#the dinner diaries

[spooniechef]

The Dinner Diaries 2a, Midnight Snack Attack (Wacky Cake - 0 spoons)

I'm off work this week and for some dumb reason, I got it into my head to do that Wacky Cake recipe I've been on about lately. I got this urge at something like 1:30am. Because disordered sleep is right up there with disordered eating, I guess. In any case, it's a fairly easy recipe, as found in B Dylan Hollis' Baking Yesteryear (and probably dozens of other places) ... though there are a few notes I really want to make when it comes to this particular recipe. Especially when using gluten-free flour. Anyway - Midnight Baking!

Here's what you'll need:

For the cake:

1.5 cups all-purpose flour

1/3 cup cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon white vinegar

1 cup water

For the frosting:

1 cup powdered sugar

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

About 3 tablespoons water

I'll add it here rather than including the instructions - for the love of whatever you like, sift the flour and powdered sugar before you use it. The flour is particularly important if you're using gluten-free but is probably necessary for ; the sugar's important just in general. Flour and powdered sugar both tend to clump, and things won't mix properly without a lot of effort if you don't sift them first.

So, with some variations depending on what material your cake pan is made of, here's what you do:

Pre-heat oven to 350F (180C, 160C fan assist, gas mark 4)

You want an 8" x 8" cake pan; if your cake pan is ceramic or glass, add the dry ingredients directly to the pan and mix until uniform. If your cake pan is metal, mix everything in a large bowl.

If not using metal, dig three wells in your dry ingredients. Add the vanilla to one, the oil to another, and the vinegar to a third. Then add the water and mix well. If you are using metal, just throw all the wet ingredients into the bowl of dry ingredients, mix well, and dump the whole thing into the cake pan.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool entirely in the pan.

Mix your cocoa powder and powdered sugar and stir while adding very small amounts of water until it reaches a thick pourable consistency (not quite as thick as molasses, but close). Pour over the cooled cake; cut cake into squares in the pan.

Final note - if you're using the Celcius temperature, err on the side of 30 minutes plus, just to be on the safe side.

Of course, now I've gone to all this work and I'm not actually all that hungry any more. Though it doesn't help that I did not sift the flour or powdered sugar before I used it. Not that it doesn't still taste nice; just I don't think I got the consistency of the frosting right, at least in part because a fair bit of the powdered sugar clumped rather than dissolving. I'm sure using the tips above will help next time.

So will not trying to make frosting at 3:30am.

[rafayelbiter]

mmmm Girl Dinner! 🤤🤤👅

[liptonekbrzoskwiniowy]

A wszystko zaczęło się od filmiku Nanami Chan.

[cfserkgk]

Maomao and Lahan after a very very long time of not posting - but Chinese New Year Themed (even though it's so very far away from Chinese New Year, I'm not sure why I made it that).

There's something about the yellow/gold and red color palette of Chinese New Year that I really like, it really makes the mood festive and bright and very very warm. And plus KnH is canonically set in (a fictional) China, which makes me really happy.

[livin222dream]

girlhood>💓

[galina]

Debris of a dinner party, which is to say, debris of love

[pretty-princess-4ever]

Food log 4/8/24🎀

Aunt Millie’s low carb bread toasted, peanut butter, strawberry jam, banana, fat free milk

Peach Activia yogurt, mandarin

Riced cauliflower kimchi rice, tofu, egg, avocado

Chocolate rice cake, whipped strawberry cream cheese, berries

[c4loriec0unterr]

my junkorexic days i wake up eat a bunch of candy worth like 800 calories then don’t eat the rest of the day bc of the shame

[fattributes]

Lemon and Herb Marinated Shrimp with Coconut Pigeon Peas

[purincals444]

perfection

[spooniechef]

The Dinner Diaries, Day 5 - Revamped Old Favourite (alternative Student Alfredo, 1 spoon)

Keeping this diary has been really helpful, because it gets me actually thinking about my eating habits. I'm finding that at least part of my problem with disordered eating is my trying and failing to adhere to the standard "mealtime" thing. I tend not to be hungry when I first wake up, and by the time I am, it's generally past what one would consider 'lunchtime'. This gets me going, "Eh, I can wait until dinner" (because that was the constant refrain when I was hungry as a kid, probably) and hyperfocus past the hunger symptoms. Then "dinnertime" comes around and I'm generally hangry and headachy and nauseous and disinclined to eat.

Today I basically turned around at about 4pm and said, "To hell with this; I'm having lupper". "Lupper" is a thing my dad used to say when I was a kidl; he figured that since you could have brunch as a meal that wasn't quite breakfast and wasn't quite lunch either on the timing or the components of the meal, you could also have a meal that wasn't quite lunch and wasn't quite supper on the same principles. Thus he hybridised "lunch" and "supper" - "lupper". It does seem to help me get over having a full-on meal at 4:30pm, anyway.

Also I had to use up some leftovers. That's the thing with batch cooking; trying to make sure you eat it before any of it goes bad. So I had the last of my chicken from recent roast, and some garlic and chive cream cheese that needed eating. I thought about my Student Alfredo recipe and remembered that a friend of mine ... I think on Facebook ... suggested cream cheese as an alternative to cream of mushroom soup in tuna noodle casserole. I also remembered that cream cheese is a primary ingredient in the sauce for my Chicken Broccoli Pasta Bake recipe. I didn't feel like doing a whole bake, so I sort of combined the two. So, Student Alfredo Redux!

Here's what you'll need:

Half a bag of pasta

3/4 regular-sized container of Philly garlic and chives cream cheese

Maybe 1/3 cup of milk

1 pat butter

1.5 or so cups frozen mixed vegetables

Basically any leftover cooked meat

Spices to taste

The ingredients list is mostly the same as the original, but obviously the coeliac-unfriendly powdered soup mix is gone. Today I did need to use up some mushrooms so I sliced some up and heated them with the meat, and mostly stuck with garlic pepper, garlic salt, and onion salt for seasoning. Once again, you can probably use just about any meat, but I'd probably stay away from red meats, just because they'd overpower things a bit. So the ingredients list is much the same - just the methodology's a little different.

Here's what you do:

Boil the pasta, adding the mixed vegetables when the pasta’s nearly done; set aside

In a deep frying pan, add the butter and melt on low heat. Add the meat (as well as any onions, fresh garlic, or mushrooms you might be wanting to use); saute on medium-low heat until the onion's starting to get tender and everything is warmed through.

Ass the milk, cream cheese, and any other spices you might feel like using; stir and heat on medium heat until the cream cheese has melted and everything is smooth

Add the pasta/vegetable mix; stir until all pasta is coated with the sauce. Heat on medium-low heat for another 2-3 minutes

It's more or less the same recipe - tastes a little creamier, requires actual taking of Lactaid if you're lactose-intolerant, but at least avoids the gluten. You could try going vegan with it by sticking with vegetables and mushrooms and using oil instead of butter, but you'd have to be careful to find a brand of dairy-free soft cheese that melts properly, which I have found ... difficult. Also tends to be a little more expensive.

So that was my lupper, and there will be an actual late supper involving another serving of it, along with some salad. This has ensured that I have eaten my leftover chicken before it goes off. Which unfortunately is more than I can say for the remains of my cucumber. The salad I'm going to have with my late supper will just have to be the last of the lettuce and tomatoes, then. Ah well.

(Also I will be using the benefits of a system full of Lactaid by having some of my Ben & Jerry's Peanut Butter Cup ice cream.)

[sicksadw0rldx]

i dont need therapy i need my bones to be visible.

[thehopelessromanticinlove]

excuse me, but I’m still waiting for my dramatic kiss in the rain

[kurithedweeb]

Having just discovered frost scorpions in the Mo' Creatures mod and had the immediate thought of "I wonder if the different scorpion variants taste different in scorpion hot pot," I've decided that Travis is MCD's version of Senshi from Dungeon Meshi.

[myfriendanastasia]

My fav thinspo 💗

[noodledesk]

dinner party potluck at my friend's