Living Insanity's Loving Food

Two coworkers on my team had birthdays this week so I made a cake, another teammate bought cards, another teammate bought balloons, etc. This time I made a french vanilla cake (same as Karen's birthday cake in Dec) and I made a new frosting. I wanted strawberry frosting but the strawberries didn't look great at Harris Teeter on Tuesday. I went for the blackberries and just subbed them into Cooking Agents' strawberry frosting recipe. I found my frosting to be too wet to hold up to piping. I tried a few different swirls and tips on wax paper but the shape wasn't holding. I did have a lot of frosting leftover. I must make some cupcakes to use it up!

My husband and I went to our No. 68 Project dinner on Sunday night! The chef was Justin Bittner and the mixologist was Justin Noel. We don't have photos of every single food and drink course, but we took quite a few photos. The night's theme An unexpected relationship will become permanent. There was a rosemary infused drink at the beginning of the evening that was paired with a tuna tartar appetizer. I don't eat seafood so I'm not sure of the taste. Everyone around me grabbed up several of the tuna and seemed happy to accept more. I loved the first drink. I actually ended up drinking two :) good start! We moved upstairs to the seated portion of the evening. The first upstairs course was a chicken liver mousse with black truffles, on buttered brioche, with a little fresh salad on the side. I'm not a huge fan of liver mousse but I did eat a little bit on both of my pieces of brioche. The big plus of the dish was it came with two fancy salts on the side. Salty...

My husband and I have tickets to a pop up restaurant experience for tomorrow night. The chef, Justin Bittner I love his quote for his last meal :) that's the type of food I want to eat.

This recipe comes from Elly Says Opa! Pastitsio is a Greek version of lasagna and it is delicious. 1 lb. bucatini pasta (I used ziti) 1 egg, lightly beaten 2 Tbsp. butter, melted 1/4 cup grated myzithra cheese (I used a soft goat cheese) 1 batch Greek meatsauce (recipe follows) 1 batch bechamel sauce (recipe follows) 1/4 cup kefalotyri cheese (I used a hard goat cheese) Start by making the meatsauce. It needs to simmer for an hour Greek Meatsauce 1 Tbsp. olive oil 2 medium onions, diced 4 cloves garlic, minced 2 lbs. ground beef (I used 2 pounds ground lamb) 1 (6 oz.) can tomato paste 2 cups water 1 cinnamon stick 5 or 6 whole cloves (make sure you count how many you use so you can fish them out later) 1/4 cup fresh chopped parsley, or about 1.5T dried 2 bay leaves salt and pepper In a large heavy bottomed pan, heat your olive oil. Add the onions and saute until tender. Add the beef cooking until browned. Stir in the tomato paste and cook for a minute or two before adding the water, ...