The Morning After

The dinner turned out just fine with no major mishaps.  The stand-out dish without a doubt was the Triple-Layer Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting which you can find here.  I did, as the recipe says, grate the carrots on the smallest side of a box grater.  I did not have a comparable attachment for my food processor and I believe that it made all the difference.  The consistency of the carrots post-grating was similar to canned pumpkin, so the cake was incredibly smooth and rich.  The recipe says that 1lb. of carrots will equal about three cups.  This is a complete and total bold faced lie, or was in my case; I needed 2lbs.  Carrot cake in my book is only a vehicle for cream cheese frosting anyway, so the extra layer made it a total home run.  I had it for breakfast the next day.

We copied the Brussels sprout salad from a dish that we had at the Mixx here in Kansas City.  You can vary it to your taste, sprouts, arugula, cranberries, almonds, bacon*, shaved parmesan with honey mustard dressing.  The Brussels sprouts are raw.  Yep, raw and delicious.  Trim the bottom and separate so they are basically leaves.  Bill did julienne (right?) them a little.  I'd be careful with the sprout/arugula ratio as ours seemed a little arugula heavy.  Better yet, eat in or carry out from the Mixx.

*Mr. Sulzberger, you are welcome to order yours without bacon.