Daring Bakers: Chocolate Eclairs

Hello all -- As you've probably guessed by the very recent proliferation of chocolate éclairs, the Daring Bakers strike again. Meeta of What's For Lunch, Honey and Tony Tahan are to thank for these wonderfully easy and tasty treats.

Anyway, as is the norm, Beelzebub isn't to be trusted with items made from choux pastry, so I made them at my parents' house.

To read what the other DBs did with this challenge, take a meander through our blogroll.

As some of you know, my dear chicken-craving Beanie is now an only cat and lives with his Gramma and Grampa. He kept a very, very close eye on me and the treats that came out of the oven. He asked ever so nicely to write to you since it's been a very long time since he last appeared here, and he promised to talk about the challenge. How could I say "no" to that face?

Hallo all you luvly humman-cats

Did you miss me?

I missed you.

So much happened since I last writed to you. I know you know that my humman's humman went away forever to play in the big catnip field in the sky and now eats all the chicken he wants. My humman is doing okay. She misses him and I miss him too.

I used to come out and visit with him. The OTHER cats never bothered. That rotten little goody two shoes Hagia used to have long talks with him on the phone--making up lies and stories about me--but she he never seened her. I visited--but he never gave me any chicken. How could he not give me any chicken? I'm a very handsome cat and chicken only makes me handsomer.

You know that Jasmine and Hagia and Zeus no longer live with me. Did they tell you why? If they did, don't believe anything they say. I'll tell you what really happened.

When Jasmine decided to buy the condo she didn't know if she could afford to keep me (and the others). Gramma and Grampa decided they would take care of me (and the others). I love gramma. She give me treats like chicken and turkey and oatmeal and ice cream. She even sews toys for me. Gramma says that the treats and toys are for all of us, but I know she really means just me.

I missed my humman-cat when she was away. The others didn't. They don't luv her as much as I do. She visited almost every day --I memorized her schedule and waited for her every day at the same time. The others never came out. She had to go looking for them. She didn't have to look for me because I was right there.

Well, something happened and she found Hagia and Hagia said I wasn't letting her eat and Hagia said she was scared and made up all sorts of stories about me. Everyone always says how nice and good Hagia is and she's little Miss Purrfect. I know that she's not, but nobody believes me.And the next thing I know she went away.

I was sooo happy I gots more cuddles and more food and then Jasmine spended more time with me. I'm so smart!

Everything was good until a couple of months ago. I like to rassel and Zeus used to rassel with me, but he decided he didn't want to rassel. So I figured he just need more rasseling to remember how much he liked rasseling. But Grampa decided that enough was enough took Zeus away.

Gramma got so mad at me. She said it was my fault that Hagia and Zeus went away because of me. She then said that they went to live with Jasmine. That's not fair! I'm supposed to live with my humman-cat, not them.

But there is a good side to all of this. I get two human-cats instead of one and they both give me lots of cuddles and lots of treats. So I guess that's okay. Gramma likes to take naps and I nap with her. Papa likes to fix things so I help him. And Jasmine comes and visits a lot so I get to see her too.

The only bad thing is that they got this black chair and I like it--but Gramma can't see me when I'm on it so sometimes she sits on me. Grampa put a big gold towel on the chair so she doesn't sit on me again. Doesn't it make my eyes look pretty?

Anyway, I promised I would talk to you about the special treats Jasmine made. She called them éclaws or something. I watched her make them and they looked easy to make. Gramma doesn't have a piping bag so they filled a zippy bag with the dough and clipped corner. They made fat worms and round buttons with the dough.

When they came out of the oven they were big and poofy. They smelled good. I asked for some but she said "No, Beanie, these aren't for pussycats." She's so mean to me. Then she took them away and said she would "finish them."

Finish them? She's going to eat them all by herself? She's so greedy. Couldn't she have saved one for me?

I looked at Gramma and she said that they were for a special lunch the next day.

I'm special. I should get one.

Gramma and Grampa and their friends went to have lunch and came back and talked about the éclaws. They said that Jasmine filled them with vanilla pastry cream and put chocklit on top. One of the friends said that some of the chocklit was spicy because the chocklit had chilli peppers in it and the rest was just nice because it had matcha tea tea with it.

I don't know. I think they would have been better with chicken.

cheers!
jasmine

BBB & WCB: For Sher

On 20 July 2008 the foodblogging and catblogging worlds lost a dear friend. Sherry Cermak of What Did You Eat passed away of a heart attack. She was lucky enough to have found Bob, the loving man who became her husband. She was an attorney, a wildlife rehabilitator, an avid foodie and a lover of cats.

She was a member of The Bread Baking Babes, a ragtag group of people who, like The Daring Bakers, complete a monthly baking challenge. The BBBs held a memorial food event for her that was open to everyone on 27 July--I wanted to participate, but that was the day after the first anniversary of My Darling One's passing and I was very emotionally drained and didn't think I could post something coherent that would do her spirit justice.

This weekend's Weekend Cat Blogging event is also a memorial event with a food theme, and is Hosted by the House of the (Mostly) Black and White Cats. I'd participated in a couple WCBs in the past, and well, I know I've been remiss in updating you guys on my furry companions, so I thought this might be a good time to do that.

I went through her site, looking for a recipe to create and post--not just for me, but also for Paz who was interested in sharing this post with me--Sher was in her thoughts as well, but Paz's recovery bed is keeping her from the kitchen.

Sher's site had a bit of everything, but it was pretty clear she really liked meatballs. When I saw her mushroom balls post cross my screen, it just seemed to be the right thing to do: not only do I love mushrooms, but Michael did as well.

Sher's page suggested pairing them with a spicy red sauce. I decided to serve them with roasted tomatoes on a bed of rice.

I used cremini mushrooms as I couldn't find portabellos. Since I don't have a food processor, I used the medium side of my box grater to mince the mushrooms. I know it's a bit labour intensive for some, but for those of us who don't have the gadget, I thought the grater worked very well. I used a ricer to extract the juices (if you don't know already, save the mushroom juice and then boil it down a bit. When cooled, you can freeze it or just refrigerate until you next make a beef soup, stew or meat sauce--it adds a really nice depth of flavour). The mushroom balls came together really easily and quickly....and they were easily and quickly eaten--as snacks and as supper.

With regards to my sweet little kitties...when I moved into the condo, I came to a difficult decision. Because of the extra costs of home ownership, I wasn't sure if I could afford to keep the kitties, so my parents came to the rescue and said they'd keep them for me. Yay! We know that Beanie and My Dear Little Cardamummy are quite close, and my dad and Zeus have a certain affinity (as well as uncanny mutual resemblance), and well Hagia is just a good girl so I wasn't too worried.

Unfortunately, a couple of months into the arrangement, I noticed that Hagia wasn't happy. She'd gotten thinner and was looking rather rumpled. Quite a change from my usually well-presented little vampire-fanged grey tabby.

Well...it turned out that Beanie's bullying ways came out very strongly and stopped her from eating and kept her hiding under beds and mostly out of sight. She came out to see me and she just didn't look right...so after many conversations with my parents, I scooped her up and moved her in.

She's quite happy and can eat when she wants and not worry about being pounced on by a cat two and a half her size. She's found a few favourite spots in the condo--under the loveseat in the TV temple, on the second floor landing...and of course, on the couch, next to me as I type...she's usually a little more chatty and headbonky than this, but she had a very tiring day being a cat:



The next major event occurred about two weeks ago. Beanie honed in on poor Zeus...same story as above. But instead of Zeus coming out for a couple of minutes a day, as Hagia did, he disappeared for days at a time. Zeus is a very timid and easily picked on by the bully boy. Add to this he's a stress eater and he put on a lot of weight in a very short span of time.

Well, it all came to a boil an d my father had to break up two pretty nasty cat fights--poor Zeus was made into chutney (as my parents would say). Quite surprised that my father agreed to it, but I think he realised it was no longer fair to Z. I got the call the next day, asking if Zeus could come over here and join his sister.

How could I say no? That would just be mean.

Zeus arrived and spent the first three nights locked in my powder room, scared out of his wits, crammed between the back of the privy and the wall. My parents came to visit him every day (they've actually visited him here more often then me, since they returned from India). I don't know who was more upset about he turn in events, Zeus or my dad...really. Mummy said Daddy was crying along with Zeus...and Daddy never cries.

The next night Zeus seemed a bit happier--still very stressed, but a bit happier...the happiness would be temporarily lessened as I decided he needed a bath...weeks of hiding out in my parent's basement left him with a certain waft. He'd never been bathed before so I had the exbf do the honours. They were both quite good about it.

Zeus now has free roam of the condo. There's a wee bit of hissing still, but the siblings are able to stay underneath the same loveseat together for hours at a time (yes, they come from a hidey, paranoid line)--very good sign, I think. He spends a lot of his life hiding from me (nothing new there) but when he hears me come down the basement steps, he gets quite social and hides behind a fortress wall of laundry baskets to see what I'm doing, in hopes he'll get a little scritch. His favourite spot is the corner behind the fireplace, in a towel-lined cardboard carton. I'm convinced he's dropped at least a pound. I couldn't help but take a photo of Zeus in the laundry sink after his bath. The other photo is him in his carton behind the fireplace.



And before you ask...Yes, Beanie does miss Zeus a heckuvalot...even though "gramma" feeds him lots of his beloved chicken, he doesn't know where his brother went. No, he didn't miss Hagia at all and his ears still go back when you mention her name. He just doesn't understand that he's much bigger than the others and they don't always want to "play." It seems to be genetic...his half-brother is much the same way. And yes, I have a feeling Beanie will be blogging again...

cheers!
jasmine