The bride and groom were the most casual laid back couple I have ever met making for the most perfect 5 minute wedding. The ceremony ended in a big family hug. Does a wedding get any better than that?

Oh yeah, it does get better. There was pie!

Lots of pie….

Here’s to the bride and groom and their kickass family! Congratulations!

P.S. I’m a little sad I didn’t get a picture of the backyard. DOH!

It’s good to have friends who cook. Even better when friends make delicious treats like these. Featured here are Lia’s Delights. If you are in the Iowa City area, look her up!

The recipe is great but a little rich and heavy on the Bailey’s. Keep this in mind. If you really love Bailey’s, make as is. I think next time I will skip the drizzling part, and change the frosting to half Bailey’s and half milk.

Bailey’s Irish Cream Brownies

3 oz unsweetened baking chocolate (1oz baking chocolate = 3 TBS cocoa + 1 TBS butter)
1/2 c butter
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs, beaten
3 tablespoons Bailey’s Irish Cream
2/3 cup flour
dash of salt
2/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Melt unsweetened chocolate with butter in microwave and mix well. Cool.

Preheat oven to 325º. Grease and flour an 8 inch square baking pan.

Beat sugar and eggs together in mixing bowl. Add Bailey’s and cooled chocolate mixture. Mix well. Stir in flour, salt and chocolate chips. Pour into prepared pan. Bake at 325º for approximately 20 minutes. Cool completely.

Pierce brownies with a wooden pick randomly. Drizzle 3 tablespoons Bailey’s over Brownies, then frost.

Frosting
3 Tablespoons softened butter
4 tablespoons Bailey’s
3 c confectioners sugar

In mixing bowl, combine liqueurs and butter. Mix well. Gradually add confectioners sugar and beat until spreading consistency.

This is one of my favorite foods in the entire world. 1st reason, it’s a fried. 2nd reason,  it’s a simple process. I don’t even have a recipe for it, but I’ll try to give it a step by step here.

1. Cut your eggplant in thin slices. Leave the skin on.
2. Salt each slice and let sit so that they sweat out moisture.
3. 2 bowls. One for flour seasoned with salt and pepper. The other with 2 eggs and milk (quite a bit so it’s soupy)
4. Heat oil in the pan. I like to fry in a lot of oil so I don’t have to keep adding to it.
5. Dip slice in egg mixture, then flour to coat, then back in egg, and back to flour. This gives it a nice crust.
6. Fry in hot oil until golden brown. It won’t take long.
6. Set on rack to drain oil.

The great thing about friend eggplant is that you can use it as a side dish or you can layer it with spaghetti, eggplant, red sauce, then mozzarella cheese! Throw into oven until warm and serve!

Great! After typing all of this out I think I need to make it again tomorrow!

I am now working with Yumi’s Bakery & Deli here in Grinnell. Their food is beautiful and I am looking forward to our weekly photo shoots.

My youngest son turned 10! I let him pick out all the elements of his ice cream cake. This is what he come up with. Chocolate cake, chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, strawberry frosting, and chocolate sprinkles. It was really good! I am not a huge fan of strawberry frosting but it complimented the rest of the cake in flavor.

I am so sad that they don’t make chocolate covered Sugar Babies anymore.

I didn’t have a lot of time to get the real camera out for good pictures. This was taken with my point and shoot as I was pulling it out of the oven, setting on top of fridge to cool, and running out the door. The Strawberry Rhubarb Crunch recipe was sent to me on twitter. The flavor is amazing and it was surprisingly simple to make. I was a little concerned when it said to boil corn starch, vanilla, and water. Yuck, but it make a perfect thickening for the filling and wasn’t hard to do.

The only bad part was that I made it to take pictures of the next day. It wasn’t too pretty the next day. Still tasted great! But it’s looks had faded so I will just have to get some more rhubarb and strawberries from the farmers market this weekend and make it again. Tragic I know. My family and I really do suffer for my art.