I can feel fall trying to make itself comfortable. It is cloudy and and cool and perfect weather for a big bowl of oatmeal and some coffee. Has anyone had a pumpkin latte yet? I must make it soon!
I have been looking at my potted herbs and realized I have to plan more accordingly so I will not waste these precious herbs. I have some basil, mint and rosemary. As I was looking at my basil and mint I realized that something has been getting their teeth or jaws on the leaves. They looked chewed on!
Guess what I saw the other day?
Is this praying mantis not beautiful?? I promise you it was posing for me because as I was taking photos it stopped chewing and climbing over leaves to stop and look at me. It was pretty amazing!
Stay tuned to see what I make with these leftover herbies. I usually make a basil lemonade but I am not quite sure that I can ingest too much basil with being preggers.
This past Sunday we had the new grad students come over for a little dessert and wine get-together. Everyone was to bring their favorite dessert or wine. We had a total of 11 people and lots of desserts! We had:
- Pecan Sandies
- Lemon Ricotta Cookies
- Peanut Butter Cake Pops
- Chocolate Zucchini Bundt Cake
- Chocolate Chip Pie
I made sure to add some pretzels to the mix just to add some palate cleansing.
I decided to make a cake. It has been a while since I had made a cake but guess what I scored at the grocery store? 3-4 pounds of FRESH blackberries for 2 bucks! Yes. So apparently the store bought too many and they were almost going bad so they were selling each pint for 0.18.Crazy people because they looked great.
I decided to freeze half of the berries and then use some for breakfast and some for a special dessert. A blackberry cake sounded sensational! I know that a new recipe should not be tried on company but I decided to risk it. I like taking risks.
I stumbled on a recipe from Living Locurto that described a one-of-a kind blackberry cake and I was sold. I veganized the recipe and cut the sugar back and decided to add a blackberry frosting instead of using a plain buttercream frosting. I was so excited to make a colorful dessert!
It is a 3 layer cake, requiring 3 cups of berries divided between 3 cake pans. Once they are baked there is a crispy layer on each cake that is delicious. The smell of the baked cakes is also pretty dang good.
Everyone knows that blackberries are the worst when it comes to the seeds. How was I going to ge rid of the seeds for the frosting? I whipped the berries in my Vitamix and it blended the seeds into the puree very well!
I got lots of compliments about this cake. If anything, it is a great party dessert, but I also think it would be a great birthday cake too. It also really does NOT take tha much time. Between whipping the cake batter and making the frosting as the cakes bake, I believe this was an easy recipe and this is saying something coming from a pregnant woman! Go and make it!
