Buttercream Flower Birthday Cake

This was my birthday cake.  I'm very pleased with how it turned out.  I got the buttercream flower tutorial from Jenny at SpoonForkBacon.  Gotta give credit where it's due.

I used this recipe for the cake and icing.  I love it and have used it many times with great success.  I usually get a little sinkage in the cake but nothing a bit of icing can't fix.  This was the first time I made the icing in that recipe and was convinced I wouldn't have enough but it was the perfect amount.  I should know to never doubt Ina.

Old Fashioned Apple Pie

Pie Preparation

Fall is back and I came up with a new version of my mom's classic apple pie and decided to share it.  Also, just to comment on my lame photography skills...I work so the only time I can take pictures is at night and it gets dark here early now.  Anyway, I figure I'll learn more as I go along and hopefully one day I'll look back upon these photos and cringe more than I do now.

Back to pie.  I've always made the same pie crust, same filling as my mom did.  The more I learned about pie, the more I've wanted to try new things.  I used this pie crust recipe from the Pioneer Woman and it's turned out great every time I've used it.  The only change I made is to use vegetable shortening in place of the lard since lard kind of grosses me out more than icky white vegetable shortening.  It's all in what you can stand to deal with.  I keep the butter and the shortening in the freezer so it's really, really cold.  If you think about it, cut the butter into cubes before you freeze it, otherwise you could grate it on a box grater or just get a sharp knife and cut it carefully. 

The secret to the filling of this pie is boiled cider.  I had never made it before but for some unknown reason, I bought some apple cider and nobody drank it which was not a surprise at all.  I don't even know what I bought it for.  Anyway, I decided to boil it down so I could use it in some unforseen project.  This was it.  I added some to the pie filling and it was really, really good.  It's the new thing in the pie.

Anyway, you shouldn't let pie scare you at all.  It's really very forgiving most of the time.  This crust recipe is not fragile.  It's almost springy so it holds together really well.  I always roll my crust out between two sheets of waxed paper.  Roll it from the center out, turning the paper as needed.  Once you get it to the right size to fit in your pan, remove the top sheet and then place it back on and flip the dough over.  Remove the bottom sheet (which is now on top).  Then I flip it over into the pie plate and adjust as necessary and remove the other waxed paper sheet.  Fill the pie and roll out the top crust.  Don't forget the vents in the top!  Those are the cuts that my Grandma and my Mom always made so now I do it too.  You can do it with tiny cutters or whatever you choose.  A quick brush of milk or heavy cream if you've got it and then into the oven.  I don't even like pie and I ate this.

I've been adding boiled cider to all of my apple desserts (well...apple crisp and apple pie).  I'm not much of a fruit dessert person but I think it makes a really big difference and it's delicious.

Apple Pie

6 cups Granny Smith Apples (or combo of apples of your choice), peeled, cored and sliced
1 cup sugar
2 Tablespoons flour
1 Tablespoon cinnamon (plus some...all of my mom's recipes say plus some at the cinnamon)  I just give it an extra shake (for those who like to measure - 1 T + 1 t)
3 (or more) Tablespoons boiled cider (optional) - see instructions below
2 Tablespoons butter, cut into tiny cubes

1 pie crust (recipe below)

Prepare your pie crust as directions indicate, lining the bottom of the pie plate with dough.

Toss apples, sugar, flour and cinnamon in a large bowl until well combined.  Put the apples into the prepared pie crust.  Dot the top of the apples with the butter.  Top with other pie crust.  Crimp edges.  Bake at 375 for about an hour.  If the crust is browning too much, cover it lightly with foil during baking.  I find it best to put the pie in the oven on a sheet pan (preferably lined with a silpat or parchment for easy clean up).  Otherwise, the floor of your oven may suffer from overflow and that is never a good thing. It's a smoky mess.  My grandma used to say that the only good pie was one that overflowed so I stand by that and always use a silpat.

Let cool, slice and enjoy.  If you cut it too soon, all the juice runs everywhere.  Just ask my son.  He found out the hard way.  I store this in the refrigerator.

Pie Crust

This makes enough for a double crust pie

2 1/2 cups all purpose or pastry flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon sugar (for a fruit pie only)
3/4 cup cold butter, cut into chunks or grated on a box grater
1/4 cup cold vegetable shortening or leaf lard, cut into chunks
1/4 cup ice cold water

Place 2 cups of flour, salt, & sugar if using in the bowl of a food processor.  Pulse to mix.  Put in the butter and shortening and pulse until it looks like big crumbs and is starting to come together.  You can do all of this in a bowl with a pastry cutter if you want.  It's just quicker in a processor.  Now add 1/2 cup flour, pulse a couple of times and then add the water.  You just want the dough to just come together.  No overmixing.   You can take the dough out of the food processor and add the water and stir with a wooden spoon to avoid overworking the dough.  Too much messing around will lead to a tough dough.

Separate the dough into two equal pieces and flatten to a disk.  You can wrap these in plastic wrap and put in a freezer bag to use later or get some waxed paper or parchment paper and roll them out right away.  If your dough is really sticky, sprinkle the paper with a bit of flour.  Roll out to the desired diameter.  Start from the center and roll outward, turning the paper as needed.  Place into pie pan and put in refrigerator while you make the filling.  Roll out second disk of dough, cut out vents if necessary.  Place on top of pie, crimp and bake!

Pie recipe is from my mom.  The boiled cider is from the Washington Post and the pie crust is barely adapted from The Pioneer Woman.  All are linked above.

Happy fall and don't be afraid of pie.  It looks impressive even if it's messy because it's homemade.

Cookies 101 - Part 1

I make a lot of cookies.  Probably less than some blogger types but considerably more than the average person who never makes cookies or does it on special occasions only.  I make at least one batch a week.  Mostly two.  Gotta have those lunch box cookies and fortunately I have two teenage boys who can eat a full meal, complain about being hungry and then eat dinner.  It's a gift that they have.  Anyway, I always bring cookies to family things, school things, even just sometimes because I feel like it and I bring cookies to my friends for no reason at all.  They don't seem to mind.

Probably the biggest question I get is "why are your cookies always better than mine".  The snarky answer is because mine are filled with love.  The real answer is that you're baking them too much.  If you pull a cookie sheet out of the oven and the cookies look perfectly done (see photo), they're already too far gone.  They continue to cook on the baking sheet after you remove them from the oven so they will be over baked by the time you get them on the cooling rack.  You need to take them out when they're kind of gooey looking in the middle.  Don't be afraid of the raw middle.  It's your friend. 

That's my tip of the day.

2015

Like most people, I have lots of things that I'd like to be better at this year than last.  2014 was not a kind year to our family so I'm hoping that things will be a little smoother this year.

My first big thing to learn is how to be a better photographer.  It's readily apparent that I'm not very good at it.  Just take a look at my crumb cake pictures.  Also, it's hard to photograph food at night and since I don't get to stay home all day, sometimes I only have the evenings.  And I don't have any professional lighting.  Just a Nikon DSLR and a couple of lenses.  Anyway, that's my first thing to improve upon.

The second thing I need to do is stay away from the sugar/carbs and wine.  I have a sweet tooth like nobody's business.  It's a shame really.  I KNOW I shouldn't eat so much sugar and I exercise all the time.  Like 5 or 6 days a week and I'm not happy with myself.  (I know it's not about how you look but how you feel...still...I'm extremely hard on myself.  Always have been).  In order to help with this I'm trying to cut down on eating the sweets.  I have two teenage boys who can eat all the time so I'll still bake stuff.  I just won't eat all of it.  I also just ordered a veggie spiralizer.  It's coming tomorrow.  I realize it's probably stupid but I thought I might try it out for a replacement for spaghetti.  I'll let you know how it goes.  Could be fun.  I'm on a mission to keep my hand out of the cookie jar and far away from the carbs that don't really do much for you.  At least for a few weeks!

Besides those two things I would really like to take this year as an opportunity to entertain more and try to not flip out about all of the things that aren't perfect in my house.  Unless I win the lottery, there is always going to be something that's less than perfect.  It's just life.  I would like to have more fun this year so hopefully we can make some time to do something once or twice a month.  As I mentioned above, we had a rough time in 2014 so we're trying to make an effort to carve out some fun stuff this year.  Plus, will anyone really remember if your baseboards are perfectly dust free or will they remember that they had good food and good company?  Hopefully the latter.

My final thing I would like to improve upon is this blog.  I would love to be able to be organized enough to post a couple of times a week.  That's my goal anyway.  I'm giving myself the month of January to get things together and then I'll see how it goes.  It's good to have goals!

I hope everyone had a lovely holiday season and your 2015 is starting off in a positive way.  Did you make any lists or resolutions?

New York Crumb Cake

I grew up in a suburb of New York City.  It was a lovely place to live.  Just a train ride into the city for all the culture you could ever want but very suburban when you went back home.  New York was the center of the universe.  Bagels like no other, roasted chestnuts on the sidewalks...they definitely have a smell unlike anything else...I don't think I ever actually ate them.  And crumb cake.  Delicious, lovely, buttery crumb cake.  I was blissfully unaware that crumb cake was not available across the universe until I went to college in Indiana.  It appears to be big in NY and the shore towns of South Jersey.  Who knew?  Anyway, there was always Drakes but bakery crumb cake is a thing of beauty.  I have spent the last 30 plus years trying to find a recipe that makes a crumb cake the way I remember it to be. 

It finally happened.  I've tried Martha Stewart, Carole Walter (who has a lovely crumb cake recipe in her book that is fabulous but it's not the NY style one I was looking for but I've made it a bunch and it's really good), various online recipes and then I got a Cakespy email with new posts.  She posted one that came from the Food Maven.  The angels sang, the heavens opened and the recipe was "the one".  I've made it at least 6 times since I got it.  The kids love it, I love it.  You can freeze it.  You can substitute greek yogurt (even the non fat stuff) for sour cream because you don't have any and it's still great.  It has a lot of butter in it.  You've been warned.

New York Crumb Cake
Original Recipe from The Food Maven, adapted slightly from Cakespy
Makes one 9″ by 13″ cake

Ingredients:

Topping:

• 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 ½ cups packed dark brown sugar
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter (or use salted if that's all you have.  I do it all the time)
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting the top (optional)

For the cake

• 2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon plus 1 pinch salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup sour cream

For the topping: In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.
Mix with the brown sugar. Set aside.In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over low heat. When melted, pour on top of the dry mixture. Add the vanilla. Stir with a fork until the mixture comes together to form small crumbs (if you clump it in your hand, it should easily form crumbs). Set the crumb mixture aside.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.  Place a rack in the middle of the oven.  Coat a 9″ by 13″ pan with non stick spray.
For the cake:
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer (or using a hand mixer), cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugar, and continue mixing until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes in a stand mixer. Don't skimp on this.  It takes time.  Scrape the sides of the bowl as needed using a rubber spatula.  Add the eggs, one at a time, stopping to scrape the sides of the bowl with each addition. Add the vanilla. 

Reduce the mixing speed to low. Add the dry ingredients in three additions, alternately with the sour cream, starting and ending with the dry ingredients. Continue scraping the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed. Blend only until combined. The batter will be thick.  Spoon the batter into the well-greased pan and smooth with a flat rubber spatula.

Now comes the fun part.  Take a handful of the crumbs and break on top of the unbaked cake. Continue, making crumbs of your desired sizes all across the surface of the cake. You need to cover all of the surface with crumbs, or the cake may bubble over the crumb mixture. That is not pretty and nobody wants that piece because it doesn't have the good stuff on it.  Gently pat the crumbs into the batter with your hand or a wooden spoon, but don’t sink them all the way into the batter, just pat them down a little bit.

I hope you don't have a horrible looking hand like I do in this picture.

Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes, or until the cake is golden brown on top and begins to shrink from the sides of the pan. Remove from the oven and place the pan on a wire rack to cool. If desired, dust the top with confectioners’ sugar. Once cool or just lightly warm, slice into squares.
Store leftovers, well wrapped, at room temperature for up to 3 days.  It also freezes well.  I wrap the pieces individually and store them in a zip top bag.

The cake was good even if my photography wasn't.  Sorry.

Baked Chocolate Cake (Donuts)

I'll let you in on a secret.  I don't really like donuts.  I know.  I'm apparently crazy.  Someone on my unit owns a Dunkin Donuts and will occasionally leave donuts right outside of my office, which is quite nice, however I never, ever eat them.  There are many reasons for this.  First and foremost they have too many calories and are not enjoyable enough for me to be bothered with.  I could go on forever about the multitude of atrocities that donuts have committed but I'll spare you my rant.  Second, my office door has the credentials "Registered Dietitian" on it which would make me a really bad example.  But I don't even need a second reason.

Anyway, this recipe is called a donut but really it is a cupcake in disguise.  They're cute, they're chocolate and they're from Joy The Baker.  I just like my picture.  I'm a frosting girl at heart so if I want a cupcake, I really want the frosting more than the cake so that's a drawback if you're like me.  These are really nice though and everyone in my house liked them.  Like most donuts, they are best the day you make them.  I'm really selling this recipe.  Don't be like me.

By the way, who decides if they're donuts or doughnuts?  Homer Simpson?  Mr. Dunkin?  I wish I knew.  I'm very open to either spelling.  I pride myself on my open mindedness. 

Maybe you should just go make some and formulate your own opinion.  It'll be fun.

Baked Chocolate Doughnuts with Chocolate Glaze
makes about 6 doughnuts
recipe adapted minimally from Joy The Baker
This is halved from her recipe because I knew I didn't want a lot sitting around and my kids are weird so you never know if they'll eat something or not  (they did).

For the Doughnuts:
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup buttermilk
1 large egg
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted until just browned
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
For the Chocolate Glaze:
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
pinch of salt
2 tablespoons whole milk
1 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
color jimmies

Preheat oven to 325  degrees F.  Spray a doughnut baking pan with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt, and brown sugar.
In a small bowl, whisk together buttermilk, egg, melted butter, and vanilla extract until thoroughly combined.
Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and fold together until all of the ingredients are well combined.  Scrape the bowl well.  Use a small spoon to portion batter into the prepared doughnut baking pan.  Each doughnut mold should be about two-thirds full.  Bake doughnuts for 11 to 13 minutes or until a skewer inserted into one of the doughnuts comes out clean.  Remove from the oven.  Allow to rest for five minutes before inverting doughnuts onto a wire rack to cool completely.  Allow doughnuts to cool completely before glazing.
Repeat the baking process until all of the batter is turned into doughnuts.
To make the glaze, in a medium bowl whisk together powdered sugar, cocoa powder, and salt.  Add 2 tablespoons of milk and all of the vanilla extract.  Whisk to combine.  Mixture may be thick.  Add milk, a teaspoon at a time, until the glaze is thick but still pourable.
Dip each doughnut (I dipped the bottom side) into the chocolate glaze.  Shake off some of the excess glaze.  Return to the wire rack and sprinkle with color jimmies.   Allow to rest a few moments for the frosting to harden slightly. 

Porch Project

 

We have a  lovely wrap around porch on our house.  We had the floor replaced about 6 years ago and it's in desperate need of a coat of polyurethane.  Over the years we've had lots of different porch furniture.  The stuff we inherited from the previous owner which was ugly but comfortable.  The stuff I bought from Restoration Hardware which was really cute punched metal and really went with the house but was incredibly uncomfortable. It was like this.
Finally I got something a little more comfortable from Target a few years ago.  It's holding up well.  It's not my dream furniture but it was affordable and comfortable.  Anyway, my big plan over the very long, cold, snowy winter was to find a piece of furniture that I could use to put stuff on if we have company.  Like a buffet or something.  After scouring Craigslist for many months and not finding much I decided to shop my house and found a bakers rack that I used to use in my old kitchen.  It was sturdy and the perfect size.  I decided to paint it with milk paint.  My initial thought was to use it as a pop of color so I ordered what I thought was coral and a blue/green as a just in case.

It was really, really pink.  It's Miss Mustard Seed Apron Strings.  It's very pretty but it wasn't going to work the way I wanted.  I had also purchased Eulalie's Sky, which is what I ended up using.

Being that I'll never be a blogger, here's the before...which was really sort of on the way to being after but you'll get the idea.  It was just a stained bakers rack, originally all brown!

                            

This is what it looks like after.  


I really like it although I have to admit that I did not love working with milk paint.  This was the first time I used it and I found it very difficult to mix.  I'm sure I'll use it again sometime but it's not the easiest thing to put on a piece of furniture.  I used it with a bonding agent and it still chipped more than I would have liked.  It just gives it a rustic look so it's all fine.

Here's what it looks like in action (or inaction as the case may be).

I like it.  Of course we didn't end up doing a lot of entertaining so I only used it with stuff on it but it'll be good for the future entertaining I'm sure to do next summer.  Yup.  Next summer.

The Non Blogger

I'm fairly sure I'll never be a real blogger.  I can't seem to plan that far ahead.  I don't want to have Halloween in September or Thanksgiving in October.  I don't want pumpkin desserts and holiday decorations until the season is upon me.  Same goes for Christmas.  I lament the fact that it's Christmas in the store as soon as the Halloween candy is gone. Plus, I just haven't been able to get my act together to actually post the cute things I've made.  Anyway, here are a few from over the past months.

Yes, it's March, I know. 

I had great plans for Dr. Seuss's birthday but I ended up decorating a door for Frank and not doing any cute treats.  He had a student leave the Friday before and I made brownies and cookies so they could throw her a little going away party so he didn't want more sugar in the classroom which makes sense I guess.

It's almost St. Patrick's day and I haven't made anything green yet.  You never know.  It could happen but it won't be timely.  Maybe I'll surprise myself.

A quick weekend getaway

We spent last weekend in Ocean City, NJ.  Thursday was our 20th anniversary so we did what anyone would do and took the kids with us to the beach.  We usually go by ourselves but it just wasn't in the cards this year.

It was a beautiful weekend.

The beach was lovely.  The waves were fun and the water was cool.  Maybe 66 degrees but I'll go in as long as it's above freezing. 

I also made this pretty vignette...tiny, tiny shells.

We went out to dinner on Saturday but there was nothing special enough to take a picture of.  Why places say things are spicy when they are not even close, I'll never know.  And I fall for it every time and I'm always disappointed.  You'd think I'd learn but I keep trying to find the perfect spicy item.  I usually have to make my own.

At least the view is pretty...

I've been getting up in the wee hours lately and this is what I had the pleasure of viewing bright and early the other morning:

At least this is pretty.  The bathroom I took it from is still hideous and now that it's summer, it's scorching hot with no air conditioning.  It is a nice view though.

What's Sid been doing?

Sid has been scratching floors, barking at things that aren't a threat and staring off into space in a disconcerting manner.  He's insane and not in a good way.  In the beginning of February Sid developed separation anxiety.  Every time I would leave to take a kid to school or go to work, he would park himself in front of the door and growl and bark and snap at me if I wouldn't take him with me.  Hospitals as a rule do not like dogs so he has to stay home.  It got so bad that I was starting to get scared of him, which really doesn't help but he grabbed me with his teeth and it was frightening.  I took him to the vet and she suggested we try Prozac.  It's been three months and he was doing ok and then it started up again.  I don't know what to do with him.  He needs to live with someone who is home all the time, has a one story house with no slippery floors and isn't bothered by a dog that walks backwards frequently.  I'll keep looking for this person or if you perhaps know someone who fits that description, please contact me.  I'm not sure I'll make it for another 5 or 6 years.

Storm Clouds Over Philly

We were driving back from Margate yesterday and hit a really big storm on the AC expressway.  By the time we got to Philly, this is what we saw.  It's taken from the car window as we were crossing the Walt Whitman bridge.

 

The beach was lovely and the water was warm enough to swim in, of course I'll go in regardless of how cold it is but it was fun.  Our first beach trip this season.

My running friends

The very best thing about taking up a more serious running habit has been the friends I have made along the way.  Mary, Jen and I have been running together for almost 2 years because Mary was a big girl and asked at the end of our running group if I would like to join her for some runs over the rest of the summer.  Of course I said yes because she's fab and she's an only child too so it's like we're kindred spirits.  She already knew Jen so she joined us as well.  Susan came along a little while later when her running buddy sustained an injury.  We all belong to a much larger running group but it's always been the four of us at 5:30 in the morning, year round.  We've had a lot of fun training for some longer runs...freezing to death or roasting or even getting rained on (except Susan - she melts in the rain).  We have all done the Broad Street Run in Philadelphia for at least the last two years (I joined in last year but they've all done it more than that).  This is us last year after we finished the 10 miles.

Susan, Me, Mary and Jen

We just did it again on Sunday.  Everyone did great except for me.  I think I ripped a calf muscle but have to wait for the official diagnosis.  (It's official... I have a slight tear...it's much better already)  I hobbled the last 2 miles.  It wasn't fun.

Anyway, I'll never be one for a marathon but Mary ran her very first on Sunday, all by herself.  Running 26.2 miles on Mother's Day is not my cup of tea.  Nor is it the other 364 but it's very exciting for her.

Because she's such a good friend, I wanted to do something nice for her so she knew I was rooting her on so this is what I came up with...yummy chocolate cupcakes with vanilla bean icing and inspirational cookie toppers.  I hope she likes them!  I had a much more grand idea in mind but you know what they say about best laid plans.  I need to practice my writing and get the right icing consistency.  That would be a start.  Also, I need to remember to take photos before I'm running out the door with the box.

And run she did.  Yippee!

Pinkies Chocolate Lunch Box Treats

Remember the Hostess SnoBalls of your youth?  I used to love those things so when I saw the recipe for Pinkies Chocolate Lunch Box Treats in The Back In The Day Cookbook I knew I had to try them.  I've had the book since Christmas but hadn't gotten a chance to try anything from it yet.  I think I baked far too much at Christmas and I was kind of done with cake for a while.

I even had the coconut extract that it required so I was good to go.  There are a lot of steps but it's not a hard recipe even though it does take a while.  The cupcakes were so good that I'll definitely use that recipe again.  I made the icing/filling which is an odd recipe with a cooked milk/flour slurry that you beat into butter and powdered sugar.  It does make a nice fluffy icing however I do have one problem.  I found that I really, really, really don't like coconut extract.  Who knew.  I don't think I ever used it before.  Also, they call for powdered food coloring which I didn't have but I used regular red liquid food coloring and shook up the coconut in a plastic bag until it was pink.  It worked pretty well. 

You have to remove the cupcakes from the paper liners and dig out a small hole in the middle for the filling. 

Mine weren't all that pretty but that's ok because you cover them in icing and coconut anyway.  So you pipe some icing into the holes and then you are supposed to refrigerate them but I didn't because I'm impatient.  Then you ice the whole outside (except for the bottom) and dunk them in coconut.  Place them nicely in a cute cupcake liner (that you can't see in this picture) and they turn out like this:

They look like what they're supposed to but I couldn't get past the coconut flavoring.  Frank and Dylan both liked them but I ended up making some plain vanilla buttercream and filling and icing some with that and topping them with coconut.  The cake was delicious and I'll definitely make them again but with just vanilla flavoring.  I think the coconut on the outside is enough.  Or maybe I just bought a dud bottle of coconut emulsion.  It's long gone now.

I'm looking forward to trying something else from this book.  During a lovely bout of insomnia last night I reserved four new cookbooks from the library so we'll see how that goes too.  I might actually find something else exciting to make.

Dr. Seuss's Birthday

When your dh teaches 4th grade, Dr. Seuss is a big deal.  In previous years he's done door decorating contests which I had lots of fun with.  This year they are doing stuff but nothing that I could entertain myself with so I had to come up with a plan on my own.

I googled Dr. Seuss cookies and found this.  I couldn't find neon food coloring but they turned out cute anyway.  I really wanted to do some royal icing decorated cookies and I found lots of lovely examples but the time constraints just wouldn't allow it so I went for these instead.

I used Georganne's (aka LilaLoa) vanilla variation recipe that you can find here.  It worked really well.  I didn't chill it first and used about 4 cups of flour.  Also I only used vanilla extract because that's what I like.

Anyway, here's the recipe:

The Vanilla Variation

from LilaLoa

 

1 cup butter

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoon vanilla

3/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

4 (or 4 1/2 cups) flour

Cream the butter and the sugar together well.  Add the eggs one at a time and mix well.  Add the vanilla.  Add in the salt and baking powder (which I think I used baking soda this time by accident and it worked fine).  Mix.  Add in the flour.  If you are using the dough right away you can add the whole amount of flour.  If you are going to chill it, stick with 4 cups even if it's a little sticky.  It will depend on the weather, the season, lots of things.  I used only 4 cups and used the dough right away and it was fine.



Separate the dough into however many colors you want and dye it with food coloring.  Using gloves is smart unless you like rainbow colored hands.

Pinch off a small piece and roll it into a ball.  I got about 25 or so from each color.  My purple looks brown in the picture.  It's not.  It's ugly purple.  I should have gotten a mixing chart out but I just squeezed in some red and blue and got a moderately unpleasant looking purple.  I doubt the 9 year olds will mind.

Take one ball from each color and make a ball, then start rolling it out into a snake like log.  Make note of the greasy fingerprints I've managed to put on my counter top from doing this!

Coil it around in a circle and place it on a baking sheet.  Leave a little room in between because they kind of puff up a bit. Bake at 350 for about 12 minutes.  I put the timer at 10 and kept my eye on them. 

The original idea I saw had sprinkles around the outside and while I did that they kind of ended up baking up underneath the cookie so they were unnecessary in my book.  I'll leave them off next time.  It might be nice to dip the rims in melted white chocolate and then dip them in sprinkles if you really want something like that but I lacked the time and the inclination to do it but it's an idea.

Also, after doing a whole tray with the bigger balls, I decided to pinch my colors in half and them put them together in a ball.

I liked the look I got with this better.  More variation in color.

Here's what they looked like when I got done.

They're colorful and Seuss like.  See how the sprinkles are?  I don't like that part but the rest is ok.  Plus I had fun making them.  We'll see how they go over.  And I promise the purple is prettier than it is in the photograph.

Chocolate Sable Cookies

I've been eyeballing this recipe on the Smitten Kitchen website for a week or more and I had to wait to get my dutch process cocoa from Amazon so I finally got a chance over the weekend to make these cookies.  Why grocery stores don't stock dutch cocoa I will never know.  I'm sure I could have found it somewhere but it's easier to wait for the UPS person.

 Anyway, they were worth the wait.  I had a little trouble with the recipe and made a few changes to the original recipe.  I had to add an extra egg yolk and when that didn't make the dough come together I added two more tablespoons of butter and beat the heck out of it.  That did the trick.  I was worried the texture wouldn't be sandy and sable like but they came out just fine.

See...

I have much baking on the agenda for Valentine's day.  These were just for us but I'm making a couple of things for my husbands 4th grade class.  It'll be fun.  Maybe I'll share.

What's Next

My house and my brain are in perpetual states of "what if".  I always want to do something but I need to come up with cost efficient ways to do so. We've had tons of company lately.  Some of the sleep over variety (which was fun) and some just for dinner which was also fun.  The sleep over company made me really get my act together.  The third floor of our house gets the least amount of attention from me so I spent quite a bit of time up there cleaning and organizing and throwing things out.  We managed to score a futon frame for free and I bought a mattress from Amazon so we had something for people to sleep on.  There was no way I was taking in a second hand mattress.  That stuff just screams bedbugs to me.  Ick.  Anyway, after I got that all figured out, I started working on the ugly, gross bathroom.  I scrubbed it until it sparkled and I bought a new, non squishy, toilet seat as well as a new shower curtain and some pretty bath mats.  It still doesn't help the ugly floor but at least it's usable.

My real goal is to get a dormer put in up there but unless I win the powerball that is probably not going to happen.  Last time I got an estimate it was $12,000.  If I want the bathroom redone, which I do, it would probably be another 10k.  I think if I did redo the bathroom I would opt for a double vanity and a stall shower but all of this is just dreaming anyway.  I have two kids to put through school so it's doubtful that any of this will happen any time soon.  Probably the best I'm going to get is to paint the ugly green trim white.  That I could afford.  And maybe a new light fixture too.  

If I knew then what I know now...

Overall, I'm extremely pleased with the kitchen, but as with most things, hindsight is 20/20 and there are a couple of things I would probably have done differently.  The biggest thing is that the refrigerator area lost about 3 inches between the plans and the actual building.  Because of this, when you open the freezer door, it bangs into the wall.  Plus you can't really open it all the way which will be a problem should I ever need to pull out the bins, etc to clean.  Knowing me, that won't happen often.  The other thing I would like to have changed is that the refrigerator door bangs into the dishwasher door if it's open at the same time.  This could all have been alleviated if only I had chosen a top/bottom fridge/freezer instead of a side by side.  But it wasn't supposed to be this way so there was no way to know that.  I also would have gotten an electrical outlet in the utility closet in the laundry area.  I'm going to have it put in because you need a place to charge up the little hand held vacuum and stuff.  Speaking of electrical, I would most likely have gotten the dimmer switches over by the desk instead of by the dining area.  It's a tiny thing but I tend to use the ones by the desk more and I like to have all of the switches either up or down.  It's a stupid thing but it's my ocd tendencies! 

Probably the biggest thing is that I might have gotten tile in the kitchen area instead of wood had we known that there was going to be a threshold in the floor the way there is.  See, another thing that couldn't have been helped.  Really, the only reason I would rather have less wood is because the dog is going to wreck it with his stupid nails.  He can't walk without spazzing out and he digs his toes in and makes scratches.  Lots of scratches.  We will have to save up so that when he dies we can have the floors refinished the next day.  The living room is so bad I finally had to take stain on some qtips and paint the deep scratches because they were so unsightly.  I was thinking of getting a runner in the kitchen but it's likely he would wreck that or I'll get it all greasy from cooking.  Hard to say.  I love the wood though and I hate cleaning grout so it's probably all for the best. 

Anyway, here are some pictures from the real camera:





This is what you see when you walk in through the dining room and pantry area

  



If you turned around, this is what you would have just walked through.  Pantry on the right, powder room on the left.

  





This is the family room.  The coffee table is temporary but will probably still be there next year.

   Someday I'll hang up the pictures.  It's such a committment.