Baker mushes things together in an effort to take up an activity that isn't baking and that will please her mother

So the Baker and non-baker's mother's birthday is tomorrow. And the Baker, because she is the nice and adoring daughter that she is, who wants to limit her intake of whatever dessert is present for said birthday, decided to make her mother a special birthday treat. A chocolate one, of course. So, she and her father whipped up (almost literally), Bailey's Chocolate Mousse. (Nicely enough, the part where she was making something different from what she usually makes means that she was willing to rely on a recipe with exact measurements. However, in classic Baker tradition, this did not stop her from making the recipe in 2/3rds proportions, since that was how much heavy cream she bought at the store.) See the pictures below.

First they took 3 eggs and sugar (see amount in recipe, the Baker, when recollecting recipes, makes no note of such unimportant things) and mixed them together, put them in a metal bowl over simmering water, continuously mixing until it reached 160 degrees Fahrenheit.

Then they took it off the heat, and for about 10 minutes, whipped it together.

While it was cooling, they melted 2/3s of 12oz semi-sweet chocolate in the microwave.

Then they mixed the Baileys with the heavy whipping cream and whipped it until it small peaks began to form.

Then the chocolate was ready (and lukewarm.) They folded the chocolate into the egg/sugar mixture.
Afterwards they folded in a little bit of the cream mixture at a time with the chocolate.
And they folded it til it was blended. Then they covered them and put them in the refrigerator to chill overnight.

Baker, non-baker and birthday girl go out for birthday girl's birthday dinner

So recently the Baker and non-baker's parents decided to visit them again. And, they realized that, though they usually took birthday girl, one of the non-baker's roommates, out for her birthday, that they had not done so this year. And with that the Baker and non-baker's parents had the perfect excuse to try out a new restaurant, Girl and the Goat.

Once at the restaurant, the non-baker and birthday girl decided to order drinks. They ordered a dark and stormy and a some other gin and lime based cocktail.
And, once the Baker arrived, the party began to order food (despite the fact that the restaurant was incredibly full and they ended up eating in the lounge section.) First came the rye bread. It was accompanied by house thousand island and a cheese-mustard spread. The thousand island was good, but the cheese-mustard spread was amazing. Since they were all hungry they began eating immediately, and, once they started it was hard to stop since the bread was so tasty.
Next came a complimentary dish, the hiramasa crudo with crispy pieces of pork belly, aji aioli and caperberries. While it was difficult to get all of the components of the dish together, the taste was worth the trouble of doing so.
Next came a shaved kohlrabi salad with fennel, evalon, toasted slices of almond and ginger dressing. (Yum!)
And then roasted cauliflower with pickled peppers, pine nuts and mint. It was delicious, though to be fair, the Baker and non-baker had mainly ordered it because the people sitting next to them, the Sandwich Couple, had gushed about this particular item moments before insisting that the Baker, non-baker and birthday girl try the squash ravioli that the Sandwich Couple had ordered. And boy, were the Sandwich couple right. The roasted cauliflower was fantastic.
And then, though the Sandwich Couple had not particularly recommended it, came the goat pizza. Not goat cheese pizza. Goat pizza. Specifically, a smoked goat pizza with apple soffritto, black kale, ricotta and cipollini.
They also ordered seared scallops with pumpkin brandade, pecans, fried brussels sprouts (which were surprising and astoundingly delicious), tarragon and pomegranate.
And then they ordered more bread, stocca this time, and it was just as good as the first. It came with roasted garlic and white anchovy butter to spread on it, though the Baker, non-baker and Birthday girl continued to use the condiments from the first bread.
But then, of course, it was time for the cheese course. Birthday girl picked out the cheese. She chose one cheddar, one goat cheese. They were served with flatbread, crackers, beets, and onions with mustard (a combination that the non-baker is itching to try her hands at.)
And, of course, since it was Birthday Girl's birthday, they got dessert. The dessert, delivered with a candle, was a dark chocolate salt brownie, served on a toffee crème fraiche with a shitake gelato (which, though it sounded odd, was possibly the high point of the meal.) The flavors were fantastic and crisp and the use of salt made the Baker, in particular, exceedingly happy.
Overall, the restaurant was a fantastic choice for Birthday Girl's birthday dinner. While busy, the restaurant was nice and the Baker, non-baker and Birthday Girl also enjoyed meeting and talking with the Sandwich Couple. The flavors were incredible, if unconventional.

The non-baker's easy sweets snack (aka homemade nutella)

So, occasionally, though she doesn't tend to like to admit it, the non-baker doesn't feel like cooking or baking but wants something dessert-ish and sweet. When this happens, she makes what most people would call homemade nutella. (She doesn't really have a name for it.) How do you make this wonderful and simple treat?

Simple. All you need is the following:
however many semisweet chocolate chips you want (not so dark that they won't melt well, but if they're milk they won't contrast as well)
A microwave safe bowl
Nut butter of some sort (the non-baker generally uses peanut, but has recently rediscovered the joys of almond butter)
And a chopstick or small spoon

As for instructions:
Pour the chocolate chips into the microwave bowl
Microwave the bowl in 15 second intervals, pulling the bowl out and stirring it between intervals until the chocolate has melted
When the chocolate has melted, add nut butter to taste (generally, around 1/3 of the amount of chocolate works well)
Mix well and serve- either plain (thus the spoon), or with something else

It's not a huge discovery of a recipe, but it's delicious. And, if you want to make something with a texture that's a bit more of a ganache, add a little bit of water to the chocolate when you melt it.

Back to the Future Dinner

So the Baker and the non-baker are both major BTTF fans, though they tend to disagree about which of the three is best. As a result, when the non-baker found out that it was playing at her school's movie theater, she invited the Baker down to have dinner, see the movie and sleep over. So, first they needed to get dinner, and so they sauteed some veggies (starting with some mushrooms and zucchini)
And then adding chunks of red onion and summer squash to the mix
Then, they added some tomato sauce to the mix.
cooked up some couscous (for a quick grain)
And tossed some brussels sprouts with balsamic vinegar and tossed them in the oven at 350 or so for 45-ish minutes ( a recipe idea that the non-baker got from a friend of hers.)
Then they put a bit of each into bowls and sat down to eat dinner.
But of course, this was only the beginning of the evening. They still had a movie to look forward to. And of course, they decided that they wanted snacks to bring with them to the movie. But, buying snacks? How passé. Instead, the Baker (of course) suggested that they bake. And, since they both felt relatively lazy, they pulled out a bag of scone mix that the non-baker had sitting around, poured it into a bowl
Added the requisite amount of water, shaped and cut the scones into wedges and plopped them into the oven for 15 min or so.
Quick and easy scones? Accomplished. They packed up the scones and walked over to the theater (which they had decided to get to early, since they were concerned that the rest of the school would be just as excited about getting to see BTTF on the big screen as they were. ) Luckily, almost no one else was, and they ended up with some of the best seats in the house.

the Baker and non-baker eat out with their parents

So a bit ago, the Baker and non-baker's parents were in town and they decided to go out to eat. They decided to go to a new vegan restaurant that they had heard about, called Karyn's on Green. The food was fantastic.
They started off with a cold broccoli soup that was almost like the Baker and non-baker's mother's gazpacho in texture. This was closely followed by first an arugula salad
And then second, a kale salad (or slaw).
Then were the vegan sliders (which were surprisingly delicious.)
After this came the main courses. (They had, in true Baker/non-baker family tradition decided to order a number of dishes and all take bites of everything in order to ensure that no one would feel as though he or she had missed out.) The first main dish was roasted raddichio.
The second was a tofu gumbo (which the entire family enjoyed so thoroughly that the non-baker forgot to take a picture of it.) And, the third was a delicious soy cheese pizza.
All in all a fantastic meal and a wonderful restaurant- both based on the food and on the atmosphere.

The Baker bakes again

So, a while ago, the Baker was visiting the non-baker before school started and the Baker decided that she wanted to bake cookies, as she is wont to do. However, she wanted the cookies to be sour. So, she mixed in some yogurt and made peanut butter and jelly cookies. Of course, being the Baker that she is (and because of the ingredients available at the non-baker's house) she used crunchy peanut butter and lingonberry jam. Yum.
She also baked some chocolate chip cookies, because, as usual, she was not content to bake just one type of cookie. She's the Baker and she's amazing.

Jewish New Year

So, though it's a day late, the non-baker got together with some of her friends two nights ago and made a kugel and ate round challah in celebration. The kugel was one of her friend's recipes. They began by separating egg yolks from whites.
Then they mixed butter, cottage cheese, milk, and cream cheese using an electric mixer.
Then they boiled the noodles.
After they were boiled, they mixed the noodles and dried apricots into the bowl of milk fats.
Then they poured this into a dish and beat the egg whites into stiff peaks, which went on top of the other mixture.
This went into the oven for around 40 minutes and then took it out of the oven (and put in their store-bought whole wheat round, golden raisin challah.)
After the challah was warmed up, it was time to dig in. So they cut out pieces of both and set out to eat.
The kugel was fantastic and it made for a sweet and rich way to start off the Jewish New Year.

Brunch in the Netherlands

After a night of partying in Amsterdam, the Baker and the non-baker headed back to Haarlem. But they were hungry and so they stopped into a cafe for brunch. The Baker got a beef carpaccio open-faced sandwich.
The non-baker got a chili sauce chicken open-faced sandwich.
But because they both like to try new foods, the Baker and the non-baker decided to switch halves, so that they ended up with one of each.
Though it may not be immediately evident, these sandwiches were huge and after eating them, the Baker and the non-baker were stuffed. Brunch? A complete success.

Dutch Host Kids Make Dinner

That evening, the Baker and the non-baker took the train back to Amsterdam and went to the Dutch Host Son's apartment that they had been to before. There the Dutch Host Family's Children (well, four of the five of them) cooked them the most fantastic dinner. They started off by cutting up some seed bread.
Then they started cooking up some bacon.
They drained the majority of the grease (though they saved some of it to use later) and put the cooked bacon in a bowl.
But bacon was not the only thing on the menu. The extra bacon grease was poured into a pan to use to cook the onions (especially since bacon grease makes things delicious.)
They cooked down the onions in the pan. In the background they were cooking the filling for the vegetarian stuffed mushrooms by cooking down a second set of onions.
They cooked the onions down further. At the same time, they boiled the potatoes.
The cooked down onions were the next dish that they added to the dinner. Then it was time to make the baked vegetarian stuffed mushrooms. The Baker and the non-baker helped ready the mushrooms.
They finished off the filling by adding cream cheese with chives to the onions which melted down and created a nice sauce.
Then they stuffed the mushrooms with the filling, topped them with slices of cheese and then popped them into the oven.
But clearly, that was not enough food. They also decided to make traditional Dutch beans, which they cooked by boiling on the stove.
But again, still not enough food. The Dutch kids also decided to make fried potatoes. They first boiled the potatoes. Then they drained them and sliced them up.
Then the potatoes were thrown into the pan.
Finally, they felt that this was enough food when they added a bowl of applesauce to the mix. They put the food on some make-shift tables in the living room.
Everyone filled their plates up and dug in. The food was absolutely incredible and perfect.