another thing I would do differently is to save more of the butter cream filling from the layers to smooth out the sides of the cake.  The recipe only says to save 1/2 cup, but the cakes end up cooking with a little hump on the top, which makes the stack have huge gaps, leading to the lumpy sides on my version of the cake.  I spent about eight hours making this cake and lots of money and now most of it is sitting in the fridge, because it is so rich that we can only eat a sliver of it at a time.  Was it worth it?  The jury is still out on that one.