Return of the cooking monster!

The time has finally come! I'm back to cooking! Free time is a beautiful beautiful thing.

Like I said last week, a cake was going to be the cure to my two- week cooking hiatus.  And oh my, how it was!  I used the oh-so-fabulous cake cookbook, The Cake Doctor.

I improvised a bit on the recipe... I didn't have all of the ingredients for one recipe, but I just so happened to have the ingredients for a cake and an icing (from two different recipes).  So, I put them together! And let me tell you... it was worth it.

The cake was simple and fun, but NOTHING beats the magic I created with the chocolate ganache.  Seriously, it was magic.  Any novice chef can make it, it sounds fancy, and it was so fun to watch happen! Chop up 8 oz. semi sweet baking chocolate...

Add 1 cup of boiling heavy whipping cream, and mix it until the magic is created...

Finally, drizzle the yellow cake with the little piece of heaven you created...

pretty good eh? The icing actually stays shiny and delicious looking while it hardens at the same time.  I didn't want to mess it up with foil or plastic wrap, so I had to drive to kansas city with it on my lap...

Seriously so good... The weekend wasn't too shabby either.  We had a great time at Cabela's, Nebraska furniture mart (shopping for furniture for the new apartment), and the casino... I'll leave this post with some pictures from the weekend.

Two bears playing at cabela's (definitely not fighting)

A HUGE (very unsightly) chair

I was weaseled into taking my dad's place at Nick's picture taking for prom.  Never doing it again. I did get a cute picture in with my brother in his very handsome tuxedo though.

I won $500 at the casino!

Just kidding... these were the penny slots. I only won $5 :) (which I quickly lost a few minutes later)

A second before we were about to leave, I won almost all of my $20 back! I love the fireball penny slots!

My two favorite girls in the entire world, Kate and Millie, positioning themselves in the smartest position in the room... where they know they can get food:)

What's next on my cooking list? BRISKET. Going to start it now... I'll let you know how it goes!