Laptop Lunches #97

White rice with "Tea Trade Chicken" (Eating Well Serves Two), double chocolate snack cake (Just the Two of Us (Betty Crocker)), braised carrots (Joy of Cooking), some kind of egg star thing, and cherries.

Tea Trade Chicken is good, but I think I'd thicken the sauce with cornstarch if I ever made it again. As it was, it was perfect for using up that last bit of red pepper and scallions I had in the fridge.

The cake has got to be one of the most-reward-for-effort things I have ever done. You don't even need a bowl. You mix it up in a 9 x 5 dish (they say a loaf pan but I used one of my little casserole dishes), pop it in the oven, and thirty minutes later you pull out one of the moistest, fudgiest cakes you'll ever eat. Bonus: it contains no egg and no dairy, for those allergic. (Well, no dairy in the batter. You're supposed to sprinkle chocolate chips over the top before you bake it. You wouldn't have to do this. I did. They're a nice touch, but you could live without them.) The only thing is that I don't think it would stand up to being frosted, if you wanted to frost it--though I'm thinking about ways one could get around this.

I made the egg star out of extra quiche batter. I guess that's my nod to patriotism this week.

Cherries make me think of my father. Whenever I got a sundae, I gave him the cherry, because I don't like marischino cherries. I wasn't sure I would like the fresh ones but I told myself buying five cherries wasn't exactly a huge risk, and I'm trying to expand the things I am willing to eat. Cherries remind me vaguely of plums. I finished them off and was proud of myself for trying. I do like cherries all right, but they're not my absolute favorite thing, and I probably won't be eating cherry pie any time soon. And keep that stuff they put on cheesecakes away from me!