"Chocolate Mint Frenzy"

And yes, it tastes even better than it looks!

Quick post tonight- since I'm about to make ANOTHER chocolate mint cake tonight!  I have started another unofficial baking challenge, this time called the "Holidaze




Bake-Off Challenge" where I try new recipes every week and have testers (AKA roommates, friends, and creepy-strange-hobo-regulars who sit on our corner) decide on what is the best/their favorite/the richest, biggest tummy-ache-inducing concoction.  I sure hope the ones following this insanely delicious and tantalizing chocolate cake can do fair Justice up against this beast.  I stole the recipe and tweeked to my liking from a traditional Southern Living recipe.  Consisting of warm chocolate cake (made especially divine by using a secret ingredient- sour cream), minty buttercream frosting with Andes Peppermints, and a glazed Chocolate Ganache to complete the presentation, I have never tasted anything so rich in my life.  Pops even exclaimed after tasting the cake, "Mmmm, Carrie, now this is some good cake.  Now how much of it did you make yourself?", and I had to laugh out loud... it is that good, y'all!  To impress any family member, disbelieving Father or just yourself, I highly suggest making this cake.  Here's to chocolate, mint, and pure decadence!

Our tree!

PS, kick your diets out the door, ladies.

"Giardino Vegetarian Lasagna"

  I'm not sure what attributes to strange food cravings when I work night shifts, but it never seems to dissipate until I have satisfied such cravings.  This past Friday, while working a most-exciting night shift, I started to think about how great a vegetarian lasagna would taste right around the three o'clock hour.  Since I do not eat red meat, and since I had no lasagna recipes other than ones that contain beef (sorry Mom and my entire Southern-cultured family), I decided to bake the dish that Saturday.  It quickly became apparent that I did not want to follow any to an exact "T" so I thought it'd be best to get original, toss all twelve recipes together, and create my own "hodgepodge" vegetarian lasagna.