Cat peaking Out of the Bushes (Sounds better than "Cat Box")

Today's feline inspired bento "Cat peaking out of the Bushes" is composed of :
broccoli to create a background and to hold everything in place,
celery and dip,
Laughing Cow cheese wedges for the ears,
hummus in a nice round sealed pack,
crackers, both as the face of the cat and underneath the cheese and broccoli as a base,
tomato slices for the mouth,
shelled edemame for the nose and eyes,
and carrot slivers for the whiskers.
 It's just something joyful for my little kittens.

Sweet Corn Muffin Recipe

Looking through the pantry I saw this recipe on the corn meal box and I set out to make it, but my store of butter was low and I have been trying to lighten up my recipes, so I made a few substitutions and here is the result, sweet corn bread with a little less fat.

These muffins are more cake like than the regular recipe and as you can see from the picture, they are also more melted together, like monkey bread.

Here is the new recipe:
1 1/2 Cups of All Purpose Flour
2/3 Cup of Sugar
1/2 Cup of Corn Meal
1 Tbsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Salt
2 Large Eggs
1 Cup Skim Milk
1/3 Cup Plain Lowfat Yogurt
1 Tbsp Vegetable Oil

Preheat the oven to 350°
Spray muffin cups with spray oil
Mix Flour, Sugar, Corn Meal, Baking Powder, and Salt in a large bowl or mixer.
In another bowl, beat Eggs lightly, add Milk, Yogurt, and Oil.  Mix well.
Add liquid ingredients to dry and stir until just blended.
Pour into muffin Cups.
Bake for 18-20 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

The Big Girls Small Kitchen Book Signing

To continue with the previous post topic, our little part of the Family of Food went to the Big Girl Small Kitchen book signing at Vroman's Bookstore. 

Husband of Food and I picked up the twins from a long day of outdoor play and headed to Pasadena.

A culinary good omen... The Nom Nom truck was in the Vroman's parking lot on the way in.  We had never before tried Bahn Mi, a Vietnamese Sandwich, so we figured we would stop by.  The girls were excited to get food from a vehicle.  We ordered a Pork Bahn Mi and a Lemongrass Chicken Taco to share.  Both were quite good and we agreed that the best part was the sweet marinated carrot and daikon radish topping to the sandwich.  If I see the Nom Nom truck again, I'd like to explore the menu further. http://nomnomtruck.com/

I was excited to get to the reading, so I popped upstairs while the family finished off the Nom Nom.  To review; in case you haven't been following every FOF post, Big Girls Small Kitchen is a food blog for young people who are interested in cooking. Daughter of Food (me) is distantly related to one of the Big Girls.  The Big Girls, Cara Eisenpress and Phoebe Lapine, shared stories from the book such as how their Magazine club started a regular dinner party and spawned many recipies found in the book.  They answered questions about how they took their blog to book form (something Family of Food was interested in) and what kind of equipment they use - a good chef's knife was one piece they treasured, but no specific brand was recommended. Then the authors passed around homemade chocolate chip cookies and signed copies of their cookbook.

After the reading, I introduced myself to my cousin Phoebe and we chatted a bit about our family and their obsessions with food and cooking.  My kids who had been shopping the bookstore with their Dad came over and tried some of the cookies.

I am looking forward to making some of the recipes out of my new signed copy of the cookbook.  I almost made "resignation brownies" for this post, but then Mother in Law of Food brought brownie bites over. Ah well, another chance to cook a BGSK recipe will present itself soon.

It's good to have family and even better to have a Family of Food.