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I’m taking a little detour today from my usual edible fare on these pages. It’s only a slight detour, though, because I do make deodorant in my kitchen and technically it is edible. I’ve been making it for years out of frugality and a desire to avoid chemical deodorant, but now it’s a necessity. [...]
Ruth from Makey-Cakey was our March 2013 Daring Bakers’ challenge host. She encouraged us all to get experimental in the kitchen and sneak some hidden veggies into our baking, with surprising and delicious results! Hi! It’s been a while. Planning our handmade wedding and dealing with some potential food allergies have kept me out [...]
The December 2012 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by the talented Marcellina of Marcellina in Cucina. Marcellina challenged us to create our own custom Panettone, a traditional Italian holiday bread! Making panettone from scratch is not for the faint of heart. When conditions are ideal, it’s a full day project. When conditions aren’t ideal [...]
This week we’ve had our first real batch of winter weather. The mountains are capped with snow and the puddles on our patio are edged with ice. What better way to celebrate the season than with snow-capped cookies? This recipe was one of our choices for last month’s Daring Bakers challenge. I ran out [...]
Or, How To Celebrate The Fiancé’s Birthday With Gobs Of Butter And Sugar (And Lego Candles). This southern cake is rich enough to make anyone feel like a million bucks, and weigh a million tons. All kidding aside, I’ve had this recipe sitting in my recipe pile for years. It was just waiting for [...]
Holiday season is the time for sharing and Peta of Peta Eats is sharing a dozen cookies, some classics and some of her own, from all over the world with us. Foaming cookies?! With a name like that, I couldn’t resist choosing this recipe out of the dozen that we were offered for this [...]
The flour has been flying in this kitchen. See this bread dough? It almost escaped its rising bowl while I put together a vegan pie crust. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and we’re doing it up big this year. Meaning, cooking a meal for six when there’s really only two of us (well, three if you [...]
Banana bread is simple comfort food. As the summer farmers’ market winds down for the season, we transition to purchasing more of our fruits and veggies at the supermarket. Bananas have become a staple in our fruit bowl, and they seldom last long enough to be made into bread or muffins. I’ll have to [...]
It’s time to dust the cobwebs off the blog (though they are seasonally appropriate, aren’t they?) and fire up the oven for some autumn baking. Between the oppressive heat, a new job, volunteer work, and planning a wedding, this poor blog has been a bit neglected of late. But with the cooler temperatures and [...]
Patri of the blog, Asi Son Los Cosas, was our September 2012 Daring Bakers’ hostess and she decided to tempt us with one of her family’s favorite recipes for Empanadas! We were given two dough recipes to choose from and encouraged to fill our Empanadas as creatively as we wished! This month the Daring [...]
Soft Molasses Cookies (minus the crystallized ginger) – chewy, spicy, addictive. Have a Monochrome Monday post to share? Leave a link in the comments.
Kat of The Bobwhites was our August 2012 Daring Baker hostess who inspired us to have fun in creating pate a choux shapes, filled with crème patisserie or Chantilly cream. We were encouraged to create swans or any shape we wanted and to go crazy with filling flavors allowing our creativity to go wild! [...]
I have officially earned the title of Crazy Dog Lady. Yes, I baked a birthday cake for our greyhound Maggie. After a racing career and stints in two other homes, she’s found her forever home with us. And if that isn’t reason enough to celebrate, she just turned 8 years old. This [...]
Or, How To Celebrate The Fiancé’s Birthday With Gobs Of Butter And Sugar (And Lego Candles). This southern cake is rich enough to make anyone feel like a million bucks, and weigh a million tons. All kidding aside, I’ve had this recipe sitting in my recipe pile for years. It was just waiting [...]
Our July 2012 Daring Bakers’ Host was Dana McFarland and she challenged us to make homemade crackers! Dana showed us some techniques for making crackers and encouraged to use our creativity to make each cracker our own by using ingredients we love. This challenge came along at just the right time. Not too [...]
We’ve finally gotten a reprieve from the triple digit temperatures, and I’ve been back in the kitchen with the mixing bowls out and flour all over my shirt. I’ve been baking up a storm, but I’m baking the same thing every time I enter the kitchen: this blackberry chocolate chip quick bread. True [...]
Have a Monochrome Monday post to share? Leave a link in the comments.
My latest obsession? Affogatos. I am thisclose to purchasing a stovetop espresso maker so that I can make them at home. When I heard about the 2012 Ice Cream Cupcake Contest, hosted by Cupcake Project and Scoopalicious, my affogato-obsessed mind gravitated toward some sort of ice cream cupcake combo with a liquid poured [...]
Mandy of What The Fruitcake?! came to our rescue last minute to present us with the Battenberg Cake challenge! She highlighted Mary Berry’s techniques and recipes to allow us to create this unique little cake with ease. In honor of the Queen’s Jubilee this month, the Daring Bakers were challenged to create a [...]
The fiancé and I eat a mostly vegetarian, organic, and local diet, which means that we cook almost all of our meals at home. On the rare occasion that we decide to eat out, our choices are pretty limited. There is one local restaurant that shares our passion for quality food: Farm Artisan [...]
With temperatures soaring into the 90s, even the most severe pizza craving can’t force me to turn on the oven. Here’s a sneak peek at a recipe in development – stovetop skillet pizza. It was quite delicious, but we’ll have to test a few more iterations before it’s published. Have a Monochrome Monday [...]
This is ice cream at its simplest. Cream, milk, a touch of sweetness and a punchy cinnamon flavor. It’s made without eggs, so you won’t be doing any of that stovetop custard-making business. The result is a lighter, thinner consistency and a refreshing treat for a hot summer day. The cinnamon burst [...]
Celebrating our engagement with a champagne toast – in Red Sox pint glasses, of course. Have a Monochrome Monday post to share? Leave a link in the comments.
Sunday mornings at à la minute creamery, there’s just one item on the menu: affogato. It’s a perfect balance between hot and cold, bitter and sweet, espresso and ice cream. It starts with a scoop of pure vanilla bean ice cream, made with organic cream and frozen on the spot with liquid [...]
Lack of inspiration: I know you’ve felt it too. Yesterday I found myself with a desire to bake but no inkling of what to bake. A search through the bookmarked recipes in my web browser’s “To Bake” folder yielded a couple of prospects that were shot down due to lack of ingredients. So [...]
May’s Daring Bakers’ Challenge was pretty twisted – Ruth from The Crafts of Mommyhood challenged us to make challah! Using recipes from all over, and tips from “A Taste of Challah,” by Tamar Ansh, she encouraged us to bake beautifully braided breads. Everything seed mix is the new black around here. It [...]
Shot with a Polaroid Spectra Camera and Impossible Projoct PZ600 film We spent yesterday afternoon playing in the dirt. Or rather, working as quickly as possible to get the herbs into the ground before we collapsed from heat stroke. It’s been 6 months since we started this project, and we weren’t about to [...]
I’ve been away for a while. Were I an organized blogger, I would have set up some scheduled posts to keep you all entertained while we drove halfway across the country and back. But I hardly know what I’m going to post as I’m posting it, never mind a week or two in [...]
A peek into my baking cupboard a few years ago would have revealed one lonely bag of standard all-purpose flour. I figured that, true to its name, it could be used for any baked good. It served me well for years until I began to bake bread. A few lackluster loaves and sourdough [...]
The Daring Bakers’ April 2012 challenge, hosted by Jason at Daily Candor, were two Armenian standards: nazook and nutmeg cake. Nazook is a layered yeasted dough pastry with a sweet filling, and nutmeg cake is a fragrant, nutty coffee-style cake. It feels good to be back to baking. The familiar whir of my [...]
Have a Monochrome Monday post to share? Leave a link in the [...]
Happy Spring, my friends. The grapevines have started to send out new shoots and our irises are in full bloom. The chard that we planted two years ago has cropped up yet again, despite the very sporadic watering regimen that I have subjected it to. But my very favorite part of this season [...]
The official title for this recipe is “The Heart-Healthiest Chocolate Chip Cookies in the World”. They also happen to be vegan, but with the title as long as it is, the vegan label seems to have been dropped. I’m more inclined to name this recipe “Go Ahead, Just Try To Get These Cookies [...]
Sara and Erica of Baking JDs were our March 2012 Daring Baker hostesses! Sara & Erica challenged us to make Dutch Crunch bread, a delicious sandwich bread with a unique, crunchy topping. Sara and Erica also challenged us to create a one of a kind sandwich with our bread! Think sourdough is the [...]
Monochrome Monday has been on a bit of a hiatus, but I’m working on making it a more regular event and encouraging more participation from all of you! I’ve been posting mostly film images, which accounts for the delay in between posts. If I’m not shooting Polaroid, I’ve got to wait until I [...]
Happy belated Pi day! I meant to have this pie constructed, consumed, and posted in time for Pi Day yesterday. It might even have been decorated with mathematical equations. But life got in the way. A trip to the emergency vet in the wee hours of the morning and the subsequent sleepless nights [...]
Spring has announced itself by treating us to a string of 75-80 degree days. The wildflowers are out in full force, turning vacant lots into a sea of yellow and orange punctuated by blue and white. Our local brewery has just released their spring brew, and St. Patty’s Day is right around the [...]
If ever there was a brownie that called (rather, screamed) for a glass of milk, this is it. This cake-like dark chocolate brownie, with streaks of peanut butter that make their best effort to glue your mouth shut, is definitely intense. And intensely addictive. Because I have delusions that brownies can actually [...]
The Daring Bakers’ February 2012 host was – Lis! Lisa stepped in last minute and challenged us to create a quick bread we could call our own. She supplied us with a base recipe and shared some recipes she loves from various websites and encouraged us to build upon them and create new flavor [...]
In 15 minutes flat, you can have two servings of chocolate cake on your table. Warm, gooey cake topped with melty chocolate chips. Sure, it may come from the microwave instead of the oven (oh, the horror for baking purists such as myself!), but when it comes to a warm slice of chocolatey [...]
I know there are plenty of die-hard Valentine’s Day revelers out there. Me, I could take it or leave it. Flowers, jewelry, and all that – not my thing. But chocolate cookies are definitely my thing. Homemade chocolate valentines, with icing? Yup, those are also my thing. Homemade valentines, whether they’re edible or [...]
No camping trip is a proper camping trip until you’ve set a few marshmallows on fire. Or, if you’re patient and the coals are red-hot but not too much so, roasted those marshmallows to the perfect degree of brown and blistered with a gloriously gooey center. A center that’s hot enough to just [...]
My Delight Cupcakery's Red Velvet Raspberry Cheesecake Cupcakes Another year, another 38 cupcakes down. Well, not quite. I made it through almost all of the 38 cupcakes at the Los Angeles Cupcake Challenge this past weekend, and called in the reinforcements (The Boyfriend and a few meat-eating friends for the bacon cupcakes) to [...]
Audax Artifex was our January 2012 Daring Bakers’ host. Aud worked tirelessly to master light and fluffy scones (a/k/a biscuits) to help us create delicious and perfect batches in our own kitchens! Simple pleasures are never underrated. A beam of winter sunshine slanting in through the window. A cat that knows just where that [...]
Don’t panic. Hostess may have filed for bankruptcy, but Twinkies aren’t going to disappear anytime soon. And even if the day comes when they’re no longer on supermarket shelves, don’t fret. I’ve got you covered. You can bake your own classic vanilla Twinkies, try something a bit different with pumpkin Twinkies, or satisfy [...]
Attraversiamo. Italian for “let’s cross over”. While in Italy, Elizabeth Gilbert fell in love with this phrase. She also fell in love with gelato, a fact that was glossed over in the movie version of Eat, Pray, Love. But her love for gelato is more pronounced in the book, where she muses that [...]
Pink Lemons ? Pink Lemonade. It sure sounds like a pink lemon would be the secret ingredient in a glass of pink lemonade, but the variegated pink flesh Eureka lemon is pink in the flesh only. The juice runs clear. As for the ingredient that produces the famous color of pink lemonade, it’s [...]
Shot with a Polaroid Spectra and Impossible Project PZ600 film Have a Monochrome Monday post to share? Leave a link in the comments.
These muffins came dangerously close to being devoured before they were even muffins. Let me just say that there is nothing like the flavor of browned butter, especially when combined with cinnamon, oats, and sugar. Whole wheat flour adds depth and nuttiness, and perhaps a bit of health to these muffins. I certainly [...]
