First time back in the kitchen (baking, that is), since you-know-who. Simple lemon bars, for a baby shower. Easy and simple, and much overshadowed by the delicious panna cotta made by a certain talented pastry chef.
lemon bars
The husband was bummed that I baked the bars only to take them to a party. So I made another batch today, though this batch stuck to the pan more than I like. Dang.
I told the husband last week that I didn’t want flowers on Valentine’s Day (what we prefer to call “VD”). I didn’t want jewelry (not that we can afford it right now). I didn’t want a fancy dinner. I all I wanted, I told him, was some petit fours from the Market. And he delivered. Hurrah!
petit fours for valentine's day
They are delicious. Light and airy, with a touch of marzipan in the center of two layers of cake. Just the right amount of sweetness.
Thanks to the husband!
So, we didn’t make it to Christmas dinner on Christmas day. Lousy weather, bad road conditions, and a trip up to the Sammamish Plateau was quite unappealing. Ditto for Christmas Eve. So yesterday we combined the two events into one and headed to Claire’s for presents and dinner.
But first, our Christmas, on Christmas Day.
Christmas Day with Max
He’s quite good at opening gifts. In fact, he was snooping around this gift (he sniffed it out) a few days early so I had to hide it until Christmas morning. Max. He is so tricky.
Dinner at Claire’s was excellent: Prime rib, potatoes, creamy pearl onions, creamed spinach, and a family tradition of Yorkshire Pudding. I had never had Yorkshire Pudding until I met the husband and his family. Yorkshire pudding, especially, the family recipe, is such a treat. Granted, there were a LOT of things I’d never heard of or tried before I met the husband and his family. It’s just what happens with families meld, isn’t it? I am fairly certain the husband had never heard of or seen a thousand-year-old egg before he met me. So, it goes back and forth.
Christmas dinner
The chef of the evening revealed that the recipes from the evening’s dinner came straight from Tyler Florence of all places. For dessert, Claire made a french treat, called something I can’t remember. Cafluti? Sweetened cherries surrounded by an egg custard. Very tasty, but no pic, sorry. I brought along lemon bars to share. And, as I’ve done quite a bit of baking this past week (what else are you going to do when you’re stuck at home), I made a point to leave them there. Before packing them up I taste-tested one of them. Pretty good. I should do these more often.
Lemon bars
Of course, we didn’t go home empty-handed. In addition to the generous gifts we received from the in-laws, the mother-in-law also sent us home with a tiered-plate of Christmas cookies (tea cakes, shortbreads, bourbon balls, jam thumbprints, sugar cookies, oh my); plus what she calls “nuts and bolts” but what I’ve always known as Chex Mix. Tasty.
And I’m sure my doctor will wonder how it is possible for one person to gain 20 pounds in one week. I should just refer her to chattycha.com.
Day 8, stuck here at the house. We ventured out yesterday to First Hill for a doctor’s appointment. While the freeways were clear of any snow, slush nor ice, the roads to and from the freeway were a far different story. First Hill being, you know, hilly, there were several main roads that were closed, so we went the most circuitous route possible to get to Madison and Minor. And, if you think it would make sense for the city of Seattle to, at the very least, plow the streets leading up to oh, I don’t know, a HOSPITAL, well ho ho ho are you way off-base. At least, I was when I said to the husband, “Surely Madison will be clear of snow.” The ride to the doctor’s was bumpy bumpy bumpy. Baby was not fond of the ride, so far as I can tell. We thankfully have a 4Runner with 4WD that got us to our destination, but boy was I nervous about all of the OTHER cars on the roads, like the lame Toyota Corolla in front of us trying to get to Capitol Hill, or the insane Honda Civic that thought it could bypass a “Street Closed” sign on Boren but then fishtailed and ran into the curb. Some great driving going on.
And, I’m not the only one complaining about the poor job the city has done with clearing the streets.
So, that was our only jaunt of the week (not including a two-mile round trip to UVillage over the weekend). Needless to say, we’re staying home as much as possible. As you might have guessed, I’ve been a little stir crazy. I baked cookies last week, intending to give them to some co-workers. Being as how I never made it back to the office, the work cookies soon became neighbor cookies. I made a batch of chocolate chip and a batch of sugar cut-outs, and frosted them with this lame icing from the BHG cookbook. I wasn’t crazy about the cookie dough, either, so I decided to try again.
For this batch, which I finished today, I used the Best Rolled Out Sugar Cookies. Seriously, that’s what they call them at allrecipes.com. I also found a frosting recipe from allrecipes. It is my go-to site for simple recipes and all-american cooking (i.e green bean casserole).
I had quite a bit of fun frosting these. The frosting is way better than what I used from BHG. BHG was basically powdered sugar and milk. Blech. I sent the husband out for food coloring and added it to the new version, made of powdered sugar, milk and butter (the original recipe called for shortening but I declined. I’m not sure what shortening does to frosting that butter doesn’t)
The toppings I got from Williams Sonoma, on sale. I’m hoping we make it to the in-laws tomorrow for Christmas, so I can give these cookies away. Otherwise I am going to come out of this snowstorm one roly-poly cookie-eating chica.
See more cookie pics on my flickr photostream.
BTW, I am not so clever as to have invented the title of this post. I have to give credit to Cupcake Royale.
Speaking of cupcakes, I imagine this frosting would be incredible on a nice chocolate cupcake. Yeah!
Another Thanksgiving come and gone! I asked the husband if he wanted to watch any Christmas movies today. He says we need to allow Thanksgiving to have its time in the limelight. I said it did … yesterday. He insists it needs the full weekend. So, no Rudolph or Frosty just yet. But, I bet before I return to work on Monday we will have our awesome fake Christmas tree out of storage. Happy Egg Nog.
Thanksgiving was at the in-laws last night. The lighting wasn’t very good in the dining room, so I apologize that the pics are sorta dismal. The highlights: a brined turkey. Incredibly juicy! The husband carved and was amazed at how pieces of turkey just fell out. Green bean casserole! What a great tradition. Stuffing! With water chestnuts and chicken liver. Yum. Oh so good.
thanksgiving plate
juiciest. turkey. ever.
green bean casserole
stuffing
Did I mention, the mother-in-law surprised us with a delicious chocolate pecan pie? Yum. The husband really loved it. I was glad we got to take some home.
MILs Chocolate Pecan Pie
And, I brought along the Bourbon Pumpkin Cheesecake.
Bourbon Pumpkin Cheesecake (the 2008 version)
I used a mix of reduced fat cream cheese and whole cream cheese, and for the topping I also combined low-fat sour cream with regular sour cream. If I can remember, for next year, I may do like the MIL, and try a new recipe. I’m not really a cheesecake eater, and this tends to be the only time of the year I will eat (let along bake) cheesecake. So, I’ll have to decide if I’m willing to give that up!
BTW, the cheesecake recipe is courtesy of Gourmet Magazine, on Epicurious.com
It’s the moon festival. Time for moon cakes! My dad sent me these this week: Mini Moon Cakes. Thanks, Dad!
Mini Moon Cakes. Yum.
Traditional moon cakes have a sweet bean paste center, with an cakey-egg yolk type thing in the center of the bean mash. I’m not describing it well, and if you’re turned off, well, no surprise. This is one of those things I’ve grown up with that I just love. The husband, upon trying it for the first time, took a bite and said no thanks. So now whenever I get a box (usually a gift from M&D), I get it all to myself.
This particular box of mini moon cakes (the minis don’t have the egg yolk, fine by me as it’s not my favorite part of the treat) was a variety. The traditional bean paste was replaced with various other sweet centers. Without knowing what the chinese words on each individually wrapped cake was, I discovered pineapple, lotus bean, green tea, some type of berry, and a couple of weird nutty ones. As you can see, I’ve sort of gone thorugh the box of 12 cakes a bit quicker than expected. It’s easy to do that when they are so tiny.
Happy Moon Festival to you all.
dessert pizza take two
This week we headed to the ‘Quah, again, but this time over to the husband’s cousin’s place. BBQ, risotto, salad. Everything was wonderful. And, for dessert, how about some dessert pizza.
There was a spell in my life when I wasn’t much into birthdays. I didn’t have birthday parties every year. Just kinda went with the flow, though I do remember a super-fun time I had when I turned 21. It included seeing “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” at the UofC Law School, then heading to a bar to legally drink. Which we did quite a bit of.
But, meeting, and then marrying, the husband has changed that quite a bit. It’s not a birth-DAY, but a birth-WEEK, with ongoing celebrations big and small. Want a pint? Why not, it’s your birthday. A Home Theater magazine? Sure it’s your birthday. It’s great for me, because when the husband’s birthday comes up, it’s sort of a like a second celebration for me … meals out, shopping, fun all around. More than once I thought to myself, I should get a cupcake, it’s my birthday. Wait a minute, it’s not my birthday. At any rate, these days I love celebrating birthdays.
Need I remind you, it’s birthday pie time! Y’all remember my birthday pie, right? Well, now, we have the husband’s. Banana cream pie, made by the mother-in-law, from, if I haven’t already told you, a recipe clipped from “Better Home & Gardens” from the 60s. Seriously.
banana cream birthday pie
Love it. We have pie for brakfast, lunch, and, if we’re not tired of it, a little for dinner. Yay, pie!
For part two of the husband’s birthday celebration, we headed down to Chinatown for some Dim Sum. Didn’t plan it, sort of serendipitously, but it seemed like the right thing to do. Rather than frequent a place we’d been to before, we tried something new, Duk Li DIm Sum.
The place was tiny, so no rolling carts to deliver treats to your table. Instead the waitress gave us a paper menu and we marked down what we wanted. Here is a taste …
Steamed turnip cake. Usually these are pan fried, and sorta greasy. This steamed version was much more appealing. Still, it's one of those weird looking things. The husband asked, "what's in it?" and I answered honestly, "I'm not entirely sure".
Spring rolls. Typical. Except, they were cold. I don't think they were supposed to be cold, but they were. A bit disappointing, and I wouldn't not have ordered them had I known (kinda funny, only because there were a few other dishes that were burning hot. We bit into these and were like, Oh. It's cold.)
Sticky rice dumplings. Wasn't sure what these were when I ordered then, but I ended up loving them. and not just because they were obviously deep-fried. "Sticky rice" is a made from a glutonous rice flour, a familiar ingredient in Chinese (and Japanese) cooking that is unique in flavor and texture. Love it.
Shrimp Rice Roll. I didn't know that this is what' they are called, but it's some typical dim sum for us. Tasty.
There are a few more pics of our Dim Sum lunch in my flickr photostream. Click on any of the pics above to hit the point in the photostream.
This final one isn’t from our Dim Sum outing, but very well could have been. I picked up a Sesame Ball from Mee Sum Pastry, now open in the University Distribut (the original shop is in Pike Place Market). I had been wanting one of these since I went out to Dim Sum in July with my sister and her family. So, here now, a month later, I finally get my just desserts.
Sesame ball with red bean paste in the center.
Happy Birthday to Me! I mean, the husband!
Last week we ventured out of our comfort zone and went over to the Eastside to visit Joanne & Pete. The live in the Issaquah Highlands, what I like to call The ‘Quah. As we’re driving up the hills to get to their house we pass by tons of cookie cutter homes, townhomes, condos and small shops that make up this development and I’m thinking to myself, yeah, maybe when we have kids and tire of the city and decide to move to the ‘burbs, maybe this could be a place I could live in. At the same time the husband blurts out, “Man, I could NEVER live here.”
Anyway, we had a fun afternoon of doggie play date plus BBQ. I won’t get into the details of the crazy antics Max performed (note to self … do NOT leave dogs out near the barbie, but more importantly do not leave food out in the open near the grill, with the dogs locked outside. Bad idea!).
The kids, Bode and Max, tired from playing, and wanting to come inside for eating, drinking and more playing.
The husband and I brought over his famous Asian Noodle Shrimp Salad (cold noodles, mixed with peanut oil, tomatoes, snow peas and other natural flavors). Small tangent here … I love this dish, a perfect summer dish. It is a recipe his mom handed down to him years and years (and years) ago. This time I made it. Now. I’ve been Asian all my live (oh really, you ask)… Yes. And not once do I recall my Chinese family every making a dish like this. Seriously. Is my memory just that bad? I remember chow mein type dishes in general, and maybe a peanut noodle dish and lots and lots of soy sauce. It is really very yummy and so easy to make, though. But, I digress.
Asian Noodle Shrimp Salad
Joanne outdid herself with very tasty turkey burgers (couldn’t even tell it was turkey, we all said, which, really, for a turkey burger, is the best compliment). Side salads and chips. For dessert Joanne whipped out these cool “dessert pizza pies”: Sugar cookies with a lime-cream cheese frosting, topped with fresh kiwi, strawberries and blueberries. Yum.
Dessert pizza pies
It’s now our time to host J&P for dinner back in the city. We’ve gotta get ourselves a grill first.
Yesterday, for the BBR dinner, I also made some cherry Jello. Basically, was looking for recipes that would utilize the Cool Whip topping I had purchased for the AFC. Jello was a nice summery dessert. Alas, I forgot to take pictures before we dug into the goodness. Fortunately we had one extra serving, which was finished this evening. I made sis dollop some Cool Whip on and took a pic before she could take a bite. The family is getting used to it. I think.
Earlier in the day, at the ID (I’ll be posting about Dim Sum shortly), we stopped at Yummy House Bakery for something sweet. I was really jonesing for a sesame ball, but alas the Yummy did not have them. I may find my way back to the ID for one before vacation ends. Until then, this sweet coconut bun, which I shared with the sis, was enjoyed.
One more dessert to offer, a chocolate cream puff. Don’t really need to expand on this.
Yay, vacation.