Bread & Circus

 I found this in my spice collection ..

Mushrooms

Apples

I collected an absurd amount of apples and made Smitten Kitchen's lemon ricotta pancakes with apples of course. I really like this photo of the naked lemon.

Omelete

This was just a nice picture, at least I thought so. I used to do something like this below, but now I improved at least on a visual level. Eggs, milk, parsley, tomato, purple onion and feta.

This was good but looks uncoordinated.The green thing is spinach with water. I can never fully get out the water.

All Purpose Cake

I love this recipe. I think it's a typical Russian household cake but since no one ever taught me how to make traditional Russian food for me it's a big delicious novelty. In my old apartment I used to bake it for a full hour but in my new one I baked it for 45 and it was a little much. I think I will try 40 next time. I think what really makes this cake is the orange rind. It's like a difference between ordinary and a step up. The cake is very light meaning you can pretty much eat as much as you want. For the above I used apple, some strawberries and some raspberries.  This is fully stolen from  http://www.beyondsalmon.com/2007/05/my-moms-rhubarb-cake.html  recipe below. I thought I'd blog it in case it ever disappears or I get Alzheimer's and can no longer find the recipe online

Serves 8

3 large eggs
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
pinch of salt
1 cup all-purpose flour (4.5 oz)
1/2 tsp baking powder
Zest of 1 orange
1 Lb rhubarb, diced
Butter for greasing the pan

1. Preheat the oven to 375F.
2. In a large bowl, beat eggs, sugar, vanilla, and salt with a wire whisk until frothy. Add the flour, baking powder, and orange zest and continue to mix just until combined. Stop mixing as soon as the flour streaks disappear.
3. Butter an 8x8x2 pyrex dish or a baking dish of about that size. Spread the rhubarb in the bottom of the dish and pour the batter evenly on top. It will look like you have way more fruit than batter. Don't worry -- it will puff up in the oven.
   4. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until the skewer comes out clean (just make sure you are piercing the batter and not a piece of rhubarb).

Cookies!

I stole this recipe from smitten. These are so cute and delicious filled with nits raisins and cranberries to the brim. This is my 3rd time making these but  today when I put them in the oven I realized that I forgot the to add the oatmeal.There is a story to this. I stayed at a hostel in Nantucket and they served something that looked like this for breakfast. They were gone before I had a chance to try them. They looked so good that  when I got home I decided to call the hostel and find out the recipe. When I called I was told that the recipe was on the opposite side of the lid of Quaker Oats. I only buy oats from Whole Foods so I looked online for this lid recipe and found it but then I went to smitten to see what she had to say and of course she had oatmeal cookies that were very similar but I presume better then Quaker's.