Pi Day!

I like to make a pie for Pi day every year but this year I sort of forgot until it was 8 pm and I was starving for dinner. So I improvised. I used some roti dough that my mom had given me for a crust and topped it with mozzarella and some really delicious tomato paste from Greece that I had been saving for a good occasion and what better occasion is there than Pi day??










I kind of had to eat it like a taco but it was delicious!

King Cake!

In honor of Fat Tuesday, we made a bit of a feast with red beans and rice, andouille sausage, cornbread, and of course king cake!  In past years I've gotten this excellent New Orleans king cake mix from World Market (weirdly enough). In fact I made one last month from that mix to take to a super bowl party. We didn't end up going to the party and ate the whole cake ourselves, oy. But when I went to go buy another box of mix for Fat Tuesday, they were all sold out! What to do now, especially since I had promised our guests a king cake? Well I decided to try make a homemade one - a real legitimate recipe with yeast and everything!

This is the recipe I used: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/mardi-gras-king-cake/. 

First the yeast, mix with water and sugar and let bubble up. This took about 10 minutes I think.

Hot milk and butter

Pile of measured out flour ready to be mixed in

The premade mix came with a ziplock bag to help with the kneading so I stole that idea and used a ziplock for my kneading process too. Way less mess!

After you knead it, you let it sit for awhile in a warm place to rise. Then I dumped it out on the board to roll it out.

Rolled out and waiting for the filling

Filling made of butter, brown sugar, crushed pecans and cinnamon.

For the icing. I didn't have powdered sugar but I learned from an old college friend of mine that you can just put sugar in the blender to make powdered sugar! I used our fake Magic Bullet thing and it worked great!  I didn't really follow the recipe for the frosting, just added a little milk and water and a bit of vanilla and lemon juice. 

The final product!  I had some leftover colored sugar from the mix I used before which worked perfectly! I had also saved the plastic baby and stuffed it under the cake before icing it.

Turned out great and we all had a good time! My cousin's wife ended up with the baby so she'll be having the party next year (if we remember...)