Weekend Treats

This weekend my kitchen and I had some bonding time. Dishes and treats made this weekend include: pasta salad, nectarine jam, waffles, and chocolate layer cake.

The pasta salad was your run-of-the-mill type salad. The pasta used was orzo and I tossed it with feta cheese, kalamata olives, tomato, and homemade Greek dressing.

Now let's talk jam. I work/live in a non-for-profit and we are often given expired or expiring food. These nectarines fit that description so we decided to whip up some jam.

This was the first time I used "natural pectin" by cooking tart apples and lemons. I am fairly happy with the result. The jam is definately less solid than jams I have made using store bought pectin, but not watery.

The flavor of this jam is very fresh and the color is beautiful! Yet another happy canning experience.

We'll skip over most of the waffle details since they are generally uninteresting. But this is the first time I made waffles using the recipe my mom always used from my ABC Gold Medal Flour Cookbook. The most interesting difference is beating the egg whites to stiff peak state.

Moving on to chocolate layer cake. Today is a dear friend's birthday and so I decided she must have cake. Her choice was chocolate chocolate, that is always David's choice too. Since I am a high altitude baker I picked up my copy of The Joy of Cooking to find the right recipe.

I decided on chocolate fudge cake - but I didn't make the recommend frosting. I used all of their altitude corrects except I forgot to sour my milk. I'm glad to say my forgetfulness did not make a difference.

For frosting I made your standard powdered sugar, butter, cocoa, and vanilla frosting.

I am now going to go share a piece with my friend because the work day is over, hooray! And on a side note, please send up your prayers for me tomorrow. I will be driving some and interviewing for a paralegal position that I think I really want! Thanks!