While the Germans have been in town, we have gone dancing 3 weekends in a row.

So it’s ridiculous how long it’s been since I posted!  I pretty much had to stop all activities except for grading.  Well, that and hanging out with our German friends.  They come every year for a school exchange, and I must say that they are pretty fantastic people.  In the past month, we have done lots of eating from Pei Wei, Margo’s kitchen, Glen’s grill, and Marcus’s fabulous Thai dish.  It has also been prom season around here, and I have chaperoned, fixed hair, done make-up, and taken tons of pictures.

Our Germans’ month here has turned into almost 6 weeks because of the Iceland volcano.  They can’t fly home!  I really love having them here, and I wish they could stay forever.  But I know that they really want to get home, and their 24 students want to get back to their families.  We just want them to be safe.

Marcus and Daniela are “our Germans” and they are fantastic!  Every time we are all together, the laughing is uncontrollable.  Have you ever had this kind of laughter, where your sides hurt, over and over again?  These Germans–it’s like we’ve known them our entire lives.  And they have a way of bringing out the best and funniest in all of us.  This past Monday night, Marcus cooked a great Thai dish that I will be posting the recipe to soon.  It was their last night in town (or so we thought anyways).  There Marcus is, cooking this beautiful Thai dish with dried chilies from Margo’s garden that she has hanging over the stove, chopping vegetables and things.  We are all sitting around, drinking wine and talking.  It is a warm place, cozy with friends and good-natured familiarity.  Everyone is really laid back, the conversation is always interesting, and I look up to see  that Marcus is wearing a t-shirt with a tiger face on it.  The tiger has a patch on one  eye and a tear rolling out of the other eye.  It read, “Eye of the Tiger.”  You just can’t beat that.

Tonight we will be going dancing again…for the third weekend in a row.  Daniela is always a fun dance partner, and she is really beautiful, too.  Last weekend, as we left the dance club, I looked up to see several forlorn looks on guys’ faces, quite sad to see her leave.  Marcus and Daniela have definitely inspired a trip to Germany in the future for us.

Joe’s birthday was also this week.  I did have time to make him a most beautiful trifle with lemon-scented vanilla pudding, angel food cake, Creme de Cassis liqueur, whipped cream, and some excellent fresh berries.  It is delicious and light enough to enjoy on a warm evening.

Lemon-scented vanilla pudding just means that I zested a lemon and squeezed some fresh lemon juice into vanilla pudding after it set.  It livens up the flavors of the berries.

Ingredients

• big package of vanilla pudding
• whipped cream or cool whip ( I used light)
• large package of fresh blackberries
• regular sized package of fresh blueberries
• regular sized package of fresh strawberries, sliced as you go (save one or two pretty ones for the decoration on the top)
• angel food cake
• Creme de Cassis Liqueur
• juice of half a lemon and its zest

The layers are as follows:

• Mix vanilla pudding and whipped cream (or light cool whip) for the first layer in the bottom of the dish.
• Place evenly sliced pieces of angel food cake on top of that.  Make sure that however thick you want the cake, you definitely don’t want to cut too much of a wedge so that your layers will be more even.
• Brush the cake with Creme de Cassis liqueur.  The angel food cake will soak it right up.
• Place clean, fresh berries on the cake slices.  I mixed them all together, but you could have a layer of just strawberries (then, blueberries on the next round, then blackberries on the next round)
• Spoon on a layer of lemon-scented vanilla pudding
• another layer of angel food cake–keep in mind that you want to cut smaller pieces, too, to fit in the little, unfilled spots
• brush cake with liqueur
• another layer of berries
• pudding
• top with whipped cream
• make a nice design with the leftover berries on the top of the whipped cream

Save some berries to make a design on top of the trifle.

• 2 very ripe bananas
• 1/2 cup applesauce
• 2 tbsp. melted Earth Balance shortening or margarine
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1/4 cup soy yogurt
• 4 tsp. vanilla almond (or soy) milk

• 3/4 cup all purpose flour
• 3/4 cup wheat flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup old-fashioned oats (NOT quick-cooking or instant)
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder

• 1/2 cup frozen blueberries
• 1/4 cup carob chips (or semi-sweet chocolate chips)

1. In a large bowl, mix all the dry ingredients–flours, sugar, oats, baking soda, baking powder
2. In a medium bowl, mix all the wet ingredients–mash the bananas, add the applesauce, margarine, vanilla, soy yogurt and almond milk.
3. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until combined.
4. I cannot remember where I learned this next thing, but I want to say it was an older lady at one of the restaurants I worked at. It could be a total myth, but it seemed to really work for this. So get a few Tbsp of the all-purpose flour in a separate bowl. Add your blueberries and your carob chips and make sure they are coated with the flour. This ensures that they won’t sink to the bottom during baking.
5. Add the flour-coated blueberries and the carob chips to the mixture and combine.
6. Pour into a greased loaf pan and bake at 350 for 50-60 minutes or until fully cooked throughout.

Although this turned out all tasty and full of yummy things that are also good for you, I would probably just choose blueberries OR chocolate as both flavors mixed with the banana bread can be very dynamic. Not bad, especially if you like new things–just different.