Hiatus

The hiatus is officially over, that is until the next one begins. I've been extremely busy in my time off; mainly being pregnant and having a baby. A beautiful baby girl who will be one in nearly a month. Time sure does fly.

I've been absent mostly because I've had a hard time carving out free time for myself. I've had ideas, don't get me wrong. I've even implemented some of them -- painting the nursery, making prints for the baby room, painting the foyer, sewing some blankets, etc. Despite these small victories, my creative brain has been on hold.

Well, hold no more.

Given that my time is limited, I've decided to plunge back into things while also crossing items off the "to-do" list. We need to eat. Our weekdays are nearly impossible when it comes to preparing meals. Despite the fact little one is now eating all solid foods, pm and I just don't dedicate our time on meal prep.

For my last big (ahem, ahem) birthday, pm got me a great gift. A gift that in theory should keep on giving. A cookbook -- and not just any cookbook -- Julia Child's cookbook. I highly doubt I will Master the Art of French Cooking, but I am going to try one recipe at a time. I am also not just going to do it from this book. We have lots of cookbooks and recipe cards that just never get used. I tend to earmark and collect the ones that have beautiful pictures; but I think what attracts me most about Child's cookbook is that the art is very limited.

I want to try to make recipes and then photo document them. On the menu tonight--since baking is my therapy, I needed a little break and we have 6# of blueberries in the house--I have decided to make Clafouti aux Myrtilles (aka Blueberry flan). We'll see how it turns out. Both the flan and my little plan.

Bon Appétit!

baking anyone?

Carbohydrates are my friend. In the past few weeks I have baked more carbs than the rest of the year combined. I've made cake, zucchini bread and wheat bread.

The bread in this photo is a wheat bread. Somehow in the move I discovered 2 full pages of whole wheat flour. Since this is not a common every day baking flour, I had to be creative on ways to use it. I wish my braid would have turned out better. Maybe next time I'll post the photo of the finished product.

Anyway, I blame all my recent baking on the new kitchen. Our new digs have amazing natural light, so the kitchen is always bright. We also have a lot of space for spreading things out--perfect for laying out ingredients and recipe books.

My recent craze for baking is two-fold:

(1) I have been craving sweets and homemade items like a crazy woman. Since I enjoy baking and enjoy eating, I didn't need any other excuses.

(2) I wanted to test out the new oven and make sure it was working how it should be. Wouldn't want to move in & not make sure all the appliance work? A cardinal sin.

I have a feeling I am going to continue to get very good use out of the kitchen. This will kick off this weekend in my annual task of making a birthday cake/pie/sweet for pm's birthday. I just need to find the recipe of what he wants. Once that is done and it has been made, it will be posted.

out of sugar

So I had this master plan on Friday night to bake. (I also had other "to-dos" on my list: clean, grocery shop, chill, watch a chick flick, have a fruity drink...etc.)

There was one major bump in my plan -- we were out of sugar. Literally - totally out of sugar. I had already gone out to do the grocery shopping and I was not about to go out again for sugar. There was going to have to be another baking option, sans sugar. Enter quiche. Rather than make the cupcakes and cookies I had originally planned, I decided to make a spinach, mushroom & swiss cheese egg pie. A good catch on my part.

Despite the success, that will be the last time I run out of sugar.

Whatever happened to the days when you could knock on your neighbor's door and ask for a cup of sugar or for an extra egg? As a kid, I used to run over the neighbor's house a lot to pick up random ingredients that we were lacking. Likewise, they did the same thing. Maybe someday when pm and I live in suburbia and know all of our neighbors, I will do that again.

Instead, we've always live in apartments. I have always found apartment living to be so isolating and sheltered. Sometimes it is nice - you don't have to know all of their business (even if you can hear it through the walls). You can maintain your distance and go on with your daily life. After all, apartment living (in most cases) is temporary housing.

I guess for me, I always wanted to get to know the neighbors. Have game nights, dinner parties, a watchful eye when you are out of town ...etc. *sigh* Maybe someday even if we don't live in a house I'll be able to knock on a neighbor's door for missing ingredients. Maybe someday...

Then I can also share my baked goods. There is no way pm and I are going to be able to eat a whole quiche on our own.

sicky.

Bah. Friday night and we're staying in. Staying in because pm is sick, very sick.

My goal for the evening is not to get too close. Instead I am going to do some girlie things. My plan is to go to the grocery store (stat!), bake (yes, against the diet rules), clean (not a girlie thing, but something I've got to do), watch a chick flick (provided pm goes to bed early!) and have a fruity drink (wish it could be another mai tai like we had last weekend in Milwaukee...).

In some senses it is kind of nice to have an excuse to relax. After a week of running around and keeping busy, it is nice to finally have to sit tight and chill. Something that I just don't feel like I do enough of it. I feel like I come home from work and then until I go to bed cannot turn my brain off. In fact, I can't even turn my brain off when I am asleep. I stopped reading dream analysis books; they can't keep up with me and my crazy dreams.

Anyway... without further ado, I'm getting things done. Hope ya'll have a nice Friday evening as well. And, a nice weekend.

gingerbread cookies, not men

Today was a day for baking. Not sure if it was the blizzard, the strong winds or just my strong desire for something sweet. I also needed an excuse to get my mind off things.

Just last weekend I was marveling over all of the cookie cutters I have. None of which have a holiday theme, but it doesn't matter. Just because they don't stand out as "holiday cookies" doesn't mean they don't taste the same.

I realized last weekend that I have hardly used any of my cookie cutters. It was time to make some dinosaur, flower, cat, star, etc., etc. cookies.

My main dilemma with baking is this: It's just pm and me. While I love to make cakes, breads, cookies, pies and other sweets, as just two people it's hard to finish everything. Or, the problem is that we do finish everything and then feel gluttonous. I need to come up with a better system. Make a half batch (nearly impossible to yield the same results), freeze the dough (not recommended) or give some away (best option.).

This is a continued theme that goes beyond baking. We have a hard time getting through a loaf of bread, gallon of milk or block of cheese without having to throw some out. In most cases, rather than throw items out (minus the milk), we freeze things. Our freezer is on system overload right now though. Anyway, what tips do you have for saving and sharing?

Here's the recipe for the gingerbread cookies we made:

1/2 c shortening

1/2 c sugar

1 t baking powder

1 t ground ginger

1/2 t baking soda

1/2 t cinnamon

1/2 t clove

1/2 c molasses

1 egg

1 t vinegar

2 1/2 c flour

Preheat oven to 375. Bake 5-6 mins, until edges are brown. [Note: Do not overcook, or forget about cookies in oven. I burnt a round. :( ]

Heart to Heart.

It's not that I don't have motivation, it's just that sometimes I have a hard time finding it (and the hours in the day to use it).

As I patiently await for my strawberry rhubarb pie to be complete, I am reflecting on all the creative projects that pm and I wanted to accomplish as of late. We had a heart-to-heart talk last night as the ampm crew. Creating this blog and deciding to actively post was one of our New Year's resolutions. So far, so good. However, I just don't know that it is enough. I want for this blog to be what pushes us to use our creativity on a daily basis. This may not always constitute a post (perhaps a tweet on our ideas instead), but it should at least motivate us to always be thinking about the next project, the next post.

We've been working really hard lately on making our place feel like home. I have noticed that by removing the clutter, donating items we no longer use, and switching up our wall art I already have a lot more energy to do things when I am at home. No longer will I be victim to just the couch and TV. (That said: pm got some amazing deal on cable. We now have the design channels. This has been proven to be a great way to encourage our creativity. It has also really made us want a house. :)).

Timer is going off. Time to take out my pie! (I'll post a picture soon of my delectable delight).

We're going to take a creative Jump! in the days, weeks and months to come. Hope that you'll be along for the ride. Step on board with us. Forward, ho!

30 Days of Creativity - Day 27: Happy Birthday to Me

Yep. Today's my birthday. Not quite sure what the celebration will entail for the day just yet, but whatever it is I am excited for it. I like to try to do something fun and different for my birthday every year; otherwise, it just feels like I am getting older or like any other ordinary day.

I wanted to highlight one of my favorite cakes for my post today: Angel food cake. I know I mentioned in a past post that I have a summer birthday and we always made homemade ice cream. To compliment the ice cream I almost always requested angel food cake. As I have gotten older I have learned that sometimes the best angel food cakes happen to be the ones that are layered with sorbet. I am partial to mango and raspberry.

So cheers to me and another year. I am very excited for what it will bring.

Here's a recipe for angel food cake from Alton Brown. (Mine didn't use quite so many egg whites, but also didn't look as fluffy when complete.)

Apple cobbler

An overcast day is always a good day to brush off the apron, roll up the sleeves, and get to baking. It also helps to have a full bag of apples and overripe strawberries in the fridge.

I thumbed through various apple recipes, knowing that a twist to any recipe would be necessary. I opted to make an apple cobbler, partly out of my laziness to not want to make a pie crust. I have been unsuccessful lately with my pie crusts. The recipe never seems to be quite enough dough to cover the entire pie, thus causing the filling to ooze and drip out the sides. Some day I'll master the art - Hopefully it is by Thanksgiving!

While I will admit baking does not yield the same amount of creative liberty that cooking does, it does still allow for some "outside of the recipe-thinking". Naturally, it is never a wise decision to mess with the amount of baking soda, baking powder and flour. I do think though that substituting oil for butter, yogurt for milk, and orange extract for vanilla are all perfectly acceptable options. I have personally done each and all have been successful.

So today (and mostly likely the rest of the weekend) I will have my cobbler and eat it too.

Back on track.

One way I have been able to gauge being "settled" in a new city and new apartment has been getting back into brewing. On a side note, we also realized that our reserves from previous batches (sangria tea ale, orange coriander wheat..etc.) were quickly dwindling. This helped expedite getting settled.

In many senses, brewing is just as "therapeutic" to me as baking. The one main different is time. Baking, thankfully!, only takes at the most a day to complete. Brewing on the other hand, requires patience, and at the very least 1 month to complete. I found each very difficult to mess up, but following directions and knowing the process is key.

We've got quite the pantry fermenting happily. Our spicy hard cider is bottled and will be ready to enjoy this fall. (See what I mean about patience?). Our belgium tripple is nearing the end of its secondary fermentation. Our raspberry slow stout (RSS) is almost ready for secondary fermentation.

I was thinking last week as the RSS was taking forever to start fermenting on just how much I enjoy the whole process. And, when I say whole process I mean it. Drinking your masterpiece is the big payoff, but having an adult science experiment in the house is exhilarating!

I have to laugh now as I was panicking that the yeast hadn't started to kick in 24+ hours after it was pitched. I realize now that this is not uncommon for stouts, especially when they contain lactose. This certainly is something I will keep in mind in the future. I look forward to learning more tips of the trade from the American Homebrewers Association. (We just got our membership!).

Now if only we knew what we'd like to brew next? We've got a couple recipes up our sleeve, as well as some exciting ideas, but we are certainly open for suggestions. Cheers!

double delight

This one goes out to the incredibly crafty & sweet Papersheep. I've added the chocolate chips in with you in mind!

Lately banana muffins* have been my fall back plan. We never seem to be able to eat them all before they start getting overripe. This doesn't bother me in the slightest - it's an excuse to bake! I really like using a banana bread recipe and making muffins. I've found they last longer, stay fresher, and are a much better serving size.

Here's to one of my (many) comfort foods: baked good. Hoorah!

+On an unrelated note, I have to add that I *love* how this photo came out. Our metallic cheese grater was to the right and I love how it's reflection dances across the image. A very pleasant surprise when I took a closer look at the image on the computer. I heart photo surprises!

*This is not the exact recipe I used. I like to add cinnamon & all spice. If you'd like mine, I'd be happy to share. :)