Cake of the Week: Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

You guys. My thesis may not be finished and my post-graduation future may be completely up in the air, but I finally found the right carrot cake recipe for me, so all is right with the world!

Everyone loves carrot cake. It's the cream cheese frosting, the spicy-ish flavor, and the delicious moist texture that adding veggies to desserts so often yields. But at the same time, everyone has their own carrot cake preferences. Nuts or no nuts? What about raisins? How crumbly? How chunky? Layer cake or sheet cake? 

I'm pretty positive I found the perfect balance in this recipe: carrots, pineapple, pecans, coconut, and the magic ingredient: apple sauce! This cake is all things a carrot cake should be, plus it's healthy(ish) -- just a quarter cup of oil in the whole cake. The frosting on the other hand...well, if the cake is healthier then that balances out the frosting, amiright? 

This is the perfect Easter/springtime/anytime dessert. RoommateRachel and I had seven friends over last night to celebrate East-Over: Matzo Ball Soup followed by this Carrot Cake. Deeelicious. We poured a glass of wine for Elijah, and then snacked on dark chocolate Easter eggs after dinner was over. Mash-up holidays really are the best. 

Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting 

Cake Ingredients:

• 1¼ c unsweetened applesauce 
• 1/4 cup oil
• 2 c sugar
• 3 eggs
• 2 c flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1½ tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 2 c grated carrots
• 1 c coconut
• 1 c chopped nuts (optional -- pecans or walnuts)
• 1 tsp vanilla or whiskey
• 1 cup Dole crushed pineapple (not drained!) -- use the pineapple in JUICE not syrup.

Cream Cheese Frosting Ingredients:

• ½ c butter (softened)
• 8 oz cream cheese (softened)
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2-3 cups powdered sugar
• milk as needed

Directions: 

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Combine wet ingredients. 
3. Mix in dry ingredients. 
4. Stir in carrots, coconut, nuts, vanilla/whiskey and pineapple. 
5. Pour into two greased and floured 9-inch round cake pans.
6. Bake for 35-40 minutes until the cake just starts to pull away from the sides and the middle doesn't look gooey. Let cakes cool in pans for 10 minutes, then run a spatula or knife around the edges and turn out onto a wire rack to finish cooling. The cakes must cool completely before frosting!
7. For the frosting:
8. Beat the butter and cream cheese thoroughly. Add in the vanilla and 2 cups powdered sugar and beat until and smooth. Add milk one splash (about a tablespoon at a time), along with the rest of the powdered sugar until it reaches a spreadable consistency.  
9. Assemble: 
10. Frost first layer (with a generous layer of frosting in the middle). Put second cake on top and frost first the sides and then the top of the cake. Decorate with coconut and chopped nuts and chocolate Easter eggs if desired. 

Happy Thanksfriendzing!

Thanksfriendzing is upon us! That wonderful pre-Thanksgiving holiday where friends hang out, eat delicious food, and get warmed up for the big day. RoommateRachel and I hosted our own Thanksfriendzing yesterday, and I'm happy to report that it was a HUGE success. 

As this was a Fletcher Thanksfriendzing, we asked our friends to bring dishes from their home countries to share. Result? The traditional Thanksfriendzing dinner plus palak paneer and naan plus Japanese barbecue plus rugulah plus edamame plus so many more delicious things! For serious, people brought their A-game hard -- American traditionals included cornbread, cornbread cranberry stuffing, bacon/Gorgonzola/almond Brussels sprouts, macaroni and cheese, roasted squash, eggnog, and mashed potatoes of course! 

I made Pumpkin Whoopie Pies with cream cheese frosting filling, Rosemary Sweet Potato Gratin (this recipe but with Parmesan instead of Asiago cheese), homemade cranberry sauce, and string beans with caramelized onions. 

RoommateRachel made a delicious and BIG turkey (expertly carved by Michael), bruschetta, and lemon meringue and apple pies. 

We ended the night going around and saying what we are thankful for -- SO MANY THINGS. It's been a pretty epic year, both for for me and most of my new friends. What a perfect way to start the holiday season!

Things other than Thanksfriendzing happened this weekend too, but they were mostly homework related so that is womp womp boooooring to everyone but me (and sometimes boring to me too...). Countdown: I go home for Christmas break in exactly 17 days. Yay! But also oooooh man, standing between me and Christmas are finals. Sheesh. 

Happy (almost) Thanksgiving!

Weekend Report: International Crisis, My Life as a Snow Leopard, and One-Legged Vinyasas

I swear that the title will make sense by the end of this post....What a weekend! I am exhausted.

Roommate Rachel is Mr. Mondavi (of the wine).
I am a snow leopard, obviously.

Friday evening and all day Saturday I participated in a crisis simulation "game"...because that is totally normal right? Aah grad school. How it works is that participants are organized into (mostly) country teams, and given background reading on the international context. Then everyone is given the scenario of a realistic international crisis in the year 2017, and has to work together within teams to come up with a strategy and carry it out. The point is for  us to play roles as decision-makers and to experience the problems, dilemmas, and processes of managing a crisis or resolving a conflict.  (More info here if you care.)

I was given the role of Chechen terrorist (my name tag: “Miss Mollie, Terrorist Organization”), which was exciting and interesting, but also deeply disturbing when you think about it too hard. Turns out that in the context of a crisis game, I am pretty good at devising seriously destructive scenarios…eek? We issued press releases, video press releases (hilarious), and carried out actions over the course of 3 2-hour "moves." I was allegedly assassinated at one point, but don't worry, I came back to life. It was definitely an experience.

With just a couple hours recovery, I traded my terrorist garb (!?!? I can’t believe I just wrote that) for leopard print and headed out to celebrate Halloween! I went as a snow leopard because a) I already owned the pants; and b) snow leopards are the most bad-ass animal out there.

My school’s dorm (I do not live there) throws a huge Halloween party every year and it was pretty epic! I can’t remember the last time I actually did Halloween, but I do enjoy a good excuse to dress up.

Sunday was far more normal, and involved neither an international crisis nor a costume – just some good old fashioned doing homework at my dining room table, interrupted by mid-afternoon power yoga and rock climbing. So many one-legged vinyasas! There is a reasonably good chance I will be unable to lift my arms tomorrow.

You should definitely try these -- here's how:

Just keep going through that, one side at a time, until everything burns so much that you have to stop. (If the pictures aren't enough, here's a more detailed description.) Told ya it was fun! 

Weekend Report: Springtime, Concert-time, Easter-time, Basketball-time!

Holy springtime guys! Saturday was beautiful!!!

I started off the weekend with two bands from Brooklyn – Swear and Shake, and Here We Go Magic. The venue was The Hamilton, a kind of odd used to be a bookstore basement, feels like a jazz bar, but I’ve actually mostly seen bluegrass shows there, sort of place.

The opener, Swear and Shake, was surprisingly good! They had banjo and harmonica (there will always be a special place in my heart for harmonica) and good singers. Though the opener was significantly better than expected, Here We Go Magic was a bit of a disappointment. They weren’t great live – they just didn’t seem to be having fun. Maybe it was a bad night or it was the venue and sparse crowd? Who knows.

On Saturday, in celebration of the first spring-feeling day of the year, I went on a ridiculously long bike ride. I met a friend in Dupont and we went through Georgetown and allll the way out MacArthur Blvd into Maryland. We looped around Falls Road Golf Course in Potomac, then came back along MacArthur, passing the Billy Goat trailhead along the way (oh hello every semi-outdoorsy person in DC on the first nice day!).

See it on MapMyRun.

To get home from Dupont, I biked down the Rock Creek Trail, along the Potomac River, and then around the Tidal Basin, where I was reminded that it’s Cherry Blossom Festival time! (You see, this fact was easy to forget, since we don’t actually have any cherry blossoms yet…)

After such a long bike ride I did the only logical thing: ate Girl Scout cookies while sitting in the sun on my stoop, and then went to yoga. And I'm still sore. Whhhhyyyyyy is down dog the HARDEST thing ever?

Sunday was Easter, so I did what I do every family-less Easter: brunch with friends! (Read the 2012, 2011, and 2010 editions.) It was gloomy and wet and not beautiful springtime-y at all, but we put on our sundresses like the champions we are (i.e. with tights underneath) and celebrated accordingly at The Tombs next to the Georgetown campus. Five words for you: homemade complimentary coffee crumb cake.

Then last night I did a completely un-Eastery but totally awesome thing! My friend The Marathoner (a fitting blog name, since he's done 100 of them) and I went to a Washington Wizards game and we had aaaaaamazing seats. For serious – I was dead center in the 200 section. AND they won!

The game started pretty early, so we went to dinner afterwards at Hill Country Bar-B-Que. The restaurant is weird, kind of like a cafeteria, but bar-b-que is delicious, I was hungry, and it was perfect! I recommend going on a Sunday night and getting the “Feed Your Family Combo.” It’s $20 for 1/4 lb lean brisket, one pork spare rib, one beef rib, quarter chicken, two sides (we got collard greens and bourbon sweet potatoes), and one dessert (pecan pie!).

The end. Hope you had a good holiday weekend too!

Happy V-Day!

V-Day is a global activist movement to end violence against women and girls. Today is the 15th annual V-Day, and this year the 1 Billion Rising campaign will raise awareness all over the world about violence against women.

Why 1 Billion Rising?

Because today, a billion women – one out of every three women on the planet – will be raped or beaten in their lifetime. In the US, every 2 minutes one woman is assaulted, and every 9 minutes one woman is beaten. Also, fyi, the 'V' in V-Day stands for Victory, Valentine and Vagina. So that’s awesome.

What do you think women are most likely to die from?

• A. Cancer
• B. Malaria
• C. Traffic Accidents
• D. War
• E. Gender Violence

The answer is E. In fact, more women die from gender based violence than all of the others combined.

What can you do today?

Well sorry about giving you all notice day-of…it’s probably too late for you to start a rally…but there might be one going on near you! And oh don’t worry, I just went to the 1 Billion Rising Flashmob in Farragut Square. And you can watch similar events live-streaming from all over the world on the 1 Billion Rising website.

For those of you on the Twitter, you can also tweet/re-tweet (#1billionrising, #reasontorise, and #vday), and follow (@VDay, @eveensler, @AmnestyInternational, @NWLC, @UNrightswire), and check out V-Day’s Facebook page.

What else can you do?

Call on the U.S. government to ratify CEDAW! The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women is a landmark international agreement that affirms principles of fundamental human rights and equality for women around the world.  To date, 187 out of 194 countries have ratified CEDAW. The United States is one of only seven countries – including Iran, Sudan, and Somalia —that haven’t ratified this international agreement. The Obama Administration strongly supports ratification, but CEDAW has never been brought to the Senate floor for a vote.

Sign the Citizens for Global Solutions petition in support of U.S. ratification of CEDAW.

You can learn more from this Violence Against Women Webinar.

Why?

1. Ratifying the CEDAW treaty would continue America’s proud bipartisan tradition of promoting and protecting human rights. Ratification requires two-thirds of the Senate to stand together for women and has no additional financial cost.
2. Ratifying CEDAW strengthens the United States as a global leader in standing up for women and girls around the world. Under the leadership of Presidents Reagan, Bush and Clinton, the U.S. ratified similar treaties on genocide, torture, and race. 
3. Advancing women’s human rights is fundamental to America’s national security interests and a cornerstone of our foreign policy. Countries are more peaceful and prosperous when women have full and equal rights and opportunity. Ratifying CEDAW would give America greater clout to help women worldwide win basic rights. 
4. CEDAW opens important conversations at home. While American women enjoy opportunities and status not available to most of the world’s women, few would dispute that more progress is needed. CEDAW would provide an opportunity for national dialogue on how to address persistent gaps in women’s full equality particularly regarding closing the pay gap, reducing domestic violence and stopping trafficking.

So there’s that. Spread the word. I will now step down from my soap box, eat some chocolate, and wish you all a Happy V-Day!

4th of July Recipe Brainstorming

The 4th of July is again upon us. As I’m sure you’re aware, things are a bit weird this year – we have a bizarrely bisected week with just one day off in the middle. Like the stay-cationer I am, I will be staying in DC, eating too much and spending too much time in the sun (per usual).

Last summer I satisfied my yearly yearning for pyrotechnics by watching the fireworks from Meridian Hill Park, but honestly, I’m really not interested in fireworks unless they are literally exploding above my head. Bonus points if I can smell the smoke. So tomorrow night I plan to be on the National Mall, directly under the explosives, and it will be excellent.

I’ve set my own 4th of July bar pretty high – two years ago I went kayaking and grilled and watched from the Mall, and last year in the span of three days I managed to attend two parties, two bar-b-q’s, and a picnic.

Tomorrow I am undecided on exactly what I want to do (besides the fireworks part – that is set in stone). My family traditionally starts 4th of July with a trail run and the Fireman’s Pancake Breakfast in Tahoe. Alas, there aren’t any easily-accessible trails from my house, and no firemen pancakes that I know of…but I’m thinking I will host the Mollie-DC version: I will go for a run, and then invite my friends over for a pancake extravaganza!

The menu

• Coffee (well duh)
• Spinach Feta Greek Yogurt Pancakes
• Peach or Nectarine Pancakes
• Frittata – possibly the sweet potato one? 

I might go to a bar-b-q in the afternoon, in which case I need to brainstorm something to bring. Here’s a list of some of my favorite potluck/picnic recipes, just in case you too need some last minute inspiration:

Real Foods:

Wheat Berry Cous Cous Salad

Chicken, Mein, and Vegetables in Creamy Szechuan Dressing

Jalapeño Cheddar Cornbread

Jalapeño Hummus 

Buffalo Chicken Dip

Fried Plantains with Black Bean Dip and Guacamole

And desserts of course: 

Fresh Strawberry Tart

Key Lime Cake

Red Velvet Brownies

Dark Chocolate Ganache-Filled Red Velvet Cake

S'Mores Layer Cake

S'Mores Cookies

Summer Peach Chantilly Cake

Cherry Peach Honey Cake

Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread

Zucchini Cupcakes

Cherry Cupcakes with Cherry Frosting

Mocha Pillow Cookies

Choco-Coconut Peanut Butter Bars

Rustic Rhubarb Tarts

Happy 4th of July everyone! Any recipe recommendations for me?

Weekend Report: Cherry Blossom Fireworks and Easter

Whether you celebrate Passover or Easter or Cherry Blossoms or spring, I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend! Mine felt soooo long, which is essentially the goal of every weekend…#winning!

On Saturday LLC and I walked all over DC. It was mostly shopping-related: I started with two grocery stores in search of rhubarb (fail – apparently it’s not time yet, or I missed my window?), then we bought pretty spring clothes in Georgetown, then we got Passover cupcakes (i.e. flour-less chocolate decorated with Stars of David) and lounged on the Georgetown Waterfront, then we walked back to my house and then all the way up to Target in Columbia Heights.

Weeks ago we’d marked Cherry Blossom Fireworks on our calendars, just as an if-we-don’t-have-anything-else-going-on-maybe-we-should-do-this? note. So when on Saturday night we didn’t have anything else going on…fireworks? Sure, why not?

It was us and the tourists at the Southwest Waterfront Festival: Light-up paper mache-covered carp boats, fire baton twirlers, yachts decorated in pink lights, and of course fireworks! The fireworks were from Nagaoka City, Japan, “a city renowned throughout Japan for its two day fireworks festival, created especially for the 2012 Centennial.” (So basically, this got me excited for 4^th of July!) It was great, I really really love fireworks. A Happy Cherry Blossoms to you all!

And of course, Sunday was Easter. There was no egg hunt for us (I am still scarred from my childhood.) Like the adults we are, my friends and I celebrated with a lovely brunch chez LOTR-Emily. 

The weather cooperated so we could sit outside and enjoy a spinach and goat cheese frittata, LLC’s chocolate waffles (recipe tomorrow), lots of strawberries and cheese, and some stray care-package chocolates.

Brunch took up most of the day (us: How is it already 4pm???), leaving me just a few more weekend hours to savor. 

I rounded out my Sunday with my first Meridian Hill Park Drum Circle of the season.  I did a crossword while listening to the drummers and watching the dancers – it was excellent.