your goose is probably only half-baked at this point

I'd never seriously thought, "Man, I wish there were a way for me to do shots with my colleagues in the middle of the day, in the office, and have no one say anything about it other than 'you're so nice for bringing us treats, molly,'" but now that a) I've done exactly this and b) the results were hilarious , I find I think this all the time . What a world we live in. Quick story:  first rum balls (I think they were bourbon balls, actually) I ever had, a colleague had made some, and brought me one out of pity because I was too shy to go over and ask for one (I have introvert moments sometimes okay?).  I was so happy he'd brought me a treat that I put the whole thing in my mouth straight away, only realizing after I'd started chewing that holy shit this thing is strong .  Delicious, but knock-you-on-your-ass alcoholic.  Said colleague seemed pleased and went away smiling, while I frantically texted my partner that we were taking the bus home bec...

Once upon a time, I was going to do this whole British-themed meal:  fish 'n chips, English beer, sticky toffee pudding, black tea with milk ... But then I made this pudding and it was so good that I kind of ... ate it without giving a hoot about the rest of the theme meal?  I'll care later. For now, I'm making this whenever possible because holy hell is it delicious .  Just as smooth and lovely and sweet and delightful as Leia in her Bespin costume.  Between it and her Hoth costume, I managed to fall completely in love with her.  Han and Lando'll have to fight me. Hello What Have We Here Sticky Toffee Pudding Ingredients 1 tsp baking soda 1 3/4 cup dried chopped dates 3/4 cup boiling water 1/3 cup butter (vegan buttery works here) 3/4 cup white sugar 1/2 cup pumpkin puree 1 cup flour 1 1/2 tsp baking powder 1/4 tsp salt Caramel : make half a batch and you'll have more than you need, so maybe a quarter batch?  Or make the full batch a...

I was looking for a recipe for an orange-cinnamon glaze for fish and ended up with a recipe for topping for waffles that beats all other toppings forever (and we'd tried a lot of different toppings: maple syrup, honey butter, yogurt, you get the idea).  For the order of operations, I think I'd make the batter for the waffles and start the waffle iron heating, then start the glaze, and make the waffles while the sauce reduces, but this was definitely a science experiment that worked out so well that I'm now trying to reverse-engineer it into something replicable. Also, Mark Hamill looks adorable in bright orange, don't let anybody ever tell you any different. <3 Flightsuit Orange & Banana Glaze Ingredients 2 Tbsp butter, melted 2 Tbsp sugar 1/2 tsp cinnamon 1/2 cup orange juice 2 bananas, sliced 1/2-3/4" thick Instructions In a 9" skillet over medium heat, melt butter. Add sugar and cinnamon and whisk to combine. Add the orange ...

I do love a good challenge, and making things that are a) vegan, b) gluten-free, and c) still delicious is one of my favorite  challenges out there.  I originally started adapting this recipe  so I could bake for a vegan colleague, but then I found out that he's allergic to both peanuts and chickpeas, so that's me back to the drawing board for him, but as a nice side-effect, I now have a recipe for AMAZING chocolate chip cookies that are approximately 200% less a pain in my ass than regular chocolate chip cookies. And they're full of chickpeas and peanut butter, so they're ... actually sort of good for you?  Will wonders never cease. The only real difference between these and the usual chocolate chip cookies of the world is that they're not at all improved by dipping them in milk (I personally like them better with a cup of unsweetened green tea than I do with a cup of milk) and they're better cooled than warm straight from the oven.  They're also irresi...

It's sweet, golden, and beyond basic, just like Luke Skywalker.  What more could you want? (Adapted from  this lovely recipe , saved here so it won't disappear on me, and so I have the edits I've made to the original.) This is best enjoyed with a cup of unsweetened tea.  Green if you can manage it. <3 Live, Laugh, Luke Butter Mochi Ingredients 1 stick salted butter 2 cups sugar 2 tsp vanilla 4 eggs 16 oz mochiko flour 2 tsp baking powder 2 14.5-oz cans coconut milk Instructions Butter a 9x13" baking dish and preheat your oven to 350*F. In a large mixing bowl, melt the butter. Add the sugar and vanilla extract, using a rubber spatula to mix until fully combined. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing each one in fully. Upend the mochiko on top of the egg/sugar/butter mixture. Add the baking powder to the mochiko powder, then start slowly mixing it into the wet mix. Once it's sort of combined, to the point that it's not al...

I have such  a weakness for Irish cream.  One of my favorites -- if not my favorite -- form of alcohol.  And now that I've discovered that I can make frosting out of it?  Please send help, my waistline weeps. But send a cake along with the help, because I've got this great frosting, see, and we could frost a cake with it ... This makes the perfect amount to put on top of one single layer of cake.  I'd triple it for a double-layer cake you want to cover on all sides. Cheers! Lap It Up, Fuzzball Irish Cream Frosting Ingredients Single layer 1 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar 3 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder 3 Tbsp butter, softened 6 Tbsp Irish cream whiskey Double layer 3 cup confectioners' sugar 6 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder 6 Tbsp butter, softened 3/4 cup Irish cream whiskey Triple layer 4 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar 1/2 cup + 1 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder 9 Tbsp butter, softened 1 1/2 cup Irish cream whiskey Instructions In a m...

Why  would anyone ever pay for this in the store?  It's stupid-easy to make and tastes amazing made at home.  Pretty sure I'm in love. Also tonnes of love to the lady who posted  this amazing video  on how to make homemade horchata.  I've tweaked the recipe a little (because of course  I have) but she was the original inspiration. You can make this in about 2 hours, but all said it takes about 5 minutes of work.  Gonna bet that it's amazing in the summertime, but it's January and 17*F/-8*C where I am and I'm enjoying it. so maybe it's just that good. . Not maybe.  Definitely.  This drink is good . Horton Hears a Horchata Ingredients 3/4 cup rice -- whatever you have in the house 1 1/2 cup water, warm to a simmer 1 Tbsp vanilla 14 oz sweetened condensed milk 12 oz evaporated milk 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon 6 cups drinking water 12 ice cubes Instructions In a cereal bowl, combine rice and warm water, stirring just until ...

2018 was just a really good year for me, bringing with it innumerable blessings, one of which being some nice holiday traditions that helped ease down the blues I normally feel toward the year's end.  Our most recent new tradition is that of making a  cheesecake  on New Year's Eve that isn't done and ready to eat until New Year's Day, making it a nice treat that spans the two years.  I don't actually know if you can call it a tradition until you've done it more than once, now that I'm typing it all out, but whatever, it was so awesome to have cheesecake for breakfast on the first day of the new year that it's going to happen again next December, see if it doesn't. Anyway!  I wanted to make a special topping for our cheesecake and, while trolling through all the recipes I've saved over the course of the year, discovered that I had a recipe saved for  candied pecans  that claimed to be easy and quick -- 5 minutes, start-to finish.  After all the ...

I love puns. They're the perfect joke -- groan-worthy, too quick for the unsuspecting to dodge them, delightfully cheesy.  And puns that go along with food are even better!  No one can complain all that  much about them without running the risk of not getting any food, and no one in their right mind is going to run that risk, so. I bring this up because this particular recipe was the final course of a meal that consisted of: Potato soup Roasted carrots and parsnips (& other veggies) Root beer bread Ginger ale (the good stuff from Trader Joe's, mmm) Sweet potato pie puffs for dessert Each dish involves a root vegetable, so I called the meal " Root Access ."  So far, I've gotten two groans and a good handful of "oh god that's so good I hate it" responses from the peanut gallery, which I'm counting as a complete win. You don't have  to make these as part of a Root Access meal, but they're super good with it.  Highly re...

... and it's vegan, no less! (Shamelessly ganked from  this recipe for chocolate silk pie , which was shamelessly adapted from  this young lady's recipe , but I've never had much shame about anything, so it's fine.  Sets me up great to shamelessly make this frosting, smear it all over some  vegan wedding cake , and eat it with my bare hands.) ... and I'm not even vegan, wtf. Come to the Dark Side We Have Dark Chocolate Frosting Ingredients 16-20 oz silk tofu 2 tsp cocoa powder 2 Tbsp coffee liqueur OR vanilla extract Pinch salt 1 Tbsp sugar 12 oz vegan dark chocolate* (if you can get your mitts on some  Taza chocolate , you'll have a REAL treat) Instructions In a food processor, combine tofu, cocoa powder, liqueur/vanilla, salt, and sugar. Process until smooth. In a double-boiler (or SUPER carefully in the microwave?  I've heard this works for people, but it has never worked reliably for me) melt your dark chocolate. Pour the melted c...

You know that vegan cooking has arrived when a pair of non-vegans do a cake taste-test for their wedding cake and decide that the vegan cake option is, hands-down, the BEST cake out of all the options.  Like, nobody cares that it's vegan, so much as they care that it's just plain delicious.  Which it is, really -- dense and not too sweet, but very vanilla-y, a perfect offset to the sweetness of  the best-ever cream cheese vanilla buttercream frosting  I smeared all over it.  Oh, and because it's so dense, we had no problems at all with the wedding cake trying to tip over, despite being three layers tall, made taller by the amount of frosting I shoved between the layers. Yup. The groom's cake , on the other hand, was completely, unnecessarily vegan, frosted with a vegan tofu chocolate frosting that defies description, it's so tasty.  One batch of the stuff was enough to frost 6 cupcakes and thickly frost the moustache cake and still have probably half ...

One of the more entertaining exercises in which a fan of Star Wars  can engage is to quietly comment to a bunch of Very Manly Men with Gatekeeping Tendencies where Star Wars  is concerned that Chewbacca didn't get a medal at the end of the original Star Wars  because those weren't medals, they were the Star Wars  equivalent of wedding rings, and the Throne Room theme  is actually a wedding processional.  Chewie's the obvious correct choice for best man, and why wouldn't Leia officiate?  She's very official. (The sputtering, blustering, "that is NOT what's going on" insisting that results is absolutely hysterical  -- because what's it matter?  It's a fictional story about space wizards and laser swords.  Calm down everybody.) Side-note:  that Throne Room Theme is a wonderful  processional.  Have your own processional picked out if you're having me officiate your nuptials, because if you don't, that's what you're comi...

I am forever losing this recipe because I've not got it written down anywhere localized (read: it wasn't on this blog) and the temptation to complain that I'm well-frosted over its disappearance is too strong for me to resist. This is such a simple recipe, but oh, it's so good.  Even if you don't like cream cheese, you're likely to enjoy this frosting.   The cream cheese makes it feel lighter than a traditional buttercream and adds some sourness to it, which is an absolute delight. I'd say something funny here, but honestly, I'm in a small food coma from eating too many  Annoying Dog gingerbread cookies  frosted with this, so I'll leave this as it is and go drool on something for a while. This recipe makes enough frosting for a double-layer 8" cake, two big pans of brownies, or Far Too Many Annoying Dog cookies.  Divides neatly in half and in quarters, and I'm such a nice guy, I've done the maths for you. You're welcome. I...

I love how incredibly stupid Han Solo is. First, he goes to the homeworld of the gangster who's put a price on his head.  Then, he straight-up murders a dude in broad daylight for trying to collect on that price, and then instead of, I dunno, getting the hell out as fast as he can, he sticks around waiting for some old dude and his snot-nosed Outlands brat buddy to get on his ship, just because they promised they weren't broke.  And then  he totally puts his neck on the chopping block to save a princess because the aforementioned broke snot-nosed Outlands brat promised that she's rich, nevermind the fact that the world on which she was rich was just reduced to what Han thought was an asteroid field, which means her assets' value is questionable at best. He doesn't get any smarter, either.  Bumbles his way through the trilogy like an idiot, gets his dumb ass frozen in carbonite, then doesn't use protection and ends up with a patricidal son.  WHOOPS. Oh well...

I was looking for a Farmers' Market that sells local eggs and accidentally discovered that a) Somerville, MA, which is next door to where I live, is the birthplace of Marshmallow Fluff , b) this year (2017) marks the 100th birthday of Marshmallow Fluff, and c) to celebrate, the Union Square Farmers' Market is hosting an entire event dedicated to the celebration of Marshmallow Fluff. Part of that event is a cooking contest.  I can't NOT enter something like that, come ON. This is my entry. Gimme S'more'a that Fluffernutter Pie Ingredients Marshmallow fluff, divided: 1/2 cup + 1/2 cup + 1/2 cup = 1 1/2 cups total 13 graham crackers 16 oz silk tofu 1/2 cup unsalted smooth peanut butter 2 tsp cocoa powder 1 Tbsp white sugar Pinch salt 2 oz milk (I used soy, but I don't think it matters) 12 oz dark chocolate chips The patience of a saint (required; see * below) Instructions - Break 3 1/4 graham crackers into their small rectangle pieces and...

Today is Memorial Day, and also my partner's and my 12-year wedding anniversary.  It's also 50* and drizzling outside because apparently the great state of Massachusetts likes giving the unholy middle finger to anyone who wants to have a cook-out on a holiday in late May, how dare you even think that's a doable thing. My partner made me some amazing Bespin Eggs for brunch, and of course that put enough calories into my system for me to want to go for a "quick walk" (read: 3-mile trot) afterwards, and because it's Massachusetts out there, we ended up getting well misted for the whole thing and came home cold and wet. Hot cocoa to the rescue, for that!  I made this up as I went along, and oh my stars 'n garters is it good.  Doesn't make a grand amount of cocoa, but just enough to warm body and soul. Creature Comfort Hot Cocoa Ingredients 1 2/3 cup milk 2 Tbsp unsweetened baking cocoa 2 Tbsp white sugar 1 Tbsp dark chocolate chips 2 tsp Amar...

When looking for a cookie recipe, most folks aren't going to be looking for words like "gluten free," "vegan," or "cholesterol free." Most folks are going to be looking for "delicious," "chewy," and "addictive," because these are the things all good cookies should be. These are both. The name comes from the fact that they taste (to me) like Thailand, thanks to the mix of coconut and lemon, and they're bite-size, so they were originally going to be Thai Bites, but then that came out of my mouth as "Thai biters," and that  sounded like TIE Fighters, and because there is something wrong with me , I became overly enthusiastic and the name stuck. (Also TIE fighters are way, way  cooler than X-wings forever and always and they shouldn't be because they are bad guy ships  so have a contradiction as striking as these stupid cookies.) OH and don't expect these cookies to last very long. They wo...

My partner and I went to a restaurant a few weeks back and for dessert, we got a slice of something called the "Imposible." It was advertised as "chocolate cake with custard drizzled with caramel." As it turns out, that's like telling someone about Niagara Falls by saying "It's some rocks with water falling off it." This thing was ACTUALLY chocolate cake made with cinnamon and cayenne pepper, topped with a thick vanilla custard, dusted over with cinnamon, and drizzled in rich warm caramel sauce. We each took a bite and melted a little because holy heavens it was good. "I know how to make this," I told my partner. "Really?" he said. "This is a thing?" "No," I said (around a mouthful of cake, I wasn't about to let conversation rob me of my fair half of the slice), "but I can make this." (Side-note: my other superpowers include being able to nap anywhere, diving way too deep way too fast in...

I was in the grocery buying the stuff I needed to make Thanksgiving dinner and I happened upon a display of Milano cookies, which are one of my partner's favorite cookies. And, since I'd left him outside to mind the bikes while I battled the other shoppers who were all in my way begone the lot of you , I figured it'd be a nice treat to buy him some of the flavors he'd not yet gotten to try. Among the flavors available were mocha and lemon, both of which I purchased. We've not yet cracked into the mocha, as of the writing of this post, but we got into the lemon cookies as soon as we got home and lord preserve me they were stupid good. I mean, lemon and chocolate? Not what I usually think of, or thought of, but now ... Mmph. The following night, we fell asleep on the sofa together until 3:30 am, and because we showered when we woke up, I was all kinds of awake and feisty, so I made the lemon curd used as frosting for this dish. By the time we went to bed (like ...

Henry David Thoreau once wrote the famous piece of advice: Simplify, simplify, simplify. He'd likely be patently horrified  by this recipe, I should think, because I took the idea of a two-ingredient cake (which involves mixing a can of pumpkin with a can of spice cake and baking it until it's done) and turned it into what amounts to carrot cake that lacks carrot but has a bajillion other ingredients in it instead. Whoops. The cake's super good, though! I made the first one with a spice cake, and it was all right, then I made the second one to the specifications you see here, only I'd had a really trying day at work and was exorcising my anxieties via baking, and there was definitely a glass of very potent wine involved somewhere along the line, and so at some point I discovered that not only is it TOTALLY possible to separate your thumbnail from the rest of your thumb by picking at the frilly butt-end of a granny smith apple, it really bloody hurts  because apple...