Lemon Theme Night!

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...

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

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

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?

Wedding Craft #7: Wedding Cake Topper

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

Let Them Eat Cake!

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!

Vacation, All I Ever Wanted

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!