Nesting

We're decorating our rental. The landlord offered to paint before we moved in, but I need COLOR and I want to pick it out myself, so we made an agreement that he would pay for the paint if we did all the actual painting. So we started with these area rugs.


Pretty wild, right? But after living in a staged house for the last year, we were ready for something more "us." (That's Maude sneaking under the table.) Then I found this set of curtains at Goodwill. 96" (Ikea) curtains, $7. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with them, but I figured for $7 they'd make a great addition to my slowly growing fabric stash.


I ended up deciding to put them in the kitchen. One thing led to another, and the kitchen ended up lime green. The dark brown is going on the metal interior garage door and will be mixed with unsanded grout to make a magnetic chalkboard. The lighter brown is on two walls in the living room, and the cream is everywhere else.

I sorted through my fabric and found several scraps that would make up a nice table topper or wall hanging.


I sketched a few possibilities, but I have sooooo many projects in my head that need to get out, not to mention the few that are already started, I realized I didn't have time overthink it. Inspired by the theme of "improvisation" at last month's Portland Modern Quilt Guild meeting, I decided to just DO IT. I gave myself 60 minutes to see how far I could get without measuring or planning ahead. The idea was to just keep going. This is the result of one hour.


After two hours and some seam ripping, I declared it finished.


It measures 17"x18", so I'll probably add another inch to square it up and use it as a table topper. I've still got all those other fabrics to use -- napkins, pot holders, or...? --- plus the majority of the Goodwill fabric -- I only used the top 18" of one panel for this valance. I still need to hem it a couple inches and shorten the width, but I love it.


I'm pretty satisfied with my little improv experiment. I've got an almost-finished mini-quilt, something that never would have happened if I'd designed it to death.

On to the next project!

Happy Birthday, Oreo!

My first crack at baking since we moved from Bellingham to Portland about two weeks ago. I had to work downtown for about a week, and on one of my breaks I wandered over to Sur La Table. (Poor me, right?) I'd already planned on making the cupcakes -- but I wanted a coordinating liner, and I knew I'd be able to find something there.

Five days later I walked into The Decorette Shop and found an entire WALL of cupcake liners.

Since I'd already gotten some nice ones at Sur La Table, I just rejoiced in the fact that this supply is only eight wonderful, walkable blocks from my new home.

The first step was separating 26 cookies. I twisted a few, but Oreos aren't in my Top 5 Cookies list, and I didn't have the finesse necessary to prevent a cracked top. So I got out the paring knife for the rest of them. Broke a few tops in two, but kept all the pieces, figuring I'd handle them carefully and piece them back together, or just get lazy and stick shards of them in the top of the icing.

I quartered 20 more cookies and folded them into the batter.

I wanted a more uniform frosting application, so I had to dig around in the garage for one of the several "CAKE STUFF" boxes. As I was contemplating piecing the Oreo tops to make wholes, or just going the lazy, shard route, Eric walked by, saw all the pieces all over, and said "Ooooh, a puzzle!" Bonus.

I piped pretty cream cheese frosting rosettes on them (only to smash them with the oreo tops), and sent them on their way.

The box I got at The Decorette Shop was a tad too small for the 26 I made, so darn, I had to keep six.


I have Pinterest to thank for the desire to make these. The recipe is here.

Oh yeah -- I did in fact buy a box of Birthday Cake Oreos. I love cake, we know that. I'm not a huge fan of Oreos, we've established that too. They were okay. I used about 10 of them in this recipe because the bag of Double-Stuff Oreos had only 20. I don't think they affected the taste of the cupcakes that much, but on their own, they were just mediocre. A little too artificial tasting for me. I found a more detailed review here, if you're curious.

My New Therapy

My baking posts have become almost nonexistent. I still bake birthday cakes for faraway friends, but I've discovered quilting and haven't looked back. A lot more expensive than baking, but a much more satisfying creative outlet for me. Maybe my blog needs a name change?

Quilts of 2011

9-1-1 Steak

Eat.

Crock Pot Granola

One of my default desserts is Greek yogurt with granola, sometimes with fruit. We're both reading labels more and more lately, and since it's next to impossible to find granola in the grocery store without sugar, I decided to make my own. In the past I've made it the traditional way, on cookie sheets in the oven, but inevitably I always burned it. Then I stumbled upon this blog post about making it in the crock pot, so I tried again. Success!

2 1/2 cups oats
2 1/2 cups seven-grain mix
1/4 c. coconut
1/4 c. dried apricots
1/4 c. chopped almonds
1/4 c. raw sunflower seeds
1/4 c. raw pumpkin seeds
a few scoops of ground flax seeds


Add 1/4 c. melted butter (or nut butter -- I'll try almond butter next) and 1/4 c. honey and stir.


Add to your crockpot and vent with a chopstick (or a wooden spoon or something). Be sure to stir every half hour or so -- definitely if you can smell it, you should stir it.

The original recipe says to cook it for three hours, but I've found even two hours can burn it. This time I cooked it for two hours and left it in the hot crock pot, turned off for another hour, and I still got some burned bits.

Edit: I forgot to mention, the granola won't seem "done" -- it will still be kind of chewy while it's warm. It will crisp up after it cools. The first time I made this I cooked it way too long because it seemed as if it wasn't cooking. Also, if you want it to clump more, you'll need more honey than the 1/4 c. stated in the recipe. Play with it!


Next time I'll cook it for two hours and take it out immediately to cool.

What I like about this recipe is that it's so easy to change. Just take a walk through the bulk aisle and grab what sounds good.

Blissful Bread

Yeah, yeah, we all know I love bread. I mean, I really love bread. Years ago I started baking it -- sandwich bread, French bread, ciabatta bread...one Christmas I made panettone for all my friends and neighbors. I made it by hand until I developed wrist problems. I got a KitchenAid and kept going. Something about bread...the meditative process of kneading, the way it warms my home with its scent and warmth, it exudes goodness. That sounds ridiculous, but I'm not a poet and I can't think of any other way to put it. It makes me feel good -- to make it, to eat it, to gift it.

Eventually various health reasons halted my excessive consumption of bread, and in turn, my production of it.

On my way home from the Oregon coast on Sunday, I stumbled upon a tiny bakery in the town of Philomath. I was with my friend Anita. We stepped in the door thinking we might find lunch, and we were immediately blasted with hot, humid air. But it was just a bakery. I say "just." The minute we walked out I knew I had to go back with my camera.







I've been thinking about this blog post for three days. I've already written way more than I intended -- I'd hoped to capture my feelings in my photos, but I think I was too distracted.

If you're interested to learn more about this bakery and its baker, check out this six-year-old article from The Eugene Weekly:

Rising at Sunrise; Baker Bill Hotchkiss feeds more than the body.

It's the fourth article down on the page. After reading it myself, it explained a lot about the comfortable energy that saturated that kitchen.

Almond Joy Pound Cake

I think one of my favorite parts of baking is the creating. Coming up with combinations and executing them successfully. Not that this idea is so original, but you don't see it very often. My dad's birthday is this weekend. He's a fan of coconut, so I came up with this because it's something I can mail. Next time I'll add more coconut glaze, but otherwise it's perfect.

Now all I can think of is translating candy bars to cakes.

Here are the recipes I used.

Cake recipe is here.

Glaze recipe here. (And what looks like a yummy scone recipe.)

Ganache.

Choppin' Broccoli

I'm so bored of broccoli. I mean, b o r e d. It's available all year round, so it's kind of a staple. A fallback veggie, I guess. Eric started roasting it a few months ago, and that's good. But I found another version of roasted broccoli on Pinterest recently and decided I had to try it. Why? Because it had just five ingredients. If it's not something I'm baking, that's pretty much my basic rule for cooking. (I guess it's a good thing Eric does all the cooking.)

You will need:

• broccoli
• salt/pepper
• olive oil
• lemon
• Parmesan cheese

Cut up some broccoli. The original recipe calls for making sure the broccoli is DRY before adding the oil. I forgot that step. I'll try it next time if I remember. Toss the broccoli with olive oil (I only had canola, so that's what I used), salt, and pepper. Slice a couple heads of garlic, toss them in too.



Bake for about 25 minutes at 425° . When it comes out of the oven, add the zest of a lemon, lemon juice, and some grated Parmesan cheese. I only had cocktail remnants of a couple of lemons, so I maybe used half a lemon. If that. The original recipe called for 1/3 of a cup of cheese. I didn't use that much because I wanted to keep it as healthy as possible.

Toss. Eat.

This stuff was so good I forgot to take a photo, so this is all you get.





The little brown bits? Delicious, crispy garlic! I cooked just two large heads of broccoli, but I should have made at least four. Eric wasn't thrilled with the whole thing, but I LOVED it, and when he goes to Portland next time, I'm going to make a ton of this for myself.

Birthday Redemption

Two years ago I was part of The Daring Kitchen, and the August challenge was Dorbos Torte. It had chocolate and caramel, it was fancy, I thought why not make it for my husband's birthday? Well, it wasn't one of my more successful experiments, and he still teases me about what a lousy birthday cake it was.

So this year I decided no more experiments for his birthday, I'd make his favorite, German Chocolate Cake. (Recipe from The Joy of Cooking.)




Oops. Thankfully I put the cupcakes underneath, otherwise I would have had an enormous mess. (Evidently I packed my cupcake pans already. Wishful thinking, I guess.)

That wasn't the first mishap. For some reason both cakes completely stuck to the pans. I should know better than to to skip the parchment paper when I'm baking a cake with so many egg whites.


I was chatting with my friend Leslie from Curried Cupcakes, and she suggested "Make a trifle!" Brilliant idea!



I looked up some recipes online just to see how others had translated German Chocolate Cake into a trifle, and several of the recipes included pudding as one of the layers. That didn't interest me at all, so I decided to mix the pecan-coconut filling with freshly whipped cream, then layer that with the cake and some toasted coconut and pecans.

I'm pretty sure I've redeemed myself in the birthday cake department. Thanks again, Leslie.

Very Veggie

Eric (my husband/personal chef) has been gone for almost two weeks now, and I've been cooking for myself. Between my aversion to cooking (different than baking!) and my ridiculous work schedule, it's difficult. But I'm managing, mostly by making larger portions and using leftovers for lunch and/or dinner. After the first few days I realized I hadn't had any meat. There are a couple reasons for that. I love my veggies! And I'm not that great at cooking or seasoning meat, so I just avoid it. After a few more days I decided it would be a challenge. No meat for the duration of his time away. Aside from a can of tuna, I've done it, and I'm loving it.

Today for lunch I made an Asian slaw with ginger-peanut dressing. It's got so many of my favorite things -- edamame, ginger, peanuts, cilantro. How could it not be fantastic?

The recipe calls for coleslaw; I used broccoli slaw. I don't dislike cabbage, but green vegetables are better for you than white ones, right? (I have no idea -- it sounds good, right?) I also used almond butter, because that's all I have, unsalted peanuts, and I used seasoned rice vinegar as opposed to unseasoned. I just left out the salt called for in the dressing to make up for it.


It's so good! You could add chicken if you wanted, or shrimp, even tofu. I've got a huuuge bowl left, and I'll be eating out of it for a couple days. I'll be adding this one to the recipe box.