The kitchen is off duty!

Well after a week of not posting I feel it necessary to at least say a few things. We have been extremely busy around here. Last week was Alex's birthday week and with a Coldstone Peanut Butter Playground cake, dessert was taken care of. We also ventured to Buca di Beppo twice over the week for Alex's parents 40th wedding anniversary as well as the annual birthday dinner with friends. Both times it was great, but I think Buca will be on hold after that much indulgence.

On Sunday, I was in charge of bringing dessert to Alex's birthday lunch at his parents house. I asked Alex to pick out a dessert and he chose the Vanilla Charlotte with Raspberries by Gale Gand in her book Chocolate and Vanilla. So on Saturday I set out to make the ladyfingers. Not too difficult, came out a little thin, but tasted great. On to the custard. Well, that thing did not want to set for its life. After pouring it into my lined spring form, the custard began leaking out all over the counter. My shriek beckoned Alex, who helped me get the custard into a 9" round pan. After four hours in the fridge, the custard was halfway to being set and the ladyfingers were not show worthy after all the rigmarole. So the dessert found its way into the garbage.

Dessert number two...I always keep box mixes on hand for occasions such as this. So into the oven went a yellow Duncan Hines. The next morning, the day of the lunch, I went to frost it with a lemon cream cheese frosting, homemade of course, and with some lemon curd in the middle that we had in the pantry. Well I guess the fact that the lemon curd was in our pantry should have elicited fear, but instead after finishing the cake, I licked a finger only to discover that the lemon curd tasted well, in the best words, inedible. So the second dessert went into the garbage.

So here we enter the house with half of the leftover coldstone cake:)

I have tried to redeem myself this week making CI Coffee Cake, Krispie topped Brownie bars, and CI's Chicken and Rice Casserole. Well they all turned out delicious...phew, I am not cursed:)