Zuppa Inglese!

Some time ago, at the end of last year, I made my mom a semi-homemade cake for her birthday. It's called Zuppa Inglese (don't ask me why), and you can find all sorts of variations of the recipe online. I just got home on the day of her birthday and I wanted to make this recipe for a super quick and easy cake that Mrs. O shared with me. It was quick and easy to make, but more importantly, it was delicious! I was surprised by how good a non-homemade cake tasted. Anyways, I used 2 boxes of Entemann's regular pound cake, 1 jar or raspberry preserves, a teeny-tiny bottle of unflavored rum, regular vanilla pudding, toasted thin-sliced almonds, and whipped cream.

I split both loaves of pound cake in the middle (you can go thinner and split into three halves lengthwise). Make sure they're even, then brush all the tops with rum. Spread raspberry preserves evenly, and then the vanilla pudding on top of the preserves.

Pile on the top layers and brush them with more rum! Cover the whole thing with whipped cream and spread it around as evenly as you possibly can.

Then, get creative with the toasted almonds which I just toasted in the oven. At first, I wanted to place the almonds on top of the cake one at a time like in the picture below. But I realized that it was taking too long and that my fingers were ruining the whipped cream, so I just sprinkled it on and went crazy!

I put the rest of the whipped cream in a Ziploc with a decorating tip and covered the deformed edges of the cake.

And yes, we did cut a slice of it and ate the slice before I remembered to put some fresh strawberries on top. Anyway, that's it. It was good and gone by the next day. DELISH!

Two Dishes with Chicken Sausage.

 This is one of simplest dishes ever, I'm just going to list the ingredients:

• red and green peppers
• red onion
• mild chicken sausage (or any kind of sausage)
• salt and pepper
• hoagie rolls
• parmesan cheese (optional)

I just sliced the peppers and onion lengthwise, sautéd them in a pan, added the cut up sausages and seasoned with salt and pepper. Easy peasy.

Yummers!

I scraped some of the bread out to make room for the sausage & peppers.

I then sprinkled some Parmesan cheese just because.

Lunch, done.

And for dinner the next night, I had a lot of leftover sausage and peppers. So I just quickly cooked some Jasmine rice, and voila! Dinner, also done.

Two Dishes with Angel Hair Pasta.

I really have to apologize to my 3 followers for neglecting my blog. For a while there, amidst the craziness of grad school life, I forgot I even had a blog. But I guess it's okay since I haven't been cooking that much in the past couple of months anyway. I have been living on peanut butter and banana sandwiches for a while now (yes, it's that busy), but I did manage to get some pictures of a few dishes that I managed to squeeze into my schedule. ;) 

I have to warn you that the pictures don't do the dishes justice. Most of the time, I'm rushing to get it done, so I skip a lot of the steps and/or don't worry about taking a better picture. I can't even remember when this was, but I was just really wanting to cook something... it was killing me! And so I did... cook something, I mean. This recipe is from Cooking Light and it's called Lemony Chicken Saltimbocca. Fancy name. I didn't have fresh Sage leaves, so I just used dried ones. It was such an easy, yet delicious dish. I really love angel hair pasta!

 

You can tell I was really rushing. This picture is pitiful. I could have at least placed lemon wedges on the side to give it a splash of color and/or taken a few shots instead of just one in this weird, awkward angle.  

Anyway, I cooked a whole box of angel hair pasta, but didn't use all of it up for the chicken dish. So the next day, I made this simple sesame noodle dish for dinner. I added sesame seeds, a little bit of lemon juice, and crushed red pepper flakes to the Pioneer Woman's recipe.

Yum! Simple and easy. 

Dinner Out.

One of my favorite things in the world is sitting outside and having a nice dinner with family and friends. The weather was beautiful that night and the fire from the grill smelled wonderful. It was perfect! Here are a few pictures from our dinner with my family, Mrs. O, and B at our home. Our menu: spinach and feta on filo dough (for "appetizers"), grilled chicken and pork, corn, salad, rice (sort of out of place), and pita bread. I can still remember the smell of the smoke and the taste of the scrumptious, delicious food. *Sigh*

Christmas with the O's.

Two years ago, I was blessed to meet a family who was gracious enough to include me in their dinners and holiday celebrations. The O's have been so wonderful as to let me experience and enjoy holidays and special occasions with them. I have learned so much and have enjoyed celebrating my "traditional American" Thanksgiving and Christmas. I especially love the turkey on Thanksgiving and baking cookies before Christmas!!! The following are just some pictures from my Christmas with the O's.

Some of my favorites of Mrs. O's decorations.

Making Apple Crisp with B and Mrs. O sometime before Christmas.

YUMMY!!!

The dogs having a blast while we cooked.

The "informal" place settings.

Clockwise L-R: caper berries, and our sides of mushrooms, sweet potato casserole, and broccoli casserole.

And of course, rolls and ham!

For dessert, Mrs. O and I made a pear pie. It was so delicious!