In honor of this new listing, I want to present the tiramisu recipe that inspired the onesie.
This recipe is from the Surreal Gourmet show on the Food Network. He layers it into a tea cup and melts chocolate on top and lets it harden in the fridge to make it look like a cup of coffee. Our coffee cups are very, um, utilitarian and not conducive to delicious looking dessert presentation so I made mine in martini glasses and chose to sprinkle the top with cocoa instead of the melted chocolate. One less pot to clean, you know? Anyway, Ryan said it was the best tiramisu he ever had. And it was ridiculously easy so I will definitely make it again. The mascarpone and kahlua made it a little pricey, but worth it.

Cup O’ Tiramisu

• 3/4 cups espresso
• 1/4 cup Kahlua
• 16 x ladyfingers
• 3 x egg yolks
• 4 tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup mascarpone cheese
• 1/4 lb. dark chocolate, chopped into tiny bits

Directions:

1. In a small bowl, mix espresso and Kahlua. Dip ladyfingers in the liquid, hold for 5 seconds, then reserve on a plate
2. In a mixmaster, or with a whisk, beat egg yolks, sugar and vanilla until ribbons form. Fold in mascarpone. Reserve.
3. In each of 4 coffee cups place 2 soaked ladyfingers in the bottom. Then add 2 tablespoons of mascarpone mixture. Add 2 more ladyfingers and another layer of mascarpone. The last layer should be approximately 1/2 inch below the rim of the cup. Smooth the top layer with the back of a spoon. Refrigerate for 15 minutes.
4. In a bowl over simmering water, melt chocolate. Pour a 1/8-inch layer of chocolate over the top layer of the mascarpone mixture and return to refrigerator for another hour so that the chocolate hardens.

(from the Surreal Gourmet)

So this is what we had last night for dinner. We bought the pasta at Culinary Conspiracy a while back but I have been looking for the perfect recipe for it. There are lots of dessert recipes but I don’t have much of a sweet tooth. So I decided to just use the sauce recipe on the package, which calls for mascarpone cheese (which we just happened to have for the first time ever - my mom gave it to us), walnuts, garlic, milk and parmesan. We had all of those things so I just had to pick up the parsley and pine nuts.
It was… interesting. First of all, it looked gorgeous. Those pictures don’t do it justice. The pasta was almost black and looked so rich. The overall taste was rich, creamy and very earthy but sort of subtle (we are, however, non-tasters so “subtle” to us may be overpowering to you). We added salt and cracked pepper and that helped to bring out the flavors. It did leave that almost powdery feel to my mouth, like after eating a dark, 85% cocoa chocolate bar. We both thought that it needed something to liven it up, maybe orange zest or something. I would love to experiment with it some more. The package and several sites said it tastes good with game, but I’m still a recovering vegetarian and not quite ready for that.

I’m getting distracted (*closes book*). I was going to blog about the sushi that Chantale makes at Raw Freshing, using sprouts instead of rice. I’m not a vegan but I do love my vegetables and this sushi tastes like… sunshine and laughter rolled up tightly in nori and sliced up. Too much? I looked around on the internet and found that it is really easy to make. Easier than normal sushi (but slightly harder than candy sushi). Today I’m making it (this will be the third time). Warning: The integrity of the ‘rawness’ of this recipe is questionable because I make substitutions in a few places, but I’ve made a note of them.

First you have to make the pecan pate:

Throw 2 cups of pecans in a food processor and let it do it’s thing. When they’re nice and small, add in half a red onion, minced, a big handful of parsley, the juice of half a lemon, and 1 clove garlic (chopped, or 1 tsp powdered if that’s what you’ve got), 2 tsp nama shoyu (this is a raw organic unpasteurized soy sauce but we couldn’t find it in town so we ended up buying an organic shoyu, which is just the japanese name for soy sauce, but if you want it to be fully raw, you can buy nama shoyu here) and 2 tsp cold pressed sesame oil.

Mix 1 tbs of miso with a pinch of cayenne and spread a layer of this paste of a sheet of untoasted nori leaving an inch or so at the bottom edge and 2 inches at the top (toasted nori isn’t raw but it is readily available so sometimes I just use it instead). Then cover it with a handful of sprouts (I used a mixture of regular sandwich type sprouts and daikon) and layer on whatever else you want: sliced red bell pepper, avocado, cucumber (of course I would add cucumber!), and I think mango is essential here. Then add an even amount of the pecan pate in a line on top of the veggies.

Roll it up, and voila! You could serve it as is but I like to cut them into about six pieces with a super sharp knife. Serve it with shoyu and, if you want, wasabi (I don’t want).

I asked Ryan what he thought it tasted like and he said “Dirt, but the most flavorful dirt ever. Like Amazonian dirt from an orchard that used to be a coffee plantation, and you’re scooping it up with your hands and there’s berries in it…”

A compliment? I’m still trying to decipher. But he assured me that he loves it, and his “mmm’s” did too.

So there you have it: raw sushi that, tastewise, is somewhere on the scale between Amazonian dirt and laughter.

Maybe I’ve stumbled upon some culinary masterpiece. Okay, upon eating, I can safely say I didn’t. But what if I had?

In any case, it would pale in comparison to these:

So… maybe if I serve it on a slate tile or something…?