Dinner & Dessert

Last night my friend Katelyn came over to celebrate our new kitchen in our new apartment by making cupcakes! I found a great vanilla cupcake recipe online and made buttercream frosting from scratch - she's more of a chocolate icing girl, and because melting 14 oz of chocolate seemed a little daunting for a first try, we stuck with Betty Crocker chocolate frosting (we love you Betty Crocker!)

One of the final products! (Thanks, John, for snapping the pic!)


For dinner we had Chickpea Curry (recipe from Chatelaine, and below) and watched American Idol while enjoying girly drinks. John played Black Ops online and ate 2 cupcakes. It was fun!

Chickpea Curry Adapted & changed from March 2011's Chatelaine

• 1 tbsp olive oil or vegetable oil
• 1 small onion (we used a red onion)
• 1, 1 inch piece of ginger, minced
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 can of diced tomatoes
• 1 can of chickpeas, rinsed, drained
• Recipe calls for 1 tsp garam masala, but we used about 3 tbsp of curry powder instead
• Recipe calls for 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper, but we used some chili powder
• Recipe calls for 1/2 cup chopped cilantro, we just didn't use this
• 1 cup of english cucumber - we used 1 whole regular cucumber, peeled, instead
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1/8 tsp salt

Heat oil, add onion, ginger, and garlic and fry until onion is soft. Add tomatoes (to make it less soup-y, drain them a little but not all the way), chickpeas, curry powder / garam masala and cayenne. Boil, reduce to medium, boil for about 5 more minutes until flavours mesh.

Stir in cilantro (if you're using it), cucumber, lemon juice, and salt. Cook until cucumber is hot, about 2 more minutes.

Serve with rice and naan, or just rice or naan, or even transfer it to a slow cooker and turn it into a stew!

Katelyn suggested adding cut up potato next time - I just may do that.

Classic Vanilla Cupcakes

• 1/2 cup butter
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1+ 1/2 cups of flour (all purpose)
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2/3 cup cold milk

Cream butter and sugar, add eggs slowly, continue beating and stir in vanilla. Mix dry ingredients in separate bowl, combine. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until toothpick comes clean.

Caramel Buttercream Icing

I got the idea for Caramel icing from Martha Stewart's website, but it really truly wanted to make your own caramel - I don't think I'm quite there yet! So I found this simple recipe which calls for caramel ice cream topping, and fortunately we had some!

• 1/3 cup vegetable shortening
• 1/3 cup butter
• 2/3 cup caramel ice cream topping
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 4 cups confectioners sugar (I used 3.5 cups cause this is just a crazy amount - even 3.5 cups is crazy but it has to hold together somehow!)

Cream the shortening and butter. Add ice cream topping and vanilla. Add sugar gradually, fold in 1 cup at a time. Keep scraping the bottom and sides of the bowl as you go. Icing will appear dry when all of the sugar is mixed in. Add milk, beat until l ight and fluffy.

Keep the icing covered with a damp cloth until you're ready to use it, or keep it in the fridge in a an airtight container when it's not in use. The recipe says you can keep it in the fridge for up to 2 weeks, but we all know it won't last that long.