Oh boy I have missed a tonne of blog events!

Not because I wanted to, but I did not have time to do the blogging part!

At least I did the cooking/baking part. Now I have all these pictures of food but no posts. :-(

So here we go again, with yet ANOTHER round up from me. (This is becoming a bad habit!)

This particular cake actually wasn't for a round up - I had just been wanting to make it since I read about it in Dorie's book, but couldn't with all the peanuts in it! So when we had the opportunity last weekend to go to my mother's house, where there is no nut allergy restriction, I bought a big thing of peanuts and got baking!

Okay, I also got a little carried away with the peanuts. Yes, I should have measured them out, but I didn't!

As a result, I ended up with a very nice dense brownie cake, loaded with caramel drenched peanuts that was rich and filling! I believe my grandfather ate two pieces. Personally, I couldn't finish mine!

It was fun, however, trying to figure out how to make things in my mom's kitchen, which isn't as well stocked as mine in for baking. I went shopping for ingredients and improvised the rest!

This next was supposed to be my entry for Hay Hay its Donna Day Caesar Salad (which right now I could not even tell you who hosted!) (Or not, it is being hosted by Katie of Other's People Food, a page I have had open on my computer for this event for the last few weeks! Sheesh! I am even more out of it than I thought!)

It was a simple salad, mostly because I forgot to pick up croutons or bread to make my own, but still packed with flavor!

The dressing for it came from the Michael Smith Chef at Home book that I had taken out from the library (and unfortunately returned late before I even finished reading it!)

And unfortunately, even before I remembered to jot down the recipe for this dressing and the last one I had made from the book. This dressing, however, was called Lemon Parmessan, which describes it well. I didn't go for the bacon fat option, even though I had the fresh bacon there and the fat, nor did I use the anchovies, but that was mostly because I did not have any.

This last one makes me sad. I so wanted to get a burger in to Paul and Freya's Big Burger Ballyhoo! I had planned early for a burger but the schedules around here meant that I couldn't make my burger until near the end of the deadline! Then I missed sending mine in!

Anyways, this was my burger, my Mexican style burger served with warm tortilla chips, topped with jalapeno monterey jack cheese, red onions, leaf lettuce and restaurant style salsa. It was very tasty and messy, just how I like my burgers, and the flavors of the red onions, cumin, cilantro and tabasco sauce in the burger were a nice combination.

I didn't take down exact measurements for what went into it, but it went something like this:

1 1/2 pounds medium ground beef
1/3 red onion, finely chopped
several dashes of tabasco sauce
1/2 to 3/4 teaspoon cumin, depending on how much you like cumin
2-3 tablespoons chopped cilantro
salt and pepper

I bbq'd my burgers over a medium high heat, toasted my buns and added the cheese to the burger while it was still on the grill. The salsa I bought from my local store (it is quite good) but you could easily make your own. Just use one with some cilantro in it so it compliments the burger.

In writing this I discovered I was actually not late for one event, and I had a recipe that I had made specifically for it! So now I need to make sure I write the post before the deadline passes and I miss another one I wanted to do!