Was in the mood for a wet noodle dish. I scrounged around my pantry, and found a bunch of laksa packets (there’s no shame in cooking from seasoning packets, right?). =) I used this one in particular. I am OK with this brand, it could use more spice, but it was good enough. (For the laksa-challenged: What is Laksa?) I used chicken and shrimp. Topped with sliced hard boiled egg, scallions, cucumber, and bean sprouts.

Ready to dig in and slurp away!

=)

I baked dark chocolate cupcakes the other day. Cupcakes are great for any kind of celebration, don’t you think? They came out SO perfectly smooth and pretty. I didn’t have time to make my own frosting, but then again, the cupcakes weren’t exactly from scratch either (hint: Williams Sonoma’s Sprinkles).

All frosted:

And ready to go!
(ETA: container is Wilton’s Cupcake Heaven Boxes)

Birthday wishes to two good friends - both knitters! (Yay for Cindy being converted!) =)

Apologies for the not-so-stellar pictures. I took these in a hurry. :)

First off, my current project is the Clapotis. Yes, I’m terribly late in jumping on the bandwagon. So many of my friends have already not only made one, but a handful of these in so many beautiful yarns and colors and sizes. I was gifted a beautifully handpainted silk yarn, and knew it would be perfect for this project. It’s a great TV-knit, and great for social knitting as well. Mindless and simple. I’m somewhere in my straight row section, debating how far/long I want to go. I’m really liking the dropped stitches, and look forward to dropping them at each repeat.

A close-up:

***

Also, this week I made baked spaghetti for the first time. I heard that it can be a cross between spaghetti and lasagna, piping hot with sauce and cheese and everything else in between. So I decided to give it a shot. I took two recipes (Baked Spaghetti and Italian Spaghetti Sauce with Meatballs) and combined the two and tweaked it a bit. Instead of using bottled spaghetti sauce like what the former recipe calls for, I made my own spaghetti sauce based on the latter recipe, except I added a cup of red wine (I had Shiraz on hand), 1 extra 14 oz. can of diced tomatoes, and substituted the meatballs for chunks of pan-fried Italian sausage. I also omitted the egg mixture that was supposed to coat the noodles (I realized at the last minute that I had no eggs in the house!). I also used thin spaghetti noodles, rather than regular sized spaghetti noodles.

It came out hot, moist, flavorful, and yummy. The top had all this melted cheese. Next time, instead of using pre-shredded mozzarella cheese, I think I’ll opt for fresh mozzarella cheese, cut into slices. (Next time I would also spray/grease the foil as well, because it stuck to the top while in the oven.) I cut them into pieces, and it stayed together like a lasagna. It was a fun way of having spaghetti, except without the saucy mess (this way was much “neater”).

I served this with a Caesar salad and hot crescent rolls. Yum!