CEIMB and BB

This week's Craving Ellie in my Belly recipe was the Sweet & Spicy Grilled Cheese Sandwiches, hosted by Leslie of Lethally Delicious.

I love this recipe. The sweet comes from some tasty little carmelized red onions, and the spicy is from pepper jack cheese that's mixed with cheddar in the sandwich. The first time I made these several weeks ago, I was just winging it with the cheese and ended up using too much. They were good, but they really were too rich and cheesy. I made myself another one a week later, with less cheese, and it was much better.

Grilled Cheese is so simple and basic, and this is a great way to mix it up. If I were the kind of person to have houseguests, this would be great to have for lunch along with some soup when it's chilly out, to make something simple that seems a bit fancy. I don't do houseguests, though, so it'll just be Josh and me living it up on these little tasties this winter.

***********************



This week's Barefoot Bloggers recipe was Beatty's Chocolate Cake, hoted by Mary of Passionate Perseverance. This is a chocolate cake with a chocolate frosting.

Firstly, I have a hard time making cakes because it'll just go to waste around here. I'm more of a cupcake gal lately, since I can freeze some, eat some here at home with Josh and the girlies, and easily bring some into my office to feed the savages.

Secondly, I don't like the chocolate/chocolate combo, or vanilla/vanilla. I like choc cake/vanilla frosting, or vice versa. So. I decided to pass on the frosting, and instead I made the Fluffy White Frosting from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes book.

These were so good. The cake was dark and rich, it has a whole cup of coffee in it (I used decaf), which really intensifies the chocolate flavor. And with the vanilla frosting, these cupcakes tasted like Devil Dogs. I didn't have buttermilk in the house, so I had to do the lemon juice/milk trick, which worked great. The batter was very runny, though, and also rose a TON in the oven, which was very surprising.

And pardon me while I get dorky, but I really liked that this recipe called for sifting the dry ingredients in the mixer, and adding the wet ingredients. It's usually the other way around, and when I dump in the dry ingredients, no matter how carefully, some always puffs up in a dust cloud. That didn't happen at all doing it this way. Or maybe I just usually have the mixer set too high and that's why I get little atomic clounds? Anyway.

I can see this recipe being my go-to for chocolate cake in the future. And as you can see, Delma enjoyed them. Yum!