Ken, the cook

We had Sunday dinner for the dodgeball team again. People were coming at 6; I got home from the store at 3 and hadn't started anything yet. I knew I was making Chuck's Pad Thai noodles, which are great, so that left an appetizer and a dessert to make. I asked Ken what he wanted -- cake. I flipped through my recipe/idea binder and saw carrot cake with cream cheese frosting that Linda used to make at Janos. I pulled out the recipe and handed it to Ken.

"Want to make this for me?"
"Um...."
"Please?"
"OK" (insert hesitation but commitment)

Ken is a great cook; he just doesn't do it very often. He gets nervous when he hasn't made the thing before, so carrot cake with cream cheese frosting for a dinner party in 3 hours was that scenario. But he did it and it turned out awesome. Very moist, two tiered cake with an awesome icing. Everybody ate all of theirs and raved about it, which made Ken very happy. The recipe's at home, else I'd post it.

The appetizer was a play on crab dip with ritz crackers. I didn't have any crab but had some calamari left from the squid disaster. So I made a calamari dip which got demolished. I thought it tasted very much like a clam dip:

Calamari Dip
1/2 onion
2 cloves garlic
1 cup calamari (cleaned squid, cut into 1/2" pieces)
1 block cream cheese
1/2 T Sriracha or other hot sauce.

Cut up onion and garlic and saute in a bit of fat until almost soft. (Fat can be oil/butter/bacon grease, I used 1/2 T of the latter that I keep in the freezer). Add cleaned and drained squid and cook about 2 min, until squid are cooked but not tough. Transfer onion/squid mixture to a food processor and pulse until squid are in small pieces. Add cream cheese and mix well. Put into an oven proof bowl and bake at 375 for 10 min. Serve hot with crackers.

The pad thai also worked out well, although cooking pad thai for 10+ people was too much. Even with a 6 quart saucepan, it was hard to turn the noodles and get the ingredients well mixed. We had to move it to two pans, which just isn't the same to me. I think I'll just make smaller groups next time.

Also made some irish coffees, like my dad does, for fun. They turned out well, but just not the same as his. He is the master at them.