it's all about balance

happy weekend! for those of you who celebrate easter, happy easter! the sisters were home for my bday celebration. so lots of food fun were of course required. found this image of easter bunny rolls on pinterest and s4 jumped right on it! 

the actual execution of bunnies was a bit more challenging than anticipated. haha. sort of alien-esque bunnies.

birthday lunch included fish tacos- cod double breaded w/ garlic, black pepper and salt, topped with pico de gallo, cabbage, guacamole, hot sauce and lobster dip (the tacos needed a chipotle sauce and i had gotten the lobster dip packet from the vermont country store, delicious, let me say). 

i had a hard time choosing a bday cake, and wanted to test out this recipe, so bday left perfect excuse not to get questioned about ingredients i buy :) this is a french silk pie from here, one of the many random recipes i've found probably while browsing at work. i love the vitamix we got for M for xmas/bday. so nice to be putting good use to it. this pie is delicious, so smooth and creamy, just like chocolate mousse. highly recommend!

French Silk Pie (serves 8-10)
13 ounces semisweet chocolate chips
1/3 cup boiling water
2 tsp instant coffee
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 12.3 ounce package silken tofu, drain out water
1 T maple syrup, grade B
1 9 inch prepared chocolate crust or homemade
fruit (optional)
whipped topping (optional)

Directions
Make the coffee with the water. Melt the chocolate chips with the coffee and vanilla in a metal bowl over simmering bowl or in a double boiler. Stir frequently until completely melted. Add the tofu, chocolate mixture, and maple syrup to a food processor or blender. Process until smooth and pour into the chocolate crust. Refrigerate for 2 hours and top with fruit or whipped topping.

As a thank you gift to my sister's friend, this is the other end of the spectrum of sweets. this is thin mint gooey cake bars from picky palate. made a couple changes due to laziness in buying ingredients, but also b/c couldn't find the andes mints! still trying to figure out where they are in the grocery store...these are definitely decadent and little bits go a long way. 

Thin Mint Gooey Cake Bars (9 x 9 pan, makes 16 squares)

Ingredients

1 yellow cake box mix

1 stick unsalted butter, softened

1 egg

1 can condensed milk

6 ounces semisweet chocolate chips

About 1 1/2 sleeves of thin mints, half of them crushed (leave 6 whole)

Combine cake mix, butter and egg. It helps to do it by hand. Press half the dough onto the bottom of the well sprayed pan. Sprinkle the chocolate chips and drizzle 1/3 of the condensed milk on the layer. Press the remaining dough as a second layer and sprinkle the crushed cookies on top. Lay the whole cookies on top (however you want to fashion it) and pour the remaining condensed milk on top. Bake at 350 for about 40 minutes (this is really thick dough so it needs a long time to bake) or until the top has become golden and crispy. 

also made smittenkitchen's thick, chewy oatmeal raisin cookies. they all got wrapped up and/or eaten before a picture could be taken. but they are really tasty. the thick, chewy part definitely comes out better baked on parchment paper rather than on silpat.