Ripening Avocados at Home

I've been snatching up avocados whenever I see them for a good deal, even if they aren't quite ripe, yet. The trick is to also buy bananas or any other climacteric fruit and then store them in the same container to accelerate the ripening process. A brown paper bag works.

These avocados were a little on the firm side when I bought them yesterday evening and after a night with the bananas they ripened up really well. So much so that the remaining avocados are now quarantined in the fridge so they don't die on me by tomorrow.

By the way, this combination above- fresh avocado and fried egg on buttered toast sprinkled with salt and pepper... it's a divine breakfast that can be made in about five minutes.

Chocolate Raspberry + Lemon Prosecco Cakes

I found a cake recipe that I can improvise with! No fucking way! The traditional genoise sponge cake recipe only requires a minimum of three ingredients (eggs, flour, sugar), but once you get the technique down it's smooth sailing from there.

Here, I've made two cakes for Hai and Mark's birthday party. One a chocolate raspberry cake and the other a lemon prosecco cake. The chocolate raspberry is made with chocolate genoise soaked in maraschino liqueur, layered with raspberry preserves and slathered with whipped chocolate ganache.

The lemon prosecco cake is a traditional genoise soaked in prosecco layered with rich lemon curd and wrapped in lemon buttercream.

Good times for all!

Brat Bites and Mini Tacos

I'm blogging from my phone! Haven't updated in a while, but I'm wondering if this new Blogger app will have me posting more frequently. We'll see.

Here's a tasty picture of a brat bite I put together for my friend's Erin and Michael. They're getting married next month and I'm going to be catering the cocktail hour. A little scared but also ridiculously excited to get to cook for so many people.