Daily-Craft

My First CSA Box!

2011-04-28T20:16:00.000-07:00

Within the past few weeks, I've head several of my friends raving about the boxes they have received through Community Supported Agriculture programs - so I got my own to see what it's all about.

I ordered my from South Central Farmers, since they delivered the box to my work. It was like I was in an episode of Chopped.

I got a lot of greens in this box. A lot. We have here (left to right): Bloomsdale Spinach, Black Kale, Red Romaine Lettuce, Green Romaine Lettuce, Fava Beans, Collard Greens, Detroit Red Beets, and Turnips. I have to be honest, I've never had some of these greens - particularly Kale and Collard Greens. So, what did I make first?

Kale chips!

A little salt and a tiny bit of oil and in the oven until crisp. Not bad! Brian still favors potato chips, but I can see converting. Next, I made a Green Romaine Lettuce salad with some Detroit red beets, with a lemon garlic vinaigrette. It was so yummy. I immediately started my love affair with beets. I had no idea how tasty beets were!

So, I combined my new love of beets with my other new love of fresh, homemade pasta.

I roasted 2 beets, then pureed them as much as I could. Those dark red spots on my dough are larger bits of beet that could not get pureed down all the way, but it didn't seem to matter once the pasta was made.

After cooking the pasta, I added it to the sauce of salmon, onions, dill, vodka, and cream.

It was probably the tastiest of all the pastas I have made. Brian agrees.

Next, I made lemon, garlic Collard Greens.

Then, roasted Turnips with sour cream.

And finally, I added some Fava Beans in my stir fry.

Unfortunately, I couldn't keep up with the rest of the vegetables and they didn't get used. Now, while all the vegetables I did get to use were all delicious, I had one big problem. The bugs. I know, I know.... no pesticides, so lots more bugs. The problem is, I'm terrified of bugs. It was difficult. I had to wash my lettuce one leaf at a time, around 3-4 times each leaf to make sure all the bugs were gone. It was so time consuming - which is why I didn't get to use a large portion of my box. Despite the bugs, I think I'll do it again. Though, I need a bug break for a little while.

Lemon Theme Night!

2011-02-18T11:18:00.000-08:00

Yes! Lemon was my surprise theme for my first official theme night! Now, at first, the theme lemon might not sound that exciting - but ohhh, it is. On the menu: Homemade lemon pasta with a rosemary vodka lemon cream sauce, a mixed green salad with lemon mustard vinaigrette, all served with a limoncello and orange cocktail. For dessert, we have a low fat/calorie homemade lemon ice cream! A little more exciting, right? On top of it all, I dressed up in my most yellow 50's party dress and had a big pouffy flower in my hair! Theme night was awesome!

So, the first thing I actually made was the lemon pasta, which you can read all about here. The next thing I made was my ice cream. I have been making banana ice cream a lot lately, so I decided to change it up. In the fridge, we had tons of lemons, so I went for it. Making lemon ice cream is tricky though, especially if you are using all non-fat ingredients. Lemon and cream can curdle real easy, especially when there isn't enough fat. Somehow, I got really lucky. I was very diligent about my whisking and it all creamed together, so wonderfully.

I used a lot of lemons, as pictured above, both their juice and their zest. I strained the zest out, before letting my mixture cool. The next day, I added a little more non-fat half and half, then into the ice cream maker it went.

Once it was thick enough, I packed up my ice cream and got started on the next lemon dish.

I started off chopping all of my ingredients, washing the salad, and basically making a big mess. Luckily, I made a lemon mustard salad dressing the night before, so the salad was ready to go.

I really wanted to surprise Brian, but I had less than an hour to get everything done! I started on my sauce, by sweating some sweet red onions and shallots, with a little bit of rosemary.

I added a few shots of vodka, a few squirts of lemon, and my cream. Since I used lots of fat free ingredients (low cal butter and fat free cream), I noticed a little bit of curdling. Gross, I know. To fix that, I just added a big piece of fatty, glorious, wonderful butter, which totally saved the day.

Did I mention I was making my pasta at the same time? Excuse the dark, somewhat blurry photos below. Making pasta, taking pictures, and being in a hurry all add up!

Making the pasta wasn't bad. Sure, I had to start over on a few pieces, but overall, it was a decent first time, for doing it by myself.

For some reason, the pasta machine didn't fully cut the fettuccine, so a few of them clumped together when I boiled them. I think I might need more flour, next time.

And finally, the last thing I did was make the cocktail.

Our friend, Michael, gave us a bottle of his homemade Limoncello - so delicious. I made a little cocktail that was 3 parts orange juice, 1 part Limoncello. It was so light and tasty! And finally, dinner was served.

Again, I apologize for the dark pictures!

We finished the night off with our homemade lemon ice cream.

It was dreamy.

All in all, everything was good. The lemon pasta was very subtle and it was cooked really perfectly. The sauce was yummy - though, I might cheat next time and use some real, whole fat cream. The cocktail? Amazing. The salad? Totally good. The ice cream was delicious, though, I might use 1-2 less lemons next time -the flavor was good, but it was strong. I wouldn't say too strong - but it was more strong than I'd like it to be.

Lemon day was awesome. Now, what shall I do for my next theme night? Hmm...

Homemade Pastas

2011-02-17T18:33:00.000-08:00

Any normal person would probably want to come home from a long day of making pasta and relax. I'm clearly odd. The moment I came home, from pasta making class, I made pasta.

Sure, it's not much in it's little packages there, but tonight I will put it to the test. First, let me show you what I made! As you can see above, I made 3 different bundles: Lemon, Rosemary, and a plain pasta. It all started with a simple dough of flour and eggs.

I did a lot of kneading and separated my dough into 3 equal parts.

I basically just took a look in the fridge to see what we had around to flavor the dough. We had a ton of lemons! Lemon pasta with salmon... that could be good, right? Let's hope so, anyway! So, I went ahead and zested some lemon and kneaded it into one of my doughs. If you look close enough, you can see the pretty little specs of yellow!

Next, we had so much fresh rosemary - we love rosemary.

I chopped it real small and added it to my second round of dough.

Once all the rosemary was evenly incorporated to the dough and all of the rounds were kneaded, I wrapped them in layers of saran wrap, labeled them, and put them straight into the freezer. Did I mention I don't have a pasta maker? Well, I didn't anyways... I have one now! And tonight one of my bundles of dough are coming out. I've already warned Brian that it's a theme night tonight. Oh yes, blogger friends, I'm having a theme night. I can't wait to surprise Brian with what I have planned... It will all be revealed soon!

Pasta In Casa! Hip Cooks, West LA

2011-02-14T08:06:00.000-08:00

Well, happy valentine's day everyone! I was a little bummed out that Feb. 14 landed on a Monday, but it's given us the excuse to celebrate all weekend long. Saturday was massages and home cooking/baking and Sunday was "Pasta in Casa!" class at Hip Cooks in West LA. We got a gift card from Brian's sister last April, for our wedding and have finally put it to some good use! On the menu we had a Roasted butternut squash ravioli with sage butter (both Brian and my favorite, not pictured), then a Dill fettucine, salmon cream & vodka sauce. Making the dill fettucini sounded a lot more complicated, but it was basically the same pasta dough, with a little dill added to it The pasta itself was so pretty, here it is being put into the pasta machine.

It was so much fun!

We all had turns putting the pasta through the machine, here's Brian having a go at it.

And it came out so delicious. Definitely our second favorite pasta of the day.

The next pasta we made was called, Caramelle with mint, ricotta & lemon.

And finally we made a Portobello mushroom & spinach rotollo, red pepper tomato sauce.

Ugh, it was all very delicious. It was all so, so, so good.

The people joining us in class were all so nice and made the whole class a lot more fun and lively. Brian and I are already planning our next date over some Hip Cooks classes. Yay!

Baked Alaska with Homemade Banana Ice Cream, Brownies & Chocolate Covered Strawberries

2011-02-13T10:00:00.000-08:00

This weekend has been a dream. We got messages, had a delicious brunch at one of our most favorite places, relaxed, and made some incredible food.

Yea.

So, the night started with Brian making me a nostalgic dinner, one he made for me 2 years ago today, when he proposed.

It was awesome. So many good memories! Brian agreed to let me make the dessert and I knew I wanted to make my guy something really special, cause I've got to admit, he's pretty awesome. I wanted to stay true to the dessert he made me that night, chocolate brownie with vanilla ice cream and strawberries, but I wanted to amp it up. So, first I made one of our current favorites, a low calorie banana ice cream I've been making a lot lately. I paired the ice cream with a low fat brownie mix, except I added a little coffee to it too. Then, it came time to layer and freeze.

To layer, I just lined a bowl with some saran wrap, then layered brownie, ice cream a couple of times, until the bowl was full. I froze the layers until they were set, then prepared my meringue. I didn't really measure the meringue, but just used the typical few egg whites, a little cream of tartar and about 1/2 cup sugar - then came the fun part.

Piping! Now, I probably could have got my peaks a little stiffer, but I was so excited to get this guy into the oven!

And that's all it took! I paired the Baked Alaska with a few chocolate covered strawberries and we were instantly in heaven.

To celebrate today, Brian and I are taking a couple's pasta making class! It sure is a good weekend for our hearts and our bellies. Yum, yum, yum.

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! xoxo!

Chocolate Covered Strawberries

2011-02-12T15:06:00.000-08:00

This weekend, Brian and I are going all out and celebrating our first married Valentine's Day. Brian's making me dinner and I'm going all out for dessert. Above you see a little side step in my Valentine's Day dessert surprises for Brian. My homemade banana ice cream is step one in my big fancy dessert surprise, but as a side treat, I thought I'd make us some chocolate covered strawberries for some late night snacking.

What are you doing for Valentine's Day?

Homemade Banana Ice Cream

2011-02-11T22:38:00.000-08:00

With Valentine's Day just around the corner, I have big plans for my Brian. It's our first Valentine's Day as a married couple, which is pretty special -and to top it off, February 13th is the second year anniversary of the day Brian proposed to me! To celebrate, Brian is making me the same meal he cooked for me the day he proposed and I've convinced him to let me take care of dessert this year. Since I've only got dessert to take care of, I'm going all out. Of course, we are somewhat dieting, so I'm trying to make it a little healthier, but still kind of bad. I've been very much into this Banana Ice Cream recipe lately, which is very low in fat and calories, but tastes like we're cheating on our diets, so we enjoy it quite a bit.

Ingredients:
3 cups fat-free half and half
1 cup fat-free egg substitute
1 cup sugar
3-4 bananas
pinch of salt

Directions:
1. In a food processor, process the bananas until smooth. Add a pinch of salt.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the sugar and egg substitute.
3. In a sauce pan, heat the half and half.
4. Carefully combine the egg mix with the milk to form a custard.
5. Add the banana mixture to the custard and let chill overnight.
6. After the mix has chilled, add it to your ice cream maker, and enjoy!

Now, just to clarify - this is only step one in the Valentines dinner dessert - there's a lot more to come to the big plans I have for my special valentine. It's going to be delicious, I can't wait!

Mango Macarons

2011-02-05T14:32:00.000-08:00

Another day. Another macaron.

I just had to make the mango macarons again! Delish...

French Macarons With Mary

2011-01-30T10:59:00.000-08:00

It's been quite a year! Happy belated new year to all of you! Since my last post, I've been involved in quite a few baking projects. In the past month, I've had several friends ask me to show them how to bake a few of my favorite recipes. Yesterday, my cousin Mary came over to learn how to bake macarons. Little did she know that those delicate little cookies are awfully fussy and require so much time and care. Before we began, I gave her a quick lesson on a few of my favorite macaron blog posts by Syrup and Tang, David Lebovitz, and Hisako Ogita's I love Macarons book. Then we went straight to it. We measured, whipped, and quickly got through our first batter - rose flavored macarons.

Rap the macarons, let them settle, then into the oven they went!

In addition to rose, we also made vanilla bean and mango.

They were delicious and gave us very little trouble!

Thanks for the fun day, Mary!

Christmas Tree

2010-12-22T14:35:00.000-08:00

Putting together our first Christmas tree was a lot of fun - and a lot of work too.

When we started, we only had only 10 ornaments, but the ornaments we had were pretty awesome. We were given a set of Old World Christmas ornaments from Brian's aunt Linda and uncle Ronnie for our wedding, so we decided to continue with that theme. We ended up spending about $200 more on ornaments - yeah. $200.

Seriously, though, a saxaphone and a white kitten in a basket! I had to!
Brian made our lovely popcorn garland and some friends gave me the wonderful red bows, after I gave them a pie making lesson (another post.. coming soon...).

We got our star, our old school holiday lights, and a few other choice holiday items from Stats.

All in all, I love our tree. Sure, the initial investment in our ornaments and holiday decor set us back a few hundred, but I'm glad we got some classy ornaments that we can keep forever.

Paperback Wreather

2010-12-12T23:11:00.000-08:00

Yes. I'm a librarian and I tear books. I used discarded books, of course (see more on that, here) and luckily, I have easy access to lots of discarded books! Aside from books, I started with a styrofoam ring and some super hot glue.

The glue was hot. Super hot. I ended burning quite a few fingers in the process! I was warned... the actual idea, along with the warning came from the Living with Lindsay blog. Great idea, right? I just added a red bow to ours, to make it especially festive.

I've already got compliments from the neighbors!

More holiday crafts and baking on their way...

Our First Gingerbread House

2010-12-09T20:40:00.000-08:00

Believe it or not, Brian and I have never decorated a gingerbread house, ever. This being our first married Christmas together, we're really getting into the holiday spirit. While I really wanted to make the entire house from scratch, we just got really busy and I ended up buying a Wilton set and some extra candies. As soon as we started decorating, we didn't stop once for pictures, we just went nuts.

Brian got one side of the house and accidentally made this really cool pac-man-like pattern.

Our true collaboration was really on this roof. Brian covered it in frosting, I added the pipping details and we both added the candies.

The roof is definitely my favorite part of our little house. I went very traditional on my side of the house.

We then frosted the base (a small box, covered with foil) and added some blue shimmery sprinkles. The last thing I did was add a red ribbon around the base.

For the rest of the month, there will be crafts, cookies, cakes, cheeses, and pies! Get ready!

Recycled Book Christmas Garland

2010-12-02T08:38:00.000-08:00

We recently had a huge book sale over at the library. Many things were sold, many things were donated, and some things were candidates for the trash - or in my case, my craft cabinet. Lucky for me there were boxes of promotional copies of the Harlequin Romance Mystery, Crime Scene at Cardwell Ranch for my crafting pleasure. The best part is that the text is available online in full pdf here, so it's free of any librarian-cutting-into-books guilt.

I started the garland with cutting multiple strips of the text, approximately 1" thick. I tried to cut off the edges which had no text, just to keep the garland visually full of text. Because my tree has a red bow on top, I decided to string the garland with red embroidery floss, just to give it that extra pop of color.

I loosely folded my strip of text in a wavy "s" pattern, then started to thread it, one wavy strip at a time.

I tried to keep the tightness of the garland somewhat random, but loose enough so that the red thread would show through.

Just a note, I am completely excited about Christmas this year. December just started, but we already have 3 trees (and we're still getting one more...)! Very festive in the Young household, so expect an array of holiday posts this month.

Wedding Craft #14: Table Numbers

2010-11-30T08:38:00.000-08:00

Hi there! This is Brian, Annette's husband. She has asked me to write a bit about the table number cards I put together for our wedding. Starting with an old piece of sheet music paper, I folded it into a fan and trimmed the edges. Then, I constructed a stand, which consisted of two different sized circles, cut out of heavy black
cardstock. For the smaller circle, I even used one of our wedding jam
mason jars as a template!

I took the first larger circle and covered a side with glue, placed the sheet music fan in the middle and folded the edges up the front and back.

Once the glue dried, I put another dab on the bottom of the fan and placed it in the middle of the smaller circle, which helped to keep the fan standing upright.

We printed the table numbers on blue paper, cut each out in a semicircle, and affixed it onto the front of the fan... that's it!

These table number cards were fun to create and looked pretty great with the rest of our wedding decor.

Up next: Wedding Craft #15: Just Married Sign

**Top photograph above is by Our Labor of Love

Wedding Craft #13: Library Books & Card Catalog Escort Cards

2010-11-29T08:34:00.000-08:00

I take great pride in being a librarian. Not only do I love what I do, but I completely embrace the culture. I wear glasses. I love cats. I love old school librarian outfits. And although we're known for being a crabby bunch - I think we're awesome (and I don't think we're all crabby)! It should also be noted that Brian thinks librarians are awesome too. Remember this? I knew the librarian theme just had to be somewhat featured in our wedding.

Our venue, Castle Green, made it so easy to incorporate our theme. The photographs and books above and below were all sitting on top of an old grand piano, which perfectly incorporated our love for music too.

Luckily for me, I had lots of access to discarded books, making this all very doable. To give some of the books a whimsical, fluttered look, I folded every other page. Doing this kept the books to stay open and look so fantastic.

My real pride and joy of the librarian theme; however, was my card catalog. My dear librarian friend, Joanna, gave me her old card catalog! Isn't it beautiful? I just love these things.

Once I had the card catalog, I knew I had to use it for the escort cards.

I made a standard Library of Congress style call number for the cards, which read (and stood for):
BA (Brian & Annette)
417 (4/17 the day we got married)
.A17 (April 17, the day we got married)
2010 (2010, the year we got married)
At first, I got real nerdy and wanted to use the call number of an existing book - but I realized that only I (and perhaps the handful of librarians in attendance) would get it, so I opted for the alternative approach and I think it worked out. Each person was led to their table, which we referred to as chapters.

Around the card catalog, we had more books and featured a number of vintage cameras and old photographs. The photographs below are of Brian's parent's and grandparents.

And my parents and grandparents...

Even our rings fit the decor. My engagement ring dates back to 1897! Brian and I both designed our antique-style wedding bands (mine is not pictured), which we had my uncles make. My uncles are so talented!

For more photographs of our card catalog and library theme, go to my flickr page.

Up next: Wedding Craft #14: Table Numbers

**All photographs above are by Our Labor of Love

Wedding Craft #12: Silhouette Woodblock

2010-11-28T09:17:00.000-08:00

Sure, it's super tiny detail - but those tiny details add up! At least I think they did at our wedding. Since I was already creating a screen for the guestbook quilt banner, I decided to get the most out of my screen, and add a large silhouette too.

At first, I really had no idea what I was going to do. A trip to the craft store fixed that. I found these really cool slices of wood, which I then decided to screen print.

I'll admit it, I messed it up the first time. The ink got into the tiny sliver of negative space between our silhouettes the first time around. So, what did I do? I covered it with the same fabric I used for our favor tops, wedding quilt, and wedding quilt banner.

I paired it with a small gold stand I found for $2 and the whole craft cost around $6. Not bad, right? We still have it displayed in our bookshelf too!

Up next: Wedding Craft #13: Library Books & Card Catalog Escort Cards

**Picture of Brian and I by Our Labor of Love

Wedding Craft #11: Quilt Banner

2010-11-27T22:08:00.000-08:00

As many of you already know, Brian and I featured a number of homemade crafts at our wedding - from the invitations, to the favors, and every detail in between. One common thread (thread!) was the fabric we used in a lot of the crafts.

We used this polka dot fabric in the tops of our wedding favors and in our quilt guestbook, so I decided to make a banner using the same fabric. The first step was to make a screen.

After making our wedding invitations, I became a screen printing machine.

Once my screen was all done, I organized the order of each color/letter and began screen printing.

Before I knew it, they were all done!

I sandwiched the letters and began to sew the top edges together.

Then came the twine.

After sewing the top edges of each triangle, I placed the twine along the top edge and sewed the rest of sides shut.

A small detail for a considerate amount of work, but I thought it added some fun and whimsy.

Up next: Wedding Craft #12: Silhouette Woodblock

**Reception table photograph by Our Labor of Love

Thanksgiving Apple Pie

2010-11-25T11:15:00.001-08:00

Did I also mention I'm thankful for apple pie? Fresh out of the oven, just in time for Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-11-24T23:09:00.000-08:00

I am thankful for so much this year, I don't know where to begin. My family, my friends, health and happiness, my job, my 2 minute commute to work, and most of all, my Brian. While we're off to see our families on Thanksgiving day, I wanted to do a little something special for our first Thanksgiving together. So, I made us our own little Thanksgiving over the weekend. We decided to change the usual Thanksgiving menu up a little, so our food for the week wouldn't be too redundant and came up with a fun little menu.

What you see above is garlic green beans, cranberry sauce, rosemary mashed potatoes, sausage dressing, and steak. Believe it or not, I'm not a real dressing/stuffing fan. It's the oddest thing to me, because I love all the ingredients that went into my stuffing: bread, sausage, celery, chicken broth, and the such... but when it's all together, it's just not my favorite. Brian; however, loves it. So, I made my first stuffing.

I added some sage to it, which gave it a really deep flavor that I did quite enjoy. I was really happy with my dressing, mostly because Brian seemed really into it. One of my favorite parts of the meal was my little cocktail.

I've been very into muddling fruit into 7-up, then adding a touch of Malibu. Since it was our thanksgiving meal, I added some of the cranberry sauce into my cocktail and it was quite tasty, indeed. I also added a squeeze of lime and lime zest - not too shabby. The whole meal was a hit.

I also ended the night with a mini homemade apple pie (not pictured), which we shared over some coffee with our neighbors. It was a great night. We've got so much to be thankful for this year!

What are you all thankful for?

Wedding Craft #10: Quilt Guestbook

2010-11-23T15:02:00.000-08:00

One of the things I worried about most on our wedding day is about how everything would look at the reception hall. I had a very specific vision I really wanted to capture, but wasn't there to put it all together myself (though I left extremely thorough directions - I literally drew pictures of how I wanted everything to look). I told myself that no matter what happens, I'm going to just have a good time. I was prepared for the worst, but hoped for the best. I really didn't know how everything would look once it was all in the venue. I had been collecting bits and pieces of the decor for a good year, but it was all so abstract in my little apartment. I'll never forget walking into the reception hall for the first time on that day.

It was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. It exceeded all of my expectations. It made all my hard work worth it! Hearing people say that the wedding was so "us" made it worth it.
One of the details of "us" I really wanted to capture was my love of quilting. Brian inspired me to start my first quilt and I haven't stopped since. I thought it would be fun to create our first family heirloom, a wedding quilt.

I cut approximately 300 squares, with fabric matching our wedding favors. I placed the squares in an old library card catalog drawer and included several fabric markers for people to add their notes and drawings.

The notes and drawings we received were amazing!

My plan is to eventually embroidering each note, all by myself, all by hand. It's gonna take a while.

Some of the drawings are just incredible!

I may not finish this quilt anytime soon, but the sweet notes and wonderful drawings keep me inspired to hurry it up!

Up next: Wedding Craft #11: Quilt Banner

Wedding Craft #9: Bow Napkins

2010-10-12T07:00:00.000-07:00

While I was preparing sparkly meringues, my best friend Junko, was on my living room floor folding 200+ napkins into adorable bows.

Junko folded the napkins, then wrapped a piece of fabric ribbon around the middle and taped the ribbon in the back, to make these sweet little bows (below image by Our Labor of Love).
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They looked perfect with our homemade jam favors!

Up next: Wedding Craft #10: Quilt Guestbook

Wedding Craft #8: Sparkly Meringues

2010-10-11T07:57:00.000-07:00

The dessert table at our wedding was my pet project. Forget the dress, forget the venue, I was all about the dessert table. I wanted something whimsical, fluffy, and a little ooey gooey. We were lucky enough to have Sweet & Saucy Shop make our cake, caramel apples, and strawberry shortcakes and our friend Jill made us hundreds of French macarons. We also had a fun array of candies, fluffy pink donuts from Colorado Donuts, powdered donuts, cotton candy (thanks to our friend Maegan), and my sparkly meringues!

Everyone said I'd be totally stressed days before the wedding, but I was surprisingly calm. Brian, my friend Junko, and I all hung out, preparing last minute details, but we were all pretty mellow. Mellow enough to drive down to Trader Joes and buy a few cases of meringues, some white chocolate, and some pink and blue shimmery sprinkles. First, I melted the chocolate.

Then, I dipped each meringue lightly into the chocolate.

Before the chocolate dried, I dipped the meringue into a plate of sprinkles. Either blue or pink.

I had quite a little assembly line going on.

I was so excited about how they were coming out, they looked like little jewels.

Or, exotic underwater sea creatures! They looked so lovely at the wedding, here they are, photographed by Our Labor of Love:

Up next: Wedding Craft #9: Bow Napkins

Wedding Craft #7: Wedding Cake Topper

2010-10-10T20:48:00.000-07:00

I realize I've been missing on the blog scene for a while. Let me tell you friends, lots has happened. I got a new job and it's been pretty great. I love what I do. Being a librarian is really fun! Really! It's been an intense few months settling in, but I think I'm finally ready to throw myself back into blogging and crafting again. And now the long awaited wedding craft #7! It's a really funny story actually. I was really touched when my mom gave me her own wedding topper to use for my wedding. She had been saving it in a box with her wedding dress, her veil, and other wedding memories.

This is what it looked like when my mom gave it to me. I loved it, but I have to admit, the fabric around the bride's dress and the dingy white base wasn't ideal - but it was my mother's, so I couldn't change it. I mean, this is the same exact wedding cake topper that my parents used on their own wedding cake! Right? Wrong! Yes, wrong! So, for 1 year, I held onto my mom's cake topper, as-is. Then, only weeks before the wedding, I was looking through my parent's wedding album and discovered that their cake had a completely different topper! I'm not sure why my mom held onto this cake topper or for that matter, what happened to her actual cake topper? Either way, this was my green light to make some guilt-free changes.

I wanted to work on the base of the cake first, so I wrapped the rest of the topper in foil and some tape.

I then applied lots of glue and lots of sparkles.

Gold sparkles cover the entire base of the new topper, which helped inspire the design of the wedding cake.

Here the topper is, almost done, but not quite yet.

I added a small veil and removed the fabric on the bottom of the dress and it was all ready! Below are a few photos by our photographers, Our Labor of Love, from the wedding day.

The gold glitter from the base inspired the gold glitter sprinkles around our big pink cake.

And just in case anyone was wondering, our cake (made by Sweet & Saucy Shop) was delicious!

In fact, our entire dessert table was pretty grand.

Up next: Wedding Craft #8: Sparkly Meringues

Wedding Craft #6: Ring Boy Pillow

2010-08-16T19:33:00.000-07:00

I have the greatest nephew, ever. He's super cute and knows everything and anything about dinosaurs. He loves himself some T-Rex, but he also really loves being a "good boy" and taking on lots of responsibility. He took his duties as ring boy very seriously. Holding onto a pillow with our rings was not a joke for Andrew, he was extremely focused and ready to protect these rings and the pillow. I made the pillow using vintage handkerchiefs, from the same batch of hankies I used to make our invites.

First, I sewed a piece of vintage ribbon in the middle of one of the hankies. I then sewed the two hankies together, leaving room to stuff the pillow. After stuffing the pillow, I sewed it shut, and that was it! Super easy! It looked real cute with Andrew's snappy outfit too!

Here he is, pictured with my sister (his mama). Thanks for all the good work, Andrew!

Up next: Wedding Craft #7: Wedding Cake Topper

**Photographs by Our Labor of Love

Wedding Craft #5: Flower Girl Accessories

2010-08-09T22:42:00.000-07:00

Brian and I are the luckiest auntie and uncle in the world, seriously. Today, we're going to focus on the little ladies in our life, Hannah, Anabelle, Julia, and Megan.

Really, have you seen a cuter group of girls? Every time I see this picture, I can't help but to giggle at their funny little expressions! I knew I had to do these girls right. I really wanted the girls to have little gloves and headbands with bows on them, but since there were 4 girls, it was looking like a very expensive detail. At $15-20 per pair of gloves and about $10 per headband, I was looking to explore other options. Downtown LA, I went and found these lovely simple gloves for about $3 a piece.

I also found 4 white fabric headbands for $5, and then spent about $1.50 on sparkly fabric.

I cut the fabric into strips:

Then gathered the middle together to form a bow and sewed the gathered portion down.

After I had all the bows, I began sewing them onto the gloves.

I really like how big the bows looked on the gloves. As it will eventually be revealed, big bows were sort of a theme in our wedding.

The big bows made it easy for Julia to hide for photos too.

The headbands were a little trickier, but just as easy.

In addition to the headband and bow, I also used a small piece of ribbon and some hot glue.

I glued the bow on first, then hid the hot glue under the ribbon. The trick is to hide the glue, but also to use the glue to hold the ribbon down.

All in all, the girls got gloves and headbands for under $20 total! Not only that, but I almost like the ones I made more than the ones I saw for sale. They were fun to make and I think the girls really liked 'em too!

Up next: Wedding Craft #6: Ring Boy Pillow

**The gals were all photographed by Our Labor of Love

Wedding Craft #4: Chris & Susana's Embroidered "Guest Book"

2010-07-31T18:00:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Seattle, WA! We are so happy to be here and to help celebrate the marriage of our friends Chris & Susana today! Since they live approximately 20 hours away from us, there wasn't much we could do to help them plan their special day. However, Susana really wanted something different for their guestbook. She also mentioned something about fabric, having a hanging piece of art, and somehow tying in the fact that she's from Texas, Chris is from California, and they live in Seattle. I kept thinking about ideas for her, then texted her this horrid drawing that I quickly sketched while at work. I thought this might be a cute idea for embroidering this on a fabric, then having people sign it. I think the drawing left them a little skeptical, but the more we talked, the more they liked the idea.

I embroidered the design onto one large piece of fabric, which people will sign around.

I was going to put a nice edge on the fabric, but Susan and I decided it might be best to leave the edges of the fabric open, so they can be cut down if needed.

After guests sign the fabric, we can cut it down and add a decorative edge.

I'll be sure to post pictures of how the "Guest Book" looks after people sign it too!

Happy Wedding, Chris and Susana!!!

Up next: More wedding crafts from our wedding...

Wedding Craft #3: The Wedding Favors

2010-07-30T07:00:00.000-07:00

We really tried to make this wedding as homemade and crafty as possible, so when it came to favors, I knew they had to be homemade, I just didn't know what. After seeing the trend of jars of honey or jam or pickled foods, I knew I wanted little jars of something as the favors. I've always wanted to make homemade jam, so I thought what better time? Now, there were exactly 235 jars of jam made - but I, personally, can only take credit for 21 of these. See, my mom really got into it. She would call me randomly and just let me know that she just made 51 jars of Kumquat jam... or 43 jars of fig. After she was almost done with most of the jam, I insisted on being there to help.

I joined her for making some cherry jam, which all started with pitting lots and lots of cherries.

We didn't really use a specific recipe, other than cherries, sugar, and pectin.

We made sure to sterilize the jars before filling them. We ended up with 21 jars of cherry jam. As I looked at my finished work, with stained red cherry hands, I then decided, if mom really wants to make the jam, I'm gonna let mom make the jam. And she did, and I think she had fun.

I did too... but with the 800 other things I had to do for this wedding, it was nice letting my mom have this one. Once all the jams were made, I wanted a little something extra for the tops of the jars, so I went out and found these gold foil award labels at Office Max. They were perfect for printing a little thank you and our silhouette.

As I screen printed all of our invites, I also created the screen to screen printed little fabric tops, with Brian and my silhouettes.

I also purchased little clear round labels to list the jam flavors; however, those just kept falling off the jars. After a while, we started loosing track of which flavors are which, so we gave that idea up quickly. Brian reminded me, "Annette, no one is going to leave our wedding angry because their jam jar has no flavor listed on it..." and I let it go. He was right, of course, I think people really liked the jam - especially when they found out it was homemade.

We finished the jam decor off by tying the fabric tops on using twine. Who knew twine was so hard to find??? It is! Well, cute twine is anyway... but we finally found a bunch of it and tied it on one by one, as we watched lots of tv. Brian was kind of a rock star at tying twine on jam.

Brian and I are now on the road, driving up to Seattle to see our dear friends Chris and Susana get married! We're so excited! When I get back home, I'll be blogging about a little wedding craft that I created especially for their wedding!

Up next: Chris & Susana's Wedding Craft

Wedding Craft #2: The Wedding Invites

2010-07-29T07:00:00.000-07:00

I can't tell you all how long I've been dying to post images of the invites that Brian and I created for our wedding. Of course, I seem to have misplaced the memory card which contains images of us creating our little invites! Luckily, I found a few extra invites laying around the house and some pictures from my iPhone. I just couldn't wait any longer to share these!

We spent a good 1-4 months trying to agree on a font. That was probably the hardest part of this whole process. Once we agreed, it all went fairly smoothly. I had to burn a few YUDU screens to get the letters nice and sharp and that was a bit of a process. Though, that process turned me into a YUDU screen making pro, so it's all good.

Using the screen above, I screen printed approximately 250 hankie invites. It was fun. Tiring, but fun. My entire apartment was covered in freshly inked invites, except for a tiny trail for me to walk (pictures of this are on my missing memory card, which I will post when I find it). The process took me a good long time, so by the time I was done, it was conveniently time for bed. After the hankies were dry, in the morning, Brian came by and ironed each one down, to lock in the ink. Each hankie had it's own unique pattern, making them all really special.

Our invites didn't stop there. We really wanted to create a vintage feel to them, so I consulted the archives at the Pasadena Public Library, to see if they had any old images of Castle Green (the venue of our wedding reception). I was conveniently interning at the Pasadena Public Library at the time, so that really helped. When we found an image we liked, I designed a post card, based on an old postcard image I saw online, changing up a few things. I included a silhouette cutout that Brian and I got done at Disneyland, which became one of the elements we repeated throughout our signage at the wedding.

These postcards became our rsvp cards. We used a circular, fancy paperclip to attach each stamp (I couldn't pre-cover the great postage area on the postcard). It was really fun to get these back in the mail... although, many of my friends opted to keep their postcards and just let me know their responses over the phone - also good. Having these postcards is an instant keepsake of our special day, so I'll hang on to them for as long as I can.

I also designed an additional postcard, which included a map and reception information.

We didn't really stop there. I really love the look of lined envelopes, and I wanted to tie in our love of music, books, and libraries - especially since a lot of this was going to happen at our wedding. So, Brian went to work and cut out and glued all of our envelope liners, which we made out of old discarded music books from one of the libraries I work at. Not to worry - we didn't cut into anything valuable, I checked... and so did the librarians at my work, before discarding them.

As Brian cut and lined envelopes, I was printing them, using our silhouette.

Then folding them delicately into their envelopes. We had a good 150 or so go out. Not a small task! After the wedding, we received this amazing package in the mail from our friends Rose and Danny.

It was our invitation, turned beautifully into a pillow by the talented Salty Oat! So adorable! Notice the beautiful embroidery along the flowers... and the back of the pillow is just perfect!

This pillow is particularly exciting because we are in the process of creating a wedding quilt as well... which I will disclose more about in another post!

Up Next: Wedding favors.

Wedding Craft #1: The Shower Invites

2010-07-28T07:00:00.000-07:00

Well, I haven't found my memory card, which holds all of my wedding crafts and pictures documenting all of the crafts we created for our wedding day.... however, I did have a few shots on my iPhone, so I'm going to start with those. Now, before the big day, were lovely showers. My moms and sisters threw me two fabulous showers, which I was given the task to make invites for one of them. Here's what I did:

I must say, these invites are very me. I also used the same design and colors when sending everyone thank you cards (not pictured). It was really fun to create these invites. It was also good practice, since I designed and printed the wedding invites as well.

Up next: The Wedding Invites.

Lemon Cream Cheese Pound Cake

2010-07-27T08:31:00.000-07:00

We haven't had many guests over since we've moved in. While we thought we'd have plenty of time after all of the wedding madness, we really haven't had much time to organize our new home. But, have you ever noticed that when you invite guests over, sometimes that's all it takes to get the place in order? This past weekend, we decided to put it to the test. We invited Brian's family over and got super busy with our cleaning. They really wanted to to have dinner at The Oinkster down the street, so I offered to make some coffee and dessert. I needed to make something with very little hands on-time, so I went with this recipe, for pound cake. Because I am so into my micro grater lately, I added some lemon zest and used reduced fat cream cheese. Of course, when you use 1.5 cups of butter... what difference does that really make?

I creamed together the butter, cream cheese and zest, until it was nice and smooth.

I then added sugar, eggs, vanilla, and flour.

I gotta say, the batter was fabulous. (I know, you're not supposed to taste batter with raw eggs...but...ehh... I can't help it.) The taste of this batter really took me back to being a little kid and tasting the batter of my grandma's Beerok (pronounced: b-row-ck). I couldn't find a thing about Beerok online, but it's this amazing Armenian/Russian pastry which I can only describe as pastry bars with apricot jam. I knew this was going to be a good cake.

What I didn't realize when i decided to use this recipe is the 80 minute baking time. I had to delay our dinner plans by about 20 minutes, in which we started to watch Fantastic Mr. Fox. With lots of hungry people in the living room waiting, I may have rushed the cake out of the oven a few minutes early, but it was still pretty good.

It was halfway gone within minutes.

Even though I took it out a tad too early, no one seemed to mind.

The cake itself was so rich and dense that it almost tasted creamy. The touch of lemon zest also really gave this cake a summary feel, perfect with some fresh fruit, or my homemade coconut ice cream.

Our bellies couldn't be fuller and our home is finally starting to come together. Family, food, and lots of lemon zest... what else can a girl ask for?

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

2010-07-26T08:52:00.000-07:00

Last week I showed you what I did with all of my extra ice cream egg whites and today I will show you what I did with all of my extra banana pudding ice cream bananas. Since the bananas had already gotten really ripe, that left me almost no choice, but to make banana bread. I used this recipe, with a slight modification of the chocolate chip persuasion.

I added brown sugar, vanilla, butter, and eggs to the bananas. In a separate bowl, I mixed my dry ingredients of flour, salt, and baking soda.

I slowly combined the wet ingredients with the dry, added my chocolate chips and prepared for baking.

Our home smelled so wonderful while this was in the oven, if felt like the baking process took forever.

Brian and I somehow polished half of this loaf off in one night. I think the chocolate chips had something to do with it!

Coming soon, the most amazing pound cake I have ever baked! Well... the only pound cake I have ever baked, but it was amazing!

Also, I have still not found my missing memory card, but wedding crafts will be posted soon, with or without the card!

New Curtain

2010-07-23T06:26:00.000-07:00

It was easy, less than $10, and all done in under 30 minutes!

Our curtain wasn't always so cheerful and bright. When we moved in, this is what we were given:

Since I spend so much time in this kitchen, I wanted something a little happier. I went with this bright blue fabric, to go with our blue Kitchenaid products.

After I measured, I ironed..

...and pinned...

... and sewed...

...and done. I used a yellow thread to contrast, since we use mostly yellow dish cloths.

A quick fix under 30 minutes and for under $10!

Coconut Meringues (Or What To Do With Lots Of Egg Whites)

2010-07-22T08:45:00.000-07:00

After making all of that ice cream last week, I had 6 egg whites just waiting for some purpose.

I couldn't decide, Angel Food Cake or Meringues? I put on Food Network for some inspiration, and it must have been a sign, but Giada De Laurentiis was making meringues! I immediately consulted with my copy of Joy of Cooking and decided to make a cross between what Giada did and what was written in Joy of Cooking, but then kind of something totally different at the same time. It all started with a little whipping of the eggs.

At this point, I added a pinch of salt and kept whipping. The salt breaks down the egg whites and allows them to better absorb the sugar. I had 6 egg whites, so I added approximately 1.5 cups of sugar.

You want to make sure you use extra fine sugar. Luckily, I had some on hand, but if you don't, you can make it extra fine by putting your granulated sugar in the food processor for a little bit. The smaller the granules, the less they weigh the egg whites down, while baking. Also added to the mix was cream of tartar, a bit of vanilla extract, coconut extract, and lemon zest (I add lemon zest to everything). Since I had so much coconut flavoring leftover from ice cream making, at the last minute I decided to make these Coconut Meringues.

Once the egg white mixture reached stiff peaks, I blended in the shredded coconut, just until mixed in evenly. Now, normally I would pipe these into adorable rounds, but I was tired and Giada said it looks really cool when you just spoon 'em on to your parchment. Who am I to disagree with Giada? Did I mention I was also really tired?

Now this not the cookie you'd want to make if you're in a hurry for a snack. These bad boys take a while to bake and cool. I had mine in the oven at around 200 degrees for about 2+ hours.

I made two batches, some with coconut shreds on top, some without. After baking them for a few hours, I let them cool for a few hours.

They weren't the average meringue. They were different. I think they were better different, kinda chewy and gooey different. Most meringues I've had are harder and crunchy. I think I prefer my chewy gooies, but that's just me. My guess is that if I baked them longer, I would have the hard, crunchy, commercially accepted texture. Either way, a very fun time in the kitchen and yummy coconut smells in the apartment.

Banana Pudding & Coconut Cream Ice Cream

2010-07-19T08:33:00.000-07:00

It has been extremely hot here in Los Angeles lately. 100+ degrees hot. We are one of the few fortunate to have an air conditioning; however, this kind of heat requires more than just cool artificial air. It requires ice cream. It is National Ice Cream Month, after all.

One of my most favorite flavors to make (and to eat) is Coconut Cream. It's a nostalgic flavor for me, but it also tastes so, so, so good. When I make ice cream, it's usually my go-to flavor. This time, I also wanted to make something a little different. Something I have never made before, yet something that would go well with coconut. In comes Banana Pudding.

Nilla wafers, layered with banana slices and vanilla pudding... it's so tasty on it's own, but as an ice cream flavor? Why not? I started off the ice cream process the same way I always do. Vanilla beans, milk, and cream.

I slice the vanilla pods open, scoop out the vanilla beans, and the let the beans and the pods soak in the milk, as they begin to simmer.

It gets a little tricky after this. Sugar and eggs are mixed, then blended with the hot cream, in a very careful way. If this is done too quickly, you will end up with sweet, vanilla scrambled eggs - so be careful. I was so careful that I neglected to photograph this process. Either way, I placed my egg/cream custard mixture through a sieve, just to remove any scrambled egg bits that may have formed. I then let my mixture chill overnight, before placing it in the ice cream maker.
Since I had 2 different flavors, this was a 2-day process. Banana pudding was easy... just churn and add little scoops of the pudding right at the last few minutes of churning. For the coconut cream, I had prepared and chilled a mixture of coconut extract, heavy cream, and sweetened condensed milk ahead of time, mixed that with my vanilla bean base, and added coconut flakes at the last few minutes of churning.

It's hard to tell the 2 flavors apart, but we have banana pudding on top and coconut on the bottom. Both extremely rich and creamy. While coconut is usually my favorite, I must admit the banana pudding flavor blew me away. I bet some hot fudge topping would make it perfect! It might become my new go-to flavor.
Anyone else making ice cream this summer?

Four Cheese & Mushroom Pizza

2010-07-06T08:18:00.001-07:00

It's real easy to get fat where we live. Pizza is my most favorite food (well, tied with ice cream) and our town has some of the best pizza around. Pizza so good, there really is no reason for me to attempt making it myself, but you know me... I just have to try.

So, I used Alton Brown's recipe for pizza dough. I couldn't find instant yeast, so I went with rapid release yeast. It turned out okay, but I think next time I'll just search a little harder for the instant stuff. While flattening, I realized I probably could have kneaded my dough a little longer. It was stretchy in most parts, but it had a few tears I had to repair. Nothing too tragic.

I made my own pizza sauce by blending roasted tomatoes, one clove of garlic, fresh oregano, and dried thyme, all in the food processor. I added a little sauce to the pizza, then stored the rest for other plans. I then added some fresh basil, right on top of the sauce. I learned that hiding the basil under the cheese keeps the basil from burning. It's also a nice aromatic surprise when you take a bite.

On top of the basil, I added sliced mushrooms and cheese. The cheese was the real star of this pizza. I added fresh mozzerella, parmesan, fontinella, and spoonfuls of ricotta.

I would normally use a pizza stone; however, I just got this new pizza pan and I was curious. I baked it at 500 for only a few minutes. I was surprised at how quickly it baked!

I also made a nice garden salad on the side.

It had butter lettuce, tomatoes, mushrooms, and poppy seed dressing.

It was good, but it wasn't quite as good as my local favorites. However, there's something a little more special about home cooking, right?

***It's been a few months now, since I've last seen the memory card that contains all of the wedding crafts Brian and I did. I haven't lost hope yet, but please know that I'm still looking for it, because I have so much to share! In the meantime, I've been working on another little wedding craft, for our friends Chris and Susana, who will be getting married in Seattle at the end of this month! Look out for that craft in August...

Zucchini Four Ways

2010-07-01T11:44:00.000-07:00

I love working in libraries. Besides my duties of helping people, solving book-related mysteries, organizing, and my shameless love of librarian fashion - library people love food. I've been very fortunate to work in libraries where people love bringing in snacks, freshly baked goodies, and fresh produce grown in their own back yards! Did I just convert some of you to librarians? Last week, I was lucky enough to be here when my coworker, Steve, brought in some Zucchinis from his garden. Gorgeous zucchinis that I cut into so quickly, that this is the only picture I have of them in their natural state:

I took that zucchini home with a mission, but I had no idea on the culinary adventure I was about to embark. My first dish was the obvious choice, zucchini bread (see recipe here). I love me some zucchini bread. The other half of the zucchini pictured above is here, pictured below.

There's more to zucchini bread than just zucchini! There's a fluffy, yummy batter that must be made.

And when you add the shredded Zucchini to the creamy, sweet, batter, you get a really crowded bowl.

After it's in the oven for a while, you get something so delicious, it's hard to share.

But, being the public servant of a librarian that I am, I convinced Mr. B to let me take half of the loaf to work.

My favorite thing to make with zucchini bread are sandwiches. The bread itself is so moist and flavorful, that all I had to provide was a slice of cheese and some turkey - and it was perfect. Especially toasted! Now, what to do with all of that leftover zucchini? Well, I still had lots of fancy cheeses from last week's fancy pasta, so why not make another fancy baked pasta, with zucchini, right? And that's what I did.

Is anyone else as obsessed with micro graters as I am?

I have been using my daily! I sauteed my zucchinis with some basil, garlic, pepper, and butter.

I then added some cream, ricotta, my grated parmesan and fontinella.

It was fabulous.

I made this same dish 2 days later, that's how fabulous - and easy! Can you believe I still had zucchini left over after this, still? What's even more amazing is that after a few days, I still had leftover zucchini bread! It was at that moment, I remembered a recipe that Mr. B's cousin, Josh, had been raving about for shirred eggs. I wondered. Then I went to it.

I buttered my ramekin, nice and plenty. Remember this guy?

Yep. That's the zucchini bread! Josh's original recipe did not call for any bread (rather, meats like prosciutto, bacon, etc..), but I thought why not? Though, I still didn't skimp on his orders, I added some cut up sausage.

Then the real star of the recipe, eggs.

Brian's egg yolks broke, but he didn't seem to mind. Me? I like my egg yolks nice and runny. I then transferred the ramekins to a baking dish and baked them for approximately 10 minutes at 350.

I added a splash or two of cream, some salt and pepper, and a basil leaf. This is where Josh usually adds tomatoes or peppers - which we had none of. But we did have cheese. Glorious cheese. Grated using my favorite micro grater, of course! Then, back in the oven until golden.

Don't these look fancy?

I felt really fancy, just eating one!

I especially love the way the basil leaf is peeking at you, from under all of the cheeses.

I guess I could have thrown in a few zucchini slivers too! Then again, what would I have left to grill then?

Grilled zucchini with a little olive oil, garlic salt, and paprika. A delicious compliment to our meal of yellow rice and crispy BBQ chicken...

See! A culinary adventure! One that all started withe a zucchini! Needless to say, no leftovers this time. Instead, four very fun dishes and two very full bellies.

Conchiglie al Forno with Mushrooms and Radicchio (or Fancy Baked Pasta)

2010-06-23T10:32:00.000-07:00

The other night, Brian was ohhhhing and ahhhhing at something Ina Garten was cooking up, on tv. I was intrigued. So, I made the dish. Not really a diet friendly dish, but it was tasty alright. The dish is called Conchiglie al Forno with Mushrooms and Radicchio and the recipe can be found here. It starts off with lots of cheeses. I'm not a gorgonzola fan, so I only added a few crumbles, and I just eyeballed the Parmesan and Fontina.

I cut the radicchio, then added my ricotta. The ricotta was great, because it really glued everything together.

On the side, I had some delicious Shitake Mushroom caps, sliced.

Did I mention the butter? Butter and light heat make the mushrooms real good.

I added the rest of my ingredients to the radicchio bowl, including sage, salt, and heavy cream (though, I didn't use as much cream as the recipe called for), then added my Shitake Mushrooms, and the lovely butter sauce that they produced (not sure if that was part of the recipe or not, but that butter was amazing).

Once my final ingredient of partially cooked pasta shells was ready, I added those to the mix too.

Then stirred and stirred.

The pasta should be baked at 500 degrees, in a shallow baking dish. I accidentally made enough for two dishes!

I thought it was a lot, but Brian didn't seem to mind.

After about 15 minutes in the oven, until the top noodles are nice and golden, take the dish out and let it rest for a few minutes. I added a few dabs of butter on top of my noodles, to give them that extra golden brown color.

It was delicious. The sage and radicchio gave it a unique bitterness that was a nice contrast to the pasta we usually eat.

The recipe calls this an appetizer dish, although I served it as our main course. I now see why it's an appetizer - it's ridiculously rich and creamy. Too heavy for a main course, but that didn't stop us from eating it. Or, from me eating it again for lunch today.

Pies, Pies, Pies, Yeah.

2010-06-21T08:22:00.001-07:00

Still no luck finding my memory card! It's been 3 weeks since I've been desperately searching for it and nothing.... I'm sure I'll find it soon, but on to pies in the meantime. On Saturday morning, I got the call asking for an apple pie or two Father's Day on Sunday. I was given the option to buy pies... but for me, that is never an option. So, Saturday morning, I began my day's work.

I began work on the crusts, while I sent Brian to the store on an apple mission. I found myself with some extra time and decided to make an extra little open faced pie for my niece's little recital after party. I got a little creative with this crust and decided to throw in some culinary lavender, in addition to the vanilla that I always add to my pie crust dough.

It gave the crust a nice spotty lavender look.

A few days earlier, my mom gave me a carton of blackberries, which Brian and I still hadn't got our hands into. So, I threw those in, along with some of the apples Brian had brought back from the store.

Since I went with a lavender crust, I decided to be very minimal with my fruit filling. I kept it simple by only adding sugar and fresh lemon juice (using lemons fresh off of my dad's lemon tree). And, of course, more butter.

The result was a cute little pie.

And since there wasn't much left of it, post party, I like to think it was pretty tasty too. After the party, I came home to prep the other two pies for Sunday's Father's day celebration at Brian's family's house. Since I had prepared my crusts early on, all I had to do was prepare my apple filling, assemble the pies, then freeze them until the morning.

The apple mix included a mix of Jazz, Fuji, and Granny Smith apples. I normally use a lot more apples, but Brian reported back that there were slim pickings in the apple isle. I also added cinnamon, freshly grated nutmeg, lemon juice, sugar, and flour. And, of course, butter.

I topped it off and made a few slits for the heat to escape, then pressed the edges down with a fork. I added an egg wash made of one egg yolk and some heavy whipping cream, then sprinkled the top with sanding sugar. When it was all done, I let it chill in the freezer overnight (which was only for a few hours, since I was done around midnight and woke up at 6am to start baking). It still looked nice and pretty in the morning.

I couldn't find my other pie dish, so I made pie #2 in a tart dish. Instead of making a decorative edge using the fork, I used my rolling pin to round the edges off, to go with the dish's natural shape. I think that worked out pretty nice and clean.

I baked them both for 20 minutes on 400, then reduced the heat to 350 and baked for another 40-50 minutes, turning the pie once during that time. Baking them at 400 gives them that nice golden brown color.

I love that color.

But, my favorite is the flakiness of the top crust. I love the little dough bubbles formed with the sugar.

All that, and I still had extra dough left! And apples too! So, what else to do, but make another mini pie?

It was mini and cute.

And we ate it quickly.

We also ate it with vanilla ice cream (not pictured).

Whole Wheat Biscuits & My Mom's Harisah

2010-06-16T12:03:00.001-07:00

Because my current job is only a block away from my parent's house, I'll occasionally get a call from my mom offering me some dinner or leftovers. It's always a treat to get some of my mom's home cooking, especially when she makes Harisah. The best way for me to describe Harisah is an Armenian Chicken Porridge. It has wheat, chicken (or turkey), butter, salt, and it's amazing. A bowl full of Harisah is a meal in itself, but I thought I'd a little more coziness to the dish by making biscuits.

Since Brian and I are trying to be a little more healthy in our eating, I used this recipe for Fluffy Whole Wheat Biscuits. They came out pretty tasty, considering they were whole wheat! Though, I think I'll roll out the dough a bit thicker next time and possibly layer the biscuits with butter. Now, have you seen a cozier dinner?

Harisah is great, because you could even freeze the leftovers and have them anytime! Although, when we eat Harisah, there are usually no leftovers.

**If you're waiting for wedding crafts, I still can't find my memory card... but I'll keep searching! Wedding crafts will be posted the moment I find it!**

Shrimp Pasta

2010-06-15T14:22:00.000-07:00

I have been so anxious to post about all of the crafts Brian and I did for our wedding; however, I have somehow misplaced my old memory card that stored all of our pictures. So, until I find that memory card, I will post about my other favorite craft: food. Post France, all I want to do is cook and bake all day long. I want to quit my job and go to culinary school. I want to quit my job and eat all things buttery. Oh, and I have been eating all things buttery... so much that I've gained quite a few pounds in the past month! So, in an effort to be healthy, we made some light, fresh, shrimp pasta.

I used to use nothing but calorie free butter and primarily cooked oil-free. After Paris, I could never go back to that again. First, I heated up a little butter, extra virgin olive oil, and garlic. After the garlic was nice and infused, I added the shrimp and cooked them through. Once they were nice and pink, I removed the shrimp, added some diced tomatoes, spices, fresh basil, and pinot grigio. Once that mix reduced a bit, I added the shrimp in again and heated.

I used fresh angel hair pasta, so the cook time was no more than a minute.

Once my pasta was ready, I mixed the noodles and the sauce up in a bowl.

Added some Parmesan.

Then added some garlic bread - which was super easy. I did actually use some Promise butter (in my little attempt to save calories), then some garlic salt and into the oven until toasty.

It's become one of our favorite dishes, because it's light, easy to make, and super tasty.

Viva La France!

2010-06-02T16:19:00.001-07:00

I am in love with France. Ever since we got to France, I have been begging Brian to move there with me. Sadly, he continues to say no... so far. Don't get me wrong, I love my hometown of Los Angeles, in fact, I have tons of LA pride! There was just something magically lazy and happy about Paris that the city of LA lacks. Let's start with my most favorite things in the world: Food!
Is this not the most impressive ice cream cone you have ever seen?

It was no Berthillion..

But, it sure was beautiful and tasty! Berthillion, on the other hand, was heavenly.
There were also macarons.

We were lucky enough to spend a few nights, a block away from the delicious Gerard Mulot. Above is one of the best macarons I ate in Paris... Nougat flavored! And their baguettes were amazing too!

Below is the ever so famous, Laudurée.

Unfortunately, there were so many macarons, that the unthinkable happened. I am now unable to look at a macaron, without being a little frightened. I know. How could something so adorable be so scary? Well, friends, I have visions of them chasing me now! I can't do the macaron anymore... for now. So, instead of showing you the most amazing macarons in all of Paris, from Pierre Hermes, I will show you the "Montebello" from Pierre Hermes instead.

The textures were incredible in this pastry. And as sick of macarons as I currently am, the texture of the macarons at Pierre Hermes were sickeningly, perfectly good. It was scary how good those macarons were.
Speaking of sickeningly good, who knew the falafel in Paris is so superior than all other falafel? Thank you L'As du Falafel for being so wonderfully tasty and inspring Brian and I to possibly start a falafel truck.

My favorite meal, by far, was our 3 course wonder at Bistro Paul Bert. It was all fantastic, but their Paris Brest, had both Brian and I at a loss for words:

I don't think I've ever had these flavors in my mouth before, so it's hard to describe, but if I had to.. I would just say painfully good, perfection. It literally hurt, it was so good.
Cotton candy as big as my head? Don't mind if I do!

Breakfast at Cafe Mabillion...

Tiny cups of coffee, served with little chocolates...

There were also picnics. Oh yes, crispy chicken, fresh baguettes, fruit from the local marchet picnics...

All this, and what did Brian want to eat? A Royale with Cheese, from McDonalds. Ugh.

I blame Pulp Fiction. You can see my skepticism here.

And, not good. Brian agreed. We were soon back on the diet of baguettes, cheese, and wine.
But, friends, France is more than just tasty pastel macarons and the best baguettes you've ever eaten. Paris is LOVE. Passionate, happy, and blissful love. I love love. I love Paris. And, I love Parisian hotels! Look at all that toile...

Now, imagine walking around the streets of LA in these bad boys:

I have no idea who this person is, but this is probably my favorite picture of the entire trip:

I enjoy this one too:

Paris is also mimes. Modern mimes for modern times.

Paris is Serge Gainsbourg.

Bike rides and picnics in Versailles:

We even did Euro-Disney!

Though, I must admit, our Disney here is much better. Space Mountain an upside down ride? Who knew! It was kind of insane. I loved it... but it made me miss home (LA).
Paris is home (one day).

We also visited tons of museums and famous sites, all documented in my flickr page here. We both agree, just taking long strolls was our favorite part of Paris. It was romantic, beautiful, and maybe some day (hopefully), home.

Back To Reality.

2010-05-27T06:22:00.000-07:00

We're home from our amazing trips to London and Paris. Back to a stack of bills and a new apartment full of boxes. After coming home from macaron and baguette heaven, it's a bit difficult not to daydream of moving to Paris... but, LA, despite the bills and boxes, is home. Before I go all into the crafty details and planning of our wedding, here are a few highlights of our trip. I took over 3,000 pictures on this trip, so I think I'll break the trip up into 2 blog posts - one for each London and Paris. Let's start with London:

Now, while we were in London, we experienced some true London like weather. Silly London, didn't you know that spoiled LA kids can't handle weather?

Somehow, we managed.

One of the more memorable days for me happened by complete accident. We got off of our Thames River Boat Tour on the wrong spot and ended up in Greenwich. It was totally my fault that we ended up on the wrong spot - but instead of admitting fault, I swore that I meant to stop in Greenwich. And thank goodness for my stubbornness! We accidentally ended up stumbling into this amazing international food festival!

I can't even remember where these foods came from, but dang... they were good! Of course, we ate too fast to take a picture of this one:

But, I do remember it had a saucy citrus chicken, couscous, and some salad. It was pretty awesome... it was Brian's choice. My choice was a bit better, we agreed. We had a chicken stew, over rice:

And a plantain and bean cake (bean cake not pictured):

Yea, that was amazing. I wish I remember where the food came from, because I really want to make that stew! I imagine it will eventually pop into my head, at 3am, one morning... unless anyone out there in blog land might know?

One of the best days we had in the UK was in Manchester. We took a train out and totally geeked out during The Smiths tour, led by Craig Gill of the Inspiral Carpets. It was pretty amazing. I don't think I've ever seen Brian smile so much, ever! He was in heaven. It was awesome.

What got me smiling more than ever were the simple things in London, like pretty gardens...

High tea...

My first taste of Laduree, and Harrod's bakery...

The craft floor at Liberty (all of my favorite fabric designers in one room... amazing)...

And most of all, seeing the Quilts 1700-2010 exhibit at the V&A.

We also really enjoyed seeing a few familiar faces. Our friends Mark and Olivia took us out to some great pubs and introduced us to Fruli, my favorite new beer.

London was great! We could have used a few more days there... but Paris was awaiting. And friends, I have been waiting for Paris all of my life. Up next, Paris.

For all 3,302 pictures and 6 videos, please visit my flickr page here.

The Young Folks

2010-04-25T15:25:00.000-07:00

It's official! I am now one married lady. It has been 8 days so far, but 8 seriously fun days! And as if things couldn't get any better, we must pack up and leave to London and Paris! Neither of us have been, so we're open to any suggestions - please feel free to comment below with any tips! And really, when I get back, I will be going post-crazy over all of the crafts we incorporated into our wedding. Lots of handmade goodness, I swear! Until then, I leave you with a link to our Smilebooth pictures:

Good times!

We've Been Busy

2010-03-04T20:51:00.000-08:00

I am slowly going to be making a comeback (in a very big way) on this blog. It was a little over a year ago when Brian proposed to me. Since then, I have:
- 2 new jobs (working 50+ hours a week)
- Started training for the LA Marathon (26.2 miles)
- Somehow been planning a very crafty little wedding (little=200 people)
Oh yea, and we took pictures with the extremely talented Max Wanger

With less than 2 months left to go, we've had the showers, sent out the invites, and I'm slowly getting ready to reveal all the craftiness I've put into this wedding planning.
Oh, my lovely craft friends, it's craft intense.

Sweet Potato Fries

2010-01-07T21:14:00.000-08:00

One cut sweet potato, a light spray of olive oil, and a generous sprinkle of salt and pepper makes a pretty decent meal.

Bake the fries at 400 degrees for approximately 20 minutes, turn them over, and bake for another 10-15 minutes.

No need for ketchup with these fries...

Swedish Pancakes

2010-01-04T20:41:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year everyone! I've got to say, I'm going to miss 2009. Not only did I finish graduate school this past year, but I also got engaged to my best friend. My blog writing this year has been minimal, to say the least, but that's only because I have been so busy with really wonderful things. I recently started 2 new jobs as a Reference Librarian and a Music Librarian at two very hip colleges in Los Angeles. And on top of that, I'm also still 16 miles deep into my training for the Los Angeles Marathon. All of this, plus the countless memories of road trips, friends, family, and good times really make this one of the greatest years of my life. So, thank you to everyone who was a part of it!
That said, I have lots of excitement for 2010. A lot of the things I've started working on in 2009, such as the marathon and wedding planning will all be realized this year. It's an exciting, anxious feeling. I know I've been very quiet with the crafts on this blog lately, but let me assure you all, I have been documenting all of the wedding crafts I have been working on this past year, and can't wait to reveal them all, as soon as the wedding is over. I'm really excited about everything, it's all very handmade and fun. At least we think so.
In order to start the year off right, I went with Alicia Paulson's recipe for Swedish Pancakes.

I'm usually into the thickest, fluffiest pancakes that can possibly exist, but there was something so attractive about these super thin pancakes that just had to be made immediately.

Since the pancakes are so thin, they only take a few moments before they're all ready to eat.

Brian rolled his up, with pumpkin and apple butter...

...while I ate mine with my mom's homemade strawberry jam.

Not only was this a super easy recipe to make, but it was so tasty! A very good way to start the new year!

Thanksgiving Apple Pies

2009-11-28T08:46:00.000-08:00

What's better than Thanksgiving dinner? How about two Thanksgiving dinners? That's right friends, I went to Thanksgiving twice this year, so besides eating two times more food, I had to bake two times the pie! Ever since this whole diet business, I haven't baked much. Lots of low-calorie cooking, but very little baking. So, I was a little excited about getting to bake again. Making pies is fun! Though, it can be quite a time consuming process - especially when you have to bake two.

I made the crusts the night before, and chilled the discs of dough overnight. That made it a little easier in the morning. I don't have pie weights (yet), so I usually end up with a somewhat sloppy process of fitting the dough into my pie plate, but I think it came out okay? I used a fork to add some texture to allow the top of my pie crust to adhere a little easier.

While the pie crusts chilled in the fridge for a little longer, I worked on the apple filling. Mr B made the process go a lot quicker by helping me peel all the apples! After the apples were all cut, I added some lemon, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, flour, and a few cubes of butter. Then, in the pie crusts they go.

Next, it's time for the top crust. I always use little cookie cutters for the vents. I almost went freestyle with some autumn leaves, but totally chickened out, since we were a little tight with time. I think the stars worked out just fine though. After adhering the two crusts, I brushed on my egg wash and poured a generous amount of sanding sugar on top.

I let the whole pie freeze for about 30 minutes, then into the oven they went. Here is pie number one:

And pie number two:

I got to sneak a taste of each pie, and I do think pie number one was the winner.

I used an actual pie plate to bake this one, which ensured even baking. For pie number two, I ran out of pie plates, so I used a vintage pyrex dish that was somewhat pie shaped. Now, I love my vintage pyrex, but I gotta say, the baking was a bit uneven with this one. I might have to experiment again with an actual pyrex pie plate, but from now on, my little pyrex will go back to making casseroles and looking stylish.
Now, what will I be baking for Christmas....???

Let The Holiday Baking Begin!

2009-11-25T19:54:00.000-08:00

Although baking holiday goods is difficult, while I am on a diet... I can't resist!

I should also mention that I'm still in denial that it's November. November! Already! No! It came way too fast. While I usually have all of my Christmas shopping done by now, this year has been a whirlwind and I've still got lot to shop for. Busy, busy. Did I mention I also got a new job? I'm officially a librarian! It's pretty great! Oh, and there's also that wedding we're planning... and the thought of starting to look for a new home together... it's all very time consuming, but all very exciting!
So, what's in the kitchen today? It's the start of two apple pies! I'm not the biggest pumpkin pie fan, so I'm going with an old favorite. Tonight, I'm preparing the crusts. Bright and early tomorrow, Brian and I will be chopping and peeling approximately 20 apples and making one of my favorite types of pie!
Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving! What are you baking this holiday?

Tuscan Pumpkin Bean Soup

2009-11-08T07:19:00.000-08:00

I'm experimenting here. I've missed this blog so much, but have been extremely busy to post. Trust me, I've been as crafty as I have ever been - the amount of wedding crafts to be posted after the wedding is somewhat startling, let me assure you. I am being extremely secretive about all of these project and they have kept me so busy, there has been little time to update. So, I am trying something a little new. I am blogging on the go, via iPhone. Well, not completely just yet. I am at my laptop now (about to go running 7 miles in my marathon training), but have used my iPhone to photograph and upload images of my latest food adventure. Not the best photographs... the iPhone definitely can't do what my little Canon does, but not bad? And at least it makes posting a lot more doable! So, let's see how this goes.

I was super excited while making this meal, particularly because I got an excuse to use my new 16 qt. All Clad stockpot! And let me tell you... it was love at first saute. Love!

After the onions got a little soft, I added chicken broth, white beans, a can of pumpkin, and some spices. I let those simmer for about 15 minutes, then moved them to the food processor to puree, then topped with a tiny bit of Parmesan cheese. I knew Mr. B would not be satisfied with just soup, and since we're on a diet, I tried to avoid the carbs. I ended up getting some turkey sausage, for only 160 calories per big link!

Mr. B was very pleased.

Spaghetti And Turkey Vegetable Sauce

2009-08-22T06:30:00.000-07:00

Is anyone getting sick of my turkey dishes? Somehow I'm not. Turkey is so fun to experiment with. It all started with a little extra virgin olive oil, garlic, onions, and fresh basil.

That will get your kitchen smelling real good.

Looking at this picture just reminds me of that yummy smell.

Add a little ground turkey, some spices, and a can of tomatoes.

I probably should have cut these a bit more before putting the can in, but it wasn't too much trouble crushing them down with my wooden spoon.

But, it's not over yet, time for the mushrooms and eggplant!

My pot was a bit small, but I somehow crammed all the veggies in.

Once they settled in, the veggies started to shrink down anyway.

Can you tell I love mushrooms?

I probably could have eaten the sauce on it's own.

Empty little bowls awaiting their meal.

First, a little whole wheat pasta.

And I bet you can guess how we topped it off?

More turkey dishes to come soon!

Tag! You're It!

2009-08-21T12:01:00.000-07:00

It's Friday! Time for another super busy, action packed weekend. Last weekend included pancakes, twice! These are some whole wheat pancakes. They were... wheaty.

Not my favorite pancake this time, but they sure were super healthy!

As mentioned in my last post, I have been tagged! The lovely Caren presented me with this, the "Premio Meme Award", so I must reveal 10 fun facts about myself and tag other bloggers to do the same! So here it goes...

1. Just recently, I signed up to run the 2010 Los Angeles Marathon, with Project AIDS Los Angeles! I have never done anything like this before, so I'm super nervous, but extremely committed. It's for such a great cause and I've been lucky to get lots of support from my friends and family. My goal is to raise $1600.00 and I still have a long way to go, please click here to help!

2. Quite possibly the silliest fun-fact about me is that I am allergic to allergy medication. It's true! They give me hives and makes my blood pressure so low, that I often pass out! Odd, isn't it?

3. I naturally have brown, curly hair. It's pretty out of control and often kept a secret. I don't even think Brian has seen my hair as curly as it can be - or brunette for that matter. I've been blonde for about 7 years now and I don't see myself ever going back.

4. I used to play in lots of bands. When I was 19, I took my guitar, and toured Hong Kong (by myself), then came back and toured the US and Canada for a month with a group of friends. I've played guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, and a slew of other toy-like instruments. Brian just got me a trumpet for my graduation present and I plan on taking lessons soon and joining his band too!

5. I only wear dresses. A few years ago, I made the decision to stop wearing pant or shorts and only sticking to dresses. Earlier this year, Brian and I went to Portland, where it was snowing... and even then, I wore a dress.

6. I'm only 5'2", I have small hands, small fingers (5.5 ring size), but for some reason, I ended up with some long feet. I don't know how that happened, but I wear a size 9.5 in ladies shoes! It's strange, because they don't look that big when you look at them... but somehow, I got these long, skinny, big ol' feet. Strange.

7. I have a very extreme fear of spiders, and most other rodents for that matter. It's pretty bad. I won't even go bed at night, if there's a spider in my apartment and I can't get rid of it. It's true.

8. I really like eating spaghetti sandwiches. So good.

9. I'm a fainter. I have the rare problem where my blood pressure is often way too low. The last time I fainted, I was presenting a power point in my classroom! Embarrassing...

10. English is not my first language, I actually grew up speaking Armenian first. And even though I mostly speak English now, when I get nervous, I start to forget my English and think all of my thoughts in Armenian.

The other part of this process is to tag a few fellow bloggers! In an effort to get to know all the wonderful bloggers, who follow my blog, I decided to scroll into my followers list - and wow, you are all so talented! I picked 10 of you, so if you see this... start typing, friends... you've been tagged!

1. Tell Your Sister
2. Messy Jesse Crafts
3. Skull Mod Kitten
4. 1167 Little Bird
5. Bansheemoni
6. Good-Posture
7. From My Motor Home To Yours
8. Bag Lady Design
9. Magpie Sparkle
10. This Mom's Life

Pita Pizza

2009-08-20T21:29:00.000-07:00

One of the hardest things about dieting is sacrificing pizza. Real pizza. More specifically, pizza from Foliero's. Oh how I miss thee. So, I came up with my own low-calorie take on pizza, and it actually hit the spot just right! I started with a 130 calorie pita, some low calorie tomato sauce, and lots of mushrooms.

Then added some fresh basil. Lots of low calorie toppings!

To top it all off, I added some low-fat Mozzarella and a quarter ounce of feta cheese.

In the oven for a few minutes, and not too shabby!

The whole thing came out to approximately 195 calories.

It was no Foliero's, but it really took care of that craving.

Next craving problem to solve? Ice cream! I think I might be experimenting with this pretty soon. Also coming soon? I've been tagged....

Taking It To The Street

2009-08-15T20:35:00.000-07:00

Last May, I received the prettiest Orchid from Brian's sister. I had noticed recently the blossoms started to look a bit sad, one by one, they were dropping. On Friday, it finally happened. They last bit of blossoms were frowning.

I was so confused, because I followed all the instructions on how to care for Orchids! At closer inspection, I came to a realization.
It was so clear!

All of the roots were above the soil! Some were even out of the pot! How could I be so oblivious?

I had to make a last attempt to save the Orchids! So, I trimmed the roots and decided to re-pot. Though, I didn't really have a handy pot around, one with holes to let water drain through. So, I improvised!

This cup just happened to be sitting on my counter, a water cup from a fast food restaurant. I figured, why not recycle it? I got my handy awl and poked a few holes.

All ready for some dirt!

What next? Taking it to the street! That's right, taking it to the street! Time to get the hands a little dirty. Now, I'm not really sure if this regular dirt will cut it, but it's all I had.

I didn't really have any potting soil at home, so I just went around the corner and found a spot with some dirt. I needed to work quickly, if I wanted to save the plant! I put a little dirt on the bottom.

Then, removed the Orchid from it's previous pot....

...placed her in her new home...

... and made sure to top her roots off with some more dirt.

It was fun taking my little craft out for a walk. I had a mini exploration session and found this cutie!

It was pretty fun! Eventually, I brought little Orchid back home, to her new spot and sprinkled the top with a little bit of water.

I'm not sure if she'll make it, but here's hoping! She had a good run... either way!

Old Fashioned Lemonade

2009-08-12T16:55:00.000-07:00

It's hot in Los Angeles. Really hot. Whenever it gets this hot, I always crave lemonade.

Just your basic lemonade here....

I left it to refrigerate overnight, and woke up with a surprise treat!

That's some frozen lemonade! Well, it appeared that way, until I smashed up the top and got a slightly frozen, super cold, amazing tasting lemonade.

Super refreshing!

Spaghetti & Turkey Meatballs

2009-08-11T17:19:00.000-07:00

We've been kinda-sorta dieting around here. So, to make every calorie count, I've been spending lots of time planning our meals so that we get the best meal we can for the calories we're eating. Extra lean ground turkey is a good meat option, it's super low in calories and easy to flavor. Last night, I used 4 ounces of ground turkey to make all of these lovely Italian meatballs.

I then used 2.5 ounces of whole wheat pasta for 260 calories and half a cup of low calorie pasta sauce for only 45 calories. The entire meal was only 425 calories, not too bad!

Brian is requesting an encore for the same meal tonight... better get cooking!

Hanky Pancaky

2009-08-10T21:46:00.000-07:00

Mondays are hard. Especially when you have a great weekend and you don't want it to end. This weekend was filled with lots of cooking, giggling, and hugs. Some of my favorite things! And of course, pancakes. Can you tell I like pancakes? It seems that I blog about pancakes very often.

These are a little different than the pancakes I've made before. These flapjacks are actually healthy! They were fluffy, airy, and really hit the spot.

More healthy food on the way....

Banana Muffins

2009-08-04T05:26:00.000-07:00

Why is it so easy to turn something as healthy as a banana into something so bad for you, like these yummy banana muffins. Every time bananas go bad, I just have to turn them into muffins. Maybe I should stop buying bananas? The older the bananas, the better they are for the muffins.

I've been using this recipe for a while now and I think it's stuck. I love the cinnamon, sugar, buttery crumb on top.

And it's pretty fluffy in the middle!

But for now, no more bananas! It's too risky!

You Say It's Your Birthday

2009-08-03T05:32:00.000-07:00

This post is a little overdue. Brian and I both had our birthdays last May (4 days apart from each other) and we decided to have a big gathering with our friends, over at The Griffin. For the occasion, I decided to make a cake.

Personally, I'm more of a white/vanilla cake type person, but Mr. B loves the chocolate.

Since he got to choose the cake, I got to choose the filling.

My favorite way to eat chocolate cake is when it's filled with bananas and cream.

Uhhh, huhhh. Then another layer of chocolate cake. Did I mention this is triple chocolate cake? Chocolate cake, with chocolate pudding, and chocolate chips...

... oh yea, and tons of chocolate frosting.

What's this you ask?

Well, it's chocolate frosting with lots of food dye. I spread a thin, even layer of the frosting on some parchment and let it freeze for a bit. In the meantime, I also
melted some white chocolate with red food dye, placed it in this yogurt lid, and let it refrigerate until hard.

What's the point of all of this? Well... after the black frosting was good and stiff,
I peeled away the top layer of parchment and cut it into a nice circle.

I did the same with the red chocolate, making a smaller circle within the big red circle.

And what does this all make?

A cake for two record nerds like Brian and myself. I couldn't find my piping bag anywhere, so I made one out of a ziplock bag and messily piped a Happy Birthday.

The record portion of the cake was a bit frozen and stiff at first, but once it was out for a while, it started to just fit perfectly onto the cake.

Of course, when we got to the bar, I totally forgot to take utensils or plates... but that didn't stop anyone from eating the cake! Bar napkins, hands and mouths were all covered in birthday cake goodness. It was a very memorable night!

Baklava Ice Cream

2009-07-31T05:21:00.000-07:00

I can't take all the credit for this one. My lovely, talented baker of a mom made some homemade Baklava, and let me tell you, it's some of the best Baklava in the world. So sweet and rich, it just melts in your mouth. She sent me home with a big bag, which would be way too easy for me to eat in one sitting, so I decided to make a little ice cream out of it!

I gotta say, crushing the Baklava was really hard. It hurt to hit something that tasty!

I used my old faithful vanilla bean ice cream base.

And so it churns...

Who knew this ice cream would come out so attractive?

I saved a little of the crushed Baklava as garnish, which would probably also double as a great topping on plain vanilla ice cream too!

Okay, last one! This ice cream was just too photogenic... and tasty!

Amish Friendship Bread

2009-07-30T05:20:00.000-07:00

How cool is this? A chain starter for bread! Genius! I was pretty excited when a friend from work offered me a starter, I hadn't even heard of Amish Friendship Bread before, but after she told me what it was all about, I couldn't refuse! Who knows how long this starter has been passed around? I just love the concept!
It all starts with a bag.

Mush the bag one day. Add ingredients the next day. Another mush here, another mush there, and after ten days, my starter was ready for some baking.

It was started to smell kind of good, which was weird, since it was still in a doughy state, but yes, this dough smelled amazing. And there's not much better than a pan lined with cinnamon and sugar....

Well, okay, this is much better. Freshly baked Amish Friendship Bread.

Oh, I love this.

And this. Look at that sugar!

This bread is definitely dangerous. It tasted like cinnamon donuts. Light, fluffy ones.

It was so moist and wonderful... and gone in 2 days.

I swear, it wasn't all me... there were friends and coworkers and boyfriends all sharing the friendship bread. Though, it wouldn't be difficult to finish these loaves on my own in two days either. The next time someone offers you Amish Friendship Bread starter, I say TAKE ONE. As for me, I can never take one again, because I will eat the entire thing in one sitting, guaranteed. It's just that tasty. It really, really is.

Out Of Hibernation

2009-07-29T20:09:00.000-07:00

I am back! Oh dear friends, the past two-three months have been a whirlwind of activity and I am tired. What have I been up to? Well, I finally graduated! Just about one year ago today, I started my first day of school, and here I am today... a little bit smarter and a whole lot more exhausted. Oh yea, and I have a new quilt! Remember that little scrappy library school quilt I started when I began my library school courses? Well, that's done now!

Some of the detail...

And the back...

I left a yellow polka dot border on the back, so that I may eventually embroider over. Not today, but eventually. Like I said, I'm still pretty exhausted and am slowly coming out of my hibernation period. Yet, I have a lot to update you all on, and I can assure you it won't take 3 months next time!

Homemade Chicken Soup

2009-04-23T12:20:00.000-07:00

I know it's too hot for soup now. Well, at least in LA it is. In my apartment it is. But I made this soup, long ago, in February. The weather was chilly, the classes weren't as demanding, and I had a sick Brian on my hands, who had never ever had homemade chicken soup. Ever. This made me sad. Everyone should experience homemade chicken soup! But of course, I had never made homemade chicken soup. A little blog here, some google there, and a few calls to mom later, I came up with something pretty good.

Nothing to it! A turnip, some parsnips, carrots, celary, onion, and some parsley made up the base of the broth - along with some chicken, of course.

I let this boil for a few hours, and eventually got this...

Once the chicken was cooked, I removed it, along with all of the vegetables. At this point, the veggies are good to go, becuase the flavor is pretty much gone into the broth. So, I shred the chicken, added some egg noodles, and some freshly chopped celery and carrots and let that boil until the noodles were ready.

It was pretty delicious. And, I do think it made Brian feel better!

My only regret is that I wish I made more in a bigger pan, because for all the hours
it took to make, it was gone in minutes.

Easter Macarons

2009-04-22T20:19:00.000-07:00

Today, I blog about Macarons, but around this time next year, I hope to be eating them during my honeymoon in Paris! I've been a little quiet on this little blog, but I think Mr. B said it cutest, "Your like a little kitty in a tree... hang in there kitty!" This is referring to the fact that I have 6 weeks left to graduate and all I am stuck doing is writing papers and presentations, non-stop. Oh yea, and we are planning a wedding! Luckily, my sister-in-law has graciously offered her wedding planning services, so she has booked just about everything Brian and I wanted. I feel so relieved. And now it's time to start thinking about the details. One detail I know I'd like to somehow include throughout the wedding festivities are lovely French Macarons.

I really have my heart set on making the all the Macarons myself, but people tell me I must be crazy to make Macarons for a wedding for about 200+ people. You know that just makes me want to do it more, right? So, I decided to start practicing now. And the timing was perfect, I made these for Easter.

After making the batter, I piped the Macarons into petite circles onto parchment, raped the baking sheet, and let the batter set for about 15 minutes, until I noticed a sort of skin form.

Make sure the oven is super hot. It may take some experimentation with your oven, but my oven worked perfectly at 375 degrees. Why is this so important? One word: Feet. Yes, feet.

See the little ruffles at the bottom of that cookie? Those are your Macaron's feet! And they make all the difference! Once the pan cools, gently peel the Macarons off the parchment paper and start to match them up by size. I line the table with foil or parchment for this step.

But, before filling the Macarons, I make the filling. I made 4 types of Macarons and 4 types of fillings. First, I made Milk Chocolate Ganache to go with my Banana Macarons:

Then, I made a White Choclate Ganache and seperated it between three cups. From the left to right, the cups contained honey, Green Tea Matcha powder, and Rose water.

Did I mention I made quite a bit of them?

I think there must have been around 120 Macarons or so. A lot.

So, all in all, the flavors are:
Yellow = Banana with milk chocolate ganache
Green = Green tea with white chocolate green tea ganache
Pink = Rose with white choclate and rose ganache
Lavender = Lavender with white chocolate and honey ganache

It's really hard to pick my favorite - they were all so different and so good. Everyone had a different favorite, but I think majority ruled on Banana-Chocolate.

My recipe was pretty basic...
190 g. almond powder
310 g. confectioners sugar
150 g. aged egg whites
95 g. fine sugar
*flavorings, powder food coloring

Whisk together the confectioners sugar and almond powder and set aside. Beat the egg whites, then slowly add in the sugar, food coloring and flavoring. Beat until you get peaks - slightly less than firm, but almost firm. Basically you want thick lava texture (cause, we all know what lava feels like, right?) Then, fold the dry ingredients in, just until they are blended. Pipe using a pastry bag. Rap the baking sheet. Let rest until a skin is formed. The baking part is really tricky - on my oven, I bake for 375 degrees, then slightly open the oven door after about 5-7 minutes or so later. Then bake until slightly browned. It's tricky. If the oven is too cold, you'll get cracked Macarons and no feet. Not good.

I think I could definitely see myself doing some baking a few days before the wedding... maybe not 4 flavors, but definitely 1 or 2.

Let Them Eat Cake!

2009-03-27T14:09:00.000-07:00

I sure do deserve a piece of cake right now! It's not quite my birthday yet.. but it feels a bit like Christmas! Why? Well, I just finished writing my graduate portfolio! What's that you say? It's 143 pages of photograph preserving librarianship all done and ready to go! I can't believe it. In 10 weeks, I will be done with school and back to blogging on a regular basis! Somehow, I have managed to craft during all my school-madness, so I have a lot to catch the blog up on. Since I'm celebrating over here, I thought the first piece of business to get to is this cake! I made it about 2 weeks ago, for Mr. B's mom's birthday.

I made a chocolate cake, loosely based on this recipe. Anyone notice my new toy in this picture? Uh huh... I got a brand new Kitchenaid! I had been holding out for years, because I couldn't decide what color I wanted - but when I saw Martha Stewart blue, I knew it was meant to be. We're so very happy together.

With my batter, I made 2 cake rounds. I then took little Kitchenaid for another spin to make some cream cheese frosting. With a quick, thick layer of frosting in the middle, I sandwiched my two cake layers.

I gave the cake a crumb coat and let it set for about an hour in the refrigerator.

Once set, I slopped on the rest of the frosting, all nice and textured.

I have to say, a cake like this would normally take a lot of out me to bake - but with the help of my new Kitchenaid, it was really quick and simple! And, I do believe everyone thought it was tasty too!

Full Bellies, Happy Hearts

2009-02-17T20:53:00.000-08:00

Hi There! My name is Brian, and this is my first go at writing on Daily-Craft. Last Friday (the 13th), I asked Miss Annette to marry me and she said YES!!!!

That night, I told Annette that we were going out to one of our favorite restaurants, Cafe Beaujolai in Eagle Rock, but decided to cook dinner myself for the special occasion.

Our meal started with tomato basil bisque with grated parmesan and rosemary bread.

After a recent conversation about how much we
love pork chops and apple sauce, I decided to go on AllRecipes.com to see if anything looked good. One of the first things I came across was "Caramel Apple Pork Chops". I followed the recipe to the letter, but decided to marinate the chops overnight in mixture of apple juice and soy sauce. After frying the chops on each side for about 5 minutes, I baked them with the sauce for an additional 25 minutes at 325 degrees.

We were definitely pleased... they came out so delicious and moist! I wanted to make this
recipe for cranberry apple sauce, but couldn't seem to track down any cranberries, so I resorted to a
mixture of half Mott's and half pureed fresh apples and cinnamon, which actually tasted really good! I added french green beans with almonds to complete the main course.

Unlike Annette, I'm not much of a baker. So for dessert, I found a yummy Ghirardelli Double Chocolate brownie mix. I topped the warm brownie with Breyer's Chocolate Stripe ice cream, fresh strawberries and a little chocolate sauce.

This simple dessert was ridiculously tasty and provided the perfect ending to our lovely
candlelit dinner.

Pancakes For One

2009-01-26T05:18:00.000-08:00

Pancakes are the best.

They make everyone smile! Have you ever been sad to see pancakes? I didn't think so. I like mine super thick and fluffy, which makes me really want to purchase this someday. I was recently talking to a friend about Chocolate Chip pancakes. I'm not sure I've ever had one before, but for some reason, it doesn't sound as good as wheat and/or fruit pancake. Can anyone convince me I'm wrong? Should I experiment? Has anyone ever tried putting cheese in their pancake? I'm thinking of experimenting with a savory rosemary and cheese pancake. I once ran of of flour while I was making pizza and made a pizza pancake. It was interesting. Fluffy, sweet, and savory. So much a person can do with a simple pancake!

Vacation, All I Ever Wanted

2009-01-18T21:34:00.000-08:00

A very happy and belated new years to everyone! Things have been non-stop since I got back from my west coast trip. I'm in my last 5 months of graduate school, so things might be hectic in the Daily-Craft household, but rest assured, I will continue to post with every free moment! The abundance of homework and heavy work schedule have got me feeling a bit stressed. I find myself daydreaming a lot about the vacation I just got home from. It was so absolutely wonderful. Included below are a few of the culinary highlights of the trip...

We didn't spend enough time in Seattle! We really only had a day there, so I had 2 very special requests. I had to see the library and go to Trophy Cupcakes. Ohhh, Trophy Cupcakes, how I love thee! That coconut cupcake was heavenly. If I could, I'd have one every day! I've had quite a few cupcakes in my day, but the coconut cupcake from Trophy was by far my favorite. Also photographed, Sweet Potato and Hummingbird Cupcakes - also tasty, but the coconut really left an impression. How tasty?

Two people and 3 cupcakes later, I think you could say we did pretty good. The sweets didn't stop at cupcakes, we also got a few crazy doughnuts over at Voodoo Doughnut in Portland.

This place was amazing! I think I will go back every time I visit Portland. Believe it or not, we did also eat some substantial food too. We had a lovely Swedish breakfast at Broder I ordered the very cupcake-doughnut like, Aebelskiver! These little puffs of heaven are Danish pancakes.

They came with maple syrup, ingonberry jam, and my favorite, lemon curd. Also of interest on the breakfast table was the baked scramble with potato pancake.

I was lucky enough to steal a few bites, and I must say, that potato pancake was almost as good as my Danish pancake. I must try to recreate both of these someday! One of the last stops on the road trip was to San Francisco. We really only had time to have dinner there, so we thought we'd do it right. We took a walk over to House of Nanking. There seems to be so much controversy over this place and I was curious. Unlike what the reviews say, we didn't feel rushed at all. We did have to wait in a long line, but were rushed to the front within minutes, due to a table opening up with the perfect amount of seats for us. We were all full after devouring the first dish of Sesame Chicken, but I was also there to fulfill another mission. Noodles. Last year, my most favorite restaurant for noodles closed down, Veggie Bistro. Since then, I've been searching for an equivalent noodle to make the closure of Veggie Bistro a little more easy to handle. Did House of Nanking match up?

It was good, but it was no Veggie Bistro. Very few are. One thing I will say about House of Nanking, they served me the most wonderful hot tea that I have ever had. It was a mixture of many different types of tea, but they came together so harmoniously. It was a good night in San Francisco. As much as I wish I was still on vacation, it's good to be back home in LA. I've got lots of craft projects piling up, so as soon as I finish my homework, I will get to it!

Coconut Ice Cream

2008-12-28T04:30:00.000-08:00

This was the last of my holiday kitchen adventures. My mom personally requested my Coconut Ice Cream for Christmas Eve, I just forced the Egg Nog on them too. The room was split between Egg Nog and Coconut fans, but I think my personal favorite is the coconut. It was a good batch, super rich and creamier than I could have ever hoped for.

My super cute mom even bought ice cream cones in anticipation! Isn't that adorable? It was about 40 degrees outside, but everyone had a cone in hand. It's also a good sign when you get emails asking for the recipe the next day. Something about me and coconut, we just work well together! My next ice cream flavor idea is a bit more tricky... let's just say it involves a little bit of alcohol and little bit of fruit. Though, this may have to wait a while, since tomorrow I will be headed out on a road trip! I'll be making stops in Ashland, Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco, so send fun restaurant tips and sights to see my way! Everyone have a happy and safe new year!

Egg Nog Ice Cream

2008-12-27T04:30:00.000-08:00

I'm generally not the biggest Egg Nog fan. I like it, but I can usually only stand a few sips before I realize it's just too much. I have to say, I don't feel that way about Egg Nog Ice Cream. I think it's because Egg Nog as a drink is too creamy, but how is it possible for ice cream to be too creamy? It's just not possible! Needless to say, I really did love how the Egg Nog Ice Cream came out.

I paired it with some of my cracked Macarons that did not quite make it to the holiday parties.
I even experimented with Macaron-Egg Nog Ice Cream sandwiches!

The almond flavor of the Macarons went nicely with the Egg Nog flavor! I think Macarons and Egg Nog Ice Cream might be repeats for years to come on the holidays...

Christmas Macarons

2008-12-26T21:07:00.000-08:00

Happy holidays everyone! Sorry for the lack of updates, but as I will be posting in the next couple of days, I've been super busy baking, ice cream churning, and quilting lately! My most favorite holiday baking was done in my super talented friend, Jill's kitchen, where she taught me how to make one of the tastiest cookies I've ever had... a French Macaron! If you've ever attempted to bake these before, you will know how temperamental these cookies are. Everything needs to be measured exactly and the temperature has to be right on, or else you get a cracked cookie. Not a good thing for Macarons. Since it's the holidays, I wanted to go with some red, green, and white sprinkled cookies. We started with the green.

Not only did we put a little powdered food coloring in the dry portion of the mix, but also in the wet portion, of egg whites and sugar.

This gave us a very pretty, saturated green color, perfect for the holidays.

Waiting patiently for the moment of truth. Do our Macaroons have "feet"? Oh yes they did! Those little crinkly bottoms are the feet of the cookie, such an important detail of the perfect Macaroon.

I was squealing with excitement. Really, I was! I mean, look how cute they are..

Next was the red set.

I have to admit, we did end up throwing out a whole tray of red cookies, because the temperature was a bit off and there was some definite cracking. The cookies were still good, just not as pretty as the ones below.

Sitting all pretty, waiting to be frosted.

Next came the white Macarons with sprinkles.

And then some more..

I made a buttery buttercream frosting for the filling of these little guys. Unfortunately, I had little time to photograph these before taking them to 3 separate parties, though, I did get to sneak away a couple of white ones for this photo opp.

Tomorrow, more on Macarons, and another little holiday kitchen adventure...

It's Pumpkinini!

2008-12-17T05:40:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to post this since Halloween, but I guess now is a better time than never. I'm not the biggest Pumpkin flavoring fan, but I did enjoy this cup of Pumpkin Ice Cream!

I'm not sure I've ever had an ice cream I didn't like, to be honest. It just might be my favorite food. Even though it's raining out and winter is here, my mother made a special request for me to make a few batches of homemade ice cream for Christmas dinner this year. After trying my Coconut Ice Cream, she insists on me making Coconut again. So I've prepared a few batches of Vanilla base to make her Coconut, but also to make something a little more holiday inspired, Egg Nog Ice Cream! It's coming along, so pictures will be posted soon.

My Thanksgiving Baking

2008-12-05T07:33:00.000-08:00

I know it was last week, but I never did post the two Apple Pies I baked! After a being at the multi-cultural potluck until 3am, I woke up bright and early the next morning to bake pies. I got started at 8am with the crust. Once that was ready, I chopped up approximately 9 large apples.

Sometimes I'm tempted to just bake it like this.

Better yet, like this, after it's been dotted with butter.

But in the end, what harm would another layer of a buttery crust do, really?

Did I mention I made two pies?

Here is pie number one in all of it's baked glory.

And pie number two, fresh out of the oven.

Notice the bubbling juices..

Those bubbling juices left my house smelling like apple pie for days! Torture, because after Thanksgiving, I had no pie left!

Holiday Baking Begins

2008-12-04T20:52:00.000-08:00

The holidays have left me baking up a storm in my kitchen. Before Thanksgiving, I went to a multi-cultural potluck/dance party. There was such a great range of cultural dishes, Japanese, Philippine, Swedish, American, and my contribution, Armenian Cheese Boereg. I made this dish a while ago, and I was really starting to miss it. It all starts with a mixture of Mozzarella, Feta, eggs, and parsley.

Once that gets mixed, it turns into this lovely, mushy, squishy cheese filling.

When taking the fillo out of the package, make sure to cut it in half lengthwise. Use half for the bottom and set aside half for the top portion.

Scrunch the fillo and layer with butter.

When half of the fillo is done, begin layering the cheese mixture.

Spread an even layer of the cheese mixture, then finish off the rest of the fillo dough.

When you get to the last 2 layers of fillo, layer those flat, not scrunched. Refrigerate prepared boereg for a few hours (or up to a day) to chill. After chilling, pre-cut the boereg into squares. Mix an egg and some milk, pour over cut squares. Bake for about an hour at 350 degrees, or until golden brown.

I think I used about 2 sticks of butter in this particular boereg.

And it was pretty good!

Mushroom, Spinach Pizza

2008-11-25T12:06:00.001-08:00

I love having lots of vegetables handy. Almost each time I buy mushrooms, my instinct is always to make pizza.

And that's just what I did last night for dinner. I used a generous amount of leftover ingredients from the quiche that I prepared over the weekend to make this pizza pie. It had a whole wheat crust, mozzarella, swiss, and feta, tomato sauce, mushrooms, and spinach. Somehow, I still have leftover veggies... what to make next.. hmmm...

Happy Birthday Quiche

2008-11-24T17:16:00.000-08:00

This weekend, I attend a brunch potluck party to celebrate my friend, Julian's birthday. Julian requested that I make a vegetarian quiche, so that is what I did. I started with a Rosemary, Thyme, Parmesan Pâte brisée crust.

Making a crust in the food processor is so much fun!

It's always pretty to see all the herbs when I roll the crust flat.

I somehow rolled it, so that it fit perfectly.

After baking the crust for a few minutes, the little dots of butter started to show.

This quiche featured onions, asparagus, mushrooms, and spinach.

A little cream, egg, and some seasonings later, I popped the quiche into the oven for about an hour.

I was pretty pleased with the turnout. The quiche dish was empty by the time I left, so I guess that's a good sign! Now, what to do with all of my leftover veggies in the fridge... let's see...

Pie, Pie, Pie

2008-11-20T05:00:00.000-08:00

Has anyone else been keeping up with the The Kitchn'spie contest? Well, not only have I been keeping up with it, but I also submit two pies! For the classic category, I submit my favorite Apple Pie and a classic quiche, Quiche Oignon & Cumin.

Now, the other pies submitted on the page are fabulous. I mean, fabulous! But, I'd really love those pie dishes, so please vote for me! Voting ends Friday, so get those votes in!

Turkey Burger Surprise

2008-11-19T15:36:00.000-08:00

This may look like an average burger, but let me tell you... this one is pretty special.

Not only does it have a whole wheat bun, fresh tomatoes, lettuce, and chedder, with a turkey patty - but this turkey patty has a hidden gem inside. A pineapple! Really! This, by far, is my favorite way to make any burger! Turkey or beef! It adds a juicy dimension that even after bitting into the burger, it's still not obvious that there's a pineapple hidden inside. It's just juicy and delicious! See the original recipe here.

The Felt Club Aftermath

2008-11-17T09:08:00.000-08:00

Thanks to all of those who came out to visit Felt Club yesterday! And a special thanks to Jenny who put the whole thing together! It was such a great time! And it was also the reason for my lack of blog updates! I was so busy doing all of this..

There's my little booth right before doors opened! I'm glad to say that it was a lot emptier by the end of the night, making clean up a breeze! I was pretty excited to feature a few brand new products on my booth, like these 3am tote bags!

Why 3am? Because that's what time I started sewing them.. 3am, a few hours before Felt Club opened doors. Yep. I was also very relieved to finally be done with the librarian embroidery kits that I've been working on since almost exactly a year ago today. I'm kind of embarrassed it took me so long to put these out! But, they're out! And I'm really happy with how they look, so I think they are worth the long wait!

These embroidery patterns, along with a few other items from my booth will soon be appearing on my Etsy shop hopefully some time this week. Needless to say, I am exhausted and feeling a bit of a bug, so I am home from work today. Thanks again to all of those who stopped by to say hi, it was great meeting with everyone, especially those who read the blog and/or have purchased items from me in the past and have enjoyed them over the years. It's always nice to get that extra motivation to keep crafting!

Felt Club!

2008-11-16T00:14:00.000-08:00

The reason for my lack of updates is as follows:

I'll be a vendor there in a few hours... I'm pulling an all-nighter for the second night in a row! I hope my zombie face won't scare away shoppers! I've taken pictures of most of the new things I have created, but for now, I will continue to craft until it's time to go... everyone come please stop by and say hi! I promise not to eat anyone's brains, even if I look like zombie girl!

Pumpkin Spice Pancakes

2008-10-25T17:18:00.000-07:00

I love the fall. Of course, fall in California is a bit more subtle than most other states, but none the less, I love it. Mostly it's the leaves turning new and exciting colors, the need to wear heavy coats, and the fall harvest of exciting vegetables! Yes, vegetables totally excite me! And the smell of the holidays - you know, that spicy, cinnamon-y smell? It's so nice this time of year. Thanks to breakfast this morning, my apartment smells pretty wonderful right now!

Pumpkin Spice Pancakes did the trick! I don't know about any of you, but I like my pancakes chubby! Just add some pumpkin, cinnamon, and nutmeg to any old pancake recipe and I'm telling you, it will feel lot like Christmas.

Coconut Ice Cream

2008-10-24T17:09:00.000-07:00

I guess I'm on a bit of a coconut kick lately. It is one of my favorites! I especially love those coconut popsicles with the little coconut flakes in them! Those remind me of being a little girl and going to work with my mom. There used to be a guy who would sell popsicles in a little cart and my mom and I would always go for the coconut bars. I was really going for that same coconut popsicle taste with my ice cream. I think I achieved it with some sweetened condensed milk in my coconut mixture.

And of course, I added a big handful of coconut flakes. The texture was good.

Even as it melted in the hot LA weather!

But the ultimate test was getting my mom's opinion.

And the first thing she said is, "It tastes like a coconut popsicle!" Of course, the ice cream is creamier than a popsicle, but that just kind of made it taste better! I still have one more batch of ice cream to make! As tempted as I am to make another batch of coconut cream, I'm leaning towards something a little more seasonal...

Someone's Making Ice Cream

2008-10-21T21:59:00.000-07:00

Uh huh. That's right. I'm at it again. I have a couple of flavors I want to experiment with and I'm pretty excited about both of them. They both start with a vanilla bean ice cream base. I just love a fresh vanilla bean.

The smell is heavenly. I scraped the seeds and put them into my mixture of milk, and cream.

I have to admit, I did use non-fat milk and portions of low-fat and non-fat whipping cream. This could be trouble!

The vanilla milk tasted pretty decent, but when I added the eggs and sugar... well, I was excited! It tasted delicious!

I'll be making two flavors out of this base, but those will be revealed in the next post!

Construction Paper Murals Complete

2008-10-15T05:54:00.000-07:00

That's right, it's finally done! Both murals are!

I'm pretty excited about them, mostly because of the patron's reactions to them. So far, I've heard nothing but nice things - except for the reaction of one teen, who I heard say, "those little heads are starting to freak me out." Of course, she had no idea she was saying this in front of the person who made the freaky little heads, but oh well. Teenagers. More detailed photographs can be found here.

Chicken Bake

2008-10-14T16:00:00.000-07:00

What do you do when there's nothing to eat? Well, what I do is put lots of things in a pot and bake at 375 for about an hour.

It kind of looks something like this when it comes out.

Chicken, carrots, snow peas, broccoli, rice, a can of soup, some spices and breadcrumbs made out to be a pretty decent meal. And, I made enough to have it for lunch the next day too! Yay leftovers!

Coconut Tarts

2008-10-13T21:07:00.000-07:00

I think I should rename the subtitle of this blog to "adventures of a girl with ADD". I don't actually have ADD (that I know of), but I wouldn't be surprised if I did. I really can't give myself a break. Tonight I spent the entire night cooking and cleaning. It wouldn't be so bad, but I had a little frustration in the kitchen.

Was it the tart crust?

Nope. That actually baked quite well.

I also made mini tartlets too! It was what went inside the crust that caused the frustration.

Sure they look fine now, but I went on another low-fat rampage and tried to bring non-fat whipping cream to form medium peaks. Friends, let me save you the trouble, it just doesn't happen. It didn't for me anyway. I also mixed in a can of sweetened condensed milk, coconut extract, and sugar, but I got nothing. I had to bring out the big bad full-fat heavy whipping cream to get that extra fluff. It was quite a mess actually. I still have bowls of thick liquid coconut filling in my fridge that I'm not sure what to do with. Perhaps an ice cream? For now, I just want a break from the kitchen, but if you know me at all.. that feeling will pass soon. I suspect I'll be baking again in no time.

Everyday Is Like Sunday

2008-10-12T22:47:00.000-07:00

I spent the better part of this morning wandering around the gardens at the Huntington Library. I spent a lot of time staring at this scene.

Not too shabby.

It was a beautiful day for a cup of tea in the garden, and to literally stop and smell the roses.

And oh, did I smell them!

Later in the afternoon, my mom brought me a fruit delivery. I think she must forget that I live alone sometimes, because I got a slew of Persimmons and Guavas!

I'm not actually sure what to do with all this fruit, though I have a feeling it will involve some type of baking. Speaking of baking, tomorrow I will be making a coconut mousse pie! I accidently created the tastiest coconut mousse when making a coconut cake a few weeks ago. Recipe and pictures to come soon!

Construction Paper, Cupcakes, And Tote Bags, Oh My!

2008-10-11T13:26:00.001-07:00

Another chance to work on my little construction paper project...

I think I need about one more short day to finish! It's already been a big hit with the patrons, which is always motivating! In other news...

Yea. Need I say more? Unfortunately, I wasn't the lucky person eating this cupcake, but Auntie Em's sure makes one cutie cupcake alright!
The rest of my day is going to be dedicated to crafts and Felt Club preparation. For starters, I think I'll be busy sewing a few tote bags today. I found this neat fabric in my stash, just begging to become a set of totes!

More updates to come soon!

More Fun With Construction Paper, Scissors, Scotch Tape, Staples, And Glue Stick

2008-10-05T07:29:00.000-07:00

Before I move on to a new branch library, I had one more day to begin and complete mural #2! I had a general idea when I got there yesterday, but that evolved into something a little more involved than I originally imagined. I wanted to keep this wall simple, since I only had about 8 hours to complete it, but in a lot of ways, it became extremely detailed. I had a whole new blank slate to work with.

This board is even longer in length and width than the first wall I completed. Before I got to the library, I decided that I'd go for a plain black background, since the blue squares were a little time consuming. When I started setting up, I noticed that a lot of the characters that are going on the wall had black hair. This was a dilemma, because I didn't want the hair to fade in with the background. So, I decided to give the middle the blue square treatment and the edges a black border.

Strangely, it went by super quick and I was able to finish the background in no time.

I also had the kid's heads ready, but what took forever was making the kids books!

I made 8 different kid's book covers yesterday, and I'm still not finished with them. I want to add little white page flaps to the inside. And when that's done, there's still more! Luckily, they extended my stay at this branch, so I have more time to finish before I move to the next. More progress to come!

Construction Paper Mural Continued

2008-10-03T16:31:00.000-07:00

The kids on wall one are all ready...

And they're up!

I finished this wall, right before the library closed, so I had to be super quick in picture taking.

Saturday I will start and hopefully finish mural #2! I have a few ideas about what to make the background, but am a bit stuck!

Hello Kitty Cakes

2008-09-29T17:52:00.000-07:00

My lovely friend Maegan surprised me with a Hello Kitty cake mold last week!

Isn't it wonderful? I want to bake everything in it! Cakes, breads, jello molds, and anything else that would take on a kitty face! Luckily, it was a co-worker's birthday today, so I got busy late last night with a coconut cake!

I started with a basic white cake, with a little coconut extract. Then I soaked the cake in a mixture of coconut cream and sweetened condensed milk.

While the cake soaked, I prepared a light coconut frosting.

Frosting the cake was a bit tough, because I covered kitty's features. Luckily, my mobile phone's screen is a picture of Hello Kitty herself, so I had a quick reference point.

It only got harder when I added the shredded coconut.

As soon as I added the bow and nose, I saw kitty coming together.

I did have a little trouble with the black rope licorice. It wasn't exactly moving the way I wanted them to and with the frosting covering the whisker place-markers, I may have made a little more whisker than necessary.

I think I did better with cake number two (I made an extra cake for Maegan to thank her for the pan). Though, because I couldn't get the licorice to make little oval eyes, I made little sleepy eyes.

I think I might skip the licorice idea next time, and just go for some black frosting instead! The cake tasted wonderful, though, it was really hard to cut into such a cute face!

Shrimp Scampi, Or Eat Butter!

2008-09-27T18:28:00.000-07:00

I love keeping some frozen shrimp handy. It's easy to thaw and tastes good in so many varieties. Ever since my post about stir-fry, I've been making so much of it and experimenting with shrimp and a variety of vegetables including mushrooms, cabbage, onions, and few other things. I love Chinese food, but I let my mind wander into Italian cuisine this week and created this little recipe for Shrimp Scampi.

Something crazy that I love to do is use low-fat substitutes for absolutely everything I eat, bake, drink, and prepare. Always. Considering I run about 10-15 miles a week, I think I can allow myself to splurge on the real thing for a change. For some reason, I feel so guilty doing it! As much as I wanted to use real, creamy, tasty butter... I went for the calorie free substitute known as I Can't Believe It's Not Butter (spray). One of these days I'll go for the real thing, but I think I have to ease my brain into the concept of it slowly. Maybe start with bits of butter mixed with my no-cal stuff, until I graduate to the real thing. Breaking habits is hard! Anyway, the pasta was fabulous! Who needs real butter!?! Not me...

Shrimp Scampi A La I Can't Believe It's Not Butter
-1 serving of Whole Wheat Pasta
-As many shrimp as you like
- I few tablespoons of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter (or real butter!)
-Garlic Salt (or the real thing, if you feel like getting fancy)
-Pepper
-White wine (I used Pinot Grigio)
-Parmesan Cheese

Boil the pasta until ready. In a separate pan mix the faux-butter with the garlic. Add in the shrimp, some pepper, and the wine (I didn't really measure how much wine, but it's really to taste). Cook the shrimp until pink. Drain the pasta, then mix with the garlic/wine mixture. Drizzle on some parmesan cheese and let it melt in with the hot pasta. Serve immediately and enjoy!

Construction Paper Mural

2008-09-24T18:09:00.000-07:00

Since my last post, I've been up to a lot. I think a list might sum it up best. Since my last post, I have:

-Ran approximately 28 miles
-Started interning at a public library
-Prepared and given my first ever children's story time at this library
-Started interning in a paper conservation lab
-Started and finished season 4 of The Office
-Finished season 1 of Square Pegs
-Eaten lots of vegetables
-Caught my car on fire on the freeway (yes!)
-Purchased a screen-printing kit
-Purchased a fancy Danish modern chair that I have no room in my apartment for.
-Ordered new Moo cards

Well, you get the idea. I've been distracted by a lot. Though, my public library internship has given me lots to be crafty about! I have been given the task of transforming 2 big blank boards into a permanent display of something fun and colorful for the children of the library to enjoy during their story time hour! That's a big task! The boards were originally covered with some dirty old dark paper. I immediately got rid of that and started with my blank slate.

I thought it might be fun to make a "children of the library" type scene, with kids playing outside in a park. I started slowly with the sky.

The library stressed they wanted color, so I gave them color alright.

After three shifts, I finally got the background done. I also made lots of progress on the children, but I'm still creating their outfits!

I have about 3 or four days left, about 12 outfits to create and a whole other board to finish. It's going to be tough, but I'll keep the blog updated with my progress.

Chicken and Vegetable Stir-Fry

2008-09-07T19:07:00.000-07:00

Another crazy little weekend for me. Today, I felt like having an "Annette Day". Not a glamorous day, but a nice relaxing day. I slept in late, went running, did some grocery shopping, and made some stir-fry, while watching a movie.

I love vegetables. And one of my favorites is Baby Bok Choy. It reminds me of a trip I took to Hong Kong when I was a 19 years old.. it was the first time I ever had, or remember having, Bok Choy! How was I deprived of this tasty leafy green for 19 years of my life? Well, the trip to Hong Kong was amazing, and one of the many things that trip taught me was Baby Bok Choy. It also taught me about Lychee, which is another post, all together.

I marinated the chicken in some sesame oil, oyster sauce, soy sauce, and garlic and onion powder. I mixed it in the bag and let it hang out in the refrigerator until I got all my vegetables chopped up and started on my rice.

I love baby corn, they're so adorable. After getting all the veggies ready, I stir fried the chicken for a few minutes, then set aside. I stir fried all of the vegetables (except the Bok Choy) for a few minutes, then re-added the chicken and then the Bok Choy at the end.

The reason I did the Bok Choy last was because it cooks so quickly. Next time, I think I will keep the snow peas until the end too.

All in all, it was pretty good. Actually, the best stir fry I have ever made! It almost tasted as good as the yummy take-out place down my street, except I think I used less oil and fat then they do. A slight compromise in taste, but really just as good!

Now to end this "Annette Day," I think I'll go hang out with some friends!

Laborious Labor Day Weekend

2008-09-02T20:47:00.000-07:00

It's been one long week. Did everyone have a nice Labor Day Weekend? I mostly remember all the wonderful sleeping I did, but somehow within my slumber, I got an incredible amount done. On the crafty side of things, I finished the embroidery on the quilt tag for my quilting group.I apologize for the smudged image, I thought it might be best to blur the names of the other quilt group members, just in case they don't want their names lurking on the Internet.

Another craft related announcement that just arrived in my email box is that I am going to be part of Felt Club this year! I couldn't be more excited! I have lots of plans for new crafts relating to the things that are inspiring me the most these days: libraries, bicycles, and music.
Other great things to note of this weekend include running the Nike human race, and actually running the entire time! This is a big one for me. I'm a super slow runner, so I thought it would take me about an hour and 45 minutes to finish, but I somehow did 6.2 miles in an hour and 23 minutes! Considering that I'm only 5'2" and run slow as molasses, this is a pretty big accomplishment. The past few months of training has also damaged my right knee somewhat severely, so I'm just glad I made it through in one piece! Other exciting Labor Day weekend accomplishments include finishing my last paper of the summer, and for the first time since I started graduate school, I did a little recreational reading!

Honey Lavender Ice Cream

2008-08-29T16:21:00.000-07:00

I think I'm getting the hang of making ice cream. I thought this was amazing, but my Honey Lavender Ice Cream was a whole new realm of good. It started with half & half, whipping cream, orange blossom honey, and some culinary lavender.

I heat up the mixture for a while, then let the lavender seep for about 30 minutes. I removed the lavender by pouring the mix through a fine sieve.

I whisked a few eggs and a pinch of salt and slowly combined the mixture together.

Then I reheated the base just a bit more, and admired the beautiful shade of cream it has become.

I let the mix chill overnight. I started to get worried at this point, because the mixture was so extremely fragrant. I'm not one to like eating foods that are too perfume like. At this point, the mix was made and there was nothing left to do, but throw it in the machine and hope for the best.

Nice and smooth after the machine. I let it chill in the freezer for an extra day.

Wow. Really, wow. Not too fragrant at all, just right actually.

The texture came out perfect. The best I've gotten so far.

Recipe can be found here.

Sick Day Crafts

2008-08-28T19:17:00.000-07:00

Almost all of last week, I was home sick. It was pretty awful. I had a fever of about 102 and was stuck in bed all week. Each time I put a cool towel on my head, it seemed to get warm fast, so I remembered about this little plastic plate.

I actually got this plate after buying sushi-to-go one day, and didn't have the heart to throw out this cute little plate. It was the perfect size for a a block of ice for my forehead. So I filled it with some water and let it freeze.

It made a nice little piece of ice.

Place the ice in a small cloth.

And wrap it up.

When the ice started to melt, I just placed the whole cloth back into the freezer and re-used it. Luckily, I'm all better now and on to more exciting ice related projects, such as making ice cream! Tomorrow, I will post all about my latest ice cream creation.

Faux Fried Chicken

2008-08-21T13:18:00.001-07:00

I've been wanting to make this recipe for a long time now, but it wasn't until I saw it on this lovely lady's blog when I decided to give it a go. It's a quick recipe, with simple ingredients.

Parsley, garlic, lemon and yogurt.

I used panko breadcrumbs, although I have heard other recipes using corn flakes. That might be interesting to try once I run out of the panko crumbs.

I think I prefer this chicken to real fried chicken, merely for the lack of post-fried chicken guilt.

All I need now is some corn on the cob and a slice of watermelon!

Angel Food Cake Disaster

2008-08-18T21:04:00.000-07:00

I don't know what happened. I've made this same Angel Food Cake a dozen times before, but it wasn't going to happen for me this time. The eggs were fresh.

The batter was shaping up.

But the outcome was suspicious.

After the flip, I was immediately worried.

Even then, I didn't realize what I was about to see. Who knew cake could do this?

I was confused, but wasn't about to waste any more time scratching my head. I quickly went to the store and bought a new dozen of eggs.

I thought maybe I didn't let it bake long enough? So, for my second cake, I left it in until it was a darker brown.

I was hopeful. It looked better than the first, but I was still worried. By this time, it was late, so I went to bed and left it until morning.

Not so good.

The outside was cakey, but the inside was the same gummy substance that I got with cake #1. Either way, it was not good. I had to have my parfait ready to go in a hurry, so I was forced to go to two different grocery stores looking for a ready baked Angel Food Cake. I wasn't very happy about that. I really do like baking from scratch, but I have to admit, the store bought cake was really good. Not better than my usual Angel Food Cake, but a billion times better than the ones baked this time. I made up for it with the best cream, ever.

Cream cheese, sugar, and heavy whipping cream must be soul mates on some level. The mixture is perfect harmony. It makes one tasty parfait when layered with angel food cake, strawberries, and blueberries.

I'm not sure if this Angel Food Cake dilemma has made me want to give up Angel Food Cake baking or determined to get it perfected. I think I will try to take a baking break for now, but one of these days I might be writing a week of posts on perfecting the art of Angel Food Cake.

Apple Pie Ice Cream

2008-08-12T15:52:00.000-07:00

Today, I am home sick. I think the combination of school, work, bake-a-thons, going out, running, and everything else I'm up to has taken it's toll on me. Most of the day has been spent in bed, with a fever. I'm determined to get better, since I do have class tomorrow. So in the rare moment of me being awake for today, I present you Apple Pie Ice Cream, or Apple Pie A La Mode in a cup, or things to do with leftover baked goods. It all starts with a vanilla bean ice cream base.

Vanilla beans are so fragrant. After seeping this vanilla bean, and all of it's little seeds into some warm milk and cream, my entire apartment smelled so lovely.

I slowly combined eggs and sugar with the warm vanilla milk/cream mixture to make my vanilla base, and let that cool all day. After my mini pies were all done. I set aside a group that just didn't make the cut.

I then mashed these up into bits, and poured them into the ice cream mix during the last 5 minutes of processing. The machine's directions mentioned that all toppings put into the machine should be no larger than a chocolate chip. Well, I didn't really follow that rule. Just think of when you eat cookie's n' cream ice cream, isn't it kind of exciting when you find a big chunk of cookie in your scoop? Maybe it's just me, but it's the little things like a big cookie piece that put a smile on my face.

The machine did make some interesting noises with the bigger chunks, but the results were amazing.

I'm still in shock that I produced such a tasty treat!

Now.. back to bed for me.

The Apple Of My Pie

2008-08-11T20:40:00.000-07:00

A good apple pie needs good apples. I used Gala, Empire, Jazz, Fuji, Golden Delicious, Red Delicious, Braeburn, and Granny Smith.

While preparing the filling, I tasted each apple chopped to ensure a sweet apple. I then added lemon juice, cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar, salt, and some flour.

My favorite part of almost any pie is the crust. I added a bit of cinnamon to the crust, just to give it that extra something. Though, I think the 2 sticks of butter for each batch do quite well on their own too.

I didn't realize how time consuming this little baking project was going to be. I went from rolling the dough, chilling the dough, cutting the dough, molding 24 shells, filling the shells..

... making cute pie tops for each pie, brushing the tops with egg wash....

...baking, letting the pan cool, and doing it all over again 3 times!

I ended up submitting 4 dozen to the baking exhibit today. And the rest of the mini pies? Well, I passed a few out at work, and kept a small batch of the "reject" pile for a whole new baking project (more on this tomorrow)! The exhibit had the baked goods of over 60 people! I was worried that no one would even eat my mini pies with all of that other delicious food around. So, I went over and checked out the pies about an hour after they were put out and somehow, they were all gone! A friend told me that they heard a large group talking about them and soon after that there was a buzz about the lil' pies! At that moment, the 15 hours of work made it all worth it. Though, these little pies weren't the only treat keeping me busy in the kitchen. Kim gave me the prettiest little anchor necklace after I made her a blueberry pie, so to thank her, I made her an apple pie!

I've always wanted to make a lattice pie top, but never have. They usually break and get too complicated for my patience level, but I tried it out and it came out okay?

Well, there are a few mistakes in the lattice top, but I'm willing to overlook it. I think it looked pretty cute after it was all baked! I just hope Kim likes it!

Tomorrow, I will show off what else I worked on in my 15 hour bake-a-thon. It's a tasty way to handle the "reject" pile of your baked goods.