Anyway, Friday night we went to dinner with my parents at Frank's parents' house. We had this special dinner from Northern Italy called bagna calda (pronounced bania calda). It's oil and butter simmered with with mashed garlic and mashed anchovies. Now, I don't like anchovies, but this stuff was to die for. But let me tell you, if you don't have a cast iron stomach, prepare to feel wrecked about 10-20 minutes after eating it. But it's so good, you don't even care. After dinner we ran home and got ready for our first night out in a long time. We headed to my friends house for a cool little cocktail party and celebrated the new year. We went home early because, well, let's face it, we're not that young anymore and it's a little harder to party now than when we were younger. We spent Saturday recovering., well Frank needed a little more time to recover than I did, but anyway. I went to visit a friend and had lunch with her and her babies. We hung out and played Wii with the kids for a while in the afternoon. Frank and I went to dinner at his moms for the new year. 
Bringing us up to speed for the new thing I baked today! My mom and dad marinated a bunch of crab & shrimp, andmy mom made baked rigatoni for a belated family Christmas since my immediate famiglia and I ventrued to Clayton for Christmas since my sister was out of commission. Anyway my aunt came over with her friend, her daughter and her 4 daughters. My cousin had a birthday the week before, so, duh! I made a cake for her. I created what I call Banana Split Cake. I baked yellow cake, turned a small portion of it chocolate with cocoa powder and marbled it. I baked it in 2 round pans and let it cool. I used whipping cream and I mixed it with strawberry jelly to create strawberry cream filling. I spread that on the bottom cake and topped it with thinly sliced banana. Now, I've watched plenty of cooking shows and my mother worked in the Albertson's bakery for several years before she got pregnant with my sister, so I know a bit about assembling layer cakes. First I put some of the jelly in a bag and piped it around the edge of the bottom cake before spreading the strawberry cream and banana so that the weight from the top cake would cause it all to come oozing out the sides. Then I frosted the cake with whipped cream and topped it with chopped peanuts. It was perhaps one of the best creations I've made in a long time. The only thing I would change is that I used salted dry roasted peanuts my mom had left over, and it gave the whipped cream kind of an odd salty flavor. So in the future, I believe I will use unsalted nuts, or buy the ice cream nut topping from Safeway. But still, it was really good and perhaps one of the best confections I've made in a long time, if not ever.
Bonus, my cousin Susan and I cleaned all the left over crab after tonight's feast, and mom and I are definitely going to make crab cakes for dinner Tuesday night. Thus giving me the new recipe to try this week. Be excited, cause I am! Haha!
Happy New Year Babies!
Absolutely,
The Lady
I love that pictures of us. :)
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