What do you do with a 3 year old pickle?

Somebody found the extra frosting!

"Helping" out.

Throw it a birthday party!

Lame?

Pretty much, yeah, I am.

Anyshway, I was looking over some pictures and realized I hadn't shown off the birthday cake I made for my baby big boy. Le sigh. They grow up too fast, don't they?

Seems like only yesterday he was born. Now look at him with that big boy green Mohawk and rock star themed birthday party!

Love that kid! He is such a rock star. He loves him some "kee-tars."

This is the invite:

Cool, huh? Took me about 2 minutes to fill in the information on the website and it gave me the image. I just had them printed out at Office Depot on cardstock for 6 cents per page (I got 4 tickets per page). Cheap, no?

I also made up some backstage passes and had those printed out as well. They were nothing fancy. Just whipped 'em up in Microsoft publisher and slid them into name badge protectors! They looked cool.

I served rootbeer for drink. You can pick up a case of the IBC rootbeer in plain glass, brown bottles at Sam's club for cheap. I splurged and had waterproof, personalized "beer bottle" labels made up with Pickle's picture and the words, "Rocker's Brew" on them.

On to the cake! You can order cake kits from Duff Goldman that are rock star themed. I did that. I was kinda pissed when I opened it and there was one flame, a few picks, the neck of the guitar and a bunch of plastic extras. I dunno, I expected more gumpaste and fondant pieces for the money. I ended up making more gumpaste pieces to suit my likes. The body of the guitar is gumpaste, while the collar, spikes and chain are all fondant. I hand painted the flames and guitar. I also made extra guitar pics so I could spell out his name.

I iced the cake with that faux fondant again. I don't really care for real fondant and this stuff really smooths out nicely anyway.

My favorite part of the cake is the chain. How freakin' awesome is that?! And easy?! WHAT?!

I just rolled out some fondant snakes till they were the thickness I wanted. Then I cut off 2 1/2 in pieces and shaped them into a link. The 3D part of the chain (the links that stuck out of the cake) were just half of a link. The picture kinda explains it a little better.

**I apologize for some of the picture's quality. Some of these were snapped with my camera phone as I was too lazy to go and get my real camera**

A Fancy Quesadilla

Pickles and I have this ridiculous love of pears. That kid could eat his body weight in pears, me, not so much. Not that I don't love them equally, but seriously, my body weight in pears? That's just silly.

I even loved the movie "City of Angels," partly because of how Meg Ryan describes the taste of pears to Nick Cage.

Where was I going with all of this? Oh yes, my latest snacking endeavor.

The other day I was making the kiddos some black bean quesadillas please note, it is redundant to call it a bean and cheese quesadilla as the word quesadilla actually means cheese in tortilla. Just sayin'. I was hungry, but not super hungry so I just wanted something light-ish. My friend the pear was staring me straight in the eye. Sounded good, but I needed a little something extra. I popped open the fridge and found a smidge of Gorgonzola cheese, leftover from The Dude's favorite dinner Steak Gorgonzola Alfredo pasta. LIGHTBULB!!

Back in SoCal, near where I used to live, there is this awesome restaurant that serves a Gorgonzola Pear pizza, drool.

So, I yanked that Gorgonzola out the fridge and whipped this up.

Here's how it went down:

2 - 6in flour tortillas

5-6 thin slices of pear (any variety will do)

1 T whipped cream cheese

1 T crumbled Gorgonzola cheese

Smear the cream cheese on one (or both, hell I don't care) tortilla. Lay a single layer of pears on top and sprinkle the Gorgonzola on it. We're not looking for heavy coverage on the Gorgonzola here people. Use less or more according to your liking. Top with remaining tortilla.

Fire up the ol' griddle or pan and cook that bad boy. No need to grease the pan, unless you are really looking for that extra artery clogging goodness that butter adds. Not that I'm judging you, cuz it is fabulous. Just know you will still get a nice, crisp quesadilla without it. Let it sit for a few minutes to let the juices hang out. You can do it. Resist the urge to eat it, just for a little while.

Now, it was fabulous on it's own. But I'm thinkin' I need to scout out some fresh cranberries and make some cranberry sauce. That flavor combo sounds awesome to me!