Bananas And Cream Oatmeal

This is a super healthy, warm, tasty and filling breakfast, that's super easy to do in the morning before work.
(serves 1)

1/3 cup instant oats

1/3 cup skim milk

1/3 cup water

1 tsp milled flax seed

1 banana, sliced

Sprinkling of ground cinnamon

Mix together the oats, milk, water and flax seed in a microwavable bowl. Slice in the banana, stir again, sprinkle with cinnamon, and microwave for 1-2 minutes, depending on your microwave oven. Stir again, and serve! Yum!

Cinnamon Espresso Ice Cream

Well, now that Winter is fast approaching, why not post an ice cream recipe? I assure you, if you make this for your friends, they will brag about you to strangers.

Cinnamon Espresso Ice Cream (makes 1 1/2 quarts)

3/4 cup granulated sugar

2 1/2 TB Instant Espresso Powder

1/2 Tsp. Ground Cinnamon (get the good stuff)

1 Cup Milk (I use lactose free milk, and then I have lactose-free ice cream! Woo!)

2 Cups Cream (again if you use heavy whipping cream= no lactose and you get lactose-free ice cream)

1 Tsp Vanilla Extract (again- live it up and get the good stuff. ALSO- you can sub with pure almond extract, and it's super extra wonderful tasty)

In a medium-sized bowl, combine the sugar, espresso powder, and cinnamon. I like to mix it up with a whisk, because I like to say "whisk." Sounds exciting, no?

Then add the 1 cup milk, and whisk together the ingredients until the sugar is completely dissolved. It'll take a little while.

After the sugar is completely dissolved, add the 2 cups cream and the vanilla extract.

Freeze in your ice cream maker for about 30 minutes. (It will be about the consistency of soft-serve at this point)

Transfer to an airtight freezer container and allow to "ripen" overnight. (AKA harden to regular ice cream consistency)

Enjoy! And don't forget that it does contain espresso, so if you eat a whole bunch of it, and then try to go to bed, there may be some difficulty...

Halloween Brain and Eyeball Cupcakes!

Hurrah for confections shaped like body parts!

I made these pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting using the recipes from Krystina Castella's EXCELLENT book, Crazy About Cupcakes, the best cupcake book I've found. The idea for the brains came from Martha Stewart Living, but the blood was all my friend Jason's idea.

The brains were pretty easy to do- I just divided the cupcake into two halves, and piped a big pile of squiggles of frosting onto each half, using a round pastry tip, until the heaps looked suitably brainy. Then I just drizzled a little red frosting on top for blood, as red cake decorating gel is rarer than hen's teeth in Brooklyn grocery stores.

The eyeballs were super easy, as well. I just frosted the cupcakes as smoothly as possible with the plain cream cheese icing. Then I piped a big dollop of blue frosting in the center of each cupcake, and inverted a dark chocolate chip into the center of the "eye" for the pupil. Then I piped red blood vessels out in squiggly lines from the center, and voila! Bloodshot eyeballs!