dessert

Today was a better day, so to celebrate it let's talk sweets.

Remember those apples we picked? Last month I did get around to making a pie--an apple crumb, to be precise. I bought the crust, chopped the apples, pulsed some stuff in the food processor, and bam, delicious!


We still had a handful of apples left over, so a week or two after the first one, I tried another recipe. This was an apple crisp. It was also delicious!



Almost forgot--made some seasonal sugar cookies for the party last week (bats, trees, and hearts). They were a hit at the office yesterday.



Last and certainly not least, I bought myself a Costco cake for my birthday. :) YUM!

cobberilific

Ms M is back in NYC for the summer! She stayed with us for a bit, and brought back a big bag of freshly-picked blueberries after a weekend trip. She suggested we make a cobbler with them. I was nervous; I've been too scared of baking pie and pie-related things. However, cobbler is super easy, and the recipe we found was delicious.

You just throw the berries in with some sugar, cornstarch and lemon juice, and dump it into a pie plate.

Then you mix the topping dough by hand (no mixer or fancy tools needed) and drop it on top of the berries, and put the whole thing into the oven!


Oh my goodness, it was so, so good. Especially warm with vanilla ice cream. I highly recommend this recipe--the topping has cinnamon in it! The other recipes I perused didn't and I'm sure they couldn't have been as yummy.

Last week I couldn't stop thinking about the delicious cobbler and also that strawberry cobbler sounded really good. So over the weekend, we made one!


The strawberries needed a bit of pre-cooking, in a pot with the sugar and cornstarch, and some water. It made for a gooey paste of sweet deliciousness, which then was covered with that delicious topping!


Oh my goodness, it was amazing. YUM.

cookie time

I've mentioned that one of my 2011 goals is to try one new recipe a month. (I missed one in April, which can be forgiven because I was out of the country for half of it.) Extra bonus because I can bring the results to the office, where they are convinced I'm a great baker. Ha!

Anyway, this week there was a barbecue at the office, for my supervisor who is moving away (but staying with the company). We had the barbecue on our patio (yet another great thing about this company), and it was originally a potluck. So I figured it would be a perfect time to try out something new and hopefully tasty.

When we were at Costco last, I got some dried cherries. Later on, I thought about adding them to chocolate chip cookies, but a colleague suggested oatmeal cherry cookies instead! Doesn't that sound delicious?

I'm sure it would be...unfortunately that was not meant to be, as the husband has eaten almost all of the cherries. :) (The grocery store across the street has all the dried cranberries in the world, and not a single dried cherry. Harrumph.) So I just went with oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies, as always from Slow Like Honey.


They turned out okay. I see why dried fruit is so much better with an oatmeal recipe. Oats are dry! I didn't even put in the full 3 cups of oats (more like 2 1/2) and they are very oaty. Could have used even more chocolate chips to balance the dry. I still would like to try them again with dried cherries! Today I was out and bought some nutmeg, as I noticed that coming up in other ingredients, and is a pretty common spice for cookies and cakes.

Of course, I made some banana bread also. I only had two large ripe bananas instead of three medium, and I think I can taste a difference. It doesn't seem as dense and moist and banana-y. But still pretty good!

nom nom

It's been a long time since I've made any sweet treats. Last week I had cookies on the brain, but no time.

On Saturday I met up with some friends, and while we were out and about, passed an ice cream sandwich truck. They looked tasty but I remembered that I can just make cookies! Also that I can't afford to buy a five-dollar dessert. (....though I bought a two-dollar Dough donut while at the Brooklyn Flea that morning...)



That night, as I was in the middle of making dinner, I decided to just do it. But I didn't want chocolate chip again, as I've done those a few times. I wanted to try something new. I came across a recipe I'd found for snickerdoodles and decided to just go for it.

Now you may remember my struggles with cookies and cupcakes, so of course I was worried that these also wouldn't be right. Especially when I put things together in the wrong order. (I always do that! Even though I profess to be good at Reading the Directions!) But I forget ahead, and loved rolling the doughballs in the cinnamon-sugar mixture.

Lo and behold! It worked! They came out beautifully, and tasted exactly like snickerdoodles are supposed to taste--delicious!



I took these pictures on my iPhone and ran them through Instagram. You've probably heard about it from everyone and their sister. It's a free app, and it's always lots of fun to try out different filter effects on your photos. Recently they added a tilt-shift feature!

spring, etc

At the beginning of the month, I wanted to make some cupcakes. I agonized over which recipes to use, settling on this sour cream recipe from smitten kitchen for the cupcakes, and this easy chocolate frosting recipe from Martha Stewart.

With this baking attempt, I learned the hard way that creaming butter and sugar does *not* mean beating them together, so the cupcakes were a little grainy. I don't like sour cream, and I've never made anything with it before, so I was a little skeptical. But I hoped that it would make it creamy and moist, and I do want to try new things. Unfortunately, the taste to me was a little weird, though other people seemed to like them okay.

The frosting, though! Oh, that frosting...I may or may not have eaten a few bites straight from a spoon. It's super simple, mostly butter, which explains why it's so freaking delicious. This is now my go-to frosting. I dipped apples in it, I dipped banana in it. It would be gorgeous on strawberries. Or cookies or ice cream or anything you want. YUM.

Last weekend I decided I needed to make something. Since I bought a Giant Bag of Chocolate Chips at Costco, it was time for another batch of Nestle Tollhouse cookies. Thankfully, mine and the husband's colleagues ate most of the cookies so I didn't have to. (Of course, I had plenty of dough while getting ready to bake...)

Last night I really wanted something cakey, but I didn't want to bake an entire thing. So instead I heated up a treat I've been saving in the freezer for awhile: Trader Joe's Chocolate Lava Cake. Diviiiiiiine.

In weather news, check it out:



The weather is slowly but surely improving; Friday was absolutely glorious! Today, the first day of spring (!), is in the 40s. But the overall trend is definitely going the right way.

I went for a bike ride to book club! Can't wait for real biking weather!

Did you see last night's "Supermoon"?


I've done three photo shoots within the past week. I still have some editing/processing to do for two of them. I love being out and about trying to take good portraits. I really want to do more!

Here, Have a Cookie

You probably need one. I know I do.


Dude, what happened to my weekend? Whew. I have been steadily doing stuff all day, working through a giant to-do list, getting all frizzled and frazzled with something calling my attention everywhere I looked. I did get through a lot--some work stuff; an errand for a friend (which I biked to, so I could check off 'work out' too); photographing things to put up on craigslist; some exciting research for our spring honeymoon!; and I joined a model/photographer website, which prompted several hours of fun, editing older photos. In the evening I finally noticed that I'd made a huge mess all over the apartment, so I put on some music and got to tidying. As much as I hate cleaning, I do like looking around at a neat apartment.

One task for the day was making cookies. I had decided on sugar cookies so I could use my rolling pin and cookie cutters. I used another recipe from Slow Like Honey. And thankfully, they turned out great! They taste just like Christmas cookies you leave out for Santa. Hurray!

After Mister Beana's comment about baking powder, I carefully leveled the measuring spoon. And there is no baking powder in this recipe, and it doesn't have the funny taste. My next step in the Mystery of the Weird Cookie Taste is to try another recipe, using new baking soda and very carefully level the spoon.

Now I should probably eat some dinner. And then try to relax a bit. But gah, still so many things to work on...

What I've Made Lately (Edible Version)

Wow, I haven't updated my kitchen adventuring since September. That's an easy blog post. :)

First, I made more cookies. The second try at chocolate chip (from my Betty Crocker book) were also bad. The third (a recommended recipe from smitten kitchen) was much better, but still not quite good enough.


Next, I took advantage of the bad bananas in our kitchen to finally try banana bread! I am happy and relieved to say that it turned out really tasty. Especially with my flash of genius to sprinkle chocolate chips on the top. :) I used Martha Stewart's recipe as written on Slow Like Honey, except I didn't use nuts. (I don't like nuts in baked goods.)


With all that buttermilk left in the fridge (from the banana bread), I needed to find another recipe to use more. Duh--buttermilk biscuits! I found a few recipes and went with this Southern recipe from food.com that got lots of positive reviews. I made them for Husband, because he's nice, and so I decided to make them heart-shaped. I had started cutting a very rough shape with a knife when I remembered that I do own a heart-shaped cookie cutter! It's the only one I have, and it was a wedding favor from at least ten years ago (shit!). I always kept it in my implement drawer just in case and finally got to use it! Hurrah!

The biscuits came out very tasty and adorable too.


Since the cookie cutter is so small, we ended up with a lot of biscuits. So I brought a bunch in to the office, my first week or so, to much excitement. :)

A week later, I finally got around to using two things I'd been looking forward to: a cookbook from Peanut Butter & Co, and a jar of their Dark Chocolate Dreams peanut butter. I was going to do regular peanut butter cookies, but the facing page was for Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies...and that sounded good! So I made these, chocolate peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, and they were pretty delicious!


The last few weeks have been pretty busy and I haven't baked anything. This past week I was getting anxious to make something, so on Friday I made more biscuits. That afternoon I had gone to Target and picked up some more cookie cutters too, so I was excited to make some new shapes. :)

As they were in the oven, I decided to try for another goodie that I hadn't made before. I was flipping through the Betty Crocker cookbook for a cookie inspiration, when brownies caught my eye. Mmm, I do love a good brownie.


Unfortunately, these are not very good brownies. (They aren't quite sweet enough, and that damn funny taste that cursed my chocolate chip cookies showed up again.) Now, has that stopped me from eating bites here and there for the last two days? Including first thing this morning? No, it has not. :) Because, hello, chocolate, sitting right there on the counter--how can one resist?! This one cannot. And that's okay.
Nancy suggested two good recipes and I look forward to making more brownies that actually taste good.

Yesterday we also made some more banana bread. I am relieved that it is quite yummy. (I was worried that the earlier experience might have been a fluke.)

I bought some new baking soda in hopes of making a new, good batch of chocolate chip cookies. At Costco yesterday, I bought four pounds of butter (in bulk it's almost half the price! baked goods require a lot of butter!), though I resisted the four pound bag of chocolate chips for five dollars (which was probably dumb to pass up). I'll make sure to let you know how it goes!

If you have any dessert suggestions for me to try (I like trying new things so I can take pictures), I would love to hear them!

toss those cookies

I'm feeling down this evening.

It started with being responsible and saying no to a fun day with friends that would also cost $40. I like friends and fun, and as a matter of fact, this year has had so much more of both. [This thrills me but also makes me wonder if it's just pity (oh right, her....well, i guess we can invite her this time...), and of course I always expect that they will realize any day now what a loser I am and have nothing more to do with me.] I originally said yes but am backing out now the night before, and that makes me feel guilty and icky and dumb and poor and stupid.

In general it made me frustrated all over again about the fine line of money and other people. I hate thinking about money. I want to hang out with people and have fun, not think about how much I have and trying to calculate the smallest amount I could possibly spend while still participating in the activity (ie, having my cake but not having to pay for it). This is tedious and spiritually exhausting.

But this is going to be my life for the foreseeable future, and I have to suck it up and deal with it. Which I kind of hate.

It's all just depressing.
Then came the cookies.

No, this is not about vomit, it's about actual cookies that literally need to be tossed because they're kind of gross. Last night I mixed up my first batch of cookie dough and I was so excited.

I read that NY Times article this summer about The World's Best Cookie For Food Snobs And Kitchen Know-It-Alls. It said that all the good chefs chill their dough and there was an experiment comparing non-chilled and varied-time-chilled doughs and the longer-chilled dough resulted in the tastiest cookies.

So, since I'm all 'woo hoo check me out in my cooking or baking or whatever phase!', I chilled my cookie dough for a full twenty-four hours.

And the cookies suck.

Which, because I am twelve, means I suck too.

It's too bad that feeling sorry for yourself isn't a job, because I'm great at it and then I would be totally rich.

what i've been up to, domestic version

I've actually been up to a lot outside of the work/not-work world! Pretty much 50s housewife stuff, which is a fun role to try on. :) (Fun because it's a choice not a mandate! Yay freedom and equality and stuff. :D)

With all of our new gadgets, I've been excited to try out some new things in the kitchen. I finally stocked up on basic ingredients like flour, baking powder, unsweetened cocoa, etc, and have been trying out a few recipes.

We got an electric hand-mixer and I love it! It makes mixing things so much fun and way easier too. :)

I made Belgian waffles!


I made cupcakes and frosting from scratch!



We got this sweet blender-slash-food-processor and I love that too! I used it to chop onions and garlic. I've made some smoothies and recently we're working on making a good fresh salsa (we've tried twice but something's off with our proportions, and/or we need more/different spices):

Awhile back I bought a slicer thingy, and last week I finally broke it out to make some fried potatoes!


I am going to try some chocolate-chip cookies next. Very excited to try those out! :)

I've also gotten the crocheting bug again in a major way.

I completed my first blanket (the world's easiest baby-sized blanket with giant yarn, but hey, it still counts!):
I also made my first pair of fingerless mitts, or wristers as this pattern dubbed them:

This is all just in the last couple weeks! I'm halfway through another project right now, and now I'm starting to think ahead to the holidays, for simple and useful things I could give family.

We got all of our wedding photo stuff, and I'm excited to look through them again and order some prints and things!