Last Saturday, a bunch of my high school girlfriends and I took a Thai cooking class at Sur La Table in Arlington to celebrate our dear friend Xiaolu’s birthday! This was my first time taking a cooking class (aside from my cake decorating class earlier this year), so it was a new and fun experience for me! I love learning how to cook new dishes, and Thai is one of my favorites, so it was really exciting, and the fact that I could learn with all these girls that I love made it all the more enjoyable and memorable! π
The ingredients for Thai coconut curry
Chopping up the ingredients for cucumber salad
The birthday girl sharing a laugh while cooking… π
Thai coconut curry!
Taste-tesing.
Listening to the chef.
Cucumber salad! This was so delicious!
Taking a break to eat our first course of the curry and cucumber salad. It was delicious!
The bestest and I, reunited!
The chef teaching us how to cut mango for mango with sticky rice.
Cooking pad thai in the wok.
…while the other girls look on.
Xiaolu and Mimi, all smiles!
Angel and Mimi hard at work.
The completed pad thai!
Mango with sticky rice! Yum!!!
Surprising Xiaolu with her birthday cake.
Taking a group picture in the cooking mirror!
Together with our chef, who was a great teacher!
Happy birthday, Xiaolu! Thank you for letting us celebrate with you ♥
I’ve always been a big fan of donuts, and I have been craving them more than ever lately! Dan’s been going on runs to the supermarket from time to time to indulge my munchies (my favorite are the frosted ones with sprinkles!), but last weekend I picked up a donut pan from Sur La Table to try making some of my own. Since you bake the donuts instead of the traditional method of frying them, I figured they would be slightly healthier.
Here’s my first attempt at baked donuts!
This was also my first time working with icing colors, and the donut glaze came out a little too pink… I was going for a slightly paler hue.
Cinnamon sugar donuts:
…and donuts with chocolate glaze:
The verdict: they came out looking and tasting pretty good, although they were definitely more akin to cake than donuts in taste and texture. I used the recipe that was on the back of the pan, but without a glaze or sugar coating, they’re not very sweet and almost like buttermilk pancakes in the shape of donuts. Dan still gobbled them up, but I found myself still yearning for some Krispy Kremes….
I saw that some baking blogs reported similar results with the recipe, and they mentioned some other recipes that worked better, so I’m hoping to try those next! I might even try making some gluten-free donuts sometime. Thus the quest continues for the perfect homemade donut….
